Haus!

We finally have another haus we like. Click here for listing pictures; it's big, it's on a quiet street, it's not an architectural style I'd have picked (1960, needs updating inside) but I can handle that; I like the layout. (It's unusual; three wings.) It's a little over a third of a mile to acceptable bus service and half a mile from Burke-Gilman. The downside: it's in Kenmore. The other downside: it's also a little over 1/3 of a mile from Bothell Way, so there's highway noise, about at the level of the wind chimes in the back yard. That's a lot less than I've got now (courtesy 20th; we hear traffic inside, even after soundproofing), but a lot more than zero. And occasionally I can hear the dock noises from Lake Washington's last industrial dock, 3/4 of a mile away. But that part I'm okay with; it's kind of cool.

Go here and scroll down for the MLS listing, and go here for the nighttime pictures I took of the inside. (Some of them are still huge, sorry; but many are small.)

So, anyone know anything that screams HORRIBLE MISTAKE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO?! out there? Anybody?

EDIT: For some reason, the pictures don't want to load clicked from here. Go to the MLS listing and click on "See additional pictures" for the outside/realtor pictures. It's the second listing, the one in Kenmore.

Interesting political analysis du jour

Andrew Sullivan links to a site today showing that sales of political books imply that, in general, left and right aren't talking to each other anymore.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/02/red_books_and_b.html

I'm on a mailing list that would be a counterexample, but on the whole, it echos what I've seen myself - seeing people who I know - particularly on the right, tho' you see some of it on the left too - drawing information about what the left thinks based solely on what very right-wing authors have been writing, and discounting left sources for what the left thinks out of hand, and vise-versa. It's interesting, and, for my part, not at all reassuring given the social activism of the right these days.

In terms of what hurts me, the Republican agenda is currently far worse than the Democratic one. I would like to see that change, but I don't see it happening any time soon - and the growing isolation in the politically-active/opinion-leading reader segment of the process isn't going to help that. Having the biases that I do, I tend to think the Republicans have led in this era, in adopting the conservative evangelical Christian cultural propensity against the idea of a middle ground. (No appearance of sin by associating with things that might imply it; the whole emphasis on the line from Jesus about how you must "be either hot or cold in my mouth," etc.) Evangelical conservative Christianity has a rather abrupt spiritual view of the world - you're either with Jesus or Satan, either with us or with our hated enemy - and that's been an apparent component of their culture for a while as well, in my observations. As such, it's naturally spread to politics - and you see it echoed almost verbatim in the Bush approach to foreign policy.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that you can see this in book purchase patterns, too - and that there are apparently so few books not trying to bridge that gap, at this point. I mean, honestly, if you're on the right, do you really think TREASON or Useful Idiots is going to influence anyone on the Democratic side of things? And vise versa - who on the right is going to listen to anyone carrying around a copy of Big Lies or BUSHWHACKED!

Posted since, well, it was Caucus Day, and I went and did my little caucus thing - the first time I've done so on the Democratic side of things. (And I was immediately named precinct captain, or whatever the title is. And an alternate delegate for Dean. How does this keep happening? But I guess I'll be at the King County convention, or whatever the Democrats' next step is, too...)