The plague of single-family homes in Tacoma...
The plague of single-family homes in Tacoma... ChrisBoswell/gettyimages.com

Marysville Police Department to the Washington State Supreme Court: Hell no. KIRO 7 reports that "despite the state supreme court’s ruling, [the department's] officers are outï»ż in full force again, looking for anyone using hard drugs," after the city passed an ordinance to make simple possession illegal again. The cops up there (Marysville is north of Everett) are apparently pissed because area drug users apparently keep up with the news, know about the ruling, have read or heard that the state’s felony drug possession law was struck down by the Supreme Court, and so “they’re flouting the fact that they can do it and (saying), ‘You can’t arrest me.’” This is not how law and order works, according to Mark James, Marysville City Council Member. Drug addicts must fear the power of police force. If this fear is gone, then what are cops supposed to do in this world of ours?

All of this returns my mind to a passage in Marx's Theories of Surplus Value:

A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia, and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we look a little closer at the connection between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crimes but also criminal law... The criminal produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc.; and all these different lines of business, which form equally many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them.

Tacoma to single-family zoning: Drop dead. The city plans to trash this type of zoning because nothing about it is of any lasting good. Worst of all, it prevents cities from achieving the kind of density that's needed to combat global warming effectively. Single-family homes are the gas guzzlers of housing. The new Tacoma plan will "divide the city into new categories that encourage what it’s calling a 'middle housing' option." Now this is some City-of-Destiny-level shit right here.

Today in COVID economics: A bike boom has made this “mensch maschine,” as the electro band Kraftwerk called it, hard to find on the market. The general manager of Green Lake's Gregg’s Cycle, Marty Pluth, told the Seattle Times, “Every bike that comes in is sold right away, so we never get to a point where we refill the tank.” In the early months of the pandemic, bike "manufacturers canceled bike orders, predicting an economic slow down for the industry." Evidently, this prediction missed its mark.

Also today in COVID economics: Dahlia Lounge is really dead-dead now after 32 years of existence. Seattle Times food critic Bethany Jean Clement has the story. But from death comes life, sometimes. The vacated space "will be converted to house Douglas’ Serious Pie."

The reason why Seattle had the lowest coronavirus death rates among the 20 largest metro areas in the US? My money is not on "unified and timely strategies." It's on the whiteness of the city. The fewer POCs, the lower the deaths. And the reason this is not hard to understand: COVID-19 has hit black and brown communities hard because black and brown people tend to be poorer than white people. It’s all about the Benjamins.

An "elite Bremerton-based submarine" is infested with bed bugs. The name of the underwater killing machine: USS Connecticut. The number of its crew: 100. Its current location: Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton. Its difficulty: these little bitty biting bugs in "perforated bulkheads between bunks." Officials claim the infestation was recently detected when the insects could be heard singing in their wee voices something that sound like: "We all live in a yellow..." The crew members, however, are of another mind. They say the bugs have been singing that submarine song for way longer than just recently.

Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates, to Boeing: You are "not getting it." He blames the company's board for non-stop woes. "Culpability for the culture, strategy, direction, priority of that company rests with the Boeing board and nobody else," Clark said to The Air Current. "And that's where the buck should stop. And that's where they need to get themselves sorted out." What are Boeing's problems specifically? Clark "criticized Boeing's 737 Max, 787 Dreamliner, and 777X, all of which have been marred by safety concerns, quality control issues, and production delays."

But Boeing thinks things are going swimmingly.

The when of your $1,400 stimulus check? The White House hopes to get it to you "as early as this weekend."

A new accusation places Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s hands in that region that Donald Trump bragged about on a hot mic. You know what I'm talking about. The new accuser, a female aide, claims Cuomo groped her. Upon notification of this incident, Albany Police Department stated it may rise “to the level of a crime.”

Let's end Slog AM with some fun. Yes, that’s the icon Marilyn Monroe drinking with the poet Carl Sandburg. Not all poets have had it rough.

Eating human garbage ain’t easy peasy, g.

I will never ever get enough of the great Tony Baker. "Get your human hands off me."