UW Removes Iranian Professor: Iranian-American professor Aria Fani, got a call from Jackson School of International Studies director Daniel Hoffman late last month telling him he was being terminated as director of the University of Washington’s Middle East Center, according to UW’s student newspaper, The Daily. This came after Fani criticized the US-Israeli war on Iran in an email to the Center’s listserv. Fani told the Seattle Times, “There’s a chilling effect on, not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues, anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression.” Of note: the Jackson School is named after notorious pro-war U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who campaigned to have our Japanese-American community deported to concentration camps during WWII, and opposed their return after the war.
Actually Existing Campus Anti-Semitism: The family of a Nazi collaborator who joined Hitler’s Waffen-SS praetorian guard during the Holocaust has made a legal claim against the University of Alberta for ending an endowment in the man’s name. Remember when the Canadian parliament honored a WWII veteran with a standing ovation, and then Justin Trudeau had to apologize because the veteran fought for the Nazis, not the Allies? It’s that guy, Yaroslav Hunka. This is hardly the only Nazi scandal at the University of Alberta. A former university chancellor, Peter Savaryn, fought against Yugoslav and Slovakian national liberation movements in the same anti-partisan unit as Hunka. I published a photo of him a couple years ago awarding the now-King Charles an honorary law degree.
Anyways, Washingtonians Are Out of a Job: The Washington State Public Employment Department put out new unemployment numbers. They’re not great! Though they could be worse? Unemployment in Washington reached 5 percent in January, above the national average of 4.3 percent. That’s the highest unemployment number since COVID, KUOW reports. Those Starbucks closures and the massive layoffs in Seattle’s tech sector certainly aren’t helping.
It Looks Like You’re Going to The Moon: Astronauts on the moon-bound Artemis II rocket successfully blasted off earlier this week, immediately avoiding an Apollo 13 disaster when the shitter in the Orion spacecraft immediately went on the fritz. The astronauts now face a far graver challenge, one familiar even to those of us left behind on the Earth: the spacecraft’s copy of Microsoft Outlook isn’t working, and ground control has to remote in to fix it. KUOW reached out to Microsoft for comment, which everyone should do every time their software breaks.
There’s a Measles Outbreak in Portland: Seattle’s crunchy sister to the south is having what sounds like a typically Portland problem. There’s an outbreak of measles, which scientists invented a vaccine to combat in the mid-20th century, virtually eliminating the disease by the turn of the century. But these days anti-vaccine pseudoscience is a bipartisan hysteria. Measles is highly contagious, and the Oregon Health Authority says anyone who went to a particular Safeway and a few restaurants at specific times last week needs to call their healthcare provider immediately.
City Councilmembers Back Sonics Return: Seattle City Council’s Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee unanimously passed a resolution yesterday telling the NBA they’re ready for the Sonics to return to Key Arena (please don’t make me call it Climate Pledge Arena). The vote count was not particularly unexpected given the amount of Sonics gear KOMO showed the committee wearing.
Child Victim of Ted Bundy Identified in Utah: Seattle serial killer Ted Bundy raped and murdered dozens of women and children in the 1970s, not all of whom were identified or confirmed by the time he was executed by the state in 1989. Over 50 years later, Utah authorities say another victim has been tied to Bundy, Laura Ann Aime, a 17-year-old who disappeared on Halloween in 1974. The Utah County Sheriff’s Office says a full DNA profile of Bundy has now been recovered, and can be used to bring closure to cases of other long-suspected Bundy victims.
Tacoma-area Cops Kept Bodycams Off: The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office announced yesterday that deputies responding to a car accident allegedly caused by one of their drunken bosses didn’t turn their body cameras on as is required. And yet, “no evidence was found of intentional misconduct to alter the outcome of the criminal investigation,” according to the Sheriff’s department. How convenient! Major Chadwick Dickerson sent a family of 6 to the hospital last summer after crashing his SUV into their car, and was charged in October with two counts of DUI vehicular assault per the Tacoma News Tribune.
Weather: No rain today.
Happy New Year: Thursday marked the final day of Nowruz, the Persian new year festival. While it sadly coincides this year with US-Israeli bombing raids on civilian targets across Iran, AFP published a beautiful photo of Iranians making the best of it: smoking enormous hookahs while playing Uno in the park.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story referenced former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau’s apologizing for the country’s parliament giving a Nazi a standing ovation. It was actually his son, Justin Trudeau, who apologized. We too apologize for the error.