from smelllikedirt.wordpress.com

• Seattle’s rotting produce and other food waste goes to a composting plant in Everett. Our newest export: stink.
• If, as the Times‘ Danny Westneat claims, Microsoft no longer needs over $100 million instate tax breaks, does the Times still need its own state tax breaks?
• As the last beams at the old Boeing Plant #2 come down, Jon Talton notes that the old Boeing corporate culture is also now mostly gone, replaced by Jack Welch-style cost cutters and bean counters.
• Local essayist Seth Kolloen compares the early years of Pearl Jam to the Kemp/Payton era Sonics. At least we still have Vedder & company.
• Descendents of Capt. William Clark (of “Lewis and…”) built a symbolic canoe for a southwest Wash. tribe, to replace one the captain stole way back when.
• A few right wing writers and pundits have identified the biggest force restraining their corporate masters from getting everything they want. It’s democracy. Therefore, to these guys democracy is something icky that must be done away with.
• A few handy comparisons between right-wing fantasyland and reality.
• You’ll have to listen instead of getting to read, but here’s an argument for the premise that punk rock was invented by Jews.
• Sara Horowitz sees a new “middle class poverty” in which everybody’s treated as (and as badly as) freelancers, and envisions a “jobs plan for the post-cubicle economy.”

With nothing better to do and a strange aversion to getting sunburned, I spent a couple of lazy hours yesterday laying out the Sunday Seattle Times‘ staff-written and local freelance content (no pictures or sports) in a simple newsletter format. It came to 25 8.5″-x-11″ pages, boosted by the magazine section’s big gardening special. If I’d included sports, the total would have been similarly boosted by the annual college-football preview package. I’ll try it again with a weekday edition soon.

Putting it together this way helps to show:

1. Just how little SeaTimes-created “meat” is in the Sunday meal;
2. The extent to which the Sunday news package relies on pre-written feature copy (this is endemic in U.S. papers, with the biggest “news hole” on the day when the least “real” this-happened-yesterday news takes place);
3. How dull, square, and suburban-skewing the paper is in general (even the lead story, about medical patients with severe pain who can’t get the meds they need because of government policies, is made to be plodding and mealy-mouthed).

I could tell my old acquaintances still working at the paper about these thoughts of mine.

Well, aside from the probability that they wouldn’t want to hear what I’d tell ’em (i.e., that stubbornly holding on to their square aesthetic and city-hating editorial policy will only keep making their product more irrelevant to more people)….

illo from the 1962 world's fair guide book

• Knute Berger looks back at predictions for 21st century greater Seattle made during the 1962 World’s Fair. Surprisingly, population growth in the region is a bit lower than was then predicted. Still no flying cars or domed cities, though.
• The grownup Frances Bean Cobain has posed for a fashion shoot. All thin, dark haired, and attitude-y. But all those cigarettes? They’re not rebellious, just icky.
• Joni Balter, a member of the SeaTimes‘ “all taxes = bad” editorial board, surprisingly issues an essay decrying politicians who sign on to simplistic pledges, such as GOP operative Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes ever” pledge.
• Could the revised, Costco-invented, liquor privatization scheme actually increase state revenues? And, more importantly, would any extra revenues be eaten up by alcoholism-treatment costs and DWI prosecutions?
• Somebody’s prediction for where home prices will rise the most in the next year? Tacoma.
• If AT&T gets to take over T-Mobile USA, the latter’s 30,000 employees (including the 3,000 or so at its Bellevue national HQ) could be essentially done for.
• The state’s economy’s not getting any better any time soon.
• The plea-bargained “barefoot bandit” has a movie deal. All the proceeds will go to his crimes’ victims.
• A “revolutionary collective” has announced plans to protest Metro’s threatened service cuts by refusing to pay bus fares. Somehow I think this won’t help.
• Bert and Ernie are as (officially) non-gay as Laverne and Shirley.
• Standard & Poor’s and its fellow investment rating agencies have spent millions on lobbying to keep the financial markets unregulated. We all know how well that’s worked out.
• Bee Lavender at HipMama (the site based on the alt-culture parenting zine) has her own first person perspective on the London riots:

Many of the people out on the streets this week are usually invisible. They are part of an underclass, an underworld, where the rules are different and you have to take what you can to get through the day. Given the chance, many would in fact make something better out of their lives – but they don’t get the chance. What little equilibrium existed even a year ago has now vanished, and they are raging. Because they have no hope, no future, nowhere to go and nothing to do.

The Thursday Northwest-getaways tab was axed. It was another of those sections that existed only to sell ads, and which was utterly failing in that goal. Four tab pages of regional event listings were added to the Friday entertainment tab, and two pages of regional destination stories were added to the Sunday travel section.

Also, the Friday “Your” page in the regular paper (the last vestige of the daily “living” section) was axed.

This means 16 half pages and one full size page were reduced from the weekly page count; with four half pages and two full pages added. The net reduction is five full-page equivalents, from a SeaTimes that’s already been cut-crazed in the past three years.

The op-ed pages on Wednesday and Friday were axed, leaving a single opinion page Monday-Saturday.

Sunday sports was cut to eight pages plus ads. We’ll see if any pages get restored for college football season, traditionally the biggest time for Sunday sports coverage.

The Saturday “Weekend Preview Edition” of the Sunday paper is now a cutdown miniature, with all the ads (including the insert flyers) but less editorial (even canned wire copy). No local news content (not even the pre-written feature “cover stories”). Only four pages of sports copy (heavy on previews of Sunday’s and the following week’s events).

The SeaTimes is expanding in one department. It’s taking over the Everett Herald’s home delivery operation.

nalley's display at the puyallup fair (1948); from the tacoma public library

It’s the end of the (canning) line in Nalley Valley.

The 93-year-old south Tacoma food processing giant became a regional (and in some product lines, international) hit in potato chips and dips, pickles, pancake syrup, chili, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and countless other packaged-food products.

But the company was sold back in the ’60s, and resold several times since. Various managements sold or closed Nalley’s product lines over the years.

Finally, the New York equity group that now owns the brand has shut the last part of the plant, which made chili and canned soups.

The equity group, and its trademark licensees, promise to keep the Nalley’s brand alive, in the same way that there’s still a beer called Rainier (made at the Miller plant in L.A.).

But that’s not the same thing as actually being here, employing local workers, sourcing from local farmers.

(In the comments that follow the hereby-linked Seattle Times story, one commenter notes the current owner of the Nalley’s pickle line touts it as “The Taste of the Northwest,” even though the stuff’s now made in Iowa from cukes grown in India.)

The Seattle Times has affirmed something I’ve known personally for a while now.

The only jobs to be had in this town are for software programmers.

Can I learn to program at my stage of life?

And if so, any recommendations where/how?

And would it even be worth it?

I’d rather not go through a whole costly course of study, only to find the companies still want only to hire the young and/or already employed.

And I don’t want to study technologies that will cease to be in demand after I’ve started studying them.

oh, NOW they get customers.

• SeattlePI.com is moving, away from what had been the Post-Intelligencer building on Elliott Ave. The new office space is said to be “larger” than the space the news site had been occupying. (Let’s hope that means the site’s going to add staff, to get at least slightly closer to a comprehensive local news source.) The P-I globe’s staying put, for now.
• The Seattle weekly that’s not Seattle Weekly gets the big fawning establishment treatment as it approaches its 20th anniversary in September.
• The alleged Norwegian mass murderer (mostly of teenagers) is shaping up to be a right wing “Christian,” a virulent racist and anti-Muslim, and a member of at least one nationalist cell group. None of this has stopped right wingers in other countries from falsely attributing the murders to Muslim terrorists.
• Looks like the ’04 Presidential election may have been just as rigged as the ’00 election may have been, though with operational differences.
• Fans descended on a low-key charity basketball event to proclaim their unflagging desire to see men’s pro b-ball back in town. I also want the Seattle Supersonics back, and I want them in Seattle.
• Amy Winehouse, R.I.P.: Let’s put this succinctly as possible. Drugs suck.

• The city’s looking into bringing back the soda tax, repealed in a state initiative last year.
• And our desperate-for-quarters city leaders have decided to extend paid-parking hours until 8 p.m. in just about all of greater downtown, including Belltown and the ID, plus the U District.
• But drivers in Seattle will get $3 million worth of pothole-fixin’, funded by the city selling a vacant lot on lower Aurora Avenue to the state.
• Another day, another 787 Dreamliner delay.
• AddictingInfo.com has a list of popular public services that anybody who claims to hate “socialism” should detest, in order not to be hypocritical—the post office, public schools, parks, etc. The thing is, some of the purist libertarians infiltrating the GOP do overtly hate these things.
• The Atlantic Monthly, that reliable source on all things rockin’, proclaims the new way for bands to become famous—remain as anonymous and obscure as possible.
• Michele Bachmann’s “doctor” hubby: He’s not an MD, just an unlicensed “therapist.”

This department hasn’t been updated in a while. During those past months, the SeaTimes has pretty much stabilized at a probably unprofitable level.

Circulation dropped another 5 percent in the past year.

The paper’s Wednesday and Friday editorial sections have gone back to single pages.

Actual “this happened yesterday” news items are decreasing, especially early in the week, in favor of prewritten features (easier to plan and to budget for).

Display advertising in the daily paper continues to be nearly nonexistent, with the four page Fry’s section on Fridays as the only consistent exception. If not for that, the paid obits, and the car and real-estate ads on Friday and Saturday, the daily SeaTimes would essentially exist (as a business venture) only as a wraparound for the Bartell’s and supermarket inserts.

The Sunday paper still has 30 to 40 pages of ads, not counting the inserts. And now the Sunday TV section (12 full-page equivalents with almost no ads) is gone. It’s been replaced by something called TV Weekly, a separate listings magazine for which subscribers have to pay extra.

And the paper’s planning to vacate its handsome 1930 art deco HQ on Fairview Ave. by the end of the year. Remaining employees will move into the nearby 1000 Denny (née Seattle Furniture Mart) building, which the company has sold and partly leased back. The historic-landmark SeaTimes building dates back to when almost all newspapers had their newsrooms and printing presses on the same site. (The SeaTimes is now printed at an increasingly under-capacity facility out in Mill Creek.) The old building will be mothballed pending a development scheme; such a plan would need city Landmarks Board approval.

In past installments of this department, I’d speculated that the Blethen family’s final endgame might be to turn the paper into an even smaller nonprofit operation, designed to live on the kind support of corporate benefactors. Now, as David Goldstein speculates on the basis of a recent editorial, the Blethens could be contemplating just such a scenario, and may be pushing for Federal help to make it so.

I know a LOT of people who are spending this day and upcoming night wishing a good riddance to this epic fail of a year we’ve had.

The economy in much of the world (for non-zillionaires) just continued to sluggishly sputter and cough. Thousands more lost jobs, homes, 401Ks, etc.

The implosion of the national Republican Party organization cleared the way (though not in this state) for a wave of pseudo-populist demagogue candidates who only appeared in right-wing media, because those were the only places where their nonsensical worldviews made pseudo-sense. Enough of these candidates made enough of a stir to take control of the US House of Reps., which they have already turned back over to their mega-corporate masters.

And we had the BP spill, continuing mideast/Afghan turmoils, violent drug-turf wars in several countries, floods in Pakistan, a bad quake in Haiti, the deaths of a lot of good people, and a hundred channels of stupid “reality” shows.

Locally, a number of ballot measures were introduced to at least stem the state’s horrid tax unfairness, while staving off the worst public-service budget cuts. They all failed.

And the South Park bridge was removed without a clear replacement schedule, the Deeply Boring Tunnel project continued apace, the Seattle Times got ever crankier (though it stopped getting thinner), and our major men’s sports teams were mediocre as ever. Seattle Center bosses chose to replace a populist for-profit concession (the Fun Forest) with an upscale-kitsch for-profit concession (Chihuly).

Alleviating factors: (Most) American troops are out of Iraq. Something approximating health care reform, and something approximating the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, both passed. Conan O’Brien resurfaced; Jon and Stephen worked to restore sanity and/or fear. The Storm won another title. The football Huskies had a triumphant last hurrah; the Seahawks might get the same. Cool thingamajigs like the iPad and Kinect showed up. Seattle has emerged as the fulcrum of the ebook industry, America’s fastest growing media genre. The Boeing 787’s continued hangups have proven some technologies just can’t be outsourced.

My personal resolution in 1/1/11 and days beyond: To find myself a post-freelance, post-journalism career.

I thought this department was perhaps due for retirement. After all, the SeaTimes hasn’t run a 24- or 26-page minipaper in several weeks. Even Monday and Tuesday editions regularly run to 32-36 pages, with 8-12 pages of paid advertising.

However, as Goldy at HorsesAss points out, these looks can be deceiving.

The paper’s offering drastically discounted ad rates for in-state political advertisers.

And some of the SeaTimes‘ other ads, particularly in Mon.-Thurs. issues, seem to be for mail-order merchandisers of the type you’d normally see in late night TV infomercials. I don’t know what rates these firms are being charged, but I suspect they might also be less than they used to be.

Just weeks after I said the SeaTimes‘ current three-section format had a 26-page minimum size, I’m proven wrong. Tuesday’s paper was a flimsy 24 pages, including less than three pages of paid advertising. (Monday was an “observed” holiday, which meant little new political pronouncements and no stock listings.)

Last Sunday’s SeaTimes was the first I could remember (and I’m old) to have as few as 74 pages (not counting comics, TV section, magazine sections, and ad flyers).

If business at John and Fairview fails to pick up and stay picked up, management might have to impose further draconian cuts. Not to pare back to a profitable size, but to a subsidizeable size. That’s a scenario in which what’s left of the local conservative business community can prop up the paper with vanity ads, or with direct donations.

Following Tuesday’s minimal 26-page edition, Wednesday’s SeaTimes grew to a slightly less pathetic 34 pages. Still only six and a half pages of paid advertising, though.

At least they’re restoring a full op-ed page on Wednesday now, as well as Friday and Sunday. The Wednesday op-eds will, through the election season, carry electoral-themed material under the rubric “Reset 2010.” It’s all billed as a forum for strong advocacy pieces about changing the direction of local/state government.

Of course, when the SeaTimes talks about changing the direction of government, it means dumping them pesky libruhls wherever possible, and instilling the backers of “common sense,” “realistic” solutions. Said solutions, in Blethenland, invariably involve slashing gov’t. payrolls, busting unions, and generally reducing the public sphere to little more than cops and firefighters and big-business “support” schemes.

As if the Blethens and their hirelings still controlled the voice of the regional business community. Or even knew what that voice was saying.

After several weeks of rarely dipping below 32 pages, Tuesday’s SeaTimes descended again to 26 pages, the current bare-bones minimum in the paper’s current format. What’s worse, the issue contained less than three pages of paid advertising.

And, local bloggers allege, what we do get within our last local broadsheet daily is increasingly weak in whole areas of coverage.

Jeff Reifman has noted online about the SeaTimes‘ avoiding any mention of Microsoft’s successful rerouting of software sales to Nevada for tax purposes.

Effin’ Unsound and Horses Ass, meanwhile, cry foul about the paper’s total silence i/r/t a boiling-over jurisdictional dispute between state attorney general Rob McKenna and commissioner of public lands Peter Goldmark.

It’s a fascinating unfolding saga, more complex than I can do justice to here. Essentially, the Okanogan PUD wants to condemn some Methow Valley land, owned by a state trust that supports schools. Goldmark, whose department oversees the trust, doesn’t want this. McKenna, despite a job description requiring him to represent the state in disputes such as this, refuses to pursue a suit. Goldmark has gone to the State Supreme Court to force McKenna to do McKenna’s job.

The SeaTimes still finds space, however, to run a glowing human interest feature about every sparsely attended tea party rally. And, starting Wednesday, it promises a new weekly commentary special all about why state government should do everything big business wants, or something along those lines.

Our pals at Seattle PostGlobe, one of the nonprofit online ventures started by Post-Intelligencer vets, have their own view of the still gaping hole left in this city by the print P-I’s demise.