Thought Riot

Columbus Short is an actor-dancer and choreographer. He choreographed for Britney Spears, back when she toured. And danced. He has parlayed a jump-start from the sleeper hit “Stomp the Yard,” about step competitions at predominantly black colleges, into a string of coming movies, including the graphic-novel adaptation “Whiteout,” “Armored” with Matt Dillon, and one he is about to shoot titled “Quarantined.”

In “This Christmas,” he plays a Marine who will do anything to get to his family’s Christmas celebration, and anything to avoid telling them his “big secret.”

Q: So the idea that black family Christmases are different from traditional family Christmas celebrations depicted in the movies is behind “This Christmas.” Are the traditions that different?

A: America is all about the holidays and all about family. And while there are some differences in the ways African Americans celebrate Christmas, we’re a lot more alike than you might think. Some of the traditions are going to be different. The music, for instance. Maybe we’re dancing like “Soul Train.” But we’re listening to “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” “Rudolph,” “Santa’s Coming to Town.”

The black factor is important. But you don’t have to have gone to a black college to get a kick out of the traditions of “Stomp the Yard.” I think this movie works because of the situations and characters every American will recognize in the Whitfields.

I wanted to be in this because it was going to have a great cast, a great look, because it wasn’t going to look like a “scaled down” cut-rate “black” movie. You have so many good black actors in this it feels like “The Family Stone.” It’s “The Family Stone” with some more color in it!

Q: One thing that stands out about “This Christmas” is the presence of religion in this family. A lot of Hollywood Christmas movies leave that out.

A: Religion is going play a central role in your typical African-American family’s Christmas. But with this movie, the script doesn’t beat you over the head with it. They didn’t push it. And there’s an argument over it.

But that’s a thing families argue over, religion. Any family, black, white, Catholic, Jewish or Mormon, there’s always going to be some members who are more religious than others. That sort of argument rang true to me.

The reasons these movies about family holidays are so popular is that you put family crammed together with all the emotions of the holidays and you get drama. It happens in the movies. It happens in life, man. We’ve all had our holiday beefs with our family. I know I have. C’mon. You have too, right?

Q: Oh, let’s not get into that. Your character, Claude, the Marine. What’s his function in the movie?

A: Claude is another mirror on the Whitfields’ past. It isn’t the dialogue that gives that away. It’s what’s not said. The Whitfields are a whole family with abandonment issues, from Loretta (the mother) down to Baby (the youngest son). Everybody has those, and we’re all working them out. The father of these kids isn’t around. Claude is somebody who grew up with that, and he isn’t about to do what his dad did. That’s why he’s a mirror.

You have to pay attention to get the relationships in this movie. There’s none of that lazy expositional dialogue. You have to meet the characters, figure out who they are in relation to one another, when you’re supposed to. Gradually.

Q: You’re a dancer, so I probably already know the answer to this. What was the most fun thing to play in the movie?

A: That’s right, that’s right! The “Soul Train” line (the family shows off its dancing skills, “Soul Train” style) was the most fun thing ever. That was what the spirit of the set was like, all day. By the time it came to shoot that, we were all comfortable, in the pocket, ready to cut loose.

Teacher’s dismissal

Praise for Powers

Editor, The Times:

I had the honor of being taught by Kay Powers at Cascade High School [”Fellow educators angry over teacher’s dismissal,” The Times of Snohomish County, Nov. 21].

I was taught in her classroom in a manner I hope my children will be some day. I learned to listen to and respect opinions that oppose my own. I learned to evaluate information beyond its face value. Most importantly, I learned how to learn.

Kay deserves to be held up as an example of how teachers can change students’ lives for the better. She is a warm, brilliant and ultimately caring teacher who serves her students with a most inspiring character.

If the Everett School District continues its attempt to end her career, it would cheapen the educational opportunities for all its students.

I implore the Everett School District to reconsider this grossly inappropriate action.

- Justin Graden, Seattle, Cascade Class of 1999Pay the consequences

If you don’t like the rules, work to change them. In the meantime, abide by them or pay the consequences.

What this teacher allegedly did is defy “express directives” not to help “students publish an underground newspaper and magazine on school time and with school resources.” She also “knowingly permitted students to work on the publications at school, allowed them to skip classes and gave rides to students without permission of their parents” and “continued to communicate with students and other teachers after she was placed on administrative leave in June, another violation of district orders.”

Sounds like she did what she darn well pleased, despite direct orders not to, and then couldn’t understand why she was fired. I don’t agree with her methods. What she has done is violate the trust of her employer and possibly the parents of her students.

- M.A. Averett, Austin, TexasFerries shelved

Politics at play?

I sometimes wonder if Washington politics are not involved in the latest ferry disaster from last Thanksgiving weekend? Call it what you will, but several events came into play after voters soundly rejected Proposition 1.

The Steel Electrics are pulled from service at a most critical time of the year, during a holiday when the state knows transportation is critical, and the calm weather was not a factor.

Olympia itself is sending a message to all voters that denial of services for basic transportation, including ferry service, is an option that state government is not afraid to use or, in this case, abuse.

- Bobby Hughes, Mukilteo

BAGHDAD - For the second day in a row, U.S. soldiers Tuesday killed Iraqi civilians when they fired on a vehicle that they thought was a threat, the U.S. military said.

The U.S. military also reported that two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Salah ad Din province. Two other soldiers were wounded. The military provided no further details on the incident and didn’t release the names of the dead.

The shooting deaths of the civilians took place in the al-Shaab neighborhood of northern Baghdad. Two people died and four were injured when a U.S. soldier fired at a minibus that was transporting workers to a bank operated by the Iraqi Finance Ministry, the military said in a statement. But Iraqi police and employees at al-Rasheed Bank said four people were killed, including three women, and that two were injured.

The minibus was driving near a U.S. military outpost when it ended up on a road where only car traffic is permitted, the military said. U.S. soldiers signaled the minibus to stop, and when it didn’t, one of them fired a warning shot.

A spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq acknowledged the deaths of the civilians. “We regret when civilians are killed, and we do feel terrible about it,” the spokesman, Maj. Brad Leighton, said. He said the incident was under investigation.

On Monday, a child and two men were killed when they rushed through a U.S. military roadblock while the military was conducting an operation in Bayji, north of Baghdad.

The back-to-back incidents come as U.S. and Iraqi officials prepare to negotiate a treaty that will set new rules to govern U.S. military activities in Iraq. The announcement of the negotiations was part of a “declaration of principles” that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush signed Monday.

Under the agreement, the U.N. authorization that permits U.S. troops to operate in the country will be extended for one final year. After that extension expires in December 2008, a U.S.-Iraq treaty will set the terms for continued U.S. operations.

Those terms are to be negotiated by July 31 and are likely to be influenced by growing Iraqi impatience with the deaths of civilians during U.S. military operations.

With “Scarface” and “Body Double” on his résumé, director Brian De Palma is hardly a stranger to violence and controversy. But he’s never made a movie like “Redacted.” Dumping his trademark stylized approach, he shot the scorching Iraq war drama in just 18 days on digital video. Depicting the boredom, frustration and unpredictable carnage U.S. troops face, it also dramatizes the real-life case of a group of loutish soldiers who rape a teenage Iraqi girl then kill her and her family. I debriefed De Palma about the dustup it’s causing even before its release.

Q : You must really be angry.

A: No, quite to the contrary. I was quite excited about using this new form. The people [Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment] came to me, and they have this program, and they give you $5 million and you can do anything you want. You just have to shoot it on high-definition.

And when I read about the story in Iraq that’s very familiar to my picture “Casualties of War.” I said, “Well how do I tell the story again?” And in the process of researching it I found all these digital forms on the Internet that I used to become the narrative of the movie.

Q: Why tell the same story - even if this one’s based on a true case?

A: Because I feel “Casualties of War” is a great metaphor for our involvement in Vietnam, and the symbolic destruction and raping of the country is what’s played out in what the squad does to this innocent farm girl. And this is essentially what happened in Iraq. And of course what really is close to the heart here is I lived through Vietnam, and now I’m watching the same people my age prosecute a war where they have learned absolutely nothing from our experience in Vietnam.

Q: So you’re still maintaining that you weren’t angry at all?

A: Well, yeah!

Q: What’s the significance of the title?

A: I feel that what they did learn, the architects of this war, was that in order to prosecute a war like that, you must redact all the images from the mainstream media, and that’s what they did. Because the images of Vietnam is what got the people out in the street, and the fear of being drafted is what brought that war to an end. So they figured out a way in order to avoid all those things in this war.

Q: What are you showing or telling that people haven’t been seeing?

A: Have you seen any pictures of any fallen American soldiers?

Q: Not a great deal.

A: Why not? Don’t you think their combat and what they’ve done and what they’ve sacrificed is worth us seeing? We certainly saw it in the Civil War, we saw it in Korea, we saw it in Vietnam, we saw it in the Second World War. Why aren’t we seeing it in this war?

Q: Why don’t you tell me?

A: Because images will make you say “What are we doing there?” And why are we forcing or making or have a policy to put these soldiers in that type of peril?

Q: You’ve got a vile, fat, stupid character in the film named “Rush.” I take it this means subtlety was out and it’s sledgehammer time.

A: No, that character’s very much based on a character in “Casualties of War.”

Q: Can you elaborate?

A: Well, there are some people in the Army that have very strong views and are very unhappy where they are and they don’t like the people that they’re supposedly protecting. And I read this in blogs and saw this in documentaries.

Q: Current war-related movies haven’t done well at the box office. Four years into the war, why are artists just now starting to speak out? And conversely, is there also a sense that it’s too soon, since the war - or occupation - is still in progress?

A: No. People that have lived through the Vietnam War and the Cold War are the people that are fast to react to say, “Oh, I’ve seen this before. Why are we repeating this?” And when you see the spin doctors and the way things are presented in the media that whitewashes what’s going on, and the blatant lies - I mean, I grew up in the ’50s. We weren’t used to our politicians lying to us.

Q: I take your point about the mainstream media, and yet I’m putting you on the cover of our section. You know what’s annoying about “MSM” complaints? A lot of them come from people who are in the mainstream and in the media.

A: [Long pause.] Well, there is no question that we were lied into this war. Will you accept that?

So, then it looks like the mainstream media, even going up to the stories planted in The New York Times, were kind of complicit in that. Do we have to go through Judy Miller and the weapons of mass destruction?

Q: No, that’s all documented.

A: So here we have a system where the reporters are being leaked stories in order to get their byline on the front pages of their newspapers, in order to celebrate their particular professions, which are in fact lies, and then the administration officials are quoting The New York Times as a source that’s not them. Now is that a complicit relationship between the so-called watchdogs, the Fourth Estate, and the administration?

Q: Somebody’s been lying down on the job at the very least.

A: Well, and what is the cause of that and why has that happened? I think it’s quite obvious, is that you become famous, you become rich, if your byline is on the front page of The New York Times. And maybe you’ll get a talk show, and maybe you’ll get a book to promote - which is something I say in the movie. It’s what Lawyer McCoy says to Salazar, which is essentially, he’s sort of a representative of the media in his little form there.

Q: Right, the guy with the camcorder.

A: Exactly.

Q: “Redacted” is already starting arguments. You’ve got Bill O’Reilly on your case. Doesn’t that actually help you?

A: I don’t really know. I mean these people sort of rant and rave about God knows what every day. I don’t know how much penetration it has in terms of doing a publicity tour for something. Maybe? But as I say, I watch a lot of these shows, and they’re always teeing off on something every day. So it’s like what’s red meat for today?

Q: I’m going to read you some criticism from the message board on your IMDb page and ask you to respond: “He picks out the worst of us and ignores the best.” “… Propaganda against our soldiers and gives aid and comfort to the enemy.” “It might not be like Jane Fonda in Vietnam (treason in my opinion). But it comes as close as possible.”

A: [Long pause.] Well I feel, basically I’m showing something about the soldiers that has not been expressed in the mainstream media at all. This is stuff that exists in the documentaries and the blogs that I’ve read. So I’m presenting another aspect to them, which is perfectly understandable. It’s no different than the soldiers that I dramatized or directed in “Casualties of War.”

And it’s just trying to show what happens when you send boys into this particular situation. In the movie it states quite clearly that this is an isolated incident, these are bad apples, it does not indict the whole corps. It’s just showing why guys do stuff like that. I want to know why. And I want to know the circumstances in which this occurs.

I’m rather upset by the fact that we’re destroying our Army in a war that makes no sense. That’s what gets me really mad. Of course I support the troops, but what are we telling them to do? What are we doing over there? I would like to have them protecting the homeland but in a situation which makes a little sense.

Q: Every scene and image in the movie comes from a camcorder, surveillance cam, foreign documentary footage - sources that could plausibly have captured the story in real life. Why did you decide to trade your style, which is more attention-grabbing, for that?

A: Because I think it’s important to let the audience know that even though this appears to be a documentary in many ways and real material, it’s all fiction and you will believe it anyway. So all that stuff you’re watching on television, just because it’s on your screen in the news hour does not necessarily mean it’s true.

Q: This ain’t “The Green Berets.” How do you think “Redacted” fits in with the great anti-war war films like “Go Tell the Spartans” and “Paths of Glory”?

A: It’s kind of early to tell because it’s such a unique style, I don’t really know. Obviously it has a tremendous effect on an audience. They don’t exactly know how to react to it because it’s in a form they’ve never quite seen before. And it has a tremendous emotional whack, and either people resist it and are angry about it or are suddenly woken up about it. I’ve seen both reactions.

Q: You’ve explored voyeurism before in different contexts. What was your most controversial movie before this?

A: Oh, probably “Scarface” or “Body Double.”

Q: Yeah, and now “Scarface” has become a hip-hop classic. What do you think about how that’s become a model for the youth of today?

A: Well it’s also a model and it’s also, as the hip-hop artists talk about it, they say yeah, and it’s also a cautionary tale. They don’t want to go the way of Tony Montana.

Q: I understand you had a hand in the original “Star Wars.”

A: Well, George [Lucas] had a screening and I with a lot of friends saw like a really rough version, and we sat down afterward and we sort of - obviously this was an incredible movie, but there were certain things like in all our movies that needed some clarifications or things that could be better, and that’s why we’d have screenings like this of our movies with each other, and you’re dealing with the sharpest minds of that generation. And my particular contribution with another writer, Jay Cox, was the initial crawl which George had put a lot of information in, which I thought was too much to digest in the first crawl. And Jay and I just did a different version and some of that got into the final movie.

Q: Why don’t you do DVD audio commentaries?

A: (Pause. Sigh.) I just haven’t wanted to take the time to do it. I guess maybe in a few years when I’m not working as much, because that takes a lot of thought to do those correctly. You just can’t sort of spin it out, you know? It’s almost like doing a long interview book. It takes a lot of thought. I’ve seen really good commentaries, and you really have to think about what you’re saying and just don’t sit there in a room and sort of idly throw stuff in order to fill up the space.

Q: Is it true that you’re making a prequel to “The Untouchables” called “Capone Rising”?

A: We are still working on the prequel to “The Untouchables.” We’re still trying to get the right cast, and I’m working on it as we speak.

Q: Any idea who’ll play the young Al Capone?

A: We’ve had a lot of people in and out. We had Nic Cage in at one point, then we had a conflict, and he had to go off and do another movie. We’ve had a lot of actors in and out. We have Gerry Butler as the young Malone now. But again it’s trying to get all these guys together at the same time, and it’s been a bit of a trial, but we’re hopefully going to work it out.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com

While thousands of runners nursed sore legs and black toes Monday, Seattle Marathon officials should be feeling a different kind of pain.

In a story published Monday, Seattle Times reporter Nick Perry found that not one penny of race-entry fees collected by the Seattle Marathon Association goes to charity, even though the race names the UW Medical Center Patient & Family Housing Fund as its beneficiary. Only the money that runners choose to donate to the fund goes there.

So while last year’s race brought in more than $1 million, only $12,000 (about 1 percent) went to the fund.

Shame. Shame on organizers for misleading not only the public, but the people they purport to be helping, all the while jacking up entry fees and making sure they got paid.

“I don’t know if I would call it a bait and switch, but it appears to be misleading,” said Michael Bisesi, director of Seattle University’s nonprofit leadership program. “One percent of the total take won’t be of particular ‘benefit’ to anyone.”

And while Portland Marathon organizers take no compensation (event director Les Smith calls his 25 years at the helm “a labor of love”) Seattle’s organizers have tripled the amount they give employees. The 2006 tax return showed $330,000, up from $110,000 two years prior.

Some $162,000 of the 2006 take went to a for-profit company managed by race director Louise Long.

That means about one-third of the total went to administrative costs, which is “pretty high,” Bisesi said. The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance sets the standard at 25 percent.

Long told Perry that her intent “isn’t to make a lot of money.” She has a for-profit company and employs up to a dozen temporary staffers.

Whatever her intent, this is supposed to be an annual event that celebrates not only the city’s beauty, but its wellness and its tendency toward doing good deeds.

That the marathon is sponsored by the UW Medical Center and benefits its patients and their families surely reinforced that feeling, and gave runners a small yet significant incentive to keep going over 26.2 miles of the city’s streets and slopes.

Now, along with the post-race physical aches comes a vague sense of betrayal.

“If you paid your entry fee thinking that you would be helping a charity,” Bisesi said, “you were not fully informed, if not misled.”

Long’s intent should now be to make amends - and at a sprinter’s pace.

“All nonprofits have to work on is their integrity and credibility,” Bisesi said. “As soon as something like this happens, people become suspicious of all nonprofit events.”

So while runners recover, marathon organizers should do the same by taking a long look at their ledger, and the event’s reputation.

The only thing worse than a black toe on a runner is a black eye on an organization that pledges to do good, but barely breaks the tape.

Nicole Brodeur’s column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She hopes the Lemonheads helped.

Sonics at L.A. Lakers

7:30 p.m. today at Staples Center

TV/Radio: FSN and KTTH (770 AM)

Records: Sonics 2-12, Lakers 7-6

Injuries: Sonics C Robert Swift (sore right knee) and C Johan Petro (lower back spasms) are questionable. G Luke Ridnour (partially torn left thigh) is out. Lakers F/C Kwame Brown (ankle and knee sprain) is doubtful.

Percy Allen

P

SONICS

HT

PPG

R/A

F

D. Wilkins

6-6

15.1

5.0 R

F

Chris Wilcox

6-10

15.7

7.4 R

C

Kurt Thomas

6-9

5.0

7.2 R

G

Kevin Durant

6-9

18.9

4.4 R

G

Earl Watson

6-1

6.5

6.0 A

P

L.A. LAKERS

HT

PPG

R/A

F

Radmanovic

6-10

10.0

2.7 R

F

Lamar Odom

6-10

12.4

7.3 R

C

A. Bynum

7-0

11.0

10.2 R

G

Kobe Bryant

6-6

27.3

6.2 R

G

Derek Fisher

6-1

12.2

2.5 A

OAK HARBOR, Wash. - Like parents fussing over their children on the first day of school, volunteers recently planted the rare golden paintbrush seedlings on Whidbey Island in hopes that their efforts will help restore the coastal prairies of Puget Sound.

Golden paintbrush once ranged from Willamette Valley in Oregon to Vancouver Island in B.C., but now it only grows in 11 places and has been considered in danger of extinction for 10 years. Forbes Point, where the volunteers gathered, had Whidbey Island’s largest population of golden paintbrush.

On a bluff above the surging sea, nine people, many volunteers with The Nature Conservancy, unloaded several flats, each filled with almost 100 paintbrush seedlings. Volunteers took on various tasks - punching holes in the thick grass and soil, laying out the seedlings and planting the tiny paintbrush starts, carefully pressing the rich loam around their roots.

If the seedlings survive, and research indicates many will, the 1- and 2-inch-tall starts will reach 12 inches. This coming spring and summer, brilliant golden leaves will emerge. Last week, volunteers braved cold wind and a little rain to give the little Castilleja levisectas, its Latin name, a new home at two sites on Whidbey Island.

“It’s just something that needs to be done, a little something that needs to be given back,” said Al Frasch, a retired high school math teacher who lives in Freeland resident and Conservancy volunteer.

The volunteers worked first at Forbes Point, and they then went to Smith Prairie in Ebey’s Landing Historical Reserve, near Coupeville. Smith’s Prairie is managed by the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies, a Michigan-based Christian environmental group. The volunteers worked with biologists from the U.S. Navy and the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as two Conservancy employees.

The planting was part of an effort which includes six state and federal agencies, the Canadian government and at least five private, nonprofit conservation groups aimed at restoring the prairies in the Northwest and with them the threatened golden paintbrush.

Private groups, such as the conservancy, Au Sable and Whidbey Camano Land Trust, have either purchased acres of grassland or obtained conservation easements to prevent development of sections of the island’s coastal prairie. The conservation groups also work with the various agencies, including the Navy, to organize volunteer work parties.

For the Navy, monitoring the golden paintbrush within the Whidbey station’s boundaries is part of the military’s effort to ensure the agency complies with the Endangered Species Act. Civilian biologists regularly monitor species, such as the paintbrush, salmon, bald eagles and great blue herons.

For winter, the brilliant golden leaves that give the plant its name are gone. Only dry, brown seed pods and stems extending above delicate green shoots mark where the vivid plants bloomed this past summer.

While its reddish-orange cousins thrive all over the West, the golden paintbrush is on the verge of extinction, according to groups that seek to preserve the coastal grasslands of Whidbey. The golden paintbrush was first described in 1898 and was found in at least 30 sites in the Northwest’s coastal prairies.

The paintbrush benefited from the Northwest’s indigenous peoples’ practice of burning the grasslands to keep cedar and other species from crowding out camas and other plants they needed for food, said Peter Dunwiddie, a botanist and director of stewardship for the conservancy’s Washington chapter.

But when settlers of European descent arrived in the Northwest, the prairies were easier than the forests to clear for farming, Dunwiddie said. The loss of habitat is the most-accepted theory as to why the golden paintbrush numbers are low. Now browsing animals such as deer and rabbits are one threat to the plant’s recovery, as is development, he said.

Today, the golden paintbrush survives in only 11 places, including five sites on Whidbey and two in the San Juan Islands.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 plants are flowering at the remaining sites, Dunwiddie said.

Forbes Point at the naval station had the largest concentration of golden paintbrush on Whidbey Island in 1997, when U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials listed the golden paintbrush as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the federal government.

For Fish and Wildlife to remove the golden paintbrush from the threatened species list, at least 1,000 plants must flower for at least five years in 20 sites, according to the federal recovery plan. The plant is also protected in Canada, where it is found in only two spots on Vancouver Island.

“This population has fluctuated quite a bit,” said Judy Lantor, a Fish and Wildlife biologist.

There are signs that the volunteers’ hard work planting seedlings is starting to pay off for the golden paintbrush.

At the land trust’s Nass Natural Area Preserve in the Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve, the number of flowering golden paintbrush has grown from 59 to several hundred over the past three years, Dunwiddie said.

Restoring the prairies often involves pulling up Scotch broom and cutting down young shrubs and trees. It also helps protect the habitat needed by camas and chocolate lilies that bloom in Whidbey’s coastal grasslands along with the golden paintbrush.

“If we can save these prairies, we can save other species that are delicate and rare, but are not listed (as endangered),” Dunwiddie said.

The quarter-acre stretch of land where the volunteers worked last week between the steep bluff overlooking Forbes Point and the nearby Navy housing bears only a slight resemblance to the prairie that might have been before settlers came to Whidbey.

Nonnative species have replaced the native grasses, Lantor said.

Noxious weeds such as blackberry brambles and thistles have attempted to encroach on the section of protected land. It’s fenced to protect the rare plants from trampling by passers-by and nibbling deer and rabbits.

The volunteers are no fair weather gardeners. Marion Jarisch, who with her husband, Mike Jarisch, volunteers each week in the prairies of the South Sound, passed out hand warmers. Most everyone was decked out in fleece and warm boots. A few volunteers wore warm, waterproof pants and jackets like those worn by sailors and fishermen. Working quickly, they planted about 800 seedlings in rows.

“It’s mostly fun,” said David Hepp, a Lake Forest Park resident and retired landscape architect. A regular volunteer, he said that work on the grasslands gives him a change of pace and view. “It’s different habitat. I live in the deep woods in north Seattle. These are different plants, different birds.”

Waiting for warmer weather isn’t an option. Research indicates that the paintbrush need about six weeks of cold weather to germinate, according to the St. Louis, Mo.-based Center for Plant Conservation.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Trent Lott, a 35-year Capitol Hill veteran who staged a political comeback after losing his Senate leadership post because of racially insensitive remarks, plans to resign by year’s end.

By resigning, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican will avoid an ethics rule that takes effect by the end of the year, allowing him to pursue a lucrative lobbying job after a year’s wait rather than after two years.

The Mississippi senator is the latest veteran GOP lawmaker to announce plans to depart Congress after the party lost its majority to Democrats in the 2006 election. Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert quit Monday night.

Lott is the sixth GOP senator to announce plans to leave the divided chamber, which is mired in partisan conflict that is expected to worsen as the 2008 campaign heats up.

“We’ve had this great experience for these 35 years, but we do think that there is time left for us to maybe do something else,” Lott said of the decision he made with his wife, Tricia. Lott, who was elected to the House in 1972 and moved to the Senate in 1988, said he had no health problems.

But the timing of his departure fueled speculation that Lott, 66, was leaving to join the parade of former lawmakers who turn to lobbying to cash in on their experience and connections.

An ethics bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush this year doubles, to two years, the “cooling-off” period senators must wait after leaving Capitol Hill before they can lobby their former colleagues.

While Democrats face an uphill battle to capture Lott’s seat, his departure is a symbolically deeper wound to Republicans. Lott has served as a member of either the House or Senate Republican leadership for 19 of the past 27 years, and he is leaving midterm after winning his fourth six-year term last November.

“If I were 20 years younger, I’d be mounting my horse saying, ‘Let’s get this majority back,’ ” Lott said in his hometown of Pascagoula, Miss.

In the post-World War II era, only two senators have left midterm for life in the private sector, according to the Senate Historian’s Office. David Boren, D-Okla., became a university president in 1994 and Albert “Happy” Chandler, D-Ky., left the Senate to become commissioner of Major League Baseball in 1945. Others who left midterm moved to other public posts or were driven from office by scandal.

Lott’s departure is equally stunning because of his political comeback after allegations of racial insensitivity drove him from the leadership.

Poised to become majority leader, Lott praised Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for the South Carolina Republican in December 2002, saying the nation would not have “all these problems” if Thurmond had been elected. With the blessing of the Bush White House, Republicans banished Lott from the leadership.

Lott spent four years as a backbench Republican, burnishing his image as a behind-the-scenes dealmaker. By the end of 2005 - a year in which his mother died and his Pascagoula home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina - he planned to announce his retirement rather than seek re-election, he said. But Lott cited the need to help his state recover from Katrina, cruised to a re-election victory and threw himself last fall into a hotly contested bid for minority whip, winning by one vote.

That left the impression that he would remain in the chamber, and part of its leadership.

But Lott’s bipartisan skills have not been in high demand this past year, as the legislative agenda has nearly ground to a halt in a partisan standoff on issues ranging from the Iraq war to immigration reform.

“I think it was a surprise that it came right now, this soon,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Lott’s vote-counting deputy. “He just sort of reached the end of the line in terms of what he can do here. It’s kind of the cumulative effect of 39 years of wear and tear.”

The GOP departures have been a blow to Republican hopes of regaining their majority. With Lott’s departure, the GOP must defend 23 seats next year compared with 12 for Democrats.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said that once Lott resigns, he will appoint a successor to serve until an election is held next year. Republican Reps. Charles “Chip” Pickering and Roger Wicker are considered possible successors. Among Democrats, former Attorney General Mike Moore is mentioned as a possible candidate next year.

NEW YORK - Treasury prices rallied dramatically Monday on more credit concerns, pushing the benchmark 10-year note’s yield down to its lowest level in two and a half years.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 1 17/32 to 103 20/32 with a yield of 3.84 percent, down from 4.00 percent late Friday. The 10-year yield has not been this low since June 2005.

The 30-year-long bond advanced 2 27/32 to 112 1/32 with a yield of 4.27 percent, down from 4.43 percent late Friday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The 2-year note rose 9/32 to 101 9/32 with a yield of 2.92 percent, down from 3.07 percent late Friday. The 2-year yield dipped below 3 percent for the first time in almost three years last week.

Trading was dominated by a fresh set of worries about the impact of deteriorating subprime home loans on the credit and housing sectors; those concerns led investors away from risk and to again seek the safety of government bonds.

European bank HSBC on Monday said it will move two of its structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which contain some asset pools with exposure to sour home loans, onto its balance sheet. In the past many banks have kept structured investment vehicles off their balance sheets, obscuring their subprime problems.

HSBC also said it will provide up to $35 billion in funding for the SIVs. HSBC doesn’t expect a near-term resolution of the funding problems faced by the vehicles that it holds.

There also are concerns that Citigroup needs to put its collateralized debt obligations onto its balance sheets. These debt instruments also have some exposure to the subprime market.

Investor wariness is so strong currently that even positive developments are looked on nervously, including a boisterous start to the holiday shopping season that suggests consumers could continue to drive the economy.

South King County firefighters found a body inside a Des Moines house that was destroyed by fire early Monday.

The fire started in a rambler at 4:20 a.m. in the 1400 block of South 276th Street, said South King Fire and Rescue spokeswoman Donna Conner.

Four people lived at the house, and neighbors told firefighters they were all at home, Conner said. Three occupants were sent to hospitals with injuries from the blaze, and investigators found a fourth person dead inside the home, though they could not confirm it was the fourth resident.

The identification of the body will have to be done by the King County Medical Examiner, Conner said.

The fire also killed two dogs.

The cause of the fire had not been determined, Conner said. The home is considered a total loss.

- Seattle Times staff