Jas: Jeff Bezos is persona non grata in Slogland right? So why link to The Washington Post (Plains GA, story) to feed his paywall? (deleting the browser's cache don't work with WP)

It would be nice if Amazon Prime included a subscription to the Washington Post though.

yeah, "FWIW". 2 weeks after an earthquake vs 1 year of war.

"brutally" swept the park. lol. yeah referring people to shelter and telling them they can't trash a public space with drugs and stolen goods is so tyrannical.

I read the linked article. The sweep of Ballard Commons in 2021 sounds anything but "brutal." It sounds like the system trying to work: "With the help of dozens of mutual aid volunteers, some who knew all the remaining residents by name, many Ballard Commons residents left the park quietly before the City could force them out of their homes."

It's unfortunate that writers at the Stranger can't use their extensive platform more constructively, rather than simply being reactionary. Maybe with Bumbershoot going back to the future, so will the reasonable voices that occupied the Stranger offices back in the music festival's 1990s/2000s heyday.

Maybe the porcine super pigs will develop a taste for human pigs.

XFL = boring
super pigs = boring into crops, and doing major damage.
wild pigs have been a major problem in the USA (e.g. Texas) for some time.
The Guardian is always a great read.

@2 Not to mention that basic humanitarian supplies are considerably less expensive than HIMARS, Javelins, and Abrams tanks. Turkey is also a G20 economy with considerable resources. The comparison about money spent made little sense.

@10: Adding to the questions about the “brutal” sweep of Ballard Commons. Where in the Stranger’s linked article was there any mention of brutality?

@11: It's in the lead - brutally:

...with the construction of a playground area still in the works since officials brutally swept the unhoused from the park in December 2021.

brutality
is losing your
shit or hoping to
Relocate wherethefuck?

if only there were Some way to Dehumanize
housing as Commodity human beings as
Chattel to be strip-mined & severely
Concentrated Wealth.

@14: Na, that's undue arrogance over being inconvenienced.

@19 cmon you know our unhoused neighbors have no obligation to put forth any effort. It’s up to us to meet them where they are at. Until then we should make them as comfortable as possible, including giving them paraphernalia, safe spaces to shoot up, and overlooking any criminal transgressions, until they are good and ready to make a change. If you don’t agree with that then you too might be a facist.

@14:

“brutality
is losing your
shit or hoping to
Relocate wherethefuck?”

The linked story took pains to describe how the homeless persons who refused services simply relocated nearby. The only ones who ‘lost’ anything had intentionally left it in the park past the time they knew it would be taken.

If those were your definitions of “brutality,” then you failed on both counts. Here, try again. From the comment directly above yours:

“…there were at least 2 murders, 6 overdose deaths, 2 reported rapes,”

Was there anything “brutal” in allowing the encampment to remain?

@23 wow...
you should go back to your last avatar/pic.

@24 - Hasn't changed. In fact, we can't get into our profiles. We can log in via the sign-up link, but it doesn't give access to our profiles to change our avatar.

@27 - of course the Stranger won't report about that b/c it doesn't follow their narrative.

When will The Stranger finally realize that "the unhoused" are basically chronic drug addicts who take advantage of Seattleite's empathy and compassion, horrible neighbors stealing from their housed neighbors, firing guns, and are endangering everyone with their public drug use of fentanyl and meth. This isn't 2018 and prior folks. We see it on Capitol Hill are the time. Their reckless behavior and disregard for the laws are lowering the quality of life for everyone around them. No one should feel unsafe on their own blocks.

I recently had a neighbor who had an 'unhoused' open her unlocked door and steal the keys to her apartment and car. Police found him but he "conveniently" ditched the keys. My neighbors and I at my complex have to constantly be on the look out for homeless drug addicts sitting on the handful of stair stoops that we have and smoking meth and fentanyl in order to prevent reckless fires due to lighting drugs from occurring.

WHY WOULD ANYONE CONSIDER THIS NORMAL FOR PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH??? Please enlighten me as to why we need to put up with this?

As for Ballard Commons getting swept. It was necessary for it to happen. That park was unusable and unsafe for the public and the surrounding housed neighbors. Fires were occurring with smoke going into people's homes.

The park wasn't meant to be used as the grounds for an encampment. It was meant to be used by the general public, like how Cal Anderson Park, is used today.

To the Stranger Staff, would you be OK frequently going to the Ballard Commons with your grade-school age child, nephew, niece, or cousin when at any given moment some gun fight between a drug dealer and some drug addicts pops up or having a registered-sex-offender stalk you and your underage relative walking through that park? or even walking around it?

@31 why haven't they been removed from the grounds of the library? I mean just report them on the Find -it-fix it app. The more reports the sooner it gets addressed

Can we have the Murder Hornets take care of the Super Pigs?

"Former colleage"? I thought Nathalie came back? Or did she quit again already?

*colleague, that is

@33 dvs99 for the WIN!!!

Only one post after Tuesday's AM Slog. What's going on, or not going on? Sad.

@37
Late stage capitalism-
BINGO!

“… take advantage of Seattleite's empathy and compassion”

Hahaha. Yes. Just look at all the empathy and compassion on display in here.

@40: Aw, our oft-banned prof’ doesn’t like criticism of obviously and chronically failed policies? Poor dear.

Seattle alone has spent half a billion dollars on the homeless, just since then-Mayor Murray declared a Homelessness Crisis. King County and Washington state have spent money, as well. These expenditures have been colossal failures. In Seattle, homeless persons now die at higher rates than ever, mostly from overdoses, but sometimes from violence or grisly accidents. It’s “compassionate” to ignore such suffering and death?