Tag: politics

by jad

Seattle: “It’s a City”

The other day was the second time in a row that I’ve heard a dig made at Seattle by a band on tour, and the first time was pretty direct: “if you’re born and raised in Seattle, that sucks for you.” That time, I laughed and waved my middle fingers in the air as the crowd cheered. This second time, the frontwoman was actually starting to say something nice, recalling how they’d recorded two albums and lived here for a month each time: “Seattle’s nice,” she offered, but voices in the back started to jeer and say “it’s alright…” Everyone … Continue reading “Seattle: “It’s a City”” →

by jad

Transit Equity Day: RR x TRU

I want to use this last post of a gorgeous bus stop from my time in California as an opportunity to ask for your financial support of @RidersRightsLB. Next Saturday is #TransitEquityDay, and, to coincide with this occasion, the #Seattle Transit Riders Union has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support a mutual aid initiative that RR is coordinating in #Lebanon. I’ve put a link where you’d expect to find it on my profile. Please consider supporting mobility justice in Lebanon during an extremely difficult economic and political time there. The parallels we are drawing between our two very different contexts are deliberate. Rosa Parks and … Continue reading “Transit Equity Day: RR x TRU” →

by jad

#Route101: San Francisco / Jenin

The air feels heavy with many things today, so I thought I’d share this, from Clarion Alley, as a reminder of sorts, or maybe just a laugh, if you’re in that mood, instead. x San Francisco himself at the Mission Dolores Basilica, right next to the original Misión San Francisco de Asís. The Basilica and a nearby park get their name from the “Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores,” or Our Lady of Sorrows Creek. x x x x I haven’t posted anything political in a very long time, and the awful thing is that I’m moved to post … Continue reading “#Route101: San Francisco / Jenin” →

by jad

September Estrangement Series

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing an assortment of #analogphotography from recent happenings and wanderings. This set’s from a staff retreat I was on earlier this month, my third time on this former military base. The first slide’s taken with a #Holga135 on #fujifilm200; the second’s almost the same shot taken on my phone. I greatly enjoyed my pre-dawn and early morning walks and felt like I’d completed some kind of cycle by being here, having sat with hesitation at the threshold of belonging the last time I was in this place. I’ve walked across now. I’m there. x The last night of … Continue reading “September Estrangement Series” →

by jad

Dog Days/Dead Media

Today has been the wildest day for technology, with copiers falling apart, messages not going through, PDFs mysteriously rendering darker, and emails landing in spam mid-thread; so if Mercury isn’t in retrograde, it really, really ought to be. I even posted this before I was ready. Sigh. Astrology’s connection to my “style” has come up a couple of times in the past few of days; one friend zeroed in on my Aquarian bent (“a bit cerebral in your aesthetics. edgy, understated and clean. futuristic”) while another noted the broadly #crabcore vibe (“Cancer Mercury explains your posts, your memory for so much like … Continue reading “Dog Days/Dead Media” →

by jad

Tacoma Exposures

This pavilion is known as the #Fuzhou Ting, after the sister-city in China that funded and helped construct this structure in #Tacoma‘s Chinese Reconciliation Park. According to ChinaCulture.org, “all pavilions described as Ting have this in common: they have columns to support the roof, but no walls. In parks or at scenic spots, pavilions are built on slopes to command the panorama or on lakeside to create intriguing images in the water. They are not only part of the landscape but also belvederes from which to enjoy the scenery.” This park is easy to miss when driving by, so I was pleasantly surprised … Continue reading “Tacoma Exposures” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Palouse Falls, June 28

Getting here was incredibly rough on our poor little hybrid sedan; the road into the park is grooved like sawtooth, which is great for winter visits, I guess, but absolutely bone rattling for city slickers in a ten-year-old car like ours. I genuinely expected parts to start falling off the chassis like some Hannah-Barbara cartoon. But we made it and were greeted by the most incredible lunch spot and view. Palouse is the official state waterfall and is significant to me mostly for what isn’t here; I love that Wikipedia even includes a whole section about it: “In 1984, the … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Palouse Falls, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Priest Rapids Dam, June 28

The genesis of this whole itinerary was my reading about Smohalla, a spiritual leader of the Wanapum people and prophet of the Washani (Dreamer) religion. After yesterday’s extended quote from Eugene Smalley, I want to share a little of what Smohalla had to say: “The work of the white man hardens soul and body. Nor is it right to tear up and mutilate the earth as white men do. … We simply take the gifts that are freely offered. We no more harm the earth than would an infant’s fingers harm its mother’s breast. But the white man tears up large tracts … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Priest Rapids Dam, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Hanford Works, June 28

Somewhere past this barrier is the B Reactor, where plutonium was manufactured for more than a quarter of a century and was used “in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in ‘Fat Man,’ the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.” By 1966, the N Reactor came on and this death factory started to produce electricity, so up until that moment, the massive amount of energy produced here through the splitting of atoms and collision of neutrons “served no social purpose,” as Richard White so poignantly puts it. He goes on: “Everything at Hanford seemed … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Hanford Works, June 28” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Ellensburg, June 27

The guy at Brick Road Books was full of stories. He told me about the biker gangs that congregate at Palace Cafe and the many permutations of place names that change with the tides of patronage. He also talked about the kind of outside real estate development that made the city what it is today. His way of speaking was hazy and circuitous, kinda like a Kerouac novel, so it was hard to grasp everything he was saying about the dynamics between locals and outsiders trying to make this place more attractive, but I do remember that, at one point, … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Ellensburg, June 27” →