Oh hey, it’s super on-brand* if I talk about highways for 2 open threads this week. But here we are:
Are you planning anything different for when the Viaduct is closed? Going to telecommute? Going to tough it out? Live in the Tri-Cities and just going to laugh at us Wet Siders? Using this as an opportunity to start biking or walking to work? Going to take I-5 and hope for the best? Going to plan for some more time, and just make it happen? Unemployed? Taking the Light Rail? Working odd hours?
Of all the books I’ve read while out to eat or on a bus, or whatever, I’d say this is the one that I’ve had the most people ask me about. I don’t know if the Supreme Court is an interesting topic generally. Or possibly it’s because you hear so many conservatives ranting about the court, a long haired Seattle person reading “Case Against the Supreme Court ” might seem incongruous.
Anyway, if you want to be super depressed, it’s one I’d recommend. Very interesting and really shows the importance of the court.
It is election Tuesday in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Please join us tonight for an evening of election-watching over an elixir at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We start at 8:00pm, but some of us will show up earlier to watch the returns.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. On Wednesday, the Burien and North Spokane chapters meet. The Kent and Woodinville chapters meet on Thursday. And next Monday, the Yakima and South Bellevue chapters meet.
There are 180 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find (or start!) a chapter near you.
The Eastbound lanes of 520 are now open for bridgeness. Anyone taken them yet? Notice any difference in your driving experience?
Judges 10:4
He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys.
Discuss.
Roy Zimmerman: Everybody is Everybody Else.
Bill Maher: Tax the churches.
How to fix America’s corrupt political system.
The White Jet Pro.
What people did with presidential candidate cut-outs.
Who’s it going to be? Donald Drumpf or Hillary?
Always After Me Lucky Charms:
White House: West Wing Week.
Young Turks: Gyrocopter pilot sentenced to prison.
Wicked: Denying Hillary.
The 2016 Crazy-Fest:
David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Life in the Senate after running for President:
Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.
Daily Show: The Carson twins debate….:
Stephen: Bernie said “do do”.
State Sanctioned Discrimination:
Reporter fail: Attempt to make #DemocracySpring look stupid backfires!
Deprogrammed political news of the week.
Thom: Can social media seize control of our elections?
Stephen: New York primaried hard.
Mental Floss: 27 facts about James Bond.
The $20 Makeover:
Mark Fiore: Islamophobic Air.
How to stop Ted Cruz.
Obama’s weekly address: Building a fairer and more effective criminal justice system.
PsychoSuperMom: Gerrymandering.
Stephen: Everyone is mad about campaign finance reform.
Break Free Pacific Northwest.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
While I haven’t read it, can’t imagine I won’t support the SEIU backed initiative to fund enforcement of the $15 minimum wage, of the sick leave/safe leave law, and other workplace issues in Seattle. While, generally I don’t think dedicated money is the way to go on those sorts of things, the city hasn’t been very good at enforcement so far. So better a dedicated tax than it being under-resourced.
When liberals and conservatives have conversations about things like homelessness, it can be frustrating. Conservatives want individuals to take personal responsibility. And while liberals find individual responsibility important, we also understand that there are systemic problems that have to be dealt with. That it’s really tough to bootstrap yourself into a house if you’re homeless and there isn’t enough supply. So, sometimes we talk past each other. Jason Rantz tries to circle that square by showing how liberals being tolerant is the real systemic problem (h/t).
I’ve been meaning to do a longer piece for a while, but it keeps being nice out. After like 4 days, it’s still too nice of a day to do a metacommentary piece on the whole thing, but here are some highlights:
But why so many in this neighborhood? I’ve never seen as many until recently. As other neighborhoods are engaged in trying to help deal with the problem, Capitol Hill seems like they’re allowing it to develop unfettered. I think I know why: ideology.
Homelessness is everywhere. I don’t know what neighborhood doesn’t have homeless people. Including suburban and rural places in King County. Also, is Cap. Hill’s tolerance new? Because otherwise, it doesn’t really apply to this supposedly new problem. Also, too, I walked from the light rail station to Drinking Liberally last Tuesday, and back fairly late at night. It was after reading this piece, so I was on the lookout for homeless people. It didn’t seem like a whole lot, at least compared to other neighborhoods. Sure, I passed by some people sleeping in doorways, but I don’t think more than Downtown or Belltown. Certainly not more than, say, the Terminal 91 Bike Path or SoDo, if we’re trading anecdote for data.
Progressive ideologues like to preach how tolerant they are. You ask them and they’ll proudly tell you. Now, they don’t support ideological diversity, but they’re pro-LGBT, pro-people of color, pro-atheist, pro-multicultralism, pro-whatever. The only things they’re against seem to be capitalism and cisgendered white Christian Republican men. And to show how tolerant they are, they seek to ban microaggressions; they support college students who need “safe spaces” from opinions that make them uncomfortable. They like to declare themselves allies of any group they believe to be oppressed.
Atheism and multiculturalism are both ideologies. So that third sentence is self-refuting. Some progressive ideologues are against capitalism, but I think most aren’t. Also, I don’t know what against “cisgendered white Christian Republican men” even means. Like, don’t think they should dominate the conversation, sure. But progressives are not the ones trying to regulate where cis people can poop or poised to nominate someone who wants a travel ban on Christians. Anyway, I guess we should just be glad he learned the word cisgendered and this isn’t a rant about that.
Oh my God there was so much wrong with that paragraph. OK. Keep going.
Nobody is trying to ban microaggressions. Pointing out how harmful they are? Sure. You can go yell racial epithets (macroaggressions if you like) in the park, and nobody is going to ban you. But you think a ban on microaggressions is in the works? Also, safe spaces and being allies to the oppressed is pretty rad. Like everywhere should be unsafe in general and harmful to oppressed people? What the fuck even is that? In fairness, he walks that back a bit in the next couple paragraphs, that I’m skipping. But still.
I think some ideological activists won’t help the homeless because they subconsciously want to live around them. They can say that they don’t judge people based on their appearance or status as someone who lives on the street, and this gives them a sense of superiority to those of us who want to intervene.
This describes literally nobody. The solutions to homelessness include build more housing and make it affordable. It isn’t just tolerate it. The closest thing I can think of to being tolerant as a policy was housing for chronic public inebriates, but that has been a success story among King County’s mixed-at-best record.
I’m going to see if some small talk spurs discussion.
Geez, 3 days of more than 80 degrees is quite enough. I’m giving up: Shorts to work. And it’s only April. Man. I’m actually looking forward to some rain in a few days. Can you believe it?
This week, the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally will meet for an evening of political discussion and drinks. The New York primary results will lead off the conversation. Please Join us.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We start at 8:00pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight, the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet.
The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. And on Thursday, the Tacoma, Bremerton, and Spokane chapters meet.
There are 180 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find (or start!) a chapter near you.
I can sort of understand grandstanding against trans people. It’s a cheap way to say you’re a horrible person. It signals to a certain type of horrible person that you’re in the tribe, and it lets you rail against imaginary horrors like people pooping in a place you’ve claimed are wrong. Also, you get to make stuff up like trans rape without actually doing anything about rape. And the costs of being an ass are borne by other people.
But what I don’t get is why people would pay money for a trans-hate initiative. I mean a fool and their money and all that, I guess.
Leviticus 19:19
Breed your livestock animals only with animals of the same kind, and don’t plant two kinds of seed in the same field or wear clothes made of different kinds of material.
Discuss.
Bernie and the Rabbi.
Samantha Bee: Why superdelegates are a good thing.
Sam Seder and Ari Berman: Voter suppression in 2016.
Young Turks: Planned Parenthood shooter’s crazy, creepy fantasy.
Jimmy Dore: Bill O’Reilly spews racist garbage, immediately says he’s “not a racist”.
Samantha Bee: Gun TV.
Matthew Filipowicz: Climate change and the war on clouds.
Daily Show: Sexual racism.
Minute Physics: Why are airplane engines so big.
The 2016 Clown Parade Marches On:
White House: West Wing Week.
How 112 people will determine where the GOP convention goes.
How to do your taxes.
Stephen and Hillary: America’s small issues.
Seth Meyers: A closer look at Goldman Sachs’ fines
Sam Seder: Public backlash puts the heat on in N.C..
VSauce: How to count past infinity.
Political ‘Captain America’ mashup.
House of Ruth: SCOTUS in the City
Samantha Bee: The NRA stands up for strict regulation…of its mascot costume!
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Yeah, it is an open thread.
Feel free to talk about whatever. I mentioned candidates in a recent open thread, and I think it kind of killed the conversation for anyone who didn’t want to talk about that. So I just want to underline that barring violations of the comment policy, you can talk about whatever in the Open Threads. In theory I’ll get back to more threads with topics soon.
As we get further and further from it, the more people are going to try to write their own narrative on to the time BLM activists interrupted Bernie Sanders at Westlake. I have been genuinely surprised at how quickly people — often time the same person — could go from saying how awful and uninformed they were to pushing the narrative that Sanders politely listened to them.
I’ve been interested to see Marissa Johnson push back on that. Both in an interview with TWIB a month or so ago (plays automatically) or writing it in her own words.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!