Seattle. I’m sorry. Your heat is nowhere near all that. You spoiled me. Yes, I much prefer your cold days, I love your long winter nights, and live for your clouds, which never fail to carry the sun away. But when I recently visited Atlanta, I learned my lesson. That city’s summer is nothing like ours. Indeed, when my craft (operated by Delta) landed on ATL, I immediately felt another world when its doors opened: the heat, the humidity, the larger-than-life star. I was an alien whose lungs were simply stunned by the atmosphere. I could barely breathe the air, which had the consistency of melted butter. I spent a whole week on planet Atlanta, moving from one air-conditioned station to the next, always wishing I had a spacesuit during a transition. Even the mornings were brutal, and the nights offered no relief and lots of insect sounds. I changed my mind, Seattle, which will reach a high of 80 today, the same high it reached yesterday. Yes, I will always want you to be around 60 degrees or less, but now I know that even on your hottest days, you’re nowhere near the Venus that Atlanta is.
Seattle has grown to over 800,000 residents. When I moved to the 206 back in 1992, the population was around 520,000. Those were the small-fry days. The paltry days. But look at you now. You’re all grown and can call yourself a big city. Well done. And always remember, the more the merrier. One other thing: The state’s biggest cities (Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver, and Bellevue) claimed a whopping 75 percent of its population growth.
And now for that fucking awful family of crows on my street in Columbia City. Why did you, the parents, have your precious baby in a tree next to a relatively busy sidewalk? It makes no sense. You don’t want any humans near your noisy newborn, but you went ahead and built your nest around lots of humans. And this means you spend more time yelling and attacking us than you do with the one who apparently means the world to you. To make matters worse, crows very well know humans don’t eat them. We are not raccoons. We don’t care for your meat. Not one among us has ever put you in a pot or scrambled your eggs. And yet you still go apeshit when you think we’re too close to your demanding brats. Tell me why? Tell me why?
Seattle, along with Spokane, is, according to a study conducted by WalletHub, in “the top five cities where credit card delinquency is increasing the most.” Though our city’s overall consumer debt load is still very low when compared to other cities, the sharp increase is an indication that something is “rotten in the state of Denmark.” More and more Seattleites are surely feeling these words by an unfortunate character in Nabokov’s novel Lolita: “I have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow – you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow.”
Get this: Netanyahu has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Netanyahu to Trump, over a long table: “[You deserve the prize for] forging peace, as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other.” Trump to Netanyahu: “Thank you very much. This I didn’t know. Wow… Coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, Bibi.” My question is this: Why does Trump so badly want these international distinctions? The top position in Vatican City, tea with the King of England, a prize awarded by Sweden. Why does a president whose whole program is America First so badly want validation from the international community? Why doesn’t he just make his own damn USA prizes and distinctions (best bombed this, best ICE that, and so on) and be satisfied with that? In the words of Loose Ends: “It’s such a mystery to me.”
The death toll of the Texas floods has passed 100. We can only expect it to continue climbing.
The situation in Texas is so bad that Trump plainly pretended not to hear tough questions from the press about the reported systemic failures that unnecessarily cost the lives of so many Texans. Greater scrutiny of this disaster will certainly point more blame at the GOP, locally and nationally. The libs had nothing to do with this. You’re on your own, bra. What to do? A distraction is in order.
ICE, whose budget was massively increased by the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (Trump basically has his own army—maybe we will see an ICE parade in the near future), is basically a reality TV show that has leaped from the screen into reality, rather than the other way around. Don’t believe me? I present you with footage of an ICE/Border Patrol raid conducted yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park.
What the hell is going on at McArthur Park in Los Angeles, CA! Looks like these militarized thugs are doing some kind of federal disappearing operation on street vendors in the park. This is only going to get worse with the new bloated ICE budget. #UnMaskICE
— Brian Cardone (@cardonebrian.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 11:59 AM
They even brought horses! Why? Because it was just another dumb stunt: the horses, the hardcore military gear, the stunned people running like they’re in a creature feature. The reason given for the raid?
According to NBC 4, the agents arrived in armored vehicles, surrounding the park’s perimeter in the Westlake neighborhood. But federal officials have yet to explain what sparked the raid, or why MacArthur Park—a popular family space—was targeted.
When questioned, the Department of Homeland Security offered no details, simply stating, “We don’t need to comment on ongoing enforcement operations.
UPDATE: Trump tried to blame Biden for the Texas floods, and fizzled. According to CNN, Trump said today: “If you look at that, what a situation that all is, and that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup, but I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either.”
With all of the crazy going on in the US, and all of it clearly driven by racism, Black Americans must feel vindicated. For years, a large number of white Americans claimed that discrimination was a thing of the past, that Blacks were just whining and should just get over it. All Americans, they claimed, now lived in a free country and so on. Not a small number of immigrants and even moderate-thinking whites also believed this to be the case. If you work hard, America doesn’t see your color. Nearly 50 percent of Latinos clearly voted for Trump under this impression. But it turns out they should have listened to Black people, who are now saying something like these words from an iconic scene in the old-school hiphop movie Wild Style: “See, I told you. Here they come now.”
Let’s end AM with Antipop Consortium’s “Here They Come Now”:
@45: “The Israelis are planning a concentration camp in the south of Gaza…”
And, more importantly, they intend to use it for their ethnic cleansing of Gaza:
“They will not be allowed to leave, Katz said, according to Israeli media. Eventually, the defense minister said the entire population of Gaza – more than 2 million Palestinians – will be held in the zone. Katz then vowed that Israel would implement a plan, first floated by US President Donald Trump, to allow Palestinians to emigrate from Gaza to other countries.”
Why does this come as any kind of news to you? You were very clearly warned about this prior to the election:
“trump has concepts of a plan for Gaza, and Miriam Adelson just gave a trump pact ninety-five million dollars. She is in favor of annexation of Gaza, and wants a return on her investment.”
(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/10/16/79742139/slog-am-navy-jet-crashes-near-mount-rainier-the-strangers-endorsements-dropped-spokane-rabbit-horde-wreaks-havoc/comments/1)
As you were also told back then, Americans’ best chance to avoid this was to elect Kamala Harris. Yet the Abandon Harris movement, the Stranger, and local Palestinian activists all refused to listen. So here we are. I hope those aforementioned groups remain very, very proud of themselves for opposing the Democratic nominee for President.
@51 “And, more importantly, they intend to use it for their ethnic cleansing of Gaza”
Um actually “ethnic cleansing” has one very specific definition that I will rely on, to the exclusion of any others or common sense, and under that definition this does not qualify so I demand you stop using that word. Also if you don’t agree Israel has the right to defend itself by doing whatever it wants to the people of Gaza you clearly don’t believe Israel has a right to exist and are therefore a rank antisemite. Why won’t you denounce Hamas?
@52: Ok. I was merely pointing out the situation was likely worse for the Palestinians in Gaza than @45 had described, but if you’d rather play word games, I can’t stop you. I won’t use that term again to describe whatever the Israeli government has in mind for the current population of Gaza.
@53 it really sucks when you’re trying to explain how bad the situation in Gaza is for Palestinians and some clown would “rather play word games” disputing the strict definition of a crime against humanity. I can relate.
@52: ‘Um actually “ethnic cleansing” has one very specific definition that I will rely on, to the exclusion of any others or common sense,’
What is that definition, and why do you cling to it so tightly?
@54: ‘it really sucks when you’re trying to explain how bad the situation in Gaza is for Palestinians and some clown would “rather play word games”…’
Yes, that was my point. @45 hadn’t adequately described “how bad the situation in Gaza is for Palestinians,” and so I noted that ethnic cleansing might be Israel’s goal. You’ve disputed that, giving for your reason not any actual facts, but your own dogmatic inflexibility about the term. So, having no way of addressing your inflexibility on this point, I’ll not use the term, “ethnic cleansing,” for now. Happy?
@55 can’t believe I have to spell this out but I was making fun of you for being obsessively pedantic about the definition of “genocide” for months
@56: As in another thread, there’s a difference between ‘not getting it’ and ‘intentionally ignoring it,’ especially as the latter is more fun.
So, what’s your definition of “genocide,” and why is it better than the one the world has used for 75 years?
(https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf)
(I’m guessing any attempted answer will reduce to some version of, “we had to change the definition so we could accuse the Israelis of it.”)
@57 wow you legitimately cannot help yourself can you
@58: Who’s playing word games, again? I gave ‘my’ definition, the one the world has agreed to use for over 75 years. What have you got? Nothing, I’ll guess.
@50 thirteen12: +1 No worries. Agreed. I feel your pain, and really hate the Tech Age (i.e.: automated customer service systems, preset to only recognize two phrases, and basically put in place to replace human agents to save corporations money are in dire need of an major overhaul). Why do phones “have” to be the multifunctional Swiss Army knives of modern times? It’s only proving to be the ruination of our region. I predict that future generations, despite their more advanced tech savvy, will actually be hit and inconvenienced the hardest.
@58 thirteen12, re @57: I’m not surprised. Ol’ teenieweenie’s a pretty hopeless case, and usually barking up the wrong tree.