Good morning ya frigid bastards. It is 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Normal) this morning, and I am so excited for the cold (read to the end to see why).
The news is also full of silver linings and upside-down logic.
Take it from an Italian: It may be “Columbus Day” in much of the US, but you wouldn’t know it in Seattle, where it is strictly Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Check out Daybreak Star today starting at 4 p.m. if you want to celebrate anything.
Seattle’s time capsule of oppressive labor practices is getting a union! Visit the Museum of History & Industry—MOHAI—and you can learn about the Capitol’s oppression of labor in the logging, longshoreman, and scuba diving industries, all sponsored by techno whip-wielding Florida man Jeff Bezos. Perhaps that history inspired the museum’s workers toward a labor win? They announced recognition of their union last week, charting a worker-friendly course for the future.
Less grocery means more grocery. Amazon Go, Bezos’s failed cashierless convenience stores, are going away. Yay! Plenty of pixels have been spilled over grocery store closures in the Seattle area. But one Amazon Go closure, in Ballard, won’t leave a food desert. It is opening up a culinary oasis in the form of Seattle’s first Hashi Market, MyBallard.com reports. I haven’t been to Hashi Market, but reviews suggest it’s like a cross between a Japanese H-Mart and a Muji.
Agents with ICE raided a Democrat’s home in Minnesota: Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house was raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents, ICE’s detectives, according to NewsNation via The Hill and others. This is not normal. This is not right. So close to the election, this is election interference.
What other ICE shenanigans can we expect ahead of the election? Anecdotally, credible reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in Seattle were up this week, according to ICEOUT.org and some of the more reliable Facebook groups. I’m keeping an eye on immigration enforcement for The Stranger these days, so if you are a trained ICEwatch rapid responder, or really know your shit for some other reason, reach out on Signal: “StrangerICE.206”
Meanwhile, the Washington Sun reports that DHS is mulling no-bid combat training for ICE from UFC. The motherfucking Ultimate Fighting Championship, operated by TKO Group Holdings, is unlikely to provide guidance in de-escalation tactics.
Pollution into the Sound from the Port Townsend Paper Co. wasn’t investigated by the Washington Department of Ecology. If you missed the news about this massive pollution spill into the Puget Sound, it could be due to a cover-up, according to detailed reporting from the Seattle Times. A worker who took videos and photos of the spill says the pollution was underreported, reminding us that no news is not always good news. The whole incident reveals how much the state relies on companies to police and regulate themselves.
America’s warmonger president spent the weekend complaining he wasn’t getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Writer/sugar baby Colin Jost captured the president’s vacuous naivete on SNL: “He did so much war that we’re running out of missiles, and he still thought ‘this is my year.’”
The Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillay, a champion of international norms and human rights. Pillay grew up under apartheid in South Africa and lawyered for activists like Nelson Mandela, says the New York Times. Last year, she chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Her next project focuses on genocide in Myanmar. Is she coming for Zuck?
Washington is pedestrian-friendly, according to Camilo Ruiz, a guy who walked from Orlando to Seattle. The Florida Man, who lugged a cart for 213 days, strolled into Issaquah this week, and made it to the Space Needle over the weekend. Walking from the burbs into Seattle, he said, “One thing I love about Washington is how pedestrian-friendly it is.” Congratulations to us.
A security guard was killed outside a Seattle strip club, and a young woman was shot in the leg. KING5 reported the drive-by shooting happened around 1 a.m. Sunday.
Despite decades of buying weapons from the US, Saudi Arabia is not able to protect itself from the poorest country in the world. Houthis have been lobbing missiles from 500 miles away in Yemen with brutal, lethal results. Over a dozen people were killed and hundreds more injured in a series of attacks on the Riyadh airport on Saturday and Sunday, Reuters reports. Video from the airport shows many of the victims were religious pilgrims headed to or from Saudi Arabia’s holy sites like Mecca and Medina.
The fatal attacks on Saudi Arabia out of Yemen are ultimately Trump’s fault, and a foreseeable consequence of the war in Iran. So despite his poor marks in peace class this year, Trump will ultimately join this additional front in the war, The Guardian thinks. Can’t put Jared’s investments at risk!
But here I am, consoling Trump. Don’t worry, buddy, Nobel Peace Prize winners have also been pretty murdery. Barack Obama won the award and went on to bomb a fellow peace prize winner, Doctors Without Borders. Henry Kissinger got it after bombing everybody.
Back to consoling myself, about the cold. Here are the shiver linings:
1) Our hiker/climber/etc. friends are BACK and joining us for indoor fun. (Twenty people showed up to the juggling night at the Ballard Community Center on Wednesday.)
2) It’s scuba diving season. That’s right! We dive more in the winter because reduced algal blooms and less glacial runoff make for better underwater visibility.
Here’s some Canadians explaining why “cold as balls” is something we look forward to.
This article has been updated with the correct ICEwatch website. It is iceout.org, not iceout.com.
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