Amazon hurting its neighbor, Nordstrom?
Amazon hurting its neighbor, Nordstrom? Charles Mudede

Nordstrom Cutting 106 Jobs: 30 of those jobs will be in Seattle, where the company is based. Seattle Times' sees the cuts as part of the current retail apocalypse that experts believe is mostly caused by the company a few blocks from Nordstrom's headquarters, Amazon. Seattle Times: "Nordstrom, which is faring better than its competitors but is nevertheless being affected by the retail storm battering department stores..." The company recently experienced a 41 percent drop in profits—but it's still making profits. And do not be surprised if those who lost jobs at the retail giant find new ones down the road.

Stupid Statue of "Fearless Girl" In Front of "Charging Bull": Has, unfortunately, been permitted by the mayor of New York City to stay in Wall Street's Bowling Green for a whole year. (The Occupy Wall Street protesters did not have it so good or receive so much love.) Indeed, some people think the statue of the girl about to get killed by a bull is so important that it should stay there forever. Even if you care for what the statue symbolizes (corporate feminism, or something along those lines), it is, as a work of political art, the result of very bad conceptual thinking. There is more quirkiness than content in this fearlessness. Also, it's hard for the attitude of fearlessness not to look silly or foolish.



Is Seattle Housing Crisis Caused by Tech Workers or by Speculation? For Vancouver B.C.'s real estate reporter Kerry Gold, Seattle is a "a case of déjà vu." For years, her city was faced with similar questions, and some experts there argued that it was a matter of supply and demand and others pointed to foreign buyers, who were not looking for places to live but places to park money. But "today, the effect of foreign buying is indisputable" in Vancouver B.C. Since 2013, Seattle's housing market has been inflated by some powerful force. Svenja Gudell, chief economist for Zillow, and Seattle City Council member Lisa Herbold believe this force is to be found in the local job market, which has, due to the growing tech sector, lots of big salaries. But in this picture of the situation, we find an absence of the kind of financial mechanisms that have shaped the whole US economy over the past 30 years. Speculators in financial centers around the nation and world have apparently had little or no role in our housing market. If this is true, then Seattle is truly exceptional for reasons that are unknown.


Blonde Texas Woman Tells Police That She Lied About Being Raped by Three Black Men: On March 8, a young woman had a fight with her fiancĂ©, a young man who had plans to join the army and relocate. That day the young woman went missing. The fiancĂ© reported the disappearance to the police, who began searching for her with dogs. Then she suddenly appeared in a church wearing only a shirt, bra, and underwear. There was blood on parts of her exposed skin. The members of the New Creation Church covered her partial nudity with a blanket and gave her refuge. The police were called to the church and told by the young woman that she was kidnapped and raped in the woods behind the church by three black men. The rapists wore ski masks and drove a black SUV. The story exploded social media. It takes no effort to imagine the kinds of things that were tweeted and re-tweeted. But "almost immediately, [the rape allegation] began to unravel...” On March 22, the police stated that the victim alleged that the rape was staged. If it was indeed a hoax, and there is evidence pointing in that direction, it's not much worse than many of the untrue things that Donald Trump said to his supporters to get elected.

A Body Without a Head Found in Snake River: Not only is the body's head missing, but the cause of its death and its identity is unknown. The body when found had a "pair of men's size-9 tennis shoes on the feet, and the denim jeans on the body were size 36 with a 30-inch inseam." KOMO reports that the body will be sent to investigators in Seattle.

Enumclaw Man Shot in an Apartment: Not much meat on this story yet, but basically this is what happened: Shots were heard, police were called, and a 21-year-old victim and a suspected shooter were located at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Enumclaw. That's all KOMO knows at this moment. What I do know is that St. Elizabeth Hospital, which made the top 25 "Most Wired" rural hospitals in America in 2011, is where in 2005 a horse-fucked man was left to die by his horse-fucking friends.


The Police in Washington, D.C. Finally Doing Something About Missing Girls And just this doing something has caused a lot of confusion. On Thursday, March 23, an Instagram post claimed that “14 Girls Have Gone Missing in DC in the Last 24 Hours." The girls are missing, true, but they did not go missing at the same time and all in the same area. The police's increased effort to find the missing people—who, in this case, are black and brown—appears to be the cause of the confusion. They are doing something instead of the usual nothing. Buzzfeed does point out that "the number of black people missing across the US is staggeringly disproportional."


Russian Spring? On Sunday, March 25, an estimated 8,000 people in Moscow protested against corruption. Hundreds were arrested. More protests are in the works. Is this Putin's Arab Spring or Green Revolution?


Speaking of Russia: New York Times: Senate committee to question Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about meetings with those pesky Russians, who my or may have not helped Trump win the election.