Doggy day care workers at Downtown Dog Lounge say they are up against a real-life "Cruella De Vil" in their eight-month struggle for a fair union contract. But these workers are biting back. The workers, who are organizing with UFCW 3000, ask customers, dog-lovers, and other working people to sign their petition to get the owner, Elise Vincentini, to stop dragging her feet.

“[Vincentini] thinks if she waits long enough, we’ll just give up and walk away,” said Justin Kahn, a “Pack Leader” at Downtown Dog Lounge. “But that’s absolutely not going to happen.”

This morning, the Seattle Public Library (SPL) announced 180 days of library closures from April 12 to June 2, adding up to nearly 1,500 hours of cuts to a critical public service. All branches will be closed one day per week, with a few exceptions. Madrona-Sally Goldmark, Montlake, and Wallingford will be closed twice a week. The Capitol Hill branch will be closed Sundays and open two hours late Thursdays. The Central Library Downtown and the Ballard, Deldrige, Greenwood, University branches will remain open as usual.

The announcement comes days after SPL closed seven libraries, about a quarter of the system, in one day due to staffing shortages exacerbated by a hiring freeze on all departments except for “essential” positions such as police officers, firefighters, and social workers in the new dual dispatch program. Mayor Bruce Harrell instituted the freeze to prevent deepening the City’s quarter-billion-dollar budget deficit. 

Seattle vibes coming in STRONG: I hope you got a chance to bask in the sun yesterday because Seattleites will have no such opportunity today, according to the forecast from Weather.com. This morning, expect cloudy skies and temperatures crawling from the high 40s to low 50s. At around 4 pm, you should start to see some showers that will carry on into Friday morning. I hope Charles enjoys himself :)

WEDNESDAY 4/10  

DREAM TEMPLE (for Octavia)

(VISUAL ART) Artists Mia Imani and Mayola Tikaka call upon the extraordinary visions of Octavia Butler for this installation, which features a low-lit resting space, an altar, and imagery of Black rest. Head to King Street Station to contemplate Butler's visionary worlds, which counteract intergenerational trauma and stress often experienced by Black people with a "portal of healing and imagining." By the way, Butler prophesized an eerily accurate, destabilized world in 2024, so Imani and Tikaka's rest space has arrived just in time. Throughout the exhibition, visitors can engage with rest rituals, hear interviews, and watch performances by the artists. (King Street Station, 303 S Jackson St, Wed-Sat through May 23, free, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

When he ran for Mayor, Bruce Harrell promised to find ways not to send a gun and a badge to every single little call fielded by the Seattle Police Department (SPD). But a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the City and the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG) that details the expansion of civilian work within SPD falls well short of fulfilling that promise. Instead of creating serious police alternatives that could save the City money and help alleviate staffing shortages at the department, the MOU outlines civilian roles that look more like personal assistants to cops and that protect cushy positions wholly unsuited for some of the City’s highest-paid employees.

I drive a Geo Tracker, a car that resembles a squished Jeep or a Hot Wheel magically enlarged. Men–mostly named Kyle and Matt–tuck handwritten notes under the windshield wipers asking if I want to sell. I do not want to sell. Why would I? This car reaches blistering speeds of 95 miles per hour.

She ran great until she didn’t. The engine began shrieking to life when temperatures dropped below 50 degrees. I had to crawl over the passenger seat every time I drove because the driver’s side lock broke in an ice storm. A rain leak molded the carpet so severely I’m convinced new antibiotics could have been discovered. I cut out the carpet with a utility knife and decided the bare metal floor looked cool and industrial, or something. The final straw came when a coolant leak spewed onto the engine and evaporated into hot, sweet-smelling white clouds. The failure coincided with a pricey medical bill, temporarily beaching my car on the street. 

They're not getting the message: In a recent poll, only 26% of Washington voters agreed that "building more units of housing in my community will help stabilize the price of housing where I live," according to a Seattle Times analysis. As the Times mentions, in other surveys majorities of Washington voters embrace more density, and so the results from this poll may simply be catching voter cynicism about home prices ever coming within reach, which is understandable. Building new housing will only slow the rate of price increases, but that's better than not building enough and then watching housing prices skyrocket, so it's worth building more everywhere.

Two women accuse UW football player of rape: Tylin "Tybo" Rogers faces rape charges after he allegedly matched with women on Tinder late last year and sexually assaulted them, according to KING 5. Though the team suspended him in November of 2023, he was "allowed to return" in mid December and went on to play a bowl game and a national championship game. "Officials said there were multiple emails within the UW Athletic Department confirming Rogers should be taken off the team's travel roster for the Pac-12 championship game, but there was no documentation of reasons for the move," the outlet writes. 

True, aerospace reporter Dominic Gates, didn't mention my name in his longish article "Boeing’s long fall, and how it might recover," but he did (fucking finally) mention the negative impact Boeing's decade-long buyback bonanza had on the relationship with labor and, ultimately, the production of planes. Before that article, posted on April 7, there was no mention of buybacks from Gates and other business reporters employed by Seattle Times. The whole matter was, according to their judgment, entirely irrelevant. A lot of hot air. Fanciful even. But five years after the crashes, and during a year (2024) Boeing is facing increasing government and industry-wide scrutiny for a number of high-profile fuck ups, Gates finally got around to saying what I said in 2017:

Boeing’s leaders delivered gushers of cash to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends — $68 billion since 2010, according to Melius Research — rather than investing in future all-new airplanes.

There you have it. And it's coming out because the Seattle Times has nothing to lose. They are kicking a horse that's on the ground. This was not the case in 2017 or 2012. Why? As an industry analyst explained to me in 2019, if the Seattle Times published a negative piece about Boeing, then the then-Chicago-based company would have closed the doors on its reporters. The result? You can find it in this post, which does not mince words: "Seattle Times Systematically Misinformed Readers About Boeing Until It Was Too Late."

A woman’s boyfriend wants her to play with his ass. But she doesn’t know where to begin. Fingers? Tongue? What should she do down there?

A woman keeps getting harassed by men in cars jacking it and watching her creepily. What can she do in these unpleasant moments?

The 2024 election cycle looks very good for Washington State Democrats. 

The party currently boasts sizable majorities in the State Legislature, holding 29 of 49 seats in the state Senate and 58 of 98 seats in the State House. With Donald Trump at the top of the ticket scaring the bejeezus out of normies, and with favorable new political boundaries, Democrats appear poised to increase those majorities. If they defend a few easily defensible seats and win a handful of plausibly winnable seats, they could even secure supermajorities in both chambers. Assuming voters elect a Democratic Governor, which seems probable, Democrats would then have the power to amend the state constitution—provided they all agree on what they’d like to change.

“It’s pretty exciting, heavy stuff to think about what kinds of things might be possible for us,” said state Sen. Jamie Pedersen, who chairs the Washington Senate Democratic Campaign committee. 

Amy Aileen Wood, “Rolling Stops” (Colorfield)

I'm not in the habit of writing about Grammy-winning drummers, but Amy Aileen Wood is a special case. She provided beats and co-production for Fiona Apple's wildly lauded Fetch the Bolt Cutters and has worked with St. Vincent, and now the LA-based musician's branching out as a solo artist with an auspicious debut album, The Heartening (out May 3).

Wood's instrumental arsenal promises interesting results, and she delivers. Besides a drum kit and piano, she plays balafon, kalimba, octobans, many synths (including Buchla and Moog), gamelan strips, gong strips, LinnDrum, and various percussion tools. Her accomplices include Ms. Apple on vocals for three songs, ex-Soul Coughing upright bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and bassist Pete Min, who co-wrote and co-produced The Heartening with Wood.

Morning! Everyone should expect a dreary weather day, with a chance of showers before 10 am, followed by a brief pause, and then another chance of showers after 11 am. On the whole, the National Weather Service says the day will be partly sunny with a high near 53 degrees. No eclipse today, but I hope everyone enjoyed the one yesterday:

TUESDAY

LIVE MUSIC

Laufey
Laufey is single-handedly making vocal jazz cool again. The Icelandic singer-songwriter has garnered the attention of Gen Z with her instrumentally sparse songs about young love in self-discovery. The songs are pithy enough to go viral on TikTok while also traditional enough to play while having dinner with your grandparents. She will stop by to support her sophomore album, Bewitched, alongside singer-songwriter Grace Enger. AV
(Paramount Theatre, Downtown Seattle)

I think there is one thing we can agree on—we love Cherdonna Shinatra. 

If that name escapes you, let me catch you up. Cherdonna is a self-described “movement artist who works in persona.” She’s been a key component of Seattle’s arts and entertainment scene for years—she won a Stranger Genius Award in 2015 and an Artist Trust Fellowship in 2017 and has held successful residencies at the Henry Art Gallery and the Frye Art Museum—and she’s internationally recognized as a profoundly creative solo artist. But over the past year, a health crisis has taken Cherdonna away from the stage.