One week after I learned that the viaduct replacement tunneling was going on again, the governor suspended it until the contractors convince the state that they can proceed safely. The chair of the Senate Transportation Commission didn’t think the stoppage was necessary. Of course not. He’s the state senator from Yakima, how does a sinkhole big enough to swallow two-dozen dead bull elephants in Pioneer Square represent a threat to him?
Here’s where I have to confess a bias. I happen to work at Real Change. I don’t get paid to write these columns, but they pay me to do other things. Ugly unspeakable things. Things that darken my soul. I count things.
Anyway, they pay me. It’s not much but I’m used to spending it, on food, clothing, medicine. You know, what the Yakima senator might consider high big city living. (“Why don’t you save some of those beans and use them to grow more, lazy big city boy?”) It turns out that Real Change resides less than a block from where the tunnel dig is expected to be in just a few weeks, once it gets going again.
I don’t like the thought that Bertha could cause the earth under my place of work to cave in.
So my bias makes me take a dim view of the Yakima senator’s cavalier attitude toward my well-being.
I wonder how many state senators can you stuff into a hole that’s 35 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 15 feet deep? Well, let’s see, the volume of the average human is 2.5 cubic feet. Let’s credit senators for being above average, volume-wise, so grant them 3 cubic feet each. So Google “35X20X15 divided by 3 equals” and get, holy moly, 3,500 senators!
Well, that’ll do, many times over. There’s room enough for the entire Washington State Legislature, and probably half the state senators and congress-people of the rest of the United States. That could solve a lot of problems, and I’m sure it wouldn’t endanger anyone’s safety. Anyone that matters.
Speaking of dead elephants, vis-á-vis their deadness, and of biases and points of view and points of non-view, a fellow “editor” of this rag has suggested that I talk about how it’s like seeing the world through dark glasses. No, I don’t know what he meant by “it’s.” I’m going with attitude and bias.
You know, “it’s” like a simile like that. I can’t bring myself to explore the simile, it just lies there, staring up at me.
Did you know dead fish see you with their dead eyes? You thought they couldn’t see, didn’t you? Because they’re dead. But they can and they do and they’re judging you from their dead fish vantage points, and you don’t meet their standards.
Unless they’re wearing shades, in which case they’re chill.
Meanwhile, as always speaking from my dark soul and biases above my ears, I really would like it if the city of Seattle would not risk any more of my tax money going down the drain.
I am speaking of the current apparent step-up in the sweeps, aka clean-ups, aka cleansings, of homeless encampments just prior to the annual One Night Count.
The annual count is used in part to determine funding levels for programs designed to help the homeless people who are represented by the counts of each locality.
The count occurs in select places, and the city is conducting sweeps in those select places. That will tend to suppress numbers of homeless individuals counted in those places and can impact funding allocated for services in the area.
It risks grounds for a civil rights lawsuit and class-action civil suit that this city really doesn’t need right now.
Don’t we have enough problems? Should we now spend our taxes to support yet another army of lawyers? Aren’t the lawyers who are already lined up to keep us from having to pay for Bertha’s problems making enough money?