In Monday’s MISCmedia MAIL: Today will likely see the start of the legal skirmishes to either confirm or reject Seattle’s proposed municipal income tax. Also: Jay Inslee as a “demo singer” for the Dems’ campaign points; more doubts about the state budget deal; another anti-trans “bathroom bill” fails; and the Rep planning a grunge musical.

An Arizona building, thought by some to be “abandoned,” turns out to house a UW-funded breeding operation for lab monkeys, far from local protesters. Closer to home, we discuss the newest drive to rein in police use of “deadly force;” a poll showing more Seattle people like “upzoning;” the role of architecture in keeping libraries busy; and a music legend’s “funny money” scheme.

Thursday’s MISCmedia MAIL starts with good news: Pieces of the ferry Kalakala were saved, and may come soon to an art installation near you. Also: cracks start appearing in the Legislature’s state-budget kludge; STD cases are on the rise; a tiki bar gets targeted by “cultural appropriation” charges; and one guy had a really dumb idea how to get the best view of the fireworks.

Like a lot of our nation’s vital-infrastructure stuff, the century-old Ballard Locks could use a bit of refurbishing. Our post-holiday e-missive additionally examines the eco-threat of microfibers; the short career-life of techies; and why “resistance is patriotic.”

We’ve finally gotten to see the Olympia sausage factory’s freshly-ground state budget, and it’s about as much a mess as you’d expect. Our between-the-holidays missive also brings up a 1st Ave. building with a storied past but not much of a future; Inslee refusing the White House’s voter-suppression drive; a potential threat to many existing homeless shelters; and thoughts by an old Roman about patriotism and its abuse.

We’re still waiting to know all that’s in the last-nanosecond state budget deal. As for things we CAN tell you about this Fri. morn: Ed Murray’s still not running for re-election; original Cobain-made art coming to the Art Fair; more about the young man shot by officers for holding a pen; and a proud anniversary for a proud nation (alas, not ours).

We’ve got a state budget deal! Now we wait to find out what it is. While you wait, read about the start of the city’s new anti-homelessness plan (and its discontents);  orca miscarriages; and Bezos’ non-payment of a non-extant tax.

MISCmedia MAIL waits with the proverbial baited breath to see whether the Legislature can, once again, avoid a budget disaster. Also: high anger at the City Council’s hearing into the Lyles shooting; wildfires come back bigtime; another T-Mobile/Sprint merger snag; and more allegations against the King County sheriff.

Seattle’s higher minimum wage: Boon or Bust? Depends on whose research study you read, and how they set up their criteria. MISCmedia MAIL today also covers a possible state budget breakthrough; reactions to the partial, provisional travel-ban reinstatement; and pictures of the hard-working, often world-weary people harvesting our state’s farm bounty.

The big-big-big Pride Parade couldn’t be stopped by heat, but was briefly paused by an unofficial “entrant,” a Charleena Lyles remembrance. In other MISCmedia MAIL subjects: Another needless shooting death, this time in the suburbs; the days still tick down toward a state-budget crisis; and 70 years since the first “flying saucer” sighting, right here in Wash. State.

The Pride Parade and rally have a different mission this year, as you probably expect. Your big weekend MISCmedia MAIL briefly mentions this, and also touches on still more Charleena Lyles fallout; local reactions to the deliberate disaster that is the health-care repeal plan; the men from our state who helped the CIA craft its torture techniques; and who a Seattle mini-park near a “dump” should be named after (one guess).

Multiple vigils and marches called for justice for Charleena Lyles. Also in MISCmedia MAIL: a labor victory for strippers (that could set a precedent for other “independent contractors”); Teatro ZinZanni redux; another ICE-jail hunger strike; and the long, drawn-out demise of a great local product.

MISCmedia MAIL’s not the first to note that the police slaying of Charleena Lyles came the day after the dedication of Jimi Hendrix Park. In other topics: some Wall Streeters think Amazon/Whole Foods means trouble for Costco; little to no progress toward a state budget; and the sudden revival of Tonya Harding media mania.

The Fremont Solstice Parade, even more than last year, was essentially an anticlimactic epilogue to the hundreds of body-paint bicyclists.

Even the arrival this year of “The Resistance,” a single overriding topic of protest in all its branches and aspects and sub-topics, as the right wing sleaze machine takes near complete control and rushes out an all-fronts attack against literally every good thing in our society (from government aid programs to social civility itself), failed to bring out more volunteer street-theater performers, marchers, musicians, etc.

Last year, there was talk that parade organizers would crack down on the nudes in hopes of attracting more participants in the parade itself, participants who might not want to be part of the same spectacle as all the poons and peens on public pubic display.

That didn’t happen. But the underlying issue remains.

The parade could fade out and die along with the original hippie generation out from which its aesthetic was formed.

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Oh, and the parade got “trolled” by an entrant who showed up with a seven-foot costume puppet of a stereotype black “mammy” figure in a rasta hat.

According to some social-media commenters, the (apparently white) guy who performed in the costume was asked to leave the parade’s Friday-evening prep session. He then crashed the Saturday-afternoon event after it had already started, before again being shooed away.

Still, the Solstice Parade’s organizers have managed for almost three decades to keep motor vehicles, corporations, politicians, and even written signs out of the spectacle. But this thing looked just enough like a regular Solstice giant mascot costume that the guy got to strut it down a large segment of the parade route.

(After all, hippie graphic aesthetics used to include plenty of one-dimensional “ethnic characterizations.”)

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Also troublesome for the parade’s future, it can’t store its floats and costumes in a city-owned warehouse space any more. (Slog) (PI.com)

Friday’s MISCmedia MAIL ponders the Fremont Solstice Parade’s meaning in a year when just about every public act has political import. Also: a beloved fabric-arts store closes; the co-owner of Seattle’s coolest hardware store dies; alt-right dorks come to Evergreen; and a strange floating mega-balloon appears on the Tacoma waterfront.