Naked in Seattle

Each morning after I read the hard copy Fort Worth Star-Telegram I then read the online version of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to get a, well, more intelligent version of a newspaper. I miss the daily hard copy of the P-I. In all my years of reading the P-I I don't recollect anything about it annoying me, or finding a mistake. I've lost count of the mistakes I've come across in the Star-Telegram. One would have thought I'd spot a mistake or two in the P-I, since I lived in its coverage zone for my entire life, til moving to Texas. Yet, even with me not all that familiar with the coverage zone of the Star-Telegram, I find errors. I think one can extrapolate from that that there must be a lot more errors that I don't spot because I'm not familiar with what's being written about.

Anyway, this morning whilst reading the P-I I was struck, yet again, by how starkly different the West Coast is from Texas. I knew prior to moving that it would be much more conservative, overall, in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. It's not a secret that the West Coast, and Washington in particular, and certainly Seattle, is much more liberal than Texas.

Washington is also way less repressive and, I dunno, free-spirited might be the words I'm looking for. Like in today's P-I on the front page there's a photo of a nudist swinging on a rope over the Ballard Pool. That's the photo above. I can't imagine such a photo appearing in the Star-Telegram. Let alone an article about a local pool's nude swims.

There are a few nudist colonies in Texas and a nude beach called Hippie Hollow down by Austin. The West Coast has nude runs, nude swims, nude bike rides & nude hikes. Vancouver has Wreck Beach, that's a huge nude beach where thousands congregate on a hot summer day. I've been there once. It was fun. But I got sunburned in unfortunate places. Near where I lived in Washington there is a nude beach called Teddy Bear Cove. I remember many a fun night at a natural hot springs near the Mount Baker volcano. It is a short hike through old growth forest to Baker Hot Springs. On a weekend night there were often dozens of nude hot springers having a real good time. Early in the Reagan years orders came from Washington to shut down Baker Hot Springs. It has since been restored to its former glory.

There is a Seattle neighborhood called Fremont that seceded from the Union and declared itself the Independent Republic of Fremont. Fremont has an annual event called the Summer Solstice Parade and Pageant. Thousands attend. A highlight is the nude bike ride. A few years back there was an attempt by some prudes to force clothes on the bike riders. That attempt failed.

I can't imagine a parade in Texas featuring a nude bike ride. If one wanted to go on a nude hike in Texas I don't think it'd be much of a problem because there are a lot of fine parks with fine trails and very very very few Big Texans out hiking on them. Regarding that I'll just say this, for the same reason it is pleasant to swim in the buff it is also pleasant to hike sans outerwear.

Below is a video of a pair of Canucks crossing the border, legally, and heading to Baker Hot Springs. In the video they erroneously name Baker Lake as Mount Baker Lake. I point that out lest you visit the fine state of Washington and want to seek out that scenic lake. There is no one but the Canucks in the hot springs and this pair of Canadians broke the rules by keeping their clothes on. Shameless scofflaws.

Below the video is today's fresh goofiness from the Star-Telegram.



Okay, today's Star-Telegram goofiness is once more that bizarre policy of supposedly making a story local unlike the evil paper in the evil city 30 miles east of Fort Worth, by pointing out any remote Texas connection to someone being written about. On the TV page, in a blurb about a show on FOX called Bones, we learn a guy from American Idol will be on tonight's show. And "fellow Idol grad---and former University of North Texas student---Brandon Rogers also appears and Burleson's Kelly Clarkson gets name-dropped."

Wow! Burleson's Clarkson gets named dropped and some guy who dropped out of a Texas college is on the show! I'm sure glad we got reminded for the umpteenth time that Kelly Clarkson is from Burleson. I almost forgot.

And then on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire The Colony's (that's a Dallas suburb) Janelle Newland goes after the big bucks today, and she's not the last North Texan we'll see during the next couple weeks." Oh thank God, a reason to go on living.

If that is not enough excitement, on American Gladiator, "competition begins, with the challengers including Dallas' Jeff Davidson and his wife, Ally..."