Am in the middle of reading Sunward right now! So far I'm really enjoying it.

Also true in Seattle. The mayor has much more power distilled into the single executive position than any single councilmember. Ideally to see a lot of progress a bit more quickly, you need some alignment btwn the Council and the Mayor.

So true. I must have 10,000 photos of Nala, and even the blurry ones are precious to me.

These races are so interesting to watch.

My house now smells like delicious donuts.

I wrote about the two anti-trans initiatives that will be on WA's November ballot. Interesting to put together the pieces as to how this relates to the dark money in WA's state supreme court races this year. There's even some creepy potential genetic surveillance in one of these initiatives.

Catching up on SCC's federal admin and policy changes committee meeting, and someone just said 10.5% of Seattle residents are currently covered by Medicaid. 4.18% of Seattle residents are uninsured. This is as of 2024.

SPD’s overtime spending has more than doubled in four years due to SPOG contract. notesfromtheemeraldcity.com/spds-overtim...

This is a fight between the volunteers of the Democratic Party and the consultant/billionaire class of the Democratic Party. That's what it is.

Looking forward to this summer outing!

Holy shit, I think I just finished a draft of this novel. It feels like a fucking miracle every time.

One of the findings of my dissertation research is that BLM changed crime news norms in the white press without ever explicitly aiming to do so. This claim has encountered a really surprising (to me) amount of scholarly resistance…

For the first time in 30 years, child deaths are now rising, in large part due to USAID cuts Lancet modelling shows USAID cuts will cause 14 million deaths including 4.5m children, by 2030. Independent CGDev research backs this up

🚨New data: In the 8 months after H.R. 1 enacted the deepest SNAP cuts in history, the number of people receiving SNAP fell by 4+ million (-10%) nationwide. In just the 13 states with available data, 800,000+ fewer kids are receiving SNAP. www.cbpp.org/research/foo...

"Maybe I should've paid more attention." This from one of the foremost American political commentators. I just can't. 🤣🤣🤣

Thanks so much for the bear advice! I'm still feeling a little nervous after my bear cub encounter last month. But thinking it through, all the hikes I'm planning to do on my trip should be more crowded than the one where I met the cub.

It turns out bear spray is...not cheap. Are all the other hikers around here carrying spray cans of this stuff? Is that really a thing?

I've been working on planning my trip to the UK and France for weeks now. I got the plane tickets, I got all the places to stay, and today I finally finished all my train tickets. Now I feel like I'm really going!

This is an important point that we see in municipal budgets too. However, I'll note that if money is allocated for one purpose, that's a choice not to allocate it elsewhere so we will continue to see consequences of defunding other programs even if ICE continues to struggle to spend their windfall.

Andrea Suarez was also present last night and yelled at the person I was standing in line with. Good times.

Her direct quote: "You can propose a sales tax for public safety, and no one blinks an eye. You can propose a sales tax for roads, and no one blinks an eye. But when a progressive mayor proposes a sales tax for public transit, all of a sudden some people are very concerned about taxes."

Just remembered Seattle's budget season begins in just a little over three months. It'll be here before we know it. But first, all the summer fun!

I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this. While I'm sure opinions on this announcement will vary, I don't think it can be called a new approach. Nor is there anything in this statement that would lead me to expect a different outcome.

I’ve been writing and reporting on right-wing law enforcement for a decade. Most work (and have been) for Chicago PD, Seattle PD. It’s been a long standing problem that law enforcement are right wing. It’s not new. Agencies radicalize; not the other way around.

Covering the No Hate Washington campaign launch event tonight!

Don't worry, I'll still be judging!

New: it appears ICE is buying immigrants' tax identifiers through a data broker. ICE has repeatedly tried to get this sort of data from the IRS. Judges have repeatedly blocked that move, calling it illegal. Now it looks like ICE is just buying related data instead www.404media.co/ice-appears-...

Sound Transit gets so much stage time, but King County is struggling to build a fully-funded hospital expansion on land that it itself owns. This is our only Level I trauma center and the entire region's emergency management command center. The way we build things is clearly broken.

This is so interesting because in the face of AI I feel *more* useful. My emotions and personal experience of being human make my fiction invaluable in comparison. I think local news is also more useful and relatable from a human perspective, as well as having a trustworthiness AI cannot offer.

Well, I have subscribed to the 2026-2027 season's at Seattle Rep and 5th Ave Theater, and I'm super tempted to do the same for ArtsWest. The slates of shows look so strong! (I've never subscribed to the 5th before even though I used to teach musical theater but this next year is 🔥.)

Oh wow! This is a big deal.

Okay, I'm getting a new phone next week. I guess it's time, even though I'm grumbly about it. Crossing fingers it isn't too heavy.

Hmm, no separate budget office? As a person who has closely followed municipal budget processes for years, this seems bad.

My phone suddenly overheated and shut itself off in the middle of the event. Luckily I had my laptop with me so could continue recording, but...might be forced to get a new phone sooner rather than later. Sigh. They're all too big for my hands.

Today I'm attending the opening of DESC's newest permanent supportive housing site in Lake City.

When they talk about the alleged violence and disorder of resistance, people have to keep highlighting federal violence. That is the real story, and it's the primary reason any of this is happening.

Just learned that pie on a stick is apparently now a thing. Like cake pops, only pie.

I spent yesterday fighting off a little cold. I actually feel mostly okay this morning while recognizing I might only have a couple hours before being slammed by more viral exhaustion. Top priority was to water my new little sedum garden so it survives this heat.

And you also can't talk about politics today without referencing the degraded information environment.

You can't have a serious discussion about today's political situation without mentioning the intense amount of wealth inequality present.

Oh geez, I just saw a Meta AI Raybans commercial. Am I going to become that eccentric old writer who refuses to interact with almost anyone because creepy surveillance glasses become pervasive?

I read this story with some alarm. For an AI service to be used *in secret* as part of 911 operations in the fire department is unacceptable. Furthermore, evaluation doesn't seem to be part of it either. More problems in🧵. Hope the Mayor's Office takes Dr. Bender up on her offer to talk.

I have never seen ONE interview about security prep on a mainstream channel during a world cup, in the USA, security arrangement discussions with politicians is like 80% of coverage, talk about hijacking a thing to centre yourselves, it's pathetic

Doing politics is hard. Hell, after all, is other people. It would be great if we could make change by changing ourselves, but that's not how any of this works. The world has moved on, and *you* can't save it. But together, *we* can restore the beams and beat back entropy. 88/

I am eating what might be the best macaron I've ever had in my life.

Out covering the No Surveillance Protest Parade on this fine Saturday afternoon.

Interesting from @b-townblog.bsky.social. The Burien City Council is set to discuss a possible data center moratorium on Monday. One of the five possible data center locations being discussed with City Light was located in Burien, but that was one of the proposals that was later withdrawn.

Surveillance cameras don’t prevent violence, or why I feel like a broken record notesfromtheemeraldcity.com/surveillance...

Drones in Seattle move forward.

To truly manage pain from abortion and miscarriage management (which are the same medically), new research isn't needed. The standard of care is, and the Trump admin has done everything in its power to make that inaccessible to people across the country www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...