• The giant bowling-pin sign from Leilani Lanes will be saved and put on display, out in rural Snohomish County.
• MS Windows Vista made Cnet.co.uk’s list of the worst tech products ever. Number one on the list: The Sinclair C5, a three-wheeled electric scooter from the creator of the SInclair computer. (I think it looks rather charming myself.)
• The feds won’t demand the names of thousands of Amazon.com book customers after all.
• Mayor Nickels’s office has declared a temporary lull on harassing the homeless.
• How long will it take to get full ferry service to Pt. Townsend again? Maybe a year.
• Seattle no longer has America’s fastest-inflating home prices, losing that dubious spot to Charlotte, NC.
• Keeping one person in prison in Wash. State costs $30,000 to $50,000 a year.

…to our last update to our piece about the Amazon Kindle: That NEA study that claimed (or was interpreted by some pundits as claiming) Americans don’t read anymore? Probably not.

…Seattle’s last un-gentrified neighborhood? You might already be too late.

THE URBAN REST STOP, a hygeine center for the homeless situated at 1924 9th Ave. along downtown’s edge, is holding a grand re-opening Thursday morning to celebrate a remodeling and expansion. The new facility is already busy to capacity.

WEIRD CRIME UPDATE: A guy claims he’s the brother of “D.B. Cooper,” the pseudonymous skyjacker who parachuted from a plane in 1971, carrying a suitcase full of cash, and was never seen again. The alleged brother claims “Cooper” survived the jump, settled down quietly in Bonney Lake, WA, and lived until 1994. Believe what you will.

…of the non-denominational “winter” decorations being designed for display at Sea-Tac Airport this December, they seem to be preparing to celebrate Festivus.

Every now and then one of these “gender” pundits proclaims that political conservatives have absolutely no tolerance for, or vision of, female sexuality.

Bosh.

There is a right-wing female sexuality. Several, in fact. You might not be particularly turned on by/approve of ’em, but they’re there.

This was proven back in the pre-Reagan ’70s, with Marabel Morgan’s once-popular paperback book The Total Woman. In it, Morgan extols the ultra-eager-to-please wife, who might not have a career but who works damned hard to keep energy in the marriage bed.

The current edition’s Amazon page is chock full of juicy, snarky customer comments. Most of the commentors howl at Morgan’s vision of female totality as little more than passive-aggressive bimbodom.

But is Morgan’s fantasy woman really that passe?

Perhaps she’s simply been succeeded by another set of ideals.

Morgan’s vision of the conservative feminine libido belonged to a conservatism that was already fading when her book came out.

It was a conservatism of hierarchy, of rules, of clearly defined social roles. A conservatism of modest luxury and quiet good taste, when business executives at least still talked about prosperity for all; when politicians at least still talked about civility.

Those days are long gone.

The organized thuggery and egomania that are today’s “conservative” culture are topics I’ve ranted about before, and probably will again.

But with a changed culture come changed personal roles. That includes female roles. (I’ve already written that the sole positive thing I can say about Bush is he respects strong women.)

I happen to have had acquaintances of differing degrees with a few of these modern right-wing women. I won’t get into the sordid particulars.

Let’s just say I’ve seen what a new Marabel Morgan might write about in gushing tribute.

I’m sure you can, too.

And as soon as I’ve figured out how to add them newfangled comment threads to this site, I’ll ask you to add your own suggested chapter titles for a new self-help tome, Nookie for Nubile Neocons.

‘Til then, take these as inspiration:

• “You don’t need a pool to have a pool boy!”
• “You never feel so empowered as when you’ve fired half your employees!”
• “Jamaica’s best gigolos!”
• “Keeping your lover away from hubby’s mistress!”
• “Fine handcrafted dildos for under $3,000!”
• “Your new corner office–it’s incomplete without your own ‘casting couch!'”
• “Marrying a closeted gay politician–no pesky sexual demands, AND you get to be a public victim when he’s found out!”
• “Turn that spare guest house into a dungeon! Have fun, AND frighten the household staff!”

Seattle artist Chris Jordan, whom I’ve mentioned here before, is now displaying his work in L.A. His politically-charged, computer-assisted photo murals really need to be seen life-size, but this link shows successive close-ups to show his creative expression of (usually negative) factoids about American life.

…Joe Martin (not to be confused with the All My Children patriarch) delivers a terrific speech to a “Building the Political Will to End Homelessness” conference. Martin’s topics include America’s need for a “theology of hope” that would combine compassion with effective action.

Meanwhile, Real Change has run “A Seattle Manifesto,” Tim Harris’s call for more social justice and less demographic cleansing.

…the rhetorical question of whether Americans are all now living within someone’s insane delusions.

…who have sex with boys (or girls) really be perceived as less icky than men who have sex with girls (or boys)?

…is a longstanding advocate of inventive thinking and of progressive politics. It turns out that these two causes just might be more than coincidentally related. Some UCLA and NYU researchers now claim there are distinct “liberal” and “conservative” brain patterns.

If true, it would help explain why I, and most of my lefty friends, always fail to be persuaded by righty lines of argument, as seen in the op-eds, the talk radio, the Fixed Noise Channel, etc. Those screeds are meant to appeal viscerally to what conservative-bashing liberals call “the lizard brain,” via calls to fear, greed, and prejudice.

Still, I wouldn’t take this study as gospel truth. But then again, a healthy regard for skepticism’s a key component of the liberal brain…

I was at the Mariners-Angels game on Aug. 28. The first inning was fantastic. As for the rest of the game, (insert Mad magazine-style, gross-out sound effect words here).

But some local players still ended the evening coming out ahead. They’re the kids and teens who attend the Rotary Boys and Girls Club, 201 19th Avenue.

That’s due to Tom Herche. He runs United Warehouses, in the (for now at least) industrial district south of Safeco Field.

No, his company’s not the old United Furniture Warehouse, of once-ubiquitous musical TV commercials. It’s a general storage facility, where small manufacturers, importers, and distributors can stow their wares at modest rents.

Every August, Herche buys a block of up to 500 tickets to a Mariners home game. He then resells them to friends and friends-of-friends at $25 each, with all the money benefitting the Boys and Girls Club. Folks who buy four or more tickets get to park in the warehouse’s lot, one long block south of the stadium.

He also treats the ticket buyers to a “Tailgate Bar B Que” at the warehouse. He springs for the burgers, hot dogs, sodas, and pony kegs of Coors. The drinks are served inside the building, the food outside.

The tailgate party was a perfect early evening, held in a perfect setting. United Warehouses looks like a warehouse ought to look. It’s got a curved roof and bare-wood support beams. A delightfully rundown-looking front office emits that vital “we don’t waste our customers’ money” look.

Herche’s company also has three larger, newer facilities out in Kent (plus one in Portland). But his Occidental Avenue building is a classic of warehouse architecture. And it’s a shining example of why the city should fight to preserve industrial uses in the old industrial district.

For one thing, it’s hard to imagine a scene in the big-box Kent Valley like the Tailgate Bar B Que.

The scene outside: Standup “tables” made of shipping palettes with Costco tablecloths. Hundreds of casually dressed adults, and a few kids, basking in friendly chatter and the late-afternoon sun, avoiding both the rush-hour traffic and the stadium parking jam.

The scene inside: Grownups sipping refreshing beers in the refreshing shade, standing amid stacks of cases of soft drinks, gardening tools, small appliances, and whatever else was staying in the warehouse this day.

But after a mere two hours of this, it was time for all of us to march en masse up Occidental Avenue toward the ballpark.

Sure, the seats were up in the right field nosebleed section, but nobody complained—at least not about that.

The game itself, you either know about or have tried to forget. The Ms scored five runs on four hits (including an ultra-rare three triples) in the first inning. It all went downhill from there. Our boys lost their fourth in a row (in what would become a nine-game losing streak), dashing hopes that they’d overtake the Angels for the division lead.

But everyone in the tailgaters’ group still had a swell time. Today’s Mariners organization, unlike the early Kingdome-based outfit, knows how to put on a complete show.

But enough about that. Let’s talk about the night’s real winners.

The Rotary Boys and Girls Club began as the Rotary Youth Foundation in 1939, begun by the Rotary Club of Seattle (still a major supporter). In 1947 it affiliated with Boys’ Clubs of America, which went coed in the 1970s.

The club serves more than 700 children from the Hill and the CD, ages 6-18. More than 200 show up on any given after-school day. Programs include education and career prep, “character and leadership” development, health and life skills, and the arts, as well as sports and recreation.

The club’s been blessed over the years by major supporters. Besides the Rotary Club and United Warehouses, Microsoft and auto dealer Phil Smart Sr. have made big contributions.

But they could always use more cash and volunteer hands, to help keep their programs going strong. You can contribute by calling 206-436-1880 or logging on to rotarybgc.org.

Today’s piece is long and goes all over the place. Consider yourselves warned.

Steven Brant is one of the many commentators who’ve noted the dangerous link between the Bushies’ I-can-do-any-goddamn-thing-I-want sense of privilege and the corporate-motivation side of new age create-your-own-reality philosophy, as particularly realized in the soon-to-end reign of Alberto Gonzales–a tenure which fellow pundit Greg Palast calls “Wrong and Illegal and Unethical.”

By Brant’s line of reasoning, the right-wing sleaze machine has spent the past seven years determined that it can get everything it wants just by believing in it really hard (and, of course, by hustling and dirty tricks and corruption and torture and favors etc.); but cruel reality is increasingly catching up with their fantasies.

I’m getting less sure about this interpretation.

First of all, the GOPpers have remained “successful” at their prime goals–to concentrate wealth upward, to swap favors with the insurance, drug, oil, and weapons industries (even at the expense of the economy as a whole), to turn the entire federal government (with the recent exception of Congress) into an operating subsidiary of the Republican campaign operation, to rig the election process by hook or by crook, to reward friends and punish enemies, to promote a more authoritarian society at home and imperial ventures abroad.

The administration’s simply failed at tasks to which its devotions are shallower–democracy, security, justice, public health, education, economic prosperity beyond the ruling class, and the whole basic spectrum of good-guy goals America used to claim to care about.

But that leads to another question. If us “reality based” progressives are gonna pooh-pooh the right’s positive-thinking shtick, how do we account for the right’s success at so many of its real goals–particularly the goal of persuading and keeping loyal dittohead voters?

This is where a few recent books come in.

The first is Drew Westen’s The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

Westen (no relation to ABC News execs Av and David Westin, or to Westin Hotels) argues that the right’s policies may have had a near-totally negative impact on the body politic’s health, but its public messages have been cleverly crafted for optimal emotional impact. Those emotions could be sunny, or fearful, or bigoted, depending on the particular audience “buttons” needing to be pushed; but they were always effectively presented.

Us left-O-centers, in contrast, have had a lousy rep for left-brain, policy-wonk talk that resonates with nobody except ourselves; or for downer everything’s-hopeless cynicism; or for mealy-mouthed, middle-of-the-road wussiness.

To change this sorry state-O-affairs, Westen sez Dems have to show up with some emotionally compelling narratives of their own, and to fearlessly shout ’em out.

This notion coincides with the premise of Chip and Dan Heath’s new marketing guidebook, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

The Heath brothers seldom mention politics in their book, save for lauding JFK’s “Man on the Moon” speech. Their main target is the business person looking for a way to connect with potential customers.

But their premise, if it works to sell shoes and burgers, would also work to sell policies and politicians.

That premise: Ideas that spread, that “hit” with audiences, all employ six key ingredients: “simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories,” in various amounts.

Let’s explore how these principles might work in a marketing drive whose “product” is progressive-Dem candidates for public office:

• 
  Simplicity: Have the wonky details of our plans available online and in print. But have clear, memorable goals and promises in front of them. Defuse the Mideast powder keg. Get our troops home safe n’ sound. Health care for all. Back to balanced budgets.
• 
  Unexpectedness: Voters and pundits may expect another play-it-safe, make-no-waves Dem campaign, vetted by consultants and triangulated for minimum offensiveness. Let’s pleasantly shock ’em with some real passion and guts.
• 
  Concreteness: A budget-deficit cut by X each year. A Medicare-like health card in every wallet. A proud homecoming for our sons n’ daughters from Iraq.
• 
  Credibility: Have the wonk-data ready. But also show the resolve to get these policies up and running.
• 
  Emotions: Where there was fear, there will be hope. Where there was hatred, there will be compassion. Where there was blind ambition, there will be cooperation. Where there was spoiled privilege, there will be responsibility.
• 
  Stories: Life’s been tough. Ordinary folks struggled to get by; while the few at the top kept acting greedier and stupider. A gang of thieves has ripped up the Constitution as well as the social fabric.But, together, we can turn it around. America can mean something again.

P.S.: Yesterday’s electronic town hall by progressive heroine and Congressional candidate Darcy Burner had a few technical glitches (the video stream went down a couple of times). But it was a fundraising smash. Burner raised over $100,000 from nearly 3,000 contributors before and during the event, which got great write-ups on the national political blogs.

(Priscilla Presley quoted in USA Today): “Elvis means something to people because he wasn’t a contrived person, he was organic and true to himself.”

Sorry, ex-mother-in-law of Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. You’re mistaken.

As Brit musicologists Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor write in their fascinating new book Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music, Elvis was as contrived as they come.

He carefully constructed a persona that was one part nice Mississippi mama’s boy, one part James Dean sneer, and one part R&B outlaw. And it worked. These seemingly incompatible traits melded together in the 1954-58 Elvis persona, creating a musical legend and a world icon.

The trick to the early Elvis wasn’t that he was “natural.” It was that he made his particular artificiality seem natural.

Presley’s later reinventions, as a goody-two-shoes matinee idol and as an overstated Vegas self-parody, were no more or less “real” than his first persona. And they were just as successful with audiences of the time–as they are to this day, in the form of impersonators and merch/DVD sales.

So, on the 30th-anniversary week of Presley’s passing, let’s remember the real “real” Elvis, the consummate entertainer who found a way to rock the world.

(Faking It, by the way, is a wonderful book. Its chief premise: Forget “authenticity” or “keepin’ it real.” All pop music is a contrivance, and that goes for country, folk, blues, punk, hiphop, and square dancing too. Sure, the Monkees were a manufactured image–but so was John Lee Hooker.)

David Thornburg warns that “The real challenge to the US is not our loss of high-skilled repetitive jobs to India, but the fact that we are losing our creative edge to other countries more than happy to invent the future without us.”

…are apparently also worried about corporatization and gentrification running out everything that was funky and quirky about their town.