photographed by Jeff Stevens on Beacon Hill on January 10, 2024
Given the installation of anti-tax millionaire landowner Tanya Woo on Seattle City Council on January 23, 2024, welcome once again to the local victory of late capitalist absurdity over Marion Zioncheck’s Great Depression fleeting democracy dream.
Seattle Star acolytes of a certain vintage likely will recognize the name Tim Ceis as the longtime shadowplay fixer for Seattle’s municipal political establishment — and sure as you’re born The Shark orchestrated the absurd ascension of Tanya Woo, who failed to register to vote until age 37, to the legislative branch of the municipal government of a major global port city with a population approaching one million here circa 2024.
Savvy photo-parsers will notice I’ve illustrated this essay with a grungy digital image of a Seattle cop running a red light without running code on January 10, 2024 — after the proverbial fix was obviously in for Tanya Woo’s council appointment thus guaranteeing impunity for anabolic steroid-addled Seattle cops gone wild for the next four years or more.
What an insult given to Seattle’s longtime social justice activist community that Tanya Woo was planted on council — and likely supplied with liquid electrolytes — on the anniversary of the death of South Asian graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula (1999-2023) by vehicular homicide committed by a Seattle police officer.
Given the PAC-enabled cop-apologist majority that now smugly squats on the dias in Seattle City Hall on the weekly, justice for Jaahnavi — as well as John T. Williams (1960-2010) among myriad other victims of Sociopathic Predatory Domination in recent years — likely shall remain for the foreseeable future just another fleeting Seattle dream.
