John Waters on the cover of Town & Country wasnt on my 2021 bingo.
The news today is bleak so let's ease into it by starting, uh, here. John Waters on Town & Country wasn't on my 2021 bingo card. Town & Country

I keep giggling at this new Town & Country cover featuring celebrity turd John Waters. "Being on the cover of Town & Country is a surprise to me, in a great way," Waters told the magazine. "It’s another irony in a life of ironies. My mother would be very happy." Just a few months ago he was dropping a Sub Pop EP about Pasolini. The dude has range.

Speaking of subs and pops: Joe Biden is attempting to calm tensions with France after French President Emmanuel Macron withdrew ambassadors from the US and Australia last Friday. The remarkable withdrawal followed the surprise announcement that Australia is working with the US and UK to build nuclear submarines to push back against China's claim on the South China Sea. The move snubs a long-standing defense agreement between France and Australia and has the UN Secretary General warning of a new Cold War between China and the US.

Biden will attempt to smooth things over at the United Nations tomorrow: He's got a lot of smoothing-over to do.

What Rich said on Friday:

Not to be this guy, but if Trump pulled some shit like this on America's "oldest ally," there'd be furious op-eds running in every paper. In any event, this whole thing is all about increasing a belligerent posture toward China, which doesn't strike me as the coolest move. We just exited a war, people. Give it a minute.

Do something about this, too, Joe:

White House Secretary Jen Psaki called the images "horrific" but wouldn't say if the US planned to reduce deportations of Haitian migrants. The death toll from Haiti's 7.2-magnitude earthquake in August was over 2000, and the country is struggling to recover.

We know an eviction tsunami is coming: We're just waiting on the earthquake to trigger it. That quake could come at the end of the month. Washington state's "housing stability emergency order" will expire soon (9/30), setting off a long-anticipated massive wave of evictions across the state. Seattle Times' data guy Gene Balk has some new numbers to underscore what the eviction nightmare might look like in Seattle:

An estimated 60,000 Seattle-area renters, ages 18 and older, said their household was behind on the rent in the most recent release of the Census Bureau’s ongoing Household Pulse Survey program. The survey was conducted from Aug. 18-30.

Even more troubling: Of those 60,000 renters, most owe multiple months’ worth of payments to their landlord. Only about 13,000 were just one month behind, according to the data.

More here.

Friendly reminder: A vast majority of Washingtonians support a rent control and tenant protection initiative, according to a 2020 survey.

I'm Team Ricard: I don't watch Survivor, but I'm rooting for 31-year-old Ricard Foyé this season, which premieres this Wednesday. The popular TikToker lives in Sedro-Woolley, Washington (I had to look it up on a map) with his husband and two children.

Breaking: Federal Way police said a "male suspect displaying a weapon" was "shot by law enforcement" this afternoon.


Q13 reported that the "man was trying to steal someone's car at gunpoint at the Elephant Car Wash near Pacific Highway South and 316th Street," also based on police statements. The police went on to say that no one else was injured except for the suspect, who was taken to Harborview. That's about all we know at the moment.

A new Sea.Citi survey asked 467 local tech workers about their attitudes on remote work, and the results aren't surprising. Here's Geekwire: "The majority of Seattle tech workers don’t expect to ever return to their offices full time and the effects of that transition could alter everything from commercial real estate, to what social issues tech workers spend their time and money on, to downtown’s status as a business district."

Not a lot of red.
Not a lot of red. Sea.Citi

Spooky season is here: The final trailer for Halloween Kills dropped today. It comes out on October 15 in theaters and on Peacock.

It looks like equipment crushed and killed a construction worker at the new downtown convention center addition this afternoon: Seattle Fire said the person was dead at the scene by the time they arrived, reported Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries will investigate the death. "According to Seattle Fire radio updates, a lift reportedly fell from the second level of the construction site near 9th and Pine," per CHS.

The good news is COVID-19 hospitalizations are trending downward statewide, hospital leaders said today. The bad news is COVID-19 deaths are up—which is part of the reason why more hospital beds are becoming free. Bleak.

The 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic killed about 675,000 Americans: The COVID-19 pandemic will crush those numbers.


"U.S. deaths are running at over 1,900 a day on average," reported AP.

Pack your silver bullets and go outside to admire the moon tonight. As Matt mentioned in Slog AM this AM, there's a full moon brewing, coinciding with the Japanese moon-viewing festival tsukimi (æœˆăż). The Seattle Japanese Garden recently celebrated the holiday while holding a haiku writing contest with Haiku Northwest. Here's a winning one from David Takami:

wonder how to dress / for a moon viewing party? / the koi wear white, gold