"A Message to You Rudy." That's the title of a tune I love. And with the riddim of that SKA classic in mind, I want to call this entry of Slog AM: "Message to You, Dow Constantine." It nothing but sucks that Link is virtually out of order until April 24. This is not at all acceptable. You just don't happen to find cracks in your rails, conclude it is what it is, and bring a major part of the region's public transportation system to a near standstill like it ain't no thing. People who work on our roads are free to believe they have regular jobs; this, however, is not the case for those in public transportation. You are on a mission to save the world. So, the message to you Dow Constantine (the former King County Executive, and present CEO of Sound Transit), you must stop this "messing around" and "better think of [our] future" because it's "time you straighten [this shit] right out" that's "creating problems in town."
Sound Transit to the Public: "Passengers may not know that the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel is a piece of legacy infrastructure that comes with some unique design constraints. The tunnel was designed for buses first and continued to support bus service for more than a decade after light rail service began. To support both vehicle modes, rails in the downtown portion of the tunnel are embedded into the floor and... yada, yada, yada." In Zimbabwe, we would call this a story. It goes like this. When you meet someone who owes you money and they don't have it, they instead tell you a story. "My mother got hit by a car, her legs are buggered, the bills are growing like that beanstalk, and yada, yada, yada." And you say: "A-a, if I wanted a story, I would have gone to the library. All I want is my money back, chete."
It seems I'm not so crazy after all. In The Stranger's 2025 Climate Issue, I analysed America's renewed obsession with bunkers, and also confessed that preppers are sounding less and less nuts to me in the devilishly dodgy age of DOGE and a dotty but fearless MAGA king. Had I lost it? Was I overreacting? Do you know the history behind the word "hysteria"? Well, Bethany Jean Clement, Seattle Times' top food critic, is feeling it too. In her post "As Trump tariffs loom, our critic names her top 10 Costco best buys," she goes shopping in preparation for the coming aftermath of the tariffs. Clement writes that America's economic future is, at present, unknown. Even three months in the future is in a fog of uncertainty. What to do? Fill your Costco cart with "imported excellence" that's still affordable. Bethany and I are of the same mind. This is the zeitgeist. The goal is "not to just survive the aftermath but to well wad it with the comforts to which I’m accustomed."
Do you know what we, urbanists, call them? Beg buttons. You press them and wait for the bloody lights to recognize you, a mere pedestrian. But the lights only care about cars. So you press again—still nothing. You beg again and finally the lights turns green and the button commands you to cross the damn street. Well yesterday, unknown hackivists took control of some beg buttons around the city and made them say, when you can finally cross a street, “This is Jeff Bezos. This crosswalk is sponsored by Amazon Prime.” Hackivists, I see where you are coming from, but beware. You just might be putting some ideas into that billionaire's head. (More on this from Nathalie Graham here.)
And this is what the hacked beg buttons are really talking about: "WA Democrats back off wealth tax while pushing $12 billion tax increase." As the saying goes: When you have friends like these, who needs enemies?
All I can say about the weather, which is sadly getting warmer, is that this weekend it will be like that Scottish pop band from the 80s: wet, wet, wet.
So it seems we have found life on another planet. According to NPR, the James Webb Space Telescope recently spotted a planet with the chemical signs of matter that's behaving bizarrely. We—you and I and cats and ants and bacteria—are just like that: matter doing very strange things. Most of the planets we've found circling stars don't act like us; they act like ordinary matter. This planet, K2-18b, looks different. NPR: "K2-18b's atmosphere has either dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, or some combination of the two. On Earth, these are only produced by life, particularly by marine microbes."
Why is it important to look at distant planets at a time like this? Shouldn't we be focused on the shit coming out of the White House? My answer is this: Looking at the stars, or at planets, or at nature here on earth, such as the Great Moose Migration Hannah Murphy Winter described in yesterday's AM. It's of vital importance because it puts us in our place, which is very small indeed. And there is greatness in knowing that you are not the center of the universe; greatness in knowing how small you are in the biological and cosmic drama. Why? Precisely because you know you are small. This is the greatest understanding the universe has to offer. Do you think Musk knows how small he is? Mr. Big Stuff. Who do you think are in a universe with far more galaxies and planets than all of your dreams and schemes.
Speaking of Elon Musk, his company, with a couple of partners, will likely win the contract to build Donald Trump's version of Ronald Reagan's costly but never realized Star Wars, also known as Strategic Defence Initiative. Trump calls his missile defense shield the "Golden Dome." It will require launching "400 to more than 1,000 satellites [that can] sense missiles and track their movement." So, the US is gutting social services to pay a billionaire billions for a pipe dream.
Yes, Trump's tariffs are crashing the economy, but expect MAGA to now blame Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for this mess. Yesterday, he announced that interest rates will remain high because he fears the high tariffs will cause inflation. Today, predictably, Trump went on and on about how Powell's "termination cannot come fast enough."
Get ready for a Trump rage post about Powell. Or worse. bsky.app/profile/acyn...
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) April 16, 2025 at 10:55 AM
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A Port Angeles boy who was reported missing on Tuesday, April 16, was found yesterday afternoon in a "dollhouse on the front porch of [a] home." Clallam County's police officers and a search team with 44 volunteers initially thought "the [10-year-old] boy ran off into the woods." Also, a cougar lurking in the area was brought to their attention. But there he was, all safe and sound in a dollhouse.
I know things are really bad but please don't forget to look at the stars, to marvel at Moose migrations, and to get down to 70s disco from Tunisia.
