Inslee has signed a law making Lunar New Year a state holiday. Don’t get too excited; it doesn’t come with days off from work. Still, it’s good that it’s getting attention.
My favorite part of the festival is always the dragon dance. The Chinese dragon never gets tired. That’s how I see it. It needs two teams of guys carrying it up and down the street in turns, helping it chase that ball — whatever it is — but the dragon itself never gets tired. I think that’s awesome.
For years, we had a guy on the editorial committee here at Real Change, who, every year, pleaded with us to do a story on the Chinese New Year celebrations. We couldn’t ever manage to get him to tell us what we should say about it. It was like, OK, here’s this thousands-year-old festival. What’s the news part about it?
Well, now there’s a news part. For the first time ever in recorded history, it’s now a Washington state holiday, without time off.
Reading the Seattle Times headline “Seattle Mayor Harrell pushes conversions of empty offices to housing” got me interested. I thought it was promising. But it turns out the “push” drops provisions of the Mandatory Housing Affordability program. I don’t understand how that program could significantly get in the way of converting offices to housing. It seems like swatting flies out of the way of oncoming dump trucks.
I don’t see why real estate builders need incentives to build. They’re builders. Isn’t it enough that the office buildings are going empty? Put something in them, like homes. Some building may be involved. So do it. You’re builders; it’s in your job description.
At one point in the article, Harrell is quoted talking about replacing building vacancies with vibrancy. We’re going to get vibrancy. That scares me.
Is it just my imagination or do all Bruce Harrell proposals come down to “let’s stop doing this thing we’ve been doing”?
Around the world in Hong Kong and thereabouts, scientists are trying to harness drinking bird power. You know the drinking bird. It’s that plastic toy that keeps interminably bending down to sip water from a glass. It’s like the dragon. It never gets tired. It turns out the bird gets its power from the energy of evaporating water. The scientists are very excited thinking about all the water in the world that could stand to be evaporated. Think of the untapped resources!
So, they have figured out how to run calculators off this amazing trove of power.
I always thought hydroelectric dams ran on water falling from clouds. Isn’t that energy from evaporation, or do I have that messed up?
Or is it that the dams suck water up out of the ocean, first, before letting it fall back and run turbines?
It reminds me of a friend I have who thinks all the water on Earth falls around it toward the south pole, and we should set up turbines around the equator to get all that energy.
Did you ever think that, if teleportation was real, we could teleport Niagara Falls to Kansas and use it as the center of a fine theme park? I lie awake thinking of things like that. It’s sometimes better than waiting to go to sleep.
Questions for extra credit at the end of this chapter
Make a list of all the holidays there are. Be sure that every day of the year is covered by at least one holiday. When you get done, look at what you did. Really look at it. You’ll thank me for this. And you get a big fat extra point.
The reason given for Seattle office buildings being so empty is usually that Seattleites are all working from home these days. Prove it. Prove they’re really working. I bet they’re watching TikTok. One extra credit for every worker you can find who actually works at home.
I voted in the Washington state primary a week ago Tuesday. Why did I do that? Why does anyone do that? Is it force of habit? “Oh, look, there’s ballots in the mail again. They’re due on a Tuesday. Which Tuesday? Look it up on Google. Oh yeah, the 12th.” Give yourself an extra point for staying the course.
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the March 20-26, 2024 issue.