Cascade PBS will soon cut 12 percent of its staff.  A good number of those given the boot will be in its news department. The outlet is dumping "long-form written journalism and [will instead] focus on streaming and video programming." Cascade PBS president Rob Dunlop blamed the harsh political atmosphere in the nation's capital for this bleak result. The organization now has, he claimed, a $3.5 million hole in its budget. Cascade PBS will, however, create "three new positions" and continue running, among other programs, Mossback's Northwest. Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at Cascade PBS, had this to say to the outlet and public: “[We are] deeply disappointed that Cascade PBS is choosing to eliminate its newsroom and [lay off its] reporters at a time when we need good, thoughtful journalism more than ever.”

Pete Buttigieg? The former US transportation secretary? Endorsed Mayor Bruce Harrell? He even made a video. See for yourself.

Dr. Quintard Taylor is no longer with us. His transition from the now to what looks to the living like forever occurred this weekend in Houston, Texas. He was 77. Taylor, a longtime UW professor and the leading historian of Black Seattle, provided an indispensable resource for those mapping Pacific Northwest Black history. The impact of gentrification, which began in the late '90s, will not be appreciated if his scholarship is ignored. Also, the website he founded, BlackPast, which reported his passing, has "engaged over 64 million site users." Professor Daudi Abe will have more to say about Taylor in this paper.

So, basically, the US has replaced income tax with a flat tax called high tariffs. However, the revenue from this new tax, which is regressive (it diminishes incomes that fall to the working classes far more than those that float up to the rich), is still not enough to make a meaningful dent in the still-exploding national debt. And so the government and wage earners are condemned, like never before, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.   

Why is the sun still sticking around? Why won't it pack up and go south already? Some leaves are even falling. And one can't walk down a sidewalk without interrupting a squirrel squirreling what it calls food in the soft patch of ground beneath a bush. But here comes the sun again. Today, it will have enough power to melt into thin and transparent air the clouds that are trying their best to gather autumn into our region's sky. Expect a high of 74 today.

Just as I was about to end my subscription to Disney+ and Hulu, the entertainment giant rehired Jimmy Kimmel (whose show I have never watched, by the way). Jimmy Kimmel Live! returns tonight after a week-long suspension—ABC decided to punish the comedian for things he said about Charlie Kirk that were hardly controversial and, needless to say, protected by the First Amendment. During his period of abeyance, Disney's stock took a hit, and many of its subscribers bounced. Also, theories zapped this way and that about what was really going on behind closed doors, the main of which was this: Trump twisted Disney's arms because it had a merger in the works that needed FCC's approval. If this is true, then we can expect more noise from the White House about Kimmel, Kirk, Disney, and the rest of it. By the way, climate change is as real as a heart attack. We are doing nothing to stop sea levels from rising. Humans are facing a self-generated extinction-level event. (Now that Kimmel has returned, MAGA is calling for a boycott as the world burns.) 

Speaking of our burning world, because the smoke season is still with us, expect the day to be a bit hazy. Smoke will be blown our way from the east, where, according to the Seattle Times, there are "numerous wildfires raging on the eastern side of the state." Meanwhile, our leading headlines read: "[MAGA] is wearing a new [death]." In the words of Depeche Mode: "In black townships fires blaze / Prospects better [president] says / Within sight are golden days? Princess Di is wearing a new dress." But, in the words of U2: "How long we sing this song?"

One more Kimmel story. KOMO will not "air the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live!" because its owner, the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, and the fathers of MAGA are not done yet with ringing every possible drop from the murder of Charlie Kirk (a second-rate Ben Shapiro). The national tragedy must continue because issues that matter to wage earners—rising unemployment and commodity prices, the growing desperation of American farmers, the collapse of our healthcare system, and so on—must not occupy the nation's front pages. 

Key monthly costs for most Americans — shelter, food, health care, electricity — are outpacing inflation.

“I found myself really working more than 80 hours a week just to be able to support my family during this difficult time,” said a mother of two.

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— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) September 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM

The news for wage earners just keeps getting worse. Seattle Times' Gene Balk reports that the median income for a Seattle couple with two kids surpassed $250,000 in 2024. In December, the living wage for a family of four hit $131K.

To that rat that came to grief on the corner of 10th and John. Yes, your life was cut short,  but judging from your impressive size, which I almost stepped on, I'm 100 percent certain you lived large. But as with those in the past, and those in the now, and those in the future, come what may, it ultimately comes down to: "Out, out, brief candle!"

Thinking of that dead rat ("gray alive" the day or two before), Amazon Horticulture has a rare flower that's right now smelling like you will tomorrow (if not today—if you died on Saturday). It's the corpse flower, the “Morticia”; it thinks its death-stink is attracting flies or something of the kind, but it's not. Dear death flower, you are safe here, well-fed here, in the Seattle Spheres. Your smelly ruse is now nothing more than a performance that attracts humans with disposable income.

Let's end AM with a tune that captures the mood of fall, Courtney Salas Group's "Constantly Changing."