— चार हजार सात सौ छप्पन —

Something kind of extraordinary occurred with our local protests over the past couple of days, and I was pretty slow on the uptake in terms of catching on. There was very little about it in the Twitter feeds I follow. But, I am very tired this morning only because I didn't get to sleep until shortly after 11:30, and still had to wake up at 5:25 this morning.

I had gone to bed a bit earlier than normal, hoping to get a better night's sleep than I have tended to get on average weeknights lately, but then I noticed something odd: instead of flash bangs three blocks down Pine at 12th by the East Precinct, I was hearing the voice of someone speaking, amplified. It was still too far away for me to make out whatever was being said, but it was clearly pretty mellow, at least in comparison to what could be heard (and sometimes seen) over the previous couple of weeks. It sounded almost like I was overhearing a festival.

Erica, former PCC coworker who now lives in San Diego, commented on one of my posts several days ago with a link to the search page on Periscope, including "Seattle" as the search term, to show how you can check live feeds of people actually at the demonstrations. I have since looked at it several times, often when I could hear commotion down there from my condo; in those cases there were usually at least three or four different live feeds going on. As I write this, there is only one, a conveniently fixed feed mounted by someone in the 12th Avenue Arts building at Pine, so it points right at the intersection from a few stories up. It gives a nice vantage point, and also shows something I really need to go down there today to get a picture of myself: the left-turn lane on 12th southbound no longer reads TURN ONLY, but someone repainted it to read LOVE ONLY, although with the left turn arrow intact.

It took a bit for me to get to that particular feed last night, as there were others going on as well and I clicked a couple by people walking around the area. This confused me at first, as one guy was walking around with his phone and narrating, clearly not a sympathizer of the movement per se but generally offering a sense of what was going on. And it was not chaos, just . . . weird. They were right next to the East Precinct Police Station, and there were no cops actually visible anywhere. What the hell?

So then, as I usually do when trying to figure out what's going down, I returned to the Twitter app and searched for "Seattle." It was in these search results that I started to see hashtags like #CHAZ, #capitolhillautonomouszone, and #seattleautonomouszone. What the fuck does that mean?

I would have known all this far earlier had I been participating in these protests, which I would have been doing if not for COVID-19, which has, does, and will continue to complicate all of this. But also in those Twitter search results, I also finally came across this page at the Capitol Hill blog, and finally managed to glean a sequence of events from the previous couple of days, which I find extraordinary:

1. On Monday, June 8, a bunch of SPD just packed up a bunch of shit at the East Precinct station and up and left, after announcements that "the decision has been made" to allow protesters to march past later that day. This, indeed, was what I recorded passing by right under our condo, at roughly 6:30 that evening. There were police reports of a "credible threat" of someone burning the precinct down, which so far at least, has not actually happened.

2. On Tuesday, June 9, with the East Precinct police absent (apparently "on mobile status" at an undisclosed location elsewhere on Capitol Hill), activists and demonstrators dubbed the area "Free Capitol Hill," "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone," or "Seattle Autonomous Zone," depending on who you're talking to. Evidently within hours, this "zone" already had its own Wikipedia page. They have set up their own barriers and evidently established perimeters they are manning on their own, and—this part strikes me a pretty key—so far the area has been far more peaceful then it ever was with the cops there.

3. Also yesterday, there was a march to Seattle City Hall, which was swarmed inside—thanks to Councilmember Kshama Sawant letting them in, using her key to the building—so they could chant for Mayor Jenny Durkan's resignation. Protesters afterward moved back up to the East Precinct / Cal Anderson Park area on Capitol Hill. My favorite thing on that MyNorthwest.com timeline is its most recent one: "10:40pm — Protesters have erected a large screen at 12th and Pine on Capitol Hill. Many in the crowd are sitting on the ground to watch a documentary." This was what I had been hearing out my window from three blocks away after going to bed last night, kind of wondering, What the hell?

4. How cohesive and in line with all their messaging the local protest leadership is strikes me as uncertain, although they do seem fairly impressively organized in action. This morning I discovered this document attributed to "FreeCapitolHill" with a rather long list of demands of government, and it is . . . honestly, shockingly beyond the pale. But you know what? I support it. Remember what I said about making unrealistic demands so that "compromise" results in far greater gains than would ever have happened otherwise? To me, that's exactly what is happening here. It's easy to look at a document like that and dismiss it as ridiculous, but I see it as a smart play. We're not going to magically "fix" everything with any quick, simple solution—and there's no escaping the fact that this has always been and will always be messy—but we can sure as shit get the ball rolling. And getting the SPD the fuck away from there with their moronic riot gear was the right choice for all involved.

— चार हजार सात सौ छप्पन —

— चार हजार सात सौ छप्पन —

Other than all that, there's not a huge amount of things to update you on. Shobhit and I went grocery shopping, how exciting! He worked an earlier shift at Total Wine & More, getting off at 4:00, and he just came to our building and picked me up when I finished working at 4:30. We went down to Costco where we spent a shit ton of money thanks to getting things like replacement electric toothbrush attachments (and Shobhit also just grabbing certain things left and right), and then we went to MacPherson's Produce on Beacon Hill.

We came back and made pasta with some "spinach noodles" we bought at MacPherson's. Making the dinner took a while. We watched a few episodes of Designing Women on Hulu after that. I had wanted to start season two of Ozark but Shobhit wasn't ready to end the break we took from it after ending season one. He said we can start it tonight and I'm going to fucking hold him to that!

— चार हजार सात सौ छप्पन —

I think I'm going to walk down to the "CHAZ" when I finish working today, just to check it out. That might yield some interesting photos for use in tomorrow's Daily Lunch Update (DLU).

— चार हजार सात सौ छप्पन —

[posted 12:28 pm]