What we experienced today is the kind of weather that those who love summer and those who love winter (such as myself) can enjoy together. The sun is not beating on us, and the breezes are just wonderful and so numerous. The trees everywhere are animated. They are talking among themselves. Leaves to leaves. Can I brush your branch or trunk? Damn, I already have. Forgive me. I could not help myself. You know me. It's not like me. It's all of this air moving me. Did you know yellow is the color of sun rays?

Falling from the gigantic and loaded table of Amazon? Crumbs for a Lazarus known as Seattle's housing affordability crisis. This time it's $23 million. Some of the money will go El Centro de la Raza's development of an "87-unit project in Columbia City."

By the way, I'm no fan for the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. I do not believe in the pie sky. When you die, you actually do die. Recall that letter Max Horkheimer wrote to Walter Benjamin on March 16, 1937: "Past injustice has occurred and is completed. The slain are really slain ... If one takes total lack of closure entirely seriously, one must believe in the Last Judgment ...." Horkheimer concludes that "it is not the happiness but the unhappiness that is sealed by death." I call that way of thinking realism. This story of a dead Lazarus chilling next to Father Abraham while the dead rich man is roasting in hell is too sad to believe. You will only find heaven on earth and in time.  

Seattle history today:

The Supreme Court ruling on Nance v. Ward is interesting. This body of the American government granted a Georgia death row inmate the right to be executed by a firing squad rather than by lethal injection. How fucking far this decision is from the debate about the death penalty, which many, such as myself, see as nothing but barbaric. We are only left with the debate of how to exit. 

If you want to know how I feel about it:

Yes, Sean Penn attended today's Jan. 6 hearing. He sat with police officers who faced Trump's coup attempt. The good news is that America is paying attention to this process, and most Americans think Trump should be punished for doing everything in his power to dynamite American democracy. But the thing that the mainstream media fails to point out is that the three months the president of the United States—the center of political power—wasted plotting, calling election officials, and forcing recounts all happened in the middle of a pandemic, the middle of a national emergency. Our hospitals were collapsing, the dead were often stuck in coolers for days, and sick were fighting for oxygen in isolation. Much of this nightmare is still not over. 

Today's big Jan 6 hearing revelation:

Liz Cheney is now asking Wyoming Dems to switch parties and help her in the August 16 primary. The Hill reports that her "campaign website offers instructions for how voters can change their party affiliation in order to vote in the Republican primary and even directs them to a Wyoming voter registration change form." Cheney is also "sending out mailers to Wyoming Democratic voters with information about voting in the Republican primary." I honestly wish Dems had her kind of passion. 

I wanted to write about those face-fucking mites, but Hannah Krieg beat me to the story. As a consequence, I have to share the next-best science story this week, which concerns the gigantic planet of Jupiter. Some scientists suspect that it got so big by eating other planets. Time Out: "An article in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics says that the planet may have become its ginormous, monstrous self by eating other planets." Which philosopher said food/eating is robbery? 

Let's end PM with the boom of a Brazilian hiphop track, "AI Preto":