These are the continuing adventures of a typical resident
of the self-proclaimed center of the Pugetopolis universe -
Seattle. Most are true stories but some are made of whole-
cloth. I ain't the Mayor, the Governor or a Big Shot. Just
another Working Stiff with a Bad Attitude.
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WARNING: This is not a Child-Proof Neighborhood.
If you're a kid - scram!, beat it! you little
punk before your Old Lady catches you and calls
the cops. They'll throw you in the Big House in
Walla Walla and won't let you out until you're
89 years old. There. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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- 113 -
If you take I-5 towards downtown in the mornings you may have
looked down at Lake Union and noticed a warship sitting at the
Lake Union Drydock Company's facility on the south shore of
Lake Union. That's the USS TURNER JOY. Normally she's parked
next to the ferry dock in Bremerton where she's available for
tours. Must be in LUD for a little lipo-suction and facial-tuck.
She's no ordinary destroyer. She's a genuine piece of history.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson used an attack on her by North
Vietnamese gunboats, to ram the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through
Congress. Our misguided military adventure in Vietnam began in
earnest from that very moment.
It was nearly a unamimous vote. Only two people voted against
it: Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Senator Ernest Gruening
of Alaska. Every other Congressman and Senator jumped on LBJ's
bandwagon and whooped it up for War. Needless to say, Wayne and
Ernie were reviled at the time as everything from traitors to
unpatriotic scoundrels of the worst sort. But, as history has
shown, they turned out to be the only two politicians in the
entire country who were smart enough to recognize a con-job when
they saw one. Years later when the last chopper lifted off our
embassy building in Saigon during our ungraceful bug-out leaving
over 60,000 dead young Americans and over a million dead Vietnamese
civilians in its prop-wash, both men and their wisdom were long
forgotten. The 'dominoes' never did fall as predicted. Everything
LBJ and his cronnies said was pure, USDA Grade-A Government
Guano.
This time when the 'con' was in there was only one Congress
Critter with the courage to say 'no' - Barbara Lee of California.
She stands in distinguished company. It has earned her a withering
smear campaign from the usual VFW beer-gut/butt-cracks and enough
death threats that the Capital Police have a assigned a cop to
follow her around. But undoubtably, after we royally screw this
pooch as we inevitably will, she too will be forgotten by most.
But not all. Bernie Sanders, the balless Progressive formerly
known as Socialist and our own cowardly Big Jim McDermott lacked
the cojunes to vote against it. With election time just around the
corner, screw principles - they want to get re-elected. Their first
priority is to keep their snouts in the Public Trough and that Easy
Money flowing. That's worth more to them than the lives that will
be lost. What are Little People for afterall?
........................................................................
'OL YELLER GOES TO WAR
Wearing his souvenir "Nebraska - Love It or Leave It" t-shirt and
nifty chrome helmet with "Da Man" emblazoned on it, President
Yellowbelly paced the Oval Office carpet before a bevy of aides.
'IT'S WAR! IT'S WAR!", he bellowed to nobody in particular,
dangerously waving a laser pointer in the air. At the word 'war'
all the military aides jumped up from their chairs and dashed off
to the Pentagon carrying the news. As their footsteps faded into
the distance..."No! Wait! Gol darn it. That's too harsh.", 'Ol
Yeller vexated. How about 'Everybody just act normal and leave it
to us.'" At this change of plans, all the State Department aides
jumped up from their chairs and ran off to General Powell's office
with the new strategy. As the last doors slammed in the distance...
"No, no, people'll think I'm some kind of wimp after what's happened.
I can't say that." Back and forth he paced, up and down on the Oval
Office rug. 'IT'S A CRUSADE AGAINST EVIL!', he suddenly gushed forth
with inspiration. The National Security aides all jumped up to their
feet and dashed off to the NSC with the new plan. "Nah! Doggone it!
Them Diaper Heads get pretty nervous about that word 'crusade'. I
can't use that." More pacing. "I know...I'll wage a SILENT WAR. Yeah.
That's the ticket! That way if we screw up and lose again, nobody
will know!"
The only other person left in the room at this point was one of his
daughters. "Daddy? Yo Pops!", she impatiently interjected. "Yeah
Honeybunch. Whatcha want? Daddy's kind of busy right now.", replied
the Leader of the Free World aiming his laser pointer at a squirrel
outside the window while making little 'ping' noises. "Daddy. I need
a Fin for a 6-pack and Mommy says I already maxed out her Plastic.
She won't give me any Scratch. Come on Daddy - Baby needs a new pair
of shoes. Show me the money." Absent-mindedly 'Ol Yeller fished around
in his pockets and came up with a twenty. "Get me a family-pak of that
new 'Jesus Juice' too while your at it Honey. The red stuff with the
smiling Savior giving the 'thumbs up' on the label.", he mumbled as
he continued to ponder the situation alone and ping the squirrel.
Cheap Revenge 2001 is a little slow off the mark. After failing to
respond at all to a major attack on our soil, the butt-draggers at
the Pentagon continue to have difficulty putting together a timely
response against even an utterly helpless scapegoat. Thank heavens
this wasn't an invasion by someone who knew what they were doing or
we'd all be taking language lessons. It took them all this time to
field a Special Forces Lynch Mob to search for Osama bin Ladin, like
he was going to patiently sit around for weeks waiting for them to
show up. They're wasting their time. And already, a few of them got
nabbed by the Taliban. A story that was promptly buried. Osama's
probably vacationing in Florida trying to wind-down after all that
excitement. His sister lives in London. Why not grab her as a hostage
and threaten to have her baptised as a Methodist if he don't turn
himself in. That'd give him something to think about.
[BTW - I don't know if it occurred to anyone, but your average
Afghani likely doesn't have a TV and, preoccupied as they constantly
are with finding something to eat, very probably is largely unaware
of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington (not that they
would know which country either city is in). They may not be able
to read those Army propaganda leaflets but at least they won't have
to worrry about toilet paper or cigarette rolling paper for a few
years.]
Still only guessing at who pulled off the attacks, and after weeks
of promising to come up with the evidence linking ObL to the attacks,
President Yellowbelly still hasn't come up with anything at all
beyond that lame, limp-wristed malarchy he slung at Congress. After
trying to bluff his way through with a 'don't have to explain nothing'
routine, that nice Mr. Blair in England felt sorry for him and jumped
in with some ready cooked stuff. What the heck - it's not like anybody
is going to be checking for accuracy eh.
The Egyptians and Iranians, previously so certain Uncle Sammy would
come barreling across the Atlantic with six-guns blazing that they
pledged their undying affection, have now crawled back out from under
their tents and are bravely thumbing their noses at us again. Even
the Saudi Royal Family has had to resort to lying about not being
a participant in Yeller's Lynch Mob. Poor India, so sure only a week
ago that we'd destabilize Pakistan enough to give them an excuse to
invade and reclaim it, are forced to watch their dream evaporate. And
the Rooskies and Israelis are hoping and praying we nuke somebody so
they can nuke their Booger Men too. The U.N. has obligingly redefined
'terrorist' to mean anyone who dissents from an existing government
i.e. Nelson Mandela, George Washington, etc. We did manage to find
some old Dumpster Diver who claims to be the former King of Afghanistan
and are trying to flog him as the successor to the Taliban. Hopefully
they can sober him up in time for the Big Show.
[BTW - the best suggestion of a long-term strategy I've heard for
dealing with the Taliban is for us to kidnap all their women and
give them college educations before returning them home. That'd
fix 'em good.]
After millions of bucks spent over the last decade or so on how to
deal with a terrorist attack, this is what we get after the real
thing: a bunch of bureaucratic Boobs wandering aimlessly around,
bouncing off the walls in a mad panic, utterly clueless as to what
to do next. A lot of Cheap Excuses and gibberish about how 'nobody
could have foreseen an attack of this type' and 'this is the price
we pay for living in a free society'. Hogwash! Plenty of people
foresaw the scenario (novelist Tom Clancy for one) and national
suicide has never been part of our Constitution. Heaven help us all
if there's a follow-up attack. That'd send our Guardians into a
Mach-10 Panic. They'd be hitting every button on the board sending
us into irreversible self-destruct mode. Fine for them - they got
bunkers to hide in, we don't.
I haven't heard anyone mention in casual conversation anything about
the attacks since the day they occurred. Out here in the Boondocks,
thousands of miles from Ground Zero, this was entirely a Media Event.
If you weren't plugged-in you wouldn't know anything was going on.
Though you might have been curious about the smattering of flags -
too few for the 4th of July and vastly outnumbered by peace-signs in
some neighborhoods. Easily mistaken for the anniversary of Jerry
Garcia's death. With diminished TV coverage has come diminished
interest. Aside from the people with personal connections in NYC and
military reservists worrying about getting called up, everyone else
is back to their normal bitchy selves.
Our News Nazis have chattered about little else except the attacks.
Stupid debates, ignorant opinions and xenophobic brain farts litter
the electromagnetic spectrum. Like somehow a moron with a microphone
miraculously is no longer a moron but an expert. The notion is as
rediculous as that of a brainless President miraculously becoming
endowed with wisdom and brilliance when a crisis hits. Stuff like the
pointless arguments about whether the attackers were courageous or
cowardly. Who cares? Either way - they're dead and their plan worked
gangbusters. Whenever our News Nazis need some Public Opinion they just
whip up one of their phony opinion-polls. Nothing in the Free World
is as easy to rig and fix as a media poll. Even easier than an election.
They're meaningless.
The simple, unalterable, naked reality is that nobody running America
gives a fig what the average American thinks. Our job is to shut-up,
pay the bills, do the dying and applaude when the sign comes on. We
didn't choose this President and despite the rantings and ravings of
the News Nazis, few people accept him as our leader. Tough luck for
us. They don't care - we're stuck with him anyways.
And ultimately, things are much as they were before the attack. Our
intelligence agencies are as just as clueless, leaving our Border
Patrol still uninformed and still helpless as well as still under-
staffed. Security still means some dude in a snazzy fake-cop uniform
with a Smokey the Bear hat and gun who doesn't understand English let
alone Arabic. Heaven only knows what the National Guard are supposed
to do at our airports. They ain't got a clue either. If the attackers
were to do their thing today, it would come off exactly as it did
three weeks ago. Uncle Sammy would still be standing there holding
the door open for them. Like Louis Celine once said, "Before a
thought can start up in the brain of a jughead, a lot of cruel things
must happen to him." We got a ways to go before we wake up and smell
the coffee.
It's difficult to imagine why there wouldn't be further attacks. This
one was simple, cheap and has become the stuff of legends. It was wildly
successful. Not only did go completely undetected, it utterly destroyed
its targets and the resulting national panic and confusion fed by the
Media coverage, infinitely increased the effect far beyond the initial
damage. The political, social and financial consequences will be felt
for years to come. And after the dust cleared, we had no idea of whom
to retaliate against - left to impotently attack imaginary Booger Men
for revenge. What more incentive could we possibly provide?
I always have my flag in my window. All the time - summer, winter,
rainy days, sunny days, election days, Christmas, Easter, during
crisis, during quiet times. I'm an American. My flag never fails
to remind me that being an American is something unique and special.
What makes it such a distinction is not our wealth or our power.
That stuff comes and goes. Besides, anyone can do that. Money and
brains are mutually exclusive - just look at Bill Gates. What makes
being an American so special is our Dream of Freedom, Liberty and
Equality for all people. No other country in the world has taken
that on as its Mission. Nobody else in the world has put it down
in black and white like we have. The tiny spark that has sprung to
life so many times in history only to fade away, ignited into full
glorious flame when America was invented. Centuries from now when
we are mentioned, it won't be for our amazing GDP in the year 2000
or our supposedly indominable military might. Nope. It will be for
our faithfulness to our Dream in the name of all mankind. It is our
historically defining characteristic. That's why I fly my flag. It's
neither a flag of War or Peace. It's a flag of Hope. And hope as we
all know, springs eternal.
........................................................................
COMPARATIVE DOT.COMOLOGY
Aside from being a new form of business, Dot.coms bring a different
style to the work-place as well. They commonly have an unorthodox
approach to 'taking care of business'. I've made the rounds of a few
of them in the Seattle area and pass along my observations.
Microsoft - the least Dot.commish of the bunch. The decor is standard
office cubes and the employees readily mistakable for bank
employees. They have a couple token Freaks but that's
as close as they get to the Real Thing. Strictly Dullsville
Daddy-o.
Q-Pass - pretty standard except for the Fussball game in the
kitchen and the constant milling about. They chat so
much you have to wonder when they actually work. Typical
undergrad dress-code and Dilbert furniture. Corporate
lollypops at the reception desk.
Amazon - moderately Grungy environment that screams 'under
construction'. Everyday is 'Dress Down Friday'. But the
their unique contribution is the dogs. Many employees
have dogs and they bring them to work with them. They
sniff each others butts, bark at strangers, get into fights
and hump one another unmercifully. And that's just the
employees. You should see what the dogs are like! Oi!
The only serious Bummer is the bizarre security overkill.
They're the world's biggest non-profit corporation. What
in the hell do they have that anybody'd want to steal?
Loudeye - the Creme de la Creme of Dot.commiedom. The whole place
looks like something out of the movie "Bladerunner". And
there's nothing pretentious about it either - they did
it with recycled materials - old 2x4s and plywood, etc.
If there was a Dot.com Stage-design award, they'd win it
hands down. No kids or pets. The dress code isn't as
relaxed as Amazon but that's by the employees choice. You
can be freaky if you want but it won't buy you any points.
Very laid-back and amiable bunch. They look after one
another more than any of the others.
The Hutch - Not a Dot.com but hardly an orthodox work environment.
People come and go as they will. Their work is project
oriented - as long as you pull your weight nobody cares
what time of day you work. Pets of all kinds are common
but not as plentiful as Amazon's dogs. Kids too. Many
of the researchers and support people bring their kids
along for a few days at a time. Aside from the people on
the top-floor, the pay is pretty low so any savings on
day-care helps out a lot. They meet a lot. Formal meetings
are well-advertised and often feature international guests.
But they hold lots and lots of small, informal ones all
the time to make sure everybody's 'on the same page'. It's
all team-work and TeamThink. The only place with a majority
female work-force. Since everybody wears lab-coats and
PPG suits, dress-code is a moot point. The only place with
a regular Friday After-Work Beer Bash. The labs take turns
doing the weekly posters for this thing and it often results
in outrageously elaborate efforts - true masterpieces of
poster art.
But for outrageous, nothing beat an un-named Medical Insurance
company surreptitiously squirreled away in one of the big Dilbert
towers downtown that I passed through once. It was nearly an all-
female staff whose feminist consciousness was cranked to the max.
It should have been typical Dilbertville eh. Unh unh. First thing
you saw walking through the door is a half-naked store-dummy scantily
attired in leather, rubber and chains holding a long whip in her
hand. Lots of kids and babies wandering around the place. Enough
candy and snacks to rot your teeth right out of your head inside
a week. Board meetings featured many execs breast-feeding their
infants as they mapped out corporate strategy in the latest chic
up-scale leisure togs. And they never talked without food nearby.
All significant meetings were catered affairs. It looked like they
were having a dinner party complete right down to the circulating
wine bottles. A delightfully weird and kinky place. The Mothership
would be highly dismayed if anyone found out who they are.
........................................................................
MONDO VATICANO
Won't be long now. Future-Super-Saint JP-2 is inching ever closer to
his Final Reckoning. If I were him I'd be worried - very worried. He's
got an awful lot to answer for. His deliberate falsification to get
the Papacy, his vicious repression of anyone who even so much as
thought out of turn, his silence in the face of political repression
around the world, his Velvet Glove bigotry and the utter mess he's made
of the Church's liturgy, Sacraments and priesthood. He's about to find
out there is nothing allegorical about Hell. Few have betrayed God's
People so profoundly.
+ + +
Roma was kind of vacillating on whether or not to morally sanction
retaliation for the recent terrorists attacks on New York City and
Washington, D.C. The Old Pollock, on tour in Armenia, was making
pacifist noises again like he did during the Gulf War. Navarro-Valls,
back at his familiar spot behind the Holy Wheelchair, felt compelled
to 'clarify' that the Holy Father loves wars as long as they are
'just'. Then the magic word got mentioned - crusade. That pushed the
right button. 'Nuff said, they were firmly in the retaliation camp
after that. It's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" as far as
the Vatican is concerned. Bomb the hell outta the infidels. Nail a
few Jews while we're at it. Anything that cuts down the competition
works for them.
+ + +
The first book examining the Vatican's history of anti-semitism, and
particularly the consequences of it in Nazi Germany, drawing on the
Holy Office of the Inquistion archives (aka Ratso Ratzinger's
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) will be coming out soon.
The CDF archives weren't made available to historians until 1998.
Future-Super-Saint JP-2 aint' gonna like it. "The Popes Against The
Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism" by David
I. Kertzer of Brown University will get short shrift from the True
Believers and apologists amongst the Faithful. It's critical, ergo
heretical, ergo not worth reading beyond the dust-cover. But it
is a serious academic work and it won't be as casually dismissed by
the rest of the world. Many are seeing it as a response to the
Vatican's 1998 white-wash of its historical bigotry in "We Remember:
A Reflection on the Shoah". Needless to say, that memory was highly
selective and inventive. My old buddy, the erudite and learned Leo
the XIII, sadly turns out to be one of the biggest scumbags ignoring
even his own local bishops to fund and support the anti-semite movement
in Austria.
+ + +
This past week was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, for Jews. One
of their highest of holy days. It was the only day the High
Priest of the Great Temple of Jerusalem entered the Holy of Holies -
the Inner Temple. And he was the only one allowed in there. It was
the day on which a goat, laiden with the sins and wretchedness of
all Jews, was sent off into the wilderness to fend for itself -
a scapegoat. Much later long after the Temple was destroyed, it
became the tradition to wave a chicken over the sinner's head, then
give it away (or the monetary equivalent) to the poor - a scape
chicken. Sounds a little more interesting than 'say 3 Our Fathers,
3 Hail Marys and an Act of Contrition'.
+ + +
John Cornwell, whose book on Pope Pius the XII's failure to oppose
the Nazis Jewish extermination policy, is also coming out with yet
another book - "Breaking Faith: The Pope, The People and the Fate
of Catholocism". The Doctrine Nazis went bonkers over the earlier
book casting Evil-Eyes and no end of bad Mojo on him for it. They
ain't gonna like this one any better. He explores one of my favorite
topics: the dictomy between Roma and the Butts In The Pews. The BITPs
blatantly ignore many of Roma's basic doctrinal teachings, most
especially on birth-control and abortion. This puts them technically
in a state of mortal sin yet, the insubordinate apostates still insist
they're Catholics and go to Mass every Sunday happily partaking
in Holy Communion and the other Sacraments. It amounts to a quiet
schism of sorts within the Church in which Roma is fading into
irrelevancy. Rather than a noisey confrontation, there is a quiet
non-compliant resistance. A reversion to the primacy of personal
conscience in the vacumn left by Roma's failure to provide worthy
counsel. The Boyz over on Planet Vaticano are utterly oblivious
to all this. If you're too stupid to know it's broke, you ain't
going to be smart enough to fix it.
+ + +
Saint Antonio Gaudi? He's been nominated for the honor by probably
won't get it. The turn-of-the-century Spanish architect famed for
his bizarrely surrealistic buildings that actually appear to to have
grown in place, never married and claimed to never have even had
sex. But he did like to play the part of the dandy when he had a few
bucks to throw around and he had an indecent affection for the poor.
Roma would go for a Spanish fascist but never a Spanish lover of the
proletariat. That sends the wrong message. His Sagrada Familia
cathedral in Barcelona, to which he devoted his final 40 some odd
years, is still under construction and likely will remain so for many
decades to come. It's not one of those modern Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Mam
jobs. It's more like the grand old cathedrals of Europe - an extended
project.
Too bad he got run over by that Barcelona street-car at the tender
age of 74. It did allow him to fulfill one of his final wishes: to
die amongst the poor. The cabbies at the scene of the accident mistook
him for a bum and refused to transport him to the hospital. One of the
local Cops had to do the job. Then he came back and slapped each of
the cabbies with tickets for failing to help an injured man. Barcelona
dressed in black for his funeral. They still love him - saint or not.
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The above is copyright material. You want to use it,
ask. You want to make money off it, gimme some first.
I'll let you know if it's enough. You want to steal it,
I'll sic my lawyer Yoshi 'The Proctologist' Rasmussen
on you baby. He'll teriyaki your sorry butt and turn
it into Lutefisk.
~--------------------------------------------------
MAIL: tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
ARCHIVE: http://www.geocities.com/tofoggymoment
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