Good morning! Memorial Day was the unofficial start of summer and the weather got the brief. It’s going to be a balmy 72 today, and it’ll climb into the 80s tomorrow. (A little rich for my taste, if I’m being honest.)
Let’s do the news.
At Least We Still Get the Sunset: It’s official. After several years of pilot programs, our beaches are permanently closing early. After what the Seattle Times described as “general melee in warm weather,” Alki Beach and Golden Gardens will close at 10:30 p.m. this summer, instead of 11:30. The Magnuson Boat Launch will close at 10. And what always paired with curfew enforcement? Cops.The Parks department contracted with SPD to enforce the new rules, so expect red and blue lights to enthusiastically rush you out at 10:30 sharp.
That’s a Wrap! The Seattle International Film Festival’s finale was on Sunday, and some of our favorites took home trophies. Suburban Fury, co-written by our very own Charles Mudede, won the Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category. Stranger contributor Mindie Lind’s animated short, View From the Floor, got a Special Jury Mention. And one of the Must See documentaries in our SIFF Notes, Seeds, took home the Official Competition Grand Jury Prize.
Realizing you missed out? Don’t worry. This week, SIFF is letting you stream many of the festival films at home. No sticky floors or dude sucking chewy candy out of his teeth during the while the movies is trying to build tension. Just you, some microwave popcorn, and that spot on the couch that’s molded perfectly to your butt. You can see the full list here. If you ask me, don’t sleep on New Jack Fury. It only takes two scenes for a cop to get hit in the face with an 18-inch dirty dildo.
Also, look at the goddamn capybara. Look at him.
Speaking of Film: Something weird happened to Scarecrow Video. Yesterday, they discovered that a huge swath of their exterior wall had crumbled to the ground. They don’t know what happened yet, but the structural engineers are on the case. They’ll at least be closed through today, so hang on to your video rentals for now. They promise you won’t get charged for it.
ICYMI: On Saturday, an extremist anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion group called Mayday USA took over the center of Cal Anderson Park. What’s worse? The 15-hour prayer rally at the center of Seattle’s queerest neighborhood was permitted by the city. Ministers spoke in tongues; people gave anti-gay, anti-trans testimony about how they found jesus; I got “Our God is an Awesome God” permanently stuck in my head. There were at least two counterprotests organized by LGBTQ advocates. Dozens of cops showed up, held a stiff line “protecting” the religious zealots from the protesters, and arrested 23 people. To avoid escalating any further, SPD asked the event to close up shop three hours early, at 7 p.m. They left, but now they’re crying victim and holding a “worship rally” on the steps of City Hall tonight. Read all about what happened this weekend here.
It’s been five years since Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. The Stranger‘s social media editor, Christian Parroco, photographed the 2020 protests. “Five years after George Floyd’s murder and the protests that took over Seattle’s streets, I’m still unpacking the trauma I carried from covering the frontlines—fighting for my right to live here as a Black man,” he wrote this weekend. “I didn’t have a choice but to document it. As a Black photographer, I felt a moral imperative to be there, to capture the raw truth. I saw a man get shot five feet in front of me for stopping someone from driving a car through a crowd. I watched cops tear-gas a child — a child — because they didn’t know how to defend themselves against a five-year-old holding flowers. I watched peaceful protests escalate under the heavy hand of the police, only to be twisted into ‘riots’ for the cameras.” See his coverage of the protests here.
Since yesterday was the end of a long holiday weekend, Viv and I are pain-splitting Slog this morning. She’ll take it away.
Driver Plowed Into Liverpool Crowd, Injuring Dozens: The 53-year-old driver, a white British man, acted alone when he drove his minivan into a crowd of soccer fans celebrating the city’s Premier League championship. Police say it’s not being investigated as terrorism, but arrested the man on suspicion of attempted murder. Fifty people were hospitalized, according to the BBC. Eleven people remain in the hospital, all in stable condition. The AP reports that firefighters lifted the car to free four people trapped beneath it.
E. coli Made Nearly 90 People Sick and You Probably Didn’t Know: E coli., the bacteria from shit that makes people shit (and die, etc.), can be very dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, we’re supposed to warn people of outbreaks. But the results of an investigation linking a single lettuce processor to cases in 15 states didn’t reach the public. The Trump administration decided not to identify the grower because the product was no longer on the market. This break with common practice is a consequence of this administration cutting a public health infrastructure it doesn’t understand to ribbons. Consumer advocates, researchers, and former US Food and Drug Administration and US Department of Agriculture employees told The Washington Post Trump is unravelling a critical system that keeps our food safe.
Swiper Stop Swiping: President Donald Trump plans to sever the federal government’s remaining $100 million in contracts with Harvard University, according to a letter sent to federal agencies Tuesday. On Monday, the President posted Truth Social that he’s considering taking “THREE BILLION DOLLARS” in research grants from the “very antisemetic” university and giving it to trade schools, but gave no details. Sunday, he complained Harvard wasn’t giving him the names of its international students. A judge has blocked his administration’s order to bar Harvard from enrolling international students.
NPR Sues Trump: The federal filing from National Public Radio and three local stations argues Trump’s executive order barring the use of Congressionally approved federal funds for PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment. The suit called the order “retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination” and named President Donald Trump, White House Budget Director Russel Vought, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Maria Rosario Jackson, the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, as defendants.
Grimes Cancelled World Pride Show in DC: She cited family issues (she has three children with Elon Musk).
Groan: An Atlanta-area private Christian high school expelled a high school senior for bringing a trans date to prom, according to her family. Emily Wright told Fox 5 Atlanta she was called into her principal’s office ten days after prom, which was held at a venue off-campus. The principal asked if there was anything he should know about her date (a friend, she said). Yes, she said, he is transgender. The principal called Emily’s mother and told her that her daughter had been expelled. With only weeks left in the school year, she had to quickly enroll in a public school to graduate.
SPD can’t even manage to respond to things like car thefts within hours, but yeah let’s have them on park gate enforcement duty.
The peaceful Christians exercising their 1st Amendment rights at Cal Anderson were definitely the victims. And the Mayor had the audacity to blame the melee on the Christians when it was clearly caused by violent and intolerant antifa thugs.
It makes complete sense to defund NPR and PBS. They do not need public funding in the age of YouTube, where anybody can launch a global media channel. If their content has value, they will compete just fine on the free market.
It also makes sense to defund Harvard. Throwing that money at trade schools will bring about far more benefit. If Harvard is so interested in ground breaking research, they can use some of their endowment dollars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwE4LNP8zsI
@1: you don’t really have to worry much about that. they let the Latino Car-Stereo crowd play their crap music overnight at Magnusson most weekends last summer. So loud it could be heard in Kirkland.
if they chase the partiers out at 10:30 and LOCK THE FUCKING GATES, they won’t have to sit there all night and can take car theft reports for the remainder of their shifts.
Speaking as a card-carrying Antifasoy, agents provocateur in black bloc are not Antifa at all but douchebags trying to get into fights with cops. You don’t attack cops to fight fascism.
Hannah writes: “held a stiff line “protecting” the religious zealots from the protesters”
more accurate as:
“held a stiff line keeping the peace between the religious zealots from the protesters”
Case Worker negligence costs Washington Taxpayers $201 million.
61% of state lawsuit payouts were for claims against the Children, Youth, and Families Division.
We need to tap Case Worker pensions and garnish their salaries for the rest of their lives to stop this wrongdoing. If taxpayers, rather than employees pay the claim, there is no incentive for employees to stop.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/budget-gimmick-endorsed-by-ferguson-downplays-was-huge-lawsuit-costs/
After that, we can do the same for cops.
@5: Good to know.
FFS. Of course the city issued the permit for the godbotherers to do their thing in Cal Anderson. If they didn’t, they would have been sued for viewpoint discrimination (see PBS story) and lost badly. I don’t like the godbotherers any more than the Stranger staff, but they have a legal right to rent out park space just the same as anyone else. First Amendment, yo.
@9, FTW!
I am a proud Antifascist, call me Antifa if you want. I wouldn’t dishonor the sacrifice and legacy of my grandfather who volunteered at 17 to fight fascism.
I remember going to a protest in Portland against Trump around the time of the first Women’s March in 2017, where I marched with a classical guitar and played along with a marching band who let me plug into their PA. At the end of the march we ended up at Pioneer Courthouse Square and danced and celebrated, and that’s when a bunch of weird masked dudes in black bloc showed up. I was hanging out and then one of them came up to me and said, hey, things are going to get rough around here and you better leave. The guy didn’t strike me as your typical leftist; he was tall, blonde, blue eyed, and well built (not that that is any indicator of politics, but he seemed out of place). I was like, what is the point of occupying the square after all the protestors go home?
So, I walked away before the cops showed up and they all had their little fight club scrimmage or whatever. And the same crap happened during the George Floyd marched to discredit the movement. All I know is, a bunch of black bloc fools starting shit don’t represent any righteous movement or anti fascism, but rather anarchy and chaos, and they need to be contained and kept away from the authorities because they are too easy to cosplay as and infilitrate to create a self-fulfilling prophecy for the cops to start getting violent with everyone who is there to express their civil rights.
As for the soy, what does that even mean? An effeminate man? Just because I have a pretty face and a patchy beard? I’m I was born with this perfect bone structure! That my hair looks better done up with gel and mouse, than hidden under a stupid hat with a MAGA on it. And if I even have a penis or not, (I can’t remember) I can’t even find it with both hands some days without an electron microscope. It is more like a cilia. And I love soybeans! I love beans, doop de doo.
I’m sorry I was*
Merman! cough cough MerMAN!! 🧜♂️
@12
It has to do with the phytoestrogen found in soy and misinformation about phytoestrogen. Hops has about as much of that as soy, but you sure don’t hear about the feminizing effects of beer.
I’d assume the majority of the people who actually enjoy reading the Stranger regularly and live in Seattle are antifa in the most basic sense of the term.
So these religious zealots will yell, “SPEAK ENGLISH!!!” to people speaking another language in public, but it’s fine for them to speak in tongues at their weird religious hate-fest?
These people would crucify Jesus again if he showed up tomorrow preaching about love, compassion, and humility. Ya know, the same things he preaches about in the Bible.
@5 “You don’t attack cops to fight fascism.”
Without getting into a debate over the merits of bloc, this statement is obviously totally false. The cops are the armed wing of the state, so when the state descends into fascism they are exactly who must be fought.
@9 absolutely correct, it makes no sense to try to blame the city for this.
@17. Note that I said “attack” and not “defend against”
@18 best defense is a good offense
@19. I don’t think it’s helpful to paint all cops as fascists. There are certainly fascist cops who selectively enforce the law with a double standard, such as what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse, and others who are trying to uphold the rights of their own communities by protecting them.
I agree that under Trump those lines are getting blurred, but I’ve seen plenty of police in my work who do the right thing and shouldn’t be demonized for doing their jobs.
ICE Police, however, get fucked.
@20 like ACAB its not a personal judgment it’s a recognition of their role in society. Cops enforce the state’s policies, so if the state is fascist the cops will be fascist and those of us who are not will have to fight them. Whether any individual officer is a good person at heart is irrelevant.
Aarrgh! Now “Awesome God” is firmly lodged in my head too, and all I did was read the article. Truly an earworm from the pit of Hell.
@22 is correct.
@cdizzle, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.
So how does that logic work when applied to the cops who protected the Capitol on January 6th, 2021?
@22: Well, if you deem the state as fascist then your only course of action is revolution or anarchy. If you reserve judgement that the state does some good non-fascist things, then logic dictates that police do good things and that their character is relevant because they’re acting on the directives of the state, such as to pull over drunk drivers and catch killers.
Avoid basing your arguments on superlatives.
Looks like theres another event scheduled like this at the end of August already too…
@25/26 I said * if * the state is fascist. To answer the question in 25, if on January 6 Congress had instead been rejecting the election results and keeping Trump in power indefinitely the police would also have protected them from anyone trying to stop that.
If CDizzle would have said “attacking those police on that day was a stupid tactical choice” I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, it was the breadth of the statement that made it wrong.