This week: Karen Kieser announces she's running for office again.

Karen Keiser

Omaha dragged the family (just kidding, we all went voluntarily) to a rainy picnic at Angle Lake, where Karen Kieser, Democratic incumbent candidate for the Senate seat from the 33rd district, held her opening announcement that she was running for another term. It was the usual rah-rah kind of stuff, and we were accompanied by the usual local political types from other politicians and local leaders.

This being the Democratic forum, we had more veterans than usually show up at the Republican equivalents. There was the usual smattering of union types. We had a few business leaders, too, which surprises me more than it should, I guess. A local charity gave Karen its endorsement, as did the current King County executive, Dow Constantine.

Dow's been assailed from all sides ever since getting elected. I guess that's one of those career decisions all politicians have to make, to either go for the next rung of the ladder or decide your time is past. (Psst, Dino, your time is long past.) But Dow's path required him to make a bid for the county executive at a time when that job was going to be utterly thankless, and even I have strong disagreements that Rossi didn't negotiate hard enough for salary and vendor concessions before giving in and trying to raise taxes.

Dow Constantine

There were others there, including our legislators from our district, Tina Orwall and Dave Upthegrove. All in all, it was a pretty ordinary kickeff event for a state-level politician. It's surprising how small these are compared to, say, county executive level positions. You wouldn't think those mattered as much, but apparently executive battles are positively ferocious compared to legislator positions.

The food was adequate, but given these were Democrats there were a lot of veggie-burgers.

Tina Orwall and Dave Upthegrove

Photoblogging - Pano, Rainclouds over Lake Washington

Rainclouds over Lake Washington

I'm not terribly happy with this one. It doesn't have the texture I saw when I was looking at the actual event.

Paranoia Strikes Deep in Seattle

Van with Infowars sticker

If you have a taste for the paranoid style in American politics, you couldn't get much better than Alex Jones's Infowars (and sister site Prison Planet). Both of these sites are high on the "secret cabal that rules the world" storyline, and both develop a certain amount of frission (it's like a fnord, only orgasmic) from spotting the invisible hand of T.H.E.M. (They Have Everybody Mindfucked) at work.

I'm surprised at just how many Infowars fans there appear to be in Seattle. The stickers are everywhere, and it's not just one guy going around slapping them up: I see the Infowars and "9/11 Was An Inside Job" stickers on cars, bicycles, even messenger bags. There's a subculture in Seattle that loves Alex Jones and David Icke, and sometimes takes it far too seriously.

Photoblogging: The Cat's Hiding Place

Sweetpea hiding

Looks like LisaKit's cat has found a hiding place. I should probably stand a small child next to that fort for reference.

Folklife: The Performers

Christopher of the Wolves

Christopher of the Wolves had an ideal spot for his own busking, right in dead center of the main drag, across from the CD store and between the food tents and the Fischer Green stage. He was good enough that I almost broke my embargo on New Age music, or on impulse buying at Folklife. He performed on five instruments at once: two foot gongs, two hand-pounded steel drums, and a didgeridoo. And the music was quite impressive. Kouryou-chan put a dollar into his open hat.

Folk singers

This was a small circle of folk singers set aside in a room. They sang songs about how war is bad and peace is good. It was just like filk music, except without the irony, so painfully earnest, and so painfully amateurish, that I could only take a little bit before I had to retreat.

Tap dancers

Despite the almost constant drizzle all day long, these guys were enthusiastic and happy, and did a fine job of continually entertaining the crowd. They earned a busking dollar from me.

Conjugal Visitors

The Conjugal Visitors. The music was pretty good, but the name was fabulous.

Alex F on brass

I don't know who these guys were, but they were playing Axel F pretty well.

Fighter X Chiptek

Fallen Pegasus and I went over to hear the chiptek. We were there only long enough to hear Fighter X, which Fallen Pegasus assured me wasn't chiptek but burner, complete with the "saw your head in half when you're high" distortion in the bass.

Recess Monkey

Recess Monkey is a band for children. Their songs were things like "Build a Fort" and "Moonboots" and other stuff that kids would enjoy. Most of the kids were a lot younger than Kouryou-chan, but she still enjoyed it and still got the point of it all.

Folklife: The Cuteness!

There are few better reasons to attend Folklife than to people-watch. Where else does the widest array possible of cute, possibly stoned, barely legalness array itself in Seattle, if not Folklife? Okay, Hempfest is probably better-- although given that I could turn around and smell pot being smoked everywhere, and I saw a dude walk right past two cops with a joint in his mouth, and a cute couple of 20-somethings strolled down the main street with garlands of marijuna plants entwined into leis around their necks, Folklife is like a mini Hempfest with better music.

But there is a lot of cuteness. Enjoy!

Purple-haired cuteness.

Short, butch cuteness

Cuteness 3

Cuteness, now with boys.

Folklife: Kouryou-chan vs the Fountain

Kouryou-chan vs the Fountain

Just to give you a feel for the scale of the fountain at the center of Seattle Center, here's a pretty good pano of the Fountain and Kouryou-chan, weilding an umbrella against the constantly shifting patterns of water and mist that erupt out of the steel Mario-brothers mushroom.