Triple Bypass

It seems the story last week was less about the Kim family than, “How can you and YOUR family avoid dying if trapped in your car on a back road in Oregon in a blizzard?” TV news teams showed us how to assemble survival kits. On CNN, Anderson Cooper said, “Next hour: the survivalists’ Rule of Threes and what it means for you.”

That sounded very important so I had to wait for it. I often use a Rule of Threes when writing this column. For example let’s say I wanted to call attention to the fact that the winter solstice is approaching and how that means we can expect colder weather. I might remind you of three fun winter solstice events. There’s the (1) Annual Pigs Balanced On Their Noses Gala, the (2) Annual Pigs Squealing and Running Away Festival, and the (3) Annual The Planet’s Tilting the Wrong Way Again Observation.

It doesn’t matter who you are, if you are Goldilocks or if you are the Council of Nicea or if you are you, or whoever, threes are going to get your attention better than twos, fours, or seventeens. Threes are just enough to make you notice but not enough to induce a trance and result in your being possessed and dancing wildly until the god is done with you and leaves you exhausted and near death.

Which reminds me, we were talking about survival. So when Anderson Cooper told us about the survivalists’ Rule of Threes he mentioned the three rules: (1) You can survive only three hours in severe weather without shelter, (2) You can survive only three days without water, and (3) You can survive only three weeks without food.

Therefore, they say, it’s essential to get shelter first. Where have we heard that before?

While I’m trying to remember, I’ll let you all contemplate (1) the report by the Public Health Department that said they had to deal with 94 deaths of homeless people in King County last year. Or (2) the fact that we’ve exceeded that number this year. Or (3) the fact that if the same percentage of all housed people died in King County every year it would be declared a disaster area.

Oh, I remember. I said it. We need shelter first, because it doesn’t take a blizzard to kill you if all the doors in the city are locked to you.

They now say there was a well-stocked lodge within two miles of the Kim’s car that they could have reached had they known about it. But in the city there’s only enough shelter space to shelter about half the people who are homeless.

Meanwhile, Tom Rasmussen recently told a bunch of activists that the Human Services Department told him, when he asked, that the city’s shelters have no capacity problems.

I have three comments concerning that.

(1) The Human Services Department doesn’t keep track of shelter turn-aways, so their opinion on the subject is baseless. It would have been better if Tom Rassmussen had asked somebody who knew something about it, like the countless homeless people who have been turned away from shelters, who are all just trying their best, every cold night, to do what Anderson Cooper told the vast American TV viewing audience to do. So as not to end up on the Public Health Department’s roster of the dead.

(2) Rasmussen probably bases his perception in part on the truth that some homeless people won’t apply for shelter. What he chooses to ignore is that those who avoid the shelters cite dangerous overcrowding as their chief reason. So large numbers of non-applicants or zero turn-aways would not be evidence that the shelters are operating at capacity, but that the vote from the street is that the overcrowding has become intolerable.

(3) Because he was aiming for a triple, Anderson Cooper neglected to mention rule (4): You can survive only three months without love.

I’m not feeling the love.

One Big Happy Family

Here’s a shock: the LAPD are reporting police abuses!

Not their own, of course. That’ll happen the same day pigs fly out my butt, put on a military air show over the city, and nobody watches.

But I’m still impressed. The LAPD are saying that police from at least four suburban cities have been spotted dropping homeless people in downtown Los Angeles. This annoys the LAPD, because not only is it a human rights violation, but it also makes more work for everybody. Heck, now they have to shove them all in a wagon and drive them back. What a pain.

Meanwhile, I don’t know of any claims that suburban police are dumping their homeless here in Emerald City. We have it so good. We don’t have any problems, our own police are wonderful and so are their colleagues in our neighboring cities. We are all one big happy family, we and our cops. I’ve always said, there’s nobody I like having be my friend more than a Seattle cop. Always said that.

That’s why I’m not happy to mention a little something that’s been going on outside my window once or twice a week every week for the last, oh I don’t know, maybe eight or nine weeks. It hasn’t been too long, no, I’m not complaining, really, I don’t need the sleep, really I don’t. A little something involving Seattle cops. Did I mention that I love cops? Everyone who’s ever been homeless loves cops. Please don’t hurt me.

So. There’ve been rumors for some time now that a homeless woman was found in a Seattle alley almost decapitated. I haven’t been able to confirm this rumor. But I am absolutely positive that the police care about the safety of all of Seattle’s homeless and relate to their fears.

So anyway, there were these rumors, and subsequently large numbers of homeless people started sleeping together, evidently for self-protection, out on the sidewalk, under my window, every night.

So, then, our beloved Seattle police, please don’t hurt me for saying this, started driving by in their big-ass cruisers and announcing over their bullhorns that those people had to disperse, because residents of my building (that would be me and people like me) didn’t want them there -- even though they weren’t bothering me, and I understood why they were there, and I hadn’t complained. Even though it’s legal to sleep on Seattle sidewalks after nine o’clock at night, and this was happening after midnight.

OK, I guess the cops heard a different drummer, as they say. I don’t know if it’s allowed for cops to listen to that different a drummer, but, like I say, we love our cops, and they always do us up right. Yay. Please don’t hurt me for saying the thing about the drummers.

But then a week ago last Saturday I was woken up by the bullhorns I didn’t ask for and I heard, apparently in answer to the question, “Where are we supposed to sleep?” the words “I’m not concerned about that, I’m concerned about the sidewalk.”

The sidewalk? They’re concerned about the sidewalk? Nobody’s decapitated a sidewalk. That was very confusing for me. Please don’t hurt me for being confused.

Finally, a few days later, I was woken up at 1:30 AM by this piece of advice by bullhorn: “If you people WANT to sleep outdoors, go to one of the parks [he suggested one here] and sleep there.”

At that I was really confused, because it IS illegal to sleep in the parks at night. Were our police trying to entrap people by ordering them to commit an illegal act so that they could then arrest them and deny having given the order? That would be wrong. But what else would induce police officers, WHO CARE ABOUT THE LAW, to order people to break it?

Well? Any answers? I’d appreciate hearing from Kerlikowske, the minute he can think of one.

Pigs Deny Sucking

My favorite line from all the movies put together: "It's not my fault!" – as said by both Han Solo and Lando Calrissian in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.

I've always dreamed of an opportunity to say that, dramatically, while a wookie moans behind me. Other things I've wished I could say, dramatically, with or without a wookie on hand, are, "I sense a disturbance in The Force," and, "You still have much to learn, my young apprentice." I don't think I'll ever get the chance to pull those off convincingly, but surely I should be able to manage "It's not my fault!" at least if I drop the requirement of a wookie accompaniment.

What started me thinking about this recently was the announcement by Prince Charles' royal personal secretary that His Royalness didn't do it, "it" being unspecified.

Why didn't I ever think of that? All this time since Empire Strikes Back I could have been shouting "It's not my fault!" at random intervals without ever indicating what it was that wasn't my fault.

I'm going to do it right now: It's not my fault! And I'm not telling you what it is I didn't do. All I'll tell you is that someone may have said I was witnessed in a compromising incident, which is all England will let you know about Charles. By the way I don't know what Charles and that other man were compromising about, although I think it had something to do with the placement of their genitalia, and I scarcely see how you can call that a "compromise", but I guess to some people it's all about the art of negotiation. Anyway, I didn't do it either.

I also never said I wanted to come back in my next life as a feminine hygiene product. But I would like to come back as a rich prince of a constitutional monarchy.

Speaking of not doing anything, in the very same paper where I learned that Prince Charles didn't do it I read that the City of Tacoma didn't do it either. When it rains it pours, and when it doesn't rain all the water everywhere gets sucked up into space by giant planet-sucking pigs, right? That's what I've noticed.

The City of Tacoma has been sued for not protecting Crystal Brame from her husband and Tacoma's police chief David Brame, who had threatened her and physically abused her. You may recall that last April David Brame eventually murdered Crystal after Tacoma apparently did precisely nothing to protect Crystal, even though she specifically asked for help from Tacoma officials.

What Tacoma says now is, "It's not our fault!" Furthermore they say that if it were their fault it would also be other people's fault too, so there. For example the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote about the Brames' divorce one day before the murder-suicide. This proves that the P-I knew that David Brame was a threat to Crystal Brame, and yet the P-I did not do anything to protect her.

I mean, think of that! The P-I had almost all the same facts that Tacoma did (all except for maybe some that Tacoma was hiding, but hey, that's another issue), and yet the P-I didn't take David Brame's gun away from him, did they? No! And the P-I didn't suspend him as police chief either! So why isn't the P-I being sued, huh? That's what Tacoma wants to know.

Other entities whose fault it could be as much as Tacoma's include Pierce County and Gig Harbor, because the Brames lived there and they didn't take David's gun away from him, and an on-line publisher who didn't do all the same stuff the P-I didn't do.

I have a confession to make. I read the article the P-I printed the day before the murder. And I also did not suspend David Brame or disarm him.

So what do Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Tacoma, Prince Charles, Gig Harbor, the P-I, and I have in common? We didn't do it, it's not our fault.

Self-Perspect

In these times of uncertainty and stress, nothing makes us feel more stable and secure than being annoyed the same way day after day.

First there was WTO. I won’t even get started on that. Then there was the cancelled New Year’s gathering on the Seattle Center grounds.

Now they implode the King Dome two blocks from where I live and I have to stay indoors because I might be struck by flying dust motes.

All of this reminds me that I haven’t ever discussed here what StreetWrites does to justify it’s existence to me.

Oh, sure, there have been articles in the Real Change for years now about StreetWrites, our writing workshop and support group for homeless and low income writers that spawns a good deal of the poetry in these pages and more and more of the prose. But I haven’t written any of those articles, so my unique perspective hasn’t been
perspected. Let’s rectify that.

My favorite StreetWrites activity, in line with what I’ve been discussing, as regards stability and security, is the topical writing exercise. This is a practice begun by our founder, Freeman, “who needs no first name.”

Freeman, who should be called Freewoman, began by just asking the collected group to write when they met on workshop nights. They said, “What about?” So she said, “I don’t know.” And then she threw out a subject like, “What’s the meaning of life?” And they liked it. There is no explaining human nature. Each workshop I could barely contain my dread, waiting for the next announced topic.

Freeman, in workshop, Feb.29: “What are your symbols?”

Me: Symbols are very interesting, and I'm very glad you have decided to ask me about them. Everything about symbols is symbolic, and that's what makes them so great.

First let me answer the question, "What is a symbol?"

The word symbol comes from the ancient Greek, syn bolein, a verb
phrase meaning to toss together. Therefore, the mother of all symbols is the tossed salad. Other popular symbols of symbols have been the three bean salad, and more recently, the Caesar salad.

Symbols do not have to be vegetarian however. Nor do they have to be
tossed, although it helps. Take pigs, for example. Pigs are symbols.
If you toss a pig, that is a better symbol. If it flies through the
air by itself that's even better. Now imagine a whole herd of pigs
flying through the air. Now you have one fine symbol. Gosh, what are
you going to do with it?

Freeman, in workshop, March 14: “Three questions. First, what is justice?”

Me: Justice is what you have got when you got what was coming to you.

“What is social justice?”

Me: Suppose it was a bunch of people that was coming to you. That would be social justice.

“What is economic justice?”

Me: Suppose it was a bunch of money that was coming to you. That would be economic justice.

Other examples.

It might be a lot of tickling that was coming to you. Don't look now,
but here comes the tickle monster. That would be tickle justice.

Or maybe a truckload of ice cream was coming to you. If you step aside at the last minute, and they let you have the ice cream, that would be ice cream justice. If you don't step aside at the last minute, that would be truck justice.

Freeman, in workshop, March 7, “What is love?

Me: Thanks once again for asking such a wonderful thought-provoking
question!

Needless to say, some of my thoughts are getting very irritated at
being provoked all the time, and a couple of them are in the woods
right now looking for sticks to poke you with.

But all in all we love being provoked, because it reminds us that we
are still here putting up with it. Instead of making boring new
friends in a pine box. Thank you, thank you.

So we have thought of one meaning of the word "love". I love it when
you motivate me to get out more. I love it when you remind me that my true purpose in life must be something else. I love the good things that you do to me, unwittingly.

So much that I'll be back for more, next time. Ooh, Baby!