Speedboats! Love that journey for small businesses. And again, The Stranger alternately supporting and then bashing small businesses when politically convenient. Who pays your bills, anyway?

I shall call the new
KILLER Whale baby calf
'little Willy' til s/he gets Bigger

perhaps then t/s/he/y shan't
Chomp my Boat in Half
as per Usual.

Go Willy!
GO!

'dropped'?
Good one!

Hannah, I'm enjoying your updates. Keep it up girl!

Happy Birthday, J59! Hopefully you, your parents, and fellow J, K, and L pod members will still be with us for a good, long while.

@2 kristofarian: Free Willy--I like it!

Girl Scout harassers, get a grip on yourselves, FFS!

"And I wasn't clever enough to write that"

which chamber of commerce stooge was?

"access to capital (long before COVID, long before the surge in crime) THAT is the biggest problem that small businesses face,"

Isn't the free market supposed to sort that out?

"...Capital Access Program, a new $8 million program intended to support small businesses."

[...]

'"Which, by the way, access to capital (long before COVID, long before the surge in crime) THAT is the biggest problem that small businesses face," Nelson underlined. It certainly would be cool to apply that logic to Seattle's unhoused people, whom the public safety conversation routinely vilifies.'

Seattle spends over $100M annually on homelessness services. So, Seattle applies "that logic" many, many times over to Seattle's unhoused people, who, to the best of knowledge, neither operate neighborhood businesses, nor issue paychecks to local workers.

(Or is a mere $100M not enough? Please do explain if I missed something there.)

Want to help small business in Seattle? Arrest the tweakers, shoplifters, and drug dealers.

That quote was not worth the build-up

I've been listening to Tchaikovsky's Symphony #2 "Little Russian" a lot lately (performed it once, what a blast!). Russia's attitude toward Ukraine has been the same for centuries. It's the whole 'you're my younger sibling, I'm the only one that gets to dominate you' thing. That's why they call Ukraine "Little Russians"... you're just like 'us' but smaller.
Awesome piece of music, very fitting for today, and I'm pretty sure what side Pytor Ilyich would take on this whole thing...

@11:
"... not sure if this is
the best forum to show
my joy and happiness for
what . . . has done for me but
I can't hide my happiness and my Joy ..."

nah.
say have
you tried the
Wall Street Urinal?

'Uncle Snoopy'
Murdoch wants
YOU. so go There.

g'Luck!

Let's drop Dr. Larry out of an airplane over Ukraine. And before you call me a monster, I'm not opposed to giving him a parachute.

"It certainly would be cool to apply that logic to Seattle's unhoused people, whom the public safety conversation routinely vilifies."

Um, that is, in fact, exactly what is being proposed:

"Will the council fork over $7.3 million a year for JustCARE's 150 beds?"

So, apparently the $100+M Seattle already spends annually has been so completely, utterly, totally squandered, it's not even worth a mention, BUT an amount nearly identical to the $8M proposed for small businesses will make everything all better! (And even better than better, because unlike wasting money on BIPOC-owned businesses which provide products, services, and paychecks to Seattle's residents, this new expenditure on the homeless will have dramatically better effect, because reasons.)

The Stranger continues to wonder why the candidates and policies it favors just keep on getting crushed by actual voters in real elections. Maybe yet more muttering about how Seattle's white voters are all racists will help explain this? Yeah!

Those homeless encampments by the highways are a fucking hazard to other peoples lives! Haven't you heard of the rocks and shit thrown on the highways from those drug and crime infested illegal trash heaps? Jesus, Hannah will defend any menace to society as long as it's cloaked in her homeless shit gems.

"Speaking of homelessness: Today the Seattle City Council’s Public Assets and Homelessness Committee saw a presentation on the JustCARE model. Here's the slideshow."

From slide 11 of that show: "88% of Encampment Participants are seeking support with substance use." The accompanying graph lists the types of assistance requested, ranked by the percentage of homeless respondents who requested each type. After "Substance Use," the next largest request for assistance was for "Mental Health." The smallest number (just over 25%) requested assistance with "Employment."

Does the Stranger's approving mention of the JustCARE model mean an end to the Stranger's references to Seattle's homeless persons as "victims of capitalism"? Perhaps "victims of substance use disorder," or "victims of mental illness," might be more in order with JustCARE's findings? I'm no expert, but I suspect providing a job or a home would take far fewer resources than providing treatment for substance use disorder and/or mental illness, and what additional resources will be needed should be part of Seattle's civic dialog on homelessness.

Obviously we should relocate all the homeless camps to the wealthiest neighborhoods in the citiy.

@18: That is far more likely to happen than any of the Stranger's suggestions for addressing homelessness has of actually working.

@19: "They tout giving voice to the underdogs (Journalism 101!) but do nothing to actually improve the lot of any human. It's just all signifying."

Agreed, but what the Stranger has been doing is actually far worse than doing nothing. They have spent YEARS publishing the flat-out lie that economic inequality drives Seattle's homelessness crisis. (Anyone who passes an encampment can see dirty needles and other evidence of drug use, but in all of the Stranger's tens of thousands of words published on homelessness, there were maybe two or three mentions of needles.)

In reality, Seattle had ten consecutive years of declining unemployment, from start of 2010 (10%) to start of 2020 (3%). In 2015, then-Mayor Murray declared a homelessness crisis, which persists to this day. Saying Seattle's encampments are full of persons who are either employed or trying to find employment is utterly ludicrous, yet that's exactly what the Stranger has been saying. They have been intentionally misdirecting our civic dialog away from considering the actual roots of the crisis, and they have also been providing cover for Seattle's City Council as the latter squanders public funds on a massive homeless-industrial complex, expenditures for which have apparently made the problem worse. (CM Sawant especially likes to exploit homeless persons for human chattel during her political theatre productions in Council Chambers; during repeal of the EHT, homeless persons dressed in her red T-shirts screamed obscenities and threats at Council Members.)

You can't fix a problem unless you accurately describe the problem, and the Stranger has done everything it could to sabotage our accurate definition of this problem. Meanwhile, victims of substance use disorder and mental illness continue to die preventable deaths on Seattle's streets, sidewalks, and in parks and greenbelts. It's truly disgusting, and worse yet, the Stranger actually calls this compassion.

@18: I trust you'll welcome your new neighbors!

@22: I feel for you. I moved to a Seattle still recovering from the Boeing Slump, with plentiful cheap housing everywhere. (I paid less than $500/month for my first apartment, right there where Capitol Hill, First Hill, and downtown all meet.) By the time climate change drove us away, Amazon, Expedia, and the likes had lured over 140,000 additional persons into Seattle. You will get no argument from me about the city's mismanagement of affordable housing funds paid by developers.

That said, what will you do if push finally comes to shove? Will you throw down a tent on the Ballard sidewalk outside your former 'shithole'? Or will you move far, far inland, to a place you can afford on your income? I'm guessing the latter, as that is what American retirees have been doing for decades.

"Don’t you dare tell me this is not economic homelessness."

Seattle's homeless population has been telling the same story for years: substance use, mental illness, arrived in Seattle already homeless. The most recent facts, which I quoted above, continue this sad litany. You could once afford to live in Seattle, and now you cannot, so you will leave. Seattle's homeless population could never have afforded to live in Seattle, and arrived in Seattle already homeless and addicted, ill, or both. They remain in Seattle because they have nowhere else to go.