This is now porn. Credit: IPGGUTENBERGUKLTD/GETTY
This is now porn.
This is now porn. IPGGUTENBERGUKLTD/GETTY

You can ban yourself from buying a gun: Gov. Jay Inslee just signed a bill that allows people to voluntarily waive their Second Amendment right. People who fear they are a threat to themselves or a threat to others can proactively ban themselves from being able to purchase a gun. What do you think, will this new law make a difference?

Second fire at Bellevue mosque: Prior to yesterday’s blaze, the mosque was ignited by a homeless man in January 2017. There was no indication that it was a hate crime and he was sent to jail on arson charges. Yesterday’s fire further destroyed the building. The plan has been to rebuild the mosque. Members had a goal of reopening in time for 2019’s Ramadan. They hope that a new mosque won’t see the same fate as this one. Officials are investigating the cause.

Foster-care group homes fail to meet standards: A secret audit of 20 group homes in Washington state found that every one failed to meet at least one state requirement. Some failed to conduct background checks on its employees while others failed to meet basic food-safety standards. None fully complied with medical safety requirements. It’s truly the hard-knock life.

The “If Project”: Asks female inmates how they got in their current positions. It asks if there was something someone could have said or done to prevent their incarceration what would it be? It asks female inmates to look inward and often reveals trauma that was never dealt with. It can allow women to reconcile with the realities of their situation: poverty, drug addiction, mental illness, and unhealthy relationships. A documentary about the If Project will be screening Sunday at 1 p.m. at the SIFF Cinema Egyptian.

Teen girls (and one boy) are leading the revolution: The organizers of Saturday’s March For Our Lives rally, a demonstration focused on ending gun violence, are teenagers. Most are teenage girls. They see gun violence as a threat not only to them but to their friends and families. The march was organized while they juggled school, extracurriculars, and jobs. Their goal? Concrete political change to end gun violence.

YouTube gun enthusiasts move to PornHub: YouTube has banned all things guns from its sites. It’s removed videos and suspended users. Now, they’re angrily moving their gun content to PornHub.

Racist Seattle Lyft driver: An interracial couple was kicked out of the Lyft they ordered after one block. The driver told them to get out without any explanation. As they started to walk away, the driver called the man the n-word and yelled other profanities at them. Lyft says the incident is under investigation.

Video of the self-driving car killing an Arizona woman: Who’s at fault here? The person behind the wheel whose job was to monitor the self-driving car? Or, the autonomous vehicle itself? Police have released video footage of the March 18th incident. Viewer discretion is advised.

Blabbermouth Podcast: Presidential-Level Revenge Porn, the Facebook Storm, and a Defense of Dogs on Planes

Man takes picture with every Seattle mailbox: David Peterman wondered if anyone had been to every mailbox in Seattle. He took it upon himself to be that person. He started his quest last year in Lake City and made his way haphazardly through the city taking pictures of mailbox after mailbox. According to Peterman, the saddest mailbox in Seattle is inside the Northgate Mall. Check out his blog.

Seattle is in for some wet weather:

Mark Zuckerberg is really very sorry: “This was a major breach of trust and I’m really sorry that this happened,” Zuckerberg said at the beginning of his exclusive interview with CNN. He shared his regrets and talked about what Facebook will be doing moving forward. He promised to bolster privacy. You can read or watch the full interview here.

Austin bomber taped 25 minute confession: The police still can’t figure out what his motive was. They aren’t classifying him as a terrorist because the attacks weren’t hate-based or terror-based. It’s too soon to tell if this is really domestic terrorism, according to this Los Angeles Times article.

Joe Biden wants to “beat the hell out of” Donald Trump: If they were in high school, Biden says he’d take Trump behind the gym and pummel his ass. Trump responded in kind:

Most snow in NYC in 130 years: Yesterday’s all day snowstorm added 6.5 inches to New York City’s annual snowfall. The last time it snowed this much (about 31 inches) was in the 1880s.

An update from my alley: I’m not near my alley right now. In fact, I’m in New York City. I witnessed the record snowfall. I was out in the record snowfall. I think the record snowfall gave me a fever.

I’m not used to snow or the cold. I was born and raised in Los Angeles where the lows don’t sink below 45 degrees on our coldest days. Seattle weather was a shock for me because it was actually weather. Yesterday, I walked for hours in the bitter cold of a Northeast snowstorm. Not my best move. But, I did that by choice. New York City has the highest number of homeless people in the country. Those people aren’t out in the snow by choice.

New York, it seems to me, has more places of warm refuge for its homeless than Seattle. There are loads of 24 hour restaurants, the subway is heated and runs all night long, and I walked through a particularly warm bus tunnel where homeless people were sleeping. I’m not saying those are ideal options. But they are options.

Last fall, there was a sweep of the Ravenna Woods homeless encampment near my house. It was a surprise to those residents who were forcibly kicked out of their homes and abruptly displaced.

The next day, a smaller version of that encampment moved to a section of my alley.

Tarps were strung up against the wall of an abandoned building. Shopping carts overflowing with bulging garbage bags formed the outer walls of the temporary shelter. There were some tents and some umbrellas. It rained hard that week. They didn’t have anywhere else to go. This was their only option. Still, they didn’t remain in my alley for long.

Tonight’s best Seattle entertainment options include: The beginning of Alfred Hitchcock’s Britain film series (tonight’s screening will be The Man Who Knew Too Much), Intersections: A Celebration of Seattle Performance, and Taste Washington.

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Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...