Jessica Walters publicity portrait for the film Lilith, 1964.
Jessica Walter's publicity portrait for the film Lilith, 1964. Photo by Columbia Pictures/Getty Images

Pour one out for Jessica Walter, who died in her sleep on Wednesday in New York City: The 80-year-old actress is currently best known for her portrayal of Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development—a source of endless memes—and the voice of Malory Archer on the show Archer. Her acting career spanned over six decades and included prominent roles in TV series of the early '60s, a Golden Globe-nominated turn in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut Play Misty for Me (1971), a Primetime Emmy win for Amy Prentiss (1974-1975), and ‘80s and '90s films like PCU and The Flamingo Kid. Both PCU and Flamingo Kid are unstreamable. We've written about one of them, and we'll write about the other tomorrow.

If you're looking for some good Lucille Bluth-isms, Rolling Stone just published "The Tao of Lucille Bluth," right here.

Biden says he expects to run for reelection in 2024: Somewhere in hell, Lucille Bluth is making a meme-able face about the then-82-year-old's chances.


2024 was one of the many things Biden touched on today during his first formal press conference: Reporters heavily focused on the Biden administration's response to the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, with Biden misstating that "nothing has changed" regarding kids at the border, according to AP.

Biden: "As many people came — 28% increase in children to the border in my administration; 31% in the last year in 2019, before the pandemic — in the Trump administration. It happens every single solitary year."

AP: "According to statistics published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, authorities encountered 9,457 children without a parent in February, a 61% increase from January, not 28%. The numbers of unaccompanied children did rise 31% between January 2019 and February 2019."



Biden skewered GOP efforts to limit voting rights: And he signaled he believes the filibuster is being "abused in a gigantic way" and that he is contemplating taking a more aggressive stance on limiting or abolishing it, reports the New York Times. Meanwhile:

The restrictions pushed through the GOP-run state Legislature would "impose new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empower state officials to take over local elections boards, limit the use of ballot drop boxes and make it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water," reports CNN. And, obviously, Gov. Kemp signed this shit:

Reporters didn't ask the president a single question related to COVID-19: Uh, what? There are over 500,000 Americans who probably had a few questions to ask on the topic.

That said, Biden announced he's doubling his administration's initial vaccine goal: Last week, the Biden admin passed its initial goal of delivering 100 million COVID-19 vaccines in his first 100 days, hitting the target before his 60th day in office. During his presser, Biden announced a new goal: 200 million COVID-19 vaccines in American arms in his first 100 days. "I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has come close … to what we are doing," Biden said this afternoon.

Pom alert:

Pomeranian found without its human on Summit and e john, seattle, wa. Please share! w CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
Posted by Bobby McHugh on Thursday, March 25, 2021

Gov. Inslee says distancing in Washington's K-12 schools can be reduced to three feet: The change is currently optional, reports the Seattle Times, and intended to accommodate more students inside of classes. The districts will have to wrestle with teachers unions over the change. Here's his press conference from this afternoon:

I'm just thinkin' about a fourth wave.

When will Big Van Gogh be stopped? I think we have to blame Miss Emily in Paris for this "immersive" Van Gogh overload.


If you need some clarification on which exhibition to see...

A great art mystery: More missing Jacob Lawrence paintings are probably just hanging out in people's apartments, like this one and this one, as Jasmyne recently overviewed. To help find the famous Seattleite's missing works, New York’s Swann Auction Galleries is offering photographs of many of his missing paintings, hoping the photos will help other people realize that the weird painting grandma bought that's just hanging out in the backroom is actually a lost national treasure. "The public has the opportunity to play a role in rewriting art history," curator Austen Barron Bailly told ArtNet, "It’s not just the experts. We can’t do it alone.”

The Seattle Times covered Mary Waelder’s "When Seattle Shakes" exhibit: The online exhibition (check it out here) focuses on Seattle's unreinforced masonry (we've got too many murderous bricks in this town) and how we can build a more resilient city for when The Big One strikes—while also keeping in mind equity issues, unlike that Portland. "Awareness is better than ignorance," Waelder told the Times, "but on the other hand, the sort of alarmist response sometimes leads to a push to tear down buildings because it’s faster and easier, rather than putting in the careful work to upgrade them." I interviewed Waelder a month ago, and I liked this quote:

What we call natural disasters are not just the natural occurrences themselves; they're human choices. So what we are doing now or not doing now is a part of our next natural disaster—because a natural phenomenon that occurs without any impact on humans isn't a disaster at all. We have a part in shaping that impact.

The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were on the receiving end of scathing criticism from Congress: The scathingness was over their refusal to properly police their sites and allow racism, election misinformation, and political extremism to flourish on their platforms. As usual, no one said a word about Zuckerberg's weird haircut.

In other Big Tech news:

If you've followed the drama of the giant container ship that's blocking up the Suez Canal, then grab a snack and put on some comfy pants: It's likely to be stuck there for weeks.

And when you look at that giant container ship, think this: "I must spend my small stimmy stash right now, this minute, this hour." At least, that's what Mudede says. Why? "Because the stuck ship is spewing so much uncertainty into the market system."

A little science: New research out of the University of Washington correlates the "blue tides" of sailor jellies with warmer ocean waters. Tom Banse of Northwest News Network reports that UW finds this "blue tide" phenomenon—a sudden and short beaching of "gazillions" of purpleish-blueish sailor jellyfish on PNW shores, usually in the spring—is tied to warmer, calmer winters. We probably won't see these soft freaks on our shores this year since the weather has been colder than average, but the tides look something like this:

They remind me of that one gun from Halo.

Portland Mercury editor-in-chief Wm. Steven Humphrey contributed to this round-up.