Thoughts on the re-released ‘Streetwise’; the regional heat-wave death toll climbs; a heat-stricken BC town succumbs to wildfire; Microsoft rebrands itself as ‘the anti-Apple.’

A rare sign of beauty amid the heat-borne misery; it likely won’t get this hot again this year; Councilmember Mosqueda wants to rename the city’s ‘single family’ zones; today’s mask-off day in King County.

Early primary-election votes show several progressives leading, Tim Eyman losing; Durkan and Best don’t want any significant SPD cuts; is Microsoft getting too cozy with the White House?; were violent feds sent to Portland just to appear in campaign ads?; Pat O’Day RIP.

Seafair’s major events axed for this year; record-high state unemployment rate; Portland OKs ‘tax the rich’ measure; what Washington’s big counties need to show before further reopening (and could nursing-home infection rates hold them back?).

Short Run cartoonists depict their social-distanced lives; government relief package isn’t enough to save some small businesses; local used-records king RIP; it’s been a month already and it feels like a decade.

The downtown ferry terminal will go bye-bye; pork farmers halted a big health probe; robots potentially threaten lots of jobs; a ‘hot, nasty summer election campaign’ is almost over.

In another massive e-missive: Death Cab’s tribute to young pipeline-blast victims; charges in a different kind of cyber-theft; no more ‘dress-coding’ in Seattle schools; Amazon’s Dash gets ditched.

Pearl Jam’s ‘Home Shows’ raise $11 mill; competing plans to ‘save’ the Showbox emerge; orca-rescue drive continues; an architect defends the stalled downtown streetcar project.

Seattle’s big, annual arts-travaganzas have come and gone, with subjects of identity and resistance scattered throughout. We touch upon that in Monday’s missive, as well as the sad decline of the hydros; alleged “shaming” harassment at an officially “inclusive” fandom convention; a phony Starbucks “meme” graphic; and how much Nikkita Oliver may have already changed local politics.

Apparently very few Seattle voters have sent in their primary-election ballots. If any of you are among those, get to it, darn it! We also mention an attempt to trash the Northwest’s public-power heritage; the ever-hotter Eastside state-senate race; the vanishing sword ferns; and “Why I Don’t Hate Seafair” part XXVII.

Wednesday’s MISCmedia MAIL doesn’t know any more than you about the sudden closure of the classic Guild 45th and Seven Gables cinemas. We do know a little about another police-brutality settlement; the International District’s “upzone” moving forward; what white liberals don’t “get” about the whole Evergreen State College to-do; and our big, boistrous birthday party (tomorrow, Thursday 6/8/17, at the tony Two Bells!).

In my approaching dotage, I approach at least a slightly less snarky attitude toward Valentine’s Day. And I today discuss the economic clout of “sanctuary cities;” a victory for family-leave advocates; a potential new anti-fossil-fuel initiative; and Mercer Islanders’ sense of transportation privilege.

There was a lot on the water this weekend: The fast boats on Lake Washington, a beached whale at Fauntleroy, and especially the annual Hiroshima remembrance on Green Lake. Additional topics today include the Dead Baby bike spectacle; determining whether anyone’s to blame for the Oso landslide; dying trees statewide; anti-police window stickers; and the Mariners winning big on Griffey tribute weekend.

The biggest weekend of the year is here for both art lovers and Seattle old-timers. We’ve got a link to a guy who explains just why the hydroplane races are still important. We’ve also got a guy who quit running for office but made it to the top-two general election anyway; the need for affordable housing in the ‘burbs; the threat of technological thought-reading; a nascent “co-op” nightclub; and dozens of event listings, art-related and otherwise.

Most of my hip art-world friends have long sneered at Seafair.

Too square.

Too hokey.

Too small-towny.

Too “Family” with a capital F.

Too unlike anything that would be done in NY/LA/SF.

As if those were somehow bad things.

But nowadays, this city needs all the legacy, all the history, and (yes) all the squareness it can keep out of the gentrifiers’ Rolex-wristed clutches.

We need our own homegrown racing sport, rooted in tinkerers building boats around surplus WWII airplane engines.

We need public education, and spectacles that celebrate it.

We need honest shows of support for even the most basic of community functions.

We need to remember the human groups that first made this place what it is.

We need to publicly honor all the peoples that make up this city and this region.

So don’t knock Seafair.

Love it.

(Except the Blue Angels. Feel free to bash them. They’re just too damn militaristic.)