Adam Willems
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adamwillems.bsky.social
Adam Willems
@adamwillems.bsky.social
480 followers 110 following 16 posts
reporting on tech (Wired, The Guardian) and Seattle (Seattle Met, Cascade PBS, etc)
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adamwillems.bsky.social
Atlanta Fed's Q1 growth forecast slipped last week from 2.3% to -1.5%. It's down to -2.8% as of this morning.
Line graph: "Evolution of Atlanta Fed GDPNow real GDP estimate for 2025:Q1." Previously hovered between 2% and 4%, and has fallen to almost -3% over the past two weeks.
March 3, 2025 at 6:11 PM
adamwillems.bsky.social
It’s presented in point-counterpoint fashion alongside a plea for greater trans inclusivity, but framing trans rights as a “debate” is inherently dangerous and has had demonstrably harmful social outcomes when platformed as such in other media outlets.
February 25, 2025 at 6:12 PM
adamwillems.bsky.social
This morning, Seattle’s paper of record published an op-ed claiming that trans kids’ participation in WA girls sports “gives boys access to girls teams and locker rooms” and tells “all of our young female athletes that boys are more important than they are.”
Photo of opinion piece by Carol Brown and Anne Simpson in the Feb 25 print edition of the Seattle Times. Full text can be found here: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/youth-sports-in-wa-allowing-trans-athletes-on-girls-teams-violates-title-ix/
February 25, 2025 at 6:07 PM
adamwillems.bsky.social
Ghastly developments from the WA state leg rn—

A push under the guise of bipartisanship and “compromise” to criminalize drug possession and let local govts effectively shutter harm-reduction programs + sites as they see fit:

https://shorturl.at/qMQY4
In addition to raising the penalty for possession, it would create a new statewide crime of “knowing use” of drugs in a public place, separate from the crime of drug possession. Both would be gross misdemeanors. However, for both crimes, the maximum fine and punishment would be lower for the first two convictions. Typically, a gross misdemeanor comes with a maximum of 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. But under the proposed law, people convicted for the first or second time for possession or public use after July 1 would face a penalty of up to 180 days in jail and an up to $1,000 fine. Upon the third conviction, they would face up to 364 days in jail. And it would let cities and counties regulate clinics that distribute sterile drug use supplies and provide other services, causing alarm from organizations doing that work in Washington. A prior version of the bill had stopped cities and counties from regulating drug paraphernalia, such as pipes, at all. Republicans had pushed for local control, and House Republicans named it among their top priorities to change in the bill in a letter to the governor April 29. The version of the bill released Monday would still bar local governments from regulating drug paraphernalia, but it creates an exception, allowing them to enact laws and ordinances “related to the establishment or regulation of harm reduction services” and drug paraphernalia. “Some localities aren’t comfortable with that,” said Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, one of the lawmakers negotiating the bill. The provision means that cities and counties could in effect prohibit harm reduction services, he said. Washington has a long history with the idea: The first publicly sanctioned sterile syringe program in the United States began in Tacoma in 1988. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, programs that contracted with the state Department of Health distributed about 20.5 million clean syringes in nearly 105,000 encounters, according to the department. The interaction that people have in settings where they get sterile supplies is important, said Everett Maroon, executive director of Blue Mountain Heart to Heart in Walla Walla, a nonprofit that provides services including sterile supplies, in an interview last week. “We have developed this relationship with people because we offer things that help them in the moment,” Maroon said. “And in offering those things to them, we’re telling them, ‘We care about you.’ “
May 16, 2023 at 4:21 PM
adamwillems.bsky.social
⚠️Time to BlueSky.⚠️
a sunny + clear blue sky! Adam wearing orange sunglasses and a grey sweater looking upward at the blue sky
May 2, 2023 at 9:47 PM