Hope Springs Eternal

I haven't said much about the Iraq War lately. I hate repeating myself and you can't not when you're talking about the repetitive.

But, holy cow, look what happened this morning. First, I beat my head on this keyboard, to bang a column out. Nothing came out of my head as usual (the head-banging trick almost never works) so I did what I always do next. I checked CNN.com, to see if anything had happened overnight. And there was the story, just 39 minutes old, "Blackwater security firm banned from Iraq."

Just the day before, Blackwater contractors had been blamed for killing 8 civilians and wounding 14 in what was seen by many Iraqis as a scatter-shot response to small arms fire on a State Department motorcade.

You could say, "Insurgents shot at our State Department officials, and the Blackwater people were contracted to protect them, so what's the problem? When the insurgents stop shooting at us, Blackwater can stop shooting back." You could say that if you missed the fundamental issue involved, namely that whereas American military personnel are accountable for their actions in Iraq, to the military and ultimately to the American people, individual contractors are not. All we can do is cancel an entire contract, and that won't happen because the security companies have too many friends in the Bush Administration. Worse, our government has not permitted their puppet government in Iraq to hold military contractors to Iraqi justice. So without any investigation of the shooting having begun, everybody in Iraq had to know that the contractors involved would never pay a price, even if they had knowingly mowed down unarmed citizens in a deliberate massacre. It wouldn't matter.

Since I knew the puppet government in Iraq couldn't try these guys, it never occurred to me that they might get away with booting them out of the country altogether. It will be interesting to see if the order sticks.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this news gives me hope. I want to relish that hope. I want to savor every drop of it. Therefore I will indulge in fantasies, dreaming of the great news to come that may have just been heralded.

It might be that this is the first of many such bannings. Blackwater could be banned from Afghanistan. Then, countries where Blackwater isn't working now could ban Blackwater from working there in the future. Then, countries where Blackwater might never work anyway might ban Blackwater from passage through them. The result could be that Blackwater could be stuck operating entirely in the United States.

That done, the American people might wake up and come seriously face to face with the reality that the only remaining reason for Blackwater's continued existence is to wait in the wings until the scheduled roundup of undesirable Americans and facilitate their shuttling off to the concentration camps. And having witnessed the banning of Blackwater in the entire rest of the world, they might get the cajones to do it themselves, right here in the freedom-loving U.S. of A.

What's that? It can't happen? Americans won't get their rocks until the day comes they can tell Iraq from Afghanistan on a map? Hey, don't rain on my dream.

I'm not done. If the Iraqis, who don't even have a real government, can tell Blackwater to shove off, anything is possible. Americans could see straight to try the board and management for treason. They could elect a really good president.

The emerging testes could even affect us here in Seattle. Seattleites might realize they've been irresponsible to allow the MID Yellowjackets, unaccountable hired vigilantes, to force poor people to conform to the selfish greedy whims of the megacorporations that control the Downtown Seattle Association.

One more dream: Instead of peeing themselves every time they're asked for a quarter, and trying to put a stop to the practice, Seattleites could get the balls to just say no to panhandlers and keep walking.

The DSA Is High

The Downtown Seattle Association, or the DSA, as we like to call it, has its “Have a [heart-symbol], Give Smart” campaign, with brochures and a devoted website at givesmart.org. Let’s figure it out!

The DSA says it’s about panhandling, which is about mostly non-homeless people wanting, “in many cases,” drugs and alcohol, and therefore you shouldn’t give them money.

I say it’s about begging. Panhandling is handling a pan. Begging is asking for money. Words have meanings, DSA!

Once we understand that they’re really talking about beggars, rather than pans, we can go to the next fundamental question. Namely, who the freakin’ hell is the DSA and why are they begging me not to give to beggars?

The DSA is an association of, at last count, 439 businesses located in or interested in Seattle. For example the New York City based Merrill Lynch is a member. They have offices here. US Bank is a member. They’re part of US Bancorp, which is headquartered in Minneapolis. Macy’s, which owns the former Bon, is a member. Nowadays they’re based in San Francisco. Tillicum Village and Tours is a member, reaching out to Seattle from Blake Island.

Almost exactly 25% of the DSA’s members are real estate firms. Nearly 25% more deal heavily with real estate firms. There are architecture & planning firms, law firms, banks, insurers, finance companies, and title companies. So about half are companies that profit not just out of a dedicated business site in Seattle, but from the money that flows from pocket to pocket when those sites are created, leased, and sold, and leased again and sold again, and again, and again.

So they’re begging, “Please, please, don’t give the beggars money. Help us send them away! They might scare off new businesses and we won’t make as much money as we want to. PLEASE let us make as much money as we want! We PROMISE neither we nor our children will use our profits to buy cocaine. We PROMISE we won’t use any of our profits buying other things we don’t need, like Italian shoes, Pinot Noir, jogging shorts, or canopied beds.”

Here’s what I think about the real estate business: It’s all stolen property, people! Remember who Seattle was? This land doesn’t really belong to these jackasses!

The Seahawks and Mariners are members. And, here’s your irony, so are the Oklahoma-group-owned Sonics and Storm.

I suppose the Sonics had no representative on the Give Smart Committee. Still, isn’t it odd that one of the most talked-about members of this organization that’s telling us beggars shouldn’t get money just begged for a sackload of money from tax-payer funds?

“How much of a sackload, Wes?” I’ll tell you how much. If you took all the money they’ve just asked the governor to help them pry from tax-payers and you gave it to Seattle’s street beggars instead, each one would get a minimum of $300,000 (assuming a high estimate of 1000 street beggars. There may be only 439, one for each business in the DSA.) That would allow them to all retire.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should do the opposite of what the DSA says and go out and give the street beggars every dime and dollar they ask for.

I’m just saying, the various highly rich and some not so rich hotshots who run and own the businesses that identify themselves with downtown Seattle, who act like they ARE downtown Seattle, buy drugs and alcohol with the money they make off of this corner of the world. IN MANY CASES. That’s a fact.

You should consider that before you let them earn any more money than they really need for necessities like food, water, housing, and toilet facilities.

They’ll tell you it’s different for them precisely because they earn all their money (the Sonics, Seattle Opera, SAM, a hundred others, aside.)

But it’s not all earned! It’s made by dealing in stolen property. Never forget that.

Rocks Are Hard Dirt

I want to tell you all to stop controlling my mind. I tell you dirt is nutritious. You are trying to stop me from knowing that, by focusing contrary brain waves on my truth receptors. You are wrong to do that. Smart people like me, who read, know eating dirt is good for you. Ask any smart person like me who reads, like Jesus or Moses. (Moses used to read stuff on rocks.)

Did you know that rocks are hard dirt? Yes, it’s true. It shows you how much God loves dirt, that He wrote the Ten Commandments on a hard form of it. Praise dirt. (It is also highly nutritious.)

I don’t know if this has anything to do with dirt (?), but this week the Seattle Times reported that Kate Joncas, a human, said that establishing two hygiene centers downtown was “right”. She said that it can’t be good for a neighborhood “to concentrate that many needy and damaged people in one place.”

I agree totally with that, which is exactly why I steer clear of neighborhoods where I see too many television antennas on the roofs.

So I was very sorry to hear that Kate Joncas, also Downtown Seattle Association President, said she was sorry to have said what she was misquoted saying. Because it was so true. Homeless people and people like me who have been homeless are damaged. By homelessness! That’s why we don’t like it! “Duh!”

Speaking of duh, I’m reminded of the Third Man Theme by Anton Karas, which has no words, and was originally performed on a zither, which has a sound that is extremely difficult to reproduce vocally.

So when I “sing” the Third Man Theme, it sounds like this: “DUH duh duh duh DUH, duh duh, *dum dum*, DUH duh duh duh DUH, duh duh, *dum dum*, etc. What a great movie theme! It rocks!

So what does this have to do with dirt, you ask? Well long ago, between the first time I was homeless, and the second time, I spent four cool days in Vienna, or as I like to call it, the Third Man Theme Park. (The Third Man was a movie that was made in 1949.)

I went there precisely to see all the sights from the movie. I wanted to see the street (Stiftgasse) where Harry Lime (Orson Welles) was run over by a car according to the porter in the movie. I wanted to see where the porter lived. I wanted to see the Mozart Cafe. I wanted to see the Bahnhof (train station), I wanted to see rubble left over from World War II. I wanted to see a small scary man holding a puny dog.

And I did! It was great. It was all there, and I got to see it, all the while thinking to myself, “DUH duh duh duh DUH, duh duh...”

Well almost everything was there. There were no underground tours of the Vienna sewer system where Harry Lime (Orson Welles) took that fatal bullet from Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten). I really missed that, and I’m hoping that Vienna’s city council or whatever they’re called will eventually get with it and offer tours of the sewers, preferably with zither music piped in.

But all the best stuff was there. The high point of my trip was my visit to the Prater, where, on the ferris wheel, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) almost shoots Holly Martin (Joseph Cotten), before he finds out that Holly Martin (Joseph Cotten) has already told the police about him. While I was in the Prater (http://www.wiener-prater.at) it was very crowded, not like the movie, but at one point I passed a man with one leg who looked liked the balloon salesman in the film. I thought, “Cool! The Balloon salesman! DUH duh duh...” and then an old woman started shrieking at him in German.

She screamed how dare he appear in public where so many tourists could see him. She shrieked that he was disgracing Vienna and Austria by exposing his shame (his missing leg) for all the world to see.

At first I thought, “COOL! Anna Shmidt’s (Alida Valli’s) landlady!” Then I thought, “How wonderful it is that I live in a country where we don’t hide our damaged and disabled, where we actually do what we can to help our most injured to live full healthy public lives, where we care about people themselves and not about how they appear.“

That thought made my trip to Vienna the perfect fantasy! Thank you Vienna! Thank you America!

Ignoring Ignorance

Lets talk about varieties of ignorance this month. We experts classify ignorance in accordance with the answers, in each specific instance, to such questions as, "Is it safe for me to ignore this bit of ignorance? For how long? Might ignoring it be advantageous?" Examples of the advantages of ignoring ignorance abound in poetry.

In fact ALL poems begin with a poet who doesn't know how to say something. And almost all end with a poet who doesn't know how to say it, or even if "it" can be said. Only the difference is that by then he/she has a poem. If everyone knew how to say anything that came to mind there would be no poetry, only speech, and the world would be full of it, much like Congress.

For example, latch onto a feeling, like caring for someone. What color is it? How should I know? What does that even mean? It doesn't matter, I'll just write --

a heartbeat

echoes blue

off the walls

of the shadows

of my time --

a vanished

redbird sings

to the child

we touch

violet

together

Note that the question remains unanswered. I'll call it "Violet is the Color of Caring," and add it to my first chapbook.

On the other hand, there are forms of ignorance that should not be ignored

"If the peasants have no bread, let them eat cake." - a suggestion from Marie Antoinette, shortly before having her head removed from her body by an outraged populace.

"Hygiene centers are unnecessary, they can use the bathrooms at Nordstrom's." - the gist of a suggestion from the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) last month.

Prompting this open letter to the DSA.

Dear DSA:

Congratulations! I had to reach back over two hundred years to find a comparable expression of monumental ignorance founded upon so much lackadaisical indifference. I hope you fully appreciate your good fortune in happening to oppress a people so profoundly uninterested in violence as the good homeless people of Seattle. They deserve from you at least a sincere "Thank You" for that, should a certain callous insensitivity make a full apology for your stupid remarks impossible. Was that last sentence hard to understand? Tough. Figure it out.

But I bear you no ill will. I understand that even ignorance as grave as yours is a disease not a crime. To show that I care, and to encourage your speedy recovery, I am presenting you with this humble poem.

To Sufferers of "Barely-Affective Disorder"

(Affective: displaying emotion, capable of being touched.)

Cheer up! Help is near!

The State relates to those who can't

socially associate!

In fact:

Our Lawmakers assure

that your disorder

has a cure --

Community Service

Work Shelters

Group Therapy.

-- that and more is their prescription

for making upstanding citizens

from those afflicted

with your condition

OH...

And Oh Yes --

along the way,

don't worry

for your personal state.

You'll get GAU pay,... and , AND

Nordstrom's is open each and every day!

(Or anyway until eight)