[from 6/17/09]
Last Thursday, a day after the last issue came out, and after a full day in which Seattle could discover that this column was not represented in it, a flood of an inquiry asked what had become of the crossword puzzle. The crossword puzzle thanks whoever that was who asked for their concern. (It took a little vacation.)
I myself spent the week on Facebook with all my wonderful Facebook friends. It's hard to believe that I lived for over half a century without belonging to an internet social network. What did I ever do with my free time? I must have stared at screens, but why?
Fortunately almost everyone I've ever known is now on Facebook, too. Anitra "I Am The Web" Freeman was naturally there first, and dragged me to it. Everyone at Real Change is there, although several are hiding from me. Speaking of hiding, even my muse, Cindy Holly, Muse of Other & Muse of Few Words, is on Facebook, where she's using an alias. She's afraid that otherwise she'd be inundated with unsolicited job offers. She's also lying about her age. Putting down "ageless, of surpassing beauty" in the application wasn't an option.
So now when I need help from Cindy, I don't have to conjure her up. We can pass Facebook messages back and forth. I just asked her on Chat how I should kick this column back up, and she answered right back, "you should find out what's going on and write about that" followed by a winky-smiley. She knows I can't stand smileys, hence the wink. After thinking a minute I asked "What's going on where?" By then Cindy was off-line.
So I'm going to guess she was talking about Nickelsville, as opposed to, say, the Iranian presidential elections, or the switch to digital TV. For the humorous potential. Nickelsville, you will recall, wants to be a permanent shanty-town/encampment for Seattle homeless people that have been let down by an inadequate shelter system, a Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness that's a joke, and a mayor who treats human beings who won't further his career in any obvious way as waste. It began on alleged city land in West Seattle last year, was booted off by Mayor Nickels, then stopped in Discovery Park, the U District, and south of the city. Now it's back 100 yards from its original site on state land, just out of the Morlocks' reach.
The reason I think Cindy meant for me to talk about Nickelsville, as I've said, is that there's a potential for humor in its unfolding, whereas everything else happening is just bad news.
Being homeless is really the ultimate inconvenience, after all. You don't have a decent place to sleep, no way to get one, and everyone blames you for it and gets in the way of every single effort you make to try to improve the situation. That's why Nickelsville won't ever be downtown, for example.
When Nickels went to the press to justify tearing down camps of homeless people he cited the filth of the camps. So the campers asked that they be allowed toilets and dumpsters, and were turned down.
A lot of people have said that they should never have called it Nickelsville, because to do so "politicized it." But if one man is the political power that threatens to destroy your chances of survival, that's your politicization right there. Nickels is the politician, Nickels is the agent who started the sweeps, Nickels deserves all the credit for making Nickelsville a necessity.
I myself spent the week on Facebook with all my wonderful Facebook friends. It's hard to believe that I lived for over half a century without belonging to an internet social network. What did I ever do with my free time? I must have stared at screens, but why?
Fortunately almost everyone I've ever known is now on Facebook, too. Anitra "I Am The Web" Freeman was naturally there first, and dragged me to it. Everyone at Real Change is there, although several are hiding from me. Speaking of hiding, even my muse, Cindy Holly, Muse of Other & Muse of Few Words, is on Facebook, where she's using an alias. She's afraid that otherwise she'd be inundated with unsolicited job offers. She's also lying about her age. Putting down "ageless, of surpassing beauty" in the application wasn't an option.
So now when I need help from Cindy, I don't have to conjure her up. We can pass Facebook messages back and forth. I just asked her on Chat how I should kick this column back up, and she answered right back, "you should find out what's going on and write about that" followed by a winky-smiley. She knows I can't stand smileys, hence the wink. After thinking a minute I asked "What's going on where?" By then Cindy was off-line.
So I'm going to guess she was talking about Nickelsville, as opposed to, say, the Iranian presidential elections, or the switch to digital TV. For the humorous potential. Nickelsville, you will recall, wants to be a permanent shanty-town/encampment for Seattle homeless people that have been let down by an inadequate shelter system, a Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness that's a joke, and a mayor who treats human beings who won't further his career in any obvious way as waste. It began on alleged city land in West Seattle last year, was booted off by Mayor Nickels, then stopped in Discovery Park, the U District, and south of the city. Now it's back 100 yards from its original site on state land, just out of the Morlocks' reach.
The reason I think Cindy meant for me to talk about Nickelsville, as I've said, is that there's a potential for humor in its unfolding, whereas everything else happening is just bad news.
Being homeless is really the ultimate inconvenience, after all. You don't have a decent place to sleep, no way to get one, and everyone blames you for it and gets in the way of every single effort you make to try to improve the situation. That's why Nickelsville won't ever be downtown, for example.
When Nickels went to the press to justify tearing down camps of homeless people he cited the filth of the camps. So the campers asked that they be allowed toilets and dumpsters, and were turned down.
A lot of people have said that they should never have called it Nickelsville, because to do so "politicized it." But if one man is the political power that threatens to destroy your chances of survival, that's your politicization right there. Nickels is the politician, Nickels is the agent who started the sweeps, Nickels deserves all the credit for making Nickelsville a necessity.
It's Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake. It's wrong to laugh, but you can't help it.
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