Why, oh why the FUCK would we want May to stretch winter even further out? Are you just hoping for people to have yet another reason to be depressed? If you want to live somewhere cold and miserable, there are plenty of nice choices in, say, Manitoba. Let the rest of us enjoy fucking summer.

to revel in one’s dissatisfactions
can be such a Comfort but
in Seattle the Right to
Worship the Sun is
What makes win-
ter worth wal-
lowing thru

Fall & winter* be back
here soon enough.

maybe Darker
glasses?

*hopefully not
nukular

@1 FYI Charles Mudede has no control over the weather. Promise.

Harrell's not wrong.

I-5 mainline, and the Express Lanes in particular, look like absolute shit. The "artists" are also now painting on the Freeway Park board-formed concrete and the Ship Canal Bridge steel beams.

Their energy and dedication is impressive, but it's time to open the Express Lanes between 11 pm & 5 am. 6 hours of traffic-free access seems like an invitation.

"The deputy attempted a second PIT maneuver, but the driver performed her own maneuver to defeat the PIT."

I am curious about this!

That truck accident video footage is scary ... There is just not much you can do about it from the perspective of the Lexus SUV. And Jesus, did that thing look SMALL in comparison!

"41% are facing eviction."

No. You are editorializing, Charles.

The linked King 5 story states "41% of minority renters are facing a likelihood of eviction." This stems from the following survey question:

HSE8 How likely is it that your household will have to leave this home or apartment within the next two months because of eviction? Select only one answer. o Very likely o Somewhat likely o Not very likely o Not likely at all

If you pull that data (this is what a real journalist would do, Charles), you'll find that the 41% figure is an aggregate of all of the "very likely" and somewhat likely" responses. The "very likely" category makes up just 30.7% of responses. The vast majority of "very likely" respondents (68.2%) are 8 months or more behind on rent. Every single respondent in the "8 months or more behind on rent" category indicated they were "very likely" to be evicted. This, of course, is not at all surprising: if you haven't paid rent for nearly a year, there's a good chance you might get evicted.

Here's the data set if anyone else wants to play around with it: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/hhp/2022/wk44/housing3b_week44.xlsx

What I found most newsworthy was the availability of rental assistance. 26.1% of respondents applied for rental assistance but were denied. A mere 3.5% of respondents received rental assistance. If I worked for the Stranger, I'd want to get to the bottom of that. What happened to all the federal funding available for rental assistance?

@4 - that is a goddamned good thing.

Actually, I've only seen an increase in graffiti under Mayor Harrell.

Results matter.

'There’s really no hope
for The Stranger, it’s been no-
thing but snarky trash for a decade."

and yet the rats
Refuse to leave

what makes them
such Gluttons for
Punishment?

hmmm. perhaps the ST out-
performs tS by what five-to-one?

well What tf are we'all Waiting for?

@13: I know, you'd think those taggers would be respectful of our new mayor and give him a grace period.

'That U2 line is, as you may have already guessed, "How long must we sing this song? How long must we sing this [sad] song." Will we really ever sing a new song?'

That song is, of course, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which protested the Troubles on U2's home island, Ireland. During the thirty years the Troubles would ultimately run, a very large percentage of Northern Ireland's population died violently in a dirty war between sadistic British 'security' forces, sadistic pro-British Unionist terrorists in support of those sadistic British 'security' forces, and sadistic IRA terrorists who sadistically opposed both. Hence the album's title, "War," and the militantly anti-war tone of the song. Somehow, increases in the cost of housing in the faraway future of Seattle seem a little tame when contrasted, as Charles does here, with chronic random indiscriminate slaughters of innocent persons by terrorists, but I'm willing to admit I lack Charles' exquisite sensitivity to finer points of public discourse.

On tour to support the "War" album, U2 opened their sets with a very appropriately-named song from it, "Surrender." Rather than complain about rent increases, the song describes one non-economic reason for homelessness:

"Sadie said she couldn't work out
What it was all about and so she let go
Now Sadie's on the street
And the people she meets you know
She tried to be a good girl and a good wife
Raise a good family, lead a good life
It's not good enough
She got herself up on the forty eighth floor
Gotta find out, find out what she's living for
Surrender, surrender..."

The song concludes with the suggestion the troubled Sadie has given in to sex work:

"Papa sing my, sing my, sing my song
Surrender, surrender..."

Perhaps Sadie now lives in a tent in one of Seattle's parks, greenbelts, or environmentally-sensitive areas? Now, that would be a great reason to quote songs from "War."

They're gonna be real disappointed when they clean all that graffiti off only to realize I-5 is just ugly all the way down.

give those Artists
Checks for keeping
the Moss and shit off
our Brutalist Utopian dream

"How long must we sing this song?
How long must we sing this [sad] song."
"Will we really ever sing a new song?"

for about as Long
as Housing remains
Commodity. and finally
enough Peeps are on the
streets and the empty Homes
outnumber the Unhomed by 7-2ish.

THEN we will have had quite Enough.
til then it's Whack-a-Moley with
REAL live human Beings!

be the 1st on your Block
to get knocked outta
your Domicile!

and Remember:
just say 'no'
to Drugs!

[no Coffee is
NOT a 'drug.']

@1, “We are soon to exit one of the coldest Aprils on record.”
75 & sunshine all day yesterday here in Bordeaux. Opera recital last night by Angela Gheorghiu was delightful as was the symphony last Friday.

@2, but per SLOG, all cops should spend all their time rescuing ducks & leave the bank robbers alone.

@4 & 6, Now THAT’S funny!

@8, not sure, but if there’s room, if you steer left when the police taps your right rear, you should all just move left.......right into oncoming traffic.

@11, “.....to the bottom.......”
No, that would be too much like work for Chas.

@21 -- Exactly. This idea that graffiti on freeway concrete is somehow ugly is ridiculous. Concrete is ugly, and graffiti is an improvement. Opposition to graffiti is just cultural bias. People in America conflate graffiti with blight (they are two different things). In contrast, people in Buenos Aires embrace graffiti -- it is part of their culture, as they've become more democratic.

Of course there are times when I don't like it. It is disgusting when it goes over a mural (which fortunately is rare). Some of the tagging lacks any creative flair. Call me a capitalist, but I don't like it on private property unless the owner doesn't mind (although again, if you have a blank cement wall, you might as well have graffiti on it). One person's graffiti is another person's mural.

The main point is that this Harrell project is just bullshit. It is clearly designed for those who conflate graffiti with other, more serious problems (e. g. people who ignorantly think that all graffiti is done by gang members). Even if it was, this is useless. It is just political theater of the worst kind.

“.......(although again, if you have a blank cement wall, you might as well have graffiti on it).”
So it’s your opinion that if someone’s testicles are intact, karma is crying out for their mutilation? How deliciously De Sade of you.