Another running street fountain

Dear Diary,

Today I went to Cowen Park (whose restrooms are still closed, and whose water fountains, last to be turned on last year, I didn't bother to check today) and to Cal Anderson Park (whose restrooms, such as they are, are still open, and whose main water fountain I drank from at length twice).

I actually e-mailed Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, about Cowen Park.  I remembered that although they had no shame about telling people there were restrooms where there were only "sanican"s, when I was checking this map last winter they did care when the map's fine print was wrong about restrooms being open, which is the case for Cowen Park.  So I e-mailed her, for the first time since I told you, dear Diary, "How to Lie to the Homeless", but she was out of the office today.

Anyway, after bringing some boxes to my storage and filling several, I walked away with almost the last of my pans (the saucepans, so now I can cook!  After only three months here!  Yay!).  Cal Anderson Park was after that; I took a brief look at the former site of Everyday Music between the two drinks.

And then I walked north on Broadway and found this:

That's the street water fountain on Broadway E just north of E Olive Way.

The one that was turned off last summer at about the same time as the fancy new water fountain was installed at Cal Anderson Park, as if Capitol Hill didn't deserve additional water, just relocated water.  The one some nameless person begged:  "Make it work".  Well, that person finally got their wish.

When will it be North Seattle's turn?  This year, or next?

I promised to do a bunch of stuff in the Google Drive folders today, and am running out of time to do it, so good night, dear Diary.

How to Lie to the Homeless, part IIB

Dear Diary,

As I told readers of the Seattle Times last year, I've spent much of my career as a temporary office worker.  This made it hard to learn skills in depth, though I did become "expert" in Form 5500 reporting during the 1990s, when this required a weird version of accounting, as a temp.  However, temp work does expose a person to many workplaces.  Thus, for example, I know that many working Americans prefer to think of their workplaces as uniquely crazy.  It's important to humour this belief.

More to the point, I also know a great deal about norms of office restrooms, and have some experience with restrooms of other kinds of workplaces (some of my jobs were in warehouses, for example).

And I never found one without a sink.

(Let me note one thing about that:  I'm aware that construction workers have to put up with "sanican"s without hand-washing stations daily.  Do they call those "restrooms" ?  Is that where the re-definition started?  In any event, I feel sorry for them, but that doesn't change my general argument.)

This carries forward to your pages, dear Diary.  Last month I visited every park restroom in North Seattle, and for every open men's room or all-gender room, tried to list for you the important contents.  That wasn't just a game, and it wasn't just so I could complain, as I did, about the creeping elimination of urinals.  I also wanted to establish that every park restroom in North Seattle has a sink in it, with the exception of the "Portland Loo" at Ballard Commons, whose sink is outside instead.

But during this pandemic, with the city of Seattle unable to make up for previous administrations' demolition of public restrooms, the city has been trying desperately to convince its homeless citizens that the "sanican"s it can afford to put all over are just as good as the restrooms it can't, even though health problems have repeatedly resulted when homeless people have been gullible or desperate enough to buy this claim.

In this quest, the city has gone far enough, as part IIA of this series demonstrated, to try to re-define an English word, "restroom", to define the sinks out of it.  Imagine for a moment what would happen if the city applied this re-definition everywhere.  "Wait a minute, where are the sinks in our new home?"  "Well, Seattle no longer requires sinks in dwellings."  Nope, homeless people are special.  We (I was, after all, homeless much of the time the city has been doing this) are supposed to be able to withstand things that nobody else would tolerate.

And in the forefront of this evil deed has been the city's "Homeless Strategy and Investment Division", a part of the Department of Human Services.  Perhaps serving the kinds of humans who become homeless is no longer part of that department's remit, and the strategy and investments are meant to sub-humanise us still further?

Let's look at what the Division did with a map bearing the title "City-Funded Hygiene Services Available During COVID-19".  Let's see the version of their explanation there today:

Oh, dear Diary, is that print too small for you?  Here:

COVID-19 forced hundreds of businesses and organizations to close their doors to prevent the spread of the virus. This map shows City-funded hygiene services that are open to people in need. These resources are provided by multiple City departments.

On the map below, please click on the Legend button for a description of what each of the different location symbols means.

All locations include access to restrooms. Some locations offer access to showers and laundry services. Some locations are open to the general public, whereas some are funded only for those experiencing homelessness and other locations are designed for specific groups of people such as women or children. Please click on the Filter Locations (Funnel) button to highlight specific types of services on the map.

Note: Layers must be turned on for filters to work properly. Please click the button in the upper right corner to Turn Layers On and Off. The map only shows OPEN restrooms and hygiene facilities. These facilities may unexpectedly close periodically due to vandalism, fires, and/or plumbing issues.

It's funny how they shouted their lies.

"All locations include access to restrooms."

They currently claim Cowen Park's restrooms are open.  Well, that could've changed since yesterday, when I found them closed.

This is more typical of their lies, though.  They admit that Gilman Playground's restrooms are closed, but bill the "sanican"s there as restrooms.  (They also claim a hand-washing unit, which I don't remember.  I guess I'll have to go back and look.  Anyway, that's data, which is the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation's bailiwick.)

I guess after that I don't need to explain what's a lie about "The map only shows OPEN restrooms and hygiene facilities."  Right, dear Diary?

There's a number near the bottom of each such info block that shows the total number of restrooms, as claimed by the city.  Here's Gilman's block:

Restroom Building and Portable Restroom: GILMAN PLAYGROUND
Location Name    GILMAN PLAYGROUND
Address    923 NW 54th St
Type    Restroom Building and Portable Restroom
Operational Status    24 hours
Operating Hours    24 hours (Sanican Only)
Notes   
24 Hour    Yes
City Department    Seattle Parks and Recreation
Total Restrooms (Buildings & Portables)    2
ADA Compliant Restrooms from Total    1
Hand Washing Units    1
Showers On Site    No
Showers   
Laundry   
Accessible by    General Public
Focus Population    All
Zoom to

Let's compare the total at Sandel Playground.  The parks department has actually been deploying "sanican"s at a furious clip - there are a bunch near the Green Lake Small Craft Center, and a new bunch in Ravenna Park, near the "upper" restrooms, apparently to replace the set that were near the "lower" restrooms but are now in Cowen Park.  I'm pretty sure I've seen a "sanican" at Sandel, too, but if that's the case, the datum hasn't reached this map yet:

Location Name    SANDEL PLAYGROUND
Address    9053 1st Ave NW
Type    Restroom Building and Sink
Operational Status    Open
Operating Hours    7 am - 7:00/9:00pm
Notes   
24 Hour    No
City Department    Seattle Parks and Recreation
Total Restrooms (Buildings & Portables)    1

One of the things that have offended me about this map from getgo is that every "sanican" is counted as a "restroom", but an entire building that might have five toilets and a urinal in it is counted for the same number.  There's a reason restroom buildings are more expensive than "sanican"s; it's because they're better.  I'm not sure what those numbers are being used to prove, but if it's anything important, the people being shown them should know that they're essentially lies too.

In any event, this is another example, ostensibly directed towards the homeless, of the city trying to re-define "restroom"s into things that don't need sinks.

Now let's look at the map's legend.

Portable Restroom and Sink
    
Hygiene Trailer with Shower, Toilet and Sink
    
Restroom Building and Sink
    
Portable Restroom
    
Restroom Building and Portable Restroom
    
Portable Restroom and Sink
    
Hygiene Trailer with Shower, Toilet and Sink
    
Restroom Building and Sink
    
Portable Restroom
    
Restroom Building and Portable Restroom
    
Laundry Services
    
24 Hours
   

Clear as day, right?

Not the way it's been used.  This, however, is a case where I don't entirely know where to assign blame.

The fundamental way the map lied to the homeless this winter was that it used the symbol for "Restroom Building and Portable Restroom" in cases where the restroom building was actually closed.  It's still doing that today for Gilman Playground and Cowen Park.

It isn't obvious to me whether that's a data issue, the parks department doing the lying, or a design issue, DHS doing the lying.  What I do know is that it's a lie.  Moreover, because I called attention to this throughout the e-mails I sent to, ultimately, two DHS employees and one parks department employee, I know that DHS was informed, but did nothing.

There are, of course, many detail errors.  For example:

Location Name    Urban Rest Stop - U-District
Address    1415 NE 43rd St
Type    Day Center
Operational Status Operating

DHS is the agency responsible for funding the Urban Rest Stop, so surely must know that that location has been closed since last November.  I told them so too, in my last e-mail in March.   But they continue to salve their consciences as to the shortage of actual restrooms in the U-District by sending homeless people to fenced-off, possibly demolished, rooms.

But fundamentally, here's the thing.  Parks and libraries often have problems thanks to homeless people, and can't necessarily be trusted to do good things for the homeless.  But the whole point of a "Homeless Strategy and Investment Division" ought to be that it tries to do good things for homeless people.  They should not have succumbed to what I assume is a mayoral directive to set up the Big Lie that homeless people don't need to wash their hands as other humans do.

There's been a certain amount of press about how demoralised that part of DHS has become, because it's supposed to essentially fold in favour of the county-wide office that's being set up, and the staffers don't know whether they'll have jobs soon.  I understand that stress; as a lifelong temp, I've had a great deal more of it than most people have had.  But it's no excuse for their continued attempt to render anyone who lacks a permanent place of abode sub-human.

I'm sorry to leave you on such a bad note, dear Diary, but I've now spent three weekdays running on work for you, in the month in which I really must empty my storage.  So good night, dear Diary, and a good week.

 

How to Lie to the Homeless, part IIA

Dear Diary,

As I told you yesterday, I went to both the Broadview and the Lake City branches of the Seattle Public Library that day.  Although it was the first day of re-opening for the Ballard branch, which I was near that day, I didn't go there.

So although I did take pictures of the water fountains, showing that despite the signs saying they're closed:

the reason the librarians would give, if asked, for why one fountain at each of those branches is wrapped up, as one has been for months at the Ballard branch (whose restrooms and fountains have been open for about a year, after all), is social distancing.  The other fountain at each branch:

is running fine.  But as I was saying, although I took pictures of the fountains at each, I didn't even bother to investigate the restrooms, settling for my own seeing that they were open.  After all, a library probably wouldn't stay open for a full day if they weren't.  What I was really after at the libraries was these:

Yep, dictionary definitions.

I believe that I presently own massive representatives of three major lexicographic traditions:  Merriam-Webster, whose publications go back to 1806, the Oxford English Dictionary (1884), and the American Heritage Dictionary (1969).  Unfortunately, since, as I told you, dear Diary, in "A Visit to Everyday Music" last month, I haven't had the chance to excavate much from my storage yet, I've had to put off for a very long time a page in you that needed dictionary references.  Finally I gave up on consulting the books I owned and settled for those I could get through the slowly re-opening Seattle Public Library.

This even though my trust in librarians has been eroded a good bit recently.  That misleading sign shown above isn't the only one they've put up.  Here's another, from "Hike 11B":

I noted at the time that this claim that University Heights offered public restrooms was false.  And later in that page concluded that this falsehood was based on a different definition of "restroom" from that I use.

This issue of the definition of "restroom" has also come up every time I mention the "Portland Loo" at Ballard Commons, which the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation bills as a restroom, a claim I consistently have doubted.

So I wanted to consult recent dictionaries - more recent than those I own, actually - to find out whether I was just being an old fogey, or whether our city government is actually trying to re-define an English word.

I consulted two physical books and three online sources.

1. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Reference Center (SPL's access), which incorporates a Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
2. A paperbound 2016 edition of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (SPL's copies).
3.  Oxford English Dictionary (SPL's access)
4. A paperbound 2012 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's copies).
5. The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's access).  This is supposedly just an electronic version of 4 above, but they do differ.

So what do they say about the relatively recent term "restroom" ?

1. a room or suite of rooms providing personal facilities (as toilets)
2. a room or suite of rooms that includes sinks and toilets
3. Originally: a room (usually in a public building or workplace) set aside for rest and relaxation (now rare). In later use (U.S.): a lavatory in a public building or workplace.
4. A room with toilets and sinks for public use.
5. ProQuest, which hosts the e-book in question, repeatedly failed to find this definition.

So two out of four think a restroom has to have a sink, one arguably doesn't, and one punts.  What does the OED have to say about "lavatory" ?

1. holder
2. holder
3. Definition 5b:
   
   A room, cubicle, etc., having a toilet or toilets as well as washing facilities
   
   Definition 5c:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate
4. holder
5. holder
    

(Apparently Blogspot won't allow incomplete numbered lists.  Sorry, dear Diary.)

So the online Merriam-Webster doesn't require sinks at all.  The physical Merriam-Webster does.  So does the physical American Heritage.  The Oxford English offers an alternative:  if a "restroom", being a "lavatory", doesn't have a sink, it can instead be the appliance itself, in other words what most Americans would call a "toilet".

The "Portland Loo" certainly includes a toilet.  What the sign at the University branch of the Seattle Public Library was pointing to was "sanican"s.  Would the Oxford English Dictionary really countenance this meaning?

Well, "restroom" isn't the only word I looked up.  I also checked all five for "lavatory", "toilet", and "bathroom", and the three online ones for "comfort station".  Let's look at "toilet":

1. Definition 2a:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 2b:
   
   a fixture for defecation and urination that consists essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
2. Definition 2:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 3:
   
   a fixture for use in urinating and defecating; esp : one consisting essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
3. Definition 9a:
   
   A room, building, or cubicle fitted for people to urinate and defecate in, usually with facilities for hand washing
   
   Definition 9b:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate, typically consisting of a large bowl (with a ring-shaped liftable seat and usually a lid) connected by plumbing to a system for flushing away the waste into the sewer; a lavatory, a water closet; (also) a similar appliance where the waste is disposed of in the earth or treated with chemicals.
   
4. 1a. A disposal apparatus for defecation and urination.  b. A room or booth containing such an apparatus.
5. 1. A fixture for defecation and urination, consisting of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and connected to a waste pipe and a flushing apparatus; a privy. 2. A room or booth containing such a fixture. 3. The act or process of dressing or grooming oneself. 4. Dress; attire; costume. 5. The cleansing of a body area as part of a surgical or medical procedure. 6. Archaic A dressing table. ety. French toilette, clothes bag, from Old French tellette, diminutive of teile, cloth
   

So the online AHD demands a flush toilet.  Both Merriam-Websters and the OED say that's the norm.  Only the physical AHD doesn't care.

I'll put the text document into which I copied all the definitions mentioned into the public Google Drive folder I maintain for park photos:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing> 

I'll also put there the dictionary definitions I photographed at Broadview.  (I did want to go to both branches, so I picked Lake City for a book Broadview also owns, the M-W.  But Broadview's copy of AHD is hidden, so I had to go back there later, which is what I was doing before I found the running street water fountain at 85th & Greenwood.)

As my placing this stuff into the parks folder, and not the smaller libraries folder, implies, while I'm disappointed in the librarians, they aren't my main target here.  Nowhere is the attempted re-definition of "restroom" to exclude sinks more prominent, in Seattle, than in the city's materials targeted at the homeless.

In the first part of "How to Lie to the Homeless", I noted lies the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation was telling by submitting data to a map that's still online, a map meant to show restrooms available to the homeless during the pandemic.  I also noted that these lies weren't too surprising given the longstanding hostility between parks personnel and the homeless.  Not long before that, Rachel Schulkin, a communications manager for that department, told me that all the Department of Human Services did was host those data.  I'm pretty sure, though, that DHS also designed the map and wrote the legend text accompanying it.  And my main purpose here, to which all this has simply been prologue, is to explain the lies DHS's division for the homeless told last winter, and is continuing to try to tell, to the population they supposedly exist to serve.

Next page, dear Diary, coming as soon as I can write it.

Another RUNNING street fountain in today's hike

Dear Diary,

I went hiking for you today.  I don't have time to write for you today the page that occasioned that hike, but will try to get the stuff that I should write today so as to keep certain photos dated, that stuff I'll try to get written.

I went to:

• Ballard Community Center (restrooms) and Playground (water fountain)
• The Burke-Gilman Trail (no plumbing where I was then)
  
• The Broadview branch of the Seattle Public Library (both)
  
• Bitter Lake Playfield (both; I didn't look, today, at the Community Center there)
• Northacres Park (both)
  
• Virgil Flaim Park (water fountain)
  
• Albert Davis Park (water fountain)
  
• The Lake City branch of the Seattle Public Library (both)
  
• The Burke-Gilman Trail again (water fountain)
• Ravenna Park (both)
  
• Ravenna Boulevard (neither)
  
• Cowen Park (both)
  
• Greenwood Ave N just south of N 85th St (water fountain I hadn't previously known of)
• And back to N 45th St just east of Wallingford Ave N (water fountain)
  

I'll update the spreadsheet in the shared folder tomorrow - that is, this folder, dear Diary:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing>

But I also set up another shared folder.  Community Centers and Pools are at least run by the same department as runs the parks, but libraries are a whole separate city department, so I set up a folder for libraries too:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10OrFusDTEySPSu7-Ophv35VCKZq-zAaF?usp=sharing>

In general, nothing has changed from what I previously told you, dear Diary (I want to emphasise that, in case there are new readers here), but here are the exceptions:

Ballard Community Center

You may remember that last time I went to this place, I considered its front doors too crowded to approach.  That wasn't the case this morning.

Here's a detail:

I doubt very much that the Community Centers are preparing to re-open to the general public, or at least those in North Seattle.  If they are, they're planning to surprise everyone.

Ballard Community Center, again

This time I found the restrooms at the back of the building, whose doors open outward, open.  I did not find yellow spots on the toilet seats.  However:

These are single-user stalls, each with one toilet, no urinal, one sink, one old-fashioned dryer that doesn't work, and one soap dispenser.  Neither sink splashed me, but one - the one with two buttons for calling the water - was under high enough pressure that it really wanted to.

Northacres Park

One of the single-user stalls there was closed for maintenance:

I remembered that I hadn't tested the sinks and dryers of those, so I washed my hands (I'd touched the toilet seats at Ballard Community Center, after all) and thus found that the dryer in the stall currently open (on the left as one faces the water fountains, north of the closed one) does work, but one has to push the button a few times to convince it to do so.

Virgil Flaim Park

I have to eat a whole lot of crow here.

I made a judgement last time I was at this park, that the damage to the water fountain was obviously the fault of homeless people who use bottles.  I was wrong, completely wrong.

I managed this time to take a photo that showed how the water now comes out.

Darn, no it doesn't, and I'll have to go back there.

Basically, the water comes from above the pipe I showed you last time, dear Diary, this pipe:

As a result, no, it isn't any better for filling bottles than it is for drinking from.  Turns out it comes from a hole in another pipe:

so no wonder it comes out diffusely.  I was unable to screw the pipe that's loose back into that hole, so I strongly suspect whoever sabotaged the water fountain removed something, anything from a washer on up.  Given how much other metal they left alone, I doubt this was a metal thief; I think the saboteur was someone who wanted to deny users of Virgil Flaim Park water, very probably specifically homeless users in the neighbourhood.  So I must apologise heartily to you, dear Diary, and to anyone who read the page I'll correct tomorrow:  I blamed the victim.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

This was, at the time, the only working water fountain I expected to encounter after Bitter Lake, it was hours later, I hadn't brought any bottles, and I was parched.  So I tried to drink from this fountain:

but found that the stream was so interrupted, whether by the wind or by something internal to the fountain, that I couldn't really drink from it.  At the time I wondered whether I was just out of the habit of drinking directly from water fountains.

Ravenna Boulevard

I will emphasise, again, dear Diary, that nothing has changed from what I previously told you unless I mention it here (or in a later embarrassed page).

The street fountain at 85th & Greenwood

One of the most frustrating aspects for me, dear Diary, of your readers never commenting, is that I get too many opportunities to be ignorant.  I spent a few days hiking past this intersection, in January, while I was at the Travelodge near there that saved my life (as recounted in "Escaping Green Lake Park", part II and "Fear of Rain"), and never noticed this fountain.  Unsurprising since at the time I couldn't wear glasses, but my point is, surely someone who's read you knew about that fountain and didn't tell us.  I have no idea how many more street fountains are scattered around North Seattle, running or otherwise, that I've missed; I only found this one because I happened to get off a bus there this evening.  So anyone who reads this now.  This is what a street water fountain in Seattle usually looks like:

Notice especially the stepped base.  This is something street fountains can do:

usually all year round when the city has a mayor who doesn't have some sort of personal hatred for homeless people.

So please, dear Diary, if you notice anyone reading you who knows of such fountains in North Seattle, beyond the former two, now one, on the Burke-Gilman Trail, the one on N 45th St out front of QFC, and this one I stumbled on today, could you please persuade them to say something?  Whether or not the fountains are currently running or the reader even knows one way or the other.  Thank you, very, very much.

On the strength of that (and two very long drinks from it) I went back to the one on 45th, but it's still off.

Good night, dear Diary.  I just signed a new lease that said I'd observe the quiet hours, and here I am typing in you during them again.  Good night.

 

The Biblically Heroic Sweep of Cowen Park

Dear Diary,

Today I went to Ravenna Boulevard, Cowen Park, Ravenna Park and 17th Ave NE, whose boulevard is considered a park by the Seattle Department of Transportation, but not by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.

Important news:  Both the "upper" restrooms in Ravenna Park were open.  I didn't have my newspaper with me, so didn't take pictures.  But there are now open park restrooms sort of near the U-District.  I found no other changes in the parks' plumbing - neither Cowen nor Ravenna has a running water fountain, Cowen's restrooms are still closed (and in a recent page I boneheadedly forgot that they do have explanatory signs on their doors), and Ravenna's lower men's room too.

The block of Ravenna Boulevard between 15th Ave and University Way NE, also known as Olga Park, was swept this morning.  A camper there was murdered by a visitor earlier this week, and so the entire camp was punished.  This is, of course, biblically correct, dear Diary, for as Numbers 14:18 says:  "and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."  Imagine how much better a place Seattle would be if every neighbourhood where anyone was murdered were evacuated and levelled.  We might still have five buildings standing in town, who knows?

At any rate, this meant that, given my policy against showing you photos of tents, that today was my first chance to take landscape photos of Olga Park.

I found a notice proper in form, though it didn't meet the 72-hour standard that was once legally required:

There was also this confusing declaration:

Given that the parks department is now allotting itself two weeks to do nothing, presumably because the one week in which they did nothing at Albert Davis Park hadn't been enough, they did a really thorough job of putting up closure signage:

However, what I witnessed, and in fact participated in, wasn't the sweep of Olga Park, but of Cowen Park.

I found a couple of young women with stacks of pizzas and other stuff set up across 15th Ave NE from where I took the picture just above.  They told me Cowen Park was being swept as we spoke.  Since I'd never actually seen a sweep done, I figured I owed it to you, dear Diary, to find out what they're like.

What I found was a rather odd confrontation.  A single tent stood in one of the awkward corners Cowen Park has many of.  A man stood in front of it.  Surrounding him on three sides were many employees of the parks department.  And on what passes for a sidewalk at the edge of Cowen Park - that is, a dirt path with some edgy gravel here and there - stood a bunch of people yelling at the parks department employees.

The man who was in front of that tent is black, as are quite a few of the parks department employees, including both of those I'll quote to you, dear Diary, from memory.  There may have been a white parks department employee or two there, but I didn't notice them; there were people of various other races.  Essentially all the protestors were white; mostly young women, and a few who might have been men, plus one man at least my age.  He and one less young woman, who turned out herself to be homeless (she claimed to have seen tents slashed at Albert Davis Park, where she was living May 6), were by far the loudest.  There was a guy on a bicycle who struck me as not really belonging to any of these groups, but who seemed to have some sort of rapport with the man in front of the tent; he's also black, and for all I know he could be anything from a relative to a fellow homeless man (though if so, he was travelling awfully light) to a dealer to a social worker.

For a while everyone focused on each other, and a weird sort of argument.  Some of the protestors yelled, others, including me, made caustic but quieter remarks.  The parks department employees said what they could, quoting law, saying they were just doing their jobs (and that bit of World War II folklore has certainly not died out from among the youth of today, unfortunately for people just doing their jobs everywhere...).  Since the louder people were the angriest, and had trouble restraining their movements, things escalated, giving the parks employees all the excuse they needed to call the police, and when those arrived, the whole confrontation collapsed.

Two episodes in the confrontation are worth quoting.  At one point a parks department employee apologised to the homeless man.  Apparently this employee had advised him, while sweeping Olga Park, that Cowen Park might be a safe place to go, and now regretted giving this advice.

At another point, when one of the protestors asked where the man should go next, a parks department employe mentioned that there are mountains all around Seattle with plenty of places to camp.  I reiterate that the person who said this boneheaded thing is just as black as the foolishly compassionate colleague, and as the homeless man himself.

Anyway, on the police's arrival, several of the quieter young women started giving orders which various people obeyed, and next thing I knew I was one of about half a dozen people lifting the tent before it'd been emptied.  Basically, the protestors and their hangers-on (including me) did the sweep for the parks department.  They certainly did check our work, but we left the spot as clean as they would have.

Ironically, the next stop was ... Ravenna Boulevard, halfway across the street.  One block from Olga Park.  The protestors had hired a rental van, which arrived reasonably soon, but the homeless man had trouble deciding what to do.  By the time I left he'd pretty much decided to spend the night there on Ravenna Boulevard, and maybe the next day move to the doorway of a vacant building across the street.  Last time I saw him, a few hours later, he was still there.

I followed my usual rules, dear Diary:  I tried not to photograph any tents or people, and will not show you my failures.  Here's what I did photograph:

First, the vast threat this one man's tent posed to the public's enjoyment of Cowen Park:

Notice also in that photo the vehicles.  There were well over five parks department employees there, and if I wasn't willing to photograph them, I was certainly willing to photograph their trucks.  Here's another:

Really, I think there were more like ten of them.  The group I spoke with later was four men, and was definitely not even close to all.

So yes, obviously one tent would've made it impossible for anyone else to use Cowen Park.  And of course someone just swept has no right to pitch a tent where the sweepers can see.  After all, sweeps are like bills of attainder, which everyone knows are constitutional somewhere:  they attach to this man, and to his descendants unto the third generation.  Little details like notice or legal authority don't matter compared to that.

Anyway, that's the threat from which these valiant parks department employees spared the neighbours of Cowen Park.  I put off writing this page, dear Diary, long enough to skim the books of Numbers and of Joshua, looking for something explicitly saying that evildoers should be hounded from door to door until slain, or some such, an explicit declaration that those not of the tribe must all die.  I didn't find one; I'm just not as biblically literate as I thought I was.  Oddly, however, in other books which some people consider biblical, one finds other things, for example this, from Matthew 25: 31-40:

³¹ When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

³² And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

³³ And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

³⁴ Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

³⁵ For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

³⁶ Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

³⁷ Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

³⁸ When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

³⁹ Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

⁴⁰ And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Good night, dear Diary.

Some explanations and links concerning the water fountain situation

Dear Diary,

I don't intend to have very much to write in you this month, during which I have to concentrate on other aspects of my life.  But it came to my attention today that I have no more permission to put Web links into my comments here than anywhere else.  Also, yesterday, I gave away my key to the water fountain mystery to two of your readers, and it seems unfair not to tell everyone else.  So here's a page of links and explanations.

This is Year Two of the Durkan Drought.  There's an important difference between the drought of last year, roughly March to July, and the drought of this year.  Last year, the few public water fountains that ran were scattered in well-defined segments of North Seattle.  There was a cluster in Ballard, a cluster in the far north of North Seattle, and a small cluster in the southeast of North Seattle, plus one in Wallingford and two in Green Lake that were easiest to explain as local phenomena.

• Ballard:  Sunset Place, Gilman Playground, Ballard Commons
• Northeast:  Little Brook Park, Pinehurst Playground, Jackson Park, Northacres Park, and arguably Licton Springs Park
  
• Southeast:  Burke-Gilman Playground Park, Ravenna Park, street fountain near UW
• Central:  street fountain in Wallingford; fountains of the Green Lake Park Small Craft Center.

I think this happened because three different plumbers were turning them on when the shutdown happened, and were working in the first three areas.  Street fountains normally stayed on most of each winter, explaining those two.  And I figured the Green Lake SCC folks just left a nice present for the city behind when they closed up.

I could, of course, be wrong, but anyway it's possible to understand the first year of the Durkan Drought as more or less accidental.  Not this year.  Here's the list:

• Ballard:  Sunset Place, Gilman Playground, Ballard Commons
• Far north:  Virgil Flaim Park, Pinehurst Playground, Jackson Park, Bitter Lake Playfield, and arguably Licton Springs Park and Greenwood Park
  
• Southeast:  Burke-Gilman Trail and University Playground

So obviously, there are fewer fountains, period.  But beyond that, they're slightly better spread out, and there's one more thing I can't believe I'm the only one who's noticed:

Far fewer running water fountains, at least in North Seattle, are in parks that have open restrooms, this year as against last year.

Two of the parks that are on both lists had open restrooms last year, but not this year:  Gilman Playground and Licton Springs Park.

One park on both lists is privately managed (and has had open restrooms and running water fountains throughout the pandemic):  Jackson Park.

Otherwise?  Last year, fountains ran in these parks with restrooms:  

• Little Brook Park
• Northacres Park
• Burke-Gilman Playground Park
• Ravenna Park
• Green Lake Park
• and Ballard Commons if you consider the Portland Loo a restroom

This year?

• Bitter Lake Playfield
• Greenwood Park
• and Ballard Commons if you consider the Portland Loo a restroom

So seven or eight publicly managed parks in North Seattle offered both water fountains and restrooms last year; this year, two or three do.  North Seattle has somewhere between a quarter and a third of the city's parks, so it isn't hard to extrapolate, and the result is pretty grim.

Statistically competent people may be able to estimate the probability of such a switch being random chance, but I'm pretty sure that probability is close to zero.

I'll leave my ideas as to explanations for later pages and now concentrate on links.

It looks like I misremembered the city's excuse for not turning on drinking fountains, and therefore articulated, in my comment earlier this afternoon, a disagreement between me and Erica C. Barnett of PubliCola that doesn't actually exist.  The city's excuse is enunciated in this uncredited article by Barnett:  they read the CDC's rules as requiring them to clean water fountains between each use, which is obviously impractical.  The actual CDC rules say nothing of the sort, nor does a more explicit CDC document; the first link says they need cleaning daily, which is the same reading Barnett came up with.  I'm sure if the city actually felt the need to defend its position, it would fall back to claiming that cleaning the fountains daily is too hard, which is the question I'm currently getting ready to work on.

I haven't been in touch with the city since I called (with your help, dear Diary) this city product for the homeless a pack of lies, so all I have to go by is what I see and what I read.

Concerned citizens other than me may wish to contact the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, which is, obviously, in charge of water fountains in the parks, with the possible exception of two water fountains on the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Those two fountains strongly resemble street fountains scattered around the city, responsibility for which isn't public, although I'm getting the impression that Seattle Public Utilities may be the agency to blame for the street fountains' steady decay in recent years.

 

I never contacted SPU to write you, dear Diary, but I used to talk with the parks department, and their contact page is where I started and where others who wish to complain should start.