Canada’s Restless West

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The political cleavage in Canada is a mirror of U.S. divisions. The Liberals are an urban-suburban party, a party of the educated but also immigrants. A trio of great cities —Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver — are bastions of Liberal support.

Gentler Time: When a Rookie Teacher was Tossed into a Brooklyn...

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It was May, 1967 and I was near the end of a troubling, challenging, and ultimately most wonderful ten months of teaching the sixth grade at a Brooklyn, New York elementary school.

Fifth Column: The Right Wing Think Tank behind Subversion of the...

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Trump had a small but well-funded right-wing think tank help him turn our justice system on its head.

America is Losing its Superpower: The World’s Trust

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People are angry at Trump’s leadership. Polls confirm that dissatisfaction, showing his numbers headed down. The same is true about public confidence in government. The trust that holds our democracy together is threatened as never before.

Wake Up Call: Opposition in the Trump Era

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“Isn’t it strange that with our proud heritage as a democracy and with the values enshrined in our Bill of Rights, Americans we are now willing to elect as a President a man who neither understands nor respects any of that?”

Olympia Report: The ways Legislators Are trying to Raise Money

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Lawmakers are creative in finding ways around Gov. Ferguson's opposition to taxing the wealthy.

The Sculptor who made Seattle Center’s Controversial “Doughboy”

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By the early 1920s Alonzo Victor Lewis's fame was recognized throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.  His mostly somber herculean statues loomed in many parks, nooks and street-corners. 

Breathtaking Brand Destruction: Why I Broke up With My Tesla

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The Tesla I was so excited about in 2000 became, in 2025, “swasticars” to their critics. The once apolitical libertarian allied himself with “drill-baby-drill” Donald Trump, the longtime scourge of electric vehicles and windmills.

Feeling Powerless? Run for Something!

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Turnout everywhere exceeded expectations earlier this month when people across the country took to the streets to tell Trump & Gang “hands off” our...

Nice Country, See. Shame if Something were to Happen to it

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It’s not politics at all. Oh, there are people around Donald Trump using the power of politics to satisfy or pay off various political...

Hard to Replace: Sea-Tac Airport Loses a Respected Leader

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As travel increases, airport managers must referee the heated competition among airlines for more space, even as they pressure the airport to keep costs low.

Postcard from Italy: Morricone and a Multicultural Weekend

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I recently spent a pleasant weekend in Ancona, the capital of our region of Marche in east-central Italy, where I enjoyed a concert of...

Be Outraged with Me: Tariffs, Free Speech and Security

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This week, it was extreme volatility—and uncertainty— on tariffs that might raise prices, crush markets and savings, cost jobs and alienate allies and perhaps bring on a recession; new threats to free speech, and firing of top national security officials on the say-so of a wild conspiracist.

The Aspirational Birth of Washington’s University

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The Denny-Terry-Lander deeds stipulated that the 10-acre site downtown on Universty Street was to be dedicated forever to educational purposes.  That stipulation was met.

My Personal Deficit Solution: Tariffs for All!

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The obvious explanation was that these six Pike Market stores were conspiring against me. That is why I threatened them with a tariff.

Parents, MIA

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Another thing we are short on these days is adults. Or maybe we’re unclear about what being an adult means.

A Blind Pianist and an Uzbek Conductor at the Seattle Symphony

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Nobuyuki Tsujii, who is blind from birth, is unique among concert pianists in that he learns by ear. Colleagues record segments of a work, each hand separately and at intelligible tempi, then Tsujii works to memorize and synthesize the parts into a whole.

Trusting the News in an Era of Misinformation: A Few Tips

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That ultimate fact-checker is going to have to be …you. Not on every story that comes across your social media, but definitely the crucial stories that matter. Here are a few tips on how to do that.

Jayapal Keeps Firing Away at Trump

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The Congresswoman's tactics have come up short beyond Seattle boundaries and sometimes within.

An Unusually Painful Process: City Council Votes For SoDo Housing

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It was a surprising defeat for the Port of Seattle and its longshore union allies, who had turned back housing and commercial development there for about 20 years, as well as stopping Hansen’s basketball arena project.

Trump’s Tariffs set off Global Trade War, Threatening Recession

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Stock market plunges in every major index have prompted prominent economists and central bankers to warn a recession is looming for the European Union, the United States and most other countries of the developed world.

Renewing Trump’s Tax Cuts Won’t Just Be Expensive, It Will Make...

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Before the election Donald Trump promised to fix inflation, which included big voter concern about the cost of housing. For all the shock and...

Mary McCarthy’s Unfond Memories of Growing up in Seattle

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McCarthy's autobiographical book, "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood," tartly describes a convent upbringing in Seattle in a barbed and entertaining memoir.

Some Thoughts on the Masculinity Crisis

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"Above all I’m talking about your responsibility to yourself. And when I say you owe something to yourself, I mean your higher image of who you should be. Living up to these demands is what makes a man happy."

Will Dow Constantine Confront Sound Transit’s Structural Problems?

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The answers are likely to suggest the Sound Transit board’s desire to stay-the-course won’t address the agency’s very serious problems.

Chinese Government Cheers Trump’s Shuttering Of Voice of America

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You can imagine how the news of VOA shut down brought cheers in China, where VOA was broadcast in English, Mandarin, as well as Tibetan and Uyghur languages.

Greenland and Canada Line up Against the Bully

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The increasingly aggressive approach of the Trump White House to acquiring the world’s biggest island has so offended Greenlanders and Danes that no one in the government or business communities wants anything to do with the United States.

British Columbia Carbon Tax was a Pioneering Tactic for Fighting Climate...

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In part, the tax is being sacrificed to national unity. Long a U.S. partner on trade and defense, Canada feels betrayed by Trump and suspects that America is no longer a reliable partner.

The Seattle Symphony’s New Music Director Takes a Bow

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These are indeed minor criticisms in a performance that was full of delights and surprises. Holst's notoriously dense and difficult-to-balance orchestration here sounded lucid and detailed.

Trump’s China-Style Cultural Revolution: Punishing Free Speech

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The autonomy of universities is no longer recognized. ICE agents are now allowed to barge into places of worship. The nation’s boss man fires the management of a cherished cultural institution.

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Marie Gluesenkamp Perez: A Democrat Urban Progressives Need to Come to...

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To listen to the author in conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, go to Blue City Blues, S1, episode 19: “Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on What Urbanites...