A local Af-Am activist says we shouldn’t try to go back to some perceived past golden age of the U.S., but to create a more equitable country at last. We also view MLK and pro-school-funding rallies; Boeing’s (and American industry and labor’s) racist past; a strange Amazon request to the FCC; and Seattle having one-quarter of the world’s very-richest people.

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.

Besides our big book announcement (see below), we’ve got word about the Snoqualmie River “ice circle”; local pols defending health care; an opioid near-death seen up close; the death of a transit advocate; and lots of MLK Weekend activities.

Another endangered tree-dwelling critter is the locus of another call for protecting forest habitats. Further subjects in this installment include claims of “green” big-computing centers; a change at a local alt-media mainstay; light-rail station escalators still too-often broke; and a beloved Capitol Hill eatery dies (again).

We finally have something to look forward to this year! (Two things, if you count the possibility of a little snow on Tuesday.) Additional topics include a local eco-activist’s part of a global effort to keep once-futuristic electronic gadgets out of dumps and landfills; the just-started and already deadlocked Legislature; how urban growth affects plant/animal evolution; and Teatro ZinZanni’s site getting sold off.

Pramila Jayapal did her best to derail the Electoral College vote’s certification after it was already too late, alas. But it’s never too late to join the Resistance. Or to read today’s e-missive about the next stages in police reform; how and why white liberals should learn to “talk about race;” some “dangerously pure” street drugs; and treating depression with a video game.

Video evidence shows that police-shooting victim Che Taylor was left to bleed on the ground for almost eight minutes. We also discuss a potentially misguided effort to industrialize a suburb; big sign-ups for the local Women’s March; a girls’ school adding boys (in a separate facility); Korean fashion coming to town; and the usual dozens of weekend activity listings.

A local musician/artist became a trolling target during the ridiculously false (even more so than most) far-right conspiracy known as “pizzagate.” In more rational discourse, we explore the breakdown of bipartisanship in the Legislature (even before the session’s start); more complications toward police reform; Amazon’s apparel expansion; and another beloved local figure needing help.

As a safety-net-hostile, ethics-hostile Congress prepares to convene, we continue to focus on local stuff, including another dead orca; state Sen. Baumgartner’s latest power-grab attempt; Amazon bashed for, well, just about everything; and fire trucks crashing into each other.

I think pretty much all of us (even Sounders FC and Husky football fans) would consider this past year to have been, overall, a dud, a bomb, a Dumpster® fire; with even scarier days looming ahead. Nevertheless, we have news items to discuss in the here-n’-now, such as St. Mark’s Cathedral calling bigotry a sin; the pre-upzoning U District as America’s most competitive housing market; Mt. Rainier as one of the world’s “most dangerous volcanoes;” and dozens of places to go on the big night.

Our Thursday e-roundup concerns a Mexican-born Seattle artist with a new twist on Day of the Dead iconography; a new phone area code for the region; a man who allegedly held his own family hostage with a bow and arrow (among other things); one more Amazon skyscraper site; and yet another iconic figure’s demise.

In our midweek missive: An activist on how white “allies” can work for racial justice without, you know, taking everything over; park-and-ride lots’ popularity; still hyper-inflating home prices; good news for Queen City Grill diners; and yet another tragic celebrity death.

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.

I still disagree with the longstanding lefty meme that everybody outside “our” subculture is a fascist. And, I still insist we have to drop that notion if anything good is to survive. In more news-y news, there’s a condo tower planned for the International District, a little real-estate paperwork fee that does a lot for housing; two teenage boys implicated in the Mt. Vernon cop shooting; and an idea to build more Space Needles! (But not necessarily more Chihuly galleries.)

Here comes the solstice, whether you believe in days getting brighter or not. Further subjects this day: whether to tear down some of Seattle’s seawalls; Hanford-developed biofuel from sewage; the uphill drive facing Inslee’s tax plan; a defaced portrait of a black musician; and a Time magazine prophecy proven true more than 20 years later.