This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

State Rep. Eric Pettigrew, if he has any sense about him, regrets ever suggesting that “people will die” if the Legislature doesn’t send a sales tax increase to the ballot.

Hyperbole doesn’t become the Seattle Democrat, and it certainly isn’t helping sell lawmakers or voters on his proposal to offset cuts in health care.

A poll leaked over the weekend showed that public support for a three-tenths sales tax increase (Pettigrew’s baby) is falling far short of the 60 percent groups that would underwrite a pro campaign want to see.

Support is also faltering at the state Capitol. The House, the more enthusiastic of the two chambers, was barely able to get the sales tax referendum out of committee on Tuesday.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition:

Susan Boyle doesn’t need a makeover. She’s already had one.

A Web site named DailyMakover.com has input the Duchess of Dowdy’s face into its software and worked its magic. Says its blonde, pert editorial director:

“We selected a sleek, side-parted bob with bangs to help bring more contour to her face. As for makeup, we wanted to bring out her eyes so we thinned out her brows, added thickening mascara and a soft, gray eyeliner. Susan also has a natural, red hue in her cheeks, so we used foundation to even out her coloring and added a rose lipstick.”

To which we say: sacrilege.

=> Read more!

Scott Hoover of University Place is probably the most famous meter reader in the Northwest.

Not only did The News Tribune feature him in a front-page article, but Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur also wrote about him. A front-page teaser in the Times showed Hoover doing his job.

Hoover is no ordinary meter reader. He was the lucky applicant – out of about 1,400 – hired for a single full-time opening at Tacoma Public Utilities. Of the 807 applicants who showed up to take the test, he was among the 27 invited back to interview.

The story has struck such a nerve because it so perfectly reflects the economic times we're in that one job could generate so much interest. It didn't hurt, of course, that it pays well ($17.76 to $23.56 an hour) and includes good City of Tacoma benefits.

=> Read more!

I can't help posting this second piece of commentary on Susan Boyle. Amy Wilhentz teaches journalism at the University of California, Irvine.

Ordinary in an Extraordinary Way

By Amy Wilentz

Special to the Los Angeles Times

It is a bad world in which to be an almost-50-year-old virgin, unemployed, with frizzy hair, midriff bulge and a figure like a spinster teacher from the 1940s.

In the international world of televised talent shows, you’re simply not supposed to appear on stage if you look like that. Talent is nice, but it must be packaged, matched by a certain, shall we say, physical ability to seduce. In the entertainment world these days, if you have to choose, talent runs second to “dateability.”

So if you look anything like Susan Boyle, the Scotswoman who is the latest Internet phenomenon for her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on a British TV talent show, you’re at least supposed to get a stylist who can do something for you before you go on. And preferably, if you’re going to look like that and be in public, you should be a commentator on economic matters in the Third World or a former secretary of State or an expert on the human genome.

=> Read more!

I've been resisting writing about the Susan Boyle phenomenon the last few days, mainly because I thought enough people were writing and talking about it already.

Today, I give in. The story's got legs that aren't getting tired. I also think it's too important. You'll see my take on Boyle in tomorrow's paper. (Most of our editorial positions are group decisions, but I'll be doing this one on my own, with the usual review by my colleagues.) Look for it in this blog this evening.

Below is a column on the phenomenon by editorial columnist Rod Dreher, who contrasts Boyle with porn star Marilyn Chambers. I agree with every word.

Susan Boyle’s redemption song

By Rod Dreher

The Dallas Morning News

Two female entertainers made headlines last week. They were separated by nine years, one ocean and a moral universe. Spare a moment to think about the lives of Marilyn Chambers, who had everything, and Susan Boyle, who had nothing – and what they did with what they were given.

Chambers, who died at 56 of undetermined causes, was one of the most famous and successful porn actresses of all time.

=> Read more!

Democrats in the House teamed up with Republicans late last week to insert a poison pill in the bill to revise Initiative 937's green energy mandates. By giving utilities credit for all hydropower (which already supplies 75 percent of the juice used in this state), Democrats hoped to make the bill so unpalatable as to kill it.

We are OK with that given how the alternative would have treated utilities like Tacoma's. A so-called compromise left large utilities like ours on the hook for buying more and more green energy credits even when power demand doesn't warrant it.

As expected the Senate rejected the poison pill amendment. Now it's up to a conference committee to sort out the differences in the few remaining days of session. Tacoma better hope it's got a friend on the panel, or its ratepayers could end up bearing the brunt of the burden for making Washington "greener."