The New Seattle Manifesto

In earlier posts I've talked about the infamous "Seattle freeze" that every transplant to the area seems to experience and then starts bitching about to anyone who'll listen. You've heard the mantra before: Seattleites are tirelessly "polite" and "nice" to new people on the surface level, but instantly shut down and reject social advances the second you try to actually "befriend" one of us. We're a collection of people who move here to escape wherever it is that we're from, so we isolate ourselves from genuine social interaction as much as possible. Seattle is a place full of awkward only-children, who don't quite get how to branch out and meet new people in non-ironic ways. We're a city of the mind, a city of nerdy blogger-types who sit in Starbucks silently plugging away because we're just...that....edgy, man :) 


Well, in celebration of our city's reputation for bitchy cold-shoulderness, I dedicate this post to a very funny, very spot-on op-ed from Crosscut. I think this manifesto just about covers it!

Since I believe one good manifesto deserves another, I hereby offer my own:
David Guterson and other figures on Bainbridge Island like to talk about the countryside as being the only real place to live. We know better. These are our values:

• We value diverse workplaces and gatherings. Upscale white men alongside upscale white women — and even upscale white gays.

• Yet we also admire African-Americans, preferably if they are both musical and dead.

• We champion the institution of public education, as long as our own kids can get into a private school.

• We celebrate people's expressions of sexuality, provided they're not too, you know, sexual.

• We strive toward progressive, inclusive laws and policies except when they would inconvenience business.

• We take pride in our urban identity, as we build more huge edifices and monuments to desperately prove how world class we are.

• We support the arts, particularly when that support doesn't stick us in the same room with unkempt artists.

• We value regional planning and cooperation, even with those mouth-breathing hicks out there.

• We protect and enhance the environment, particularly those environments we drive 40 miles or more to hike in.

• We love a strong, vital music scene that's in someone else's neighborhood.

• We appreciate our heritage. We moan about how everything in this town sucks; then, years later, we claim it was great back then but all sucks now.

• We value a strong, independent news media, regularly alerting us to the city's 103 Best Podiatrists.

• We admire innovation and original ideas, especially if they're just like something from New York or San Francisco.

• We support locally based businesses, until they get too big.

President Barack Obama has advocated "the fierce urgency of now." Mr. President, the people of Seattle will get around to it once they've finished playing "Halo: Reach."

Via: Crosscut

Feds Give $184 Million to Green Vehicle Development

Another reason to thank the Obama Administration: there is more money available for green vehicle research than there has been in recent memory.

The Department of Energy is slated to dole out $184 million for green vehicle research, with specific focus in the areas of advanced materials, combustion research, hybrid electric systems, fleet efficiency, and fuels technology.

This announcement comes on the heels of the US release of the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf, two models that mark the first mass wave of commercially viable electric cars in the American market.

The deadline for proposals is Februrary 28, 2011, so there's still time to get your ideas into the running for federal cash!

For more info, check out the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program, which is administering the grants.

New USDA Map Allows You to Find a Farmer's Market Anywhere

The USDA revamped its National Farmers Market Directory with a mappable, searchable database. It's hardly going to be a signature of the Obama Administration, but it's still useful to know where the closest farmer's market is no matter where you are.

Interesting how this was rolled out just in time for...winter?

Via: Obama Foodorama

The "It Gets Better Project"

In light of all the recent suicides of gay teenagers that have been in the news, it would be a crime to not turn our focus to the "It Gets Better Project" that has taken Youtube by storm.

Started with a single posting by Dan Savage (probably the coolest and most prominent gay celebrity in Seattle and arguably the US), the project has mushroomed into an international phenomenon. Even President Obama, Google and Vinny from Jersey Shore have jumped onto the bandwagon. If you can capture the political establishment, top corporations, and popular culture, I think you just might have a movement on your hands!

What's interesting to me is that suicide among gay teenagers, and LGBT people in general is hardly news. Stats from the Human Rights Campaign have shown that suicide is as much as four times more common among gay-identified teenagers as other groups. It's not hard to imagine that kids who grow up gay in rural areas, especially where religious prejudices remain strong, may not have an ally in their struggle for their identities. Outside of parents, schools, sports teams, churches, and friend groups, the only outlet for them may very well be the media.

The It Gets Better Project is truly remarkable in that instead of merely suggesting gay-friendly themes or situations as a television show or music artist would, it projects its message of tolerance directly to your Facebook page and from a diverse host of characters as we have seen in any political cause since perhaps the civil rights movement.



Has our culture finally taken a turn for the better in terms of gay rights that we are no longer willing to accept such realities as gay suicide and bullying in the schools? Could this explain the sudden overwhelming attention the media and institutions are now paying to these issues?

Some activists will take umbrage at Obama's involvement with the It Gets Better Project, with his lakcluster commitment to gay rights over the course of his term. But in truth, I think that there is great reason for optimism. We may not have full equality yet in the United States, but with the recent federal ruling against Don't Ask Don't Tell and the sudden popular groundswell of activism against such a recently untouchable issue as gay suicide, we clearly have a lot to look forward to.

Obama Administration Announces Improved Federal CAFE Standards

Although Evergreen Fleets may be the nation's first Green Fleets certification program, it soon may have a large number of competitors, thanks to a groundbreaking new policy of the Obama Administration. 


The CAFE - Corporate Average Fuel Economy - standards that govern the fuel economy of the American auto industry have been significantly strengthened in a new federal policy. In a surprisingly progressive move given America's history of resistance to environmental regulation, the new CAFE standards explicitly link a reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions to improved fuel efficiency in our national fleet, the first time the CAFE standards have made such a connection in their history.


According to WorldChanging, a Seattle media non-profit, "covering vehicle model years 2012 to 2016, the legislation will require car makers to achieve an average fuel economy for their fleets of 35.5mpg in 2016 (with 39mpg specified for cars and 30mpg for light trucks). It will replace the current CAFE standard of 27.5mpg for cars and 24mpg for light trucks." 

The standards are very similar to a California proposal that, until a May 19, 2009 EPA waiver granted by Obama, had been declared unconstitutional by the Bush Administration. Before Obama's decision, seventeen other states had agreed to follow California's CAFE standards as soon as the EPA waiver was granted. Mr. Obama's new CAFE standards now supersede any state's CAFE standards and aim to bring the nation's cars and trucks to a fuel efficiency more on par with European standards.


Naturally, both California's efforts to unilaterally set its own CAFE standards and the new standards recently set by Obama generated enormous resistance from the auto industry. However, the new CAFE standards, assuming they are followed, are estimated to have the equivalent impact of saving 900 million tons of carbon or removing 3.7 million cars from the roads.