The second is our much maligned Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The next was from the pathway that leads from the ferry terminal at pier 50 to First Street.

I know they aren’t the greatest pictures, but I wanted to share anyway. I thought the sky had a nice color to it.

Instead I’ll tell you about this great sandwich. It’s from Arbys which is new and old for me. It’s old because, when I lived in Phoenix and I worked for Big Companies, I’d often be forced to get fast food for lunch. In part it was time, in part it was a lack of choice. It’s new because, since I moved to Seattle, I can count how many times I’ve had fast food on one hand.

So there was this nostalgic rush that hit me as I walked in the door. That old familiar scent of floor cleaner and fried food after breathing Big Company stale air is something that I think bonds all people who work in corporate campuses everywhere!

So I’m toasting you with my Arbys sandwich!

Instead, I found a fairly large, vibrant city with lots of great looking restaurants, pubs, and shopping.

In fact, as I left, it occurred to me that Victoria might be a better destination than Vancouver in a number of ways. Specifically? Not sitting in stop and go traffic for six hours waiting to get across the border!

Here’s the ferry:

Here’s the requisite picture of the famous hotel:

And here’s some weird looking uniform:

Here’s a guy with crabs:

No, I didn’t make it to the gardens.

First, the 20 cent bag tax is plainly a tax on the poor. Carrying around those clunky totes is no problem for those among us with Volvo station wagons. However, when I was riding the very packed buses to work through Seattle’s International District, Central District, and parts of Mount Baker, I saw a lot of big poor families that were having enough trouble hanging on to their kids, let alone having to remember that they might be going shopping that night. If they forget there’s no food in the refrigerator, they’ll probably forget to bring the tote. This isn’t really a problem when you have no kids and you make $100,000 a year. It is a problem when you make $32,000 and have three kids.

Second, the 20 cent bag tax fails to put the cost of the behavioral change on the cheapest cost avoider. That is, the tax should not be placed on consumers. Attempting to get consumers to change behavior is expensive and inefficient compared to what we could do if we taxed the grocery stores for the use of the bags (or if the state charged a tax on their importation). If we did something like that, then the stores or producers would attempt to innovate something better. The best innovation consumers come up with is a dirty old tote.

Third, the 20 cent tax may actually undermine environmental efforts. I say this based on a conversation I just heard in Starbucks this morning. A woman was saying, “they want to charge us for air in our tires, water to drink, and now plastic bags.” The barista, for whatever reason, explained to her how bad the bags are for the environment. The woman was nonplussed. I think the general majority of people lump grocery stores and government into a larger “they,” and so most people won’t really get it. They’ll just see it as yet another burden from “they,” and that may turn the same people off of environmentalism. I think it’s an annoying and unfortunate mistake.

Grey Gallery
1512 11th Ave
Seattle, Washington 98122