– You’re White and Marched With Dr. King: So What?

– Still, maybe that’s all just a big coincidence. Isn’t it always.

– I suggest we name this planet “Pluto”, both to celebrate the great work by the New Horizons team, and to make the stupid “Is Pluto a planet” debate a little more confusing

If you’re like me and still haven’t finished filling out your primary ballot, here are some more endorsements:

– Here’s Washington Conservation Voters

– And here’s Seattle Transit Blog (I disagree with a lot more of these than I usually do for endorsements I’m linking to, but OK)

Radio has fallen so much, I don’t even know who Jason Rantz is. I guess he has a show on KIRO. Anyway, here is him talking about breastfeeding, for, um, reasons. [h/t]

You are supposed to feel bad if a mom breastfeeding in public makes you a little uncomfortable.

Are you supposed to feel anything? Just, maybe, act like an adult. Problem solved.

It’s an issue that the feminist cause has taken up over the last few years and there’s some validity to their points, but they’re so militant in response to anyone who dare question what they’re doing.

You’re the one writing a 20 paragraph piece.

Case in point: A mom, Lydia Davis, in Spokane is outraged that some employee at a public pool told her to breast feed her child in the bathroom.

It’s tough to look at that sentence and say it probably needs more commas, but it does. After “Spokane.” Maybe it needs to be 2 or 3 sentences. Maybe find something else to write this column on because right now it’s kind of just Rantz being an asshole to new moms feeding their infants.

Now, it is legal to breast feed in public in Washington. It’s state law. But this employee obviously didn’t know. But we’ll treat it like some affront to womanhood.

Really? That sounds harsh. I hope the thing you’re going to quote doesn’t just talk about feeding a child and not being ashamed. And definitely says an affront to womanhood. Otherwise, it’s pretty pointless.

“I’m not ashamed of breast-feeding,” she told the Spokesman Review. “I don’t ever want anybody to be ashamed to feed their child if the child is hungry. We’re at a public pool where people have bikinis on. How is me breast-feeding any worse than people wandering around in a bikini?”

The link to the S-R’s website instead of the article left in because it amuses me. Here’s the link to the actual article. Anyway, does the quote continue to the affront to womanhood? No? back to Rantz?

Well, the difference is a bikini covers up a sexualized body part.

Jesus. Did KIRO give a radio spot to a not very mature 13 year old? Look l’il man, soon you’ll be able to put those feelings in more of a context. Until then, good luck with the radio show.

We get it, you have no shame. You don’t want to feel ashamed, but you’re doing it in public because you want attention; because you know something like this gets you attention and you absolutely love it.

If a mother with a baby that’s crying because it’s hungry wants attention, doing nothing is probably the way to go. Keep that baby crying and I’m sure many more people will stop and look than if she feeds it. Honestly.

Because that’s what this is about.

Also, not for nothing, but if you’re so dead set against giving breastfeeding mothers any attention, maybe don’t write 560 words and — I’m assuming — do a radio commentary on it. I mean there’s a primary election coming up. The legislature just adjourned recently, maybe for the year, maybe not if the Supreme Court says they have to deal with education funding.

Many of these moms are breastfeeding in public not because they have to — not because they have no alternatives or no other place to go — but because you want to make some feminist point.

???

And this is a clear case of that to me, because this mom immediately complained to the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department and they immediately apologized and said they would provide extra training for the pool’s staff.

So her complaining helped fix a problem. Unlike this post where the complaining is just for the sake of complaining.

The mom was apparently pleased by the response. In fact, the staff did end up getting the extra training.

Great.

But this mom — and other mommy activists — decided to hold a “nurse-in” on Friday at the pool. So despite getting an apology and being pleased with the reaction from city officials, Lydia Davis held a protest with her friends.

Well, as mentioned earlier, not everybody knows state law in this area. So a little education seems fine. More people will know it’s the law now. If you don’t want to be a part of it, you don’t have to.

Apparently about a dozen moms and their kids showed up to breast feed in public.

Lila McDermid learned about the event on Facebook and brought her children down, according to the Spokesman Review.

“I just never want to lose my right to feed my child anytime and anywhere I need to,” she said.

But she didn’t need to go to this pool to breastfeed. She chose to, like all these women, because they’re trying to push against ideas of etiquette.

The ideas of etiquette? You’re trying to push women into public bathrooms to feed their children. Seriously, public bathrooms. Because of etiquette?

There’s a big difference between breastfeeding in public because you have to (there are no reasonable, private accommodations) and because you want to; because you don’t care how uncomfortable it makes people feel.

I don’t care how uncomfortable 13 year old Jason Rantz is. Nobody does. Nobody should. There’s a crying, hungry baby.

McDermid told the paper: “Society has sexualized women’s bodies so that breast-feeding is seen as sexual when it’s not…”

I’m awful at punctuation, and this is the second — then quickly third for comic effect — time I’m making fun of this piece with regard to it, so I’m sure there’s some glaring typo of mine in this post. Nonetheless:

This is a major fuck up. The thing he’s quoting isn’t McDermid. It’s the Spokesman-Review characterizing her position. It seems accurate given the rest of the quotes, but it’s not a quote by her. Even though he just graduated middle school, Rantz should be able to recognize that. Also, there’s no need for those ellipses.

Society hasn’t done that. No one thinks breastfeeding is sexual. People think the breast is.

Seriously? Anyway, this whole argument has been ridiculous, but I think there’s a real chance to end weak. Like, super weak. Just awful, horrible, terrible, shittastic writing.

And if you want to blame society, fine. Society has defined your breasts as a sexual body part and if you don’t think that’s right, you should start off by talking to your fellow women who get breast implants, who wear clothing that accentuate the breasts, who purchase lingerie that highlight the breasts, because it’s women who are pushing the notion that that body part should be viewed as sexual.

Um. So. Maybe you’ll learn about context in some remedial high school class.

– The so-called pro-life activists playing “gotcha” with a doctor who thinks and speaks in clinical terms essentially wants more people like me to clasp hands with a pathologist before they start to cut on a dead baby to find out why it is in front of them instead of in the nursery. [h/t]

– Just compost your compost, and we won’t have a problem.

– I think it’s amusing that he thinks Clinton’s campaign is saying “vote for me because I’m a woman.” But I do know that Mitch is the one playing the gender card by saying she is …

If you’re looking for some guidance on the primary:

– Here’s who NARAL endorsed in Washington.

– Here’s who Geov Parish supports in Seattle, King County, and Seattle School Board races

– Oh hey, your primary ballots are here. If you care about safe streets, here’s some info on the City Council candidates.

– Or here if you don’t want to vote for the people the Chamber of Commerce is pumping tons of money into their campaigns.

– If you’re a Republican who is upset that Donald Trump is attacking John McCain’s military service, where were you for the last decade or so?

– I don’t like Carly Fiorina at all, but good on her for opposing sexism in the workplace, even in a mild sort of way. I’m sure even though she got to the head of HP, she experienced quite a bit on the way and at the top. But holy geez, some of her conservative critics.

– The fake stories Stetzer describes are not being spread in good faith by innocent dupes. They are not innocent and they are not dupes. And the stories are not merely “fake,” but false. The biblical term for what he’s describing is “bearing false witness against your neighbor.”

– I’m just going to posit that if you call our first Black president “monkey man Barack”, and the first Black first lady “Gorilla face” avoiding being thought of as racist wasn’t a high priority, the mayor of Airway Heights.

– even if you dispense with the ghoulish idea of Bush going to any sort of veteran’s charity, the idea that he cashed in on it is disgusting.

– This story of what this country did to Lois Chichnikoff Thadei and other Native American children of her era is just awful.

– A believer in the power of social media to make change, Bland can be heard thanking the bystander recording her arrest as she’s taken into police custody — custody from which she was never released alive.

– I like Bernie Sanders. I might vote for him in the primary (although I did vote for Clinton 8 years ago, and am leaning toward voting for her again). Still I quite like the first 3 parts of this series on his history from a feminist perspective.

I’m back! And man am I behind on the news. So here’s a post that doesn’t require much thought:

I don’t know if it’s a sense of obligation or history, or if they actually think they’re making a difference, but I really don’t think most newspaper endorsements make a lick of difference. They spend most of the time pretending to be neutral observers, and then think we should care when they have opinions on who to vote for? Please.

Of course alt weekly papers are different. They have an opinion and a point of view all the time, and if you’re reading them, you probably care what they have to say about candidates. So if you’re already reading The Stranger, you probably already know this, but here are their endorsements. Whatever problems you may have with them, their endorsements probably matter more than any other paper in the region.

I’ll be back for real soon, I swear. Then I’ll go on vacation.

In theory, I get back to normal.

I’m out for a few days with computer nonsense, but enjoy this thread.

– Can’t wait to give the Rainier Vista portion of the Burke-Gillman Trail a try.

– Donald Trump is really innovating here, in that he seems to be actually conning himself

– Also, speaking of Trump, it is interesting that people are finally calling his bullshit.

– Bill Kristol is such a problem.

– Oh hey, 25 Years of Tomorrow looks pretty great.

Oh hey they’re temporarily reopening the waterfront.

But today, citing the need for access and especially because it’s tourism season (which you’ve definitely noticed because crowds of confused people, maps-in-hand, have nearly taken you out numerous times in the last week) the City of Seattle has re-opened the waterfront for a temporary summer vacation, so to speak.

“A temporary, park-like pedestrian promenade from University to Madison streets will be open with wayfinding, seawall project information, and activities, accompanied by approximately 70 new parking spaces adjacent to Waterfront Park. Seawall construction will continue from Madison to Yesler streets adjacent to Colman Dock,” reads a release from the City.

Enjoy it while you can suckers! One question: park-like? OK, I lied: another question, 70 new parking spaces? Why not more park-like stuff? Another another question: can we just ignore the thing underground keep the park-like pedestrian promenade? Whatever! I’m going to walk it this weekend! It’s going to be awesome. It’s totally going to be park-like!

The deadline for registering to vote in the primary is the 6th. So if you’re in King County, you can go here, and if you’re from another county, I guess, you can google it.

One of the things that baffles me about the GOP insistence pretending that global warming isn’t a thing and fighting efforts to fix it is that, you know, they can’t go live on some globe that isn’t warming. So when I read things like “Environmentally-concious organizations are upset that the deal would preclude Governor Jay Inslee from using executive authority to set new pollution standards, and have been calling for a no vote” I have to wonder how much of a deal Republicans think they’re getting.

I mean, if you represent farmers in Eastern Washington, why would you want to go back to your constituents and say something like “congrats, it’s going to be hotter and drier, but, also the state will have less and less water to help irrigate, and it’ll keep getting worse over time.” Or if you represent somewhere that’s on fire right now, being able to say “man in 50 to 100 years, we’ll look back and wish it was this wet and cool.”

Maybe 50-100 years is part of the key. Obviously there are differences between long term and short term incentives for these sorts of issues. But when it’s the health of the entire planet where everyone lives, you might think that GOP legislators, their campaign donors, and their constituents might find their way to a self-interested position.

– In conclusion, Jim McNerney is a terrible human being. And very emblematic of the New Gilded Age

– Oh hey, congrats to team Hanauer, and like a large portion of the middle class, on the new overtime eligibility rules.

– If you want to know what Seattle’s most radical anti-growth activists really think about multifamily housing, the mayor, transportation solutions, and “those people,” I highly recommend checking out any event put on by the City Neighborhood Council, a group founded in the 1990s to advise the brand-new Department of Neighborhoods on neighborhood planning.

– Also, I don’t know about the rest of the crew, but I won’t be posting anything on the 3rd.

– Well looks like we’ll probably have a transit package with full funding for ST but a stupid carbon thing

– Fox News just fired one of its hosts in the most vicious & humiliating way imaginable

– I wonder if Metro could steal the color scheme idea from SWIFT. If the actual buses are different colors (I couldn’t tell from the post, but I’d bet not), it might be a problem on the C and D lines, but otherwise, it’s doable. Also, holy cow, SWIFT 2 looks like it’ll be pretty great.

– Westlake Park, in a lot of ways, is ground zero for DSA and the the city’s fraught relationship with public demonstrations. Remember when people ~*~so angry~*~ about the death of an unarmed Black teenager got just too damn close to singing children at the tree lighting ceremony? A Speakers Corner would corral that pesky anger into somewhere more comfortable, giving shoppers the chance to not see that anger if it’s making them not feel like spending all their money at the mall that day! What a win for our city’s business interests!

– JEB!