People & Politics

BEST ACTIVIST/HELL-RAISER

Mukilteo's most prominent watch salesman, TIM EYMAN, also happens to be Seattle's best activist (according to you). Does this prove he's not a horse's ass?

Could there be a more Seattle answer than "Baghdad Jim"Democratic U.S. Rep. JIM MCDERMOTT? Anti-Bush, antiwar, and anti-Patriot Act. Enough said.

Through the Gates Foundation, Microsoft co-founder and Chairman BILL GATES (and his wife, Melinda, who didn't show in the voting, alas) has been putting his money to charitable use since January 2000, mostly in the areas of world health and education, with recent donations to the New York City Education Department and toward malaria research. www.gatesfoundation.org.

He makes speeches. He donates money to charity (see above). And, oh yeah, BILL GATES is the richest person on the planet. www.microsoft.com/billgates/.

The decisive winner, kindergarten teacher KATHLEEN WATT, is in her second year at ST. JOSEPH CATHOLIC SCHOOL. She is a Seattle native who integrates technology in the classroom. Watt also understands the low-tech basics. Kids like looking for stuff, and her schoolwide "Looking for the Gingerbread Man" activity transformed them into mini-detectives on a gingerbread manhunt unlike any other in recorded history. Well done, Watt.

Unknown until now, hip-hop artist MR. BENJAMIN is Seattle's version of P. Diddy. His get-out-the-vote campaign helped him edge ahead of Reggie Watts, lead singer of Maktub, the band that won last summer's Seattle Weekly Music Awards.

No matter how lost you get or claus- trophobic you feel in the middle of it, BUMBERSHOOT is unlike any arts festival anywhere, as evidenced by floods of out-of-towners and countless Best of Seattle voters. Seattle Center, Labor Day weekend.

The good people at KING-TV (5)i.e., Jeff Renner, the hardest-working man in the weather business, the man you trust to forecast rain from fall through spring.

FISHER AND WEST OF THE MOUNTAIN (KMTT-FM, 103.7) narrowly defeated Weekday on KUOW-FM (94.9) and KEXP-FM's (93.3) John in the Morning. Clearly, SW readers enjoy in equal measure adult-rock banter, local civic issues, and edgy indie insight.

An SW reader recently referred to DAVE ROSS as "the one calm, intelligent, and reasoned voice in Seattle daytime talk radio." Many other readers seem to agree. Ross' balanced political talkfests on KIRO-AM (710) have a following that soundly trounced runner-up Steve Scher of KUOW-FM (94.9).

KING-TV (5) got more than double the votes of its closest competitor, KOMO-TV (4), thanks to Dennis Bounds, Jean Enersen, and Robert Mak.

With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer fighting for its life of late, this race felt especially vital. The contest came down to the wire, with a final surge of votes placing THE SEATTLE TIMES above its longtime rival.

The Post-Intelligencer's ART THIEL, with papermate Robert Jamieson right behind him. The P-I might not be your choice for best daily news paper, but they do have some fine wordsmiths.

You asked: WHAT IS A BLOG? It's a personal Web site, short for "Web log"a public journal of commentary and links written by anyone with an opinion, famous or otherwise. Various locations, cyberspace.

At WWW.METROKC.GOV, you can look up property assessments, find registered sex offenders, see which restaurants are unsanitary, and check bus schedulesamong a million other things. Way to go, King County.

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