…another reason why we perhaps shouldn’t accept “business” as the default model for all societal institutions: “People at big companies don’t realize the extent to which they live in an environment that is one large, ongoing test for the wrong qualities.”

…today to Vernon L. Fonk, 75. The former ambulance driver and cigarette-company wholesale rep started the Vern Fonk Insurance agency in 1964; it now has 14 offices in two states, specializing in “special risk” auto policies.

Please note: The guy who plays Vern Fonk in the agency’s delightfully wacky TV commercials is still, thankfully, with us.

Planning bureaucrats have descended like a well-meaning extreme-makeover team on Katrina-ravaged Biloxi. Their scheme, as if you couldn’t have guessed: A Disneyfied, pretty, fiercely regulated, nostalgic theme town just for the affluent.

• “The curse,” reversed?
• Could Stephen Colbert be right about America’s biggest threat being bears?
• It’s official: Even Marshall Field’s in Chicago is getting Macyfied, alas.
• The mainstream media have discovered that Starbucks is a “lifestyle brand” even more than it’s a restaurant chain. Duh. I could’ve told you that, and have. From the pre-Howard Schultz start, Starbucks’ original founders intended to rebrand European-style coffee as an essential acoutrement to a young-professional, neo-bourgeois lifestyle. They offed the image of coffeehouses full of bongo-playing beatniks, and invented the image of a home espresso machine next to every Cuisinart.
• My recent acquaintance David Goldstein has a nice essay pondering out loud about whether we can use the “F” word (no, not the boring ol’ “F” word but another, more incindiary one) to describe the current U.S. political machine.My take: This word has been so overused in political discourse, especially in online discussion boards, that it’s become nearly worthless as a descriptor. Besides, its use can easily confuse readers/listeners. We’re not (or at least I’m not, and I believe Goldstein’s not) talking about some wholesale adoption of all the cultural, verbal, and sociological shticks of 1933 Germany—or even those of 1920 Italy, which our current regime more closely resembles.

  A Texas two-step is not a goose-step.

  America’s devolution from democracy to empire has occurred in an all-American way. It’s rooted in the dark side of our own traditions. And it’s within the good side of our own traditions that its effective responses must be found.

• Last week, I was interviewed by a white hip-hop DJ from the Seattle U student Internet radio station. He was eager for stories about gangbangin’ violence in Belltown. I tried to explain to him that the noise and the rowdiness and the drunken brawling seen on First Avenue in the weekend wee hours are principally the work of young affluent Caucasians, who often arrive here en masse on chartered buses from the Eastside.I could have digressed, but didn’t, that the whole gangsta mythology was a stereotype invented a decade ago by LA record producers, specifically to nakedly exploit young affluent Caucasians’ images of young black males as sexy savages.

  In real life, violent criminals of any race tend not to be alluringly handsome, well-spoken, or well-dressed. They’re far more likely to be pathetic, desperate losers, out of touch with their own souls.

…that U District hangout for construction workers, filmmakers, and guys who can’t stop talking about how radical they used to be 40 years ago, is threatened again. Its owner Gustav Hellthaler has gotten tired of
municipal harassment and of the state’s refusal to let him add hard booze, a right that’s been granted to almost all former beer-and-wine-only bars in town.

So the joint, one of the few bars in town in continuous operation since the end of Prohibition, is for sale.

It could be bought by someone who’d turn it into an upscale gourmet restaurant.

It could be bought by someone who’d turn it into an unthreatening nostalgia theme bar.

Or it could be bought by one or more of the affluent boomers who frequent or used to frequent the place, and kept largely as-is.

…I used to rail all the time against the “baby Bell” phone co. Qwest? The company that was so busy making junk sales calls to its own current customers that it couldn’t lay down phone lines in new subdivisions on time? Now there’s a reason to like Qwest. It declined to participate in BushCo’s unconstitutional mass civilian wiretapping scheme.

In recent days, I’ve talked to two Post-Intelligencer staffers. One of them (I won’t say who) confided in me that the staff consensus is that the paper’s doomed. The joint operating agreement with the SeaTimes can’t go on indefinitely, not if the Times is itching to get out; and few if any P-I staffers can imagine a second daily paper competing on its own.

I, however, can imagine this.

Of course, I don’t have access to the P-I’s or the Times’s financial data. I don’t know how much the P-I spends a year, or how much ad revenue it would take to pay for that and a newly independent P-I sales and distro staff—particularly in today’s business climate where free want-ad Web sites threaten to drain one of the newspaper biz’s revenue mainstays.

I would deeply love to see the coolest newspaper name in America preserved. But if the Hearst management in NYC chooses to retire the P-I name if and when the JOA ever ends, let’s start an all-new paper to replace it.

It’ll take a lot more than just me to do this. (Goodness knows my track record at starting business ventures is less than spectacular.)

I’ve fantasized about this previously here, but let’s get the fantasy going to a level of a little more detail. Let’s imagine a local daily print newspaper for the Internet age. What would it have and not have? What would it emphasize and de-emphasize? Would it have a cover price? Who would advertise in it? How would it tie in with a Web presence? Would the online edition carry more or less content than the print edition?

Lemme know what you think.

Let’s do it!

…in blogland USA’s doin’ it, I might as well include a link here for the dudes n’ dudettes who want to “Save the Internet” from the big phone and cable giants who’d like to turn it into an information toll-road.

• Bill Clinton’s attached his name to a drive to get soda pop out of grade and middle schools. Remember: When being a Pepper is outlawed, only outlaws will be Peppers.
• We must say goodbye to financial reporter and early PBS star Louis Rukeyser. His pallbearers, I’m sure, will be “the elves who compile our technical market index.”
• The guy in charge of Ohio’s either incompetent or corrupt election system is now that state’s official GOP gubernatorial nominee. As if you’d expect him not to win somehow.
• Lay’s potato chips—now with “good” cholesterol.
• Sign of the Apocalypse #532: Mickey Mouse goes CGI.

The Mercedes/Swatch Smart Car is finally coming to the PacNW, via a dealership in Kirkland. Mind you, this minicar doesn’t come at a miniprice. Thanks to the low-volume customizing work the indie wholesaler must perform to make ’em U.S. street-legal, they cost $26,900 and up. (Found by Pike Place Politics.)

…of the current Wash. Post Boeing expose story: “Jeannine Prewitt knew there was a problem when the holes wouldn’t line up.” I thought they’d gotten rid of that particular problem when Harry Stonecipher quit.

…was so much fun, I think I’ll do it again:

• Right-wing hate radio: Now even more racist than ever?
• First preachers, now political operatives— just what is it about positions of authority and child abuse?
• One of my alma maters, Oregon State, is dumping its cheerleader squad. For once, no team-name puns here.
• Gene Pitney, one dead rock star who got to live a full life.
• Wal-Mart’s sales, profits sluggish— so much for the almighty juggernaut out to take over the world.
• Went to Drinking Liberally last nite; got to meet that week’s special guest star, Darcy “C.D.” Burner. She’s the highly touted Demo candidate in the 8th Congressional District (the Eastside). She’s smart, witty, and forward-thinking. She’s got a good chance of being a big part of taking back the House this fall.
• While there, one DL participant told me his little conspiracy theory about the U.S. government’s attempt to retain control of the Internet’s top-level domain names. This guy claims the Feds just might be preparing to use this power so they can crack down on lefty bloggers. I’m not so sure the Bushies are that smart. That conspiratorial perhaps, but not that smart.
• Tom Stewart, the former state GOP bigwig and medium-time sleaze, is “protesting” Washington’s estate tax by pulling his corporate offices to Arizona. I won’t miss his campaign-law violations or the ludicrously huge U.S. flag atop his Delridge office building. Now if we could only get the hipster and gay restaurants and bars in this town to stop feeding money to his Food Services of America….
• A longer version of my piece about the Capitol Hill shooting victims’ memorial is in today’s print version of the Capitol Hill Times, but not online, at least not yet.

…breast-groping, public urination, drunken strip-bar revelries, and shady business practices–suddenly, I’m seeing kitsch painter Thomas Kincade in a whole new, well, you know…

…you saw all those ads and billboards announcing that AT&T Wireless was now part of Cingular? Strike that; reverse it.

Let us now praise the brave owners of the Hillcrest Market, set to reopen sometime soon (perhaps this upcoming month) at Summit Avenue and Denny Way.

When the old Hillcrest burned in July 2004, insurers deemed it too damaged to be repaired. The old building was unceremoniously bulldozed. It had operated under the Hillcrest name since 1959, but had been selling groceries at least since the 1930s (it was originally a pre-supermarket-era Safeway).

That might have been the end of it. The Hillcrest’s owners could have cut their losses, sold out, and perhaps retired on the proceeds of the real estate. The site’s small and awkwardly shaped, but that hasn’t stopped the developers of mid-rise condos and luxury apartments elsewhere on the Hill.

But instead, the Hillcrest’s owners chose to rebuild. It’s taken nearly two years. During this time, the land hasn’t earned a cent of income, other convenience stores have taken bigger shares of the neighborhood’s impulse-shopping business, Fred Meyer and Safeway abandoned their north Broadway locations, and independent food marts in other Seattle neighborhoods such as Fremont and Alki died off. The new Hillcrest will have to prove its worth in a changed retail environment.

I hope it succeeds. And not just because the old Hillcrest had Seattle’s best take-out fried chicken.
The old Hillcrest was, and I presume the new Hillcrest will be, a complete grocery store in a compact size. It wasn’t one of those tiny convenience outlets offering little beyond beer, cigarettes, and Lotto tickets. Nor was it one of those posh gourmet mini-marts offering lots of wine and cheese but little of anything else.

Rather, Hillcrest had a full produce department, an acceptably large fresh-meat selection, and a surprising depth in your other basic grocery product categories. You could handle all your food-buying needs there; though it lacked a supermarket’s higher volume, and hence couldn’t compete with a supermarket’s lower prices.

But as the industry evolves, with ever-larger supermarkets located ever-further apart, there may be a continued (or even enlarged) role for stores that offer what you need, when and where you need it.
Some big names are betting on it.

Tesco (Britain’s behemoth supermarket chain) announced in early February that it’s planning to invade the U.S. as early as next year. Tesco will (1) start its American invasion in the western states, where Wal-Mart (America’s behemoth everything chain) is at its sparsest, and (2) mostly build 5,000-square-foot “express” stores, offering full selections (including fruits and vegetables) in neighborhoods the full-size food marts have abandoned.

This is exactly what many urban storefront districts, and suburban strip-mall districts, have desperately needed for years.

Tesco’s push, if it goes through, would bring new respect and industry attention to the midsize store format. But, like many of you, I’d still prefer to transact my business with a local independent operator—particularly one who, like the Hillcrest’s defiant owners, have proven they care for our neighborhood and deserve our business.