20. Seattle Grab Bag
covid and culture in the emerald city
OK, you want lurid Seattle tales, with all the crazed liberal shenanigans. But I'm not here in Seattle to engage in covid battles and fight the culture war. Seattle is my home town and my family is here; for these few days before we head off to Montana I just want to keep the peace, see the folks and enjoy the ambience of what was once “America's most livable city”. But covid and cultural rot are part and parcel of the Seattle experience- you just can't escape it.
Thanks to the never-ending plandemic freakout, I've been in town days now and haven't seen my dad. “New cases have emerged” at his retirement home, so to play it safe, they are banning visitors, again. This is the facility's front page on the website:
Look at the fun we have! Welcome to a new life! Just don't talk, touch, smile or breathe.
And here is the Covid-19 updates page:
The Masked Crusaders of the Sunset Retirement Center Covid Response Team. Keeping the pestilent grandkids out, for two years running.
Every Seattle trip includes a ferry ride across Puget Sound and a visit to uncle Bob's home on the bluff. We never miss a meetup and Bob and I always enjoy a long walk and a discussion on current events, politics and everything else under the sun. Not this year, last year or the year before, however, as my branch of the clan is not vaxxed and therefore not welcome. Bob had invited us to come and spend the night. We were all set but then I got an email. “Just want to check on your vaccination status.”
“That would be negative, uncle Bob.”
I didn't hear from him again.
Aunt Nancy sometimes rents an old house for a family gathering at the Centrum summer jazz festival in Port Townsend. This year the California branch of the family is coming up to meet the Seattle branch and make it a big shindig. We were invited too, but Aunt Nancy forgot to check the Covid Protocols of the Learned Elders of Centrum.
Protocol #1: Unvaxxed are unwelcome. And that means boosters too, mind you! No jazz gigs, family singalongs or Nancy's apple pie for us lepers.
Despite these setbacks, it's been a good trip. I've not discussed covid at all with my brother and his family, and politics is off the table. The weather is wonderful and the great majority of the public is unmasked, so facial expressions are in again. That's very refreshing after Japan, where smiles are still hidden.
Still, I feel compelled to mention the cultural rot; you can't avoid the goofiness and disfunction of a town that's so over-the-top woke. One might think, trying to be fair, that the Seattle stories you see in the conservative, alternative online news aggregator sites are just cherry-picked stuff- the worst of the worst- this couldn't be the norm! But I'm fresh off the plane and my brother is telling me about his friend Alex, who was at his ex-wife's house, picking up his teenage kid for visitation.
“Johnny, you are sure getting tall! You're almost taller than me!” says Alex, giving Johnny a playful little jab in the ribs.
Holly then takes Alex aside and says, “You can't say that!”
-Say what?
-Make an issue out of how tall he is.
-I'm not making an issue. I'm just saying he's getting tall.
-I know, but you shouldn't say that. It's heightism. What you are doing is 'othering' people who are not tall. You're teaching him that it's OK to do that. What if Johnny wasn’t tall?
I stared at my brother and said, “Oh, come on. You gotta be joking.”
-I'm not joking at all. That's Holly. She's exactly like that.
-Where is she from?
-Right here, man. Born and raised in Seattle.
I went to have a pizza and a few beers at my friend Kelly's. He's got a couple nice daughters. I looked at the cute picture of both of them in dresses on the fireplace mantel.
“That's Anna, she just finished catechism. Her confirmation was last Sunday. And that is Stella.”
-How old is she?
-Seven. Get this, Stella came home the other day and said, “I guess I'm nothing special. Just a regular hetero white girl.”
-Right.
-I'm serious.
-Come on, Kelly. You're putting me on. That sounds like something you'd see on the old Drudge, when he was conservative. Something sensational and only half believable.
-No, that's exactly what she said. I asked her what she was talking about. They had had a lesson on LGBT and minority life in a white dominant world, and Stella got the impression that just being a straight white girl didn't amount to much.
-No way.
-Way. I shichu not.
So 2nd-grade teacher Miss Klein at W___ elementary was busy shaping Stella's world view and philosophy. Musn't leave these things to chance- If they only focused on the 3 Rs at school, who knows, Kelly, his wife, the extended family and catechism could have disastrous effects. If the Seattle School District was going to produce another model citizen like Holly above, best to start them young on these important life lessons. As the priest says, “Give me a child between 3 and 7...”
Seattle has a pretty cool light rail line- it's a good way to get downtown from the airport or up to the university district, as Interstate-5 is almost always balled up with bumper to bumper traffic . A proper city this big would have a subway and multiple rail lines, but this is America, not Europe. One reason there is not much enthusiasm for public transportation is that most people don't like to ride with the riff-raff.
Q: Who are the riff-raff?
A: The type of people who ride without paying the fare.
Q: How do they get away without paying the fare?
A: Seattle, ever the woke city, doesn't force the marginalized to pay the fare.
Yep, the city council recently voted to stop enforcing ticket violations. They used to have the ticket squad wolf packs in black board trains and bust the cheaters, removing them from trains and fining them. Now there are no removals or fines. Just chubby, purple-hair Judith in her fare-enforcement uniform, asking for tickets, and when the homeless dude says “I don't got a ticket,” Judith cheerfully says, “Well, OK. This time it's fine. But be sure and buy one next time. Thank you!”
It’s Seattle’s version of the ‘anything shoplifted is free if under $900’ deal in San Francisco.
My brother says the Judiths working enforcement don't go after the homeless and mean-looking thugs anymore.
“Who do they go after?”
“People who look like they can afford a ticket.”
Besides all the free-loaders, another thing I find disagreeable about the light rail are the public service advertisements.
Why the snark? Here’s my answer to these rude messages.
Hey Transit Authority Public Relations and Advertising worker: We totally get it, you have a degree in English or communications from Vassar and you have a chance to show off your biting wit and get back at the lowlifes that you hate to share the train with. But it’s a scientific fact that when you put people on the defensive by being condescending and bitchy, they are less likely to do what you are asking. Scrap the sarcasm and try to entreat with a direct but polite approach.
The types that work in public relations at Seattle Metro want to keep this madness going forever. And they’d rather bark orders than ask nicely with a please and a por favor. “Cubra su cara” sounds like an insult, doesn’t it?
Still, riding the tram beats driving in this town.
Kelly said, “Everyone here hates each other.”
“No they don’t,” I answered. Here I am, the outsider, defending Seattle from the calumny of a Seattleite.
“Just drive around for a while, and you'll see.”
Later that day I was on a corner with my son in the university district and we jumped when we heard, “FUUUUUUUUUUUU.......!”
A guy was leaning out his window, glaring at the woman in front who failed to make a left turn while she had the window of opportunity. Now both of them had to wait for oncoming traffic to pass and he was livid.
On our way to the beach for a swim in Lake Washington, we walked through Magnuson Park. This used to be a Navy base, so there are big old brick buildings and large country-style houses, former officers quarters. This is prime real estate- houses and condos here would go for millions, but being Seattle, the city council demanded that a certain percentage of the Navy base property be set aside for low income housing. So now you have a row of section 8 apartment buildings in a beautiful, forested and leafy setting, right next to a huge grassy park and only a few minutes from the beach.
In this neck of the woods, the market would have dictated that nobody in the category of small time criminal would have been able to afford rent. I’m not making any commentary about rent control or subsidized housing here. I’m just pointing out that you’re setting aside prime real estate and housing for the poor that not even the middle class can afford. If this is acceptable, why not just go whole hog and put a couple Cabrini Greens in the middle of Central Park? How about knocking down the Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach and putting up a soup kitchen?
Now that a section of Magnuson park has become the projects, crime in the area has soared. Cars are broken into regularly. A while back, the cops responded for the umpteenth time to a crazy welfare mom, causing another scene in the subsidized housing zone. This time she lunged at them with a knife and they responded with deadly force. Apparently 7 bullets hit their mark. Whether excessive or not, the local Sharptons are having a field day with this, and the uproar and condemnation of police brutality is adding to a situation in which cops are quitting in droves.
I haven’t mentioned the homeless encampments, all over town, but that’s old hat- you already know about Seattle’s ubiquitous Meth Towns.
The most popular front-yard virtue-signaling posters of Seattle.
Down at Pike Place Market they have installed chain link fencing to prevent people from walking to the edge of the lookout over the Sound. I figured it was another crazy covid measure, but on second thought the fence looked too old and almost permanent. I asked my nephew Keith when they put up the fence.
-Yeah, that was before covid. People were dropping food and stuff on the construction workers below so they put up the fence so you couldn’t go to the edge.
And now you can enjoy beautiful Elliot Bay through a fence that looks like it’s straight outta Compton.
But wait, this fence has a very redeeming feature! Look at the faint, black spray paint.
“RIP Bill Gates Murdering Pedophile”
“RIP Bezos Pedophile Adrenochrome”
Good to see there’s some rebel spirit in this city of goodthink. Here’s also wishing for a peaceful rest for Bill and Jeff.
Hate to end on a sad note, but this one is a sign of the times.
I was alone in the kitchen with my cousin Trudy while she was making scones. “Dan, you haven’t heard the news about the girl at Central High, have you?”
-No.
-Well, it was the strangest thing, and so sad. Janet Donaldson was a girl just a year ahead of me. Everybody knew her because she was a star athlete, and also super smart. And she was really friendly. Not only in her class, but in my class everyone knew her and liked her. The teachers too. I got out my old yearbook. Look, wasn’t she pretty?
-That’s quite the 1982 haircut! But yes, she was beautiful.
-She was wonderful. So nice, even the couple of times I saw her since high school- I was a nobody but she remembered my name and said hello. Well, she just died last week! She was only 61.
…
Yep, my mind jumped to that possibility. “What did she die of?” I asked.
-Nobody knows. Apparently she was healthy. The story on her in the news said that no cause of death was reported.
No comment.
Next- Eastward to the Wild West. Montana!
What a great read, thanks.
PS: 14 straight for the Ms!