He did a dick joke. Credit: Justin Sullivan / GETTY

Weather: Yesterday’s weather was not nearly as stormy as I’d hoped for, but today brings a 50 percent chance of showers after 1 pm and a high of 71. Showers are expected to continue into Saturday and then taper off before the sun’s partial return on Monday.

A nail-biter DNR race: After the final count, Democrat Dave Upthegrove only led GOP-endorsed Sue Kuehl Pederson by 51 votes, narrowly taking an unsteady second place in Washington’s primary for Commissioner of Public Lands. The one-thousandth of a percentage point difference amounts to the state’s narrowest vote margin in decades, and election officials will be recounting the votes by hand. It’ll be about two weeks before we know who faces former Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler in the general election.

Dear Mayor Harrell: The Seattle LGBTQ Commission sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell yesterday asking that he clarify his statements about Denny Blaine, Seattle’s historically gay nude beach that might have become a children’s playground. In July, the City released a text exchange between Harrell’s personal cell phone and Stuart Sloan, the wealthy philanthropist who pledged $1 million to build a playground at the beach. In texts, Sloan described nude bathers as “DISGUSTING,” and Harrell later expressed his shared disgust. Despite the back and forth, and two in-person meetings with Sloan, Harrell claimed he didn’t know who was behind the donation. How mysterious!

The mayor responded: In a letter sent yesterday in response, Harrell said he welcomed the opportunity to clarify his comments (as if there has not been months of ample opportunity), and added that the City intended to improve Denny Blaine Park, not push anyone out. Harrell said their initial efforts “missed that mark” and that he understood “these comments–blunt and inexact–may have caused harm to those who have interpreted them as denigrating members of the LGBTQ+ community.” Harrell emphasized that neither he, nor Sloan, nor anyone who raised concerns about the park mentioned the queer community, and it had not occurred to him how anyone could view the plan as targeting anyone else. 

206-289-0287: That’s the new number to call for people in need of meds to treat opioid withdrawal. In addition to curtailing the headaches, chills, sweating, and other symptoms, buprenorphine reduces the risk of overdose by half. Within three days of the first call, a care coordinator will follow up with patients and connect them with ongoing care. Dr. Lauren Whiteside, an emergency physician at UW who helped conceive the hotline, told KUOW that it sidesteps a lengthy bureaucratic process to harness the “exact moment” a person is ready to accept treatment.

Get it together, y’all: Boeing, America’s little airplane and munitions manufacturer that couldn’t, just cannot get the hang of this building safe planes thing! On Tuesday, the company announced that it had paused all test flights of the 777-9, a large passenger aircraft designed for international flights, after it discovered a problem within the engine housing. Boeing did not say when it would resume flights or whether this problem will delay the already delayed expected delivery of the first 777-9 next year. Meanwhile, contract talks with Boeing’s machinists are hot ahead of the September strike deadline.

When they go low, we also go low: Barack and Michelle Obama delivered headline speeches at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago last night. Michelle Obama said that Kamala Harris was one of the most qualified people to ever seek the presidency, and she skewered Trump for his nepo upbringing and failed business ventures. Former President Barack Obama compared Trump to a neighbor who runs a leaf blower outside your window all day. “We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos,” he said. “We’ve seen that movie. And we all know the sequel is usually worse.” He even made a small penis joke about Trump.

Lol: Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to Donald Trump, spoke at the DNC and said that Trump mocked his supporters as “basement dwellers” in private, and that once, on a visit to a hospital, he was upset that the cameras were focused on patients in the ICU instead of him.

To the windows, to the Walz: Since Harris accepted the nomination in a virtual roll call earlier this month, Democrats didn’t have any official business to conduct with the in-person roll call, so they fucked around and hired a DJ to play a special song introducing each state. Georgia’s guest, Lil Jon, high-fived attendees as he performed “Turn Down for What,” swapping in the lyrics in places for chants of “we’re not going back” and “VP Harris, gimme the Walz.” People waved cutouts of Harris’s and Walz’s heads. Very corny stuff.

Harris’s coronation continues today: Reproductive rights are expected to be the big topic at the convention today; scheduled speakers include VP pick and Minnesota Governor Walz, former President Bill Clinton, and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Protests continue: Police arrested at least 72 demonstrators outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago last night. The majority of arrests reportedly happened late after police penned protesters in a plaza and prevented them from leaving, according to the Associated Press. Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling denied that officers “kettled” anyone, a tactic banned under a federal consent decree that involves corralling people into a confined area.

World’s oldest living person dies: X’s “Super Catalan Grandma” Maria Branyas Morera died in her sleep yesterday at the age of 117. Born in San Francisco in 1907, she emigrated to Spain after her father’s Spanish-language magazine in New Orleans folded. As an adult, Morera survived the country’s bloody civil war, the brutal reign of fascist dictator Francisco Franco, and recently, a supercentenarian bout of COVID. After her death, Tomika Itooka, a spry 116 year old in Japan, became the newest senior member of the human race.

Vivian McCall is The Stranger's interim Editor-in-Chief. In her private life, she is a musician and Wii U apologist. If you’re reading this, you either love her or hate her.

25 replies on “Slog AM: Mayor Harrell Addresses “Blunt and Inexact” Denny Blaine Comments, A Close DNR Race, The Obamas Speak at DNC”

  1. @1, “In a letter sent yesterday in response, Harrell said… (blah blah blah)”

    IOW, it’s still news. If you disagree, maybe bring it up with the mayor’s office.

  2. but tiny-handed donOLD

    LOVES his poorly-educated

    basement dwellers his MAGAts

    not to mention his Special Servants

    standing back standing by waiting for

    The Signal when his Lost Election’ll become

    ‘too messy!’ and “republican” state legislators’ll

    hand it all over to

    our New Lord &

    SAVIOR King of

    the MAGAts.

    a dick joke?

    well, Good

    for Barack!

  3. “Harris’ coronation”

    Sigh. All political conventions over the last 40-50 years have been coronations. It’s how it’s done now. It is unusual that Biden withdrew after the primaries, but the primaries select delegates anyway. Harris collected the support of those delegates, so she’s the nominee.

  4. When they go low, we go lower? Seriously? Trump is a lifelong criminal, a child rapist, a rapist of adult as women as well, a traitor, a draft dodger, a twice impeached squatter of the White House who brags about sexual assault, longs for the days when Black people could just be murdered outright because white people hated them (though how that’s different from now, I’m not really clear), has been indicted of nearly 100 crimes, has been convicted of 34 felonies, LIES EVERY SINGLE TIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH NO MATTER WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT, but whatever was said at the DNC by whoever is lower than whatever liquid shit is spewing out of Trump’s mouth at any given moment. Fuck you.

  6. Glad to see the Dems come off their lame talk about sanctity of institutions and start treating Trump like the clown he is. Best part is he will definitely now go on a self destructive internet tirade about Obama.

  7. @1: Right after they forget about Jenny’s texts… at least this time, the Stranger carried Harrell’s clarification, that neither he nor Sloan had mentioned LGBTQ+ persons. The Stranger had mislead readers on this point in their previous coverage of the story.

    For all of the Stranger’s lingering obsession about this story, It’s also pretty funny the Stranger simply ignores its own prior reporting on Denny Blaine Park: “…voyeurs and pervs seem to have colonized Denny Blaine, so wear shoes if you don’t want to get sperm between your toes.” (https://www.thestranger.com/horrors/2019/07/22/40831261/welcome-to-summer-dont-drink-the-water)

    But I guess they don’t want their own writing to agree with Sloan and Harrell’s issues with the park.

  8. Oh yeah the murderer of the 80-year-old dog-walker woman also murdered one of the dogs (stabbed it to death). $100 says the killer has been in and out of Seattle’s permissive “progressive justice” system for years.

  9. A minor point to be certain, but regarding your story on Super Catalan Grandma” Maria Branyas Morera, it’s “immigrate TO, and emigrate FROM.” Did you ever take an English class, Vivian? I expect “journalists” to know correct English usage.

  10. It’s obviously just a throwaway line but for the record it says “we also go low” not “we go lower.”

    You barely need to go low to trigger a big baby like Trump. Just calling him weird has sent him into a weeks-long tailspin so it will be fun to see what happens when he finds out they’re making dick jokes at the DNC.

  11. I don’t see the contradiction between “gay people are having sex at the gay sex beach” and “the mayor’s rich donor friend is trying to purge the gays from the gay sex beach.” Everyone agrees gay people are fucking there even if it’s only implied in the mayor’s text exchange with his rich donor friend, but the last time they reported this story people were complaining that the stranger was characterizing it as a gay nude beach. It’s pretty clear everyone is on the same page about what happens there.

  12. I’m no fan of Boeing, but “Halting Test Flights” because of possible manufacturing flaws is exactly the kind of thing that is SUPPOSED to happen. Note that this is occuring before planes are delivered to customers. In other words… Boeing got this one right.

  13. @13: “the mayor’s rich donor friend is trying to purge the gays from the gay sex beach.”

    There’s never been any evidence of that happening. Sloan and Harrell’s complaints sound a lot like the Stranger’s description of the place from years ago, which is why I quoted that description @8.

    Look, I remember back in the ’90s, after the Pride Parade down Broadway, there would be trash everywhere. This is not because gay Americans had some greater tendency to throw trash everywhere, but because Americans throw trash everywhere. Pride was just the occasion for that one group of Americans to behave like all Americans.

    Furthermore, calling it a “gay sex beach” is just the reverse of what the Stranger has been groundlessly accusing Sloan and Harrell of doing: appropriating public resources to one group at the expense of another. It’s a beach. It belongs to everyone. It should be kept clean for everyone’s use. It doesn’t matter who pollutes the space, it’s the pollution of the shared public space that is wrong. And, despite the Stranger’s lingering obsession with this park, no one has found any evidence of Sloan and Harrell’s concern being about anything but trashing of the space.

  15. It’s still a public beach even if gay people hang out there and suck dick in the bushes or whatever. And if it’s commonly understood to be a nude public beach where gay guys hook up then it’s perfectly reasonable to assume their exchange is about gay people even if they don’t say it outright. Doubly so if the proposed solution to cleaning up the “pollution” is to install a play area for kids.

    Idk just feels like you start with the conclusion that the stranger sucks then work backwards to whatever evidence at your disposal supports that conclusion even if it’s at odds with your interpretation of previous reporting on the same event

  18. 22, Again it’s a matter of perspective, though I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone call public sex “sophomoric”. Feels like a completely inappropriate way to describe adult behavior but maybe English isn’t your first language.

    Being an uptight scold might be a mark of maturity and decorum where you hang out but the gays are just built different. We know how to have a good time.

  19. Boeing clearly has a lot of issues to work through, but in fairness this plane has the heaviest engine that’s ever been attached to a commercial airplane and this plane is a prototype to test the structures they designed to handle it, this is frankly why they do testing.

    The Obama’s approach to Trump last night was perfect. Emphasizing what even many of his own supporters know, that he is tiresome and fundamentally only cares about himself.

  20. Following up on my comment at #9, I was correct (of course). According to the police press conference (still going on as I write this), the killer has been previously convicted of 8 (EIGHT) felonies. Way to go Seattle “progressives”!!!

  22. omg

    Tim Walz for Prez in ’28

    & Kamala Harris for

    Our Supreme Ct

    Katinji Brown

    Jackson for

    the Chief

    Justice

    but first

    let’s whip

    eltrumpfster’s

    whiny, nasty, sorry ass

    vote

    Blue,

    bitches

    & if bibi

    hasn’t already

    blown up the M.E.

    let’s Depose the SOB.

  23. speaking of alternative papers:

    “In 1974, music writer Jon Landau saw a relatively unknown musician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and wrote for an alternative paper: ‘Last Thursday, at the Harvard Square theater, I saw rock’n’roll past flash before my eyes.

    And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.’

    The review helped to catapult Springsteen to stardom.

    After three days at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, I feel like I have seen the political future and its name is the Democratic Party.

    But rather than feeling like I’m hearing politics for the first time, I am hearing the echo of political themes embraced in the best moments of America’s past.”

    –Heather Cox Richardson; Aug 22, 2024

    More, delightfully:

    https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-21-2024

  24. Q: Why is DJT, the Orange Turd such a big dick?

    A: To desperately try to cover up its tiny, fetid lil ‘shroom!

    The “emperor” has no clothes! Golly, not even a fig leaf! Et tu, Brute?

    Thank you, real former President Barack Obama,, for calling it out.

  25. @18: Complaining about the state of Denny Blaine Park was perfectly OK to the Stranger when the Stranger did it. Complaining about the state of Denny Blaine Park suddenly became anti-LGBTQ to the Stranger when a friend of the Mayor’s did it.

    Okie dokie…

Comments are closed.