A peaceful, pro-social May Day; Daniel Ramirez wins in court (for now); the newest threat to local salmon; the tragedy behind Rachel Dolezal’s story.

Connecting the early UK female punks to the Oly riot grrrls; counting every native plant and animal here; what’s certain to happen on May Day.

The #Enough protests show what’s right with Those Kids Today; the Amazon angle to the Toys “R” Us demise; still more Alexie reactions; how Seattle’s Capitol Hill ‘gayborhood’ grew and shrank.

To start off your week: Women’s March scenes; local comix legend dies; getting a taste of dementia; tech-biz sexism’s even worse than some imagine.

To start your week after a big-news weekend, read about MLK’s real message & its relevance; Cliff Avril defending Haiti’s honor; how Hawaii’s safe (for now); and a local/national sports legend RIP.

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)

In MISCmedia MAIL today: Nope, no real “anarchist” violence this May Day (at least in Seattle), just some right-wingers acting all scary n’ stuff. Also: Remembering Mike Lowry; new life for a legendary gay bar; the city’s income tax scheme moves forward; and class in identifying “fake news.”

Another month, another MISCmedia MAIL, and another set of May Day protests. Let’s make this one inclusive instead of destructive, ‘K? We also discuss the recent Punk Rock Flea Market; the Folklife Fest’s serious fiscal woes; one thing that could halt Amazon’s big growth; and a “salmon cannon.”

As the GOPocalypse just drags on with stupid move after scary move and vice versa, we keep our MISCmedia MAIL virtual eye firmly focused on the Here. And on this day our eye sees an online “educational” time-waster all about geology and earthquakes; a revised “soda tax” concept that would stick it to the Sparkling Ice drinkers as well as the Coke/Pepsi crowd; refugees afraid to even go to the doctor; Amazon’s massive payroll growth; and the usual hundreds of weekend event listings.

A lot more thoughts, and links, about the bigger than big Womxn’s March here. We’ve also got good news for Belltown historic preservation; a “virtual reality visit” with some of the homeless; and more speculation about D.B. Cooper.

Well, that was certainly a relief.

It was exactly what we all needed.

A massive, clear, emphatic statement of NO! to the authoritarian DC regime—that was also a YES! to a completely different way of looking at, and doing, things.

A way with real “family values”.

A way that values people, even if they’re not billionaire campaign contributors.

Now comes the hard part: translating the Womxn’s Marches’ inclusive, positive alternative worldview into specific short- and long-term actions; in DC, in every state capital, in every Congressional and Legislative district. Nobody left behind.

I’ve been particularly obsessing about one thing Madonna said at the DC rally: “Welcome to the revolution of love.”

Could Bikini Kill’s “Revolution Girl Style Now” be about to come true?

Now that would-be arena builder Chris Hansen can’t buy two blocks of a little-used city street, he says his plan will go forward, but how? Also for your Tuesday perusal: The Lusty Lady space won’t host the Punk Rock Flea Market after all; the big housing levy’s going to the ballot; a little music/art space closes; an old-school local rock promoter dies;  and more May Day anarchist aftermath.

Welcome to Viageddon! And to another potential May Day of window-bustin! We also view a City attempt to keep snooping into garbage; a potential partial breakthrough in the Sodo arena fracas; drones maybe getting too close to whales; and the usual gazillion weekend activities including Indie Bookstore Day.

By now, everybody and her brother has said something online, in print, or on the air about the two Black Lives Matter protesters who took over a rally at Westlake Park, thus preventing Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders from making one of his three scheduled Seattle speeches this past Saturday.

My own thoughts, such as they are:

• Yes, the BLM message needed to be said on Saturday, and in as many places and times as possible. The white liberals of places like Seattle have for too long been primarily concerned with what could be seen, rightly or wrongly, as white people’s issues.
• Yet, by disrupting the proceedings and refusing to give the mic back, the protesters risked creating one more example of the American Left devouring itself in internal squabbles. Indeed, conservative sites had a figurative field day with that interpretation.
• YET, there were ways the protesters could have challenged Sanders (and the Seattle white “progressives” in the Westlake audience) to take the BLM message as seriously as it needs to be taken, without alienating the people with whom they were attempting to communicate. The protesters, and the audience, could both have done better.
• I’m NOT asking the protesters to shut up. Just the opposite: I’m asking them to make their protests more effective.
• We need action, not just words (not even just angrier words). We need to build solidarity, not superiority; purposefulness, not piety.
• Please don’t let Black Lives Matter get turned into just another lefty ideological purity test. It’s far, far too important for that.

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Slog has the basic story of the Bernie Sanders rally that wasn’t; plus thoughts about the event from State Sen. Pramila Jayapal.

Sanders DID get to speak at a $250 a head fundraiser at the Comet (Capitol Hill Seattle), and later to 15,000 (the biggest local political rally in five years) at Hec Ed (Joel Connelly).

Then on Sunday, Sanders spoke to 19,000 at the Portland TrailBlazers’ arena. (AP via KOIN)

Another bright mid-June day, another Fremont Solstice Parade.

As usual, it featured wordless performances expressing “political” notions of Good vs. Evil.

Shell’s arctic platform and its noble “kayaktivist” opponents were among the principal tableaux of this type.

But there were others as well. Legendary local artist Carl Smool created a kinetic statement about big-money politics and the notion of “corporate personhood.”

A banner decried the “school to prison pipeline.”

A schoolmarm tied up in ropes signified dreary, “to the test” education.

It’s hard to tell from this angle, but these pall bearers are carrying a coffin adorned with the faces of black children and flags of African countries.

But also as usual, there were plenty of other spectacles depicting an affirmation-of-life spirit.

This includes the parade’s famous nudes, on and off of bicycles.

The body, revealed but still adorned, in a non-sexualized “family” context, is the ultimate example of the “Good” half of the parade’s dichotomy.

Many people, including myself and my half-namesake Kenneth Clark, have pontificated on the meaning of the unhidden human body in modern societies. For now, let’s simply say it symbolizes aspects of the Solstice Parade community’s ideals for life: “natural,” free-flowing, post- (or pre-) industrial, un-commercialized, un-stigmatized, un-pressured.

And impracticable for modern urban environs, except on special occasions and in special circumstances.