Seattle Could Use a Man Like Cnute

Old Bathos (View Post):

Listening to Seattle’s mayor-elect declare that Kroger’s should not be allowed to close six stores in western Washington that are performing badly, we might be tempted to cite the invariably misinterpreted story of King Cnute (990 to 1035) ordering the tide not to rise as an example of a ruler’s arrogance. But the full story is that after issuing the order, and when the rising waters of the Thames did wet his feet, Cnute then told those around him that the lesson was that power of a king is vain and trivial compared to the true authority which is God’s alone. I doubt that Cnute would have ordered Kroger’s to lose money while ignoring all of the reasons why doing business in Seattle is difficult. Resenting predictable outcomes from bad decisions is not how Sven and Gunhild’s boy became the absolute ruler of Scandinavia and England.

Thank you for getting it right, a story that's been told many times to the detriment of its main character--even on this site--and which has occasionally been salvaged, even by me:

And

From one of those posts:

I do wonder, sometimes, about the peculiar characteristic of the English in that only two of their monarchs regularly have “the Great” appended after their names, and those two are Canute and Alfred, both of whom are as famous in the minds of millions of their countrymen just as much for showing us the limits of their power, as they are for their military, legal, and administrative prowess.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. Perhaps I need the former, or future, Director General of the BBC to enlighten me as to what it might be.

Old Bathos (View Post):

Listening to Seattle’s mayor-elect declare that Kroger’s should not be allowed to close six stores in western Washington

I started laughing right at this point and didn't stop until I finished your post. Thanks for the uplift, OB!

Old Bathos (View Post):

Listening to Seattle’s mayor-elect declare that Kroger’s should not be allowed to close six stores in western Washington

cdor (View Comment):

I started laughing right at this point and didn’t stop until I finished your post. Thanks for the uplift, OB!

But is it funny? Do Seattle voters look in the mirror and break out into guffaws?

The incumbent mayor was projected to win on election night but late-counted ballots put her over the top, a result which seems a tad suspect and very Seattle. It would be kinda funny if it turns out that the shady political organizer activists went to great lengths to elect an even worse government than the existing one.

She (View Comment):

From one of those posts:

I do wonder, sometimes, about the peculiar characteristic of the English in that only two of their monarchs regularly have “the Great” appended after their names, and those two are Canute and Alfred, both of whom are as famous in the minds of millions of their countrymen just as much for showing us the limits of their power, as they are for their military, legal, and administrative prowess.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Perhaps I need the former, or future, Director General of the BBC to enlighten me as to what it might be.

Everybody should read the article that the first sentence links to. This mayor is a loon. I particularly like this declaration from her: "Food deserts are not natural, corporations create them when they abandon our communities." So, in a state of nature, supermarkets just exist? It doesn't take human beings to create them?

I can understand how people in feudal societies a century or more ago thought that socialism might be worth a try. It boggles my mind how anyone can be aware of the last century of history and think that the free market doesn't work, and socialism will. It's an eternal struggle to persuade people that Santa Claus doesn't exist.