Fall gardens behave differently then spring gardens. They start off more quickly and peter out more slowly. They have more relaxed personalities. The weeds don’t grow as fast. And while baby spring crops are vulnerable to cold, baby fall crops are threatened by heat and dryness. It may all seem like a bunch of unnecessary work when you’d rather go tubing down the river, but the potential rewards of a fall garden are many.
For some, a fall garden offers redemption. If your regular season garden came up short, or didn’t come up at all, a summer planting can help you salvage the year.

For those with limited space, a fall garden results automatically from the practical strategy of filling any empty space as soon as it appears with new plants.
Committed fall growers have a new round of seedlings already started in their greenhouses. Broccoli, kale, lettuce, mizuna, tatsoi and other Asian greens are all great summertime seedlings to plant—if you can get them. Alas, summer planting isn’t like in spring, when casual growers can pick up seedlings at the farmers market. In summer, if you want seedlings for a fall garden you’ll have to sprout them yourself.
By all means, ask around at the farmers market and try to find out if anyone has extra starts in their greenhouses. Otherwise, take heart. Most fall crops are started from seed, including beets, spinach, turnip, lettuce, kale, Asian greens and radishes. 
Spinach is the ultimate fall crop. It will hang on into winter and produce hearty salads as the days turns gray. Eventually it will die back, but only temporarily. That same spinach will return with a vengeance in spring. Which means that by planting spinach next week you’re sowing the first seeds of spring. So get a large package of spinach seed, and sow it several times in different places over the next few weeks to make sure enough plants take hold.
The spinach plants I planted in spring, meanwhile, are sowing their own next generation. The heat of summer has changed the tender plants into tall, bitter-tasting seed factories, and I let them do their thing. The seeds fall on the ground, as do seeds of cilantro, mustard greens, radishes, turnips, and whatever else goes to seed. As the seeds come up I’ll decide which ones I should let live. It’s the easiest fall garden ever.
All summer plantings, seed and start alike, must be kept wet—otherwise they will quickly die in the hot weather. So once you plant or sow your fall crops, keep them extra wet until they get established. Then you can scale back a bit in the frequency of irrigation.
Garlic growers have an interesting fall gardening opportunity after their July garlic harvest, when a bare field is exposed in dramatic fashion. Garlic is a heavy feeder, and takes its toll on the nutrients and organic matter in the soil. So regardless of what your future plans may be for that land, you’ll want to amend the soil after pulling out a big garlic crop by mixing in some compost or well-aged manure.
An exception to the post-harvest manure spreading rule is in order if you have a garlic patch like mine, in which many kinds of seeds were sown all spring long in the shade of the garlic plants. When I pulled the garlic, this shaded understory burst out into full sun and is growing fast.
I don’t want to shovel compost or manure onto my radicchio, endive, or lettuce leaves, so for a less invasive shot in the arm I spray fish emulsion on my post-garlic fall garden to help make up for the post-garlic nutrient depletion. It will smell rather strong for a day or two, but you can eat out of your garden again by day three.
For more detailed ideas on various extended season topics, check out the work of Eliot Coleman, the godfather of year-round farming. Coleman has gathered and created many important techniques for keeping yourself in garden-fresh food through the winter. (You can find his information and buy his books at http://www.fourseasonfarm.com)
The success of your fall garden depends largely on how well you know your place. You need to figure out which plant varieties grow well in your home ground over the extended season, as well as keep track of which storage methods will help which produce make it through your winters. When you’re constantly thinking six, seven, eight months ahead, you’re not just four-season gardening—you’re farming.
I know an old farmer whose beets help keep him warm in the winter. He’s become an expert on keeping them in top form for months.
“I used to store beets in a bushel of moist sand, but they got shriveled and worthless after a few months,” he says. “Now I leave them in the ground all winter, and dig them up as I need them.”
This technique led my farmer friend to a variety of Egyptian beets he’s been getting from http://www.gourmetseeds.com. He likes them because a summer planting will stay hard and sweet in the ground all winter long.
“They don’t get an earthy taste in the ground over the winter like some beets do.”
He covers his beet patch with a thick layer of straw mulch. If you have really cold winters, you might want to use an old blanket or quilt on top of the beets, and cover the blanket with straw. When you lift the blanket the straw will come up with it, along with any snow that has accumulated on top. Underneath, your beets will be hard and sweet. (The same technique works for carrots.)
So, as you frolic in the salads and stir-fries of summer, be mindful of the impending winter. If you can enjoy the fun as you get it done, planting for fall, winter and spring will pay off. Turning your growing operation into more than just a summer vacation will transform your diet and your life. Getting started is as easy as planting a seed.

This isn’t so much that the story and characters are weak—though they very much are—but that animatronics and computer animation so anthropomorphize these critters that they bear more resemblance to cartoons than actual flesh-and-fur animals. When cats and dogs, not to mention a bird and a mouse, don’t act like animals, those story and character weaknesses really stand out.

Which is not to say young audiences won’t embrace these critters too. CGI is so accepted now in video games and movies that these “Cats and Dogs” may look goofy rather than grotesque. Let’s just hope no youngster returns home and flings the family feline across the lawn to see if she can fly like Kitty Galore.

The movie begins with a perfectly actionable premise: It’s Spy Kids with critters. The opening-title sequence, easily the best thing in the movie, deliciously mimics those in James Bond movies. Then, true to form—for early Bond films at least—there’s an MI-6-like organization called DOGS, determined to keep the world safe for only one kind of pet, and an elite spy organization called MEOWS, which challenges that assumption.

But where is the Bond character? What you get for a protagonist, or at least the four-legged character with the most screen time, is a failed police dog, a German shepherd named Diggs (voiced by James Marsden). Only in human movie terms, he’s more like Inspector Clouseau.

Then, more than a dozen critter characters flood the screen. There’s a blunt Anatolian shepherd, Butch (Nick Nolte); a serious-minded beagle, Lou (Neil Patrick Harris); a Chinese crested called Peek (Joe Pantoliano)—mimicking Q from the Bond films—and a shaggy sheepdog, Sam (Michael Clarke Duncan).

The villain (Bette Midler) is a MEOWS agent gone rogue, the Kitty of the title, a hairless cat that didn’t start off life without fur and because of that means to get her revenge. The cat heroine is Catherine (Christina Applegate gets a Katharine Hepburn tinge into her voice). Mr. Tinkles (Sean Hayes) appears mostly for a Hannibal Lecter parody as he is trussed up in his prison cell. And Roger Moore plays a tuxedo cat named Tab Lazenby, a dig to the ribs of any adult who has not fallen into slumber by then.

What the film lacks most of all is charm. You want to love the animals in a critter movie, to feel emotionally tied to them and not just root for creatures in a martial-arts dust-up.

You yearn for a cat to stretch itself or a dog to roll over. Instead they’re launching satellites into space or clinging to the side of a speeding boat.

The setup is simple: Find a schmuck; bring him to dinner. The guy with the biggest idiot wins. (Also, no mimes. Too obvious.) The film’s goal, established over the course of one disastrous evening, is to demonstrate the idiot isn’t necessarily the guy you expected going in. Except Carell’s Barry really is an idiot—a bumbling yet blissfully unaware imbecile in the grand tradition of such Steve Martin characters as Navin R. Johnson (The Jerk), Ruprecht (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), and Clouseau (The Pink Panther)—which makes the silliness that ensues all the more entertaining.

The poor sod is a buck-toothed, badly toupeed taxman who wears his windbreaker even when indoors, smells like a mix of aftershave and formaldehyde (or so we’re told) and spends his free time making detailed dioramas with dead mice. (These elaborate creations very nearly steal the show, designed by Joel Venti and executed by the Chiodo brothers, the cult effects trio who crafted the puppets for Team America: World Police.)

Barry’s appeal is a question of taste, really: Either such a goofy caricature never grows old, or he proves unbearable from the moment he first appears onscreen.

The real wild card is Tim (Rudd). In the original version, the character’s cruelty rubbed American audiences wrong, but here, screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman make him a reluctant participant in boss Fender’s (Bruce Greenwood) tacky dinner plans. As it happens, Rudd’s just the sort of sad-sack star who can have you rooting for such an otherwise unconscionable scheme.

The social tension underlying the whole equation suggests an opportunity for some truly provocative comedy, but Schmucks plays it safe, sticking with screwball, and that’s just as well. Other Veber ideas have translated rather naturally in past American remakes (consider Pure Luck, Three Fugitives, and The Man With One Red Shoe), but The Dinner Game features a number of culturally specific Frenchisms, including fear of tax audits and the ultimate faux pas of allowing one’s wife to meet one’s mistress. Thus, Roach and the writers take plenty of liberties in the adaptation, particularly in expanding the scope of the film (Game, adapted from Veber’s own play, seldom left the main apartment), but they still manage to hit an impressive number of the original’s key points along the way. The most notable addition is the mean-spirited dinner itself, which provides the outrageous finale the original lacked.

The fact that Barry can keep up with the larger-than-life characters around him is a testament to Carell’s wide-eyed appeal. The movie is a veritable who’s-who of comedic talent, boasting formidable cameos from Zach Galifianakis (as the boss who stole Barry’s wife), Little Britain’s David Walliams (as an eccentric Swiss millionaire whose account could save Tim’s job), Kristen Schaal (who plays Tim’s secretary like an extension of his id), Lucy Punch (a psychotic old flame from Tim’s past), and Jemaine Clement (as a hirsute Damien Hirst-style art fraud).

There’s no shortage of schmucks to go around, in other words. If any part of the equation feels anemic, it’s the relationship between Tim and his would-be fiancee, Julie (Stephanie Szostak). Barry arrives mid-spat and inadvertently drives them apart, but the truth of the matter is, the story is so focused on him and Tim that there’s not much room left to worry about romance.

Roach (Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, the Austin Powers movies) handles the rest quite ably, keeping things pitched at such a preposterous level, it’s hard to imagine anyone being genuinely offended—no small feat, given the gross-out nature of most contemporary comedies.

Last week, at the university’s Ving! studios in downtown Bellingham’s Odd Fellows Hall, summer school closely resembled a classroom in some ways—as in, there was an instructor and there were students—but in many other aspects, it was completely different than what people think of when they picture higher learning in action.

For one thing, there were costumes. And the not-so dulcet sounds of “Jungle Boogie” blaring through the high-ceilinged room.  And, of course, lots and lots of movement that defied the basic laws of gravity.

For KT Niehoff, this kind of class is nothing new. As the guest instructor for 357 Repertory—which focuses on process work and involves the creation and/or reconstruction of a major choreographic work that will be performed in front of an audience—Niehoff comes to the table with more than 20 years of experience both onstage and off.

Named the Artist of the Year in 2007 by Seattle Magazine, the accomplished Artistic Director of the Emerald City collective known as Lingo has been taking part in the teaching residency since classes started June 22.

Although she’s outwardly calm and collected in her approach to the students, Niehoff, 41, says teaching has never come easy for her. “It requires a lot of bloodletting and the opening of veins,” she says. “It’s not a negative thing—it just takes more out of me than performing with my company.”

Regardless of the inner turmoil brought about by helping students gain a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary dance, it’s clear Niehoff knows exactly what she’s doing.

For the Summer Dance Concert, which will show July 29-31 at Ving!, Niehoff encouraged the four students to generate all of the material they’ll be performing. And, although she’s guided them every step of the way, the end product will be based on ideas they came up with.

“I told them at the beginning that we were going to work by instinct,” she says. “The why comes later. If I saw something I liked, we looked into it.”

The end result—or at least the process of getting to the end result—is a show that’s playful, but also has a modicum of depth. It’s clear the students are soaking up what Niehoff says, and using it to their advantage.

“Direct the energy back up,” Niehoff reminded the dancers as they neared the end of the first hour of rehearsal. “Not bad: Let’s run through the whole thing again.”

Now in its 10th year, Meltdown (or MDX, as it is known this year) has grown into the kind of event fans plan vacations around and folks come from far and wide to attend. The lure of the festival is many-pronged yet simple: a weekend’s worth of bands of all stripes, styles and genres (although they tend to fall into the feel-good, danceworthy category) set in a location that calls for camping and camaraderie, all served up with a heaping helping of Meltdown’s now-trademark hospitality. It’s closer than the Gorge and considerably more laid back than, say, last weekend’s Capital Hill Block Party, Bumbershoot, or any other big-city, multi-day musical affair. Granted, Bumbershoot headliner Bob Dylan won’t be setting up shop on the MDX stage, but in the time it takes you to find parking near the Seattle Center, you can probably travel to Darrington’s Whitehorse Mountain Amphitheater, set up your tent, find your friends and start sussing out the music. Not a terrible trade off.

And while Mr. Dylan may not be at this year’s Meltdown (we’ll save that for the festival’s 20th anniversary), with all the bands slated to play, you certainly won’t miss him one bit. To wit: this year’s headliner is none other than the Presidents of the United States of America. If you are not familiar with this band, you’ve either 1. been living in a different country, one outside the reach of popular music, since, oh, the early ’90s or 2. you’ve developed a wicked case of musical amnesia. Either way, this is the band that is responsible for such sing-along anthems as “Lump,” “Peaches,” “Kitty,” and my personal favorite, “Stranger,” which features lyrics comprised solely of lines from the Stranger’s “I Saw You” ads. Lyrically lightweight though their songs might be, the Presidents lucked into a formula that spoke to the masses and their career involves a double-platinum-selling album, two Grammy nods, and the ability to draw crowds from far and wide to this day.

But the Presidents aren’t the only reason to pack up the pup tent and journey to Darrington. Also on the roster of headliners is Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk. Now, I’ll admit, I’m not exactly clear as to what makes “dumpstaphunk” different from regular funk, but with a name like Neville at the helm, such details don’t much matter. Son of Aaron and nephew of the rest of the musical dynasty that is the Neville brothers, Ivan has capitalized on the family business while managing to carve out a niche all his own. Before forming his own band (the aforementioned Dumpstaphunkers), Ivan released four solo albums, charted a couple of Billboard hits, appeared on several Neville Brothers recordings, played on a couple of Rolling Stones albums, toured with Keith Richards, recorded with Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, and Robbie Roberston, among others, and was even a member of the Spin Doctors for a couple of years. With his own band, he’s toured extensively (including a couple of past stops in Bellingham) and added his own chapters to the Neville musical biography.

However, no Meltdown festival—MDX or any other iteration—would be complete without an appearance by the event’s founders and organizers, Flowmotion. As the Summer Meltdown has been their baby—from the germ of an idea to overall vision to execution year in and year out (along with a whole army of dedicated volunteers, of course)—it’s only right that their performance is one of the weekend’s highlights every year. And, while you might make the assumption that Flowmotion nabs the coveted headlining slot every year due to the fact that it’s their festival and they’ll headline if they want to, you’d be foolish to do so—not to mention the fact that jumping to such a conclusion is ample proof of your utter unfamiliarity with this band. While their music is loosely classified as rock ’n’ roll, in reality, it’s a bit harder to pin down than that, but it’s rooted in impeccable musicianship, a willingness to get funky and/or jam it out when necessary—not to mention an absolutely killer live show.

But headliners alone do not a weekend of music make, so expect to find the likes of Hot Buttered Rum, the Everyone Orchestra, EOTO, Five Alarm Funk, Dehli 2 Dublin, Panda Conspiracy, Dept. of Energy, Spanish For 100, and more. Bellingham is also represented at MDX, in the form of Acorn Project, the Librarians, and Robert Sarazin Blake—who, after years of his Subdued Stringband Jamboree sharing taking place the same weekend as Summer Meltdown, has finally managed to work out this particular scheduling glitch (Stringband takes place Aug. 13-14) and can finally partake of Meltdown, as can everyone else who formerly had to choose between the two events.

With so much going on, and so many bands from which to choose, is it any wonder that those of us who knew Meltdown when still want to lay claim to it?

For the two days it’s not acting as a byway for vehicles to get to where they’re going, however, certain sectors of the downtown throughway take on a different role—they become what can only be deemed an “art party.”

Specifically, they transform an average tree-lined thoroughfare into the Bellingham Arts Festival, an event spearheaded by Allied Arts that takes the concepts of creativity and fun and transforms them into a two-day soiree dedicated to promoting all that is good about summer in the Northwest.

And this year, with the addition of an extra chunk of real estate in which to make merry—the 1200, 1300 and 1400 blocks of Cornwall Ave. will be the ones blocked off, if you’re wondering—you can expect even more space in which to peruse the sensory pleasures associated with the annual gig.

Katy Borden, Allied Arts’ Artist Service Coordinator, says the reason for this year’s expansion was a simple one: after all the local and regional artists had submitted their work for consideration by a jury, those who were in charge of choosing who’d make the cut were left with about 20 more artists than they’d normally have room for. Serendipitously, because the Bite of Bellingham had decided not to host its event on the same weekend, there was room to grow.

Others changes, Borden says, include food booths serving everything from snow cones to gourmet sandwiches, additional bathrooms and more prizes for those taking part in the Chalk ArtFest portion of the weekend.

In addition to the 60-plus professional artists showing off their creative wares on the aforementioned avenues, those who want to take part in the community-centered event that first hit Bellingham’s sidewalks 18 years ago are welcome to do so (as of press time, there was still space available for both adults and kids).

The rules for the Chalk ArtFest are pretty straightforward. Once you’ve been assigned a square of cement and the chalk’s been parceled out, you’ll have a few hours to bring your street visions to life. Judges will then cruise the submissions—which go far beyond the three blocks parceled off for the festivities—and prizes will be awarded thusly. For an extra $10, a pro photographer will snap your creation for posterity.

At the end of the weekend, when the artists have packed up and cleared the streets for their re-transformation back into places where it’s necessary to follow the rules of the road, the chalk art creations will be left behind—at least until it rains again—to remind those who tread there that, at least for a couple days each year, the streets are simply one big canvas.

“It is a time when all the aspects of our wonderful artistic community come together in one place,” Borden says. Yep, that sounds about right.

This, Executive Director Mike Callaizakis says, is because it’s simply not safe to be out and about on small craft when the currents of air are blowing at more than 12 knots. And because the waterfront nonprofit focuses on safely getting people in and out of the water, it’s likely one of the first things people will learn about when they make their way to the space.

If you haven’t heard of—or, like me, haven’t yet visited—the Community Boating Center, you’re not alone. Although they’ve been running as a nonprofit for three years, Callaizakis says they rely heavily on word of mouth and social networking sites to get the word out about who they are and what they do.

Come Tues, Aug. 2, Callaizakis and others involved with the seafaring hub will explain in more detail what the real deal is as part of August’s “Locals in the Know” series at Village Books. “Front Yard Fun: Experiencing Bellingham Bay from the Water’s Edge and Beyond” will be the general topic, but those with additional questions can rest assured they’ll be answered.

“Our goal is to get beginners—and the community of Bellingham as a whole—out on the water,” Callaizakis explains. “Our main focus is education and safety on the water.”

Luckily, they’re perfectly located to do just that. Since taking over the series of buildings and lots that provide direct access to the bay in 2007, they’ve filled the center with tools of the trade—kayaks, sailboats, rowboats, life preservers, paddles and assorted articles of gear are crammed in every available nook and cranny—and have made it easy for just about anybody who’s interested to leave the terra firma behind and spend some time getting familiarized with the currents.

But back to that safety thing. In addition to providing rentals of the aforementioned equipment—as well as offering monthly storage of boats under 24 feet for a small fee—a big part fulfilling the mission of the center is a roster of classes that bring home the messages of preparedness. A free, monthly “Safe Sea Kayaking in the Pacific Northwest” focuses on skills needed to paddle in a cold water environment (the next one is Aug. 28), and ongoing classes include “Capsize and Recovery,” “Learn to Sea Kayak,” “Learn to Sail” and “I Can Kayak” camps for kids. Off-water clinics on “Pacific Northwest Navigation” and “Tides and Currents” are on the lineup, as well.

Once you know what you’re doing, the sky’s the limit. And, guess what, you don’t even need to purchase your own boat. Per-hour rentals are relatively inexpensive, but the screaming deals can be found in the season passes—all-inclusive passes can be had for $200-$250 per person or $350 for a family, and that nets you months and months of time in your own “front yard.”

Callaizakis has countless examples of people who’ve dropped by to check out the center, and have ended up fostering healthy addictions to what they offer.

“I love being by the water and watching how much people enjoy getting in the bay,” he says. “People in the community often say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were here,’ and then after they come, they say, ‘I’m really happy you’re here!’”

Come Sat., July 31, leave your vehicle at home and head to the Parkade’s pinnacle for the first-ever “Transportation Tailgate”—a free event that’ll feature downtown business owners and transportation experts speaking about ways to bring Bellingham up to speed where multimodal transit issues are concerned. Additionally, there’ll be short films and, um, root beer floats.

Nick Hartrich, Sustainable Connections’ Green Building & Smart Growth program manager, explains what the event’s all about.

Cascadia Weekly: Whose big idea was this?
Nick Hartrich: The idea was hatched up by myself and Futurewise Whatcom director, Cathy Lehmann, over a drink at Nimbus. Staring out onto a vast—and empty—parking garage, we kept thinking “Look at all that event real estate!” 

CW: Describe the Transportation Tailgate in a shortish paragraph.
NH: It’s an opportunity for Bellingham residents and downtown businesses to engage in a creative dialogue about successful transportation solutions. This is an opportunity to hear from local business owners who’ve had their share of
parking related business struggles, and the solutions they—as well as other communities across the country—have implemented to overcome these obstacles. The solution might not be what you think! It’s a chance for people to creatively problem-solve and an opportunity to walk away with renewed inspiration for downtown.

CW: Why is the event being held on top of the Parkade?
NH: Reason #1: Try this little experiment: Start asking friends, colleagues and strangers how many times they’ve parked inside Bellingham’s Parkade. More than likely, the response you’ll get is:  “What is the Parkade?”

Reason #2: The Parkade is utilized (and in some opinions, underutilized) for roughly 10 hours a day. The other 14 hours it is a concrete concert hall. Is there a better use for space during those hours? 

Reason #3: The views from atop the Parkade are beautiful.  There are few better places to enjoy a Boundary Bay/Mallard root beer float with your community, friends and elected officials.

CW: What do you (and other organizers) think some of Bellingham’s transportation issues are?
NH: Ninety-nine percent of conversations I have related to downtown Bellingham always result in parking. The reality is that parking is a “perceived” problem. Cars aren’t
the enemy here; it’s how we’ve over-designed their integration into our daily lives. Creative solutions exist, and those solutions focus on the ability to design for complete streets—those that focus on the mobility of pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders. The key word here is “mobility.” For those of us who dream of free parking directly in front of our destination, the solution is simple:  ride a bike.

CW: How will this event attempt to address these issues?
NH: We’ll provide a fun and engaging series of short films and digital clips that offer creative ideas on how Bellingham can engage the part of our brain that calls out to revitalizing our urban core. Combine that with a panel of local experts who know a thing or two about transportation and successful business, mix it up with your elected officials and Boundary Bay/Mallard root beer floats (with complimentary sunset), and well, you get the idea.

CW: Where did these films originate?
NH: The films feature communities that have implemented different types of multi-model infrastructure (pedestrian, bike, bus, car).  Each example is Bellingham-appropriate.  They range from PBS documentary style to digital shorts from our friends at D.C.-based Street Films.

CW: What are you hoping this event accomplishes?
NH: Inspiration, creativity and motivation to support an integrated transportation paradigm. Do we need a parking garage? Do we not?  If not, then let’s move on with our lives and begin the next discussion. If so, then let’s get building! 

CW: Why aren’t those attractive models on bikes on the flyer wearing helmets?
NH: Because they’re gorgeous and Dutch, and their country supports cycling infrastructure that provides the mobility and safety to commute with ease.

CW: Why should people come?
NH: Local businesses are fighting hard to create a home in downtown Bellingham and we’re confidant that creative transportation solutions will support a thriving urban core.  Your ideas are important, and our local elected leaders encourage positive input.  We’re offering fresh perspective to an overly exhausted topic. Did I mention Boundary Bay and Mallard ice cream?

Last December, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a 2005 Growth Management Hearings Board decision that found Whatcom’s urban growth areas were overlarge. Expecting this decision, and too long out of compliance with growth board findings, a less obdurate council agreed to trim those UGAs by more than 6,000 acres.

Running on an agenda to undo what was done, a new council majority held a semi-private (and likely semi-legal) meeting in April with development interests (that had paid big dollars into the campaigns of this new council majority) to overturn the county’s zoning map. The reversal would have given these developers legal standing to vest their greenfield developments at much higher densities (and profits). Whatcom’s smaller cities, hungry for construction revenues, supported the reversal.

As long as they were “stickin’ it to the hippies,” County Council decided to pitchfork hundreds of acres back into Bellingham’s UGAs over the outraged protests of the mayor and Bellingham City Council, a massive gift to CAITAC north of the city and planned Yew Street Road developments to the east. Only the threats of legal action by the city and a veto by the county administration caused council to reconsider. Bellingham’s unwanted UGAs were pulled from the ordinance. Three cities were left (adding back a small sliver near Birch Bay had already drawn unanimous support from council).

Note that all of these UGAs are already scheduled for review in 2011, as Bellingham and Whatcom County both revisit their comprehensive plans for growth.

The fundamental requirement of the state’s Growth Management Act is that you show your work, and through this work almost any outrage might be justified. Tragically for the new council, though, the work supported the county’s earlier public process and decision.

“None of the [remaining] cities have wastewater plans that address the entire urban growth area, nor do they show how existing areas will be served before expansion takes place,” former County Planning Director David Stalheim pointed out in a July 12 letter to council. “It does not appear that water service plans cover the entire UGA or allocated population, horizon years do not match the UGA amendment, and not all have been updated and approved by the state as required. Not one of the cities have fire protection plans adopted that show how services and facilities will be provided to the urban area, nor is it clear whether parks and recreation plans are adopted.”

For pointing out these inconvenient facts, Sam Crawford and his council majority pressured the administration to shitcan their talented planning director. Stalheim quit.

“The expansion of both Nooksack and Sumas are into designated floodplain areas,” Stalheim continued. “Even more problematic is that some of the lands may be flooded by waters that are contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos generated from the Swift Creek landslide,” he noted. “Swift Creek could flood additional areas and contaminate the soils if the sediment in the creek is not addressed. Until there are answers to these significant community health issues, designation as an urban growth area should not be even remotely considered.”

Council’s response was to strike out any mention of Swift Creek in their ordinance.

Stalheim continued, “The expansion of the urban growth areas in Nooksack and Sumas are onto agricultural lands that are characterized by prime soils, have large parcel sizes, are actively farmed, and do not have any urban governmental services extended to them. While these lands could have been designated as agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance, they were set aside for the eventual urban growth of these cities that are surrounded by agricultural lands. It is this piecemeal loss of agricultural lands that needs to be stopped or one of the county’s primary industries will not survive for future generations.”

Council’s response was to strike out any mention of the importance of agriculture around Nooksack and Sumas in their ordinance.

Evidently wiser than the county, these city administrations undoubtedly perceive the holes and flaws and strikeouts and various crimes of omission in the council’s proposed ordinance won’t stand up under review by the courts and growth board. They expressed their willingness to wait until 2011 for review.

They’re probably right; but the aim of the architects of all this was never to craft durable law, but to employ a tenuous, credulous council majority to smash open a window through which development interests might vest thousands of proposals, sparking another half-century of political hijnks and extra-legal maneuvering at taxpayer expense.

That leaves only Ferndale; and while the 476 acres that city wants restored from provisional to full UGA status are surrounded on all sides by existing Ferndale UGAs, that city has yet to adequately demonstrate how it will serve water and sewer to its planned growth areas. County Council addresses this—can you guess?—by striking mention of Ferndale’s water and sewer deficiencies from its proposed ordinance.

Might Ferndale also be so wise as to withdraw until 2011?

Arguably, County Council has wasted more time and staff resources (and thousands of taxpayer dollars) on this issue than any other this year, stomping their muddy boots around on ground already settled last year and scheduled for replanting next year, jabbing their thumbs into the eyes of advocates for sensible planning, a pissy property rights tantrum that went nowhere and achieved nothing.

Originally titled Edwin A. Salt, scribe Kurt Wimmer’s present-day scenario—predicated on the threat of Russian sleeper spies waiting to trigger a massive attack on the United States—drew attention from Cruise and other potential male leads before capturing Jolie’s interest. In short order, Edwin became Evelyn, a transformation that required an apparently none-too-difficult rewrite, given the character’s deliberately hazy inner life and preference for action over words. Certainly the filmmakers haven’t allowed anything resembling chivalry to distract from the matter at hand, as Jolie’s Salt finds herself tortured, punched, shot, nearly gassed and forced to leap from one speeding semi to another on a busy highway—and that’s just during the first hour.

The brutality begins immediately, with blonde CIA agent Evelyn Salt on the receiving end of a bloody interrogation by North Korean captors before being sprung, at great cost, by one Mike Krause (August Diehl). Two years later, the two are living in Washington, D.C., as happily married as a hunky arachnologist and a smooth undercover operative can be.

But everything changes during a seemingly routine interview between Salt and a Russian defector, Orlov (an excellent Daniel Olbrychski). In an expository sequence whose use of flashbacks and slow-build pacing are a refreshing indicator of a meticulous storyteller behind the camera (even if the story itself happens to be ludicrous), Orlov explains the presence of a hidden network of childhood-indoctrinated spies for the Motherland, and then unexpectedly fingers Salt as one of them.

A whirlwind of violence ensues as Salt denies the accusation but seemingly confirms her guilt, fleeing her CIA colleagues—led by close associate Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber)—as she searches for her now-missing husband. But once she’s broken free of her pursuers, Salt goes on the offensive, her vaguely ominous motives now signaled by a goth-black dye job, and heads to New York, where the Russian president (Olek Krupa) is scheduled to make a public appearance.

As a sexy killing machine whose true identity and intentions are intended to remain a mystery to the audience, Salt is clearly (if somewhat wishfully) being positioned as a curvier alternative to Jason Bourne. But in its efforts to spark fresh dramatic fireworks from the ashes of a past political conflict (despite an obligatory shout-out to the Middle East), Salt often plays like a throwback to such ‘90s thrillers as Noyce’s own Tom Clancy adaptations, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Multiple presidential assassination attempts and a doomsday missile-launch crisis hardly dispel the overall moribund feel of the material; neither does a third-act twist that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying even moderate attention.

Where the film’s old-school quality pays off, however, is in the fight sequences; if we’ve seen the stairwell attacks, slo-mo machine gunnings and rush-hour getaways many times before, they’re at least presented with coherence and crackle, and with little in the way of high-tech gadgetry (at one point, Salt builds a weapon out of a wastebasket and a fire extinguisher). Having spent most of the past decade helming politically charged prestige fare (Catch a Fire, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American), Noyce rolls up his sleeves and delivers an unpretentious piece of action-movie craftsmanship that proves worthy of its star’s own consummate professionalism.

No less than in Wanted, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the Tomb Raider movies, Jolie is very much in her element, submitting gamely to the mayhem and hitting crucial emotional notes with effective understatement. But the film tries to make Salt’s identity more compelling a puzzle than it really is; her allegiances are never really in doubt, further leaching suspense and interest from the setup.

Salt’s apparent willingness to relinquish all ties for her husband’s safety may not sit well with those who like their butt-kicking feminist role models devoid of romantic feelings (even when they’re portrayed as subtly as they are here). As though aware of these concerns, the filmmakers have taken care to make the character more and more ruthless as the film progresses. This makes for some nifty sequences, as Salt descends with almost wraithlike intensity upon her attackers, but unlike the Bourne movies, Salt never manages to turn its death-defying stunts into character insights, never reveals psychology through action.