Christopher Sandford

Was JFK any ‘good’ as a president?

21 November 2023 10:52 am

How should we assess the value of a US president? In the case of John F. Kennedy, who died sixty…

The Queen’s sole mistake

20 October 2023 3:08 am

It’s often been said that the late Queen Elizabeth II rarely if ever put a foot wrong during her 70-year…

Danny Bonaduce’s guide to survival

27 August 2023 8:06 pm

It’s just after nine on a gray Pacific Northwest morning, and Danny Bonaduce, the once winsome redheaded child star of…

John F. Kennedy’s trip worth remembering

19 June 2023 12:33 pm

Sloppy Joe Biden may face strong political headwinds with just seven months to go before the first presidential primary, but at least he’s…

The waste disposal racket

12 June 2023 9:10 am

The conceit that today’s US householder has never been better served, nor had more choices, has been put about for…

Watching baseball as Seattle crumbles

4 April 2023 2:00 pm

It’s a better thing to travel hopefully than to arrive, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote back in 1881. I find myself…

How Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle invented the modern celebrity feud

13 December 2022 2:13 pm

1922 saw its fair share of shocks in the literary world, among them the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Sinclair…

Patty Murray makes an anguished face

4 November 2022 1:07 pm

Seattle Some strange things have been happening here in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had a freakishly warm and dry October,…

How the British helped JFK navigate the Cuban Missile Crisis

20 October 2022 2:48 am

The Atlantic alliance hasn’t always been quite as special as politicians on both sides of the sea like to pretend.…

Stop enabling the crisis junkies

15 March 2022 2:57 am

Did you make good use of the neatly palindromic 2/22/22? To refresh your memory, it was a day that turned…

Nick Kristof and a tale of two Oregons

26 October 2021 3:01 pm

It’s a strange thing about the long-serving New York Times opinion writer Nick Kristof, who apparently now wants to be governor of Oregon. The…

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Elvis and Nixon, the odd couple

22 December 2020 3:32 am

If you were called upon to invent the human antithesis of rock and roll, you couldn’t do better than our nation’s 37th president,…

seattle washington state

Washington State is a worrisome window into the future

14 November 2020 8:48 am

Seattle I have seen the future, and it looks much like Washington State. But let’s get there by steps. The…

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Richard Nixon took the high road in 1960. Donald Trump should now

7 November 2020 6:58 am

‘You gotta swallow this one, they stole it fair and square.’ That’s a Republican hack speaking to Richard Nixon, as…

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Bad Kshama: meet Seattle’s worst socialist

12 October 2020 3:16 am

Seattle In Max Frisch’s 1953 absurdist play The Fire Raisers, a well-off family in an unnamed town invites a man…

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Delivering the goods?

2 September 2020 5:56 am

Seattle My local post office in suburban Seattle seems to be rigged to obstruct customers these days. After standing motionless…

carmen best

Does Seattle deserve better than Carmen Best?

13 August 2020 11:00 am

Seattle So the revolution devours its children. On Tuesday, Seattle’s police chief Carmen Best announced her retirement just hours after…

Tear gas Ted: the mayor manning Portland’s barricades

1 August 2020 9:00 am

The mayor manning Portland’s barricades

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Tear gas Ted: the mayor manning Portland’s barricades

30 July 2020 1:51 pm

The federal courthouse in downtown Portland has become ground-zero for the nightly orgy of assaults, looting, arson, and public nudity…

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Hell in Portland

21 July 2020 10:15 am

Portland has had one of the most turbulent histories of any town in America. At the time of the Great…

capitol hill autonomous zone

What’s it like in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone?

12 June 2020 9:10 am

Seattle Ah, Seattle, that environmentally obsessed city where all is decorous, the sidewalks immaculately swept, the parks rigorously trimmed, proverbial…