Even though Boehner takes occasional swipes at the Democratic left, his book is (to his credit) more a recounting of the growing extremism of his own party. And he’s not shy about naming names. The worst, in his mind (mistakenly), isn’t Trump. It’s Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, “a miserable son of a bitch.”

Constantine, now 59, has never faced a real challenge from the left. Can Joe Nguyen, 37, pull it off? There’s no big scandal dogging Constantine or the county, which is generally considered to be pretty well-run, especially compared to the perpetually flaring dumpster fires down the street at Seattle City Hall. But Nguyen gets to run in the second year of pandemic discontent.

Why should we note Tom Berger’s passing on this side of the 49th Parallel? Because past mistreatment of Native peoples knew no boundaries, and redress in the form of empowerment and justice came in the 1970s on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

We want to take seriously matters of justice and human suffering. As we should. But at some point, such seriousness — an excess of earnestness — becomes unbalanced and a little self-important.

We have an affordable-apartment problem, but we do not have an overall apartment-supply problem. What we do have is a single-family supply problem.

Our snow-cone mountains will still look snowy in winter, but plenty of people alive today will live to see Rainier, Adams, Baker, Hood, and, of course, Glacier Peak lose their whiteness completely during the summer, the way forcefully de-glaciered St. Helen's does now.

If Seattle is going to succeed as a one-party town, it needs to figure out how to have a real culture of ethics in city government in the absence of political pressures to resist external influence and conflicts of interest.

It still seems a shame to dump a lively sounding term like op-ed, substituting (drum roll, please) "Guest Essays."

The Great White North has experienced little of the protest and defiance against COVID-19 measures experienced in “the States.” But that is starting to change.

So, slam dunk for the Dems to score again in 2022, as new congressional borders are drawn? There is predictable pressure from Republicans to rebalance the delegation by drawing a new district that would look purple but could turn red. But it’s a long shot.

Operatives and lawmakers involved in the passage of the climate proposals this year say that the package was on the brink of collapse at several points during the session. The difference this year: lots of money available to the lawmakers, so no need to cut into sacred cows.

Sen. Reinbold has angered even (very) conservative Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy with her strident criticism of COVID-19 mitigation measures. “It is lamentable that the good citizens of Eagle River and Chugiak are deprived of meaningful representation by the actions of the person holding the office of senator,” Gov. Dunleavy said in a recent statement.

The bogus myth was used to spur settlers to come West, to raise money for struggling Whitman College, and to prompt Justice Douglas to place a Whitman statue in the U.S. Capitol (now removed).

In a curious twist of history, Baerbock holds promise to execute on what turned out to be Angela Merkel’s highly misleading self-advertising.

He went off and wrote a 110-page order – essentially he wrote an entire book – granting the preliminary injunction. In doing so he crafted an initial remedy that goes well beyond what the plaintiffs asked for.

I think we should turn the Boeing plant in Renton into a fully fledged film studio. I worked as a Screenwriting Fellow at Universal Pictures for a year and there’s no reason why the Boeing Renton facility couldn’t be turned into a similar facility with a little time and investment.

April sees the death throes of half a dozen community newspapers -- Ballard News-Tribune, Highline Times, West Seattle Herald, Des Moines News, SeaTac News and White Center News -- final print editions of the Robinson Newspapers chain

Back in the 70s, Seattleites regarded humor much as New Yorkers regarded hiking. They understood that some people enjoyed it, wondered if they should try it, but didn’t know what equipment they needed.

Our whole history lives with and in our oldest friends. If we hadn’t excluded less meaningful, casual acquaintances before the pandemic, we’re likely to do so when it’s over.

We seem now to be in a time when fewer people are willing to consider life’s complexity, and to the truth that “human existence is not easily divided into good and evil, but filled with complexity, nuance and ambiguity.”

“Green Lake and Lincoln Parks were developed entirely by [Umlauff],” a rare early notice observed. “Woodland, Volunteer, Seward, and lesser parks were transformed and improved vastly under his direction.”

It's worrisome that the only channels for change that seem to be unclogged, locally as well as nationally, are channels that short-circuit deliberation and deny the chance to assemble a durable majority.

All the cool kids are playing it. All the uncool kids are playing it, but mostly seniors are playing it. Seventy-five percent of regular players, or “core participants,” are 55 years or older.

Gun safety measures are stalled in Congress, but states like Washington have found the tactics to pass legislation.

Originally, the two straits and Puget Sound were known as the Gulf of Georgia, a name given by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 to honor his sovereign and patron, George III. It was a patronizing term then, much as the Salish Sea is now.

Can understanding the U.S. Civil Rights Trail help us make sense of the present?

The Nash Collection had been locked away in a sub-basement of the Washington State University Library since the early 1990s, with only about 100 low resolution images from the collection posted on the library’s website, until a Seattle couple posted a few of those images on Facebook.

It may not be great functional design. It might not even make sense in the new context in which the park sits. But physical spaces are also places of history, and of memory. Sometimes they also get a voice.

Last week attorneys for Sawant filed a response that asks for much larger changes to the synopsis. They largely re-litigate points that they raised last fall that Judge Rogers flatly rejected — twice.

It may be that Seattle voters are ready to "leave Afghanistan," and that the voters and the mobilized beneficiaries of the charter amendment will pressure the council and the new mayor to grab this peace treaty, warts and all.