Perfect street design, no notes.
Perfect street design, no notes. Matt Baume

Did you have a nice weekend? If so, you have the labor movement to thank, so hopefully you made the most of May Day. It’s a public holiday in many countries, but not in the US. "The ruling class did not want to have a very active labor force connected internationally,” historian Peter Linebaugh told NPR in this fascinating article about the movement’s history. In totally unrelated news, tonight is the Met Gala and this year’s theme asks attendees to “embody the grandeur — and perhaps the dichotomy — of Gilded Age New York.” Zendaya says she won’t be attending, so what’s the point?

Food: What is it good for? As noted last week, Seattle Central College’s Culinary Academy could shut down soon despite its decades of overwhelming success. Now a petition has been launched to save the school, along with a campaign to pressure decision-makers to keep the academy open.

That didn’t take long. Trump bootlicker Mike Lindell was kicked off Twitter in 2021, but tried to re-join this weekend. His account lasted three hours before it got the gong. It reminds me of the time I was in an all-night gay underwear emporium in West Hollywood and a bachelorette party wandered in, causing a clamor; the clerk immediately kicked them all out, and as they left, he said, “bye, Felicia.” One of the party turned around, confused, and said, “who’s Felicia?” to which he replied, “exactly.”

Those better be some fucking amazing bricks. Seattle’s useless Design Review Board forced a delay in the construction of over a hundred new units of housing for nearly a year. The reason? Because the unelected volunteers on the board didn’t like the color of the bricks planned for a wall in an alleyway. The delay has added $1 million to the cost of construction. The project gets a public hearing later this week. In related news, this op-ed about how it’s utterly exhausting to get anything done in Seattle is two thousand percent correct.

Looking good, Bothell. This delightful suburban weekend market continues to taunt Seattle with a vision of what we could have if we weren’t tangled in Gordian knots of process and consultations like an overeager bottom at his first Shibari class.

It’s clipboard season. Along with leaves on the trees and love in the air, there are signature-gatherers on the sidewalks. Some are gathering signatures for Initiative 1929, which would basically defund a bunch of schools to give a tax break to billionaires by rolling back the capital gains tax. Opponents of I-1929 are taking an interesting approach — they’ve set up a hotline where you can report sightings of signature-gatherers, and the plan seems to be that the opponents will converge on the spot to distribute literature about why I-1929 is so bad. They’ve also created a sarcastic “Save Our Yachts” campaign which 
 I dunno, seems like the satire might be TOO believable on that one?

Watch this normal children’s baseball game shooting. It was business as usual last week in Charleston, with dozens of shots fired near a children’s baseball game. There were no reports of death or injuries; the mayor says police will step up efforts to get guns off the street, something no police force has ever been able to accomplish but maybe THIS time it’ll work. In mass shootings this weekend, twelve were injured in Louisiana; one killed and four injured in Ohio; one killed and three injured in North Carolina; six injured in Mississippi; and one killed and four injured in Atlanta.

India just had its hottest April in over a century. Temperatures reached nearly 120 degrees. Probably nothing to worry about!

Oh also this tornado happened. Incredible footage of a twister in Kansas — incredibly, nobody was killed and there were only minor injuries. Between 300 and 400 buildings were destroyed.

Stop breathing someone else’s exhaust. As we transition from pandemic mode to pretend-the-pandemic-is-over mode, many are turning to air filters to reduce the likelihood of viral transmission. Seems like a good idea! But there isn’t enough money or workers to improve ventilation in many buildings. And another obstacle to improving ventilation in schools: Right-wing suburbs that refuse to implement new taxes to pay for urgent retrofits, dooming their kids to illness and potential lifelong disability.

What was someone doing down there? A driver hit and killed a person on I-5 under the convention center this weekend. It’s unclear what led up to the crash, but the speculation from Seattle Times commenters is about what you’d expect.

Happy Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week. It kicked off yesterday and runs through May with lots of great activities online and IRL.

Let’s watch some old gay movies. On one episode of Will & Grace, there’s a joke where Will says something like, “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. All gay movies are terrible, but we’re legally obligated to go see them.” Speaking as someone who’s sat through countless hours of queer film fests waiting to discover the rare jewels, I am delighted to discover a wonderful online exhibit that dispels that impression. It's from the Harvard Film Archive and filmmaker Jenni Olson (who is responsible for a good proportion of those film fest jewels) — Lavender Images gathers together LGBTQ movie posters to tell an intriguing story about how popular entertainment regarded sexuality and gender over the decades. My favorite is Staircase, billed as “a sad gay story.”

Those faces!!! Here's a sampler platter of attractive animals getting pets before someone (you???) adopts them. If my brain was capable of generating dopamine I'd be soaking in it right now.