Could recent college students actually be more narcissistic than their baby-boomer forbearers? Is this even possible?

A Pew Resarsch Center survey claims “Americans Consuming More News, Thanks to the Internet.”

The study says online reading “supplements, rather than replaces” traditional media. Yet it also notes that “a mere 8 percent of adults under the age of 30 said they had read a print newspaper the day before they were surveyed.”

The NY Times claims Russian authorities have found a new foolproof way to crack down on just about all forms of poiltical opposition—confiscate their computers, claiming the dissidents are pirated Microsoft software. Strangely, pro-government groups are never the targets of such investigations. The NYT sez Microsoft is going along fully with the seizures, perhaps out of fear of losing Russian gov’t business.

…I wouldn’t write any 9/11-plus-nine-years punditry today. So instead, here’s a remembrance from someone who was there, and who now sees a lesson in the perseverence of life.

It’s a few days late, but CBS.com has finally posted the Letterman segment with author Bill McKibben. (Fast forward to the last 10 minutes of the video.)

Since I am probably the only McKibben reader who continues to own and use a TV set, I got to see this segment on its original air date. He forcefully argues that not only do we have to act to save the planet, but that we can.

US socialist historian Lance Selfa asks, “Is America a right-wing country?”

His answer: Not really.

Selfa proposes, and I agree, that today’s pseudo-populist right is a marketing gimmick devised and/or exploited by big corporate funders. The object: To channel some traditionalists’ fear of social change into a rage against “government,” which would lead to weaker governance all around, especially toward corporate regulation/taxation.

A deeper look, Selfa argues, would see a nation steadily adopting more progressive views on health care reform, gay rights, race/gender issues, et al.

So why do leftists buy into the far right fringe’s claims to universal popularity—when they KNOW those dorks are LYING about everything else?

I’ve always guessed it’s because defeatism can be so comfortable. It’s so easy to just retreat into your boho tribes and exchange sneers against Evil Mainstream America.

Actually persuading people to your point of view is harder.

Actually organizing a movement is harder.

Actually organizing a movement for positive change, instead of merely protesting, is harder still.

But we saw in ’08 that it could be done.

Our task, in this midterm election and beyond, is not to retrieve that spirit but to move beyond it, to make working for change an everyday thing. To evolve from an ecstatic affair with activism into a marriage.

On this Labor Day, a lot of folks are thinking about what ever happened to labor.

Where did those unions go?

And more immediately, where did those jobs go?

The two might be more connected than you might think.

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes that “When unions mattered, prosperity was shared.” We had less of what one notorious Citibank memo referred to as “plutonomy,” a concentration of wealth among the few at the top. Working families got to share in the material bounty they’d created.

This wasn’t just given. It was fought for, in decades of organizing and struggle.

But it created the consumer power that drove the US economy to new heights.

As longtime readers of this space know, I have spent my entire adult life in rebellion against “liberal” conservatism as well as regular conservative conservatism.

Among my biggest peeves: The baby boomer Luddites (and their contemporary successors); in particular, their religious devotion to allegedly “natural” foods. This obsession has, over the decades, seeped into the alleged “mainstream,” facilitating the overpriced nonsense that is Whole Foods Markets.

Now I have a champion for the cause of common-sense consumption. She’s Rachel Lauden, and she’s written a whole essay “In Praise of Fast Food.”

Her thesis: People became stronger and lived longer as they developed ways to process and prepare what they ate before they ate it. Industrial food processing as developed over the centuries steadily led to less waste, less malnutrition, less food poisoning, and less drudgery, particularly for women. The Rousseauian Eden fantasy of a past diet of fresh produce and raw roughage is just a fantasy.

Yes, many of us need to eat better. But let’s do it using all the advantages, all the techniques, and all the ingredients available to us.

The Tribune Co.-owned broadcast TV station formerly known as KTZZ is holding an all-day Looney Tunes Marathon today, and another (with a whole different set of cartoons) this Sunday.

So far, the only commercials in it are for the station’s new brand identity, “Joe.TV.” You may have seen the many billboards and street posters for it. No more MyNetwork TV. Instead, its evening schedule relies on reruns of The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, plus the existing 9 p.m. newscast produced by sister station KCPQ. The rest of the station’s schedule will be mostly forgettable judge shows and infomercials.

And, no, classic Warner Bros. cartoons will not be on the station after the second marathon on Sunday.

Embrace your inner warrior and savor these MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) from around the world!

The more we learn about John T. Williams, the homeless Native American man shot to death by police near Boren Avenue on Monday, the sadder his story becomes.

He was apparently a fine carver and craftsman, who’d been accursed by alcoholism and by an apparent inability to survive in urban society.

He was said to have had an ornery streak, but was probably not threatening police officers at the time he was shot. Under this version of events he was simply carrying, and using, his carving knife.

As retail trade remains contracted around the nation, Capitol Hill’s Pike-Pine Corridor has bloomed. With the Elliott Bay Book Co. as its new anchor, and a growing array of restaurants and bars covering a wide range of styles and price points, Pike-Pine is the Hill’s, and the city’s, most happening spot.

So how’s that affecting the Hill’s traditional main drag, Broadway?

It’s hanging on. From a cursory glance, it might be doing better than a lot of American neighborhood business strips.

Yes, several Broadway merchants failed to eke out this economic storm. A moment of silence now for Bailey/Coy Books, Harem, Broadway News, Blooms on Broadway, Bella Pizza, and their fellow victims of tough times. (Hollywood Video is a separate case, a whole chain that went away pretty much at once.)

Then there’s the little matter of the big hole in the ground at Broadway and John. Toward the end of this decade it’ll be a spiffy light rail station. But for now it’s two long blocks of dirt and noise behind artist-embellished wooden fences.

But Broadway is refusing to close down for the duration, either of the recession or of the rail construction.

I’m writing this on an extremely busy Sunday afternoon at Espresso Vivace, one of the outfits forced out by the rail project. It’s relocated to the Brix, one of Broadway’s six new mixed-use developments. All were launched during the peak of the now long-burst real estate bubble. The last two, Joule and the Broadway Building, are in the process of opening.

Yeah, that means a bunch of new storefronts are coming on the rental market, adding to what was already an oversupply.

But from the looks of things on this Sunday, they stand a healthy chance of making it work.

Vivace’s big new flagship store at the Brix is packed at this writing. The line for service stretches almost to the door.

Nearby, the Dilettante, Byzantion, Deluxe, and Roy St. Coffee (one of those thinly disguised Starbucks) have their own milling crowds. So do the Broadway Grill and Pho Cyclo.

Three blocks south of Vivace, the Broadway Sunday Farmers Market is closing up shop for the day. The dozens of indie merchants there seemed to have had a good day, even if the weather was unseasonally uninviting.

Still further south, Cal Anderson Park is all busy with dozens of young men and women. They’re posing for one another’s digital cameras and prancing about. They’re dressed in elaborate costumes. Some wear wigs of green, blue, or silver.

It’s the monthly meetup of Gasukan, a local “costume role play” group. Its members come dressed as specific characters from anime, manga, and video games. It’s a shining example of the “everyday cosplay” idea I wrote about in this space back in April.

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All this indoor/outdoor activity on an August weekend afternoon certainly doesn’t prove all is fine n’ dandy on Broadway. If it was, perhaps the old Bailey/Coy and Dilettante spaces would be refilled by now.

But at least some of the Joule complex’s storefronts have occupants announced, including an Umpqua Bank branch and a Qdoba Mexican Grill.

The latter is opening approximately where Taco Bell used to be. I can’t say whether or not this is a step up. But at least it’s a step forward, a sign of confidence in the neighborhood by a growing national franchise.

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Meanwhile, one venerable Broadway business is about to change.

Ken and Christine Bauer are retiring from Charlie’s on Broadway. They started the venerable diner and bar, with the late Charles Quinn, in 1976. Its art nouveau nostalgia decor, trendy at the time, now seems like a friendly beloved relic.

The Bauers have put Charlie’s up for sale as a going concern. Let’s hope whoever takes it over knows how to pump up its business, without meddling too much with its essential nature.

(Cross posted with the Capitol Hill Times.)

A ramble today about the miserable economy and potential alternatives thereto.

I begin with recent remarks by Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang. He has a book out in the UK, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism.

Plugging the book in the Brit daily The Independent, Chang’s alleged that the current global corporate system has turned us all into Matrix drones, sleepwalking through a fantasy world and incapable of imagining any other.

This is the ol’ Plato’s cave allegory, refitted to modern pop-culture references.

And I believe it’s only half true, at most.

Eleven years ago, thousands swarmed Seattle’s streets protesting just that system.

Today, you sure don’t have to be a political radical to see a lot of dysfunction in the way things currently are.

But what to do about it?

In this country, the Republicans only offer a return to the lobbyist-whoring ways of the Bush years. The corporate Democrats offer watered down Clintonian half measures, then dilute them further.

I’ve talked and corresponded with a lot of people who desperately want something better.

But what?

Third-world style dictatorship works at keeping a small elite in power, but it’s lousy for most everybody else. Central-state Communism sometimes worked a little better in regard to social services; but it could be brutally inefficient, where dictatorships were simply brutally efficient.

Besides, excessive centralization of capital and wealth is a lot of what’s wrong with the present system. We need more economic diversity and democracy, not less.

So I hereby introduce my own formula for a better, more prosperous tomorrow:

Economic MISCosity.

The elevator-pitch description: Try whatever works.

To hell with pure socialism, pure capitalism, pure anything.

Decentralize businesses and business units. More authority to those in the field. More co-op and worker-controlled enterprises.

Use public financing and/or administration for those social goods that often aren’t best serviced by the profit motive. I’d nominate health care as just such a sector.

Promote more and different metrics of economic success, other than just the Almighty Stock Price.

To my alt-culture pals: Can the square-bashing, the rural-bashing, and the working-class-bashing. We’re all in this thing together.

To my baby-boomer pals: This ain’t gonna be pretty, or laid back, or mellow. Be prepared for some heavy lifting.

To my NPR-fan pals: This ain’t gonna be easy to understand, let alone simple to accomplish. Beware of easy answers, no matter what they are. Our future is a messy, complex, complicated place, full of twists and seeming contradictions. Live with it.

It took three months, but it was worth it. HistoryLink.org has finally posted a thorough remembrance of its cofounder, writer-musician-PR agent-political consultant-web pioneer Patrick McRoberts.

Main stage at Seattle Founders Days

Seattle Founders Days, Belltown’s entry in the neighborhood summer street fair game, have come and gone.

And, in my opinion, they succeeded.

Its instigators were wise not to attempt the scale of the U District or Fremont fairs, at least not in Founders Days’ first year. They were also mindful to concoct a name with potential citywide appeal, and to have both day and evening event schedules.

There was a single main performance stage, right at Second and Bell. It was flanked on Second’s surrounding blocks by a couple dozen tented merchant booths.

In lieu of a separate, fenced off beer garden, attendees were invited into the street’s existing sidewalk bar tables and to the Buckley’s patio (with its own tiny live-music stage).

Along with the on-stage acts, costumed performers milled about. There were civic pioneer characters during the day, more nightlife-esque characterizations by night.

The main stage performers were a good mix of top local bands, rising stars willing to work cheap, and extremely talented friends (Mark Pickerel) and relatives (Ramona Freeborn) of the fair organizers.

Thus, on two of the year’s hottest days, a few dozen to a few hundred people at any one time milled about along the closed street blocks. They enjoyed the sun, the music, the food and drink, the art, and the low-key fun atmosphere. The evening sessions complemented, and contrasted with, the more high-energy partying along First Avenue.

It was all a big advertisement for Belltown, specifically for the artier, Second Avenue aspect of Belltown.

And it said to the rest of the city: Come on down and have some fun. Belltown’s not really that mean, scary place in all the news reports. It’s safe. We’ve got more cops now. We’ve always had great food and different kinds of bars. We’ve got a whole lot of things to do, even if you don’t like to get all pushy and rowdy.

In all, it was a great debut for what organizers plan to be an annual affair.

Yet there’s plenty of room for future growth, even with the single stage layout.

There could be more merchant booths and food booths. Now that Founders Days will be on the regular regional street-fair schedule, the event can attract some of that circuit’s regular vendors. It can also lure in some of the vendors from the Punk Rock Flea Market and from Occidental Park’s monthly art bazaars.

And once Bell Street’s been rebuilt into a “park boulevard,” with less car space and more people space, Founders Days will get space for still more growth. (Though I’d like to see the Second and Bell intersection still closed off, and I’d like to see the Second Avenue bars and galleries still incorporated into the fair’s site.)

Indeed, the future Bell Street can become a site for year-round (or at least dry-season-round) outdoor events and performances of all types.

And Founders Days can become the keystone event of this seasonal series.

(Cross posted with the Belltown Messenger.)