it's
Good
to have
you Back
Chas how-
ever fleetingly.

now let
the center
righties have
their Gloatings.

It’s pretty tragic that I got through this entire post without reading a a single word about the $1B housing levy. It passed easily, btw.

But please keep harping on how Seattle’s newly elected leaders, who are now merely Left instead of Super-Left, means that “Trump donors and real estate moguls successfully bought themselves a city council.”

In what must be a bitter morning-after for you, thanks for keeping the laughs coming, Charles:

“SECB, however, sees signs of hope in two King County Council races. Seattle City Council Member Teresa Mosqueda ended the night one point ahead of her opponent, Burien Mayor Sophia Aragon.”

If Mosqueda wins, her victory will complete Seattle voters’ sweep of the Stranger’s candidates from the November 2021 elections. She was the only one who didn’t lose. If she leaves the Seattle City Council before her term expires, then the Stranger will have no candidates in Seattle office from their November 2021 endorsements.

It’s gotta be a tough day when your biggest new victory is actually a lingering defeat.

I think it was also fitting on the day a new council was being elected TS fav council member sat alone in chambers surrounded by her mob of unruly protestors to "pack the chambers" over yet another divisive and meaningless resolution. At the end of 45 minutes of her acolytes shouting and attempting to bully other council members into stepping inline not a single one of her colleagues would even give her a courtesy second so the resolution could be formally voted on. At the end of the spectacle she remained on the dais fuming and denouncing the system which she has done so much to undermine and diminish. What a fitting end to the inglorious reign of the representative from District 3. I think Shakespeare sums up her time on the council the best:

"She is but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets her hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more. It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing"

Burbs going left, cities going right…basically everybody moderating and it gives me hope we’ll all finally be able to agree on something. This is good news !

Looks like everything is coming up Milhouse.

The fact that speech restrictions that appear to work in your favor today will be turned against you tomorrow is exactly why defending free speech on principle is important. If you wait until it’s your own speech being curtailed, it’s too late.

@4- I’m looking forward to hearing her no more.

Here’s the first topic on the “Issues” page from Mayor-elect Nadia Mohamed’s campaign website:

“As a policymaker, I believe in the importance of public safety in our community. We must invest in our law enforcement to ensure that they are adequately equipped and trained to serve our community's needs.”

https://www.votenadiaforslpmayor.com/issues

But please do go on about how this represents a leftward shift for suburbs, which are apparently much cheaper than cities. Meanwhile, in reality, St Louis Park has a median household income 23% higher than Minneapolis.

Haven't you guys ever been through a non-POTUS election year in Seattle?

Ignore last night. The real numbers will be on Saturday.

Mark my words.

Oh, and congrats, Dan Strauss, on the win.

now that
Progressives've
been ousted it'll be Awe-
some to see Seattle's Home-
less Situation* FINALLY Resolved.

best of Luck!

*can
Afforable
Housing be
very far Behind?

*our
Socialist
Nightmare
is finally Over.

R.e. Ohio's votes yesterday:

“I feel so full of - what’s the opposite of shame?” “Pride?” “No, not that far from shame.” “Less shame?” “Yeah.”
-Bart & Homer, S5 E15

You guys missed the Progressive sweep in Bothell. Three urbanist, bicycle loving council members swept aside their opposition by 2-1. A solid 5-2 progressive majority now on the city council.

When was Seattle the most progressive city? (hint: NEVER) It loved to pretend it was, while it doubled down on regressive taxation, fellating the obscenely wealthy that lived there and ran businesses there, ignoring the voters (I remember a 4 time vote for a monorail that never got built, but $70 MILLION was spent discussing it - somebody got rich). It's racist, segregated, provincial attitudes played out year over year in policies and local government mismanagement and scandals. Now more than ever, it's just showing its true face and that's a hard pill to swallow for all of the liberal white people who live there.

It’s always been true, hasn’t it, that people currently in office suffer on election day when a city has fallen into dysfunction, disrepair, and its standard-of-living has declined beyond recognition? Even the old political machines running the big cities back east knew that after all the off-year bribes and favors, they had to do something come election time to solve the salient problems that were pissing off the citizenry.

That’s one of the ways in which democracy works.

I don’t want to get unduly excited about the election results in Ohio and Virginia, but it’s a breath of fresh, clean air, and Christian Nationalist, for now, were told in no uncertain terms, “Pack your Talibanic, sexual morality-enforcing ass and hit the road.”

Which leads me to this story: I was making some adjustments on my TV and scanning channels, etc. I happened to land a couple of times on two religious channels that I would NEVER watch or listen to otherwise. Holy fuck! I knew religious broadcasters did more than just praise Jesus, but I couldn’t believe the hate that was being spewed. One white-haired woman moderator said, “God will punish you for voting for the wrong presidential candidate and reward you for supporting the right one – as he always has (done).” They get to do this all tax-free, right? Sounds like “Entertainment Tonight” Teheran-style. This was on SBN, btw.

Makes me fearfully wonder how many of the faithful watch and eat this shit up. Faith is the voluntary suspension of critical thinking.

Ol’ Rick Santorum on Newsmax. Well, that’s where he belongs, really. Not in the Senate. Still regurgitating the old tight-assed, half-truths shoved up his bum all through his Catholic upbringing. Yeah, abortion and marijuana are “sexy” initiatives to draw people into the voting booth. Bad, bad, says Rick. But when the initiatives are about anti-marriage equality legislation? Rick, how many times do I have to tell you? Keep your fingers away from your anus!

Rashida Tlaib is an anti-Semite. Don’t believe me? Get her to condemn unequivocally Hamas or any of the Jihadist organizations. Go on, let’s see you try.

There are the butchers that torture and kill families having breakfast, that burn teachers alive, that slit the throats and rape people at a music festival promoting peace, that behead children and record it on their victims’ telephones (and send it to Mama and Papa with the text “Your son is a hero!”) Then there are those who watch it happen, fold their arms upon their chest, shrug, and say, “That’s what they get for being infidels.”

We can all criticize certain Israeli policies, but let’s please face it: Jewish extremists are not the reason why we have to get our bodies scanned at airports.

Oh, Lord...Mount St. Helens. Please no.

I remember a video on USA’s “Night Flight” (wasn’t that grand?) that made “Tainted Love” a metaphor for AIDS. Right up there with a conceptual video of Dire Staits’ “Romeo and Juliet.” Them were the days!

@10
What Will said. Wait until at least 90% of ballots are counted-
and as I’m not obscenely rich no fillet-show for me!
Yea, I also voted for the monorail several times- and all I have to show for it is my monorail coffee cup!

And Charles makorokoto for picking one of the best tunes from the ‘80’s! Thankfully, there are lots to choose from!

Quick recap. Prior to the pandemic, the biggest issues in the city were the high cost of living, homelessness, and maybe an abusive police department. The root cause of homelessness -- confirmed by UW professors no less -- was the high cost of rent. So basically rent, rent and an abusive police department were the three biggest issues.

Then the pandemic hit. Quite coincidentally, another abusive police department was caught doing something abusive. By no means was this the worst incident (I would put murderous police gangs in L. A. at the top the list) but it was really bad, and the evidence was really bad. This lead to wide spread protests, and serious calls for "defunding the police". What exactly does that mean? Fire all the cops and start over like in Camden (since it worked so well there)? Maybe move to a system with fewer, but better paid, better trained cops and a strong social safety net like in Scandinavia (since it works so well there)? Or do you mean something profoundly stupid, and nonsensical, like just not have any police? Obviously most leaders meant something like the first two, but folks thought it was the third.

With the protests came more police misconduct. The Seattle Council, frustrated with the police department (still under a court order) looked to make symbolic, but largely meaningless changes. The police situation was getting worse. The cops weren't more effective (we had abandoned Camden, let alone the Scandinavian approach) and a lot of cops just quit (there feelings hurt by the mean things said by the city council). Meanwhile, crime rose nationally (because of the pandemic). So you had a poorly-performing police department that was smaller, while crime in general was rising, and no other changes.

Of course homelessness and rent remain a major problem. But rather than deal with the source of that (zoning) folks began to conflate the issues. Homelessness and crime somehow go together. Fuck the UW professors -- they don't know shit -- homelessness is caused by lawlessness (drugs!). This made life easy for the folks who don't give a shit about any of this, but just want lower taxes. They can ignore significant issues (like reforming the police department, how we are going to increase social spending to reduce crime, how best to reform zoning) and just blame the city council for doing something they didn't actually do (make the police department smaller or less effective and encourage folks to live on the street). Basically, voters are fucking idiots, and rarely spend the time to figure out what works and what doesn't.

@16 didn't you get your free Monorail ride magnet too?

Alright moderates. Here's your big chance to save Seattle! Impress us.

@17 I was at college with Marc Almond :-) I went to a party, got drunk and couldn't remember anything about the party next day. Someone told me, "Hey were you at that party with Marc Almond, last night?! Damn, I'm jealous". He did fine art. I was in the church choir, half of whom also did fine art, that's how I got to be at that party. Church people, art people, and Marc Almond. Weird mix, but alcohol made it work.

WOW. Seattle has returned to the 1990s? A.k.a. the animated series Daria on MTV ("You're standing on my neck--la la LA la la...") and Seal's hit, Crazy, come to mind. I was then enrolled at the (now defunct) Art Institute of Seattle in what I now consider the single most depressing building in Seattle, besides Jeff Bezos' Trump's butt-ugly balls--the concrete block on 2323 Elliott Avenue that was AIS.

@10 and @19 Will in Seattle and @16 & @17 pat L: +4 For the WIN!!

Is anyone else as nervous as I am about our moody resident volcano, Mount St. Helens acting restless again?
Not to be Debbie Downer, but the majority of us who were here and remember the original historic eruption of Mount St. Helens on Sunday, May 18, 1980, despite the damage, ash, clogging of Toutle River, and traffic back ups on I-5 we got off EASY. Another eruption like what we had 43 years and shy of six months ago today would be Washington State's worst catastrophic nightmare and disaster movie.
My beloved and I don't wanna go there.

25: I’d be more concerned about Mt. Rainier or Glacier Peak; as noted in the article, this isn’t the first time this has happened at Mt. St. Helens since 1980.

@24 - Auntie G, remember "Almost Live!" (Of course you do.) John Keister's opening monologue about ways to tell it was spring in Seattle? "The students at the Art Institute are wearing a lighter shade of black,"

Charles, I hope you have a chance to lie down and rest after the mental gymnastics it took to write this post. So, mainstream Democratic candidates and positions are winning across the country and somehow that’s a bad thing? How many times do you need to be told (and more importantly, demonstrated to you) that most times you have two AND ONLY TWO choices, yes, the lesser of two evils. A far left candidate/position is not a long term winning strategy. This has been shown time and time and time and time and time again, but the message still ins’t getting through.

@26 Teslick: You're right--05/18/1980 hasn't been the only Mount S. Helens eruption. What I meant was an eruption of its magnitude. Good points made, though, as Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak are even closer to Seattle and the greater King County metropolis. A lot of Western Washington, and its most populated regions would be wiped out.
No matter what--we don't have the infrastructure and efficient response systems in place to handle another 05/18/1980 eruption. When that happens, we can all kiss our asses goodbye.

@27 Bauhaus I: Yes, I do fondly remember "Almost Live!" with Ross Shafer, John Keister, and Nancy Guppy, among comic sketch cast members. We never missed it!

@19
No, but I got the 2 monorail t-shirts that I ordered hand delivered to me by the organizer of the monorail extention!

@14 xina and @15: Bauhaus I: +2 How on this dying, sadly burning planet did I miss your spot on comments?
I nominate you two to join @10 & @19 Will in Seattle and @16 & @17 pat L for the WIN!!!
Spot on and well said, the four of you. :)

@27 Bauhaus I, re AIS: Yep. I would indeed be wearing a lighter shade of black at AIS in the spring, way back when.
One thing I liked about the Art Institute of Seattle was its close proximity to Pike Place Market and Elliott Bay.
Since parking was so expensive downtown I kept my beloved VW at home, garaged, and commuted by Metro on
the #15 to & from school. Those were the days!

Jesus wept about Mount St. Helens! And don't get me STARTED if Mount Baker blows, too, any time soon.
Whatcom and Skagit Counties would be toast.

After all these years, Rick Santorum is STILL making the news? Just when I thought Dan Savage's clever Savage Love "Santorum Definition" contest back in 2003, in which the winning entry was "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" was going to permanently shut Rick up.
Santorum, along with the Orange Turd, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert, ad nauseum really are in dire need of butt plugs for their mouths. It would eliminate a LOT of noise pollution.