Congratulations, Jill Biden, on the worst Pride celebration in history. Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images Staff

Comments

2

Um, all of the stamps issued in the past ten years or so have been stickies. Just say no to the Nancy stamp - I'm still working my way through a sheet of Janis Joplin commemoratives.

3

The merits of whether Reagan should have a stamp aside, I would imagine that the USPS decides on the date of issuance, and it's traditional and entirely appropriate for FL Biden to participate in honoring one of her predecessors.

11

I agree with Our Dear Seatackled. The First Lady doesn't call up the USPS and say "Hey, do a stamp for Cruella De Vil. I need it in time for Pride Month."

Now, if we're talking about someone like DeJoy, setting this up to make the Bidens look bad......

12

Oooo, there's a website for how they develop commemorative stamps! It takes 3-4 years, and it has a
citizen committee! How very Seattle!

https://about.usps.com/who/csac/#process

13

omg
they printed
the Nancy stamp
Upside Down will they
issue also one for her Astrologist
who Presided Over the USOFA whilst
husband ronnie (raygun) wasted away

and could Not recall
forcing Ollie North to
Shred the Constitution
in the WH basement so
RRaygun could ship Arms
to Terrorists in Central America
in exchange for innercity Cocaine*
& so we could make C.A. 'Safe' for

Democracy?

and Hell on Earth for the
Citizens of C.A. who've
been Fleeing in Droves
for Decades or so?

cool also how
Iran freed all those
American Hostages
the moment raygun
got elected. too too
funny but Not ha-ha

*speaking of Drug Addictings
which we all Hate oh so severely

well not Perdue Pharma &
the Sackler Crime Fambly of Bil-
Lionaires so they all getta Free Pass

14

comments
unshowing
wha' Up tS?

15

Yeah, well, if Louis DeJoy is behind that Nancy Reagan stamp and its release date, then he's running pretty much true to form. It is kind of a big slap in the face though to have that little party on D-Day and during Pride Month. Tasteless. And a slap in the face.

$26.05 with benefits doesn't sound half-bad if you are allowed to work full-time. But you know what? Bus driving has become such a shitty, dangerous job (and most people riding the bus expect the driver to maintain order) that I'm not sure it shouldn't come with hazard pay.

I remember some years ago being on a nearly full bus in Seattle, and there was someone who was playing their Walkman too loudly - you could hear all the sizzles and pops. The driver, a woman, turned around and faced the offender who was sitting about a third of the way back. "I can hear your Walkman. Will you please turn it down?" she requested.

If you were to try that today here in Los Angeles, some nut-case, Joker wannabee or some new young G would cut you a new smile.

16

Also agree with @3 Seatackled. Dr. Biden is a classy and gracious First Lady who was honoring a predecessor. Totally appropriate - just the timing was wrong IMHO, but she didn't set the date and probably couldn't have changed it if she wanted to.

17

@1: The Stranger has vast experience in not making an obvious connection between drugs and some problem they cause. (See, for example, every last thing the Stranger has ever published on homelessness.)

In a related item, right here we see here Matt fail to understand exactly why longtime members in good standing of Seattle's Homeless-Industrial Complex are not -- repeat, NOT! -- happy with Mayor Harrell's Dashboard. (I believe the journalistic advice to Matt here would be, "follow the[ir] money.")

And the link to Crosscut suggests the Stranger's behavior, in not mentioning the d-word as it relates to homelessness, has proven contagious. Buried at the very end of the linked article, carefully coded in modern Newspeak so as to avoid communicating valid and relevant information, this paragraph cogently describes what Seattle's homeless response actually lacks:

'Daugaard also criticized the dashboard for not distinguishing between types of shelter units. “The dashboard isn't reflecting the importance of matching high barrier, high impact people … with care teams and sheltering facilities that can actually address their issues, behaviors and circumstances,” she explained. “Offering people spaces in shelters that don't work for their situation, where they will be kicked out within days, while sweeping their camps, generates a lot of data points, but doesn't present an actual solution for those individuals.”'

I hereby nominate "high barrier," "high impact people," "their issues, behaviors and circumstances,” and "their situation," as leaders in Seattle Newspeak for 2022. Doubleplus Good Show, all! Hopefully, each of these worthy efforts will take a full Golden (Triangle) Space Needle apiece.

18

@6, @10, @11, @12, @16: True family-values philatelists will hold out for the Jane Wyman stamp.

19

@8 True, housing alone won't solve the drug addiction and mental health issues faced by many (though not the "vast majority") of the unsheltered homeless. But those issues can't be solved without it.

20

"Bus driving has become such a shitty, dangerous job (and most people riding the bus expect the driver to maintain order) that I'm not sure it shouldn't come with hazard pay."
--@15

well there's only ONE True Answer
and if You dont know what it IS
you're obvs NOT a Member of
Today's nra. try ta Keep up, ok

21

@7:

Jeebuz H. Fucking Christ on a Ritz Cracker, do you EVER read things before opening your slack-jawed pie-hole to let some stupid-as-fuck comment dribble down your chin and onto your keyboard? The data isn't recording how many unhoused people are aware of what services are available to them, but how many of them NEED those services.

23

@19: "...the drug addiction and mental health issues faced by many (though not the "vast majority") of the unsheltered homeless."

"88% of Encampment Participants are seeking support with substance use."

(http://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=10562446&GUID=B11F8A4B-F043-4464-967B-90D608D60DCF, on Slide 11)

That same graph shows around 80%-85% of that same population asking for support with "Mental Health" issues.

How much higher must those numbers go before they become a "vast majority"? Because 88% would be a pretty big majority to most of us, methinks.

We're not talking about a population which just needs housing. We're talking about a population which cannot be housed in their current states, and will need much more expensive interventions before they can hope to attain states where they can be housed. How many of them will ever attain a state sufficient to earn even a fraction of current rent in Seattle?

For most of the seven years (and counting) of Seattle's current homelessness crisis, voters have been told the crisis originated in housing affordability. Somewhere during that time, that claim went from being a product of ignorance, to being a flat-out lie. Voters do not like being lied to, and when they learn the $100M+ which they spent annually for years has been squandered, and the actual price tag is far higher, you can expect a lot more support for sweeps, without regard to where the campers go afterwards.

24

Test

25

@23 Or is it 30-35%?

At any rate.

There are at least 30 times as many drug addicts living in houses as outside of them (there are around 20 million drug addicts in the US, compared to about 600,000 total homeless, including non-addicts).

Why on earth do you believe a drug addict "cannot be housed?"

26

@25: 'Why on earth do you believe a drug addict "cannot be housed?"'

I don't, and therefore I never said anything of the kind. The "population" to which I referred @23 was clearly the one described in the url I posted there. It consists entirely of homeless persons in Seattle. You're the one who introduced the completely irrelevant topic of housed persons elsewhere.

As for your "30-35%" figure, which was from five years ago in King County, you should read all of the way to the end of the paragraph you cited. (You can do it! Yes you can!!) It notes, "... the self-reported survey may undercount the real prevalence." (YA THINK?!?) Continuing on to the end of the article (I think you can! I think you can!) we find, "a third of the deaths among homeless people were due to overdose." Hmmmm... one-third ... where did we recently hear a figure like that ... wait, I know! "Or is it 30-35%?"

So, in the encampments, the only homeless persons who reported drug use were the ones so obviously addicted they were at danger of overdose. Once homeless persons decided to get clean and went to JustCARE, close to 9 out of 10 admitted needing help with substance abuse. For years, drug addiction has been either a large driver, or the primary driver, of homelessness in Seattle, and Seattle's failure to address this reality has created the failure that is homelessness policy in Seattle. As November's election demonstrated, Seattle's voters have tired of this failure, and so voted for sweeps and prosecutions. Why not? It can't possibly be less effective at getting people housed than the policy of the last seven years has been, and Seattle's voters might even get to use their parks again.

27

@26 Inpatient drug treatment has a success rate of about 30%, if we take the optimistic end of the estimates. It's a lot lower for patients who don't have a home to go to when they're discharged.

When you demand homeless people be drug free before you'll consider housing them, you are effectively refusing to provide people with housing.

Yes, drugs are a problem. And refusing to provide people using drugs with housing makes that problem worse.

"Housing first" means, among other things, providing housing for homeless drug users before providing drug treatment. For God's sake, they at least deserve the same chance of getting clean as housed drug users, don't they?

28

@27: "Yes, drugs are a problem. And refusing to provide people using drugs with housing makes that problem worse."

Yes, but just providing "housing" is not effective. It must be paired with wraparound services, because addiction means the victim serves the addiction first and foremost. That aspect of addiction must be addressed when housing is initially provided, or as I put it in the comment you seriously misunderstood, "...a population which cannot be housed in their current states, and will need much more expensive interventions before they can hope to attain states where they can be housed."

"For God's sake, they at least deserve the same chance of getting clean as housed drug users, don't they?"

Yes, but here we enter the realm of politics, and Seattle's politics concerning homelessness policy has long been poisoned by incompetence and lies. In 2005, Seattle began a ten-year plan to end homelessness. Ten years later, that plan collapsed into the homelessness crisis which continues, almost seven years after that. Then-CM Mike O'Brien lost his job for (pick at least one) ignorantly misinforming, and/or blatantly lying to, his Ballard constituency concerning the homeless population there. CM Sawant blamed Amazon, and successfully egged them into their ham-fisted attempt to buy the 2019 elections. Supporting the Council in this, the Stranger refuses to admit drug use is even a problem. Meanwhile, Seattle's citizens, who very sincerely provided generous funds to help the homeless, watched the situation worsen every year. None of this has helped anyone, save for the parasitic homeless-industrial complex built with those funds. It may now be too late for Seattle to do anything but sweep encampments and offer limited aid to their former inhabitants.

"Inpatient drug treatment has a success rate of about 30%, if we take the optimistic end of the estimates. It's a lot lower for patients who don't have a home to go to when they're discharged."

Were I a betting man, I might wager on the odds of success being far lower still, if the person suffering addiction has been allowed to live chronically in unsanitary conditions, constantly surrounded by others in the same state. Seattle did a terrible thing when it allowed encampments, enabling addiction on a massive scale, and the death toll for inhabitants of those camps has been as large as it has been preventable. It's already too late for everyone who died in those camps; at least aggressive encampment sweeps will prevent further deaths in them. Again, if these actual issues had been addressed years ago, Seattle might not have reached this sorry state, but here it is.


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