George’s slightly off-center view of the world
Amazon packaging (not including padded envelopes) totals 26,400 square miles of cardboard, more than enough to blanket the state of West Virginia.
As Amazon continues its relentless march to world domination, here are a couple news nuggets:
Continue reading “Checking in with Amazon”Dan Smith built a fence around the Mercedes 250 parked on the apartment property he manages in the congested Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. The vehicle bears the logo of the car-sharing company car2go. Smith says the car is parked illegally. 
With all the news about #MeToo and Mr. Weinstein and a certain pussy grabber, let’s return to Depression-era Seattle. Drastic funding cuts to the Seattle Public Library in 1932 resulted in fewer hours and services and pay cuts for employees. Staff was also reduced. The Library Board of Trustees came up with an equitable way to implement employee terminations:
It shall be the policy of the Seattle Library Board not to employ a married woman whose husband is able to provide her a living. Any library employee marrying a husband able to provide a reasonable income will be required to tender her resignation.
Ten years later, World War II caused the Board to loosen its restrictions and allow the hiring of a married woman… if her husband was serving in the military.
The current occupant of the White House says that the fires burning in the West are simply the result of bad environmental laws and water wasted by letting 
rivers flow into the ocean. (Scientists disagree; they say it’s the changing climate.) But maybe the folks in Malibu want to agree with him. They might want less water in the ocean. Melting icebergs have already covered beaches and sand, and now the water is working on coastal cliffs. The U.S. Geological Survey projects are that by the end of this century, cliffs will have eroded as much as 130 feet inland. Much of the California coastline is already protected by sea walls, which have the unintended consequence of speeding up the loss of sand on the beaches.
Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. and Jeff Bezos’s Amazon are competing to impose their own redevelopment visions on Seattle. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, got started first with his very own, taxpayer funded football stadium south of downtown and his in-progress makeover of south Lake Union on the northern edge of downtown. Bezos is coming on strong, with his new Amazon headquarters taking over central downtown… unless the city tries to levy a new tax; then he’s outta there.
Seattle still has a few quirky attractions that residents are proud to show off to visitors. They demonstrate how hip and creative they are, and are serious evidence that they do not take themselves too seriously.
Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen are competing to see who can make the heart of Seattle into his own vision. Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner Allen’s football stadium south of downtown and his Lake Union redevelopment Experience Music Center to the north are changing the face of the city.
Meanwhile, Amazon now occupies more than 25% of Seattle’s total office space. The all-things-for-sale behemoth filled 70% of new office space last year and is on track for the same in 2017. Of course, this keeps rents high for other tenants in the downtown area. People who are prone to worry have expressed concern that with one entity so entrenched in the city’s core, a downturn in Amazon’s fortunes could have a deleterious effect on Seattle. But that’s silly. Big companies are immune to that sort of adversity.
