The Political Desk: Summing Up

 Go Vote.

Yes, I know it's not as exciting this year. And it's a short turnaround . And in my case, there are a lot of unopposed races (a dozen on my own ballot - your mileage may differ). 

Go Vote anyway.

And if you're planning to mail in your ballot (it's free), do it sooner than later. There is no guarantee that it will be postmarked in time. Otherwise, go drop it off at a hopefully nearby ballot drop box.

Go Vote early.

There are a lot of races that I don't have any say in. Mayor of Seattle (Katie Wilson). City Attorney (Erika Evans). Districts that I am not living in (Edwin Obras in the 33rd, Vandana Slatter in the 48th). That's the nature of our system. I can deal with it.

But for you? Go Vote.

I listed a bunch of the sources of recommendations and endorsements earlier in my blog here. And for those interested, here are comparable endorsements of the Stranger and the Times.  Otherwise, here's my summary from the past few days:

Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Senate Joint Resolution No. 8201: Approved

King County Proposition No. 1 Medic One - Emergency Medical Services Replacement of Existing Levy: Yes

King County Public Hospital District No. 1 Proposition No. 1 Levy Lid Lift for Health Care Services: Approved

King County Executive: Claudia Balducci

Metropolitan King County Council District No. 5: Stephanie Fain (The Times this morning launched an editorial against her opponent for claiming the Times endorsed him, which it did not.)

City of Kent Council Position No. 2: Satwinder Kaur (Her opponent sent out a late attack mailer on her. The return address for this mailer on a non-partisan position was the Washington State Republican Party).

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 4: Teresa Gregory

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 5: Laura Williams

OK, that's it. I'm going back to theatre reviews and talking about games, but I will pop back in with the results. 

Do I need to say it again? Sure. Go Vote. 

More later.

The Political Desk: Kent

 So, Kent. My home town. We're a community in the Green River valley, South of Seattle tucked between Renton and Auburn. Most of the industry (light) and government are in the valley floor, along with the large mallish Kent Commons, but spilling up both the East and West Hills (Grubb Street is on the East Hill, in the Panther Lake area, which was sucked up by the city more than a decade ago). It's a very diverse community, and ranges from mildly urban through suburban to exurban, particularly as you move towards the growth boundary to the East. The town was originally known to settlers as White River (before that river was diverted to the south), then Titusville (after a local settler), and finally settled on Kent, since it became a major producer of hops, which at the time weren't doing so well in the original Kent, England.

Anyway.

Most of the positions in Kent are unopposed, but there are a few contested races. Here's a quick guide:

City of Kent Council Position No. 2. The incumbent and current president of the council is Satwinder Kaur, who has done a good job and pacts and ton of endorsements, including the mayor and the rest of the council. We've endorsed her before, and she's helped see Kent through a lot of challenges. Her opponent is Neet Grewel, who is running on "Cleaning Up Kent", which is a nice play on her first name (Neet. Clean. Yeah). She says a lot of good and proper things in her Candidate statement, but adds to it support for AI and crypto (which is concerning, but not part of the job she wants) and espouses anti-vac propaganda on her socials (which is concerning and may have an effect on the job she wants). And the Kaur campaign has sent out pictures of her having out at Marlago and hobnobbing with RFK Jr. So, yeah, I'm going with Satwinder Kaur.

City of Kent Council Position No. 6. We're back in the same position of hard, good choices. Sharn Shoker and Andy Song are both at the progressive end of the political spectrum. Shoker is a director of a Seattle-based non-profit, while Song is the present head of the Kent School Board. Both are good, and I recommended Song in the primary. But looking at it again, I'm going to say take a good look at Sharn Shoker for this position.

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 4 Teresa Gregory is the incumbent, but only for a little while, but has done a good job so far.  Her opponent doesn't even have a web site to make her views widely known. The school district is facing budget cuts because of hacked federal funding, and I think I want Teresa Gregory there to make the decisions.

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 5 Laura Williams is a veteran teacher and union leader with a fistful of endorsements and a plan for the future. Her opponent does not have a website, so my only exposure is through her candidate statement, which has some red flags and conservative dog whistles. So, yeah, Laura Williams.

And that's it. Now we sum up. More later,

The Political Desk: County Positions and Tough Choices

 I've got two county races to decide on my ballot. One is for County Executive, the other for Position No. 5 on the Council. And these are the most frustrating items on the ballot for me, in that there is no bad choice for one, and no great choice for the other.

Both are open positions, in that their predecessors have gone on to other things. Dow Constantine was the County Executive forever, and moved on to head up Sound Transit. Dave Upthegrove was on the council for position 5, but was elected to run the Department of Natural Resources. And the thing is, either one could have just stayed - it is harder to vote an incumbent off the council than just wait for natural erosion. Reagan Dunn, the conservative counselor from district 9, has been there ever since his mom got him the posting, and they have even redrawn the borders of his district to keep him. 

Anyway,

King County Executive has two very competent and talented candidates. They are both former council members themselves, and they are both in the progressive category. They're voting records are pretty much identifcal. The good news is you're going to get someone worthwhile. The bad news is you have to choose. 

Claudia Balducci is a former mayor of Bellevue, and has been instrumental in pushing mass transit, including getting the Eastside line running, even though it not connected with the rest of Seattle. She has experience and a reputation for getting things done. Girmay Zahilay rose from incredibly humble beginnings, clerked in the Obama administration, and has leaned hard in renter protection, first responders, and increasing the minimum wage.

 Both are solid politicians: Balducci has the experience, while Zahilay has the endorsements. The Times recommended Balducci in a meek endorsement that summed up everything they hated about the council, but hopes that Balducci could fix it. The Stranger went in for Zhahily in part because Balducci has been courting the moderate/centrist wing of the party. But neither are radicals.

Me? I'll opt for Claudia Balducci, but to be honest, either one would do a fine job.

Metropolitan King County Council District No. 5 has the opposite problem, in that neither of the two candidates, Peter Kwon or Stephanie Fain, feel like particularly good fit, and brows are furrowed about what happens when either gets in. Kwon is a former council-person from SeaTac, while Fain has ben president of the Harborview Medical Center's Board of Trustees for 5 terms.

 In their attack mailers, both have accused the other of being Republicans in sheep's closing. Kwon is getting the support of the local Republicans, while Fain is married to a former GOP State Rep who stepped down over accused sexual improprieties. Kwon also said one thing to the Republicans, and another to Planned Parenthood (which pulled their support, but he hasn't admitted it yet). Fain has deep pockets supporting her. Kwon has the experience, while Fain has the endorsements, including getting the nod from both the Times and the Stranger, though it sounds like the Stranger is whistling past the graveyard on this one. 

Regardless, whomever gets the nod will likely be more in the centrist camp than a progressive force. Fain, though, is pushing healthcare, while Kwon underlines effectiveness in moving things forward without new taxes. Both sound like rational human beings and capable leaders, so that's good. I'm going to go in for hope this time, and recommend Stephanie Fain, though my opinion has changed three times as I wrote the past three paragraphs. Yeah, democracy is a challenge, sometimes. 

And that's the toughest decision for me on this ballot. Next up, we get specific with the City of Kent, my home town.

More later,

The Political Desk: Ballot Measures

 Let me whine just a bit. Our election processes allows us to vote on finances. SOME finances. Not the whopping 10% sales tax, but rather situations where we are asked to weigh in on public goods and services which most of us like. So we DON'T get to vote directly on things like, say, salaries for elected officials, putting electronic billboards on the sidewalks, or creating a AI-powered holographic Dr. Martin Luther King to talk to you about breakfast (not making that one up). But we DO get to vote on things like EMTs, Hospitals, and care for the elderly.  Which makes me roll my eyes just a tad.

Anyway ...

Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Senate Joint Resolution No. 8201 This is to change our state constitution to allow the government to play the stock market to help fund WA Cares for elderly care. Good plan, but it admittedly has risks, in that the stock market (or just the part of the stock market that you've invested in) can go down as well as up. Most of these funds are invested in bonds, since they are more stable (but lower-paying) Most recently the markets have trended upwards, but they have been highly volatile because, well, you know. On the other hand, the State Investment Board has been pretty cagey do date about investments, so they aren't exactly getting into AI and crypto. I'm going with an Approved on this one, but it becomes one more thing to keep an eye on.

King County Proposition No. 1 Medic One - Emergency Medical Services Replacement of Existing Levy This is a replacement for an expiring levy, and lowers the rate on the property taxes (but will raise more funds because your property value has likely gone up). Its for EMTs and 911 calls. No one even filed an entry against it. So, yeah, I'm good for that. Vote YES.

King County Public Hospital District No. 1 Proposition No. 1 Levy Lid Lift for Health Care Services  This is Valley Medical, which is about 2 miles from here, and the ER/OR that we use (most recently for the Lovely Bride's shoulder replacement). This will allow them to raise more money for operations and capital improvements. Yeah, I'm down with it. Go with Approved.

That's it for the funding issues - on to the candidates.

More later,

The Political Desk: Rush To Judgement

 So, the ballots have finally landed here on Grubb Street for the 4 November election. It is an off-off-year election, which means in general that things are pretty quiet. Now, we are electing a Mayor in Seattle (which I can't vote for) and a new County Executive (which I DO vote for), but there are not a lot of races this year, and many of them (local races, judges) have no listed opposition. 

One thing that is a new wrinkle, though, is the strong recommendation you get your votes in early this year, particularly if you are mailing them in. Mail-in ballots are great, because you aren't stranded in a voting booth wondering who the heck these people are. However, the Post Office has been gutted in recent years by stupid conservative policies, which consists of gutting a public service and then complaining that it can't do its job. But what this means in this case is that if you drop your ballot in the mailbox on November 4, there is no guarantee that it is going to be postmarked in time. And the postmark is the final line.

So, either vote early, or drop it off at one of the many handy drop boxes we have in King County by 8 PM on the 4th. Of course, as a result of stupid conservative policies, this one hurts areas (mostly rural) that don't have accessible ballot drop offs, and where conservatism is stronger. So it hurts themselves, so you should vote early in any event.

This year is also different in that I have received a huge number of mailers. which range from brightly colored declarations of why you should vote for me, to somber, red and black warnings about how horrible the other candidate is (often on opposite sides of the same mailer). In particular, I got a set of identical mailers for me, the Lovely Bride, and both of us from a bunch of 2nd-place candidates in Burien who have unified under the "Enough is Enough!" banner (As an aside, I don't live in Burien, and cannot even see it from my house). The fact that this organization is wasting money sending mailers to people who cannot vote for them indicates to me that no one should trust them with their communities' money. And yeah, this is another dig at stupid conservative policies. Not really stupid, but definitely incompetent as well.

I'm going to roll through my ballot in the next few days. I WON'T be covering races that have only one candidate, which this year is goodly number of positions, including the Mayor of Kent, the three Port of Seattle positions, one of the City of Kent Council Positions, some judges, and the Water/Sewer and Hospital district commissioners. So you lot can take a long lunch hour to celebrate, then get back to work.

Those voting should also have gotten Voters' Guides for King County (the thick one) and Washington State (the skinny one). They can be found here as well, which allows you to see pro and anti statements on the ballot measures as well as the candidates presenting themselves in their own words. 

Should you vote the way I indicate? Of course not! Here are a bunch of other folk's opinions. Here is the Seattle Times. Here The Stranger sounds off. Here is the Urbanist's recommendations, and here is a listing for the progressive FUSE site. For the kids, here's the UWDaily's notes. Crosscut, which has posted in the past, no longer has the manpower to muster any opinions. See earlier comments on stupid conservative policies. 

AND you don't even have to wait for me to wade through all this. Go grab you ballot by the ovals and go vote. Time is surprisingly of the essence! 

More later, 

Theatre: Women's Plays

The Roommate by Jen Silverman, directed by Kathryn Van Meter, Arts West through October 19th

Fancy Dancer by Larissa FastHorse, Directed by Chay Yew, Seattle Rep in conjunction with the Seattle Children's Theatre, through November 2nd

 Theatre is for everyone, but some of it skews to a particular demographic. This past weekend the Lovely Bride and I saw two plays, both female-centered and pretty darn good.

Our attendance at both of these plays are delayed by travel - the Lovely B and I were in Pittsburgh for our 50th High School Reunion and pressed on to visit friends and family in Philly (and no, I didn't tell you. I don't tell you everything in these write-ups). So as opposed to opening night at the Arts West or the first few weeks of the Rep's run, we're tuning in late here. 

Friday night, we headed out to West Seattle for The Roommate. A tightly-wound woman in Iowa gains a freewheeling boarder/tenant/housemate in the form of a more worldly Brooklynite. Wackiness ensues, but takes a dark turn as both women evolve off each other. The spirit of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple haunts this, as this is also a play about polar opposites sharing the same space and setting off sparks. But this one has more emotion, more passion, and more grounding than Simon's take on the situation. 

Sharon (Sarah Harlett) is a agitated, frantic worrier, a retired wife and distant from her grown son. She a county mouse, and she frets, cleans, and moves around the stage like a hummingbird, always castigating herself for her mistakes. Robyn (Mari Nelson) is the roommate from New York city, gay, vegan, more comfortable in her skin, trying to quit smoking other nastier habits and make a fresh start. She's the city mouse, a woman with a past. And Harlett and Nelson are brilliant in their roles as their characters move from a wary first encounter to a team-up and to a break-up that leaves them both changed. 

The play itself has some weaknesses, which requires\ you to just accept it as part of the plot., The pair fall in with themselves extremely quickly. We're a little weak on the why and how of why the mousy Sharon wants a roommatein the first place and how Robyn found out about the opportunity. And there are small things that threw me a little, like getting high off of two hits of a reefer and using a traceable land-line to run phone scams (Iowa apparently does not have caller ID). But the acting stands out here as Harlett and Nelson encapsulate their characters. It was definitely worth it, and a strong start to the Arts West season.

Sunday afternoon we caught Fancy Dancer at the Rep, which, again, we also had to delay because of the trip East (actually, it from exhaustion on returning from the trip East, but never mind). Fancy Dancer is a one-woman show presented by the author, alternating with another actor-dancer. We got to watch the playwright perform, a half-Lakota Sioux woman drawing on her own history for the play. Her story is growing up in Minnesota, abandoned by her parents, raised by a white couple, bullied and abused by her fellow students, but finding a goal in life through ballet, and as part of that inspiration through the work of Maria Tallchief, who was America's first prima ballerina as well as half Native American (Osage tribe). 

Maria Tallchief, 
who has her own
quarter

FastHorse tells her story with wonderful dance (of course) and excellent stagecraft. The floor is bare with a minimum of props, but storms and stars are projected on the walls, moving use through time and emotions. The tale runs through many personal setbacks and small triumphs, and ends with her finally getting her first professional job, and finding the strength to move forward. 

The thing is, this is only half the story. doing the research on FastHorse, I found she was a professional ballerina for only a decade, until an injury forced her to retire from the stage. She regrouped and began teaching and writing her own plays, and her voice carried to the point where she was the first known Native American to have a play on Broadway. And that feels like a play on its own.

And this was a performance that reached out to the women in the audience. The audience was heavily weighted towards woman for our matinee, along with more children than I have previously seen at a Rep performance (many of whom, I suspect, were also in dance class). And it is a personal tale of triumph in the face of adversity. 

The Lovely Bride did not care for it as much, in part because it was a one-person show. Without the interaction and conflict of multiple actors, it is less of a play and more of a straight-forward storytelling experience. I think a single-actor play has validity as theatre (though I've seen some real questionable ones over the years), and FastHorse's portrayal of her youth is as much theatre as the two-hander of The Roomate. 

So in the end, I liked these plays, but did not love them. They did not hit home for me, in part because I don't share similar experiences (never took ballet, never felt I had been retired from my marriage). I am, as the Lovely B says, "not the target market". And that's OK. They were well-done, well-performed, and well-presented, and deserve the level of attention. If you're looking for a comedy, I'd give The Roomate the edge. For a more personal tale, check out Fancy Dancer. 

More later.

Theatre: Prop(er) Comedy

 The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer, directed by Damaso Rodriquez, Seattle Rep through 28 September.

Many years ago, in the pre-Covid times, I went to London on business for Amazon. And I has a free day and wandered the city, primarily hunting out bookstores. And there was a kiosk with plays currently running in the East End. One was the Cursed Child Harry Potter play, but the one that caught my eye was The Play That Goes Wrong. In the end, I decided to hunt down bookstores, but I always wondered about it.

Well, at last that particular crow comes home to roost with the Seattle Repertory opening their season with their production of the play. It is light. It is frothy. and it is hilarious.

People in theatre love plays about theatre, and anyone with more than a tacit background in theatre recognizes everything that go wrong in a performance. Muffed lines, mis-pronunciations, missed cues, malfunctioning props. And here everything that can go wrong does go wrong, in a non-stop cavalcade of blunders, malaprops, and accidents. The action and errors come in hard and fast here, and the audience (which included more than the normal amount of kids this time) rolled with it.

The concept is that the Comley Polytechnic Drama Society is staging a production of The Murder at Haversham Hall, a 1920s mystery. The Drama Society a small but spunky group of amateur thespians, and their reach exceeds their grasp. Combined with a deathtrap of a stage, the groundwork is laid for continual challenges to the production. The actors (Cassi Q. Kohl, Chip Sherman (previous in Fat Ham), Darius Pierce, Ian Bond, Setareki, Darragh Kennan (early in a Sherlock Holmes play at the Rep), Chis Murray, and Ashly Song) are all very good with verbal and physical humor, which they need to be, as the ongoing disasters pitch them from one side of the stage to the other, and leaves everything in shambles.

The Rep has always been an organization that excels at their technical production, and the company does not disappoint in making a play where the technical issues threaten to consume the staff. Sound cues go off at the wrong time, doors refuse to function properly, props fall from the walls, people miss their marks, but through it all the players manage to push forward in that "Show Must Go On", straining to maintain the lines they have to speak and the reality of the stage grows weirder and weirder.  It was a lot of fun.

We had out own bit of minor challenges as well. We initially sat in the wrong aisle (hey, it was the first show of the season), and left a half-consumed bottle of modestly expensive wine behind at dinner (I ended up walking four blocks back to retrieve it, and the staff at Toulouse Petit Kitchen were more than kind in finding it). And I was intent on finding the Lovely Bride's late mother's seat in the theater. After her passing, we sponsored a seat in the theater for Nardi Novak, who was in a couple movies and TV shows as we as being active in the Pittsburgh theater scene. I tried to find the seat location before the show, but the info desk had no clue, but said they would look it up for the Intermission. Low and behold, at Intermission, they came up with the seat number, CC12 on the balcony level (On the far left as you face it from the stage). I had to politely ask the occupant of that seat to vacant temporarily as I got this shot, and scurried back to my seat for the curtain of the second act. 

Anyway, 

The Play That Goes Wrong does everything right, and is a very pleasant way of spending a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, the Rep will delve back into more serious matter, but this was a delight.

More later, 

Cup of Crimson Wonder

I got into Dungeons & Dragons in the late 70s at college. At that time, I was listening to a lot of progressive rock, which was a broad category which included bands like Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, and in particular Jethro Tull. Tull had done albums like Aqualung, Warchild, Minstrel in the Gallery, and Thick as a Brick (one sone over two sides of an LP - you really should take the time to give it a listen). And in 1977 they released Songs from the Wood, which was the first of a series of "Folk Rock" albums. And I listened to it a lot, and it influenced my some of my writing, world-building, and game design.

And one of the songs was "Cup of Wonder", which leaned heavy on medieval mystical themes with a lot of synthesizer. And as one does, I wrote up the cup described of the song as a D&D magical item. 

(Now, looking back at the song, there was a LOT I missed at the time - namely, that the song was very much a "Hey, let's go out into the wheatfield and have sex" sort of song, and that a lot of the mystic references had earthier meanings and feminine euphemisms. )

But anyway,

I wrote the first cup description in 1977 in the wake of the album's release, but never really found the place to unleash it on my players. I considered it as a "Miscellaneous Magic" item, which was sort of a catch-all category for things that didn't really fit in one of the other columns. Now, by 1976 Eldritch Wizardry had come out and we had already started to talk about Artifacts and Relics as vastly powerful magic items with powers and malevolent effects unknown to the players. Below, I've revised my notes to fit the formatting and font of the original little brown box books of original D&D:

MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC

Cup of Wonders: This golden chalice can create a Healing potion that can repair one six-sided die, plus one, (2-7) points of damage, once per day. Once per week it can create a draught that will Neutralize Poison. The draughts must be imbibed directly from the cup to be effective.

 

It was a pretty straight-forward description of the item. Given the brutal nature of early D&D (your party's cleric did not even get a Cure Light Wounds spell until 2nd level), this was a suitable item to help the group survive. I put it in my random magic tables, but I never really found the opportunity to put into my player's hands. 

A few years later, I found my original notes, and upgraded the Cup of Wonders to full artifact status. Both Eldritch Wizardry and the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide left the abilities lines blank to let the DM fill in what he could, choosing from a master list, but I made those choices for my versions of the items. Here's what I ended up with: 

TABLE (III.E3) SPECIAL

Cup of Crimson Wonder: This ornate chalice of beaten red-gold with silver filigree of forest creatures was brought from the Isles of the Furthest West by the Green Man as a gift to the Great Druid at the founding of his order. The Green Man often rescinds this gift for his personal use, and abandons it when he has completed his tasks. Upon speaking the Green Man’s name, the cup fills with blood, which then grants the positive effects of this item. In the hands of the Great Druid or one of the three Archdruids the cup may cast Resurrection once per day without having to rest and are immune to the Cup’s major and minor malevolent effects. Druid initiates of lower levels and non-druids may use the following powers/effects when possessing the cup:

4 × I: Create food and water – 1 time/day  

 Cure light wounds – 7 times/week  

 Know alignment when held and ordered – 1 time/day  

 Possessor immune to disease

2 × II: Heal – 1 time/day  

  Regenerate 2 h.p./turn (but not if killed)

2 × III: Possessor’s hair turns white  

   Saving throws versus magic are at -1

1 × IV: User takes double damage from steel and iron weapons.

1 × IV: Summon 1 of each type of elemental, 16 hit dice each, no need for control – 1 time/week 

There is a lot more going on here than in the first draft, in that I'm adding a lot of abilities and keying in on giving the druids something unique and cool as well. There's more background color for the AD&D versions, something that will increase as we go along, and is sort of a "shadow worldbuilding" in that it hints at larger things with the campaign world. I kept to the list provided at the time, with the exception of the Major Malevolent Effect (Table IV), which I felt was to overpowering, but instead grabbed something that would fit with its Druidic attempt.

Looking through the changes from the original D&D magic item to a 1st Edition AD&D artifact, I'm kind of curious to see how the design would change, and weather it would come closer to the original song or stray off into the fields and forest on its own. I'll take a look at later editions, and if it works out, I'll post here. Otherwise...

More later,