Calling attention to your capricious hiring and firing policies is a great way to convince workers they dont need a union!
Calling attention to your capricious hiring and firing policies is a great way to convince workers they don't need a union! Scott Olson / Getty Images Staff
Starbucks just keeps firing union organizers. This time it was Michigan barista Hannah Whitbeck, who worked for the company for three years, had only been late one time (her car broke down), and even finished a shift once after her appendix burst. The reason for her termination is a little confusing, but it seems as though the problem (as explained by Starbucks) is that they were short-staffed one day, and Hannah left at the scheduled end of her shift instead of staying late, which resulted in one of her coworkers having to cover the store alone for a whopping ten minutes. Meanwhile, a South Eugene Starbucks is the fourth to vote unanimously in favor of unionizing just this week. Also, according to union organizers, Starbucks is spreading fake tweets that the company attributes —falsely — to the union.

Could we finally be freed from the bird hell site? Elon Musk has offered Twitter $43 billion (plus or minus a few billion, depending on how the stock price fluctuates) to buy the company outright, saying he has no confidence in its management. If the company doesn't take take the deal, he says, he might dump all his stock. No word on what he would do with Twitter if he owned it — but maybe, if we're very lucky, by this time next year it might not even exist anymore. That is, if his plans for the company are anything like his cave rescue pods, his hyperloop, his fully self-driving cars, his dancing robots, his brain implants, his space billboards, his frozen yogurt stands, and his natural hairline.

At least there's no cream cheese. Perhaps you’ve seen the viral tweet about Spokane-style pizza, essentially a casserole of fish, onions, and strawberries. Don’t worry, it’s made-up. But it’s got me thinking — if there were a Seattle-style pizza, what would it be? I hate to say it, but oysters would probably have to be involved. Or maybe disassemble a bunch of Dick’s burgers onto a DiGiorno crust.

A cop in Grand Rapids executed a Black man during a traffic stop. Details are still a little sketchy — in part because the cop's body camera was mysterious deactivated — but it appears as though Patrick Lyoya was pulled over, tried to run, then got into a scuffle with a cop who shot him in the back of the head while holding him down.

Seattle, getting further and further out of reach. Someone asked me for advice on moving to Seattle the other day and all I could do was throw up my hands and say “have you considered Skagit?” Councilmember Tammy Morales will host a seminar this morning at 9:30 am about finding ways to make our tiny metropolis just a little more affordable. In attendance: Guests from other cities that have managed to do what we seem to be getting steadily worse at — ensuring that everyone can afford a place to live.

Check out that beaver, damn. Washington banned lethal traps for beavers twenty-ish years ago, and the result has been a proliferation of new lodges. Here’s what they look like on the inside. Gotta say it seems kind of gross, but if you are a beaver this must be the height of luxury.

Now we just need to find some golden nails. Congrats to Rep David Hackney, recipient of Habitat for Humanity Seattle’s first Golden Hammer award for housing advocacy work. Among Hackney’s priorities: Reducing air pollution around his constituents’ homes, and getting food and shelter services to those in need. One of the bills that he successfully sponsored this session will make it easier to transfer housing to nonprofits, which is exactly the sort of thing we were hoping for when we endorsed him.

SDOT accidentally fixed 12th Ave. A bunch of temporary traffic cones have reduced 12th Ave from two speedway lanes to one, and you know what? It’s better this way.

You can finally take a shower. Seattle Parks has fixed the hot water at Green Lake Community Center as of today, so showers are back on. Green Lake’s giant marble fountain depicting muscular mermen hosing each other down is still out of commission. (Because it only exists in my imagination.)

The world’s saddest before-and-after: Looks like they 
 moved the traffic cone. Nailed it!

The waterfront trail needs your help. Seattle Greenways is hosting a get-together (in person! not online!) about the sorry state of the Alaskan Way trail between the Aquarium and Sculpture Park. In short: Too many cars; uncomfortable to walk and bike. Pop on by next Wednesday to walk the area with them and come up with some solutions.

Just an incredible parade of bumbling-cop antics. I can’t get over the levels of clownery: First, the literally thousands of cops deployed throughout the New York subway system failed to stop the shooter because they were busy bothering turnstile-jumpers; next, most of the surveillance cameras turned out to be broken; then the police were only able to identify the shooter because he dropped his credit card at the scene of the crime like a level-one Carmen Sandiego villain; then the shooter called the cops to come arrest him at a McDonalds, but they took an hour to arrive so he wandered away; then there turned out to be a whole clown-car of cops just a few blocks away, but they were too busy harassing unhoused people to deal with the mass shooter. “We got him,” said the mayor of New York — who is this “we?”

Can’t say I like where this is headed. A Republican (of course) candidate in Georgia says civil rights laws shouldn’t apply to homosexuals because gays can “change.” Here’s the kind of nightmare-scenario this kind of rhetoric facilitates:

The Hays Code is alive and well, now it’s just Chinese. For decades, movie studios adhered to a code that prohibited (among other things) depictions of queer people. Not much has changed. To avoid running afoul of China's government, Warner Bros just removed a few lines from the new Dumbledore movie to erase any suggestion of a same-sex relationship. The company says “the spirit of the film remains,” which
 if your film’s “spirit” doesn’t object to state-mandated homophobia, maybe it’s time for an exorcism.

A very good boy. Hank would very much like to shake your hand, or at least paw at it a little.