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Jobs, Journalism, Justice

Seattle

Study indicates spreading out of shelter residents helped save lives early on

by Ashley Archibald | September 30th, 2020

When you check into a traditional homeless shelter, you’re likely to encounter one of two scenarios: mat-on-the-floor, where people stretch out for the night on thin mats, tightly bunched together, or the bunk-bed configuration.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Homes for the homeless | Say her name

by Ashley Archibald | September 30th, 2020

Homes for the homeless

King County Executive Dow Constantine unveiled the 2021-2022 budget proposal that includes $400 million to create housing for chronically homeless individuals, funded by a new sales tax.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Seattle Council holds firm on budget rebalancing

by Ashley Archibald | September 30th, 2020

The City Council voted to override a mayoral veto for the second time in less than two months, moving forward with their 2020 budget revision that includes what proponents characterize as “modest” cuts to the Seattle Police Department.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Culture

Streaming to stay sane

by Michelle Galluzzo | September 30th, 2020

Almost all King County events are canceled, so we’re listing streaming events for optimal physical distancing

October 1–11

Social Justice Film Festival

Social Justice Film Institute, Northwest Film Forum and Meaningful Movies: online event; $5–125, all ages

tinyurl.com/y2q6d28f

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Features

The womb is a collective underworld

by Kamna Shastri | September 30th, 2020

Hanako O’Leary’s art dares viewers to question life, death and femininity

The womb is a place of birth and death, holding incredible power to create and destroy. But rarely, if ever, does society want to embrace this truth, instead policing the choices and opportunities available to womxn and womb-carrying individuals. Artist Hanako O’Leary is fearless and bold in her meditation on the possibilities of the womb, feminism and “the underworld” — themes she explores through three-dimensional clay and mixed-medium sculptural work.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

’We must be courageous in demands for investment in making our communities whole’

by Ann-Derrick Gaillot | September 30th, 2020

Since her election to the US House of Representatives, Omar has made a name for herself as a key progressive in American politics, while facing xenophobic, racist and sexist vitriol from the right. As a leader in affordable housing reform and loyalist of the Green New Deal, she answered questions from the International Network of Street Papers.

Over the course of her first term in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar has been a fierce advocate for the nation’s vast working class. And her pushes for progressive reforms have been arguably most urgent and forward-thinking when it comes to the country’s ever-growing housing crisis. Back in April, as the COVID-19 pandemic was first beginning to push American social systems to their breaking points, Omar proposed what some deemed a too-radical piece of legislation calling for the waiving of rent and mortgage payments until the pandemic is over.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Book review

Does Jeanine Cummins’ ‘American Dirt’ step over a borderline?

by Edie Lau | September 30th, 2020

The controversy surrounding the book’s publication has merit, but it’s a good read, nonetheless

I’ll just say it straight up: I liked “American Dirt” very much. Jeanine Cummins is a helluva writer.

“American Dirt” is a harrowing fictional story of a mother and her young son fleeing for their lives from a drug lord in Mexico. It’s a grim topic. I didn’t expect to have such a strong reaction to it. Not liking the book, or finding it mediocre, would have been easier.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

Opinion

The Jewish High Holidays

by Rabbi Olivier BenHaim | September 30th, 2020

We, Jews, just finished celebrating our High Holidays. These started with Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, and closed — 10 days later — with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Associated with these Holidays is a poem from the Torah portion called HaAzinu. Amidst this poem is a particularly salient verse:

He found him in a desert land, in a desolate howling void. He surrounded him, He gave him understanding, He guarded him as the apple of His eye. (Deut. 32:10)

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And robots. Fear them

by Dr. Wes Browning | September 30th, 2020

Some cheerleading is in order. There’s little chance the national election will come down to one state locked in recounting votes, as in Florida in 2000. The most likely scenario is that by Nov. 20 or so, after mail-in ballots have been counted everywhere they need to be, the electoral college tally will be clearly for one candidate, and there won’t be grounds for appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn any state’s determination of their results.

Read more in the Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2020 issue.