Toxin Handler

MIAMI - The inquisitive snowman is back.

Will he ask the Republican presidential candidates about global warming, as he did during the Democratic debate in July? CNN isn’t telling.

Today is the second nationally televised debate in which traditional moderators give way to ordinary people - or frozen figurines - posing questions via YouTube videos.

Nearly 5,000 people sent in questions, up from about 3,000 submitted through the online video-sharing Web site for the first debate. There’s no shortage of novelty acts, with questions submitted by song, cartoon and by “Billiam” the snowman, who tells Republican candidate Mitt Romney to “lighten up slightly” for suggesting after the Democratic debate that responding to a snowman would demean the presidency.

“I hope that you would appreciate no one is more qualified to ask a question about global warming than a concerned snow parent,” quips the snowman (actually the voice of Minneapolis college student Greg Hamel).

The quirky, in-your-face format may force the candidates to depart from their scripted lines as they enter the crucial homestretch of the primary campaign. Only five weeks remain until the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, when voters get to weigh in on the longest presidential-primary campaign in history. Florida voters will have their say Jan. 29.

“The candidates have really got to step up their game and bring a lot of passion to it, because people are starting to pay attention,” said Todd Goberville, chairman of the Florida Federation of Young Republicans, which encouraged members to send in debate questions. “The timing of this debate is really important.”

The backbiting in the past few days has grown increasingly intense between candidates Rudy Giuliani and Romney, and between campaign latecomer Fred Thompson and wild card Mike Huckabee. John McCain can’t be counted out either, in one of the most unpredictable presidential campaigns in decades.

Just as uncertain are the questions that will be chosen today.

“We’re not going to put on a question because there’s some novelty attached to it,” CNN political director Sam Feist said.

“We’re looking for questions that are important, interesting, clear and understandable. And questions over 30 seconds are unlikely to get in.”

Producers will select the questions as the program airs, depending on the direction of the debate.

“These debates take on a life of their own once you’ve started them,” Feist said.

Even public figures with national platforms couldn’t resist the democratic appeal of the anything-goes forum.

Without any props or gimmicks, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist submitted a video, a day past the deadline, asking the candidates whether they would support a national catastrophic-insurance fund to help pay for hurricanes, fires and earthquakes. Actor and director Kirk Douglas, his speech impaired by a stroke, asks about improving public schools. Republican crusader Grover Norquist appeals for a no-new-taxes pledge.

Even Democratic presidential contender Chris Dodd gets into the act, saying that “many Americans are concerned that the administration” believes that to be safer, “we have to give up rights.”

“I don’t believe that, and I wonder if you do?” Dodd asks.

“The challenge for the candidates is to distinguish themselves from each other in potentially negative ways, but without being offensive or disrespectful to the voters who are supposed to be the focus of the debate,” said lobbyist Justin Sayfie, who recently launched the PurpleFlorida.com social networking site, mingling the concerns of red (GOP) and blue (Democratic) voters.

“This debate isn’t driven by the candidates or even the news media. It allows people who wouldn’t otherwise have a voice to participate.”

LOS ANGELES - Shock overcame Sonics rookie Kevin Durant on Tuesday morning.

And it had nothing to do the matchup later in the day with Los Angeles star Kobe Bryant.

Durant, a fan of the Washington Redskins since growing up in the Washington, D.C., area, couldn’t believe the news that safety Sean Taylor died after being shot in the leg in a home-invasion incident at Taylor’s home in Miami.

Durant, 19, doesn’t know the Taylor family personally, but still sent his prayers.

“It’s a tragedy,” Durant said. “My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. I don’t know what you can do in that situation, but he’s up in a better place right now. He’s up in heaven.”

The Sonics discussed Taylor’s death on the bus to their shoot-around Tuesday. There has been a rash of armed robberies against athletes in the NFL and NBA in recent years, including New York’s Eddie Curry and Detroit’s Flip Murray, a former Sonic.

Durant, the No. 2 overall draft choice, acknowledged he could be a target because of his name recognition, leading all NBA rookies in scoring at 18.9 points a game. People even know the location of the Mercer Island home he shares with his family.

“People tell me I am,” Durant said of being targeted. “I’m a young guy, tall, and there’s a lot of so-called hype. I just try to surround myself with good people who won’t allow me to be in a bad position. And I’m a low-key guy. I really don’t wear too much jewelry or wear flashy things. You’ve got to be careful.”

Sonics guard Earl Watson, a seven-year veteran, felt for the Taylor family.

“Your heart goes out to people who are close to him, like I think about his mom, first,” Watson said. “It could be anyone. It could be just someone looking to rob someone. It’s something we talk about and you have to be careful.”

West starts

Sonics guard Delonte West received the nod to start Tuesday night. The move simply was part of Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo’s plan to give West, Watson and Luke Ridnour time to start in the beginning part of the season before settling into a regular rotation.

But only Watson has been healthy every day since the opening of training camp, receiving the bulk of the starts - 12 of the Sonics’ past 15 games.

“Depending on who does what during the game, that’ll be who finishes the game,” said Carlesimo, who’s leaned toward West the past few matchups.

Ridnour, Petro closer

Ridnour didn’t make the trip to Los Angeles, but a team spokesman said he’s close to returning from a partially torn left quadriceps.

Ridnour is doing some work on the court, but athletic trainer Mike Shimensky hasn’t told Carlesimo when Ridnour can return to practice.

Center Johan Petro, who suffers from a lower back strain, is able to play, but Carlesimo doesn’t want to use him until he has a chance to practice.

With the Sonics playing the second of a back-to-back set against Orlando tonight, that probably won’t be until Thursday at the earliest.

A few weekends ago, I was flown to the old Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg to be a representative in a kind of assembly. McNeil/Lehrer Productions had chosen 47 people from around the country as part of a program on America in the 21st century. Each of us arrived with the thought, “Why me?”

None of us was a public figure in a big way. The highest-level official was the attorney general of Illinois, followed by the mayors of Nebraska City, Neb., and Youngstown, Ohio.

There had been an obvious attempt to touch certain social fence posts by including: an Episcopal bishop, a Muslim chaplain and a professor at the Catholic University of America; a fundamentalist pastor from Florida and a lesbian psychologist from San Diego; a lawyer from an Indian tribe and an organizer from the black neighborhoods of St. Louis; a high-tech businessman born in Hong Kong and a Cuban immigrant living in a FEMA trailer.

There was a woman who designs cars and another who runs a Shakespeare company. There was a lecturer from the U.S. Army War College. Besides, me there was one other editorial columnist, from the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky.

We were supposed to discuss fundamental issues - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness stuff. TV cameras would capture it and editors would make a PBS special of it, to run in 2008.

All 47 of us had opinions, but only a few made a living by marketing them, and we few tended to be more outspoken.

The McNeil/Lehrer folks divided us into four groups to debate resolutions. They further divided us into twos to write the resolutions. My co-conspirator and I were assigned to write a definition of citizenship. In five minutes we came up with this:

Citizenship means to take responsibility for ourselves and our families so that we are not an unnecessary burden on others; to keep abreast of public questions, participate in public deliberations, to speak out when necessary and serve our country in time of need; to live exemplary lives and pass on our values and wisdom to the next generation.

That would be bland enough for unanimity, I thought. But I was wrong. I have read the italicized statement to several folks and asked them to pinpoint the offending clause. So far, none of the conservatives has been able to find it. Liberals see it right away. I think of it as a kind of litmus test.

The offending phrase is, “an unnecessary burden on others.”

That grated on the ear of Lisa Madigan, the Illinois AG. It put an unfair onus on the acceptance of help. She moved that the words be taken out.

“It says unnecessary burden,” I said.

Still, she wanted it out, and when she made a motion to take it out a majority of our group raised their hands. But by our rules, my partner and I could leave the language in and see if the group would adopt the resolution anyway.

My partner - the Hong Kong immigrant - refused to budge, as did I.

“We leave it in,” I said.

The group then voted for it. Why they did, I don’t know. Maybe they agreed with it and maybe they were being nice. Niceness came in buckets that weekend. Anyway, they accepted it, and I was able to read it to all 47 delegates.

Betty Bayé of the Courier-Journal, former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, opposed it. She didn’t like the idea of self-made Americans, she said. All of us had been burdens on somebody. The greatest public value, she said, is compassion.

On my side were two Asian Americans. One argued that it had been no favor to the American Indians to put them under a regime of federal compassion.

Here was a fundamental divide, though we didn’t get far exploring it. I got the impression that Jim Lehrer, who was running the show, was more interested in the things that united us. There were plenty of those - but I think the divisions would make a better PBS-TV special.

Bruce Ramsey’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is seattletimes.com”>bramsey@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com

CARSON, Skamania County - Suspended 20 stories in the air, Ken Bible looks down on the crown of a 500-year-old Douglas fir and ponders a mystery.

It’s not the obvious one: How does a man without superpowers hover above the treetops?

That’s easy. The University of Washington forest ecologist rose to his lofty perch in a metal gondola hoisted by a 285-foot-tall construction crane.

The vantage point allows Bible to study the upper reaches of this old-growth forest, where a reproductive orgy is under way.

“We’ve never seen anything like this here,” he says, reaching over the edge of the open-air gondola to grasp a limb laden with cones.

He counts at least 30.

“Normally, a branch like this would have about three,” he says. “Why so many this year? We really don’t know.”

Maybe global warming nudged the trees to procreate. Perhaps it’s a natural cycle.

In either case, Bible wants to pinpoint the trigger. Did the forest crank up cone production in response to temperature? Is moisture the key? Or could the flush of fertility be traced to high spring winds that whipped up a sexy cyclone of pollen?

The work is part of a bigger effort to figure out what climate change, both natural and man-made, will mean for the Northwest’s iconic forests. The UW’s Wind River Canopy Crane, erected in 1995 near the Columbia River, is proving an ideal tool.

The crane and the research area that surrounds it have already helped answer several fundamental questions about forests and their ability to counteract global warming. A cooperative venture with the Forest Service, the crane is the largest in the world dedicated to forestry research, and the only one in North America.

It was here that scientists put to rest the myth that mature forests are biologically moribund. By rising above the treetops, they were able to take measurements that showed old forests continue to grow and act as a sink for carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

Studies here also proved it doesn’t make sense from a global-warming perspective to cut older forests and replace them with seedlings, which grow faster and had been thought to absorb more carbon dioxide. Old forests are storehouses for such vast amounts of carbon that it would take many decades for new forests to catch up on the carbon balance sheet.

“If you want to measure these kinds of things, you need to be able to get up in the tops of the trees and out at the ends of the branches where processes like photosynthesis are really going on,” says UW forestry professor Jerry Franklin, who pioneered the study of old growth. “The canopy crane gives you that ability.”

Scientists’ thrill ride

Riding the crane is like taking an elevator to the sky.

As the gondola glides upward, the gloom of the forest floor falls away. Sunlight floods in and the temperature climbs 10 degrees. Branches draped with tattered lichens called old man’s beard float past.

When the gondola reaches its apex, startled hawks sometimes circle around to see who’s intruding on their bird’s-eye view of the forest canopy, which spreads out in every direction like a lumpy green blanket.

The Douglas firs here can reach between 180 and 220 feet above the forest floor. The species mix also includes Western red cedar, Pacific silver fir and grand fir.

In addition to counting cones, Bible and his colleague Matt Schroeder are using the crane on this November morning to examine the buds that will determine how many new branches the trees will produce next year.

Schroeder speaks into a walkie-talkie, asking the crane operator to swivel the nearly 300-foot boom and bring the gondola hard up against a massive fir. Centuries of battering by wind and rain have flattened its crown.

Schroeder bends back the needles on the closest branch to reveal tiny brown spots that hold the arboreal equivalent of stem cells, able to form either branches or cones. “I can see about 100 buds on these top branches,” he says.

There’s abundant evidence from around the world that crocuses, lilacs and other flowering plants are blooming earlier each spring in response to rising temperatures. But nobody has figured out how to look for a similar response in full-grown trees. Buds may hold the answer, says Bible, director of the crane facility.

“The first thing we’re going to look at is whether these buds are going to break earlier in the spring over time.”

Warming is expected to bring more fires and insect infestations to Northwest forests, says Mark Harmon, an Oregon State University forestry expert who has used the canopy crane in his research. But experts are split on whether forest productivity will increase over time.

Carbon dioxide is a basic building block plants use to generate energy through photosynthesis, so it’s possible higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere will act like a fertilizer. But other nutrients could eventually put the brakes on forest growth, as would the drying predicted as snowpacks diminish in the Northwest, Harmon said.

Ambitious research plans

That uncertainty about what to expect reflects how little is known about the basic biological responses of trees - even the mainstay of the region’s timber industry, Bible says.

“We know next to nothing about Douglas fir, and it’s the species we know the most about,” he said.

Without a better understanding of the way trees will respond to a changing climate, it’s hard to evaluate programs that claim to offset carbon emissions by planting trees or protecting forests.

Many of the existing data gaps could be filled if the federal government funds an ambitious proposal for a nationwide network of ecological monitoring stations called NEON - the National Ecological Observatory Network.

The 10,000-acre Wind River Experimental Forest, now home to the canopy crane and a wide array of other forestry-research projects, is on the shortlist to be included in the network.

The area would be wired with a variety of sensors to monitor the way changing climate and different land-use practices, such as logging, affect flora, fauna, soil chemistry and the entire web of life.

“These measurements are going to be made on a scale that’s never been done before,” Franklin said. “And for the first time, we’ll be using identical instruments, so we’ll be able to integrate data from across the United States.”

In the meantime, Bible and Schroeder plan to spend part of the winter poring over weather data from the past year, to see if they can tease out the factors behind this year’s bounty of cones, which seems to extend well beyond the boundaries of the research area.

“It’s a very big cone year all around,” Bible said. “There has to be a reason.”

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com

NEW YORK - The son of philanthropist Brooke Astor was accused in an indictment unsealed Tuesday of plundering his mother’s $198 million estate and conspiring to have the Alzheimer’s-stricken socialite sign a new will leaving her fortune to him.

The indictment charges Broadway producer Anthony Marshall, 83, with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy. Marshall’s former attorney, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., was indicted on charges of forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, scheme to defraud and conspiracy.

“The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of Mrs. Astor’s diminished mental capacity in a scheme to defraud her and others out of millions of dollars,” said District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

As early as 2001, Astor’s doctors had told Marshall that his mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, that her ability to understand complex issues was limited, and that her condition would worsen, Morgenthau said.

Three years later, the prosecutor said, Marshall and Morrissey conspired to have Astor’s attorney fired, and to have her sign an updated will which left Marshall virtually everything.

Morrissey also is charged with participating in the forgery of Astor’s signature on that will, said Morgenthau. He didn’t explain how the signature was forged.

Marshall’s son, Philip, prompted the criminal investigation last year after he accused his father of neglecting Astor’s care and stealing her money. Astor died in August at age 105.

Anthony Marshall, a former diplomat and Tony award winning producer, has denied all allegations that he abused his mother’s trust - saying that he cared about her more than anyone else. If convicted of the most serious charge, grand larceny, he could be sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Marshall and Morrissey also were accused in a lawsuit filed by Philip Marshall of misappropriating cash, real estate, securities and other property belonging to Astor.

Astor, known for decades as the grande dame of New York society and philanthropy, gave away nearly $200 million to institutions such as the New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall and other causes.

In the final year of her life, the nasty family feud over her care was splashed all over the city’s tabloids - including allegations that she was forced to sleep in a torn nightgown on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal.

Astor’s friends, Annette de la Renta, the wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, and David Rockefeller, the banker and philanthropist, both signed affidavits supporting Philip Marshall’s claims.

The grand jury heard testimony for almost a month on how Marshall and Morrissey managed Astor’s estate and documents related to it. Philip Marshall, a professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, testified before the grand jury, according to his spokesman, Frazier Seitel.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pervez Musharraf will retire as chief of Pakistan’s army at midweek, his aides announced Monday as the embattled leader grappled with a political scene roiled by the return of an exiled former prime minister in time for crucial January elections.

Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by the 1999 coup that put Musharraf in power, quickly registered Monday to run in the election although he didn’t drop his call for a boycott that could undermine the ballot’s legitimacy.

Sharif appealed for support from Pakistanis unhappy with Musharraf’s U.S. alliance, portraying himself as a politician who kept himself at arm’s length from Washington, in contrast to the U.S.-friendly stance of the president and the other key opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto.

America and its allies want Musharraf to lift his suspension of the constitution to ensure a fair election, which they hope will produce a moderate government willing and capable of standing up to religious extremists with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Musharraf has eased the crackdown on dissent that saw police detain thousands of opponents and take independent TV news off the air, and his aides announced Monday that he was ready to take the long-promised step of quitting his powerful army post and ending direct military rule.

Musharraf suspended the constitution Nov. 3, saying he needed to stop the Supreme Court from creating political chaos and hampering the effort against militants.

The crackdown caused a break in relations between Musharraf and Bhutto, leader of the country’s biggest opposition party who was twice put under house arrest to stop her from leading mass rallies against the unpopular general.

Bhutto and Musharraf have since eased their public feuding, and she filed her candidacy papers on Monday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pervez Musharraf will retire as chief of Pakistan’s army at midweek, his aides announced Monday as the embattled leader grappled with a political scene roiled by the return of an exiled former prime minister in time for crucial January elections.

Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by the 1999 coup that put Musharraf in power, quickly registered Monday to run in the election although he didn’t drop his call for a boycott that could undermine the ballot’s legitimacy.

Sharif appealed for support from Pakistanis unhappy with Musharraf’s U.S. alliance, portraying himself as a politician who kept himself at arm’s length from Washington, in contrast to the U.S.-friendly stance of the president and the other key opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto.

America and its allies want Musharraf to lift his suspension of the constitution to ensure a fair election, which they hope will produce a moderate government willing and capable of standing up to religious extremists with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Musharraf has eased the crackdown on dissent that saw police detain thousands of opponents and take independent TV news off the air, and his aides announced Monday that he was ready to take the long-promised step of quitting his powerful army post and ending direct military rule.

Musharraf suspended the constitution Nov. 3, saying he needed to stop the Supreme Court from creating political chaos and hampering the effort against militants.

The crackdown caused a break in relations between Musharraf and Bhutto, leader of the country’s biggest opposition party who was twice put under house arrest to stop her from leading mass rallies against the unpopular general.

Bhutto and Musharraf have since eased their public feuding, and she filed her candidacy papers on Monday.

PITTSBURGH - A terrible field and dreadful weather caused the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers to rewind to a different NFL era, a time when points came at a premium and one field goal could decide a game.

They trudged through the quagmire of Heinz Field, nearly going all night without scoring. Nearly.

Jeff Reed’s 24-yard field goal with 17 seconds left Monday night gave Pittsburgh a 3-0 victory over winless Miami, the first time in 64 years a league game went that long before points were scored.

It was the league’s lowest-scoring game since Dec. 11, 1993, when the New York Jets beat Washington 3-0. The Detroit Lions and New York Giants played the league’s last scoreless tie in 1943.

“Those conditions, whew, they were horrendous,” Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward said after daylong rain and new sod created awful playing conditions. “The footing was bad. All of a sudden, you’d hit a water puddle and sink down.”

Hanging with the first-place Steelers (8-3) for 59 ½ minutes, Miami (0-11) almost pushed the messy game to overtime, where Pittsburgh is 0-2 this season. But the Dolphins managed a mere 159 yards of offense while going nowhere nearly all night.

The scoring drive started on the Miami 42 after the Dolphins punted out of their end zone. Ben Roethlisberger drove the Steelers into field-goal range with completions of 21, 11 and 6 yards to Ward.

Reed, who had missed badly from 45 yards earlier on the rain-drenched field, came through after Roethlisberger was sacked on third down.

“You put new sod in and weather like this, it’s not a good combination,” Reed said. “I planted [on his first field-goal try] and the whole sod moved over.”

After five high-school and college games were played at Heinz Field last weekend, crews put down a new layer of sod atop the chewed-up turf for Monday night’s game.

“It was like being on the beach, in the sand, on every play,” said Miami linebacker Joey Porter, a former Steelers standout playing against his old team for the first time.

Note

• The Dolphins activated running back Ricky Williams after a 1 ½-year suspension, but he injured a shoulder during the second quarter after carrying six times for 15 yards.

By most standards Ted Wight would be considered quite wealthy.

A retired venture capitalist, he collects expensive art and pricey cars and lives in a penthouse in Belltown. “I’d say my income and net worth put me ahead of the majority of people … ” Wight said.

Yet the Seattle native describes himself not as upper-class, where many might put him, but as part of the bulging middle.

In a country where people like to think there are no class lines, large numbers of Americans - up to 80 percent of them - identify themselves as middle-class. The broad, ambiguous and much-pandered-to segment of the population encompasses everyone from chief executives to janitors.

The term “middle class” has come to represent the typical American - fussed over by politicians and the target of every tax- and health-care-reform effort. You needn’t hold a college degree to be part of this class, but it might help if you had one in your household - along with a pair of kids and two incomes.

“Americans don’t like to talk in terms of class,” said Robert Plotnick, professor of public policy at the University of Washington, pointing out that the European model of nobility never caught on. “The idea that I’m better off than you is very un-American.

“People tend to describe themselves as middle-class even if they’re very well-off, because everybody knows someone who’s making more money.”

Bill Dubay, who works for King County and considers himself middle-class, believes the designation has as much to do with lifestyle as it does income and net worth.

“If you’re making a lot of money but you’re a hermit or a couch potato, I’m not sure you can be middle-class,” he said. “Education counts, and I think where you spend your money counts, too. If you spend it all on football games, then I don’t think you qualify.”

As much attention as it gets, the middle class is not defined by the government. “If a person says they’re middle-class, I think we’re obligated to take their word for it,” said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Some economists, he said, have drawn rough parameters around the 60 percent of Americans who remain after you lop off the top and bottom 20 percent of earners.

For 2006, the median household income in the U.S. was $48,201 - meaning half of all households were below that amount and half above it. For Washington state, the median was $52,583.

Henok Tadsse, a taxi driver from Ethiopia who’s been in this country 11 years, said he considers himself working-class - not middle-class - despite owning a home in Edmonds and two cars, and paying private-school tuition for his 4-year-old son.

Middle-class status, he said, applies to those with college degrees, at least $60,000 in income, working 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with time to spend in the evening with their children.

“You know, the American Dream stuff,” he said. “I’m not there - not yet.”

In 2003, Gallup conducted a poll that found that someone with an annual income of $122,000 was considered by Americans to be “rich.”

The same poll found that only 1 percent of Americans identify themselves as being upper-class, while 80 percent put themselves in the middle class, working class or lower class.

“If you ask the sanitation worker, he’ll probably tell you, ‘Yes I’m middle-class and I owe it all to my union,’ ” said Burtless of the Brookings Institution. “It goes to show that no one has a good definition of what the middle class is.”

But Rob Hamm, a software tester at Microsoft who lives in West Seattle, said the government should more clearly define class because “so much of our social structure is based on it.

“Without a better system, you are left with people defining class based on where they think they fit,” said Hamm, who defines himself as upper-middle class.

“Being rich is considered a bad thing; so is being poor. In France, rich people lost their heads … but with Bill Gates, being rich is OK because he gives his money away.”

Seattle Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this story.

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

Seattle comedy contest has winner

The 28th annual Seattle International Stand Up Comedy Competition is over, and a Salt Lake City performer who goes by the single name Marcus is getting the last laugh. He took first place in the nearly monthlong competition, winning $5,000 and a Dec. 6-8 gig at Seattle’s Comedy Underground.

Other top-five finishers: Tony Boswell ( Chicago); Leif Skyving (Boise); and Northwest residents Key Lewis and Geoff Lott.

Marcus incorporates music, dance and celebrity voices into his routines. More information on his Dec. 6-8 shows: 206-628-0303, www.ticketweb.com or www.comedyunderground.com.

Seattle Times staff

“Idols” in “Black Nativity”

A trio of local singing contestants from the hit reality TV series “American Idol” will take solo turns in Intiman Theatre’s holiday musical, “Black Nativity,” Sunday. By far the best known is Sanjaya Malakar, the controversial entertainer who placed seventh in this year’s “Idol” contest. Also appearing will be Karma Johnson (from the 2002 season of “American Idol”) and Leah Vladowski (from season 2004).

All three performers are alums of Seattle singer Patrinell Wright’s Total Experience Gospel Choir, which performs annually in “Black Nativity: A Gospel Song Play.”

Malakar, Johnson and Vladowski will appear in the shows at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday Tickets and information for those shows and other performances of “Black Nativity,” which runs through Dec. 28:206-269-1900 or www.intiman.org.

New City finds new home

Another footloose drama company has found a place to dwell on Capitol Hill. New City Theatre is now installed in its new home, a 900-square-foot performance space at 1404 18th Ave., between Union and Pike streets.

According to New City artistic director John Kazanjian, the venue is titled New City Art Center and will officially open in January with a new work by writer-actor Kristen Kosmas. The show will be followed in February, tentatively, with a Holly Hughes play presented by the New City Gay & Lesbian Theater Project.

New City also plans to host an annual festival next March that showcases work by local actors, playwrights and directors. More information: newcitytheater@comcast.net or 206-271-4430.

Misha Berson,

Seattle Times theater critic

Christmas in NW online, on CD

Ready for Christmas tunes? Then check out “Christmas in the Northwest Radio,” streaming continuously online at www.christmasinthenorthwest.com, courtesy of Children’s Music Fund. Steve Lawson, executive producer, said in a statement that the project is a promotion of the 10 CDs by “Christmas in the Northwest” artists, and a fundraiser for four children’s hospitals in Washington and Oregon. A visit to the Web site will give listeners a link to continuous streaming of all 10 of the “Christmas in the Northwest” CDs, with no commercials.

Among the artists: Kirkland resident and Grammy nominee Stacie Orrico, the Dave Matthews Band, Harvey Danger, Heart, Pete Droge, LeRoy Bell, Kenny G and the Steve Miller Band.

For more information about Children’s Music Fund and the “Christmas in the Northwest” series, or to listen to song samples from previous albums, visit www.christmasinthenorthwest.com or www.myspace.com/christmasinthenorthwest.

A classical Christmas

Fans of classical Christmas music can now hear all Christmas, all the time, too, through Dec. 25 by visiting the new KING-FM Christmas Channel in HD radio at www.KING.org. There the station is streaming traditional carols and holiday classics on demand, the perfect option for listeners around the world who have no desire to hear another pop crooner intoning “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.”

The KING-FM Christmas Channel will also be available 24 hours per day for local audiences in HD at 98.1 HD-2, said Bryan Lowe, the station’s program director, in a statement. The station has been streaming 98.1 Classical KING-FM on the Internet since 1985, with a current average of 450,000 listening sessions each month, and an average time spent listening of 110 minutes.

Melinda Bargreen,

Seattle Times music critic