Washington’s Electric Car Drivers to Get Hit With No-Gas Tax

December 26, 2012 Michael van Baker 5 Comments

These days Washington’s Department of Transportation is looking for every dollar that isn’t nailed down, and was aided slightly by a law (SB 5251), passed by the Legislature in spring of 2012, that asks electric-car owners to kick in. As of 2013, there will be an extra $100 annual fee due for road and highway improvements when they go to register their vehicle.

As there are about 1,600 electric vehicles (EVs) registered in Washington, this should net the state $160,000, or about the cost of deep grinding one lane-mile of concrete roadway ($175,000). The law targets fully electric vehicles only, since hybrids still use gas and owners pay the fuel tax.

As the Seattle Times reports, this EV fee is in addition to the usual vehicle registration fee. A $100 annual fee was proposed earlier, in 2010, but failed, and WSDOT had been investigating a vehicle-miles-traveled pilot project for electric vehicles, that would base payment on how much the car was actually driven.

What’s most interesting about this for the bystander — not to speak for the 1,600 people reaching for their wallets — is that it highlights the difficulty the state is having raising revenue for transportation costs in ways that strike all concerned as fair.

The fuel tax has long functioned as an ad hoc vehicle-miles-traveled tax, in a pay-as-you-go format. But it has weaknesses — it’s not pegged to inflation, for one thing. And for another, as the price of oil has risen, so has the price of asphalt. The two are tightly correlated, since asphalt is created during the distilling process of crude oil. To account for the increase in cost, DOTs are in the unfortunate position of asking for more gas-tax revenue precisely when people are complaining most about the cost of gas.

Legislatures increase gas taxes in increments they deem feasible, which aren’t tightly correlated with actual need for transportation dollars. (In 2011, SDOT reported that its costs for asphalt paving materials were up 80 percent since 2003. Revenues were not.)

At the same time, people are driving less. Sightline has an exhaustive “Dude, Where Are My Cars?” blog series that notes things like per capita gas consumption being at its lowest level in nearly 50 years, and that “per capita vehicle travel on state roads has actually fallen by about 13 percent over the last decade.” They also point out that because car sales have slumped since the Great Recession, we haven’t seen the full impact of newer cars with great gas mileage.

All this means that, for 2011-13, gas tax revenue is projected to be less than half (46 percent) of WSDOT’s revenue. Most of that is eaten up by payments due on past projects. The result has been triage. To give you an idea of shifting benchmarks, WSDOT now claims that “only” some ten percent of state roads are in poor or worse condition. (Raising the question of why any of it should be in poor and failing condition.)

But if you look into the data, you find that some of the worst roads are the most heavily traveled in the state. Often, they are made of concrete — to stand up to use — and what that means is that they are at the end of a 50-year lifespan, and will be extremely costly to replace. Over the next ten years, WSDOT hopes to allocate almost one billion dollars to replace about 240 miles of concrete roads. No $100 fee will pay for that.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

At SIFF Cinema, “Barbara” Looks East and West in Longing

December 21, 2012 Michael van Baker

Christian Petzold, the writer/director of Barbara (screening at SIFF Cinema Uptown through January 3), metes out crucial information slowly over the film’s 105 minutes. This, in conjunction with his disinterest in exposition for foreign audiences, means the U.S. viewer who hasn’t already met, say, the Stasi in The Lives of Others may be getting more gist than nuance.

So without giving too much of the story away — since the pace of its unfolding is part of its spell — let me mention a few things. It’s set in 1980, in the German Democratic Republic.

You had an East Berlin and a West Berlin, in those days. While the GDR was a socialist state, it shared the paranoia of an authoritarian communist country: a secret police (the Stasi) operated a widespread network of informers. When you were hauled in, you were offered the chance to inform. (Well, “inform.” Take notes. Notice things. That’s all.)

Barbara (Nina Hoss), a doctor, finds herself in “the provinces” near the Baltic coast, north of Berlin, though she sees a patient, a young girl from Torgau. Home of a few infamous prisons where Nazis (and then the Soviet secret police) kept dissidents and other undesirables, Torgau was where the GDR ran a juvenile workhouse not very different from a prison. Before, Barbara was at the Charité, the GDR’s leading medical university, one of the best and the brightest.

Petzold knows you expect the GDR to be dour and poor and grimly watchful, but her supervisor at the pediatric hospital, Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld), is an amicable, ursine fellow who seems unlikely to harm a fly. His overriding concern seems to be that Barbara fit in with his staff, get to know people; otherwise they’ll feel snubbed by the big gun from Berlin. Barbara takes to cycling up and down the countryside, and the scenery, as eyed by director of photography Hans Fromm, is lush in a northern way, yellow-brown fields of wind-blown grass, stands of fir trees.

The film poses Barbara with a clear choice, to stay or go, but Petzold ups the stakes sneaking in glimpses of how the socialist ethos was (is) a sort of challenge to be a better person, one who would humbly put service to others first. The people paid for Barbara’s first-class education, Andre reminds her; couldn’t these particular people hope to get something back? And yet there’s Torgau, and surveillance. Does that make it possible to break the agreement? Yes and no.

A large part of the enjoyment of the film comes from seeing Hoss’s face translate Barbara’s conflicting emotions. She’s one of those people whose skin lies thinly on the skull, tightened by tension or tugged down by sullenness, but her smile seems to travel ear to ear and erase a decade. Her deep-set eyes convey emotional distance and fatigue, but they soften as she reads Huckleberry Finn to her charge with meningitis. Zehrfeld’s Andre (who runs out to his herb garden when making her a ratatouille dinner — his pièce de seduction) looks imperturbable, until that shot of him waiting in a hallway for Barbara, who is never early, but never late, either.

Food, Restaurant

In Search of Sweet (and Sustainable) Scallops in Seattle

December 21, 2012 Jay Friedman

Lately I’ve been wondering: What is the best bite from the ocean? What seafood do I find most seductive?

There are plenty of great choices. I love sea urchin and oysters, and when Ethan Stowell puts them together, you get the best combination of seafood I’ve ever eaten. I’m crazy about clams (especially razor clams), and find the texture of these and other bivalves tantalizing. At sushi restaurants, I’ve admittedly enjoyed bluefin tuna, and even eaten at maguro restaurants in Japan, but with awareness of overfishing, I’ve really tried to limit my consumption to near zero. And since visiting the Creative Salmon farm near Tofino, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the debate between farmed and wild salmon, with Creative teaching me that sometimes there are no easy answers to the challenge of sustainable seafood and finding our way with food in the future.

I’ve reached a realization that, for me, the pinnacle of perfection in seafood may be the scallop.

A jewel of the sea, this bivalve mollusk comes in a beautiful shell and is bursting with flavor. The scallop is at once savory and sweet. They’re easy to cook; like steak, you want to sear them on the outside in a very hot pan, but leave them basically rare on the inside to preserve their soft texture and sweetness. You can also eat scallops raw as sashimi, or squirt them with citrus to make ceviche.

In addition to being delicious, scallops are good for you. They’re full of omega-3 fatty acids, B12, magnesium and potassium. All contribute to cardiovascular health, another reason to heart scallops.

As an added bonus, scallops get good marks from Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. The key is to buy “dry” scallops instead of “wet” ones. Dry scallops, like Weathervanes, are caught wild and immediately frozen at sea to keep at a high quality level. They’re said to have an almost vanilla color.

Wet scallops, on the other hand, are treated with preservatives and chemicals, typically phosphates (like sodium tripolyphosphate), which artificially “pump up” the scallops to make them look bigger. More snowy white in color, you pay for the increased water content, only to find them shrink during cooking and become dry and tasteless. (It’s also difficult to caramelize wet scallops.)

Lastly, on the sustainability front, farmed scallops like those from Qualicum Bay in British Columbia look promising. The Qualicums are actually a cross between a Japanese scallop (Patinopecten yessoensis) and the Weathervane (Patinopecten caurinu). Generally available year-round, I’m told that it’s been tough to get these scallops in recent months, but once you find them, they’re about the sweetest you’ll ever have.

If you’re as enamored with scallops as much as I am, here’s what I see some local restaurants doing with these sweet treasures from the sea.

Tanglewood Supreme

Tanglewood Supreme in Magnolia may be the best new hidden gem in our local restaurant scene. Striving for sustainability, this “local seafood bistro” serves ocean treats that are fished with good practices. And while there’s a Northwest focus to the menu, there are plenty of Asian and Mediterranean influences to make the food interesting.

Currently on the dinner menu, you’ll find Alaskan Weathervane scallops with macadamia nuts, Thai and Indian eggplant, green curry, and naan puffs. My scallops were perfectly seared, with the plate drizzled with just enough curry that I could dabble with how much I wanted those scallops sauced. Not timid with the heat (but not overwhelmingly spicy), the curry is a complement to the slightly bitter eggplant, and the puffs add a playful element to the presentation.

Duke’s Chowder House

Duke Moscrip, owner of the local Duke’s Chowder House chain, is an enthusiastic advocate of high quality, sustainable seafood. Earlier this year, I accompanied him on a trip to Westport to see how Pacific Seafood peels, cooks, and packages shrimp at their processing plant. His latest passion appears to be scallops, featuring Weathervane scallops on a special menu. He calls them OMG (Oh My God) scallops, touting their tenderness and sweetness and saying that they scream for simplicity.

The menu includes a surf-and-turf option of ribs with scallops and shrimp (my scallops were way overcooked, though I’m told the issue is being addressed) and bacon scallop tacos (the scallop pieces were not quite as overcooked, but the flavor somewhat lost in the midst of Thai chili sauce, tequila lime aioli, and cucumber pico de gallo—combined with the blueberry tortilla, this smacked more of Momiji sushi roll syndrome than the simplicity I was seeking). Best bet might be the topless scallop slider, served on bite-sized sourdough bread with pesto, avocado, and cucumber pico de gallo.

Coastal Kitchen

Scallops are one of chef Jason Jones’ favorite ingredients at Coastal Kitchen—a restaurant which has been serving sustainable seafood since 1993. Rather than lamenting the difficulty of sustainability, he feels that we should embrace the challenge. Specific to scallops, he says “they’re a delicacy, and while they may seem prohibitively expensive, we should slow consumption and simply appreciate them.”

The day I went it, the special was pan-seared scallops with sunchoke risotto, porcini mushrooms, and watercress. As at Tanglewood Supreme, the scallops were perfect—nicely caramelized on the outside, soft and tender on the inside. The risotto and mushrooms were rich and earthy, while the watercress offered a refreshing counterbalance to the dish.

Fish Hooks Fish Grill

This new, family-friendly restaurant at the top of Queen Anne features enthusiastic staff, perhaps to the point of service being too friendly and not formal enough. Chef-owner Paul Saito says that he strives for sustainability (“I want to avoid things like Chilean sea bass”), but can’t always keep that goal with dishes at the lower price point that Fish Hooks Fish Grill offers.

As an example, he uses Weathervane or “similar” scallops in his premium plates, and dry, large bay scallops for his fried dishes. I tried the Crispy Combo of prawns and scallops, and found the seafood to be overcooked, with the breading completely overwhelming the flavor of both the prawns and scallops. (I preferred the fish and chips, as the large pieces of cod provided a better breading-to-fish ratio, though I’m not a fan of the “rustic” batter—or the fries, for that matter.)

Mashiko

At this sustainable sushi restaurant in West Seattle, chef-owner Hajime Sato serves seafood that is as local, seasonal, and fished with caring environmental practice as possible. He’s a fan of Weathervanes and also supports farmed scallops, as they’re filter feeders and easy to grow. (Wild scallops are often dredged, which can destroy the sea floor.) Like me, he wonders why so many Americans throw away other good parts the scallop, like the abductor muscle and the roe. Texture is apparently not something we have a taste for…yet.

Sit at the counter at Mashiko and order omakase, letting Sato serve you what he wishes, and you’ll get good education (non-preachy) and delicious dishes (you can tell him some of your preferences). During a recent visit, I enjoyed a geoduck, scallop, and Japanese pear ceviche that I thoroughly enjoyed. The contrast in texture between the geoduck and scallop was fun, and the slight sweetness of the pear enhanced the eating experience.

Kisaku

After all the combinations and preparations and “cooking” techniques and sauces and flavorings, my favorite way to eat scallops might be the most simple: as sashimi or sushi. The soft texture is comforting and the natural, oceanic sweetness still thrills me. You can enjoy scallops as part of your sushi meal at Kisaku in Tangletown, but I’d like to let you in on something better.

Upon arrival, ask chef-owner Ryuichi Nakano to prepare hotate konbu jime. (Tell him I sent you, though he may already figure that out!) Nakano wraps the scallop (he uses dry ones from Hokkaido) in kelp and lets it sit for at least 30-45 minutes, amping the scallop up with umami. There’s no need for wasabi or soy sauce in this preparation. It’s absolutely delicious, and at the end of the day, my favorite way to eat scallops.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

A Few of My Favorite Rock Photos from 2012 (Photo Gallery)

December 21, 2012 Tony Kay

Seattle soul songstress Philana burned up the Nectar for her Spring CD release party. (photo by Tony Kay)

Call them The Sonics, with a spike of new wave: Strong Killings at Columbia City Theater August 3. (photo by Tony Kay)

djblesOne and Emecks of Don't Talk to the Cops, not talking to the cops at Bumbershoot. (photo by Tony Kay)

Ian McCutcheon of Kithkin gets rhythmic at Doe Bay Fest, August 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Hounds of the Wild Hunt's Ryan Devlin, getting all Hard-Day's-Night at Columbia City Theater, August 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Portland rock godpapa Fred Cole, pulling out all the stops with his band Pierced Arrows, West Seattle Summerfest July 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Foxy Shazam's Eric Sean Nally, grooving on the colors, Bumbershoot 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Skull-faced drag queen sees the Funhouse out: Glenn or Glennda, Halloween 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Ben Harwood of Hobosexual, Columbia City Theater, August 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Eldridge Gravy getting busy with his Court Supreme, April 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Blitzen Trapper's Eric Menteer, Doe Bay Fest, August 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Mick Collins of The Dirtbombs, being badass at Bumbershoot 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Super Geek League: Shirley Bassey in Hell, on one lulu of an acid trip, Bumbershoot 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Brokaw trash the Funhouse on the venue's second-to-last night on Earth. (photo by Tony Kay)

I never get tired of looking at John Cale's face: Showbox, December 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Photogenic Phantogram, Capitol Hill Block Party 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Johnny of Hounds of the Wild Hunt makes his guitar not-so-gently weep: Sunset Tavern, August 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Matt Gervais of Curtains for You, Neumo's February 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

New York power pop kids Oberhofer are all right: Bumbershoot 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Reignwolf, carefully choreographing his shit-eating grin, Bumbershoot 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

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One of the great things about year-end retrospectives is that they give you a great excuse to bust out all those odds and sods that may not have found a proper home during the preceding 11-plus months.

I’ve only been shooting rock shows for about three years now, but a combination of dynamic subjects, an innate knowledge of my very low-budget camera setup’s strengths and weaknesses, and dumb luck enabled me to snag a few good rock shots in 2012. Some of the photos ended up here at the SunBreak, or elsewhere. But there were plenty of leftovers. And they were pretty good leftovers.

Some of them came from shows I never got a chance to write about. Others sprang from a surplus of shots that I really liked, from shows I’d already covered. But I sorta fell in love with all of the enclosed pics, for all sorts of reasons–whether they captured the subject’s personality, sported colors and composition that grabbed my eye, or just conveyed the energy of the moment despite/because of their imperfections.

Needless to say, this isn’t some grand, overarching year-end summary of live music in Seattle. It’s just a lot of musical lightning captured in a bottle. Happy Holidays, everyone.

Health, News, Politics

President Obama Responds to White House Petition for Reducing Gun Violence

December 21, 2012 Michael van Baker

By Bruce Reed, Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden

In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Americans from all over the country have called for action to deter mass shootings and reduce gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of you have signed petitions on We the People.I’m writing you today to thank you for speaking up, to update you on an important development, and to encourage you to continue engaging with the White House on this critical issue.

First, you should know that President Obama is paying close to attention to the public response to this tragedy. In fact, he sat down to record a message specifically for those of you who have joined the conversation using We the People. Watch it now:

On Wednesday, the President outlined a series of first steps we can take to begin the work of ending this cycle of violence. This is what he said:

We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides. And as I said on Sunday night, there’s no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. We’re going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We’re going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts.

But the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. The fact that we can’t prevent every act of violence doesn’t mean we can’t steadily reduce the violence, and prevent the very worst violence.

Vice President Biden has been asked to work with members of the Administration, Congress, and the general public to come up with a set of concrete policy proposals by next month — proposals the President intends to push swiftly. The President asked the Vice President to lead this effort in part because he wrote and passed the 1994 Crime Bill that helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in America. That bill included the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

As the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, I’m going to do everything I can to ensure we run a process that includes perspectives from all sides of the issue, which is why I wanted to respond to your petition myself. Two decades ago, as domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, I first worked with Joe Biden as he fought to enact the Crime Bill, the assault weapons ban, and the Brady Bill. I will never forget what a key role the voices of concerned citizens like you played in that vital process.

The President called on Congress to pass important legislation “banning the sale of military-style assault weapons,” “banning the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips,” and “requiring background checks before all gun purchases, so that criminals can’t take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won’t take the responsibility of doing a background check at all.”

An issue this serious and complex isn’t going to be resolved with a single legislative proposal or policy prescription. And let’s be clear, any action we take will respect the Second Amendment. As the President said:

Look, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. This country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s been handed down from generation to generation. Obviously across the country there are regional differences. There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas. And the fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible — they buy their guns legally and they use them safely, whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.

But you know what, I am also betting that the majority — the vast majority — of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war. I’m willing to bet that they don’t think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas — that an unbalanced man shouldn’t be able to get his hands on a military-style assault rifle so easily; that in this age of technology, we should be able to check someone’s criminal records before he or she can check out at a gun show; that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one in Newtown — or any of the lesser-known tragedies that visit small towns and big cities all across America every day.

The President said it best: “Ultimately if this effort is to succeed it’s going to require the help of the American people — it’s going to require all of you. If we’re going to change things, it’s going to take a wave of Americans — mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors, law enforcement, mental health professionals — and, yes, gun owners — standing up and saying ‘enough’ on behalf of our kids.”

So let’s continue this conversation and get something meaningful done. If you have additional ideas and are interested in further engagement with the White House on this issue, please let us know and share your thoughts here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/share-your-thoughts-reducing-gun-violence

Thank you for speaking out and staying involved.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Calling in “The Wisemen” on a Wayward Spirit of Christmas

December 20, 2012 Michael van Baker

There’s a lot to laugh about in the comedy-musical The Wisemen (at ACT Theatre through December 22; tickets): the story of the Wisemen Law Firm (Goldberg, Frankenstein, and Murray) is an extended riff on “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” focusing in this instance on what you’ve been told about the Nativity. It’s both gleefully profane and absurd, opening with a song-and-dance commercial for their sponsor, the Puerto Rican restaurant La Isla.

In the course of the evening (overstuffed at an hour and forty-five minutes) a simple paternity suit to determine the parentage of the infant Jesus Christ widens to involve the a gangsta Easter Bunny, the Pope (complete with fabulous hat), and Santa Claus, who, naturally, has ties to Big Oil.

Backed by a three-piece band (Bryant Moore, composer/songwriter and musician; Cameron Peace, guitar; and Sam Esecson, drums), Goldberg (David Bestock), Frankenstein (Gavin Cummins), and Murray (Matt Fulbright) try to discover for a suspicious Joseph (Eli Rosenblatt) who exactly Mary (Dorcas Lewis) managed to conceive a child with.

That they do this while singing songs that sound like klezmer, hip-hop, funk, and salsa adds to the show’s charm, along with the cleverness of ~~Moore’s lyrics~~ [Correction: Eli Rosenblatt and David Bestock wrote the music and lyrics], which will have have you hanging on most every word. As directed by Mathew Wright and choreographed by Ricki Mason, it’s at times hilariously inventive (there’s a camel made of stools, a ’60s LSD-tinged number for Lewis, and a daytime courtroom TV show send-up). It also takes awhile to get to its feet, as the law firm members each get a big number to introduce themselves (all are Jewish, but one’s a Ukrainian cowboy and one’s Irish).

I don’t think most Christians would be put off by the show’s indictment of Santa Claus as a consumerist junkie who needs regular toy “fixes” to keep it together, but this isn’t a show about restoring the Nativity to pride of place, either. It turns out that Mary really gets around, and the belabored treatment of this discovery (specifically the interviews with her exes where they reminisce about doing her) eventually begins to feel like someone has issues that musical comedy can’t resolve.

You don’t have to be Christian to find this set-up tiresome. If you’ve heard one joke about virgin birth you’ve heard that one before, and for another, there’s only so much comedy in slut-shaming these days. Another line-walking bit is that of a limp-wristed proprietor who, so far as I can tell, is supposed to be funny because super-fey and yet also slept with Mary. These unfunny, awkward moments mar an otherwise likably dyspeptic show.

The SunBreak

Monthly Archives: December 2012