Good morning! Someone said to me yesterday that its gotten to that time of year where they actually have to check the weather in the morning to see if they need a jacket. That’s why we have Slog, people. Chance of rain today between 11 am to 5 pm and a high of 69 [Eds note: nice]. Temperatures drop to 54 degrees in the evening.
School closures list drops: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) announced two possible school closure and consolidation plans yesterday. Basically, in one plan, option schools, which are schools that parents have to apply for, would close or become normal schools that kids attend if they live within a certain boundary. The second plan leaves open one of these option schools. The closures affect mostly elementary schools, but some K-8 schools as well, and the plan could save the district between $26 million and $31.5 million annually. The school board’s final vote on which plan to take is scheduled for December, with multiple opportunities for public comment between now and then.
Might be time for a history lesson: I imagine parents, students, and probably some teachers may pack future school board meetings during the public comment period and rail against them for imposing “austerity.” But if they’re unhappy about the closures, then they should set their sights on the next legislative session. Shaun Scott, candidate for Washington’s 43rd Legislative District, wrote all about the history of school funding and what the Legislature could do to better fund schools. The timing!
Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s killing: Yesterday, US Senator Patty Murray and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked for President Joe Biden to investigate the killing of Eygi, a recent University of Washington graduate. In their letter, Murray and Jayapal acknowledged that Israel already said that it’s “highly likely” Israeli forces killed her. Murray and Jayapal also asked Biden to name “concrete steps” the administration could take to ensure accountability for the Israeli forces and to protect American citizens. We know one step that Murray could take: supporting an arms embargo.
During her tenure in office, Patty Murray has received nearly $700,000 from AIPAC, including $120,000 in the last five years.
She voted for billions in military funding for Aysenur’s killers. Nice words, but we doubt she plans to “pursue accountability.” https://t.co/Zl1n9E5cP9
— DivestSPD (@DivestSPD) September 12, 2024
Meanwhile, Turkey has already launched an investigation into Eygi’s death, as Eygi was Turkish-American. Turkey said it plans to request international arrest warrants.
Speaking of Israel and indiscriminate killing: An Israeli airstrike hit a UN-run school yesterday, killing six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers, according to the Guardian. UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, called the deaths “appalling.”
BAN GOLF: KUOW killed it with their coverage of Jackson Park and how fucked up it is that the City uses one of its largest pieces of public land for a public golf course. With a new light rail station opening right next to the park, neighbors point out that it’s time for the City to make this park free and accessible to all people, not just those who need fucking acres to play one sport. They also fairly complain about how the park remains named for Andrew Jackson, one of our top genocidal POS presidents. Sounds like the neighbors only want to reduce the golf course from 18 to 9 holes, not eliminate the course altogether, which, fine, I guess, if they’re trying to compromise. Seattle Parks and Recreation said it has no plans to shrink the course. Rude.
Glitches and power outages: At one point on Wednesday afternoon, Seattle City Light’s power outage map showed 200,000 people without power, but that turned out to be a glitch, according to the Seattle Times. Still, 18,000 people lost power yesterday in North Seattle during some “routine testing.”
I love body language “experts”: CNN brought on an ex-FBI profiler to decode the body language of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris during the debate Tuesday. Trump pursed his lips and widened his eyes at one point, and this FBI genius—this savant of human expression—said that meant Trump was “alarmed.” Truly great stuff. In the next debate, I genuinely think CNN should bring someone on to analyze the candidates’ star signs and how the planets may have helped them in the debate.
Fire Season in full swing: Three massive Southern California fires caused some residents to evacuate, according to Axios. Firefighters in multiple states are trying to manage, contain, and reduce at least 65 fires burning across the US West, including 10 large fires in Nevada and California. As of Thursday, Washington has seven active wild fires across the state.
VMAs: The MTV Video Music Awards aired last night. In a viral moment, Chappell Roan told a rude paparazzo to, “Shut the fuck up.” Protect her. Pitchfork dove into the highs and lows of the night, focusing on Roan’s performance, including her decision to start her set by shooting a flaming crossbow. They also mentioned Sabrina Carpenter’s excellent live vocals, and Glorilla’s high energy TGIF recital. All these flaming stages lately. Also, Taylor Swift walked away with Best Video of the Year for “Fortnight.”
Alligator Bites Never Heal: The VMAs had some great performances that people should definitely check out, but a friend recommended Doechii’s mixtape to me earlier this week and I’m still listening to it, so I highly recommend you do as well.
“Fire Season in full swing”
Burn baby, Burn?
Drill baby. Drill.
Like there’s
No tomor-
row.*
“Also,
Taylor Swift
walked away with Best
Video of the Year for ‘Fortnight.’”
–@Ashley, @tS
“Meanwhile,
by 2:00 this [9/11] afternoon,
Taylor Swift’s endorsement had prompted
337,826 people to start the process of registering to vote.”
–noted Historian Heather Cox Richardson
also noted:
The Beatles (rip), a
well-known pop
band changed
this Fucking
World
*and Tax Cuts’ll
Solve Every-
Thing!
The link to the list of closures requires a few additional clicks to get to the page that lists all the schools that would be closed or remain open under either plan. Here is the direct link: https://www.seattleschools.org/resources/well-resourced-schools/proposed-option/
“The family & loved ones of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi—the WA state resident killed in the West Bank—deserve to know their government has done everything it can to fully understand what led to her killing & pursue accountability.”
–@Senator Patty Murray (D, WA)
“During her tenure in office, Patty Murray has received nearly $700,000 from AIPAC [the Israeli PAC having our Nation by. the. Balls], including $120,000 in the last five years.
She voted for billions in military funding for Aysenur’s killers. Nice words, but we doubt she plans to ‘pursue accountability.’
So
Here
We are
cosponsoring
a little Genocide
or as some Schloggers
Love to claim ad vomitas
“it’s Just a little Massacre.”
‘Everyone
does it.’
let’s have us an
Investigation.
perhaps we
might have
Israel do it
For us.
We should just rename Jackson Park after Scoop.
@3 “it’s Just a little Massacre.”
‘Everyone
does it.’
My favorite is “Hamas made us do it, and they even asked for more. We always do what Hamas want!”
So, The Stranger, who endorsed a slate of pro-closure candidates while sneeringly calling anyone concerned about closures “fear-mongerers”, now says the only solution is to vote for their endorsed previously failed candidate’s campaign. Still radio silence explaining how they could so badly f’up the school board endorsements. Still no apology for the “fear-mongering” idiocy. No requirement of basic internal accountability from their new hard-hitting chief editor Hannah Murphy Winter.
Nice gig if you can get it.
That golf course could use some guerilla gardening I think, so it could actually provide the city with something it needs. Doubt the city council will leave the parks department enough funding to stop it next budget cycle. They’ll have to send cops out there to pull up potato and tomato plants for ~$120/hr
Keep the park name the same but change who it’s officially named after to someone non-controversial. Like Michael.
A Burmese genocide scholar, Dr. Maung Zarni, returned from Israel and Palestine, where he witnessed first-hand the harrowing situation unfolding in Gaza. Hear what he said. I’m quoting him: “This is beyond what the Nazis embodied. I have never seen such sadistic violence.”
Israel has built a vast Ecosystem of Genocidal Practices in Occupied Palestine
FORSEA’s Dr Maung Zarni recently travelled to the Occupied Palestine and the occupying Israel with a N. American delegation of anti-Zionist Rabbis – Rabbis for Ceasefire – and spent nine intense days, witnessing the institutionalised textbook Lemkinian genocide.
https://forsea.co/israel-has-built-a-vast-ecosystem-of-genocidal-practices-in-occupied-palestine/
@4, 8:
I was trying to think of another Jackson after whom to rename the park (and while we’re at it, let’s change Jackson Street as well, since both are named for the same person), and the first person who came to my mind was the late civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. But, after doing a bit of digging it turns out there was another Jesse Jackson here in Seattle, who during the Great Depression was considered the unofficial “mayor” of Hooverville, the shanty town that sprang up in the area south of downtown, just east of where the stadiums reside today.
https://depts.washington.edu/depress/hooverville_mayor.shtml
“…it’s time for the City to make this park free and accessible to all people…”
Just think of how many tents it could hold! And it’s conveniently located near a business district, so the campers would have someplace to shoplift.
Urban access for all, per the modern Stranger.
I don’t golf, but there are many people like to golf. It’s said to be good exercise, and if anyone from The Stranger ever went to a public golf course they’d see that it’s people from all races, ages, and incomes. If one wants to go after golf courses, go after the private ones like Broadmoor, Sandpoint, Glen Acres, Seattle Golf Club, etc.
But yes, change the name. I second the idea of Scoop Jackson. Sure, he was the Senator from Boeing, but that’s better than Andrew Jackson.
Lastly, Jackson Park is on the very edge of the city limits. The Shorelinians need to butt out. They had their chance to become part of Seattle, but they blew it.
For everyone taking comfort in how well Harris did against the wannabe fascist Trump, not so fast:
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/pundits-said-harris-won-the-debate-undecided-voters-werent-so-sure/
She didn’t move the needle where it mattered which is among the 100k or so undecided voters in a few key states.
Ugh!
@9: Dr. Maung Zarni may want to revisit what the Nazis “embodied”. Whatever that means.
“Truthful Hyperbole” is not helpful.
Anampour and Company on PBS ran a story that states that public schools will have less than 50% of the K-12 market for the first time in memory. https://video.whyy.org/video/is-the-us-public-school-system-collapsing-new-propublica-report-uxkmp6/
Seattle Public Schools are having to close because enrollment is dropping at nearly double the rate that it is statewide. Each student that leaves, takes the revenue the state provides for that student with the student.
The same reporting indicates that the decline in public school enrollment is steepest in blue states that had the longest pandemic closures. Often times it was driven by blue-state, urban, public school unions holding on to closures even after public health had relented on keeping schools closed. The unions cut their noses off to spite their faces.
The biggest winner of K-12 market share? Homeschooling by liberal, progressive parents. The blue, urban districts, don’t have concentrations of red voters. They are overwhelmingly blue.
13, There are exactly 10 people featured in that article and all 10 were selected specifically because they gave the times an opportunity to write a headline that stands out from the thousands of “Harris beats Trump in debate” headlines it’s competing with.
Caitlin Clark
encourages people to vote
after liking Taylor Swift’s post endorsing Kamala Harris
Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, made the most outward political statement of her young career when she liked music superstar Taylor Swift’s Instagram post on Tuesday endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.
Clark did not publicly endorse Harris but explained to reporters on Wednesday the rationale behind liking Swift’s post.
“I have this amazing platform, so I think the biggest thing would be to just encourage people to register to vote,” Clark said. “That’s the biggest thing I can do with the platform that I have and that’s the same thing Taylor did.”
Clark, 22, stressed the importance of being informed about candidates before deciding who to vote for.
“Continue to educate yourself on the candidates that we have, the policies that they’re supporting – I think that’s the biggest thing you can do,” Clark said.
As of Thursday, Swift’s Instagram post had over 10 million likes. Clark, the leading rookie scorer in the WNBA, joined a list of high-profile celebrities to like the post, which included Oprah Winfrey and four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird.
oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5762790/2024/09/12/caitlin-clark-taylor-swift-kamala-harris/
“Someone said to me yesterday that its gotten to that time of year where they actually have to check the weather in the morning to see if they need a jacket. That’s why we have Slog, people.”
You people publish Slog about 8:30-9:00am M-F, far too late to provide anyone with timely advice on whether to wear a jacket.
“BAN GOLF” Fuck! No! First, the light rail station is on 148th while the north end of the golf course is 145th, so no the course is not “right next to” the station. Second, roughly 72,000 rounds were played at Jackson last year (equaling roughly 300,000 hours of recreation), generating $4 million in revenue (~$55/round), so the course is obviously very popular (its so popular this weekend is already booked up). And third, why the fuck should the city listen to a small bunch of entitled anti-golf pricks? What is “Rude” is these self centered no-fun dipshits acting like their narrow worldview should overrule the thousands of city residents who like to get outside for a few hours, get some exercise, hang with their friends, and have some fun in their off time. You want a nature walk that is “free and accessible to all people”? The Thornton Creek Natural Area Park, and the Jackson Park trail, are literally right next to the golf course. Go there, and leave the golf course alone.
https://www.jacksonparktrail.org/
https://www.seattle.gov/parks/allparks/thornton-creek-natural-area
@18 only layabouts and 60+ year olds read this and neither leave the house until noon or at all
@19 That’s traditionally been true for conventional “who won on merits and style” debates, but we’ve seen two in a row now where one candidate doesn’t just “lose” they seem wildly incapable of the job. Biden looked half-warned over and Trump sounded like an angry Alex Jones. I’m not sure we can judge these based on “normal” debates in the past, even in 2016 Clinton “won” on style and merits, but Trump didn’t materially implode, I’m don’t think we can say the same this time. The debate is one of the few times people who don’t pay attention every day tune in, and this time Trump was going on about about eating pets, executing babies, and his friend Abdul from the Taliban.
@11 I know you are being sarcastic, but I agree with that idea 100%. Someone should get an initiative on the ballot that prohibits the City from spending any money on removing campers from golf courses on public land. Perhaps then the golfers will become advocates for more public housing!
@10 if you did slightly as much digging as you did into the local Jesse Jackson of Hooverville fame, you’d also find that your original candidate is not the late civil rights activist but the very much still alive civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson
Tenny, your comments, as per usual are dumb.
There is no business district near Jackson Park. Also there has not been any major park encampments in over a year, thanks in part to Mayor McSweeps.
Keep your fear mongering bullshit to your normal lane of Zionist bootlicking if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
@23, The people can have all the public housing they want.
1) They have to be willing to accept density.
2) They have to be willing to pay increased property and sales taxes.
Progressive revenue just drives companies already wondering why they are renting office space in Seattle, for workers who don’t want to work from ab office, to vote with their feet for a jurisdiction without progressive revenue (like Bellevue, Renton, Tukwila, or Bothell). It drives individuals (say some of those 52,000 millionaires in the City) subject to new progressive revenue, to change where they have their mcmansions, mini-mansions, and mansions.
In an era where new millionaires are being minted in cloud-based commerce, that is anywhere, and nowhere, rather than in a business that requires a factory or facility somewhere, geographic location is becoming irrelevant.
I HATE Washington’s regressive tax structure. But it we are going to fix it, it can’t be one city at a time, it has to be statewide. It also needs to trade every dollar in new income tax revenue, for a one dollar cut in regressive sales taxes, so we shift who pays taxes, rather than increasing them and come with a state Constitutional amendment to guarantee that, or it won’t pass. The last income tax proposal that went before voters lost even in King County.
Over 100 years later, voters remember the history of the Federal Income Tax, which was put in place to capture tax from the wealthy, who paid none. Within two decades, everyone paid it. So voters aren’t going to trust promises to the contrary, anymore than they will ever believe Jay Inslee and Olympia Democrats that a Cap and Trade system will only increase their gas prices by a few cents. I am fine with the 35 to 50 cent increase, the problem is Inslee, et. al., lost all credibility with voters to get it.
Politics is the art of the possible, rather than making the perfect the enemy of the good. We can reduce the tax burden for the poor and have it paid by the wealthy instead. That’s possible. The perfect, not so much. So why are progressives throwing the poor and lower income under the bus because they can’t have the good?
@14 hear that everyone Stranger commenter “Max Solomon” says an international genocide expert, PhD, and Nobel Prize nominee needs to rethink his opinions, presumably because they run contrary to “Max’s” desperately held beliefs. This is a level of self-important delusion even tensorna can only aspire to. Sorry “Max” the IDF and Likud are war criminals and everyone whose head isn’t firmly implanted into Zionist sand can easily see it. Good news is there’s still time to switch to the right side of history.
@27
“This
is a level of
self-important delusion
even tensorna can only aspire to.”
well
you’ve
Won today’s
Internet thirteen12.
fucking Kudos.