Seriously, how geeky is Seattle? Today So Far

• The primary election is right around the corner. Who will vote?
• Overall crime rates rose across Washington state in 2022.
• What do you think? Is Seattle "geeky?"

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for July 12, 2023.

Quick hits

• The legacy of Seattle's Odessa Brown Clinic
• Seattle's Hobson Place offers a fresh start after homelessness. For some, it's a brutal journey
• 2021 Northwest heat dome was deadlier than previously believed, according to new report

The election season has really snuck up on us. The primary election is Aug. 1, which means that ballots will soon hit mailboxes across the state. In Seattle, there is potential for considerable change on the dais as seven out of nine council seats are up for a vote. There are also a couple King County seats on the ballot, as well as school board elections from Seattle to Federal Way. In Pierce County, there are a lot of school district seats up for a vote, and Tacoma has a couple council district elections.

Still, turnout for this primary is expected to be quite low. There's some good news and bad news around that expectation. As KUOW's David Hyde reports, primary elections generally draw low numbers of voters, so this is not really new. Yet Washington's primary low is higher than other states. So while there is room for improvement, at least we're not Oklahoma. Read more here.

Overall crime rates rose across Washington state in 2022. This is according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, which is like a trade association of the state's law enforcement leaders spanning tribal police to state troopers, and everything in between.

KUOW's Ruby de Luna has the full story here, but one takeaway is that there were 394 murders reported in 2022, which is nearly a 17% rise over 2021, and the highest level of murders the association has documented since 1980 (when it started monitoring crime data). Other stats showed declines, such as reported hate crimes and arrests for drugs and narcotics.

It's no secret that our region is quite nerdy (at least it's no secret if you read this newsletter and put up with me hyping geek culture). So when I heard that someone crunched some numbers to come up with 2023's geekiest cities in the USA, of course I looked it up ... and Seattle was 14th!?

I laid out a few points about how metrics can be stretched, and there can be nuance in numbers. In this case, the cities that top the list generally have higher populations spread across larger areas, and the lowest-ranking cities seem to have smaller areas and smaller populations. The rankings also focus on cities, and don't take a holistic account of a community. In our case, let's be honest, it's not just about Seattle, it's about this entire region. It's about our regional culture. While I would argue that Seattle alone has a lot more nerd cred than is represented in this ranking, our region really is one of the geekiest corners of the country.

I made my argument around this in KUOW's blog (a pop culture convention nearly every month, local geek company HQs, MoPOP, a lot of cosplayers, a guy who puts up Mr. Spock art around Seattle, Soundside's "No Spoilers" segment). But I'd like to hear what TSF readers have to say. Am I wrong? Do I spend too much time thinking about this? What would your argument be for why Seattle, and/or the region, is so geeky? Let me know at dyer@kuow.org.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

John Doorman plays his lap steel guitar in City Hall Park on Friday, July 7, 2023. The city of Seattle invested in 28 busking events throughout All-Star Week. (Casey Martin / KUOW)

DID YOU KNOW?

Washington state has an official oyster. Yep. In my journey through our state's official everything, it has come up that Ostrea lurida, aka the Olympia oyster, is our state oyster. This is Washington state's only native oyster. There have been efforts in recent years to aid its recovery as overharvesting and habitat loss have delivered a few blows.

The state Legislature voted to make Ostrea lurida our honored oyster in 2014. Our official state code now says: "The Ostrea lurida is hereby designated the official oyster of the state of Washington. This native oyster species plays an important role in the history and culture that surrounds shellfish in Washington state and along the west coast of the United States. Some of the common and historic names used for this species are Native, Western, Shoalwater, and Olympia."

The credit for this honor goes to Claire Thompson who was attending Nova Middle School in Olympia. She was 14 at the time, and this was part of a school project.

ALSO ON OUR MINDS

Microsoft says Chinese hackers breached email, including U.S. government agencies

Tech giant Microsoft says it discovered a group of Chinese hackers had broken into some of its customers' email systems to gather intelligence. According to the Department of Homeland Security, one federal government agency first detected unusual activity on its Microsoft 365 email cloud environment last month, and immediately reported the activity to Microsoft and CISA.

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