A local teen activist explains part of What Must Be Done this Martin Luther King Day. Additional glances today are paid at the still shrinking Eddie Bauer empire; lessons from our past about “how to deal with fascists;” a proposed “quiet zone” for orcas; and bike sharing’s death and non-resurrection.

Following the holiday break we catch up with tales of hospital execs who really don’t want Obamacare to get gutted; the BBC discovering Seattle as a hotbed of the Resistance; Amazon’s potential future with driverless trucks; and the welcome, forthcoming return of King Donut-Teriyaki-Laundromat!

Despite the materialistic and/or post-pagan trappings of the season, the oft re-imagined, re-interpreted figure of Jesus remains at the core of our society’s yearly winter-solstice rituals. And he really is a great guy if you separate what he said and did from what some of his supposed followers have said and done.

Meanwhile, in Friday’s news we’ve got a call for an environmental study on a 15-year-old oil pier; big fines against a payday lender; more “youth jail” dispute developments; and the possible peak/slowdown of the overheated local apartment market.

Some business interests want to turn downtown Seattle into “a 24-hour city.” People walking and shopping and being entertained and high-fiving one another in the streets when the only people who should normally be awake (aside from insomniacs like me) are hungry newborns and their parents. Can this be accomplished; and if so, would we even like it? We also ponder Bill Gates’s strange comparison between the next president and JFK; a temporary win for homeowners who don’t like back-yard cottages; Boeing management proving as indifferent to St. Louis as it is to Seattle; and why Sounders fans don’t watch a parade, they march in it.

Did Seahawks star Doug Baldwin’s testimony bring the “winning edge” when a state task force voted to make police more liable in deadly-force cases? We’ll never know. But we do know about a City Council budget vote; the potential perils of a Canadian oil pipeline; and a quiet end to one of Seattle’s oldest restaurants.

You all know the big story of the day, and how it will have a “half-life” for days and years to come. But we’ve also got more upbeat stuff, like stuff about keeping sewage out of the Sound; a jury’s defiant statement against racist policing; and how “mislabeled” seafood might be better for the planet than the real stuff.

We’ve got a plethora of Halloween weekend events and a few costume-related pleas. We additionally have stuff about more attention given toward the opioid crisis now that upscale white people are in it; Metro scrapping problematic old buses while confronting problematic new buses; the brief life of the “V2” pop-up arts space; Amazon’s grocery ambitions; and the Sounders living to play another day.

Chris Hansen now says he can build a basketball and/or hockey arena without tax $$. Other stuff today:  Google assembles its own e-tail program; more landlords kick out Section 8 tenants; a lawyer turned slam poet; and the Old Spaghetti Factory will serve its last Spumoni in December.

Former local TV news star turned GOP state boss Susan Hutchison defends the indefensible remarks of a certain Presidential candidate. We additionally think about the rival homelessness plans and their implications (real and imagined); saving some of the “ramps to nowhere”; a police-reform plan presented; and the sudden death of an artist/teacher/shaman.

Serious weather’s coming to this corner of the nation (though not nearly as deadly as the weather in the opposite corner). As we wait for the storm to pass (if it even shows here), read up about Amazon moving into space built for that previous “shop at home” king; Sound Transit’s booming popularity; a video-game giant accused of aiding online-gambling sites; a victory for oil-train foes; and more school-funding fuming.

We at #MISCmediaMAIL believe the Northwest autumn isn’t to be endured or survived but savored. We additionally sort out alleged conservative local-media bias; changes at SIFF; not-really-recyclable bags; ethnic emoticons; and a candle that supposedly smells like a “new Mac.”

Seahawks win! Sounders win! Huskies really win! Mariners… well, almost. That all tops a news day that includes a march for racial justice; another march for safer streets; long lines at a bookstore; a gathering of gay-marriage couples (all still together); and “birther” scare tactics coming to Wash. state politics.

As WSU prepares a Hanford museum, local activists propose a unilateral nuclear-weapons scrap. Additional topics this Thursday include a clever local response to a traditional-gender-roles “action fashion” shoot; hydro power’s eco side effects; a drive to “democratize” artificial intelligence; the ascendant Sounders; and a soap-opera master’s final fadeout.

Before the weekend is done, our splendiferous “LOSER” book reissue party (Sunday evening at Vermillion, 11th between Pike and Pine) will occur. But before then you can read about a highly deserving arts-award winner; the case against the “youth jail”; the still-deepening morass that is the municipal homelessness response; the World Trade Organization (remember them?) siding with Boeing; and an idea for a vastly scaled-down walkway aside I-5.

Drone-car proponents want those to eventually be the only vehicles allowed on I-5 from here to the border. (There aren’t enough of the things in existence now to even fill one lane of it, but who’s counting?) More practical topics this day include the predicted “secure scheduling” victory; lessons (un)learned from the last opiate crisis; an upscale bicycle “clubhouse” for the ex-Bauhaus corner; a defense of “transitional” housing; and childhood memories of America’s last logging camp.