It’s that time of year again. That occasion when we’re reminded of larger-than-life sights, sounds, and dramatic spectacle. MISCmedia MAIL denotes this today, as well as: the recent uproar over a local, modern “family slave” saga; Kshama Sawant’s “Socialist muscle”; another Seattle federal judge striking another blow against bigotry; and a bear in a tree.

“Pence would be worse,” the argument goes. We ponder that argument and its limits today at MISCmedia MAIL. Also: a disappearing piece of exurban “vernacular architecture;” a threat to the Hanford cleanup; the police-accountability plan and its discontents; and another Mariners bullpen collapse.

The recent FBI boss’s firing reminds many of Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” and the local political personage who was one of its victims. Also in MISCmedia MAIL: Yet another mayoral hopeful (probably not the last); Chris Hansen’s arena people strike back; Cliff Mass again makes a fool of himself on a non-weather topic; Amazon vs. Walmart in online espionage; and the usual gaggle of weekend events.

In Tuesday’s e-missive: A new low in fashion silliness; a local landmark razed two years after its closure; a GOP state senator who wants to force the city and county to divorce; more hipster “Native inspired” culture-theft; and fake “No Parking” signs.

We list what we know, and what people are conjecturing, about the claims of past sex crimes by the current mayor. We also discuss why campaigns to get more women to study tech might prove futile; more complications in the Nooksack tribe’s internal dispute; new depths in right-wing insult “humor;” and the usual many weekend event listings.

We remember the April Fool’s editions of college newspapers, and the “funny fake news” industry they birthed (not to be confused with the “deadly-serious fake news” industry). We also examine a solemn anniversary on Bainbridge; Bill Nye as the least-cool co-chair of the March for Science; a save-the-salmon video game; and the usual cornucopia of weekend events.

One of the top local Sure-Signs-O-Spring® is finally with us. Also with us this day are freedom for Daniel Ramirez (for now); KOMO employees vs. their right-wing parent co.; an attempt to preserve KeyArena and environs more-or-less as-is; and a completely sincere farewell to the First Hill McDonald’s.

The “ZAPP” archive of self-published zines, originally assembled by volunteers working out of Hugo House, has a new and safe home; though the ZAPP folks apparently had no say in it. As they say, it’s “complicated.” We also examine the need to re-re-clean-up Gas Works Park; Bill Gates vs. the proposed federal budget; a new “health scare of the week;” and national recognition to a great local artist.

As we wait, sometimes more patiently than others, for the ol’ change-O-seasons thang, we take note of particularly dreadful faux-native American kitsch; a serious allegation against a local celeb; another call for less bro-dominance in tech; and the Case of the Paltry Pint Glass.

For a big season O’ atonement, I’m not sure what we’re all supposed to atone for. But I do know, and relate, a little about municipal-income-tax proponents; Sound Transit opponents; a final victory for Alaskan Air baggage handlers; and an upside down, abstract rendering of Mt. Rainier.

I’m sure Ed Murray’s new speechwriter knew what he was doing when he wrote that we in Seattle are “on our own” these days. And I like to think I know what I’m doing when I talk about the state’s decaying bridges; Daniel Ramirez Medina’s latest legal tactic; a lost opportunity for affordable housing on east Capitol Hill; and Stephen Colbert’s fun with KCPQ’s “exposé” of teen emoji use.

Our Monday e-missive is, natch, mostly about the weekend’s “emergency marches” against the immigrant ban and the Sleaze Machine that devised it. But we also find space to remember a local TV legend and nationally renowned Scandahoovian-dialect comedy singer.

I think pretty much all of us (even Sounders FC and Husky football fans) would consider this past year to have been, overall, a dud, a bomb, a Dumpster® fire; with even scarier days looming ahead. Nevertheless, we have news items to discuss in the here-n’-now, such as St. Mark’s Cathedral calling bigotry a sin; the pre-upzoning U District as America’s most competitive housing market; Mt. Rainier as one of the world’s “most dangerous volcanoes;” and dozens of places to go on the big night.

In our midweek missive: An activist on how white “allies” can work for racial justice without, you know, taking everything over; park-and-ride lots’ popularity; still hyper-inflating home prices; good news for Queen City Grill diners; and yet another tragic celebrity death.

We need all the socio-political allies we can get these days, even within the pages of Teen Vogue! We look as well at Amazon’s at-long-last charitable streak; a church sex-abuse victim who doesn’t like what the church said about her legal fight; the governor proposing a “carbon tax” while a state investment board puts money into the petrochemical biz; and a (justly) long-forgotten novelty sport.