Came down from Seattle on the I-5 to visit my mom for Christmas. It was raining like mad the whole way down; cars were throwing up spray like hydroplanes. On the 26th we had a full, free day and I grabbed Kenny and headed downtown. First stop- the library.
I wandered around and then lingered in the reference book section.

I dig digging through the old reference books, especially when it’s 19th-century stuff. That’s about as far as we can go back in the northwest for local American history. This isn’t England, or even New England, so you take what you can get.
Here’s some advertising from Polk’s Puget Sound Directory, 1888:
Where do you think modern Seattle wokester parents would prefer to send their daughters, today’s modern, local high school with the rainbow flag and non-binary bathrooms, or Annie Wright Seminary, circa 1888?

I take it back. The wokester parents would probably balk at sending their daughters here, except in wistful retrospect after 8 years of secondary and tertiary public education, and said daughter’s hair was purple and her name changed to Ryan. Learning moral philosophy at a seminary from a principal who goes by her husband’s full name might be a no-starter. I’ve already told you about the Christian college I got my daughter to apply for back east some years back. Chance of purple hair, tats, nose rings or sex change upon graduation: about 1/2000th of her odds at a standard west coast university. And my Seattle uncle told me I was committing child abuse. Meanwhile I recently found out that a good friend’s college-age daughter announced to the world she’s a lesbian and a second cousin in his 20s has announced he’s a woman. It’s all normal to the modern Seattle crowd.
I looked through Polk’s directory for 1927 and there was only one Shumway listed for Olympia- a Stuart Shumway, meteorologist. But Seattle had five Shumways, all women, and four of them teachers!

OK, the subtitle of this article is a bit misleading, because nobody is reading these reference books. The pink advertising (yellow) pages in the 1888 directory were in pristine condition. So what are they actually reading around here?
After the reference section I wandered around a bit more and came across an interesting title that made me say, “Ooh I bet I could sink my teeth into this one!” Then I remembered I was in a library and the Kamala-voting staff would have control over what got on the shelves. I figured there was plenty of useful information in this book, but it would probably do a good job of concealing what’s really going on.
“Give it a chance, Shumway. Not everything at the library is limited hangout, truth-concealing stuff!”
OK, but these back-cover endorsements from authorized sources like WaPo and The New Yorker do more to confirm my suspicions than make me likely to read the book.
I’ll just have a look at the index. Hmm. Sheldon Adelson, AFRICOM, Brooksley Born and David Brat, but not one reference for AIPAC.
Yeah, I think I’ll learn about the Borg elsewhere.
Of course this one was on the suggested rack:
Life beyond the binary normalized. No wonder my second cousin, twice removed fell for this stuff; it’s all so extraordinary and profoundly moving. I want to say God help the people like this author Ferguson and Jazz Jennings and the librarians who promote the book, but God has made his position clear about causing the young ones to stumble. Matthew, Luke, and Millstones come to mind.
OK, I’ll say it. Dear family, If cousin Carlotta (née Christopher), who is merely on hormones yet, decides to self mutilate, may God forgive you for normalizing this crap.
Well, the rain stopped so we left the library and headed up to the Capitol building and had a walk around.
The man at the entrance, one G. Harlan, was friendly and helpful. He was quite proud of the Capitol building and Washington State history. He said the officials in charge of naming the new state for Washington Territory wanted to call it Columbia, but the feds already had District of Columbia for their town and didn’t want to invite confusion. So the northwesterners chose ‘Washington’. Some years later, the feds decided they wanted that name for themselves too and DC became Washington, DC, inviting way more confusion and time-consuming explanations to this day. “Oh, you’re from Washington…wait, Washington State or DC?” ad infinitum. phhhhhbt
To complicate matters, the football stadium at the University of Montana in Missoula is called Washington Stadium. “That was the year the Montana Grizzlies hosted the Washington Huskies at Washington Stadium.” Whut? phhhhhhbt
Mr. Harlan told us about the tour at one o’clock but I’d been on that before. I asked about the Supreme Court building across the street.
H- Well sure it’s open. It’s a work day after all!
The Supreme Court building is called the Temple of Justice. Here it is on a sunnier day:

Nothing like the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome for buildings at merely the state capitol. All our capitols are like this. I don’t care what you say, ‘Murica kicks ass!
The first thing you see when you enter the Temple of Justice is a picture of the 9 justices on the supreme court. Looking at them, I wondered aloud if I’d get any justice if I had to present myself in their august chamber

Justice Espinoza-Greenblatt- Mr. Shumway, I fail to see the inconsistencies and errors that you do in Mr. Ferguson’s work.
Shumway- Well, your honor, my main quibble is his denial of …
Justice E.- Their.
S-Excuse me, your honor?
J- Their! Their denial. Not his.
S- Yes, your honor. Ehem. Eh, their denial of the scientific and binary nature of sex and gender is what I would call…
J- Mr. Shumway, I’ve read Mr. Ferguson’s book- in fact it’s one of my favorites- and I find your accusations astonishing, unfounded and positively defamatory. This court upholds the ruling of the appeals court and finds for the plaintiff. Dismissed!
You think I jest about the possibility of such a book being openly touted as a favorite by one of the justices. Think again. Across from the courtroom is the law library, and inside is a picture of all the justices with their favorite books.
So, would a straight, white, Christian, populist, traditionalist, and mostly paleo-conservative curmudgeon like me have any chance in such a court? The odds are slim:
OK, that’ll do for Olympia. See ya back in Seattle!
You are effin hilarious! You are. Thanks for making me laugh. Great write-up.
Hi Dan, back in 2019 I was pretty ignorant about how far the wokery had gone. I didn't really watch any mainstream media, but I was aware of the silllines over pronouns, and just about then learned that there was such a thing as being "triggered". Prior to that, my response to such silliness was "just ignore it, it's just students being students", but it does seem to have become a much more insidious trend, with government jumping onboard and doctors admistering mutilating treatments to young people. But especially, I had no idea how it had become part of a belief system in wider society, and if you're not wholly onboard with it you're just too old or even worse a fascist. But, I also expected a backlash against such thinking. Is that happening in the states? I see fewer and fewer people pushing this agenda recently.