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The whole idea of a Government Shutdown seems a bit absurd at this point. Where is this government that’s been shut down? Do we even still have something that can be called, without triggering a chuckle, a government? Do you call a government a single man who, at his desk in the White House, pumps out executive orders and repeatedly claims the country’s major cities, which account for the main part of its population, are the military’s new enemy, the enemy within? How do you shut down something that has, by all appearances, already been shut down? And yet the mainstream press continues to float in the dream of a world that is no longer with us in reality. In the manner of someone mumbling in their sleep, our popular commenters ask: Who will be hurt more by the shut down? The Dems? The GOP?
NBC News: “The government shut down last night, and the blame game started before the clock struck midnight. In the final hours, the two parties traded insults rather than serious proposals. It’s unclear where they go from here.” Sorry, but we are not in 2024 anymore. Indeed, federal workers have been ordered by the president to blame this mess on the Dems.
Congressional Democrats, known for their pro-government posture and defense of the federal workforce, have rallied around a strategy of refusing to fund the government unless GOP leaders grant concessions on health care spending.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) October 1, 2025 at 6:30 AM
I’m sitting here at The Stranger office. It’s 4 pm and the last day of September. We are making plans for future issues and posts. The editor, the news editor, the arts editor, the raw-dog joke about five pumps. But my mind is not here with them and the other writers around the crowded, third-floor table but outside in the sky, which has lots of huge and dark clouds gathering from the west. I have not seen clouds like this in forever. They have about them the air of an army that’s arriving with fresh reserves and supplies to a long and brutal battle that the opposing side was on the verge of claiming victory. Summer is finally done, these mighty and darkish clouds say to me. We are here now. You are safe now. The rain began falling when I left the office.
Real rain promises to rule today. It’s 7 am and I can see, here in Columbia City, rain falling on the planes headed to the airport in SeaTac, on the trains heading to Lynnwood, and on the heads of people walking their dogs or walking to their jobs. The experts expect not only a very wet middle of the work week, but also “gusty winds and isolated lightning.” Temperatures will not rise above 66. Seems like a mighty long time since we experienced a day like this. Hello stranger.
This is from a recent email sent from Sara Nelson’s headquarters. “Dear Friend: I need your help to tell voters the truth about this race. I’ve delivered results on Seattleites’ top concerns—affordability, public safety, and moving the needle on homelessness — and my opponent will take us backward.” Move the needle? Does Nelson see homelessness as a broken record? These broken people? These skipping people? Or maybe this is a reference to the cover for Sir Mix-a-lot’s debut album Swass:
Last Friday, a 70-year-old woman found herself “pinned between an elevator and the floor inside a Chinatown-International District apartment building.” This nightmare did not end until firefighters arrived and disassembled the elevator car. The elderly woman is presently recovering from what nearly became the last moments of her life.
I mean, think about this. Right now, for the first time in my life, I have no idea what the employment numbers are in the United States. No idea what the inflation rate is. No idea of the GDP. The government under Trump is no longer providing real numbers. “U.S. GDP expanded at a strong 3.8% pace in second-quarter revision,” reports Market Watch. 3.8 percent is a pure fantasy. They have just said 2.8 percent percent for a sprinkle of realism. One thing I was told about lying is to always put the spice of some truth in it, but no such effort is being made here. “Trump touts $9 trillion in new U.S. investment. The numbers don’t add up.” No kidding. That is the GDP of Germany and Japan combined. And so, at present, the state of the US’s economy is completely in the dark.
A 6.9 magnitude earthquake that violently shook Cebu, Philippines on Tuesday at 10:50 pm our time has so far claimed 69 lives. The officials in that region have “declared a state of calamity,” and expect to find more and more dead people in the rubble.
At least 69 people were killed in Cebu Province by the 6.9-magnitude earthquake in the Philippines — including 10 in a village built as a haven for survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan more than a decade ago.
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) October 1, 2025 at 6:40 AM
Let’s return to the warzone that is Portland, Oregon. There, military helicopters are rattling the nerves of ordinary people who are just trying to tend their gardens or visit a highly recommended taco truck or play video poker in a dive bar. They are forced to hear, according to The Oregonian, “the droning hum and vibrations… generated [by] aircraft noise.” A noise that can rattle windows for hours. A Portlander on Reddit: “10pm on the South Waterfront. These helicopters are driving me crazy; they’re [fucking] loud!”
What Portland must know is that this is a distraction, and a negative one. Portland is, however, famous for its positive distractions (also called quirkiness or keeping things weird). I never thought I would ever say this, but now is the time for Portland to confront negative distractions with its distracting mastery of the positively weird. This is finally the time for a politics of “put a bird on it.”
Look, America is a very sad place but we must, nevertheless, keep in sight the things that are meaningful to us urban beings. And these things have nothing to do with the Kirks, or the Hegseths, or the Millers. But what is in them is the will to claim everything they can of American life, even the enchantment of this part of a sidewalk on Capitol Hill (it’s on 13th Avenue, between Olive and Pine).
No, they can’t take that away from me.
On that note, let’s end AM with “Xtal,” an uplifting track by Aphex Twin:
