Good morning! Beautiful cooler day expected today, with a light wind, and a little sun. High of 68 degrees.
Good riddance, Goodwill: Goodwill claimed that crime drove them from South Lake Union and University Avenue as they announced the closure of two of their store locations. They seem happy to focus on that, rather than the fact that rising wages and rents also pushed them out. They don’t want to have a conversation about not wanting to pay workers higher wages.
Time for back-to-school shopping: While some parents, teachers, and students head to various big box stores to buy pencils, folders, and those ridiculously expensive calculators, advocates and teachers have already started talking about what the Washington State Legislature should start to buy our education system. In the South Seattle Emerald’s back-to-school series, Oliver Miska laid out the “Big 5” priorities that advocates want our Legislature to grow consensus around this session: Increasing special education funding, fulfilling K–12 transportation needs, adjusting materials and administrative costs for inflation, increasing equitable allocation of funds from the state to higher-poverty districts; and passing progressive revenue so our school funding doesn’t continue to come from a regressive tax structure.
Speaking of the children: Despite the King County Exec’s commitment to close the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center by 2028, the County Council unanimously passed a non-binding motion of the Council’s intent to keep child jail open and in use on Tuesday. The motion was originally brought by Councilmember Reagan Dunn, who claims that it’s needed to address a “major league juvenile crime problem.” Even King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, a longtime critic of youth incarceration, voted in favor of the measure, though he helped add language that made it clear he’d prefer alternatives to incarceration. Still, they all should be shamed for passing a motion that feeds into the 90’s-esque narrative that kids should be locked up, especially as conditions at the child jail continue to worsen. Some of the rhetoric from yesterday’s public commenters was disgusting, including a eugenics argument about how some kids don’t inherit the gene for empathy.
Also listening to this, and some public commenter just said we need to keep the child jail open because we cannot control the genetic traits a child will inherit, such as empathy and kindness. Wilddddddd take https://t.co/lgCQCN16sj
— Ashley Nerbovig (@AshleyNerbovig) August 27, 2024
Pink Elephant Car Wash revamp: While its not Mayor Bruce Harrell’s fault that the giant pink elephant no longer guards the entrance to downtown Seattle from Aurora Avenue, it is pretty poetic that his administration chose to celebrate the creation of a new skyscraper, the 45-story Sloane building, to tower in the elephant’s place. Goodbye Seattle icons, yay Seattle real estate interests. The project belongs to Holland Partner Group, who’s top executives maxed out campaign contributions to Harrell, as DivestSPD pointed out.
When it’s being constructed by a cartel member using AI to fix prices and then paying off council members and the mayor to block Social Housing, yes. pic.twitter.com/m8d5OyDAyA
— DivestSPD (@DivestSPD) August 27, 2024
Boeing tire blow out: A tire on a Boeing 757 exploded in Atlanta on Tuesday, killing two workers and leaving another seriously injured. The tire blew out while the workers were performing maintenance. Genuinely kind of unclear to me if that fault for the explosion lies with Boeing, Delta, some other organization, or just bad luck. But regardless, the Daily Beast put together a run down of every other “eye popping” incident related to Boeing in the past year.
Trump staffers square off at Arlington Cemetery: Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visited Arlington Cemetery Monday to pay their respects to the buried soldiers there, and talk some shit about Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris and her involvement in the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. During the campaign visit, two members of Trump’s team “verbally abused and pushed” a cemetery official who tried to prevent the staffers from filming in the cemetery, according to NPR. Only cemetery staff members have authorization to film or take photos in the cemetery.
Speaking of Trump: New indictments just dropped against him. U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed a new indictment against Trump over accusations that Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election, according to CNN. Smith narrowed his allegations against the president after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared presidents immune from most criminal prosecution.
Becoming a parent sounds truly awful: A new report shows that parents suffer from “stress, money woes and loneliness more than their childless peers” and nearly half “can barely function, Politico writes. The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recommends a parental bailout. Literally the government should give parents more governmental aid in the form of child tax credits, early childhood education programs, and more paid leave.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raids Democrats: Texas AG Paxton has directed law enforcement officials to raid several Latino Democrats’ homes while claiming to be investigating voter fraud, according to CBS. Law enforcement officers raided the homes of members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights group. The organization has called the searches illegal. I call them authoritarian and fucked up.
Finally, The Accident: If you haven’t yet watched any of The Accident on Netflix, I can’t necessarily recommend it, because I also have not yet watched it. But the show’s premise revolves around the parents of several children who almost float away in a poorly tethered bouncy castle. Please enjoy the comedic horror of the titular “accident” scene.
Its even funnier than I could have imagined 🌬️🎈 https://t.co/7pJ6xHODaY pic.twitter.com/0AWJBMJAMv
— Nick Walsh (@NICKWALSH) August 27, 2024
Mean ol Good Will and their jobs training program, down market/recycling of clothes that would have gone to the landfill!
Again, if anyone other than Trump had done what he did at Arlington cemetery, they would have been arrested and would be facing criminal charges. But of course this country continues to let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do like it’s totally normal.
As for Goodwill, where are all the people who believe landlords have the right to raise the rent as high as they want forever while employers are allowed to pay people as little as possible for labor? Followed by all of the complaints about homeless people and how they destroy everything. I mean it’s a totally sustainable model of existence, right?
Forget that most of what gets donated to Goodwill ends up in a landfill anyway (if not in the United States, then shipped internationally where metric tons of our garbage ends up polluting the poorest nations on earth). As long as people can feel good about donating their garbage instead of throwing it away, right?
We let treasonous felons lay wreaths at Arlington? Weird.
Sigh. A tire blowing up on a 757 during maintenance isn’t Boeing’s fault. The plane is old enough that Delta would have replaced the original tire a dozen or more times. It’s possible it’s the tire manufacturer’s fault for a defective tire. It’s possible it’s the workers’ fault for not paying attention to the pressure gauge as they were inflating it. It’s possible it’s Delta’s fault for poor company safety practices.
There’s plenty to ding Boeing about, but not this one.
Hey poor people: Next time you’re wondering where the thrift stores where you could afford to buy clothing went, or where the accompanying community jobs programs went, remember that the Stranger said “good riddance” when those places closed up shop, because they hate you.
@6- some people at Boeing have some money so in StrangerWorld it has to be their fault.
And I’m sure that when the shooter in the recent killing outside (Garfield?) HS turns out to be underage, the Stranger will be all in for tossing him in adult jail since we shouldn’t have a place to lock up dangerous kids.
When the state’s flagship university offers a degree program in real estate speculation, what else can you expect? The part that seems to elude the galaxy brain business community is that real estate speculation hits them in their own rents and space costs and the wages they have to pay to their employees. The speculators are literally dipping their hands in both wallets.
If the value of land (which is created by everyone but the holder of the deed) was taxed, either the cost to acquire land would go down or the taxed wealth could be redistributed to reduce the pressure on rents without having to raise wages.
As a practical matter no one cares if they earn $10 an hour or $100 as long as they can live a life, rather than just exist. All the wage hikes end up in the pocket of the “landlords who grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.” (JS Mill)
“Genuinely kind of unclear to me if that fault for the explosion lies with Boeing…”
Seriously???
My car got a flat tire last week. Should I blame Toyota?
“Goodwill claimed that crime drove them from South Lake Union and University Avenue”
They claimed that crime contributed to the decision to leave. Even the komo article you link says in the first paragraph “…in part due to an uptick in break-ins, thefts, vandalism and threats to employees.”
I really don’t see them blaming crime entirely for the closure.
And instead of focusing on why “Evergreen Goodwill saw a $4 million revenue loss in 2023” (from komo article), you link to an article about a goodwill in Illinois that had wage issues?
You also failed to mention that both these locations are “boutique” locations. These stores had challenges that their other stores didn’t (lack of parking, lack of a decent donation system, small retail footprint, etc.) I’ve noticed many people commenting online about these closures never stepped foot into either store.
@11: obviously.
“We need to keep the child jail open because we cannot control the genetic traits a child will inherit, such as empathy and kindness” isn’t such a wild take. it’s saying, albeit elliptically, that there will always be some % of people that will crime horribly enough (tuba man’s killer springs to mind) that they need to be locked up.
sociopathy and testosterone aren’t going away.
those 2 GWs were shite.
It’s always amusing to read progressive takes on issues because they are full of complaints but never offer any real solutions, to wit:
It’s terrible that we lock up kids in a youth facility that offers them services including educational and social services. Just Google Seattle teen shooting and there are pages of results from this year of kids shooting other kids. Where exactly does Ashley and the progressive crew expect these kids to go? Many of them have already been through restorative justice programs so now what? There is nothing which is why even Zahilay had to admit they youth facility is needed
Second example, We need to increase funding for schools and make them equitable (e.g. take funds from wealthier districts and redistribute them). The South Seattle Emerald article that claims we need progressive revenue to fully fund schools via an income tax. That isn’t happening. The Supreme Court shut it down, the legislature has no spine to even try it and the voters would overwhelming reject a constitutional amendment. This doesn’t even account for the fact that other states with income taxes still fare far worse than WA state so its not just a funding issue. They go on to use my favorite equity picture with the people trying to see into a ball park. They want you to believe equity lifts up the shorter person so they can see over the fence but in reality what equity usually means is they cut off the legs of the taller person so no one can see over the fence. Just ask the parents of the kids who were in the advanced learning programs.
@6: the only plausible way Boeing’s responsible is that they designed or specified the tire at some point – i’ve already seen that argument made elsewhere – and that spec was flawed. but since 1000s of the same tires have been in service for decades, its more likely an operator error or a fabrication error.
but, you know, nuance in reporting is dead now.
The humor of the bouncy house thing eluded me, though, like you, I haven’t seen the show. I do remember, though, that a two-year-old died in a bouncy-house incident back in April.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/2-year-boy-dies-after-bounce-house-carried/story?id=109776236
Boeing doesn’t make tires, and didn’t 31 years ago when that 757 rolled out of the Renton plant. Maybe a Goodyear?
Shitting on Goodwill is kind of a new low for the Stranger, especially when using an issue with stores in Illinois as the raison d’shit.
@7, @12, @20: Goodwill cited a doubleplus unallowed reason — crime — for closing the stores. The Stranger simply must punish such heresy. (As the Stranger noted in chastising Goodwill, greedy landlords, and higher pay for virtuous workers, are both doubleplus allowed reasons.)
It does not matter who you are, or how much good you do in Seattle; certain behaviors will cause the Stranger to punish you. You have been warned.
Some kids just don’t inherit empathy. Because their parents have no empathy to inherit. How else do you explain Republicans?
and
Yet when
it comes to
funding America
all the money flows
Upward and any Trickle
Down is to be Fought Over
by the Bottom-enders (‘Middle
Class’ — WHAT ‘middle class’!?)
[the paycheck-to-paycheckers now
numbering +/- 60% of the Citizenry, and
growing Rapidly]* what Else might we Expect
from an America dedicated to making the already
Rich even More so and militarizing our Po-pos, ‘cause
suddenly the Citizenry’s “too damn Dangerous!” nowadays.
*homelessness
now is just a busted
Transmission or an un-
Payable Medical bill away
but let’s
continue to
Attack the Symptoms
and like wormtongue and
seemingly All Corporate Dems
Ignore the Causes which Created this
mass dystopian far-“right” American Wet Dream.
we could Begin by
repealing ‘Citizens United’
which Legalized political bribery.
@22 — the Reptilican
brainstem, obv.
@15, guess what. The legislature DID rejigger the taxing formula so that the richer districts now subsidize the poorer.And….as it turns out blue Seattle is “rich” compared to red rural areas. Lots of lessons to learn here. 1) Don’t assume you’re the main character in the story of victimhood and 2) Watch your back. Seattle is worse off for having secured the new funding scheme and if we go back for more, it’s completely possible we come back with less.
Goodwill and a library are crucial to getting back your dignity from square one.
Go, USDOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith, GO!!! Fani Willis stand your ground!
PLEASE let’s not have 2024 just be another disastrous repeat of 2016!
The sooner the American Taliban is fully castrated the sooner we regain democracy.
Nip the toxic ‘shrooms in the bud and end the profiteering and global terrorism.
We can then send all the severed limp GOP dicks–including the Orange Turd’s—“To Putin With Love”.
The KGB is deserving of a little fungi.
I dunno
auntie Gee
castrating our
way Outta this
Mess seems a little
Extreme — Slightly less
so than “republian” policies
tho for me a bridge a little Too far
I DO, however
support the
sentiment.
@7:
Have you actually been IN a thrift store like Goodwill recently? “Affordable” is a rather subjective term, particularly when you see how much they mark up prices on items they received for free. Seriously, you can probably find better deals at Marshalls or Ross these days. And given the organization’s total revenue currently approaches $8B and the highest-paid CEO’s of their 12 largest orgs can pull in compensation packages approaching $1mm, it’s no wonder they have to keep their prices high and overhead, including wages, low.
https://www.forbes.com/companies/goodwill-industries-international/
https://paddockpost.com/2023/12/25/executive-compensation-at-goodwill-2022/
“It’s truly unclear to me…” because you made zero effort to find out? This was a tire on 31 year old plane, the tires have been changed out over a hundred times in this plane’s life. Aircraft and heavy equipment tires are pressurized to over 200 psi and have very specific safety procedures because of this, that’s why so much activity with them has to be done in tire cages. Any actual attempt at reporting would have easily uncovered this. After the bizarre mental gymnastics trying to connect a development to the death of an obsolete Eisenhower era car wash though I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
28: Perhaps in clothing, but where else are you going to go for cheap pots and pans and household items?
@17 It would’ve been much funnier if they’d used “Up, Up and Away” (by the Fifth Dimension) as the background music.
@15 something-something-peace circle-something-something.
@28 Meanwhile median CEO pay hit $16.3 million/year in 2024. Assuming the highest paid execs at these Goodwill branches(?) are competent, they’re taking a massive pay cut to do something they consider beneficial to their communities. Don’t hate the player, hate the game, and all that.
Also, as long as we’re on the subject, I am sick and tired of the idea that highly skilled and experienced people who work at non-profits should get paid well below market. If your options are:
do good in the world, be unable to afford to buy a home
do something on the scale of awful to neutral, be able to support your family, buy a home, take vacations
then most people are going to choose the latter.
Comte dear, I recently got a promotion and I bought some really great dress shirts (Nordstrom, Kirkland) and slacks at Goodwill for just a few bucks each.
Regarding the youth jail: The idea that we would have no youth detention center is ridiculous. There are young people who are dangerous, and there are young people who may be safer in custody than on the street. Alternative solutions should always be the first option, but sometimes that doesn’t work
“Still, they all should be shamed for passing a motion that feeds into the 90’s-esque narrative that kids should be locked up,”
Earlier this year, The Stranger ran a story about the tragic death of Jake Carter. He was shot and killed while on vacation with his husband in New Orleans.
https://www.thestranger.com/food-and-drink/2024/01/08/79336848/jake-carter-of-tacomas-howdy-bagel-killed-in-new-orleans
The last line? “The horror…it just takes your breath away.”
No follow up story ever ran in The Stranger about the case. It seems pretty obvious why. Later a 16 year old was arrested and charged with Carter’s murder. The idea that someone who has committed such a crime may need to be held in jail is something that can never be discussed by The Stranger under any circumstances, ever, because it does not fit into their preferred narrative. So Jake Carter’s death cannot ever be mentioned again.
If anybody should be shamed, it’s those at The Stranger.
@15: “…they are full of complaints but never offer any real solutions…”
For the Stranger, “No Youth Jail!!” IS the solution. It makes for a good chant, suffers from no nuance, and when the policy fails, as @34 notes, the failures will simply be disappeared. Forever.
“…even Zahilay had to admit they youth facility is needed…”
He’s enough of a politician to understand the Stranger can’t get him re-elected, and has no fringe alternative to him ready to go (yet…), and — when the Stranger’s policy inevitably fails, in a disastrous and public manner — HE can be held responsible by the voters. So he threw their ‘solution’ under the bus the first chance he got. They can complain about it, but right now, that’s all they have. (Little doubt they’re already sharpening their knives for him.)
Sigh… I just wish Ashley “like other girls” could learn the difference between “who’s” and “whose.”
Goodwill is my go-to for novels. Also got some really cheap office/art supplies.
Look at it this way, Stranger writers: they take a bite out of Amazon revenue as I would have bought these things at Amazon or some other big corporation.
@28: revenue funds their programs. Why do you have a problem with that?
Have to agree: shitting on Goodwill is a new low.
I noticed that Fox Business has a story about the Seattle Gooodwill stores now. Because of course it fits into their narrative that Seattle is burning down.
Even in the above Goodwill discussion people aren’t getting how different the “boutique” Goodwill stores are. The UD and SLU locations had challenges that other locations don’t face. I wonder how many people arguing about Goodwill have stepped foot into either location.
@27 kristofarian: Ya gotta admit, though, kris, that without their limp lil ‘shrooms the Orange Turd, its Turd Reich, MAGAt enablers, RWNJs, Extreme KKKourt fascists ad nauseum would suddenly be as powerless as kittens.
Such a visual concept helps me sleep better at night. I know I can’t be alone in feeling this way.
I can’t handle a repeat of 2016, and neither can the rest of the world–especially women and girls.
Project 2025 CANNOT happen!
Violent kids: It’s a nature vs nurture issue. Some might have it in their genes. Others will learn it through social connections. For the former, there’s not a lot to be done. For those suceptible to peer pressure, tossing them in jail without providing guidance and education practically guarantees them exposure to the hardened criminal element they will find inside. So, we need to fund something to provide that guidance. But it still will have to be a facility they can’t just walk away from (recent escapes from Echo Glenn come to mind). And to many people, that still looks a lot like a jail.
Boeing tires: Sounds like a maintenance pocedure screw-up. With the kind of wheels aircraft have (split rims) tires should be deflated before being taken off the axle. If the wheel-half bolts have loosened or failed, the lug nuts may be all thats holding the pressure. My sources tell me that this tire blew in the shop. After coming off the plane. It should have been empty at that point.