My fingertips felt tingly as I walked into Lake City’s Rage Industry over the weekend. Vases, mugs, terra-cotta pots, candlestick holders, and empty bottles of Tsingtao beer and Charles Shaw wine lined the walls of the unassuming-looking building. On the opposite side of the storefront, a sign reading “Smash me :)” was taped onto a […]

Efforts to repeal an unpopular statewide dance tax have become a battle about statutory language. The dance community dubbed a 1970 state law “the dance tax” though it collects retail sales tax on amusement, recreation and physical fitness services. Included in this spectrum of services are venues that provide “the opportunity to dance.” This wording is […]

Blaming the survivor of a sexual assault leads to revictimization. TOO often, insensitive comments are made about a rape survivor’s experience. Somebody might question whether the attack happened, or ridicule or otherwise bully the victim. Such was the case of Rehtaeh Parsons of Nova Scotia ; Audrie Pott of Saratoga, Calif., and the 16-year-old Steubenville, […]

The Seattle City Council on Monday gave a limited way forward to the city’s medical-marijuana dispensaries, which face an uncertain future with the advent of statewide recreational marijuana sales. The City Council gave the medical dispensaries and growers until January 2015 to apply for a state license to do business in compliance with Washington’s new […]

“I am a product of war and my family is a product of the killing fields,” said Phatry Derek Pan, referring to the sites where thousands of Cambodians were massacred. Pan was born in a refugee camp in Thailand shortly after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian political group that ruled the country […]

President Obama is on his way to Burma (aka Myanmar) on Monday for a six hour visit that will be the first by any sitting US president in history. According to Reuters, in advance of the visit the Burmese government plans to release some 452 prisoners, some of them political prisoners who will be granted amnesty […]

A group of about 50 activists gathered outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma on Tuesday night. From the sidewalk outside the prison’s gates, the demonstrators—wives, children, partners, and strangers—rallied in support of those inside. About 415 detainees at NWDC, mostly undocumented immigrants picked up by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), had stopped eating to […]

Walking into the Inscape Arts and Cultural Center didn’t feel quite like I thought it would. The building looks more like a school or a train station than the former home of United States Immigrant Station and Assay Office. But that’s exactly what it is. This past Sunday, Dec. 7, Inscape opened “Voices of the Immigration Station: […]

Little Saigon is constantly bustling. Chinese and Vietnamese eateries dot this historic area for Asian refugees and immigrants. Markets, cultural centers, and small businesses also line the blocks. But like many other Seattle neighborhoods, Little Saigon, as well as the surrounding Chinatown-International District, is rapidly changing. Plans to redevelop old buildings threaten to displace long-standing […]

THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON has a bunch of fancy new dorms coming in, but what it needs is more affordable housing for students. I went to the University of Washington, and as an undergrad, my first off-campus apartment had backed-up plumbing, a washing machine that reeked of mildew, and a backyard with a view of […]