u/TechbearSeattle

The Washington (State) Department of Health has ordered Seattle LGBTQ+ Center and all other "contracted prevention partners with the Washington DOH" to do their HIV and STI testing at a federal facility in an actively homophobic and anti-trans state. This group of health providers includes community based organizations and local health jurisdictions (meaning programs run by county, municipal, and health districts) that focus on integrated testing, harm reduction, and prevention for HIV, STIs, viral hepatitis, and overdose prevention.

I want to give a reminder as we head into Labor Day that unions did not win the weekend, or overtime pay, or sick leave, or medical insurance, or minimum wage by being nice, or polite, or respectful. We won these things through protests, strikes, and radical action.

My current conlang, Pa’inatsabeh, is reaching state where I can use it, and I have some literature I want to translate: myths told as chanted hymns.

The language is polysynthetic, with incorporated pronouns for subject and object, possible incorporation of the direct object, and lengthy list of other affixes. To give an idea of the size of resulting words, the language name literally means "We all speak it." Another example is to’anatongupika’etsi, "I am about to go hunting for fish (i.e. fishing)." I don't think words of this size are amenable to rhymes, which has led me down an interesting rabbit hole of how other languages manage poetry.

Japanese uses morae, the number of "beats" a syllable has. Latin uses vowel length, which English adapted to become meter. Hebrew uses couplets based on idea, with the second line clarifying, contrasting, or expanding on the first one. Old English uses beats, breaks, and alliteration. Many languages rely on kennings, metaphors that replace common words in order to fit them into the expected patterns.

This language was inspired by the Uto-Aztecan family, so I will probably start with Nahuatl forms of poetry and work out from there. I'm interest to know what others have done in this arena: does your language have a genre of poetry or hymnody? If so, what forms did you chose that best fit?

With no resolution from the state on wages, it seems the planned walk-out on August 31 will occur. How will this unfold?

Last time, there was a one hour rally on the pedestrian bridge next to the capitol building, but I believe the bridge is closed right now due to construction. Where, what time, and for how long will it be this time? What about workers outside of Olympia who cannot make a rally at or near the capitol?

The last time I was cruising was well before the duck phenomenon started. I'm wondering if people still hide ducks or if the fad has faded. Is it worth doing?

I am post bariatric surgery, and I need to take in a sizeable quantity of protein every day.

I was originally planning on bringing some protein shakes, but that takes up a lot of luggage space, and I have read that I cannot bring those onboard anyway. So I was going to bring protein powder that I could mix with milk, but food has to be factory sealed. Now I am hearing that once factory sealed food is opened, it may not leave the ship, which seems to mean that I would have to leave an expensive tub of protein behind when I disembark.

I'm feeling a bit confused about what is and is not permitted. I would like to avoid having to eat eggs, meat, and beans at every meal, but that would likely be the only option if I cannot bring a supplement with me. I would also like to avoid the hassle of getting medical permission for a rules exception. Does anyone have recent experience with this kind of situation? I would love to hear of your experience.

I am leaving Los Angeles on the Encore on October 18. I have been trying to register and pay for transfers to and from LAX, and all I get is "Sorry, we are unable to verify your flight information at this time."

It is almost two months before the check-in window opens, should I wait until I am fully registered for the cruise before trying again? Or is this an actual problem I should call about? I would rather avoid a long time in queue on hold if I can avoid it.

If you have already received your primary ballot (got mine today) then be sure to use a drop box rather than a mail box: the USPS is no longer required to return your ballot to the elections office. If this new ruling remains in place, you will likely need to download or physically request a general election ballot too, which will likewise need to be delivered to a drop box.

A while back, I got the idea of building a conlang based on the Uto-Aztecan languages, using Classical Nahuatl and Hopi as inspirations. Those languages are polysynthetic and very verb-forward, so I have spent most of my time so far working with the verb structure. For now, I am calling it Proto4 until I come up with a proper name. There is a lexicon at the end; I have omitted all of the affixes to keep this from getting too long.

So, let me know what you think.

Phonetic inventory

Consonants: m, p, b, w, f, v, θ (th), ð (dh), n, t, d, s, z, ts, dz, r, ʃ (sh), ʒ (dz), tʃ (ch), dʒ (j), and the glottal stop (')
Vowels: a, e, i, o, u

Overview

Proto4 uses a VSO word order. It has a vowel harmony system divided between front (e, i) and back (o, u) vowels. The vowel (a) is neutral. The frontness or backness of the stem determines which set of affixes will be used; a stem with just (a) will take back affixes. There are a very few exceptions, such as object incorporation with the verb, where the harmony rules are ignored; in such cases, the primary stem determines the affixes. I may expand this from five to seven vowels.

The language has an ergative/absolutive alignment: the subject of an intransitive verb and the patient of a transitive verb are unmarked, while the agent of a transitive verb is marked.

General verb template

[agent] + [patient] + [d. object] + [verb root] + [manner] + [aspect] + [mood] + [tense]

References

A bare verb root cannot exist: it must always have references to the agent and patient of the sentence. If there are no noun phrases in the sentence, these act as pronouns.

te'inateki = 1S ERG + 3S ABS + to cut = I cut it
fi'anapika = 1Px ERG + 3P ABS + to hunt = we (exclusive) hunt them

A passive construction can be made by using a zeroth person for the agent.

kate'inateki = 0 ERG + 3S ABS + to cut = It is being cut (lit. something cuts it)
katetsepika = 0 ERG + 2S ABS + to hunt = You are being hunted (lit. something hunts you)

The zeroth person absolutive prefix flags intransitive verbs.

kinatechishe = 3S ERG + 0 ABS + to burn = It is burning

Tense

Proto4 has two tenses: past and non-past. The non-past is unmarked.

te'inateki = I cut it / I am cutting it
te'inatekiri = I cut it / I have cut it

Aspect

Proto4 has four grammatical aspects: perfective, inperfective, inceptive, and prospective. The perfective is unmarked.

to'unagus (perfective) = I carry it
to'unagusuga (imperfective) = I am carrying it
to'unagusumeta (inceptive) = I am about to carry it
to'unagusutso (prospective) I will carry it

(Note: A verb stem of one syllable that ends in a non-stop consonant, like 'gus', usually adds a vowel before suffixes.)

to'unadovuru (past perfective) = I sent it
to'unadovutsoru (past prospective) I would send it (in the past after some other past event)

(Note: a verb stem with more than one syllable that ends in a consonant, like 'dovur', usually drops the final consonant before suffixes.)

Mood

Proto4 has six moods: indicative, subjunctive, imperative, optative, permissive, and conditional. The indicative is unmarked.

che'inateki (indicative) = You are cutting it
che'inatekibif (subjunctive) = (If) you were cutting it
che'inatekitek (imperative) = Cut it!
che'inatekitse'a (optative) = (I would like it if you would) cut it.
che'inatekitis (conditional) = (If this happens,) you cut it.
che'inatekiseti (permissive) = You may cut it

che'inatekitsetek (prospective, imperative, non-past) You must be ready to cut it!

Manner

Proto4 has a number of additional affixes that can be used to express the manner by which the action of the verb occurs. This is not a comprehensive list.

to'unagusukamochuru (-mechi/mochu-) = I carried it carefully; I carried it stealthily
kate'inatekiganeri (-gane/gano-) = It was cut violently
to'unagusulala (-lala/lala-) = I carry it regularly
to'unaguslala'ugaru (habitual, imperfective, past) = I used to carry it regularly (but do not do so any more.)

Object incorporation

When the direct object of the verb is "in general," it will often be added as a prefix to the verb stem to create a compound verb that narrows the action. This is one of the only places where vowel harmony is ignored. There are a bunch of rules for this which are beyond the scope of this overview. The verb stem is used to determine whether front or back affixes will be used.

echi (house) + avik (to dwell) = echavik (to dwell in a house)
uda (wood) + chishe (to burn) = udachishe (to burn wood, to light a hearth)
mitsa (deer) + pika (to hunt) = mitsapika (to hunt deer)
tongu (fish) + pika (to hunt) = tongupika (to hunt fish, to go fishing)

These compound verbs are then treated as a single verb stem. Typically, these verbs are intransitive if the patient is the class of noun used in the compound and so will use the zeroth person absolutive prefix, but other prefixes can be used if needed.

pa'atetongupikameta = 1Sinc ERG + 0 ABS + fish-hunt + INCEPT = We (all of us) are about to go fishing

pakantongupikameta ga'ame = 1Sinc ERG + 3P ABS + fish-hunt + INCEPT salmon-AnimP = We (all of us) are about to go fish for salmon

(Note: The language recognizes inanimate, animate, and sapient genders. Sapient is used for humans, spirits, and gods. The suffix -me shows the animate plural, showing that we expect to catch more than one salmon.)

Lexicon

teki v. 'cut'
pika v. 'hunt'
chishe v. 'burn'
gus v. 'carry'
dovur v. 'send'
avik v. 'dwell'
mitsa n. 'deer'
tongu n. 'fish'
ga'a n. 'salmon'
echi n. 'house'
uda n. 'tree'

I am preparing an economic analysis of employee pay versus various metrics, including national Consumer Price Index (CPI), Washington State CPI, median rents in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater metro area, and a few others. I am just waiting for a public records request to be fulfilled to get the pay schedules starting fiscal year 2000 (OFM no longer has historic pay schedules available for free on their website. How odd.) There are 120 tiers on the 2026 schedule, and each tier has 13 steps. This is a lot more data than I can use (more than 1500 sets), so I am working out a way to select a representative sample.

I want to make sure that I understand how the schedules work. If I understand correctly:

• Every position has a tier tied to it, which determines the pay scale for that position.
• Advancement from one step to the next is tied to the Period Increment Date, which is based on the hire date and starting step.
  • If an employee starts at Step A, their PID is six months. This means they will advance one step every six months from the date of hire until they reach Step L after 6.5 years.
  • If an employee starts working for the state at Step B or higher, their PID is one year. This means they will advance one step every year from the date of hire until they reach Step L after 12 years.
• An employee stays at Step L for five years. After that, they advance to Step M.

If anyone knows an official source for how many employees on average were in each of the pay tiers since fiscal year 2000, PLEASE let me know: it would be very useful if I could group tiers by number of employees.

My goal is to have the paper completed and vetted before the start of the 2027 legislative session, when it will be made available to lawmakers, WFSE, and possibly the media. It will also be available for download.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.