Thanksgiving is coming next week. I'll be compiling what I suspect will be a short a list of Eastlake businesses that will be open on the holiday. Is yours one of them? If so, post your hours here in the comments and I'll add you to the list. Or, e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net.

SIFF Cinema is hosting three benefit screenings that just happen to be of films hoping to garner some bigtime buzz this season (and perhaps take home an award or two).  The first up Sunday is A Single Man, the debut feature from Tom Ford, which got high praise at Toronto for Colin Firth's touching portrayal of a gay man dealing with his partner's death, along with luminous fag hag Julianne Moore.  Not bad for a director previously best known for ads featuring him naked.

Coming up Wednesday,

The LaserMotive team

I often think of Seattle as a small town, but maybe it's only in a city that I would not have known one of my neighbors on the next block was "freelance rocket scientist" Jordin Kare. He's been living on Capitol Hill since March 2003, though his first visit to Seattle was back in 1979. Previously at Lawrence Livermore, he moved up from the Bay to consult on a commercial satellite project at Boeing. Now he's associated with Bellevue's Intellectual Ventures, though it's his side

Wind storms mostly missed Seattle, but were still felt.

It's almost Thanksgiving, and there's a heartening amount of goodwill out there. After thieves stole about $2,000 worth of food from the Rainier Valley food bank, the food bank has almost disappeared under a flood of food and cash donations. The Seattle Times reports about $100,000 in donations have arrived so far.

If you're planning on traveling for the holidays, you'd better have booked your seats already. Seattle Transit Blog has the Amtrak<

chelsey [ r ] scheffe has added a photo to the pool:

Cornish College of the Arts' Fall dance concert at the Broadway Performance Hall

Playwright Paul Mullin's collaborative

sea turtle has added a photo to the pool:

Cal Anderson Park, Capitol Hill, Seattle.

"My belief is that you can only get so far, sitting in a room, thinking about something silently to yourself," Andrew Lazarow said of the Satori Group's intensive development process. "Or only so far sitting in a room, talking about things. You want to be way more up on your feet, playing with your body, with designs, turning on and off lights, and seeing what happens."

A founding member of the group and the director of their current show, Ashlin Halfnight's Artifacts of Consequence, which closes

The 1940s era red brick medical building at Broadway & Columbia suffered a fire this morning just after 1am, triggering a large response from the fire department.

This morning there was no external damage visible on the building, with the exception of broken windows that were used by the fire department to ventilate the building. The fire appears to have been confined to the northern wing along Columbia.

The building has been vacant since it was sold for $8.5 million in 2007, and based on scanner traffic has become a problem property with drug activity and break-ins from transients. In fact, just yesterday there was an overdose fatality at that location. According to county records, it is now owned by "BROADWAY-COLUMBIA ACQUISITION I LP" and registered to an address in Dallas, Texas.

No word yet from the fire department as to the cause. We'll update this once we get more information on it.

Seattlepi.com and the Seattle Times both report that King County Superior Court Judge Chris Washington has ruled that the Gas Works Park July 4 fireworks display doesn't need an environmental review:

The P-I says: (more)

An appeal of NOAA's planned move from Lake Union to Newport, Oregon, has been denied by the Government Accountability Office apparently because owners of the land the Seattle base sits on failed to file a legal response in time.

NOAA announced in August that it would be leaving the Lake Union site where it has had a base for several decades and would relocate to Newport's Yaquina Bay starting in 2011. Both the Seattle owners (1801 Fairview Avenue East LLC) and the Port of Bellingham, which had also been bidding for the NOAA base, filed appeals. A decision on the Bellingham appeal is pending, according to the Bellingham Herald. (more)

sea turtle has added a photo to the pool:

Wasn't it just summer?


Capitol Hill, Seattle.

sea turtle has added a photo to the pool:

Capitol Hill, Seattle.

Hankering for some tasty fresh collard greens for your Thanksgiving table? Come out to the Clean Greens Farm Market Saturday, November 21st 10am - 3pm, where you can get a gallon bag of greens washed and chopped, ready for your pot. At just $5 a bag, you can skip the work and enjoy the benefits of local pesticide-free greens. The market is located at 116 21st Ave.

If you'd rather do it yourself, you can get bunches of collards or mustard greens for $1.50 each. We've got some turnips, too.

The market will be closed next Friday and Saturday for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We'll be back the following week, December 4-5 as long as the river keeps cooperating and the greens keep growing.

As the growing season winds down, think about signing up for a CSA for next year's season. The pilot CSA with St.Mark's was a great success, and we're hoping to expand on that next year.

Visit www.cleangreensfarm.com for more information.

Hankering for some tasty fresh collard greens for your Thanksgiving table? Come out to the Clean Greens Farm Market Saturday, November 21st 10am - 3pm, where you can get a gallon bag of greens washed and chopped, ready for your pot. At just $5 a bag, you can skip the work and enjoy the benefits of local pesticide-free greens. The market is located at 116 21st Ave.

A King County Superior Court judge today ruled in favor of the City of Seattle and One Reel in a lawsuit, which claimed a State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) assessment, was required prior to Fourth of July fireworks displays at Gas Works Park. 

“Fourth of July Fireworks at Gas Works Park is a beloved tradition in Seattle, and one that many families look forward to every year,” said Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent Timothy Gallagher. “One Reel has been an excellent partner

With Washington already behind the eight ball in the quest for the federal "race to the top funds," the last thing we need is for the state's executive branch to be sending conflicting signals about our commitment to accountability. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening.

On Thursday, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn announced his plan to delay the state's math and science graduation requirements. According to his press release :

Citing major concerns with the passing rates on the high school math and science exams, State Superintendent Randy Dorn has proposed significant changes to the math and science graduation requirements. Dorn unveiled his proposal today at the annual conference of the Washington State School Directors Association.

Dorn said students and schools will need more time with new math and science learning standards that are now being implemented around the state. The new standards won’t be assessed until 2011 for math and 2012 for science. That doesn’t provide ample...

With only days to go until Thanksgiving, shoppers will crowd grocery store, supermarket aisles and farmers markets this weekend. As health and farm advocates remind us, it's a good time for grabbing some locally grown food items to put on the holiday table.

This year, there's been a lot of interest in the once-ignored topic. A lot of the credit goes to the Cascade Harvest Coalition, which runs the Eat Local for Thanksgiving campaign. The effort, now in its third year, has begun to attract imitators in other parts of the country.

About the copying, coalition Executive Director Mary Embleton said, "The more people do it, the better."

The Cascade Harvest campaign has attracted more than 3,000 pledges from people promising to serve at least one locally grown, harvested or raised food for the holiday. By local, the campaign means anything from Washington state (no, coffee processed here doesn't count, but, yes, bring on the Yakima Valley wines).

The goal is to reach 5,000 pledges, double last year's 2,498. If that sounds...

Maybe this is really dumb question, but... would it be possible to save a piece of the Viaduct as a park/outdoor concert and performance venue? Kind of like the High Line in NYC? It could start at Seneca—walk out of the Seattle Art Museum and take a stroll to Pioneer Square? Or hear a concert at sunset?

I know, I know: earthquake, crumble, mass death. Plus giant vats of political poison from the Viaduct wars.

But Kadeena Lenz of WA DOT just gave me a ray of hope: "I'm not sure anyone's seriously thought

Where does David Beckham, in town to play in Sunday's MLS Cup, ranks on the list of world celebrities? Top 20, at least, right? Maybe top 10? I mean, I'm talking about people who are household names all over the world, not just on one continent. It's not a big list. (Off the top of my head: Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Madonna, Michael Jordan, Bono). But Beckham's definitely on it. And he's here, in our crappy little port! Above, it's Becks at the Metropolitan Grill, where sources tell the Times<

Policies on pedestrian safety in Seattle made substantial gains during Mayor Greg Nickels' time, even if he couldn't be called a crusader. There may be opportunities for bigger gains when Mike McGinn takes office, especially since the City Council has taken a big interest in the subject.

So, this might be a good time for anyone interested in the issue to pay attention to upcoming openings on Seattle's Pedestrian Advisory Board. Three of the spots on the volunteer board will come open because the members have served the maximum of two terms, according to Brian Dougherty of the city Department of Transportation. Each term is for two years.

The board started in 1993 and became permanent with City Council adoption of legislation in 1997. Its duties include advising the mayor and council on pedestrian safety policies and promoting pedestrian safety as part of city design guidelines. Pedestrian-friendly development possibilities have received greater attention locally in recent years as Seattle, King County and suburban...

It used to be throwing devil horns was enough to show your appreciation for a good metal band. Now, forming the classic "rock on" sign is simply not enough. Bands these days have gotten so technical and interesting that it takes a little more effort to show how much you care.

The new sign of approval is the "rock claw." To perform this move, imagine you're lifting a golden goblet of fine wine to the sky. Hold it there a moment. Then, slowly crush it and bring your elbow back down to your waist. You'

There is a good summary article in the Real Change News this week about the Seattle Housing Authority Yesler Terrace redevelopment project. This is a project that is not in the 12th Avenue Urban Village, but is directly adjacent and will most certainly impact the community. As the article discusses, at its full build-out the project could add up to 5,000 units of housing and millions of square feet of office and retail. The picture of the redevelopment model above is from a community meeting, care of The Stranger newspaper.

As the AP reported yesterday, the state is predicting "weak revenue" for the next year and a half (weak to the tune of $760 million), and so the deficit for that time period has grown to $2.6 billion. That said, Publicola is using $11.6 billion--the cumulative deficit amount for the state's budget from 2009 through 2011 so far--as a way of reminding everyone of how far we are from where budget forecasts started. (It's the same story as at the county and city budget level, writ large.)

With the series

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire is a breast cancer survivor.  And she’s extremely frustrated with the new advice coming out of the federal government advising women to postpone mammograms until 50 years of age and not bother to learn breast self-exam.

Read more: Here.

Storm mascot Doppler hands Simmons swag

ESPN.com's Bill Simmons, a.k.a. "The Sports Guy," was in Seattle on Tuesday to sign copes of his new bestseller, The Book of Basketball.

Kevin Pelton, who writes for the Seattle Storm (where he explained Doppler's appearance at the signing) and Basketball Prospectus (where he reviewed TBOB last week) was in attendance and shares this report.

Sport Restaurant was a great venue for Bill Simmons' book signing in all respects but one: It turned out to be far too

Finally, the finale.  With two days to go before the runway show at Bryant Park, Carol Hannah is still sick as a dog and crying in the workroom.  Girlfriend needs to take a shit ton of DayQuil and nut up.  It's Fashion Week, bitches.  The boy assistants (Logan and Christopher) are sympathetic, but of course Bitch Queen Irina is not. 

The designers go to their hair and makeup consultations.  Lots of smoky eyes and ponytails.  Yay?  Now it's model-fitting time,

From the last Friday before Thanksgiving in Seattle's East Precinct:

Video still of Keely Isaak Meehan from one of the works to be presented at Manifold Motion's "Miscellanea II" at the Canoe Club.

I have two new rules in the wake of Seattle U's high-five-inducing upset win over Fresno State at KeyArena last night.

1) Never Doubt Elgin Baylor
Before the game, NBA Hall-of-Famer and Seattle Uer Baylor, standing next to his stunning wife on the court now named for him, addressed the crowd. He urged the fans to cheer boisterously for the Redhawks. Baylor said that players perform better when they hear the fans' support.

Baylor was right, because I'm at a loss to explain how a short SU backcourt