Weather people are predicting that today might be the hottest one of the year. The sun, which will face no opposition from clouds, is set to grill Seattle with temperatures that surpass 90. Yesterday was supposed to be as bad, but, mercifully, it never went beyond the mid-80s. Also the city enjoyed bursts of breezes on Tuesday and Monday (Sunday was just the worst). These breezes were the real deal. Each, though brief, had the power to substantially cool a sweaty body. One such breeze I encountered around 3 pm shook the leaves around me in a way that recalled a famous scene in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece The Mirror. Breezes of this kind have something of the supernatural about them. The come and go like a presence or visit from the other side of this our phenomenal world.
A 4-year-old boy Lynwood got a hold of his father’s glock and shot his mother in the arm, while his father was asleep on the couch. The mother went to Harborview Medical Center with an injury that wasn’t life-threatening. The boy had minor injuries, but didn’t need to be taken to the hopsital. Leaving a gun unsecured and allowing a child to get their hands on it is a felony in Washington. The father was arrested and put behind bars for negligence. The spokesperson for Snohomish County sheriff’s office claimed that the father also owned other guns that were “unsecured in the residence.”
With the world on fire as it is, you’d think Seattle didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about something as innocuous as graffiti. But such is not the case. Our Seattle City Council, which seems to have “world enough and time” like nobody’s business, voted to add more penalties in a pointless war against something that’s as old as the city itself: graffiti. Council Member Bob Kettle had this to say from on high: “Mitigating graffiti is one of the pillars on which we can build a safer, stronger public safety foundation.” What we have here is a politician who’s too thick to “look out any window.”
Speaking of fire, a volcano in Iceland erupted today. It won’t threaten any people or property, so it’s just a seismic show. I miss you so much right now Iceland. And think yourself lucky to be dealing with the flames and smoke of this and that volcano rather than our hardhearted ICE.
A volcano erupted in Iceland early Wednesday, marking the 12th time in four years for a volcanic system near Reykjavik that has been increasingly active.
Read more: https://trib.al/oCBVoVb
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) July 16, 2025 at 6:25 AM
LA dogs are not feeling ICE right now. One day, everything is all “bow-wow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yay”; the next, a bunch of masked characters show up, deport their dear companion and meal ticket, and throw them into an animal shelter where they face a humane death because no one wants you when you are big and grown. All you can do is howl: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I [yelp] by day, but you do not answer, and [yelp] by night, but I find no rest.”
Feds Arrest ICE Protesters in Spokane: It was only a matter of time before Trump started arresting US citizens for doing nothing more than expressing their rights as citizens. The Seattle Times reports that Federal agents arrested and searched the homes of a number people in Spokane who, on June 11, protested ICE’s brazen disregard of the law. Former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart was one of the protesters picked up and locked up by the feds.
There are some who claim that ICE thugs are in it for the money, but, as far as I can tell, the money is not something to write home about. We can then assume that many of these kidnappers are in it because they believe they are providing a social good, like firefighters. They are catching lawbreakers, they are are making Americans safe again. But to think in this way is nothing but madness. Indeed, it recalls a scene in a 5th century BCE play by Sophocles, Ajax.
The scene in Ajax: After losing a competition to Odysseus, Ajax turns murderous and starts tying up and butchering Menelaus, Agamemnon, and other leaders of the Greek army. But Ajax, who (SPOILER ALERT) has been made mad by Athena, is ignorant of the fact that he is just butchering sheep. When Odysseus overhears Ajax boast that he is about to kill him, when in reality he is about to kill a bleating sheep tied to a pole, Odysseus says the strangest and saddest thing: “Yet, I pity Ajax’s wretchedness, though he is my enemy, for the terrible blindness that is upon him. I think of him, yet also of myself, for I see the true state of us that live. We are dim shades and weightless shadows.” Doesn’t this scene describe the predicament of many ICE thugs perfectly? Are they not as bewitched as Ajax? They think they’re slaying villains; we, instead, see them kidnapping ordinary members of our society.
Boeing Troubles Don’t Stop: Now it’s a Sun Country Airlines Boeing 737. It’s engine burst into flames not long after lifting from a Los Angeles International Airport runway. The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport-bound plane was forced to return to the safety of the ground. Yes, Boeing lost its way when its focus became stock prices and not engineering excellence. But the golden period of the company, even with its ups and downs, is the reason why Seattle became a global tech hub. Our city enjoyed an unusually high concentration of scientifically minded people.
Now, I want you to consider the history of Boeing and its economic consequences for Seattle when examining the amount of money Trump is presently pouring into ICE. It’s a whopping $28 billion a year, which means that department “has a budget larger than the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Marshals Service, and Bureau of Prisons combined.” Yes, this is an investment, and what drives capitalism is nothing but investments; but this kind of investment, which can be called carceral Keynesianism, has shallow multiplier effects. The money you give to an ICE thug does not go far beyond them, in space and time. And ICE, as a whole, provides an institutional memory that’s impoverished. Giving money to engineers is a completely different story. Seattle is evidence of this fact. The guards at the detention centers and concentration camps are a dead end. You can’t sing: “We built this city on ICE.” And yet this is all Trump’s economy has to offer the future.
If you want to see the future of capitalist culture, turn to India and Nigeria. China is already old hat. And when these future forces merge, as with this superb new tune (Bollywood meets afrobeats), you know, in the words of the late Craig Mack, there’s “a brand new sheriff that’s in town.”
