originally published on Crosscut.com on April 10, 2012
When I was a teen, I was passionate about The New Republic and Mad Magazine (and other things that, to spare my family, will go unmentioned.) I integrated the two and became convinced that humor was one of the more effective ways to animate public ideas (a sentiment magnified during the dolorous Reagan era.) The New Republic, a flimsy magazine that occasionally featured a Vint Lawrence cartoon or two, was an incubator of some of the nation’s more vital policy brainstorms. People in and out of public life read it and debated it, and at times lawmakers enacted legislation in response. It was and is a vivid expression of journalism in the public interest.
Today Crosscut is a Northwest incubator, a regional lens and a forum to provoke, to question, and to float ideas designed to elevate the public interest. It’s a project that merits your membership and support.
Knitting together the threads of the serious and profane, I quickly gravitated to Crosscut’s elderly cutups (I’m kidding. I truly love their tales of Al Smith and bathtub gin.) In fact, now I’m the oldster (yes, Berit and Zachariah, there really was a President Bush before W.)
My first Crosscut submission (fasten your seat belts!) highlighted the Northwest roots of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Before long I was invited to expound on the question at Boise State’s Frank Church Institute. Since then I’ve scribbled about the need for a no-net-loss of public gathering places in Everett, chided Boeing for its complicity in extraordinary rendition (not too popular, that), elbowed for the reinstatement of a history column at a Northwest paper (it actually happened) and lamented the plight of a Northwest cartoonist who was targeted by an Islamic extremist. That extremist, Anwar-Al-Awlaki, was subsequently killed in a U.S. drone attack. Q.E.D. (Ed note: Crosscut does not condone assassinating evildoers. Technically.)
Since August of 2011, I’ve written a weekday news compendium consisting of five Northwest stories that we believe are worth a gander. Midday Scan, conceived by Joe Copeland and David Brewster, is a news capsule with links that go beyond the most popular stories to underline some overlooked public issues that merit particular attention. It’s part of Crosscut’s mission to provide a forum that digs deeper to extend upon and illuminate critical ideas.
Even when you disagree with some of its (non-Midday Scan) content, I hope Crosscut provides a key public benefit. It’s one of the reasons why I’m a member, and why I encourage you to become an annual Member as well. In the Pacific Northwest, there’s nothing quite like it.