When not trying to bomb our democracy, they are hogging our city streets.
When not trying to bomb our democracy, they are hogging our city streets. Charles Mudede

You haven't forgotten Rachel Dolezal, have you? She's the famous Spokanite who, in 2015, was revealed to be white when for many years she claimed to be black. She even ran Spokane's branch of the NAACP as a sister. If your memory about her needs some jogging, read Ijeoma Oluo's superb 2017 post. Anyhow, Dolezal announced on Instagram that she joined OnlyFans. According to the Daily Beast, Dolezal's content will be "fitness videos, 'hair-chair' conversations and tutorials, and art discussions—along with 'foot pics.'" (Expect more images of feet in the OnlyFans post-porn period.)

WSU's nutty anti-vax coach Nick Rolovich says he is down with Inslee's new mandate for the employees of Washington's schools but is not saying if he is down to get vaccinated. This coach sure sounds like he's speaking with a forked tongue. Seattle Times has the story. Seattle Times also has this relevant story: "Unvaccinated COVID-19 patients are creating a ‘deeply frustrating’ situation at Washington state hospitals".

Authorities in Alaska seized at an airport over 3,000 phony COVID-19 vaccination cards that came from China. An officer of the US Customs and Border Protection stated that, though some of the cards looked like the real deal, others showed "low-quality printing."

More on Durkan's missing texts: When the Seattle Times first reported that months of texts were missing from Mayor Jenny Durkan's phone, her office blamed an "unknown technology issue." Now we officially know that excuse was bullshit, and that Durkan's chief of staff, Stephanie Formas, was "involved in keeping the public in the dark about the missing texts." At the time, the mayor's office knew someone changed a setting on Durkan's phone to autodelete texts, which would violate the state's Public Records Act.

Capitol Hill’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral opens its doors again after 16 Godless months. But what everyone wants to know is who created the virus that closed the cathedral's doors? Was it God? Or was it Satan?

Today will be cloudy and cool. Not bad. But, still, where's the rain? What's up with the water not coming down anymore? The answer to this question, of course, will lead you all the way to an economic system that has endless growth as its mode of being.

Speaking of capitalism: The problem with robots doing work is the nature of free time in the market order. It would be fine if machine-liberated time became what Marx calls disposable time in the late pages of his massive work, Grundrisse. But that's not what happens at all. Instead, the free time is used to expand the primary source of profits: surplus labor. This makes free time not free at all. In fact, in this condition surplus labor time is very dear, indeed. Try going on a vacation without an income.

Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette put it like this on Thursday: The delta variant has certainly spooked urban shoppers but not suburban ones. The former are pretty much staying away from stores; the latter are returning like it's 2019 all over again. And in some suburbs, business is even looking better than 2019. Why are inner-city people more cautious? Or, put another way, why are they smarter?

If you happen to be in Vancouver:


His wife thought he was going fishing. Turns out he went to the nation's capital, parked by the Library of Congress, and on Facebook's livestream threatened to blow the building and its block sky-high. The man, a white Trumpist named Floyd Ray Roseberry, also demanded to speak to the man who stole the election, Joe Biden. “You step down out of office, I’ll step down out of this truck,” he said. This nonsense went on for five hours. Capitol Police, a busy institution these days, arrested Roseberry, searched his truck for the bomb, and found nothing. Like most big pickup trucks in America, Roseberry's was big just to be big.

How I hate these bloated and entirely useless pickup trucks. We can blame marketing for their popularity. In ad after ad, we see these rugged truck men pulling whole trees out of forests and driving up and dominating mountains. But all of these images only end up as empty vehicles that hog parking spaces.

Jeopardy! producers denied Kunta Kinte, the most famous African in the history of TV, and instead gave the host job to a white man who, it turns out, said mean things about "women, Jewish people and Haiti on [a] podcast". In the words of Run DMC, it's like that and that's the way it is.

Let's end with "The Bends":