Number Six Speaks

In a low-down move worthy of the Sopranos the Seattle Department of Transportation has decided to basically extort money from a local business. At issue is the kites that the store has been placing on the sidewalk in front of their store for the last ten years. Suddenly it is a safety issue because they have not paid their application and yearly fees.

You can just hear it now “Well, you see you have this, uh safety issue, but for the small fee we can make things safe again”.  I suppose it’s just a matter of time before they go after the signboard I put out in front of my store.

I have to wonder about SDOT,  as they also appear to be holding up a possible expansion of the Wallingford farmer’s market.

I think it’s high time (pun intended) that bars and taverns in Seattle be allowed to determine their own time for last call rather than be forced to close at 2AM as is currently the case. I firmly believe this will lead to less problems with crime/drunkenness. Currently what happens at 2AM? A large number of drunks are forced out onto the streets at 2AM at the same time. What happens when large numbers of drunks congregate in one space with nothing to do? They cause trouble! Many of these people would just as soon stay in the bar and keep drinking/socializing, something that stimulates the economy.

To the people who say this will cause more drunk driving,  the stats don’t bear this out. If you compare drunk driving stats with bar closing times in different states, you find that they really don’t seem to correlate. Many states that allow a later closing (or even 24 hr) do not in fact have a high rate of drunk driving (look at TN and AK).  The state to watch on this will be Nebraska, which has a low level of drunk driving,  and until this year, bar closing times of 1AM. They have just voted to allow local jurisdictions to go to 2AM, if desired. We’ll see what happens there.

Let the market determine the closing times for bars/taverns. Ones that find it profitable will stay open later, and ones that don’t will close as usual. Far from causing more problems with drunkenness, this will alleviate problems caused by crowds of drunks being forced together at the same time. It would also spread problems that will still occur over a larger span of time, thus not taxing police resources at 2AM every night.

I recently walked into our local neighborhood office, and noticed that there was a small baggie of water hanging above the doorway. Upon asking what this was for, I was told that it was to help keep flies out. It seemed very strange but had to note that there were no flies in the office, and the door was wide open. Normally there would have been at least a couple flies buzzing around in there. Being curious, I had to try it. So at my grandmother’s house I put a small baggie of water above both doors in her dog room. She lives on a farm, and the door to the outside is normally left open to allow the dogs free access. For the last two days I have noticed that that room DOES NOT appear to have ANY flies flying around in it – not normal for a room that has animals staying in it.

The theory is that the refraction of the light through the water causes the flies some kind of problem/distraction for the flies. All I can say is that at this point, the anecdotal evidence is that it does work. I’ll post more as I do more experiments. I look forward to hearing any theories, stories around this.

I firmly believe that Elizabeth Warren should be appointed to head the new Consumer Protection Agency. She has shown through her current work that she is not afraid to stand up to corporate interests, and that she seems truly interested in helping the working class people in this country.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD GEITNER BE ALLOWED ANYWHERE NEAR THIS AGENCY!!! He has shown himself to be hack/shill for large corporate interests and does NOT speak/care about small businesses (including mine).

I am turning off the crosslinking capabilities of WordPress for this blog due to the increasing amount of spam that I am now receiving. I know that much of this spam is simply attempts by people to raise their search engine rankings. Well, CUT IT OUT! I would really only like comments that are pertinent to what I’ve written.

Why waste the money prosecuting Goldman-Sachs? Instead of prosecuting them, I think all their top execes should be rewarded with a nice cruise. Where would this cruise go? First to Iceland. I think everybody in Iceland would like to show them a warm welcome (most likely the insides of a volcano). After Iceland the cruise should take them to the sunny islands of Greece. There once again I’m sure they would receive a very warm welcome. Since I’m sure the locals in both these countries would welcome them with such open arms, I don’t think they would ever come back to the US, and if they did, I vote we give them another cruise back to Iceland.

Just found out through a weird set of circumstances that to renew a driver’s license in WA state now costs an exorbitant $90! From what they tell me at the licensing dept. our legislature in its wisdom, just raised the renewal rate from $20. WTF is up with that. I know that state is strapped for cash, but this just affects many of those who can’t afford it. There is a solution – although it is the third rail for politicians in Washington State, income tax. We urge everyone to sign the new initiative I-1077, which would institute an income tax for high income earners in Washington (of course they’ll probably just move out of state – although only 9 states currently don’t have an income tax).

Stop by our store to sign this petition. An income tax is a much fairer way to collect revenues. Sales taxes are very regressive in that they affect take a larger percentage of income from lower income people than they do from wealthier people.

This is an open challenge to all the Tea Party attendees/followers. Since one of the main messages seems to be against “Socialism” and all its evils.  I challenge all Tea Party devotees to do the following:

• When driving don’t use any roads, unless they are privately paid for.
• Don’t attend rallies that are on public spaces
• If you’re currently getting Medicare/Medicaid limit what you take from this system to what you put in (go ahead figure what you put in at 10% interest, but don’t forget that your employers contributed some to this, so deduct what they contributed).
• Don’t drive  a GM or Chrysler automobile
• Don’t fly in an airplane that uses any of the federal air traffic control system
• Don’t spend any time in national parks or forests (or even local parks)
• Don’t call the police when you have a problem with crime
• Don’t call the fire department if you have fire problem.

Humans are a social creature by nature, and to not recognize this is to go against that. I believe that it is possible for us to have

The point being that we already live in a country with some socialist policies, and that many of these policies do contribute to the greater good.

Humans are social creatures by nature, and to not recognize and deal with that seems to go against our very essence. I believe that is possible for us to have a society where we all contribute towards the greater good, yet are able to maintain our own individuality.

I think that there is actually a broad agreement across the political spectrum about a large distrust of the corporations and the government. I think we all also agree on ideals for our kids – clean water, healthy food, a place to live. The problem seems to be in how to get there. Open dialogue is where we have to start without the nasty rhetoric. I highly recommend the techniques practiced by the Trans Partisan Alliance as a great way to start respectful, civil dialogue on the issues that affect us all.

As many of you may know, Number Six and the Head Cheese currently run a small brick and mortar gift shop in Seattle. Business has taken a HUGE downturn in the last 3-4 months forcing us to give part of our store back to the landlord. Due to this downturn in sales, we need one of two things (or a combination of both), more sales and/or another job for Number Six. If you like our progressive politics and our involvement in the Wallingford community, we urge you to do one of two things: come in and shop, or help Number Six find a job. Remember, we have the largest selection of buttons and stickers in the Seattle, as well as a large selection of fun wacky cards, toys, political and green items.

Now you ask, what kind of job is Number Six aka Jon (yes, I’m posting this, even given my views on privacy ) looking for? I’m looking primarily for a tech support job,  I love being able to help people, and the challenge of having to deal with different problems all the time.  Check out my Linkedin profile to see some of what I’ve done in the past. I know how to provide SUPERIOR customer, and I’m very responsible – while at Boeing I had access to their five million part production database, and any errors had the possibility of costing millions of dollars in lost productivity. I currently do some consulting on the side, helping small businesses with their technology issues, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Although not trained formally in SEO, I have taught myself a lot about this and my stores website ranks VERY highly. Just for laughs, I keep track of all the top 3 rankings that our site has achieved (I used to keep top 10 rankings, but there where just to many!).  Search for the term “Not A Number”, and you’ll usually find us in the top 3 out of hundreds of millions of pages.

So please stop by the store and shop – 1905 N. 45th St. Seattle, WA 98103 206.784.0965, or if you have any ideas/leads on possibilities for jobs contact me,  jon @ number6.org . Stop by the store to chat, I’m almost always there. If you have small company that just needs part-time, occasional support, I’m your person! Contact me for references.

Thanks for reading!

PS No, Archie McPhees moving into the neighborhood has not been a factor in our store’s declining sales, in fact they have been good for us, as the often send people to us for items they don’t have, and vice-versa.

I’ve put a lot of thought into the ideas of privacy lately as it seems that our ideas about privacy have changed TREMENDOUSLY in the last 20 years. I think that there is a large difference in the views about privacy in those under 45 or so, and those over.  I’ll admit to even being leery about posting this anything personal about myself, and I of course then think to myself that it’s easy enough to find out many things about me with a quick Google search, so what’s the big deal? That being said, I still have some reservations about posting stuff on the Internet.

At some point I think the our society will reach a point where it will be considered strange not to be connected, or always available, and that somehow if you don’t want to be connected/reachable all the time that you’re doing something wrong. It’s already been shown in several studies that people under the age of 25 (at least one study was done on college students) cannot go more than 3 days without their cell phones/crackberries etc.

On one hand I would argue that this breakdown of privacy is good for humanity in that I believe that in order to create societies that enhance our quality of lives we need to surrender some of our privacy. Without getting to know each other and what we each want, it becomes impossible to work towards a greater good for everyone. On the other hand, if we all become so used to tuning out drivel such as “I’m having toast for breakfast”, then we risk ignoring communication that might be important.

I would hope that we would reach some sort of happy medium, where there is a balance between what is kept private, and what is made public.