From Pigs To Pi

Sometimes I think the very ancients were way smarter than we are. Sure, they had their faults, what with the infanticide and the lead plumbing and not knowing their times-four tables, but they would make up for it with bursts of sheer genius.

I'm thinking of the fact that the really, really, ancient Romans dispensed with months during winter. The months of the year began with their first month, March, and ended with their tenth month, December. Then there was winter, which was monthless.

It wasn't until the late date of 713 BC that the Romans fell stupid and invented januaries and februaries. At least they still had the sense, for another half millennium and some, to continue to start each new year on March 1st. March was the best month to start a year. In those days March 1 was the first day of Spring. Also it came after leap days, so calendar makers only had to design seven versions of calendars instead of our 14. Also, March was named for the god of war, and Romans liked to start everything (tea parties, dog shows, gardening, sunbathing, everything) with a war first.

I pine for those old days of Rome, and every year, as March approaches, I wish it were the start of my year and that January and February hadn't ever happened. Let's try to think of it that way and look ahead to the new month as an adventurous new beginning!

Our first adventure: Now that March 1st is no longer the first day of Spring, it has turned into National Pig Day. This Saturday, kiss a pig. If you have a pig to spare, put a pig in the pile. If you need a pig, take a pig from the pile.

Coincidentally, March 1st is also King County's Piggy Metro Stick-It-To-The-Disabled Day. On this March 1 all non-peak Metro fares go up a quarter. So regular fares increase 20%, but discounted fares of the disabled and seniors (who are mostly on fixed incomes) increase 100%.

I guess lately a lot of old people have been abusing the discounted fares to ride buses to and from hospitals, taking away from needed ambulance revenues, and cluttering the buses up with their ugly oldness. So it makes good sense to double the fares on them, to teach them a lesson. But I don't know why you'd double the fares on disabled people, unless you thought that would discourage disabled-ness, which is just plain silly.

March 2 is Texas Independence Day, the day we celebrate the right of immigrants to come in to a country and take it over, so long as they're our immigrants, and it's someone else's country. [Insert pig remark.]

On a brighter note, on March 6, The Stranger is presenting eight up-and-coming bands at two venues, Neumo's and Sole Repair, as a benefit for Real Change. Billed as a "cheap night of music," I doubt that more than one or two pigs will be admitted on a first-come first-served basis, so you should not rely on that, but get your pig a sitter in advance.

After a week, when we've had plenty of time to sober and find our homes, there will be a camp-out at City Hall on the night of March 13 to protest the city's policy of demolishing homeless encampments. I will be there. We want to see at least a couple of hundred of you there. Again, sadly, there will be a limit on the number of pigs allowed. Let's face it, they don't know how to use Porta-Potties. They eat all the truffles and don't leave any for us. They can do tricks, but who wants to see a pig roll over, climb a ladder, or leap through a ring of fire?

The morning after the camp-out begins Albert Einstein's Birthday (he would have been 129), National Pi Day, and the Ides of March Eve. Celebrate genius, circumference, and political change, as you again reunite with your pig.

Loads of Bon Mots

Welcome to a special non-topical version of these Adventures! Take this one internally and let it work globally!

There are a couple of reasons for going the non-topical route this week. One of them, which also may apply next week, is the little fact that even editors are human (!) and want Christmases and New Yearses off. So I have to turn this in several days before Christmas so that somebody else can have a Wonderful Life.

The other reason that this column is going to be utterly non-topical is that six days ago I fell off a rolling platform and got a significant “owie” involving pain in multiple places. I don’t know about you, but for me pain induces an impatience for the minutiae of the daily news, and turns my thoughts to the universal and timeless. And, where my thoughts go, there I must Adventure also, or my thoughts and I would become separated. (Get it? Advent; advent-ure.)

So what I thought I’d do today is share some little sayings that I either have lived by for years, or just made up recently out of crushing boredom.

“The essence of humor is clown squeezings.” A lot of people misread this one as saying we should go squeeze a clown for jollies. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying hurt begets humor. Some of these are metaphoric, damn it!

“A baby is nothing to sneeze at.” I think that can’t be said often enough.

“When life gives you lemons, pucker up.” I know, it doesn’t quite work, but the meaning comes across anyway, doesn’t it?

“Honesty is the best front.” This is one of my all time favorites. Remember kids; don’t waste your lies getting dimes and candies, cigarettes and kisses. Save your fibs for the big stuff, like escaping the death penalty, or truly worthwhile wide-awake debauchery that you’ll be able to remember when you’re in the rest home while being “tidied up” by the nurse after your daily business.

“Politics is never a dirty word.” Sometimes politicians will counter critics by saying, “You’re just playing politics.” They want to make it a dirty word so they can have it all for themselves. They know that all politics is about the exercise of power, that’s why they want to alienate you from the very word, so you can’t exercise power that you are entitled to. So whenever someone, even be they on your own side, says someone else is just playing politics, you should make vigorous expressions of disapproval.

“If you let a wild pig eat off your ass, it's your fault when he bites it.” That was the cleaned up version. At the moment I’m imagining Karl Rove as the pig, but it could be anybody. “Codependence kills,” is another one in the same vein.

“Never do anything you would be ashamed of. First, stop feeling you should be ashamed of it. Then do it.” Some of these are just plain obvious.

“When a 250 pound man gives the seat next to me to a 90 pound woman, and the bus slams to a halt, the 250 pound man will collide with my face.” I learned this one long before Homelessness Czar Philip Mangano cooked up the whole “house the chronically homeless first” line he’s been selling. I still would add to it though: “Better yet, buy bigger busses, seat everybody.”

“Beating your neighbor’s spouse doesn’t show how much you love your own.” These days what passes for patriotism is really national chauvinism. No one loves any one country that doesn’t first love humanity, as a whole.

“Language matters.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the constant abuse of language, especially by authorities, is making slaves out of us all.

This one’s just for me: “My mind is like a Border Collie, it needs to drive sheep.” While you think about that, I’ll get next week’s column ready.
Have a Happy, and may Bono be pleased with the New Year.

Florida Police Exploit Homeless People

Finally homelessness is in the news again, sort of.

Kissimmee, Florida, made the national news last week by having a couple of police officers pretend to be homeless guys hanging out at an intersection. They were there in order to spot traffic offenders for ticketing by cohorts a block away. This trick has probably been done thousands of times elsewhere, but Kissimmee officials were decent enough in this instance to allow reporters to watch the proceedings, so we get to know about it.

Before going on, let's pause to make our expected crack about the name of the town: No, Kissiyyouou, Florida. There, now we can relax and get to this story about fake homelessness.

Back to "Operation Vagrant." Two things seem to irk homeless advocates about this story. First is the fact that it shows once again that people are quite thoroughly aware of the problem. I mean, if the Kissimmee police thought that homelessness were uncommon, they wouldn't have imagined that by posing as homeless they would have blended into the scenery, would they? But what are they doing about that realization? They are exploiting the ubiquity of homelessness to catch people who turn right on red without stopping. This doesn't help homeless people.

The other thing that irks is that now when someone is driving around northern Osceola County and happens to see a homeless guy in the median, instead of thinking, "When am I going to do something about the homeless problem in this country," they'll think, "Uh-oh, better slow down to the speed limit." There is a certain dilution of concern that can be expected.

Some homeless advocates, namely those who are uncomfortable with the police altogether, may fear that a pervasive distrust for the cops could rub off on the homeless. So you're walking down the street and you see a disheveled guy sitting by the curb on a milk crate. In the past you would have said, "Get a job, bum!" Now you would say, "Get off our backs, pig!" That is, if you were already inclined to say things like that. So for these homeless advocates the fear would be that the homeless all might be confused with the police, creatures held in lower esteem.

I see the problem more as a personnel issue.

Let's consider a similar issue and see if we can spot the problem. Everybody remember blackface minstrel shows? Remember why they were so offensive? Because it was racism, right? Yes, but what else was it?

It was a personnel issue. The issue was, they already HAD black people who could sing and dance. They didn't need to hire white people to put on blackface and pretend to be black. They could have hired the existing real talented black people instead.

It wasn't so much the blackface itself that was so bad as it was the usurping of roles. Why does Pat Boone give us the creeps? Because he was getting the radio play when we should have been hearing Little Richard, that's why. He was usurping Little Richard's place at the table. And while we're at it, I think Little Richard should have been in Journey to the Center of the Earth, too, and shot out of a volcano, and landed naked up a tree. Who really wants to see Pat Boone's skinny white ass up a tree?

Likewise, what we have right there in Osceola County is a pair of police GETTING PAID THE BIG POLICE BUCKS to pretend to be homeless people and use a two-way radio (or I don't know, a stupid cell phone) just to call up their buddies and snitch on drivers.

I don't know very many actual homeless people who can't sit on a median strip and snitch on bad drivers. So why won't Kissimmee hire the real thing? Why do they pay for fake teeth and fake tattered clothing and fake ripped off shopping carts when the real deal is already out there courtesy of the real people?