freelansing in Seattle

political praxis & catalytic communications

  • Eat the State! ends an era, begins another

    (Self-referential alert!: I mostly avoid talking about myself in this blog, which is about larger societal issues, but the passing of the print version of Eat the State!, the feisty independent paper I’ve worked on for almost 14 yrs, seemed worthy of note. Here is my personal reflection on ETS! history and my own history Read more

  • The Rules Are No Game: Time to End Corporate Rule

    Anthony Wilden, with whom I studied communication theory and systems theory in college, wrote a book called The Rules Are No Game. The phrase has long stuck with me as a terse encapsulation of the idea that all systems—from computer operating systems to sporting events to political systems—operate according to certain underlying rules. Those rules Read more

  • Looking back at 2009

    Some things just got weirder in 2009. Tom Tomorrow looks back at the year in crazy. Although the wingnuts are easy to laugh at, they should not be taken lightly. They are poisoning public discourse and encouraging misinformed and unstable people to greater misplaced anger and extremism. Many of those people, let’s remember, are armed Read more

  • Something Rotten in Denmark? Looking Back at Copenhagen & Looking Forward to the Future

    How you assess the outcome of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference (UNCCC), held in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18, depends on whether you see the glass 95 percent empty or 5 percent full. And how you feel about that extremely modest progress in relation to the planet-wide urgency of the climate crisis. And what you believed Read more

  • This Week’s Climate Report…

    COP15: Of course, the biggest climate news is currently coming from Copenhagen, & some of the best reporting from Copenhagen is coming from Democracy Now!, the only independent news show reporting daily from Copenhagen. As might be expected, some of the biggest rifts so far in Copenhagen have been around issues of climate justice. Developing Read more

  • 10 years after the Battle in Seattle

    10 years after the Battle in Seattle

    Seattle’s getting ready to celebrate the 10-yr. anniversary of WTO protests. One of the main events is the People’s Summit this weekend. Listings of other events can be found, as well as stories about the event’s meaning & legacy today, in the paper I help publish, Eat the State! Battle of Seattle, or Battle in Read more