Seattle again through the eyes of different search engines

Last May, I conducted a little experiment. I went to six different Internet search engines and typed in one word: Seattle. I then looked at the first page of non-sponsored results. Since search engines profess to seek what customers really want, I thought this might give me, New To Seattle, some insight into what’s really important in the minds of the masses, or at least what is being offered at first glance. What I ended up getting was an interestingly eclectic mix.

A year later. Time to duplicate the experiment.

Results: rather boring convergence. A lot more of a happy-talk focus on tourists and their interests. A lot less of an emphasis on most everything else.

I started again with lesser-known Mahalo.com, whose slogan is “Learn Anything.” I’d say it’s the search engine that really needs some learnin’.  Besides grammatical mistakes, the first page of Seattle results had false political facts (Greg Nickels listed as the mayor instead of Mike McGinn, who has held the job for three years), out-of-date data (the 2006 population for Seattle, nearly 40,000 less than the current estimate of 621,000) and simply incorrect information. Four of the seven listed “notable companies” of Seattle, for example, are actually based outside the city (Boeing, Microsoft, T-Mobile and Eddie Bauer). It was the one search engine displaying results with the least orientation toward visitors. Not to mention toward accuracy.

On top retirement place lists, Seattle area is largely MIA

Another month, another list of best places to retire. And another roster from which Seattle–and for that matter all of Washington State–is missing.

A couple weeks ago, Bankrate.com, a well-known consumer financial services website,  produced a ranking of states as places to retire. By its calculations, Washington State was the third worst for golden-years living, trailing only Oregon and Alaska.

The teasing write-up–”Despite its stunning natural beauty,” it began–cited cost-of-living and crime rates above the national average and an average annual temperature of 48.7 degrees. “The Evergreen State is one of the colder states in the nation,” Bankrate.com declared. And as for taxes–usually a key factor in these listings–Bankrate.com cited Tax Foundation data putting Washington State’s average tax burden on its citizens in the middle of the 50-state pack despite the absence of a state income tax. As I have noted here before, those states lacking a state income tax have a funny way of making up the revenue loss with higher other taxes, most notably on real estate.

The absence of Washington State venues from such lists is the norm. Check out the current list at U.S. News & World Report. And this one at the Huffington Post.  And this one by MarketWatch.com. And this new one of best retirement places for baby boomers. Over the years, I have been the compiler of many retirement-place lists for Forbes.com. This year, three have been published: an overall list focusing on value, best places for a working retirement, and top places to retire rich.

No Washington State entries on any of them.

In Seattle, tensions between dogs and letter carriers

Labrador retriever (via Wikipedia)

Poor Seattle. The U.S. Postal Service today released what it calls its “dog attack city rankings.” Seattle came in tied for second with San Antonio, both cities a good ways behind leader Los Angeles.

According to the feds, for fiscal year 2012–I guess that’s the 12-month period that ended September 30, 2012–Seattle canines took a bite out of 42 local letter carriers. There must be something about the Puget Sound. Tacoma was tied (with Dallas) for 18th on the list, at 21 nips. No. 1 Los Angeles noted 69 bites.

The list of 20 included most of the nation’s largest cities. But there were some notable exclusions, including New York City as a whole (although Brooklyn, one of city’s five boroughs, was included), Phoenix, San Diego and San Jose, Calif. Besides Tacoma, some smaller cities found themselves among the giants, including Dayton, Ohio; St. Louis, Buffalo, Wichita and, yes, hated Sacramento.

Iffy charity soliciting in Seattle gets more iffy

About three months ago I wrote here about a strange pitch I received on the phone from a Harrisburg, Pa., charity calling itself Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation. Among other things, the charity said my contribution would benefit “Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center.” That’s the old name for Seattle Children’s Hospital. Its invocation suggested to me, New To Seattle, that the script being used by the cold-caller–first a computer and then a real human who came on the line after a simple question by me couldn’t be answered–hadn’t been updated in years.

On its website, the charity claimed its charitable commitment ratio–the percentage of all expenses spent in furtherance of the stated mission, as opposed to fundraising and certain overhead expenses–was 81%, above the 65% mark considered the bottom line for respectability. After looking closely at its financial documents, I begged to differ rather considerably. By my reckoning, the charity was using gift-in-kind–donated goods, also called GIK, with questionable values that cost almost nothing to solicit–to pad its numbers and that the true charitable commitment rate was just 15%. Also, Seattle Children’s was unlikely to get more than a few pennies of any donation by me.

I quoted Dashiel Hammet’s memorable line in The Maltese Falcon: “The gaudier the patter, the cheaper the crook.”

By happenchance, The Chronicle of Philanthropy two days later published (behind a paywall) a long article about Children’s Cancer raising all kinds of issues and also coming up with that 15% number.

This morning, another shoe dropped.

The Chronicle posted an online story reporting that Children’s Cancer will restate its financials to remove $4.1 medicine of medicine the charity said it had received from another charity, World Help, and gave to a charity in Ghana.That $4.1 million is more that one-third all the contributions–cash and GIK–that Children’s Cancer claimed to have received. The charity’s brief announcement is on its website at the very bottom of this page.

New Seattle TV humor show is a little light on Seattle humor

Over the weekend I watched “The 206.” That’s a new weekly half-hour show on KING5-TV airing immediately after “Saturday Night Live.” It features veteran Seattle humorists John Keister, Pat Cashman and Chris Cashman in what the station bills as a “local sketch humor show … that takes aim at all things funny about local people, neighborhoods, politics, music and sports.” (For those of you reading this post in Ouagadougou, 206 is the area code for Seattle). “The 206″ is a retooled version of “Almost Live!,” another Seattle humor show featuring Keister and Pat Cashman produced on KING5-TV from 1984 to 1999.

Now I have to admire the spunk of the on-air talent and their producers, Erren Gottlieb and James McKenna. It cannot be easy making an artistic go of it in the humor business around Seattle. After all, this is a town known for the Seattle Freeze and where published references to tough audiences hereabouts go back more than 70 years. As I wrote in 2011 shortly after becoming New To Seattle, “My initial judgment is that a collective sense of humor here is m.i.a.”

Unfortunately, nearly two years later, I see little reason to revisit my earlier assessment–even after viewing “The 206.”

Springtime in Seattle: annual fears about solicitors

Tulips (via Wikipedia)

Spring in Seattle brings out a lot of stuff. Tulips of all hues blossoming on streets of all kinds. More frequent sun breaks, allowing clear view of gorgeous mountains. Hopeful expectations about the Seattle Mariners, ultimately unfulfilled.

And fresh warnings about what in Seattle is called “solicitor activity,” or more ominously, “aggressive solicitors.”

Now, I’m not talking about lawyers. The sounded alarm is a fear that door-to-door solicitors are really looking for empty homes they can burglarize and make off with loot. It’s not at all clear to me this is a significant problem in Seattle, which overall is a pretty safe place. But in my nearly two years here since becoming New To Seattle, it sure gets the generally liberal population riled up. And for some reason, it’s when the weather starts to warm up (even though my door gets knocked on year-round).

Monumental Seattle (Part 4)

Earlier chapters of this series have focused on the public art and monuments of Seattle that might say something about the city’s past or present character. Like, say, the still-standing monument to Confederate war veterans erected at the height of segregationist deed restrictions.  Or “The Wall of Death” sculpture put up under a busy bridge.  Or the giant statue of Viking explorer Leif Erikson overlooking Puget Sound, a body of water he never got anywhere near, much less saw.

Time to lighten up a bit, you say? Okay. My model here will be the TV hit “Seinfeld,” famously described as a “show about nothing.” I’m going to present stuff around town I’ve seen since becoming New To Seattle that might means nothing–or something. You be the judge.

Seattle Tulip, Seattle (via SeattleOutdoorArt.com)

Let’s start with the Seattle Tulip.

That’s an painted three-ton steel sculpture downtown at the local Wells Fargo headquarters, Third Avenue and Madison Street. Installed in 1988, it was the work of Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004). He was a worldwide leader in the Pop Art movement, which drew inspiration from popular culture but which some said was a little light on art. Art critic John T. Young, whose website is called “You Call That Art?!“, doesn’t think much of the Seattle Tulip. He described it as “an example of corporate decoration” that “does not provoke or stimulate intellectual thinking…it is merely visual eye candy.”  Of course, tulips are a very popular flower in Seattle. Wesselmann, who worked in several media, probably was better known in art circles for drawing faceless nude women, so he might have seemed like an unlikely choice for the commission. But as it turns out, many of his paintings had tulips in the background, so at least he had some botany creds.

In Seattle, Amanda Knox now draws little attention

With her big book coming out next week along with a big TV interview by Diane Sawyer, Amanda Knox–the Seattle college student convicted of murder in Italy, cleared by one appeals court but just ordered to face a review by another–will be back in the news again.  But in Seattle, she may be just a big yawn.

Following four years in an Italian prison, Knox returned to her native Seattle upon winning her first appeal in 2011 just a few months after I became New To Seattle. Since then, however, I hardly ever have heard her name mentioned during casual conversations in Seattle, where the 25-year-old has resumed her studies at the University of Washington. I know from old media accounts that her cause crucially received a lot of important Seattle support. But although still functioning, the Friends of Amanda Knox website hasn’t been updated since her release. Locals now are more likely to return to chattering about coffee, salmon, the weather or the possible return of an NBA franchise.

I think the feeling in Seattle is she’s been through enough, so leave her alone. In a city known for the Seattle Freeze, that’s sort of the norm, anyway.

Monumental Seattle (Part 3)

In two previous posts over the past year, which you can read here and here, I described some of the public monuments and artworks that help define Seattle, adding my two cents of cultural and social commentary. With no shortage of material to work with–Seattle is one festooned town–it’s time for a third swing. I suppose I need a theme. So let’s look at stuff conjuring up the past and maybe even the future–for better or for worse.

Confederate Veteran’s Memorial, Seattle (via United Daughters of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee Chapter 885, Seattle)

Surprisingly, Seattle, the liberal seat of King County–renamed for Martin Luther King Jr., who visited once–actually has a Confederate War Veteran’s Memorial. But given the city’s outrageously segregationist past (and the fact that a white church snubbed King during his 1961 visit), maybe it’s not that surprising. The monument is located in venerable Lake View Cemetery, whose clearly embarrassed managers conspicuously have left it off the walking-tour map given to visitors while including all sorts of now-terribly-obscure personages. The memorial was erected in 1926 at the behest of Confederate veterans, or more likely, their widows. A 10-ton slab of granite was cut out of Georgia’s Stone Mountain–where the Ku Klux Klan famously reinvented itself just 11 years earlier–and shipped to Seattle via the Panama Canal.

According to an account on the website of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee Chapter 885 in Seattle, which still exists, local tombstone maker Edward G. Messett and well-known Seattle sculptor James Wehn (1882-1973), who fashioned the 100-year-old Chief Seattle statue along Denny Way, combined to design and build the memorial. Its unveiling and dedication was a big deal at the time.

Seattle pedestrians sometimes forget to push crosswalk button

Pedestrian crosswalk sign and button in Seattle’s          Eastlake neighborhood

Take a look at the photo to the right. It depicts a sign and a button at an intersection on Eastlake Avenue in Seattle–one of hundreds of similar set-ups across the city. To me, the message is pretty clear and simple. To cross the street safely as a pedestrian, push the button to which the sign is affixed and wait for the “walk” sign to light up on the other side of the street. Then cross.

Well, maybe not so clear and simple to everyone in Seattle. Over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly aware of many pedestrians who don’t push the button. They become puzzled and then frustrated when the traffic lights cycle without flashing the “walk” sign in their favor. Since it’s often raining, they’re standing outside and generally wearing no weather garb, the stranded pedestrians are getting wetter, which doesn’t help their demeanor at all.

As usual, I have no data on my proposition other than my own eyes, although a serious academic study published in December on the topic of–amazingly enough–Seattle pedestrian interactions with call buttons seemed to find plenty of problems. But to me, button ignorance certainly is curious, especially given the recent anointing of Seattle as the third most nerdiest city in the country. I always thought nerds had above-average intelligence.

Yakima ad campaign needles Seattle by promising sun

(via Wikipedia)

See update at end of story

Living in Seattle, I don’t come across a lot of radio ads that make me giggle. But for the past few days I’ve been hearing one that has. And wouldn’t you know: It focuses on one of my favorite topics, Seattle weather.

The Yakima Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau is running its cheeky annual spring radio campaign trying to lure sun-starved Seattleites away from the Puget Sound. The pitch is hardly New To Seattle. But I think the Yakimanians, or Yakimaites, or whatever residents there call themselves, have a lot of material to work with.

A geography lesson for those not familiar with the region: Yakima sits on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains about 140 miles southeast from Seattle, which is on the west side. With peaks topping 14,000 feet–Lewis and Clark had trouble threading them–the Cascades keep away from the interior of Washington State much of the notorious cloudiness that cloaks Seattle and environs. So Yakima gets small amounts of rain and huge amounts of sun. That’s the exact opposite of Seattle, where vitamin D pills for the sun-deprived are fixtures of media advertising.

The Yakima ad spot is called “Lost and Found Spring.” After the jump, a transcript of the ad–and even better, a link to the actual audio.

Folks in Seattle don’t dress for the rain

Here in Seattle, we’re at the tail end of a rare, multi-day break of much sun and no rain. The wet stuff is supposed to resume falling tomorrow, the start of what the weather dogs predict will be five straight days of precipitation. But it’s a good bet you won’t know it by watching the good folks of Seattle as they go about their daily business.

In this city of persistent light rain, people simply don’t dress for it. They generally don’t wear raincoats or hats, or anything that repels water or directs it away from the body. Umbrellas are more commonly seen in commercials for Travelers Insurance than on the streets of the Emerald City.

I have no hard data for this proposition other than my own highly unscientific observations. But on the last few days where we had rain, I made a weather preparedness tally of people out and about (as I drove in my car, of course). By my count, maybe one out of every dozen people wore what I would call rain garb. The others got by with light jackets that did not look to me especially water resistant, or no obvious outerwear at all. A fair number of pedestrians sort of looked drenched to me. I’m not sure I spotted more than two umbrellas. I actually saw a far higher percentage of rain garb on dogs being walked.

Sexy Gates proposal brings more needling Seattle’s way

Bill Gates (via Wikipedia)

For comedians and headline writers everywhere, Seattle is the gift that keeps on giving.

First there were jibes pointed at impolitic remarks about the locals by the newly crowed Miss Seattle. Then there were smirking comments about the legalization of recreational marijuana and even strange University of Washington research about whether we’re all really living in a matrix.

Now there’s the latest proposal from billionaire Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation.

THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO (National Broadcasting Co.)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Transcript

Opening monologue

…

JAY LENO (host): Well, Bill Gates is offering $100,000 to the person who successfully reinvents the condom.

(Audience laughter as Leno arches eyebrows)

LENO: Bill Gates? Is that going to work? Guys, would you buy a condom that has the word “micro” and “soft” in it?

(Loud audience laughter)

LENO: Is that really going to work? No, I don’t …

(Drowned out by sustained audience laughter)

LENO: Let’s just hope it offers better protection against viruses than Windows, okay?

(Audience laughter, cut to commercial)

…

Stamping out bad notaries around Seattle

A few weeks ago, the Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously for the estate of Dorothy Halstien. She was an elderly woman with dementia who had lost all the equity in her suburban Whidbey Island home to Washington Mutual Bank after a notary public falsely backdated a notice of foreclosure sale. The outrageous 2007 act prevented an orderly open-market sale of the home and allowed WaMu to foreclose on its mortgage and pocket the $160,000 in equity (not that it did much good for the bank, which spectacularly failed just a year later).

The opinion in Klem v Washington Mutual Bank, which you can read here, will make your blood boil. But for me there’s an added interest: the involvement of yet another crooked notary. You see, for three decades before becoming New To Seattle, I have been writing as a journalist about notaries who ply the wrong side of the law. Now, most notaries–generally, clerks and secretaries in law firms, financial services outfits and courthouses–correctly perform their limited government-granted duties of using seals and stamps to certify signatures and documents, or putting people under oath. But despite these modest powers, for which in Washington State they can charge modest fees up to $10 per signature or act, notaries keep getting into trouble.

Over the years thousands nationally have been stripped of their commissions, and some have gone to jail. Maybe it’s a function of their sheer numbers–4.4 million nationwide, a full 2% of the country’s entire adult population. Notaries acting in bad faith are at the core of an ongoing nationwide scandal involving improprieties in foreclosures in the wake of the mortgage meltdown. Most of the time, though, errant notaries are not evil, just dumb, stupid or ignorant.

Now, I’d say the notary in Klem was a bad actor acting in bad faith. Curiosity getting the better of me, I made inquiries about what happened to this particularly noxious notary, and to others working around Seattle who got into trouble on different matters.

Seattle expects record tourism year: Pot, what pot?

Patting itself on the back, Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, the nonprofit tourism agency that now goes by the punchier name VisitSeattle, excitedly reported last month that the area had record number of visitors in 2012 and that even more are expected in 2013. The press release, however, listed absolutely no reasons for why this will be. Not one. No mention of beautiful scenery, great culture, fish restaurants galore or even a chance to eyeball locations in Fifty Shades of Grey.

I’m wondering if that’s because it’s thought a good chunk of that expected increase will be due to tourists hoping to take advantage of Washington State’s legalization of recreational marijuana use. I could see why Seattle’s image makers–officially, anyway–would not want to say their success will be based in significant part on the selling of drugs. So maybe better to give no reasons than to list a few and leave out the New To Seattle elephant in the loom.

You think I’m making up the pot tourism potential? Consider Arthur Frommer, maybe the best-known brand name in travel writing. “They all claim they don’t want this type of tourism,” he told a Los Angeles audience last month. “Yet the hotels are licking their chops over the hundreds of thousands of people who will go to Colorado and Washington to enjoy this.” (Yes, I, too, was surprised to learn Frommer himself is still alive.)