The Ohio-based corporation that does business as Krueger—sorry, I mean Kroger—has put two more Fred Meyer’s on the chopping board. These ones are in the Seattle area: one in Redmond, the other in Lake City. I visited the former not too long ago to buy wine for a family event. This Fred Meyer’s was, on a Saturday, a pretty busy place; and something of a festive atmosphere (people selling this, and people selling that) surrounded it. The store is really huge, and so when it goes under in mid-October, it will leave an equally huge commercial black hole in the neighborhood. Maybe we should start thinking about socializing our crucial food centers? Which politician in America is saying something like that?
Enjoy today’s moderate weather (a high of 73 is expected) as much as you can because summer will reassert itself in the coming days. Next week has it in mind to make life miserable with temperatures around 85. Rain will be out of sight, but certainly not out of mind. This morning, high and cream-colored clouds cover much of the sky; this afternoon, however, they will surrender their cooling powers to the giant center of our solar system.
KIRO reports that Seattle is down to its last week of 8 pm sunsets. After that, each day will, by losing three minutes of sunshine, crawl towards those long winter nights that are cold and wet and invigorating for vampires like me.
We have nothing against Christians who place the love of others above all else. But we will have nothing to do with Christians who just want to hate. And so it is, the haters, the Christians who only know how to throw stones, will do their “LET US WORSHIP” thing, not at Cal Anderson Park as initially planned, but at Gas Works Park. This is somewhat fitting. The first park represents urban diversity; the second, the rusty past. Vivian McCall reports that Mayor Bruce Harrell and Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth played a role in the change of location. Indeed, the last thing Harrell needs right now, in the fight for his political life, is a repeat of the anti-trans event that happened in May and ended with 23 arrests.
One More Thing: The name of this anti-LGBTQ+ group, LET US WORSHIP, reminds me of a grocery I visited long ago in some forgotten rural part of Oregon. It was called Lettuce Meet You.
The superpowers of eelgrass? Best believe that. Eelgrass, which is also known as seagrass, and is famous, at least to me, for its wonderfully wavy (if not cinematic) movements in watery twilights, has been the subject of a 4-year study that’s now in its final year and, for the most part, determined where in San Juan County the underwater plant is thriving and where it’s doing so-so. This is important to know because eelgrass has, according to the lead researcher of the project, no less than three superpowers. The always engaging Salish Current reports: “First, eelgrass meadows are ‘essential marine habitat’ for many species of fish and invertebrates. Eelgrass is an important nursery and foraging area for multiple species. It provides habitat for key species impacting the entire food chain, including endangered species such as the Southern Resident Killer Whales.” I know this isn’t the stuff of Superman or Batman or Captain America or what have you. But these powers are not imaginary but real, substantial, and life-changing. We spend much of our time watching on all manner of screens fictional people with powers that amount not even to a hill of beans when it comes down to what matters. In short, Marvel or DC Comics should make a movie about eelgrass.
Target didn’t have to do this. It really should have known better. It is, after all, based in the city that gave us Prince, The Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and The Family (“those screams of passion“).
Target caved to Trump, sold out their core customers, and torched their own brand.
They chose this path, and now they’re paying for it. I’m still not shopping there.
www.cnn.com/2025/08/20/b…— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) August 20, 2025 at 4:06 AM
Uranus Is Fecund When It Comes to Moons: We already knew it had 28 of them when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently spotted a new one that might not have existed at all until it was seen. (For my meaning, check out John Wheeler’s concept of a participatory universe.) The big ball of ice that’s 1.5 billion miles away from us now has 29 moons. The new one is pretty small—six miles wide. But it’s still a moon, and we should welcome it to the family that is our solar system. “Welcome to your life. There’s no turning back.”
A quick note about the participatory universe. The mid-century American physicist John Wheeler believed that we create the universe around us as much as it creates us, the observers. I’m not sure about this, but I do think our reality is culturally constructed. What is the meaning of this? Let’s go to Richard Feynman’s famous lecture “Atoms in Motion,” which contains a little science fiction. He imagines “a cataclysm” where “all of scientific knowledge [is] destroyed” and what’s left is one scientific sentence that a person down to their last breath must communicate to the future. It is: “All things are made of atoms—little particles that move around.” But if this apocalypse has the destructiveness Feynman imagined, then he should have known that this final scientific statement would be nothing but a waste of breath because science is by its nature social. Belief, even of atoms, is social—indeed, specifically, cultural. It’s madness to think that atoms could exist outside of our culture, which is a community of shared truths, and nothing more. This means saying atoms exist, without a community, is as empty as saying God exists, without a community. If only one person believes, then, Feynman, they are no better than Cassandra.
And this is how far the GOP will go to not face certain unappetizing facts about their supreme leader. Pussyfooting the matter is proving to be more demanding than walking on water.
So now five states, mostly southern, all with Reoublican governors, have said they will send National Guard troops to DC.
Keep in mind, these states have cities with far higher violent crime rates than DC. I repeat, these states have cities with far higher violent crime rates, yet they are sending
— DJ Bull (@d3djbull.bsky.social) August 19, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Because I ran into my brother Jace last night in Columbia City, let’s end AM with a classic from the golden era of Seattle hiphop, Silent Lambs Project’s “Mic Choke”:
“a festive atmosphere (people selling this, and people selling that) surrounded it.”
Hmmm I wonder how much of the This and That were stolen from the Fred Myers. C’mon Charles be bold like Hannah Krieg would have been and proudly state that it is stolen merchandise but that’s not a problem because of something, something, something, insurance, and fuck Capitalism!
There is ample indirect and direct (heard it from a Fred Meyer door ‘warden’ directly) that it’s simply not true that they’re closing due to shoplifting. So what do they gain by asserting this lie? Just right-wing political validation? Or can they get some financial advantage out of it during the sale? @#$!!
I’m sad to see the Lake City Fred Meyer close but it’s not surprising. If you allow drug addicted shoplifters to loot all the stores, eventually there will be no stores left.
Don’t blame Trump for Target’s failures. I think those started with the sale of tuck-friendly swimsuits for four old “trans girls”. LOL, Target, how could you have been so fucking stupid?
I’d love Trump to send the Guard to Memphis and St Louis as much as the next guy, but those Governors will have to request the help. Make the call, Governors, and Trump will be there to help, I guarantee it.
Charles, are you aware of the troubles with Kansas City’s government run grocery stores?
“We have this really rich [private-sector] marketplace that encourages providers to meet the needs of even tiny communities. But with government-run stores, we lose all that. We lose all that information we collect in the private market.
“And so, it’s not that government-run grocery stores haven’t been successful. I would argue that government run grocery stores cannot be successful.”
https://heartlandernews.com/2025/07/27/kansas-citys-government-backed-grocery-store-failing-customers-taxpayers-more-critics-than-tomatoes/
@3 Those governors have the authority to send their state’s National Guard into their own cities. It would not curry near as much favor with their Dear Leader. This is performative.
@3: See @2.
@2, because the alternative explanation is financial mismanagement and/or market conditions becoming less favorable, making the company less attractive to investors than hyperlocal conditions that are beyond their control
Without moderation, this place is going to turn into the same sort of serially dishonest far right cesspit as Willamette Week’s comment section did.
@4 – yes, those Governors could activate the National Guard but then they would be on the hook for the bill. Honestly that is the way it should be, but clearly it has stopped these Governors from cleaning up their states. We are going to be saving so much money not paying EBT and Medicaid to illegal immigrants that we can all step up and help out Missouri and Tennesee with their crimes issues.
@5 – I simply do not believe @2.
@7 – it’s good to encounter differing viewpoints. Heck, that’s why I read the Stranger in the first place. Always trying to expand my understanding of the issues.
@7: However the far-left commenters use the far-right commenters as examples to make their points to the glee of other far-left commenters. I don’t see a problem, and it’s been this way since The Stranger started. However, there were far fewer right-leaning or far-right commenters back then.
@4 the opinion statement you quoted comes from a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, which according to their website is “the only think tank in Missouri dedicated to promoting free markets and individual liberty” with a stated mission “to advance liberty with individual responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy.” So while the KC government grocery store may well actually be a disaster, that person would claim it is regardless.
@1 your theory is numerous people stole property from Fred Myers (sic) then set up shop selling it right outside in the parking lot? Just how incompetent are the store security and local police in your opinion?
@6 hit the nail on the head
Sorry Charles, but atoms aren’t a social construct; they exist outside of that, have existed before our biological ancestors first crawled out of the slime, and will continue to exist long after our sentient species has been forgotten by the cosmos. It’s simply another example of Kant’s thought experiment: “If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?”, which, in both examples he would argue in the affirmative, as all the necessary conditions for the existence of atoms have been given. It’s only our own hubris that assumes our ability to observe these phenomena is an integral part of that process.
@10: Oh, you want the same news but from an outlet you think is less partisan? My pleasure! How about from the local CBS affiliate? Here you go:
https://www.kctv5.com/2025/07/23/empty-shelves-persist-linwood-shopping-center-grocery-store-after-injection-funds-city/
@6 if that’s true then this is a very desirable location for a new grocer. It already has infrastructure in place and strong demand. If another grocer doesn’t come into that space then there are issues beyond things internal to Fred Meyer.
@11, Atoms are part of a theoretical model humans derived to explain the observable universe but we don’t actually know that they exist. The model works so we assume it’s correct but we don’t know that, nor that another model could replace it that also explains natural phenomena with the same predictive power.
Scientific theory is always limited because by definition we are trying to describe things we can’t directly observe and don’t intuitively understand. For example, quantum mechanics and relativity are models that describe the physics of subatomic particles and large bodies and they are fundamentally incompatible with each other, but both models serve their respective purposes so we work with them fully knowing they’re imperfect.
@14 I’d be interested in your explanation of “we don’t actually know that they exist.”
We can infer the existence of individual atoms with scanning tunneling microscopy. IBM was able to successfully manipulate what are commonly known as xenon atoms to spell out IBM in the 90s using STM technology.
Why is it, in your opinion, and in light of IBM and other’s research, that you believe we cannot know if individual atoms exist?
Lol, so much of what we have learned about anything is like putting a puzzle together with some detailed pieces and some blank pieces that fit in specific spots. And then there are the spots that religion trowels its bullshit into and tries to say that because they can trowel more bullshit into the blank spaces that they obviously have an important place in the reality. Ha! take that fundamentalist dweebs. All your creationist crap is just bull shit and it’s ALL BAD FOR YOU.
@12 that article says the store is run by a non-profit, so this example actually provides no evidence for the free market think tank senior fellow’s assertion in your original comment that “government run grocery stores cannot be successful”
The Ballard Fred Meyer has undergone substantial changes to combat theft. As homeless encampments sprang up just outside their parking lot, you started to see increasingly brazen theft inside the store. I recall seeing tweakers just grabbing stuff off the shelves, not even bother trying to hide it, and walking right out the door. Store employees would look at them dumbfounded. Now they have many products locked up, they set up a separate enclosure inside the store for lots of the drugstore type stuff, they’ve got separate entrance and exit doors, with gates preventing exiting through the entrance doors. They’ve got barriers preventing exit unless you go by a checkout lane. They’ve got security checking receipts on the way out. All this stuff is new in the last like 5ish years. A shame, but it is what it is.
@15 it’s a scientific theory by definition we can’t know that it’s real idk how more plainly to put it than that either you get it or you don’t
@16 – “creationist crap” is not bullshit. For all of our advances in science, we still cannot explain the “unmoved mover” as Aristotle called it. Something started it all. We still have no explanation for what that something might be. Of course, Lawrence Krauss will try to convince you otherwise. And heck, maybe if I could understand his math, I’d believe in him too.
@19 well, we can see evidence that directly contradicts with your theory, so either the theory is shit or your explanation is shit. In your honor, I’ve explained that as plainly as possible.
I’ll also note re: the discussion of atoms as “real” or “cultural constructs” that a former UW prof, Hans Dehmelt, was the first to successfully isolate a single atom and take a picture of it. For techniques related to this he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1989. I was a graduate student around that time and recall being in his lab and somebody saying “hey, you want to see a single atom?”. I thought that was pretty cool, completely unaware of the groundbreaking technology I was looking at.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/03/21/hans-dehmelt-nobel-laureate-and-uw-professor-emeritus-has-died-at-age-94/
“…long winter nights that are cold and wet and invigorating for vampires like me.”
Charles, I’m amazed you don’t live in an igloo above the Arctic Circle year round.
Please–let those of us who appreciate and enjoy summer, which isn’t over yet,
revel in what remaining extended days of sunshine and Vitamin D3 we can.
I’m not a big fan of the dark season or pumpkin spice lattes.
@13 there’s a Grocery Outlet on the next block and Safeways 5 and 7 minutes drive away. It’s very possible this Fred Meyer just got outcompeted by stores already in the area (who’d have no need to take over their building), which of course Kroger would prefer not to admit.
@3 Target NEVER marketed the swimwear in question to children or offered it in children’s sizes. That lie has been debunked over and over and over again, yet it persists because too many people like you have no shame, let alone any sense of ethics or civic responsibility.
But this false accusation begs the question of what, exactly, is wrong with selling trans-friendly swimwear for all ages? I think the smartest move for Target’s next CEO would be to lean in hard on DEI instead of running away from it. There’s a wide-open market niche for a general merchandiser that deliberately courts the anti-MAGA, pro-diversity, urban/suburban MAJORITY. Target should grab that opportunity and position itself as the explicitly woke alternative to Walmart. Granted, Target may be too brand-damaged at this point to succeed with this strategy, but it doesn’t have much to lose by trying it. I’m quite certain it would work for someone.
@7 – CENSORSHIP NOW!!! How else can we keep the Slog comments section a pRoGrEsSiVe circle-jerk echo-chamber??!??!? I DEMAND CENSORSHIP OF ANY OPINION THAT IS NOT PROGRESSIVE!!!
@21 what are you even talking about? I haven’t shared a single theory, only explained that even the most bulletproof theories are still human-derived models to explain the observable universe that could be replaced by other/better models in the future.
Atoms exist and if you don’t think that’s true then you are a fucking idiot.
@27 you said we can’t prove atoms exist.
I demonstrated evidence that does prove atoms exist.
I ain’t got a clue what theory you are talking about, but clearly it does not relate to us being unable to prove the existence of atoms.
@29, No, you have demonstrated the model works but models can work even when we know they’re wrong so that alone is insufficient to prove the model is faithfully describing reality. Again, this is a standard caveat for virtually all scientific theories.
@25: “ what, exactly, is wrong with selling trans-friendly swimwear for all ages?”
Trans is for adults only, that’s why.
@30 take the L dude – you misspoke and now even a clown is capping on you.
Atoms exist, quarks exist, we have strong physical evidence going on decades (we’re past theoretical).
If you’re trying to say science theory often predates the physical proof, then say that.
32 no, this is philosophy of science 101. You have no way of knowing whether a future discovery will break the existing model or if we are overlooking things because the model falls short. I believe atoms exist and I certainly have no better explanation myself, I am just speaking to the limitations of scientific theory.
The question of whether reality exists independently of an observer is a metaphysical question, not a scientific question.
@11. YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. COMTE, AND I WON’T HAVE IT!!
@20 you’re such a dense bore. Aristotle was clueless on the true nature of the universe. He had no scientific tools to expand his understanding of the universe. The unmoved mover is just another place holder for people that just can’t accept that they didn’t have all the answers. Just like creationism and all the religious beliefs crappola fairy tales of how the heavens operate. Now go suckle your MAGA binky and change your diaper before you go stick your head up your ass for a nappy.
@31 You are a menace to polite society, delete your account. Trans is for anyone aware of themselves. If you know you are trans, once puberty starts, you are fucked.
@24 great, nothing to worry about then and there is no need for a government subsidized store since there is adequate supply in the area. I really don’t understand the progressive handwringing every time a store closes down. If the location is viable another store will take its place and if its not putting a government subsidized store there will be a waste of money.
Oh christ…
Can we just go back to talking about halibut?
ducks
@37 Killed it (Period) point-set-match
@40 the “period”, is the important part.
@39: Fine with me.
@31 Oh, come on. Even if you believe that no child should ever transition even socially, the fact is that kids have been trying on each other’s clothes and otherwise playing with gender roles since time immemorial. For many children, including those who never experience gender dysphoria in the slightest, such experimentation is a vital part of learning who they are — and in any case it’s no more cause for hand-wringing than playing doctor (and probably less so than playing soldier or “cowboys and Indians”).
@barth: When you see a piece of paper fly up from the sidewalk and go skittering up the side of a skyscraper, do you explain it with, “Newton must’ve been wrong about gravity,” or, “Wow, wind’s really gusty today”? You choose the latter explanation, even though it requires a completely invisible force to have suddenly overcome gravity. You make the judgement that the probability of Newton having been wrong is so much smaller than the probability of a completely invisible force becoming (temporarily) strong enough to overcome the earth’s gravity. The same process gives us “atoms exist,” over “somewhere out there might be an explanation which is better than atoms.” The second explanation is simply far less likely to be true, especially given the evidence @22 cited.
“…but models can work even when we know they’re wrong…”
No. “Incomplete” does not equal “incorrect.” Newtonian (or “classical”) mechanics work just fine on the scales of time, space, and mass that we humans experience with our unaided senses. But classical mechanics do not cover the entire universe we can perceive with scientific instruments we developed long after Newton died. Ironically, it was whilst trying to model subatomic particles with classical mechanics that we learned just how poor of an approximation classical mechanics could be on those scales. The results were not merely wrong, but catastrophically wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe). Did scientists write stupid sentences like, “…our reality is culturally constructed”? No, they worked to develop better models of subatomic particles, and therefore better models of the atom itself.
Atoms aren’t even real, man. It doesn’t matter. Neither are birds.
Fucking. leave. The. Fucking. Birds. Out. Of. Your. Mouth! (Takes stage and flying bitch slaps@45) (period)
Jesus,
Charles:
look what
you’ve started
@47 kristofarian: +1 Right??
@37
bingo
Brava
[& are
you ‘C.C.’
on Bsky?]
@31
please
remove
head from
anal orifice:
you’ll be Able
to Breathe
so much
Better!
@43: All that is true, but also true are just effeminate gay boys and tom boys and puberty sorts those feeling out. Also true is that trans is being dangerously evangelized that gets kids, such as a girl suffering child abuse thinking that being male would save her – is that the same as gender dysphoria?
Too many people in this world wish they had their penis back.
Too many people in this world wish they had their breasts back.
Too many people in this work are okay with their transition but are suffering lifelong medical complications.
Yes, there are happy stores and we love them. But we also need to take care those who have a hard time with it and help prevent unfortunate and hasty decisions. The best way to do that is to not allow kids to transition.
I know I’m right.
@37: “If you know you are trans, once puberty starts, you are fucked.”
No, that’s your projection and a child would be never be tormented with such thoughts unless there are adults with agendas in his or her life.
Polite society does not mean that people have to believe delusions and peoples unrealities and disassociations.
“It’s madness to think that atoms could exist outside of our culture, which is a community of shared truths, and nothing more.”
Feynman loved ripping apart such pseudoscientific nonsense almost as much as Sagan did. I hope everyone gets to imagine what Feynman would have done with Charles’ statements here. (Bonus delight in imagining Feynman saying it in the scabrous, borough accent — he hailed from Queens — he seemed to have retained specifically for such purposes.)
“If only one person believes, then, Feynman, they are no better than Cassandra.”
Yes, Charles. You understand and explain reality much better than a Nobel-Prize-winning Professor of Physics ever could. You just keep repeating that until you’re even more sure than you already are. (Especially the bit about reality depending upon belief, which should warm the hearts of Creationists everywhere.)