May to Seattle: This is how we do it in 2022. Charles Mudede
May is not looking to June but back at April, and April looked back at the winter months. The experts now predict that this May will be one of the coldest Mays on record. In fact, Seattle has not seen a colder May 12 since the year Prince made famous in 1982, 1999. May seems like a done deal (the 10-day forecast sees nothing but more rain and clouds and historically low temperatures). But what about June? What will it do to us? Is summer waiting there? Is it energized by the spring it sucked out of April and May? Will it break out with a brilliance whose heat makes us pay for these cool and mild days?
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Welcome back, winter. Hope you enjoyed your day off yesterday.
— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) May 12, 2022
Seahawks will open the 2022 season by facing, yes, Russell Wilson. If you have no idea about the significance of this, then the 12s will see you as living proof of the bliss found in ignorance.
One of the strangest of taxes, King County’s property tax (strange because you are not taxed on income but on the income you might earn), is, according to the Seattle Times‘ Heidi Groover, set to rise to new and stunning levels. Groover: “Home values are up all over the county, but particularly in Eastside.” As for Seattle? “Values are up 19% in Rainier Beach and 20% in Magnolia, according to the Assessor’s Office, which released a sample of data Thursday but is still finalizing values in other areas.”
What we must ask is what, in a society whose currency entirely determines social power, is the function of this kind of tax? It must exist for a reason. It must serve some function that reproduces the form of our class-structured society. It’s not an accident that the dominant asset of middle class wealth is taxed in this way. The middle class are the buffer between the streets and those at the top. The unfairness of the tax ties their feelings with the former rather than the latter.
It’s that bad? A Seattle couple now lives on cruise ships because it’s cheaper than living in a house? “They have no plans to return to living on land,” reports TND. How did this happen? “In early 2021, [their] accountant crunched the numbers and found something unexpected — the pair could retire now and live aboard cruise ships for as little as $43/day — cheaper than their current living expenses.”
As Hannah mentioned in Slog AM this morning, this video of people sleeping on a Link train is predictably making the rounds. It first appeared on
Train operators told KIRO 7′s Gary Horcher they are seeing riders using drugs and passing out on a daily basis. https://t.co/mGe576dNKw
— KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) May 12, 2022
But the people sleeping on Link must not be dissociated from the cars filmed shooting from the I-5 SB Union Street exit and hitting just about everything that can be hit (walls, street fixtures, other cars). KIRO 7 calls it a “crash magnet.”
‼️ Crash magnet! This is the I-5 SB Union St exit to downtown Seattle. Tunnel curves & pops you out to an intersection.
Michael Basconcillo’s video of 17 crashes over several years is now going viral on Reddit!
(Btw poster sped it up 1.5x there, this is the original). (1/2) pic.twitter.com/tk9cQc2QeY
— Deedee Sun (@DeedeeKIRO7) May 6, 2022
Like the people sleeping on the trains, Seattle’s crash magnet reveals only the surface of of a society that’s deeply structured to produce such results. Cars need speed, otherwise how do you justify their size and price? The rich need the visibility of public misery, otherwise how can they justify the massive and obscene private claims on socially accumulated wealth?
A brief of the history of the transit network Seattle could’ve had by the end of this decade:
Gun rights have nothing to fear in this country:
When the government says you don’t need an AR-15, you NEED a damn AR-15! pic.twitter.com/nBvw0lwhxX
— NRA (@NRA) May 6, 2022
Bernie in 2024? There’s some Talk about it. But if one gives this possibility some thought, they will see that in fact he has a better chance of taking the White House in 2024 than in 2020. If Trump doesn’t run, the transition from Biden to him would be peaceful. A transition from Trump to Bernie in 2020 was next to impossible, primarily because the generals would not have stopped Trump from stealing the election. Bernie will be 82 in 2024.
How long must we sing this song?
“We know in advance what the results of any investigation will be: No one can be held responsible because there isn’t sufficient evidence or because the army acted according to the rules, and actually, it’s the Palestinians’ fault” https://t.co/0IE2FMAq2V
— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) May 12, 2022
Because I have been feeling Bach lately, let’s end PM with a Bach-infused pop tune by Jem, “They”:
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