Your lungs on Covid.
Your lungs on Covid. Camille Ehre/The New England Journal of Medicine

You see that shit that looks like grated parmesan and linguine? That’s your lungs on Covid. New images from the New England Journal of Medicine show the unique ways that the coronavirus attacks our bodies. From Gizmodo:

The ball-looking things are SARS-CoV-2, while the bendy churro-looking structures are cells with cilia, the hair-like projections that move in rhythm to clear debris, mucus and microbes from the airways, allowing us to breathe normally. [Lung researcher Camille] Ehre found that SARS-CoV-2 was particularly fond of infecting these cililated cells, and that once it did, it went to town making more of itself.

Seattle Times food critic Tan Vinh ate 100 banh mis from around the Seattle area: He loves the roast pork at Huong Xua Deli in White Center, the humble food capital of the Northwest. He says it’s the best banh mi in the Puget Sound region!!

Joe Biden landed in Kenosha, Wisconsin this afternoon: Biden spoke with Jacob Blake and his family and met a long list of community members, activists, small biz owners, and law enforcement officials. Biden said Blake “talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, about how whether he walked again or not, he was not going to give up.” Blake’s family says he is paralyzed from the waist down after police shot at him seven times. The shooting is under investigation.

Also, this moment happened: And conservative media ran with it.

He seemed to be referring to “several people in the audience who appeared to stand up during his remarks or otherwise seemed antsy for the Democratic nominee to wrap up,” writes Politico.

Democrats in the House Oversight and Reform Committee are calling for “a series of independent investigations on multiple potential violations of the Hatch Act by the Trump Administration during the Republican National Convention.” They wrote a letter, specifically calling out the use of White House property to influence an election. While the Hatch Act exempts the president and vice president, it does not exempt other federal employees like secretary of state Mike Pompeo and acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf.

Jane Fonda spilled legendary tea to Maureen Dowd:

Maureen Dowd: Your greatest regret is that you never had sex with Che Guevara.

Jane Fonda: No, I don’t think about him. Who I do think about, and what is a great regret is Marvin Gaye. He wanted to and I didn’t. I was married to Tom. I was meeting a lot of performers to try to do concerts for Tom and the woman who was helping me do that introduced me to Marvin Gaye.

Imagine getting that question/statement from Maureen Dowd.

In other celebrity news: Robert Pattinson reportedly has COVID-19. The Rock (and his family) got it, too.

A coven of Seattle landlords is suing Mayor Durkan and Governor Inslee over the city and state eviction moratoriums: Edmund Witter, managing attorney at King County’s Housing Justice Project, doesn’t think the lawsuit will get very far. “I don’t think it’s a very promising lawsuit in my view. I think it’s more of a political threat,” Witter told the Seattle Times.

New mask dispensers will start popping up on 102 King County Metro buses this month: The mask dispensers are being put on high-ridership routes to start, like the 60-foot trolley buses on routes 7, 36, 43, 44, and 49, reports Capitol Hill Seattle blog. The buses are also getting new safety partitions. Fancy! Bus services are expected to increase in the coming months as the weather gets shittier.

Update on the Evans Canyon fire: It’s estimated to have grown to 52,000 acres and is currently 10% contained, reports the Yakima Herald. “That containment figure is significant, though,” a PIO told the paper. “They don’t issue any percentage of containment until they’re really confident that that line—even if it’s tested by winds or the fire makes a run for it—they’re going to be able to hold it.” The fire started Monday afternoon ~8 miles north of Naches. Its cause is being investigated. KIRO has some photos of it here.

This is the outline Google Maps is giving as of this afternoon.
This is the outline Google Maps is giving as of this afternoon.

Take a break from the disasters: Watch this man play music on a watermelon.

That corny magic is brought to you by the Playtronica: It’s a device that lets you turn surfaces and objects into musical instruments.

“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” “That cemetery” is referring to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery—a 42-acre World War I cemetery in France—and that speaker would be President Donald Trump. That quote is one of many supremely embarrassing quotes in The Atlantic‘s new piece on how “the president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades.” The piece’s insights are funny, ghastly, multitudinous: “Several observers told me that Trump is deeply anxious about dying or being disfigured, and this worry manifests itself as disgust for those who have suffered.”

Meanwhile, the White House opened its briefing today by talking about Nancy Pelosi’s hair. Fucking come on.

Okay, this video is a few days old but does anyone know who this freaky balloon person is? We’d love to interview them! Reddit seems to think it’s Kalan Sherrard.

creepy pink balloon man? at luther burbank park today 8/28- anyone ever seen this guy before? (don’t mind me yelling for them to get away from me) from r/Seattle

Is it the same person who dressed as Donald Trump and had people at CHOP beat ’em up with a pool noodle? Seems possible!

Chase Burns is The Stranger's former editor. He's covered everything from gay luchadores to chemical weapons to Isabella Rossellini's favorite pets.