And the walls came tumbling down: videos and photos of the Seattle Alaska Way Viaduct teardown

By Mona Goldwater, Seattle Metro Editor
Photos and  video by Jack Brummet

The Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was finished in 1953, is a double-decker elevated chunk of Highway 99 that runs along the Seattle waterfront.  It runs above  Alaskan Way, from S. Nevada Street in the south to the Battery Street Tunnel, north of the market in the north.  The viaduct was seriously damaged in our most recent major 'quake--the 2001 Nisqually earthquake--and is now being replaced by an  underground tunnel.  Demolition began just a few days ago.  Jack stopped by and shot this video and these photos.

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Poem: The Thing Itself

The Thing Itself
by Jack Brummet

I don't know which is better,
to dream it or see it,

to see it right now,
or to have seen it.

I don't know which is better,
the memory or the thing itself.

The memory can be repeated forever
but loses fidelity like an old record

and the fictions your mind confects
start filling in the gaps

until the memory becomes the framework
for what we wanted to be, or what should have been.
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No, not Mumbai...Ballard

At the old Ballard Library, asleep on the sidwalk.  This is one of the many reasons people have begun to #OccupyWallStreet.

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a capella November at The Balefire with The Uptown 4 and 5bit

By Jack Brummet, NW Music Editor

If you're over Rocktober, it's time to plan ahead for November. 

A couple of friends of mine--Trevor and Cam Handyside recently bought the bar Balefire in Everett.  They will be hosting two local vocal groups on November 18th, from 9-11pm (no cover, 21+).   Good music, good bar.  What more do you really need, or want? 

Check out Balefire here.    The Uptown 4 here.  And, 5bit here.  I work with 4/5 of 5bit.  They are all great guys, and while I've never seen them live, I've seen YouTubes and listened to their music, both of which compel me to make this trip up I-5 to Everett.  Come out, come out, wherever you are!

 

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Occupy No. 9: Occupy our hearts & minds #OccupyWallStreet

By Jack Brummet

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Occupy No. 7: Occupy Ballard!

by Jack Brummet

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44 years ago today, a Yakima man took the best known picture of a Sasquatch a/k/a Bigfoot a/k/a Yeti a/k/a Abominable Snowman

By Jack Brummet, Unexplained Phenomena Editor


44 years ago today, a Yakima, Wash. resident, Roger Patterson, shot a 16 mm film near Bluff Creek in California from which came the most famous image of a Bigfoot ever taken.  You see it everywhere (I remember in The Dark Knight, the photo was pinned to the wall as one of The Batman suspects).  You can find information on this famous sighting and film on Wikipedia. . .

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Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's Amazonian Guards : a look back at the women who could not stop NATO

By Jack Brummet, Social Mores Editor

I have always thought that Muammar Qaddafi is one of the most interesting world leaders.  Not the sanest, friendliest, or most stable, but most interesting.  His choice of bodyguards is just another fascinating aspect of his strange and kaleidoscopic personality.  This is not news--it's been written about before, but with Libya in the front of the news these days (and now, in the grave), why not take another look and dig up some photos?

In some ways, this cadre of female bodyguards reminds me a little of Kill Bill. 

Gaddafi/Khaddafi/Qaddafi's "Amazonian Guard" is a 40-300 member bodyguard (depending on your sources) charged with keeping the strange dictator in one piece.  The Guard, is composed entirely of women. Most reports say that to qualify as a member of the guard, the women must be virgins.  They are each hand picked by Qaddafi.  They've done their job, including laying down their lives when he was attacked in the late 1990's. 

The guards are trained in martial arts, trained to kill, and to die for Qaddafi if it comes to that.  As I mentioned, it has come to that.  And it could come to that very soon again if things disintegrate at the pace they've been in Libya.  Some reports say that many of these women are of Cuban decent (due to Castro's friendship with Qaddafi) as well as Libyans.

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Muammar Qaddafi's greatest hits: recent quotes from the defunct Colonel

By Pablo Fanque
Middle-East/Arab Spring Correspondent

It is over for Muammar Qaddafi.  The Guardian reports: "pictures of rebel fighters running through the grounds of Gaddafi's inner sanctum, hoisting rebel flags, ripping up posters of the "brother leader" and attacking an iconic statue have echoes of other historic moments and the fall of different dictators."  And then, there's the fact that he turned up dead today.

"No one knew where Gaddafi was, but everyone was certain that he wasn't coming back."

Gaddafi's current location is unknown. We do know, however, that he is facing prosecution by the International Criminal Court (you know...The Hague).  The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Qaddafi for crimes against humanity.   They have also frozen billions of dollars of his assets around the world.

A short collection of recent quotations from The Colonel:

On Italy: 
“Libyans do not know Denmark, they do not hate Denmark. They know Italy and they hate Italy.”

On Barack Obama, 1:
"We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America."

On the Palestinian/Israeli conflict(s): 
"I cannot recognise either the Palestinian state or the Israeli state. The Palestinians are idiots and the Israelis are idiots."

On the Libyan protesters:
“Those inciting are very few in numbers and we have to capture them. Others have to stay at home. They have guns, they feel trigger-happy and they shoot especially when they are stoned on drugs.”

On emulating Tiananmen Square:
"People in front of tanks were crushed. The unity of China was more important than those people on Tiananmen Square. When Tiananmen Square happened, tanks were sent in to deal with them. It's not a joke. I will do whatever it takes to make sure part of the country isn't taken away."

On the one true democracy:
“There is no state with a democracy except Libya on the whole planet.”

On moving the U.N.:Everyone here today came across the Atlantic or the Pacific, and I ask you, why? Is this Jerusalem, or Mecca? All of you have jetlag and are physically tired. Many of you are very tired because your biological mind should be asleep right now. Think about it, why should we continue to meet here in America?"

On Barack Obama, 2:"I have said to you before that even if Libya and the United States enter into war, God forbid, you will always remain my son, and I have all the love for you as a son, and I do not want your image to change with me." (In a letter addressed to BHO and given to the press, March 20, 2011 -- just when American and European forces began strikes against his government.)

On Pirates in Somalia:
"These men are not pirates. We are the pirates. We are all pirates. We went there to their territorial waters, and they are just protecting the food of their children. The solution does not lie in sending military ships to Somalia."

More on the U.N.:
"The Security Council since its establishment did not provide us with security but on the contrary provides us with terror and sanctions. It was used against us. It should not be called a security council, it should be called a terror council.”
 On the February 2011 Protest leaders:
"Youths. . .were killed, but not those who provoked them. The ringleaders are in their homes or they are abroad, comfortable, and having fun."
On Protestors in Tripoli: 
"Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe." (Claiming that February 2011 protesters are acting on drugs given to them by al-Qaeda operatives.) 

Who killed Jack Kennedy?:
"We know that the Israeli Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who had killed the president. And then this Israeli died. We have to know how and why this happened, so such things will not be repeated."

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Occupy Poster No. 6: Occupy Disneyland

By Jack Brummet

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Poem: The Night She Was Born

The Night She Was Born
by Jack Brummet

It was as quiet as a painting in Berkeley,
driving at three a.m. on Telegraph Avenue
toward Oakland, and the delivery room.
I saw a new moon hung on our old sky.
We watched the monitor and waited.
When her robber-stockinged face came down,
one bleat to the rafters started us all breathing again.
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Change

By Jack Brummet

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