The numbers are good for the American workforce. Credit: Natee Meepian/Getty Images
The numbers look good for the American workforce.
The numbers look good for the American workforce. Natee Meepian/Getty Images

Not enough Washington students are getting post-high school educations to fill future jobs: Although 59 percent of Washington students enroll in a post-secondary school, only 40 percent will likely finish their education program—the problem being that the vast majority of job openings require a four-year degree. While this Seattle Times article talks about numbers, it somehow manages to never once bring into question cost of college, or student debt, and if you are seriously asking these questions and don’t consider the financial aspect, you’re doing it wrong.

“The car appeared to be out of control”: Ya don’t say? I love the language on this tweet, it’s so nonchalant you almost forget a car drove into a building.

We need more school counselors: Only one in four schools in Washington have a freaking counselor! Our Superintendent, Chris Reykdal, wants to require one counselor per every 250 students. That is close to what Washington already has for high-schoolers, but for elementary-schoolers, we only currently have one counselor per every 812 students. And in middle school, where Reykdal says we are “starved for counselors,” there is only one counselor per 387 students.

THIS IS NORMAL I PROMISE: Nope I won’t promise nothing. Nothing is normal no more.

Conservative operative Roger Stone fancied himself a “Wikileaks conduit”: We’re talking about emails again people, but this time they are between Roger Stone and former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon. “However—a load every week going forward,” Stone tells Bannon in one email, assuring him there will be more Wikileak releases coming out. Sure, it could be that Stone was just primping himself up to look important, but he sure as hell implies he has a substantial connection.

Schism in Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka has two prime ministers, sort of. The Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena essentially booted out current Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and installed Mahinda Rajapaksa as his replacement. VOX reports that Sirisena’s reasoning for the move was that he believed a cabinet minister for Wickremesinghe was plotting to assassinate him. Wickremesinghe still claims that he is the Prime Minister, and many in the country are worried that this schism could be a constitutional crisis that leads to violence. Here are some images from ongoing protests earlier in the week.

What do you make of this? Job growth is up. Wages are up. If Obama was president we might tout this as a point of his success. Whether or not we like it, this news will play well for Trump. Obviously a country’s economic health has far more context than whatever politician squeezed their way in, anyway.

Federal Judge rules that voter suppression is A-OK: Dodge City, Kansas, is home to only one single voting poll, and 13,000 voters. Apparently, a U.S. District Court Judge said it wouldn’t be in the public’s interest to open another polling place before the midterm election next week. Sometimes it is hard to remember, when you live in a state with easy access absentee voting, that this shit is still going on in our country.

Cruising into the weekend like…this? Does the dog look like it’s having fun to you? I can’t really tell. It seems to go between having a good time and being like, “WHY AM I DOING THIS DAD?”

But before you take your dog out on the lake for a wake-boarding adventure: VOTE VOTE VOTE. A third of King County has already done it and so can you! Turnout is almost at the level of presidential elections, and why not? Voting is our civic duty! Voting is fun! Weeeee!

Gold Star Comment:

jackkay: Don’t get me started on Toilet Paper.

This weekend’s best Seattle entertainment options include: The Short Run Comix and Arts Festival, the first weekend of HUMP!, and the end of the Earshot Jazz Festival.

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