Flash Weston?

Today I want to use words to talk about names. What’s in a name? Willy Shakespeare (sp?) answered with something to the effect that a rose by any other name would smell as swell. A lot of people think that’s the ultimate answer.

Balderdash! In the first place, the question was, “What’s in a name?” -- not “What’s a rose?” In another place, Willy himself knew perfectly well there was more to it than that. He went right on ahead in the same play to make a case for the opposition. He clearly indicated that he was inclined to believe that, while sweet smelliness sticks permanently to roses however named, if a Romeo Montague were to change his name to, say, Watson Whittaker, he’d get beat up by his cousins whether he married that girl or not. Names do so matter.

It has been demonstrated scientifically that even when collected into conferences and given little individual cards to pin on their shirts, and an indelible marker, scientists can’t completely explain why names, such as “Montague,” are different from words, such as “rose.” But I believe the answer may involve the reptilian brain, the difference between the sacred and the profane, and Dicks Nixon, Clark, Cheney, etc.

Whatever the difference, it is now known that there is one. If your first pet dog was Blacky and you go around calling all dogs Blacky, people will call you Dingy. And rightly so.

Once we understand that names and words are different, we begin to understand why people might like to change names on occasion. For example Amazon.com might want to change it’s name to Prosperity.com or Cornucopia.com or Nodotcom.com, on the theory that people might forget that unfortunate NASDAQ turn of events.

What the hell is a Verizon? When you ask that kind of question you betray ignorance of the difference I am picking at. Verizon is just the new improved name of GTE, a name that escapes all the ugly associations that the old name has, like the association that everybody had learned to think “corporate weasels” when they heard “GTE”. But you don’t think “corporate weasels” when you hear “Verizon.” Not yet. Instead you think “What the hell is a Verizon?”

Similarly the name US West served the function of a name, not a word. It helped the rest of us to identify that specific thing that screwed up our phone billing all the time. If the internet connection went down exactly in the middle of our composing of our 500 page treatise on the relationship of the fluctuations in the perfume market to the practice of personal bathing in Europe, we could relieve our tension by uttering a curse upon the house of US West, a particular corporation, a legal body, near-person, and receptacle of a name.

US West heard those curses. That’s why they are no longer US West, but the as yet not-so-cursed Qwest.

Here we arrive at a crucial distinction between names and words. Names can be cursed. Names accumulate curses. Names attach to persons and to entities perceived as persons, and they collect the feelings we have for those entities.

How cursed can a name become? Ask Seattle Housing Authority. But don’t call them that when you ask them. Call them PorchLight. Or don’t ask them. Ask anybody else. Typical reaction to hearing the name “Seattle Housing Authority” -- “Boo.” Typical reaction to hearing the name “PorchLight” -- “Huh?”

It’s part of the American Way. The accursed change their names and they expect everyone to forget the old names. And we do, because we want to reserve the same right for ourselves. We want to be able to declare bankruptcy if necessary, change the name, get all new credit cards, move to the next great “growth center” (it’s Houston, the last I heard) and start a new career, or as we put it, “make a new life for ourselves.”

It’s only possible if everyone agrees to let it be possible. So it has to be part of the social contract.

What I’m getting at is, some day I could put Copyright Doctor Wes Browning away and start calling myself something like Flash Weston or the Writer Formerly Known as Wes, and this being America I could probably pull it off, even without incorporating. And rightly so.

Increasing Awareness Through Fairness

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if everybody was treated the same way homeless people are. When I first heard about faith-based initiatives that’s what it sounded like to me -- we were going to arrange to do all government business through churches the way the missions do the soup kitchens.

That could be pretty enlightening for the general public. That’s something I could support.

For example, suppose whenever anybody wanted a fishing license, they had to go to a local church and sit through a half hour sermon to the effect that if they weren't such sinners they would be the CEOs of corporations and have figured out how to have fish flown in to them. That might be enlightening.

What if they ran Medicare like they run the mission down the street? Say you’re on Social Security, you’re old, you have cancer, and you need pain-killer. The government sends you to a mission, you have to show up at the door no later than 4:30, the sermon starts at 4:35, NO LATE-COMERS, we don't care how much pain you're in, this is Christ's time, you'll get your pain-killer when it's your turn, and while you're waiting you'll find a hymnal at your seat. You don't have to sing to the Lord, but if you had let Jesus in your heart years ago you never would have landed here. Look at the pain you're in, it's proof you hate God in your heart. Oh, yes, and if you expect to come back for more FREE pain-killer you'd better spend an hour sweeping the vestibule, whether it needs it or not.

What if everybody's grandparents got treated that way when they needed help? That might be enlightening.

Why stop at spreading the soup kitchen experience around? Let’s think of some more ways that everybody else can share in the homeless experience!

Here in Seattle, homeless people who have tents aren’t allowed to set them up anywhere, because such living arrangements are unsafe, according to the government. They aren’t even allowed to to sleep in tents on private land with the owner’s permission. Can we think of a way to share that experience with everyone?

Well, I couldn’t think of anything, but Fairfax County, Virginia, found a way.

People in the government of Fairfax County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., have apparently decided that they don’t have enough homeless people. Too many people are living in the houses of Fairfax County. They have decided it’s time to put a stop to all that.

They are trying to get a law passed to prohibit anyone from sleeping anywhere except in a bedroom. As of this writing, it appears that the Virginia Legislature would allow such an ordinance to be put into effect, according to an article in the Washington Post.

You see, poor people have been driving down property values (gee, what a shame, that housing should cost less) in Fairfax by letting too many people live with them in their apartments and houses. When your neighbors put enough friends and relatives in every living room and every kitchen and hallway and they all have Hondas and Sonys, you know, pretty soon you’re having to park all the way out in New Jersey and listening to sixteen kinds of salsa at once all hours of the day and night, if you know what I mean.

That’s right, someone just might think that the purpose of the law might have something to do with ethnic interests involving immigrant populations. But its sponsors deny that they are targetting minorities. They say they are preserving parking spaces and peace and quiet.

Why can’t we do something like that here in Seattle? Let’s have a law that prohibits people from sleeping on their own living room couches. We’ll tell them it’s for their own good. That might be enlightening.

Seattle's Not From Here

The Last Demonstration Zone

© Dr. Wes Browning

Welcome to the Last Demonstration Zone,

Step right up, take your megaphone, set permanently on mute.

The American Protest Theme Park greets you,

bring your quaint belief in what’s true, they take it for cute.

Remember, don’t mention Mickey Mouse.

You’ll get thrown out of the house, you’ll pay a fine.

Anyone in America can speak out.

Take a number, don’t shout, wait in line.

Welcome to the Last Free Speech hole in the ground.

You may now speak freely to whoever’s around, nobody cares here.

Step behind the rope, dope, nobody cares here.

Is anyone besides me aware that all inauguration ceremonies are propaganda? And that propaganda is government speech? And that therefore if Pennsylvania Ave. is a designated Demonstration Free Zone, then there can’t be an inauguration there either? Is it just me who thinks Demonstration Zones are the worst things that have happened to this country since war rations? What next? Talking Zones? Thinking Zones?

They can’t even hide behind state’s rights on this. We’re talking about the District of Columbia, where all the law is Congressional law. That bit about “Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech” has full force in D. C.

Meanwhile our own mayor Schell wants to define Tent City as a political act, apparently because in the past he’s had some success forcing political acts to go away. In connection with the trials of Tent City a word has cropped up often: transient.

transient adj. 1. not lasting, enduring, or permanent; transitory 2. lasting only a short time; existing briefly; temporary -- n. a person or thing that is transient.

Mayor Schell would clearly like to see to it that Tent City is transient. But more importantly, there is the notion that the people who make up Tent City are not deserving of Seattle’s concern, because they are transient, they are only here in Seattle for a while, they are no natives.

I have heard the following statistic quoted: half of all Seattle’s homeless are not from here.

I’ve got news for you all: as of the last twenty years at least, anyone who is from Seattle isn’t a normal Seattleite.

I don’t have to go back to the pioneer days to establish the fact, but I will, just because I can’t resist mentioning that Chief Noah Seattle was born on Kitsap. Or that Denny came from Indiana, or that Doc Maynard came all the way from Vermont.

Do I have to tell anyone that John W. Nordstrom was born in Sweden? That William Boeing grew up in Detroit and didn’t move to this city until he was thirty?

I don’t have to go back that far. I can look at... I don’t know, let’s see now... the Mayor! Paul Schell, born in Fort Dodge, Iowa? So Schell once really did get out of Dodge?

City Council-person Margaret Pageler was born in CHINA for crying out loud. Jim Compton came here by way of Portland Oregon. Jan Drago and Heidi Wills are from another planet.

The Stranger was born in Chicago. More than nine-tenth’s of the Burke Museum was born in British Columbia or the Great Plains. The Pike Place Market got its start in Morocco. The Space Needle was shipped here in a box from the set of the Jetsons.

Surveys have been done that have shown that considerably more than fifty percent of us aren’t from here.

Does that make the majority of Seattle transient? Sounds fair to me.

Power to the Min

WARNING: This is going to be one of the most diffuse, scattered columns I have ever written. I'm dealing with a concept I don't understand, because I've never had much concrete experience with it. I'm dealing with the concept of power.

So, Tonto. You'd like to make some changes around here, would you? Getting bored with all the picket fences? Want to break out and grow tomatoes, yams, and strawberries in the parking strip, do you, Tonto? Want to raise goats? Want to be the one who wears the mask instead of the one who has to talk to it? Well, get in line, take an application form, and get ready to fill it out, and we'll get back to you in six months if we feel like it.

Sometimes when I get bored I like to multiply and divide numbers to see how big or little things are. Like the other day when nothing was on the TV except Jerry Springer and infomercials for the Psychic Hotline, I got to wondering how big this country really is.

I mean, everyone knows the US is 3,615,211 or so square miles, but what is that in square dog feet? I still don't know, but I found out another cool fact. I found out that if you divide that by the number of people they say we have, and if you know there are 640 acres in a square mile, you get more than eight acres.

Not having grown up on a farm, I immediately converted that answer to football fields, and got almost eight. The US is so big that if you divided it up equally among all its adults and children, everyone would get almost eight football fields worth.

That tells me two things. First, that this country is a lot more crowded than it was in 1864. Back then General Sherman thought there was so much spare space that the freed slaves could all be given 38.72 football fields and a mule and nobody would hardly have to move over to make room. (The trick was to give them land covered with sand that nobody else wanted, and then take it back when nothing grew on it.)

The other thing it tells me is that the problem of homelessness is not that we've run out of places to put people.

No, it comes down to the same thing it came down to in 1864. Power.

People who have power saying that people who don't have power shouldn't be allowed it; it would upset the whole Natural Order of the Universe.

"You can't allow freed slaves to have land." "They never had any land before, they wouldn't know what to do with it." "How can people who only know how to steal chickens raise them?" "It wouldn't look right, have you seen the houses they live in? They're positively eyesores!" "Next thing is, they'll be wanting their children to be able to go to normal schools."

Et cetera. Every possible excuse except the one that gets to the point: "If you give them power, it's less power for me."

Let's see how this works on a smaller scale.

At first glance you would think that if El Centro de la Raza said that 100 or so homeless people could pitch tents on their land until Jan. 16, 2001, that'd be the end of it, wouldn't it?

You'd be right, if El Centro de la Raza had the right to say what happens on El Centro de la Raza land. But in reality, nobody has the right to say what happens on their own land, because power isn't distributed that way.

Go ahead, try painting your house neon mauve, and see what happens.

Or try growing bamboo in your front yard. Or kudzu. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Interesting, but not within your power, Tonto. Your Neighborhood Association has some interesting ideas of its own, as does the Department of Construction and Land Use. Their interesting ideas usually involve something called Don't Rock the Boat.

Now if you'd just come in the middle of the night and put up something appealing, like a monolith reminiscent of the monoliths in Stanley Kubrick's "2001, a Space Odyssey," that would be different. That would be art, and this is a forward-looking, artistically sensitive community, which cares about not looking like a bunch of Philistines to the Rest of the World.

What does the Rest of the World have to do with it? Well, they have the power, not us. Didn't you know that, Tonto?

Mayor's Job Is Just Politics

I'll bet you all think I'm going to crab about the election. I know what people expect of me, I get fan mail. That's right, people write to me and say things like, "Dear Dr. Wes, All you ever do is complain, you carping bilious nattering freak… " Everyone thinks I'm a big whiner. Well I'm not going to do it this time.

Instead let me share a letter from a satisfied reader:

Dear Dr. Wess,

I here u have rit thet I am ilitable illitu that I'm not gud with wurds. Aktuelly I didn’t here it my bruther red it and he told me. He sez u also sed I am not as compassionate (didn't no I cud spel lik that did u?) as I hev sed I am. I wil show u how gud I am with wurds. I even rote this pome witch u can stik in your crabby colum.

So u think I'm not compassionate?

When I ain't dun nuthin yet?

Well I'll have u no

u libral so-an-so

yore sociopolitical (I can soo spel, see) band-ade-applyin

muny-flingin and freedum steelin and while I'm at it

deth row-inmate-sparin

Anti-ballistic-missile-not-buildin (hah!), baby-killing, and

2^nd-Amendment-Rights-takin-awayin (take thet!)

pfhilosophy

is all wet.

-- Anon Anun I'm not telling u my name

I really appreciate input like that, Mr. Name, and be sure to keep your brother reading!

While we're talking carp, our glorious Mayor Schell is beginning to look more like a candidate for Bush's cabinet. What else could explain this recent exchange with a Beacon Hill resident (quoting from Schell's monthly talk show on KUOW.)

["Chris"]: "We have a very small business district that's being badly affected. What are you going to do about Tent City and when?"

[Mayor]: "I absolutely agree with you. I don't think living outdoors in a tent is acceptable conduct. And I do think it is by and large a political statement."

OK, Mr. Schell, the honeymoon's over. I've been nice to you so far. I didn't say hardly a word about you the whole first year you were elected except to wish you a happy birthday and offer to help you with your arithmetic.

Did I complain much about you last year? Yes, but who didn't? You had your WTO, what did you expect. But I wasn't the one who said you looked like Uncle Fester from the Addam's Family. I could have, but I restrained myself, because I was being a nice guy.

No more. You've made me mad now.

SO. Our Mayor thinks living outdoors is "unacceptable conduct." What a coincidence. To most of the people living at Tent Village on Beacon Hill having to live outdoors would always be "unacceptable," particularly in winter. But since they don't have the kind of power our Mayor has, they accept it anyway, as the alternative, more shelter beds, isn't happening.

So far, reading Mayor Schell's comment all we have is the usual failure to grasp the fundamental facts of homelessness which we here at Real Change have come to expect from a Mayor who thinks the homeless should just retire to their villas in France and leave him alone.

That's not what has us fuming. What has us fuming is Paul Schell's little deprecation of political statements of the homeless.

Are the homeless of this city not entitled to make political statements? "Chris", Beacon Hill resident, can call into KUOW every month to complain about Tent Village, but when the homeless complain about a lack of any alternative it's just politics?

Last month I was invited to speak at a Shoreline Community College philosophy class. They wanted to hear about the politics of homelessness, in that ethics is an important branch of philosophy, and politics is the sub-branch of ethics that concerns life and power in the cities.

Maybe Paul Schell could benefit from a course in ethics. He might learn to give proper respect to political statements, which are after all only statements about what is right.

Meanwhile, since when is sheer survival a statement of any kind?

Your Random Election

If I'd known we could elect the dead, I would have voted for Lincoln.

Some of you may recall my very generous offer to sell my vote to the highest bidder over five dollars. At least one of you took note of that offer. In fact Pooky Glax, probably alien quantum life form, who may or may not have run for US President this year, gave me ten dollars sealed in a box with some guy's cat to vote for him. For Pooky that is, not the cat. I'm betting the cat will die.

So I voted for a quantum life form. Since that was the only bid I received, thank you all very much, I voted for Glax for President. But I hardly expected him/her/it/whut to win. He/she/it/whut didn't exactly campaign.

So imagine my surprise when I woke up November 8 and learned that there was no certain winner of the Presidency! It turns out that Gore and Bush must be two of Pooky's quantum states! Uncertainty Rules!

But enough about what I don't know. What I want to discuss today is something I know a lot about, namely stupidity. In fact I consider myself quite the expert on the subject.

Don't get me wrong. I can be as smart as the next guy, when it's my turn and the wind is at my back. But when I want to be stupid I can out stupid most anybody. Cause, let's face it, most people don't even try to be stupid. How can they expect to excel at it? Truth is, most people don't even know the different kinds of stupidity. They get them all mixed up.

Like when George Bush signed that law allowing hand recounts in Texas, then sued against it in Florida. That's stupid, but is it world-class stupidity? I say no. I say I can top that with both hands tied behind my back standing knee-deep in setting cement. I spit on George Bush's stupidity!

The really stupid thing to do, George, that would prove to everyone that you were city council material and that you might have a promising career in politics or at least as a grad student in poly sci, would be to call for a study. Instead of just being a governor in the one state that doesn't really permit them.

The Ballad of the Palm Beach Election Board

or, Opus 2000, If John Henry Could See This, It'd Kill Him Dead

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Palm Beach had itself an election board,

They worked from six 'til five,

"Raise up them ballots and put 'em down,

We'll count 'em to the Lord's Day or die."

The board said to the Secret'ry,

"You're nothing but a RepubliCAN,

That butterfly ballot won't beat us down,

Or we'll die with cards in our hands."

The Secret'ry faxed out to the board:

"I hear a pewter a-humming, lads."

The board faxed just this to her: "Oh Lord!"

"That's our volunteers you hear a-counting chad(s)."

The board was a-counting on the left side,

The machine was a-counting on the right.

No I lie, the machine, it was a-finished

Four days before Saturday night.

The board's now a-lying on its death bed

Not any of its recount alive

And these were the last words the board done said:

"Bring me a contest, before I die."

The board had a little capital,

Her name was TallahasSEE

They faxed and briefed her court all day,

Saying, "Tally, let our counting be complete."

Tallahassee, she would not see them,

Their heart was broken through,

And while the Secret'ry's master had filed a suit,

They died with cards in their hands, it's true.

Apologies to W. T. Blankenship, wherever he is. Come to think of it, apologies to everyone.

Safe Harbors For All

This is one promise from me to you, my reader: I won’t ever claim to understand politics better than you do. I will never claim to understand politics at all. OK, I might, but when I do it, I’ll be lying. You have my word.

Take the Safe Harbors idea. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Since I don’t understand Safe Harbors, or Tag-n-Trak as we call it here at Real Change, it would be absurd of me to discuss it here.

Therefore I will, because that’s what I do.

Let me start by saying that the fundamental premise, that we don’t know enough about the homeless, their movements, what they do with their time, where they eat, and where they sleep, is an awesome, thought-provoking premise. A premise that just makes me wonder what planet our City Council weekends on.

But then I think, yes, there are clear advantages to our government in knowing where each individual homeless person reports two or more times per day. And instead of resisting this improvement in the way we govern our citizens, I should welcome it. I should see it for what it is: the beginning of a fabulous new future.

Therefore I have decided to go beyond embracing Tag-n-Trak for the homeless. I am ready to embrace this concept for all of Seattle, and promote the adoption of Safe Harbors style programs for all Americans.

Lets say you are an American and you need to use services that our government currently provides. Freeways, for example. Let’s say you want to use a freeway.

The way it is now, people use freeways without any accounting. Oh sure, we are able to know how many cars are on the freeways at any given time. But who are in those cars? Do they really need the freeways they’re using? What entrances and exits are they using? The fact is, we don’t know that information. Information like that is vital when our government allocates funds to improve our freeways, or determines when and where new freeways should be built.

My proposal would make that information available. Each time you entered a freeway you would be required to stop at the beginning of the ramp and supply your name and ID and the names and IDs of all your passengers, and state all of your destinations. When you left the freeway at an exit you would provide your names and IDs again. Any passengers lacking ID would be required to leave your vehicle and obtain the necessary ID before continuing on their trip.

The information so obtained would be kept strictly confidential. It would be used, anonymously, to create a file of your complete travels on the interstate freeways, which would never be used by unscrupulous individuals, corporations, bad renegade politicians, or Tim Eyman. The only way the information would be used is in the aggregate. That’s the “Safe” in Safe Harbors: if you can’t trust your government, who can you trust?

But that’s just the beginning. We need to clear up the Mercer Street mess. There are traffic jams on Rainier Avenue, 45th Street, gosh, even 3rd Avenue. So we’ll have to know when and how each individual motorist and their passengers access every major thoroughfare in the city.

Eventually, I see a day when you won’t be able to pull out of your driveway with Aunt Zelda in the back seat, your Irish Red Setter Big Stupid at your side, and your two sons in the trunk, without all five of you being registered and tracked electronically. You won’t even being aware of it. Won’t that be great? Think of the boost to the surveillance industry! Seattle could be number one in yet another high tech field, and we will have more billionaires!

But it doesn’t end with roads. When you’ve walked down the sidewalks downtown have you ever tossed trash into a public waste receptacle? Of course you have, because tossing it anywhere else is illegal. Well now, with my proposal to expand Tag-n-Trak, you will have to give your name and ID every time you use a public garbage can, and your waste will be weighed. That way, our city will be able to determine just how many public waste receptacles are really needed, and where.

I am looking forward to the day when we apply the Safe Harbors idea to everyone, including City Council members and the computer geeks who are eagerly awaiting their employment. I’m sure we can all agree, that will be a brave new world.