Seattle Trip Report (minus Seattle per se), Part I

Our precious children apparently cannot be exposed to reality and, therefore, our trip to Seattle skipped the parts of Seattle that have made the news recently. We stayed at an elite Courtyard by Marriott next to Lake Union in hopes of avoiding some of Seattle’s, um, more colorful characters.

Stickers on lamp posts by the hotel:

We went for breakfast to a Halal bagel shop, Toasted. According to the web site, the owners of the shop selling a baked item created by Polish Jews are “Murat from Istanbul and Jaafar from Iraq” (this isn’t cultural appropriation?). The merch sales at the shop help pay to increase the number of immigrants in the U.S., an odd thing for Seattleites to support in my opinion given that we were never able to complete one trip anywhere near the city without getting stuck in horrific traffic. Even a trip from Sea-Tac to downtown aat 11:30 pm on a weeknight was delayed because the Uber driver couldn’t reach us through the horrific traffic at the airport. The average resident of Seattle loses 87 hours per year to traffic jams (source), equivalent to two weeks of full-time work and, therefore, if the country weren’t as jammed, he/she/ze/they could presumably take an additional two weeks of vacation and still be just as productive.

Speaking of immigrants, one stated reason for filling the U.S. with low-skill migrants is to provide cheap labor for enterprises such as the above bagel shop and, also, for Uber and Lyft drivers who won’t mind spending hours in traffic jams. We already know that AI is coming for those driving jobs. How long will it be before an Optimus-style robot can do at least half of the work in the bagel shop?

Next stop: Museum of History and Industry. It’s $25 to enter, but free to anyone who presents an EBT card (which never expires because, apparently, hardly anyone ever gets off EBT/SNAP). The museum can also be free for the Latinx:

The Open Doors program works with organizations that serve communities who have historically been excluded from museum spaces. These communities include, but are not limited to, Black, Native American, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Asian, refugee, immigrant, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and people with low and/or no-income.

Through this program, organizations or community groups can reserve a free group visit, or receive admission passes to be distributed to their participants for use on their own schedule.

An 1889 tugboat is parked out front:

We’re informed that almost any woman who holds a job in 2026 is a “trailblazer” and “breaker of the glass ceiling”. It turns out that Seattle had a female mayor for about four years starting in 1924:

(Too bad we can’t get her back to implement my neo-Prohibition schemes!)

The museum reminds us that World War II wasn’t a time of maximum racial sensitive here in the U.S.: “Salvage Scrap to Blast the Jap”.

There’s a reasonably comprehensive history of Boeing and its founder, William Boeing. Left out: Mr. Boeing’s history as the developer of real estate with a race-based restriction. For electrical engineers, the reminder that Fluke has been based in the Seattle area for most of its life would warm the EEs’ hearts if they had hearts:

AI enthusiasts will appreciate Seattle-style AI (Microsoft Bob):

Perhaps explaining the low birth rate among native-born Democrats, the gift shop reminds those passionate about abortion care that pregnancy is unhappy news:

The book section puts Gay Seattle and a pro-Hamas work right next to each other:

(This would become a recurring theme throughout Washington State, i.e., simultaneous advocacy for 2SLGBTQQIA+ and Hamas-ruled “Palestine”.)

A University of Washington book on the subject of how immigrant plants “compete for space with native plants”, marketed to residents of a migrant-rich city with an “affordable housing crisis”:

A couple of books on how to walk in the woods while not being a white male:

A book on how to be gay and Asian at the same time:

Some items relating to righteousness in general:

Although the museum’s collection of historical photos shows men designing, building, and flying airplanes, the gift shop reminds us that building airplanes was a primarily female activity during World War II:

(ChatGPT says that the majority of workers were men and that the vast majority of highly skilled jobs in aircraft production, e.g., machinists, were held by men (probably over 90 percent).)

From the museum, we headed to Capitol Hill, which is where I had a 2019 epiphany: Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? Diversity is our strength, but if you think that All Lives Matter rather than Black Lives Matter, “Don’t Come In”:

Note that the above photo including a trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag was taken on May 21, i.e., pre-Pride. Speaking of Pride, the local bank wants customers to pay their respects to Rainbow Flagism before engaging in any business:

Let’s hope that they have fat bank accounts because gasoline throughout Washington State was about 1.5X the cost of what we pay in Florida ($6.20/gallon was the most common price at name-brand stations):

To be continued…