The Political Desk: The Jeff Recommends

 So, this list should look familiar.  Go back here to see the initial writeup, along with other resources you can access when considering your vote. No seriously, go check them out. Don't take my word on all this. Add to them the Voter's Guides for Washington State and King County. Be a knowledgeable voter.

I provided my recommendations at the outset because there have already been a lot of funny business this election. No guarantee on the efficacy of the Post Office. Some ballots have been trashed when they were sent out. And a some politicians have been getting envelopes of white powder sent to them. Across the country, we're seeing polling stations closing, voting rolls being "accidentally" shredded, and threats of government agencies patrolling the polls. We're already seeing reports of how long it takes the mail to go from mailbox to postmark down in Oregon. And Facebook "goofs" and kills all its reporting on the latest No Kings/Voting Registration rallies. 

So yeah, if your vote didn't matter, why are people so hung up on keeping you from using it? There has been a lot of "friction" (that's an Amazon term) added to the process to keep you from taking the time and making the effort to vote.

IPL26-645 (Rescind the Income Tax on the Wealthy: NO

IPL26-001 (Make the Parental Rights Law worse): NO

IPL 26-638 (Force all girls in sports to prove they're really girls): NO

US Representative District 9: Adam Smith 

State Representative, District 11: Ashley Fedan

King County Assessor: Robert Foxcurran

Washington State Supreme Court: Position 1: Colleen Melody 

Washington State Supreme Court: Position 3: Jaime Hawk

Washington State Supreme Court: Position 4: Ian Birk

Washington State Supreme Court: Position 5: Theo Angelis

Washington State Supreme Court: Position 7: Debra Stephens

Southeast Electoral District Position No.5: Heather M. Barker

Kent School District No. 415 Proposition No. 1 Replacement of Expiring Educational Programs and Operations Levy: Yes

And that's about it. Vote early and use a convenient drop box. Deadline is November 3rd,8 PM. Every election is important, and this is your chance to make your voice heard.

More later,

The Political Desk: The Kent Report

 Finally, my ballot ends up with an educational levy - Kent School District No. 415 Proposition No. 1 Replacement of Expiring Educational Programs and Operations Levy. This is what it says. An old levy is expiring, and this one will replace it. So cue my semi-regular growling about how we have to vote on THIS to keep our schools running, while there is stuff in the budget that goes through indirectly, through our elected representatives. And this is despite having in our state constitution that we must fund schools. 

Yeah, you know the drill. Eat your veggies. See your dentist twice a year. Go vote Yes. 

More later, including another wrapup.

The Political Desk: Judging the Judges

 This is actually the big item on the list - rating up there with the Heywood Initiatives. We are electing five (5!) State Supreme Court justices this go-around. And for these recommendations, I'm call in the pros. The Washington State Supreme Court Visualizer goes over all the major races, where their endorsements are, their current funding, current polls, and the bar association ratings. It is pretty much a complete package on them. 

Now I tend to lean towards the more progressive side of the fence (no duh), but all of these candidates are serious judicial types with experience in court, and backgrounds as lawyers and lower-level judges. These are serious professionals. Some of the more conservative candidates want to keep politics out of the courtroom, which sounds good, but mainly its to hide that they're getting backing from the State GOP. In the Birk/O'Donnell race, a liberal PAC sent out an attack mailer keying in on which candidates had Republican support. O'Donnell's side complained about the these fliers were playing politics with the courtroom, but his own flyer trumpets the endorsements of a couple Democratic Party former governors, along with Adam Smith (Adam Smith) with nary a word of the GOP endorsement. So yeah, the positions are non-partisan, but the candidates are not.

Here's a summary of recommendations

Position 1: Colleen Melody 

Position 3: Jaime Hawk

Position 4: Ian Birk

Position 5: Theo Angelis

Position 7: Debra Stephens 

OK, so one more personal note. Position 4 candidate Sean O'Donnell and his supporters marched in the Mercer Island Community Parade. They were right behind our Tai Chi class (I told you, I don't tell you everything about my life). We were marching and every so often would stop to do a few sword forms (yes, they trust me with a sword). The Lovely Bride was bringing up the rear, and Judge O'Donnell kept warning his folks not to get too close, lest they get skewered. I do appreciate that, but I'm still popping for Ian Birk.

And, as a final thing, there is a long listing of votes for Southeast Electoral District Judges. That area includes Kent and Renton, but for the life of me I cannot find a map showing the exact region, so you may or may not have them on your ballot. The judges at this level handle the small stuff - traffic infractions, small claims, misdemeanors, and the like, and have a 4-year term. All of these on my ballot are uncontested, including Judge Position No. 5, which pits Joshua C. Harris against Heather M. Barker. Harris dropped out of the race, but too late to get him off the ballot. So, when you get this far down, go for Heather M. Barker. And a bunch of other professionals who don't have opponents this time.

More later,

The Political Desk: County Mounties

We're down to the King County Level here. We have three positions open, of which only one has anything representing a choice. You can always withhold your vote, if you want, and while I encourage folk to vote in every opportunity, I understand if you want to give it a pass.

King County Assessor. The current assessor is not running due to personal and professional challenges, so this is an open seat. According to their Voters Guide entries, both promise reform and protection of homeowners. Rob Foxcurran has had valuation experience (That's how much the county claims your house is worth, for property tax purposes) and is a former Mayor of Shoreline, while Dominique Scarimbolo is a small business owner (local brewery) who is described as anti-tax with experience in opposing property tax evaluations. She also has nothing reported as expenditures in the PDC. And while the Assessor's office does not set tax rates, it does set the appraisals.

Looking at it all, I'm going to give Rob Foxcurran the edge here, though I think both candidates represent a change to the Assessor's office.

More later, 

The Political Desk: State Level

 Not a lot here on the state level ballot for Grubb Street. Just two legislative positions.

Legislative District No. 11 Representative Position No 1. Here's a story - I was let go from Zenimax Online in the Great Xbox Layoffs back in July. No, I don't tell you everything that happens in my life. We're union (CWA) and held protests at a number of Microsoft sites across the country. And I marched and chanted and represented for the union. Like I said, I don't tell you everything, but my smiling face appeared on a couple of web sites and is probably on my permanent record somewhere.

Anyway, Ashley Fedan showed up for us, which was very positive. She's from a union household and is strongly supportive of Worker's Rights. And why David Hackney has done a good job (and this is one of those cases where we have we have a choice of two good candidates as opposed to an avoidance), I'm going to be voting for Ashley Fedan. 

Legislative District No. 11 Representative Position No. 2 Steve Bergquist is running unopposed. Yeah, I said I wasn't going to post recommendations on uncontested races, but he's been doing a good job, and deserves the head-nod.

More later, 

The Political Desk: The National

 United States Representative Congressional District No. 9. Adam Smith. My god, this feels SO much like a rerun. And in part its because its the same race the 9th Congressional District here, here, here and here, with the same opponent. And probably the same result. Adam Smith is definitely centrist in this day and age. His opponent is out of the right-wing hate radio, will hold down about a quarter of the vote, and then declare victory.

And actually, while I cannot get passionate about Adam Smith, I have to recognize he's done very well for the state and for Democrats over the years. He's the ranking member of the Armed Services committee, and while he supports a lot of the Department of Defense (and the bucks it brings into Boeing) he also has stood out against particularly wasteful projects and supported the needs of our servicemen and women. I've heard him speak on a wide variety of issues and respect both his commitment and his logic. He's nuanced, which is usually a kiss of death in that somebody is going to angry at him about something. But to be frank, you can't do much better than that. 

So. Adam Smith. Adam Smith, Adam Smith, Adam Smith.

More later (Adam Smith).

The Political Desk: The Heywood Initiatives

 Washington State has an initiative system that allows citizens to put initiatives onto the ballot for majority vote. It is one of those ideas that I support strongly, while realizing that there are knock-on effects. Chiefly, to get the issue placed on the ballot, you have to get a certain percentage of the voting population ( 8% of those voting in the previous gubernatorial race) to approve. For Washington State that's about 300,911 signatures, and you should add a padding of 15-20% just to be sure. So you have to turn to initiative gatherers to reach that number, and that starts running into money. Which means that you have to find deep pockets to put your issue on the ballot. 

Anyway, Brian Heywood is a millionaire from California who moved up here in part because he didn't like the way his state was going politically. And he has the money to help fund these initiatives, which are … pretty bad. So the To-Long-Didn't-Read advice here is - take a big pass on these and vote NO/Reject on them. Oddly, the Stranger and the Seattle Times agree on these, which hardly ever happens.

Here's the long form.

IP26-645 - This is called in media "Repealing The Millionaires' Tax" or the "Repealing the High-Earners Tax". This tax, passed in Olympia, put a 9.9% tax on individual income over a million bucks (the first million is not counted). That affects 23,000 of the households in Washington State or about 0.5% of the population, and puts more responsibility of funding the state on those people who can afford it. This is the big one that the Heywoods want to get rid of, since it picks on a small group of people to pay their fair share. Worse yet, it picks on people with money.

And the Heywoods dragged the opponents of this appeal into court for pointing out in the description that if we repeal it, we're going to have cut services and raise other taxes to cover the shortfall. They lost that case, of course, and will probably go back to court should they lose this one. And yeah, if we get rid of this, the state is going to have to cut back harder than anticipated, particularly in education. It also means that we'd have to keep the onerous Business & Occupancy tax (B&O) that would otherwise be replaced with this measure, along with other benefits this tax will bring.

And the argument is that rich people would leave Washington State if we started making them pay, though the lack of income tax didn't keep Bezos here, or Starbucks HQ, or the executives at Boeing. So that doesn't sound like a sound argument. And when New York City started putting requirements on the wealthy, they ended up having MORE millionaires moving in.

When I ran into signature gatherers in the wild when they were setting up (those who did not march away when I said I supported the tax), they stressed that this was a income tax (it is) and if we let it stand, it is only a matter of time before it can be applied to everyone - a nose of the camel sort of thing. And you know what, it could. And if they replaced our sales tax (6.5 for the state, plus up to 4% local sales tax) with an income tax, I would be supportive of that as well. 

Let's keep the tax. Vote NO on repeal. 

IL26-001 - The "Parental Rights Initiative" - This one has a behind-the-scenes story. Washington State has two types of Intiatives in its system (OK, it has three if you count referendums, but we don't have any this year, so let's set that asside). These three on our ballots are Initiatives to the People - we vote 'em in, they're law, and they're on the books for at least two years. There are also Initiatives to the Legislature, which, if we vote 'em in, the legislature can either take a pass on them, or vote for it themselves, and fine-tune them.

A few years back, we has an initiative to the legislature on the Parental Bill of Rights, and it passed (easily). And the legislature chose to pass it themselves, with amendments that made sure that it would stand up in court, and protect the students themselves. Not so fast, say the initiative people - we want you to scrap those amendments, and take the original bill, warts and all.

And to paraphrase Frodo Baggins, this one seems fair and feels foul. Its to strengthen parental rights in the public schools. How can this be bad? We all want to protect kids, right? Well, there are a couple things.

First, some of the stuff is already law in the public schools that will protect kids.

Second, it actually reduces some of the protections for students, like being gay or reporting abuse in the home.

Third, its not really going to give you the parent the rights, but rather give the most conservative member of the community the rights. Sort of like all the book-bannings. 

And lastly (and I'll be honest, least), this challenge is not going to hold up in court. This is because initiatives have to do ONE THING, like creating a new law or repealing an old one. This laundry list of intentions was apparently copy-pasted from a Louisiana law, and will be challenged and overturned up here. This is what happened to the last initiative that sounded good (against weaning our housing industry off natural gas), which then got overturned.

IL26-638 - This one is known as "Trans girls in school sports " or, to use the terms of the initiative, would prohibit students it defines as "biologically male" from participating in girls sports.

Here's a story from junior high., back in the early seventies. Seventh grade gym class, we had jock strap inspection. All the 7th grade boys had to line up, pants down, shirts up, buns naked, as the gym teacher walked around and checked us out fore and aft, to make sure we had sufficient athletic protection. That particular coach was gone the next year and there were rumors in the locker room, but nothing ever surfaced publicly.

Just mentioning that in passing.

Anyway, this initiative is to mandate that all girls (and only girls) meet the requirement of being sufficiently women in order to participate in school sports. What that definition is seems flexible, but right now that's to ensure that they are packing their factory-equipped organs. It is an incredibly small sample size (less than the number of millionaires we're asking to tax), but we're going to put all young women through it. This is an initiative founded on the illusion that the first season of Bosom Buddies (Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari, 1980) was a documentary. And to use the slippery-slope argument that the Heywood supporters are using against the income tax, its an easy step to enforcing other restrictions on young men and women, based on physical attributes, testosterone levels, racial background, or gender preferences. Nose of the camel, indeed.

But really, its a bad law, and won't do what the proponents claim to want (keep penises out of the girl's locker room) - Heck, we can't even keep penises out of beauty pageant's dressing room - we send those offenders to the White House.

So, in summary:

NO on IPL26-645

NO on IPL26-001

NO on IPL 26-638

Enough with these negative vies. More later,

The Political Desk: Election Muddle

 So, there's a lot going on this election season, and only some of it is happening on the ballot itself. 

Washington State has exclusive mail-in ballots, and I've noted elsewhere that this has been a very good system in that it makes it pretty easy to vote, and the state gets to oversee the voting rolls. The Federal Government, primarily the current Executive branch, hates that, and wants to control who gets to vote. And yes, there is voter fraud out there, but more often than not its from the people counting the votes as opposed to the voters themselves. In any event, the GOPS in charge want to crash/control mail-in voting so they can decide who gets to vote (spoilers: Not you). 

And in the primary we saw this in a gutting of the Post Office's responsibilities in this, such that they will not guarantee the postmarking your vote in a timely fashion so that it is postmarked before election day. So you can still mail in the ballot, but unless the Post Office gets around to it, it won't count.

To no one's surprise, in the primary, there was an increase statewide in rejected ballots that arrived too late. But to everyone's surprise, this increase was strongest in Republican rural areas, while in King County, where most of the people live and most of the people vote Democrat, there was a DECREASE in rejected ballots. There could be a couple reasons for this - King County and its adjacent counties have more drop-off boxes, and people used them. Or that it takes longer for the Post Office to turn around ballots in rural areas. Or it could be that King County voters are ornery enough and peeved at Federal intrusion that they got off their duffs and made sure that their votes counted.

So, good job to the folk in King County, regardless of who you voted for. And a hat-tip to the Republicans who shot themselves in the foot pushing this, as Republicans are wont to do.

But the Federal Government was not done, though, in that they went to the Supreme Court and demanded that they could crash the entire mail-in-ballot system. At the time of this writing, the court has voted 7-2 that he should go stick his head in a pig and stop this foolishness. This does not mean that the Executive Branch will not continue to try to control your votes, because, you know, they only have to win ONCE.

Oh, and the head of the Executive branch has declared that this election is all about HIM. He's not on the ballot, but this is an endorsement of him personally and the GOP's policies and candidates only secondly. Which since midterm elections usually tend to trend AGAINST the party in power, seems like he's lining up his other foot for a bullet, but whatever.

So where does that leave us? Well, first off, I'm going to recommend you vote early. We're on a short timeline here (3 November is Election day)  I'm going to recommend you find a drop-off box nearby to turn your ballot in, because the Post Office may be too busy sending out those fliers from Safeway to get around to postmarking your stuff. And I am also going to indulge in spoilers this particular go around. Yep, I'm going to tell you want I'm recommending, and THEN drag you through the thought process (such as it is). OK? OK.

And of course I'll be pointing out others - the Seattle Times has been moving through the ballot over the past month, but you can find their summary here. The Stranger is being kind of touchy right now because they got some pushback about not recommending the most progressive candidates in the primary. That's OK by me, but as a result, they've gone into detail about how they don't like most of the candidates they did recommend here. A comparison of the Times and the Stranger's endorsements can be found here. Plus, there is a "Lefty" aggregation of endorsements and support can be found here, the Urbanist is doing a deep dive here, and the Progressive Voters Guide here (and you can tune it to your particular county). 

So here we go. Some of this is going to be very familiar to those few who paid attention to the Summer Primary, but there are some new things. As usual, I'm not going to call out races where there is a single candidate, which includes a lot of the lower-level judgeships. Here's what I'm voting for, and I'll catch up with the details later.

The Heywood Initiatives (IP26-645, IP26-001, and IP 26-638): I wish there was an "oh, hell, no" option here, but I will settle for a simple NO.

US Representative District 9: Adam Smith 

State Representative, District 11: Ashley Fedan

King County Assessor: Robert Foxcurran

Washington State Supreme Court:

Position 1: Colleen Melody 

Position 3: Jaime Hawk

Position 4: Ian Birk

Position 5: Theo Angelis

Position 7: Debra Stephens

Southeast Electoral District Position No.5: Heather M. Barker

Kent School District No. 415 Proposition No. 1 Replacement of Expiring Educational Programs and Operations Levy: Yes

OK? So let's turn over the test papers and begin. More later, 

Theatre: Cringe

 Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, Directed by Matthew Leavitt, Seattle Rep, through November 15

I'll admit, I'm not a fan of cringe humor. That's embarrassment humor, where the characters are humiliated for our personal amusement. Its the opposite of Schadenfreude, in which you get a uncomfortably positive feeling about the characters getting their comeuppance. In cringe, the characters don't really feel like they should have things explode on them, and you end up feeling more empathy than vengeance, and share their embarrassment by the very act of watching them suffer.

That said, Eureka Day is cringe, and is pretty good at it.

Eureka Day is a private school in Berkley. We get a seat at the executive board for the school as they continually seek consensus (is not adding a particular racial category on a drop-down menu othering or excluding?). People are heard and valued. Rights are recognized. Decisions must be unanimous. Well-intended liberal values rule the day. Community must be inclusive. Everyone is over-articulate. Buzzwords fly. The granola is crunchy.

Don (Jonathan Slavin) is the feckless principal, who in the words of one of the other members "Is a great captain, until you meet an iceberg." Suzanne (Sara Hennessy) is the queen bee, has been part of the board forever, and is filled to the brim with tragic anecdotes and opinions for the others to recognize. Meiko (Ashley Song) is the quiet knitter who rarely gets to finish a sentence. Eli (Quinn Mattfeld) is an enthusiastic former techbro-turned-stay-at-home father, quick to interrupt, if only pointing out the validity of another's point (Oh, and he's sleeping with Meiko). And Carina (Nemuna Ceesay) is the new girl, trying to fit in and not making too many waves. The dynamics are continual litany of explanations of the validity of each other's opinions that often the result being immobility in decision-making. More self-congratulatory sound than fury.

And then the iceberg hits. Some of the kids come down with mumps, and they have to make the decision about closing the school, for how long, and how to reopen it. They try to handle it by by including everyone in the decision-making process about vaccine requirements, but quickly discover that some are pro-vaccine and some are anti-vaccine. And the peaceable kingdom falls apart. 

This most hilarious bit is when the five try to bring all the parents online with a zoom call to discuss the vaccine requirement to reopen the school. It descends into the upper levels of hell quickly and comically in a way that anyone who has been in one of those online group chats can imagine. We can't hear the actors' lines from the laughter as the online discussion is portrayed a screen behind the struggling executive board. But that's OK, because their contribution just makes matters worse.  Because this is one of the those problems where consensus and compromise cannot work things out and find middle ground. And it threatens to destroy the school in the process. There is no good solution to make everyone happy.

And there are, in the words of the board itself, "no villains". The characters are broad but broad-based, and have good foundations for their beliefs and good arguments as the larger issues become deeply personal. And while the action builds, they do not get to the point of throwing hands at each other, which happens way too much in this type of comedy (I'm looking at you, God of Carnage after all these years). You like these characters, and you feel for them as they wrestle (and fail) at the challenge. Cringe.

The actors are really good, challenged by the fact that they spend most of their time seated in multi-colored chairs. You're watching them react to each other with facial expressions more than actions. The set design is good, and yeah, I thought the chat log on a big screen behind them actually made sense and worked (a lot of plays incorporating modern tech have a definite problem with that, but the writing here carries it through). And the characters they portray are not horrible people, even we see the moral and ethical ground beneath them leached away by the flood. 

As I said at the top, I'm not a fan of cringe. But the team here did a really good job of it, and the writer knew where to stop and provide a ending, if not a happy one. So I'm going to chalk this one up as a win.

More later,

Theatre: Stranger in a Strange Land

 The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh Directed by Zenaida Rose Smith and Christie Zhao,  Arts West in co-production with Yun Theatre, through 11 October, 2026

Arts West kicks off its season with a powerful entry in The Chinese Lady. We caught it the opening Friday to an admittedly light house, such which the theater's Artistic Director jokingly blamed on the fact that the rest of the Alaska Junction businesses were engaged with a Wine Walk that night. Regardless, it was an amazing piece, well-acted, spurring a lot of deeper thoughts and conversations. This one has layers.

So, the Chinese Lady is Atong Moy (Zoe Ding) who was the first female immigrant to the US, arriving in 1835. This made be blink at first, but the Wikipedia backs that fact up. so OK. She was purchased by traders and put on display in New York within an exhibition of Chinese goods (at the start of the play, the items on the stage are described, along with their prices). She would speak about China and talk about foot-binding (she would walk to demonstrate), chopsticks, and tea. In the histories, she does not speak English, but through her interpreter, Atong (Sebastian Wang). Atong is lower caste, and informs us of the fact that he is of no relevance at the outset, but acts not only as translator, but as servant, minder, and protector. Here she gets to speak in her own voice.

Atong's performance at the outset is creepy and uncomfortable, and it is supposed to be - a performance that that overweening and saccharine for the rubes paying their coin to witness a human being from the other side of the world in their native habitat. But Moy engages with it with the optimism and positivity of youth - she intends to bridge the gap between East and West by telling her stories (the tales lose something in their translation).  Then we reset the act and run through it again two years later. And then again. And as we move through Moy's life as a captive in her role, a fly trapped in the cultural amber of her past, the world changes around her - Opium War and Gold Rush and the Indian Removals and Railroads. In history she vanished from the story in the 1850s - on stage she becomes immortal.

Zoe Ding is amazing in the role, starting at a coquettish 14 years old and moving through the years, growing more frustrated with the world and he place in it. Her dialect rounds and becomes Americanized, as does he manners, and the fact she is trapped in the same routine for decades. Sebastian Wang is excellent as Atung, the supposedly impassionate sounding board and servant lets the mask slip to show his true (and to him, impossible) devotion to her. Together they are an amazing team on the stage. 

The pacing of the play is fantastic as well. We run through Atong Moy's performance a number of times over the years, and watch the slow erosion and frustration of the character. And there are so many quiet moments within the play that carry a lot of meaning behind them. I don't talk about the pacing, but it works so well here.

The play covers a lot of ground within its small exhibition room, a curtained stage bedecked with Chinese crafts and curios. We get not only the history of the Chinese immigrants in America and the relationship between Atong Moy and Atung, but also the nature of theater and exhibition and how we tell our stories. We, the audience, are watching actors who are not Atong Moy and Atung, but are presented as them, who then present a China that altered in their lifetimes. Both Atong Moy and Zoe Ding gets her moment to address the audience and individuals, not just consumers of culture, and force us to confront the nature of what we were watching.

And its uncomfortable. And worth it. Forget the Wine Walk. Go see this instead.

More later,