Boys Will Be Boys

Let's talk about raining death upon our enemies!

I first realized that I had enemies when I was about 3 years old and some 4-year-olds stopped me on the sidewalk and threatened to beat me up. I began to carry a big stick around with me to fend off vicious 4 year olds. But for some reason at that time the idea of raining death upon them did not even cross my mind.

Then I started hearing Bible stories that ended with the Lord smiting here and there. Still, the idea of personally raining death was slow in forming. In second grade I remember wanting lightning to strike both Helen (a girl who couldn't stop kicking me because she loved me too much) and my teacher (who wouldn't let me kick Helen back because she was a girl.) Preferably at the same time. But I saw the whole lightning striking thing as belonging to the Act of God category, not something that I might control on my own.

Perhaps I was behind in my development, in need of a Piaget breakthrough. Or maybe I didn't have enough positive death-raining models to emulate. My parents never let me read Conan the Barbarian books. There was nuclear war, but that was all so abstract and hazy, with talk about so many millions dead at a time, when what you really want is to smite selectively. You just want to take out your stupid neighbor, your stupid relatives, your stupid principal, stuff like that, not all of Wisconsin.

I would be interested in hearing other people's experience in this regard. In my own case, it was during 5th grade that I first remember fantasizing about smiting my enemies one-at-a-time. When my English homework was due and I didn't have it, what better solution than to turn into a wild man-killing wolf-dog beast and snap Miss Larson's neck and drink briefly of her hot blood before hurtling away to leave the rest of her to the worms and to seek fresher game at gym class?

Unfortunately I was unable to master the whole boy-wolf-boy transition.

My next idea was to become invisible for short periods of time, just long enough to garrote each target, presumably with an invisible garrote. This also did not pan out. Not that I would have garroted anybody actually, we're still talking fantasy here, but I would have liked having the option, thank you.

Then, sometime around age thirteen I started to get more realistic. I dreamed of death rays fired from remote controlled robot planes. On the day of the big English test a small plane could be seen circling Asa Mercer Middle School if only the guilty knew where to look. But they wouldn't look up – the plane would be inaudible at that altitude, and there would be nothing to alert the doomed teacher to its presence in the sky above. A mile away a boy genius sitting at a console in his basement would be operating the plane's controls. A miniature TV camera on the plane equipped with a powerful telescopic lens would relay target images to the boy who would wait for just the right moment to push the button that would instantly fry the unsuspecting English teacher. Hah! So much for Silas Marner.

The neat thing about death rays is that they don't require bullets. If they did, then someone who was smarter than you could invent a ray gun that would shoot the bullets. But you can't shoot rays with rays. Everyone knows that.

If any of you think that ray guns shooting bullets are unrealistic, you haven't heard of the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser MTHEL (I think we should pronounce that like "missile" with a lisp.) The other day the MTHEL successfully took out two artillery shells on-the-fly. OK, it's too big to be a personal death ray, but they're working on shrinking it.

Meanwhile, all of you must have heard about the alleged terrorists who were assassinated by a Hellfire missile shot from a remote controlled robot plane.

Are you putting all this together? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Are you thinking that our national security is in the hands of men who think like adolescent boys?

Me For Mayor

If you are reading this paper close to the beginning of the month, and if you've been paying attention, you may know that Seattle is about to choose a new mayor.

I myself discovered this fact just last week. Here's how it came to my attention: I was just minding my own business, using the computer to make joke pictures of Tim Harris, our Director. With my back thus turned, he and our production manager were discussing who the Real Change ought to endorse for mayor. They were both certain that there was no way we could endorse either of the two official candidates, so that we would have to endorse a write-in.

Who should we pick? Well, lets see, they thought , who's not here? Why, Dr. Wes can do it! Dr. Wes will do anything! And the next time they spoke to me they said I'd have about 600 words for that wire service article and oh, by the way, we'll be running you for mayor hope you don't mind. Mayor of what? -- I asked, naturally. Of Seattle, they said.

Now I am told that this means I have to have a platform. We're sure you'll come up with something, they say. OK, well then here is my platform. These are my solemn promises to you the Seattle citizen should I be elected mayor.

1. If you have a complaint I will actually meet with you and hear it, once or twice. Maybe. If I feel like it. Lately I've had a cold.

2. I will cash my paychecks promptly and without complaint.

3. I will not maintain a house in a foreign country. Or, if I do, I will not spend much time there.

4. I will create a photocopy of my butt on Mayor's office stationary and send it to the City Attorney's office, and I will include an attachment to the effect that it is the view of the new mayor that the City Attorney's face is not a sidewalk.

5. Just for a hoot, I will propose laws designed to restrict the hours that homeful people can be on downtown streets. When people object, I will say, "Well, they have homes to go to, don't they? So why should we have to look at them?" When people still object I will laugh insanely and lock myself in my office for days.

6. When downtown businesses offer money to get their way with City Hall, I will politely decline it, reminding them that the City's policies are to be determined by its citizens at large and are not on an auction block.

7. Inauguration day: beer and pizza for all!

My slogan: "Let the vegetarians feed first. Then, while they're at it, we'll move in!"

Speaking of moving in, Operation Nightwatch and friends got out at 3am on the 24th for their annual count of Seattle's homeless.

As usual they only counted those who'd passed out in Seattle's "living room".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I know that the Count is important and supplies a lot of useful information. For example say I want to camp in the Pioneer Square area. Consulting the tables I find that 77 of the 108 street people found there on the night of the 24th were either in public parks or under roads or bridges. Not one was found in a parking garage. So for a quiet restful night's sleep I should head for a parking garage, that's where the privacy is.

But, seriously, I won't be sleeping in Pioneer Square at all, because I don't want to be anywhere that I can be so easily spotted. By Operation Nightwatch, by the police, by thieves, or by anyone else.

When I have slept outdoors, I have always done so outside of the areas that are included in the count, because they get too much traffic, and I have made myself as invisible as possible. So invisible that I don't believe I could ever have been found by anyone who failed to trip over me. And that's the way most of the homeless people I know go about it.

But precisely because we make ourselves invisible we are never counted. The public sees only those who either don't care about their own privacy or who are in no condition to hide themselves effectively.