Out of the Margins

What is "the good earth"?

2008-11-24T16:49:00.000-08:00

Thank you for the invitation to join the StreetWrites blog. I would like to begin with the question I opened my own blog with:

What would be "a good earth"?

Donate to a good cause for free!

2008-02-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some ways to donate for free by a click:

At freerice.com you can play a vocabulary game, have fun and learn, and donate rice to hungry people at the same time! Warning: It is addictive! :D

Write On!
Anitra

Quantum States of Mary

2008-02-01T01:06:00.000-08:00

Poems I wrote while I was homeless, with autobiographical notes.
November 1995:

Wes Browning, a long-time member of StreetLife Gallery, was also active with Real Change, Seattle's street-newspaper, which covered homeless and poverty issues and was sold by homeless vendors. He took my poem down to Real Change, and the next time Tim Harris, the Real Change director, was visiting Wes at the gallery, they invited me to join the Real Change editorial committee.

The December issue was being collected: a women's issue. I had one poem that I had been working on literally for years, that had begun with the image of Mary nursing the Christ child under the shadow of a cross on the stable wall, and the thought, "Oh my God, did she know?" I had more images now that I wanted to add, and a motivation to get it done for the Christmas issue. When I had it completed, it was a two-page poem -- I submitted it anyway.

Not only was it published, as a two-page spread, it was listed on the cover, and the cover art by Wes Browning was based on it.

Quantum States of Mary

Mary,
holding your baby;
did you see a shadow fall
on the stable wall?
Did the wise men dare to tell you
all they knew?

Mary,
who are you?

Frightened child bride,
towed by an angry Joseph
through the swirl of history,
shouting prophets
thundering over your huddled form...

Untouched maiden
meekly kneeling
to the Master of the Universe,
raising one cuckoo
and a flock of sparrows,
never losing serenity
or innocence...

Conniving seductress
foisting her bastard off on God,
hoaxing Joseph to raise it,
muddling the boy into visions,
all to mask your own guilt...

Daughter of the prophets
poised in ancient wisdom,
cuddling the sweetest infant
to the tenderest breast,
nursing him to sacrifice and glory...

Mary,
who are you?

Mary,
did you ever fear?

Joseph,
cuckold of God -
did he take it out on you?

Or was he so kind and noble
you felt unworthy,
distrusting any moment
of anger
or any human weakness?

Your child-man
who never cried at night,
or begged for toys
then broke them,
who never raided the cookie jar,
or rubbed dirt in his best friend's hair -
did you know how weird he was,
before you raised the other boys?

Did you ever lie awake
with some deep grief;
did he come hold your hand,
wisdom far too ancient in his eyes?

When you found him
lecturing the scholars,
did you see a cross-shaped shadow
on his path?

Did you fear for him, Mary?
Did you fear Him?

Mary,
I am afraid.

To fall,
to fail,
to feel...
I am afraid of pain
and of the long slow numbing dark
without pain...

Mary,
I do not know
who I am.

With no home and no money
am I helpless,
hopeless,
sick and pitiful?

Am I angry,
robbed and ruined
by the System,
Them,
the Others,
Mother,
Men?

Am I stupid,
wrong,
a wicked woman,
reaping the returns
of evil ways?

Am I the player,
one strike down
but grinning,
setting my feet
to jump back in the game?

Mary,
am I your child?
Will you hold and warm me
until I am ready
for my destiny?

Mary,
am I your sister?

Mary,
where are you?

Have you found your ground
beyond the swirl of history,
cascading quantum images
others painted for you;
have you made a place
to be your self?

Mary,
show me.

In Honor of Boyd McLaughlin: November 3, 1995

2008-01-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

In November of 1995, we had a tragedy at the StreetLife art gallery. Boyd McLaughlin, a generous spirit who had helped and encouraged many new arrivals to the gallery, died. I wrote a tribute to Boyd which later became the opening piece of a Homeless Memorials webpage.

Nothing Much to Say

(I)

The world seems cruel
   in the face of pain.
A suffocation of silences.
When if we tried to speak
   we would scream,
   then we are silent.
When what we feel
   fills our throat
   then we are silent.
When what we should feel
   is not what we do feel,
   then we are silent.
When we don't feel
   and we don't know how
   then we are silent.

People die curled around their pain _
   unable to say what hurts.
We cannot find the words
   to make it right.
Helpless to help,
   we turn away.

Nothing much to say...

(II)

When an artist dies
   what can you say
   to equal the art
   that's gone out of the world?

(III)

Rub someone's shoulders.
Drink gingerale. Eat pizza.
Make more art.
What else can you do?

In honor of Boyd McLaughlin 11/3/95

Boyd McLaughlin died on November 2, 1995 at the age of forty-four.

Boyd came into Seattle's StreetLife Gallery, "the home of homeless art," fresh off a greyhound from Montana. He was trying to get off of cocaine and turn his life around; he threw his life into the Gallery.

In a year Boyd went from homeless and searching to housed and working as a prolific, self-taught artist offering inspiration, instruction, love and generosity to hundreds of artists walking in off the street looking to the Gallery for healing themselves.

He was at the Gallery eight or more hours a day, seven days a week, and the service providers who managed the Gallery at that time became concerned about him. They insisted that the Gallery close two days a week, Wednesday and Thursday, so that Boyd would have some time to himself.

Within two days, Boyd was dead. On a Thursday night.

It may be circumstantial, or not. But please hesitate the next time you want to decide for someone else what is best for them.

My first street poems

2008-01-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a family where reading and writing were considered normal human activities. I wrote my first poem when I was five. I have written poetry all my life, and even published a few, in spite of Writer's Marketing Block. My poetry has improved the most in the toughest periods of my life.

In 1995, I lived on a friend's couch for eight months, in depression. During that depression I wrote only one poem. Because I now call couch-surfing being "homeless in denial," I will include that one here -- when I find it. A lot gets lost in the Great Gray Fog.

Finally I became officially homeless. I was fortunate: Seattle has good community health clinics, and after 40 years of undiagnosed and untreated manic depression (bipolar disorder), I was finally diagnosed. I was doubly fortunate: the first time I walked into a homeless shelter was the night a mental health outreach worker was there, and she got my prescription filled. I was triply fortunate: I respond well to Lithium.

Only a week after I began taking Lithium, I was able to push myself into participating in a craft project at Noel House, the homeless women's shelter where I stayed. We were making Halloween cards. This was the first poem I had written in several months.

I continued to become increasingly active. I moved from the staffed shelter of Noel House to a self-managed SHARE shelter, and became a member of StreetLife Gallery, a self-managed co-op of homeless and formerly homeless artists.

I was still confident of my writing, but I wanted to do something more visual at the art gallery, so I decided to try something new. I checked out some books from the library on handmade paper and found art, and walking back I "found" this poem.

Creating With Found Objects

In the months to come, poetry would help me recreate a life. I started a writing workshop for homeless and low-income people (who often have a hard time finding, or fitting into, other writing workshops). Many times I saw the same, infinitely rewarding, phenomenon: someone shuffles in with that "gray pavement" face; says that they can't write; starts moving a pen across the paper because this pushy old woman tells them to; something from their heart flows out; they read it out loud; they look around the table and see other people listening; their face transforms, their eyes light up with a sense of self, their body sits up and comes back to life.

The first couple of years of the workshop, I often heard lines like, "Homeless people don't need to be writing poetry! Homeless people need to be out finding a job!" I don't get those comments any more. A number of homeless service organizations have started writing programs and art programs. People noticed that if people are going to recreate our lives, we need our creativity.

Introducing Poetry

2008-01-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

I am going to post here a series of poems I wrote while I was homeless; and, I hope, other members of StreetWrites will either post theirs, or allow me to post them.

To open the poetry series, here's the introduction to poetry on my own webpage:

What Is a Poem?

A poem is whatever I, as a writer, persuade you, as a reader, to experience as a poem.

Some readers are convinced all of the time: they will gush equally over Jack Kerouac and every imitator at the neighborhood open mic, as well as Rod McKuen, Hallmark cards, and at least some advertising copy.

Some poetry convinces almost everybody: The Twenty-Third Psalm; Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"; Eugene Field's "The Duel"; some of the classic haiku, don't yell at me if I forgot your favorite just plug it in here yourself.

Some people will never be convinced by any work unless it is iambic pentameter and rhymes; or it contains a seasonal word; or it refers only to emotion and subjective experience; or it refers only to external, objective experience; or an infinite range of other specific criteria.

There is more than one kind of poet in the world because there is more than one kind of reader in the world.

Myself, I am in favor of craftsmanship and working on a poem -- not just spilling my guts on a page and calling it good.

But I don't think any of the technical criteria in the world will save you if you haven't got any guts in there at all. There has to be some heart, soul, insight, or feeling to spark a poem, to make it worth writing and worth reading -- and that is the essence of what reaches up and grabs a reader, what makes someone say, "That's a poem."

I am content if at least some of the readers in the world respond to me. If twenty people tell me "I can't make head or tails of this", I'll sweat over a re-write. If ten people cry because they did understand me, and ten others are still scratching their heads -- then I know the audience that I speak to.

I hope it's you.

Book Review: Becoming Evil

2008-01-27T17:43:00.000-08:00

Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing
by James Waller
Oxford University Press, August 2005
336 pages, $29.95
ISBN: 0195189493

How did the girl next door end up leading a naked Iraqi man around on a leash?

When the first headlines came out, Rumsfeld said the abusers in Abu Ghraib were a few bad apples, a handful of psychopaths. Many headlines later - Red Cross reports leaked, a jailed Briton from Guantánamo testifying to abuse, two American soldiers convicted of murder (one of a severely wounded teenaged captive, the other of a fellow guard) - even those who were willing to accept that explanation in the beginning wanted a better one. One that would make the abuses end.

In Becoming Evil, social psychologist James Waller examines extraordinary human evil: genocide and mass killing. Between each of his chapters he includes firsthand accounts from those who have experienced some of the greatest human evils of our history, from the slaughter of Native Americans by Europeans to the tragic cycle of genocide between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. For the history lesson alone, this would be a valuable book.

Waller argues that we must neither disown those who do evil, nor excuse them. Social pressures exist, but they are not deterministic. There were Hutus who did not kill Tutsis and Tutsis who did not kill Hutus. One of the things that we have to do in order to create a society with less killing and cruelty is never to excuse or minimize killing and cruelty. Individuals must be accountable for the evils they themselves do. But we must be accountable for our part in creating a culture that encourages either empathy or cruelty.

It is not enough to reject evil; in order to exercise responsibility, we need to understand it. Then we can change the social factors that make evil more likely, or less likely. That is what this book is about. Waller does not excuse evil acts because "society is at fault," nor is this simply an academic study. There are practical lessons here for how a society becomes corrupt, and how to prevent it. Like the poor, evil will always be with us. That does not mean we should be fatalistic about evil. It means that we should always be ready to address it.

Waller examines previous explanations of extraordinary human evil - including "a handful of psychopaths" - and then proposes his own explanatory model. An explanatory model should be useful, and Waller's gives us immediate things to do, in our individual lives as well as in social policy, to increase human kindness.

Waller cites psychological experiment, ethnological field studies, and evolutionary theory to support the thesis that humans are genetically predisposed to divide into groups, value our in-group over other groups, and treat those within the group more "ethically" than those outside of the group. In human history, this predisposition has encouraged ethnocentricity and xenophobia - bigotry and hatred. Our biological heritage also influences our response to authority and our desire to exert authority over others.

There are also social forces that help prepare people to commit genocide. One is cultural beliefs, like nationalism, racism, or "manifest destiny." Another is disengaging morality from conduct by such things as:

displacing responsibility ("I was only following orders")
deploying euphemisms ("collateral damage")
seeking moral justification (it is "for a good end," "for the good of the state," "for the protection of democracy")
looking for advantageous comparisons ("we have done some bad things, but look at what they did")
minimizing, distorting, or distancing ourselves from the consequences (not broadcasting images of war, concentration camps, or mass killing; calling torture "abuse" or even a "fraternity prank;" calling the destruction of a village "liberation")

It is alarming to see these arguments promoted in American culture today. There are other disturbing signs.

The more highly regarded one's self-interest becomes, the easier it is to justify evil done to others. At the same time, having a self-identity that is distinct from one's group identity is essential to maintaining moral norms. When one's entire identity is wrapped up in being a prison guard; when the message of your social group is that brutality is not only acceptable but a positive good; when any refusal to obey orders or disclosure of anything to others that may reflect poorly on the group is considered betrayal: that setting is a horror waiting to happen.

American popular culture promotes advancing one's self-interest with no regard for any conseqences to others. Our consumer culture encourages only what "individualism" can be marketed.

The "victim blaming" popular in American culture is also a sign of social corruption. To make "crimes against humanity" psychologically supportable, according to Waller, it is critical to deny your victims status among those to whom you are morally obligated, and make them responsible for their own suffering. As in: "These people have attacked our society itself and thereby given up all social rights." "These particular offenses place these prisoners outside of the Geneva Convention." Humiliation, forcing others into ragged and unclean conditions, also helps to disassociate us from them.

We may not be able to overcome our biology, or want to. But there are insights in Waller's scientific analysis that we have heard before, like: Do not justify doing evil in the name of fighting evil, or we will become what we fight. Now that it has a scientific imprimatur, perhaps more people will apply that simple maxim. If enough people read this book, we may be able to reverse the corruption of the American conscience.

Question Everything

2007-05-29T02:28:00.001-07:00

I'm looking for you!

2007-04-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for some of the women who have been in StreetWrites over the years and contributed poetry to one or more of the annual WHEEL anthologies. WHEEL (a community organizing effort of homeless and formerly homeless women) is putting out a REAL BOOK -- a full-bound, soft-cover book -- to be published by Whit Press. We want to reprint poems by the following people, and we need to find them to get their formal permission. If you can reach any of these people, please have them email me! My email address is on my profile.

Glinda
Ako
Margi Washburn
Rongo
Radha
Wendy Nakashima
Ruanda Morrison
Debbie Bessette
Elizabeth Bennefield
Catherine Gainey

If you know somebody on that list. and they don't have email, they can call WHEEL at (206) 956-0334.

Thanks! Write On!

Park Runoff from Wes

2007-03-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Wes's newest post in Run Off is his report on a community meeting down by the Market on the Place of Remembrance project: a public place dedicated to remembrance of those who have died while homeless in King County. Wes is compelled, by his very nature, to turn all material in life to wit and satire. His account is both entertaining, and gives you some idea of the park project and how it's going. Just don't believe him when he says he'll confess to the 20th Century. My Bad by Wes

Mother Escapes

2007-03-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

I did a performance of my poem "Mother Escapes" at the DESC Talent Show, and Wes recorded it. I won a poetry slam with this, once, but this is the first time I've done it with feathers (poetry slams don't allow props) and I fumbled a few lines. It was still fun for all. For a very amateur video, I'm tickled with it. :)

Mother Escapes
Many years ago my mother was locked up
in St. Francis Cabrini Hospital because
we didn't know what else to do
with manic women
back then.
But Mother knew
LOTS better things to do
than to be locked up in a little room.
She tore her down pillow open
with her teeth,
blew handfuls of soft white feathers under the door,
and yelled,
"Fire!
Fire!"
An orderly actually came
and threw the door open.
Faster than a naked toddler
Mother skinned under his arm,
dashed down the hallway,
slammed through the front doors
and raced down the sidewalk;
3-o-clock in the afternoon,
broad daylight,
92 pounds in a flapping hospital gown,
long wiry black hair
and feathers,
yelling,
"Fire!
Fire!"
Mother told me the story herself.
I was ever so proud of her.
To this day
I stand a little taller
when I have feathers in my hair.

© Anitra L. Freeman

Civil Rights & Human Rights

2007-02-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Human rights are universal, ascribed to all human beings. Civil rights are the rights accorded to the citizens of a particular society. There is no universal agreement on the extent to which human rights and civil rights are, or should be, the same.

The United States was the first nation to form the idea that all human rights should be civil rights, that the proper role of government was to guarantee that. Other nations which came to democracy later than the U.S., however, have also extended it farther, being far more comfortable with the role of government in assuring such human rights as the right to subsistence, education, and livelihood.

One of the dividing lines between what is called “liberal” and what is called “conservative” is over what human rights can and should be guaranteed by government as civil rights, and what are the province of other social institutions, such as the church or the family, to foster and protect.

Religious conservatives, and even some religious liberals, have historically given religious arguments for human rights, and even claimed that there are no grounds for human rights independent of religion. Most liberals, and even some conservatives, argue that in order for human rights to be universal, they must have a basis that all can agree on independent of religion, or any other cultural content that is not universal.

Another central question of our time, in a world of many different cultures interacting with each other, is what universal rights we can and should enforce.

All of these questions – what is the basis for human rights, what do they consist of, how should they be enforced, and to what extent – are related.

If human rights are truly universal, attributed to something that all human beings share in common, then all human beings who claim human rights are natural allies against all human beings who would deprive any of their human rights. All social institutions, including government, must respect and protect human rights; and if they do not, it is the responsibility of all human beings, even those of other nations, to reform them. Liberals tend toward this view.

If human rights are based on an element contained in only one culture, then only those who adopt that culture can exercise human rights, and no other culture can be expected to provide human rights for its people. Conservatives tend toward this view; they vary between those who feel that the culture that best promotes human rights (their own) should take care of its own and let others choose to join it or not; and those who believe that the culture that best pro motes human rights (their own) has a moral obligation to spread itself across the Earth.

What do you consider to be “human rights” and what do you consider to be “civil rights”? What is the basis for them? In what way can & should they be fostered and protected?

One of the central questions of the modern era has been what values to enforce universally in a world of many individual, and sometimes conflicting, cultures.

In my opinion, all freedom, all rights, all values, are created by affirmation. There is no value, no freedom, no right, inherent in material reality. We decide what we want, and then we make it possible. By our own actions, we open up new options, and close off others.

We are as free as we make ourselves.

The only way to really know that someone is free to do something is if somebody does it. If you want the freedom to travel, then you act on that, creating the means to travel, and overcoming obstacles to traveling where you wish to go. If you do not travel because of illness, because of lack of transport, because men with guns guard the border between you and where you want to go, or because you don’t want to go anywhere, the result is the same: you don’t travel.

Humans will have rights, if we choose to have them, and structure our society so as to make them possible. We will only have the rights, however, that we guarantee for everyone else.

We may structure our government so as to foster individual rights, or we may use some other social institution to do so. Since every human society is going to have some political process to resolve conflicts between us, decide what we shall do as a group, and define the accepted use of force, it seems to me fitting and necessary that the fostering and protection of human rights be a fundamental objective of that process.

Freedom of Speech

2007-02-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm Emily, and Anitra has invited me to "blog" here. I'll just introduce myself with the first thing I wrote for StreetWrites:

Freedom of Speech allows any person to criticize what is said or done by anyone who has put himself in a leadership role or position of influence, enabling that leader to affect the lives of any or all life over which he has power. Oppression is the cruel or unjust exercise of power or authority, which creates unnecessary burden, damages the human spirit, strips away human dignity, and chisels at the stone of personal empowerment. If freedom of speech is taken by reprisal, recrimination, or punishment when a person speaks concerning how a leader is harmfully affecting innocent life, especially the most vulnerable, the leader is oppressing the speaker and possibly others for whom he or she may be speaking.

In my opinion, we have been losing our freedom of speech as a nation. I have observed and heard a kind of collective intimidation and silence, which only makes things easier for oppressors to continue on their self-seeking, destructive paths. They really do seem to need those who are being harmed, mentally, spiritually, socially, physically, or financially, to just be quiet. Those who speak out are treated like pesky, commoner troublemakers.

Freedom of speech may be hindered or denied in homes, in schools, in work places, in social service agencies, in medical services, or within community, city, state, or national political arenas. We must not give in to bullies of any kind who demand that we shut up when we have a reasonable concern to express. A crucial freedom is at stake. Encourage one another to speak up about SPEAKING UP.

E. Francisca

Book Review: Eyes of the Heart

2007-02-10T19:48:00.000-08:00

Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization
by Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Common Courage Press, 2000, $12.00
ISBN 1-56751-187-2

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was President of Haiti in 1991, again from 1994 to 1996, and then from 2001 to 2004. Aristide is a controversial figure. To some, he represents populist democracy: an advocate of the poor and downtrodden whose election brought new hope to Haiti, only to be overthrown by special interests protecting the status quo. To others, Aristide represents the worst of Marxism, a fanatic, a dictator, who got rich off the poor, and deposing him brought new hope to downtrodden Haiti.

Two books represent both sides of Aristide's reputation:

Aristide: The Death of a Nation, by Lynn Garrison, presents the anti-Aristide argument (also anti-Clinton and anti-human rights organizations and anti-left in general).

Plunging into Haiti: Clinton, Aristide, And the Defeat of Diplomacy,
by Ralph Pezzullo, presents the pro-Aristide argument.

Aristide himself has nine books in English:

Why (1978)
Raise the Table (1986)
100 Verses of Dechoukaj (1986)
The Truth in Truth (1989)
In the parish of the poor : writings from Haiti (1990)
Aristide : an autobiography (1992)
Theology and Politics (1993)
Dignity (1995)
Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization (2000)

For more: Searching Amazon

I have just read Eyes of the Heart. It is short (80 pages), passionate, and inspiring. Aristide movingly describes the terrible poverty of Haiti, and cites historical statistics to argue that this poverty is created by outside forces that also create poverty elsewhere. The cure is that terror of the libertarian marketplace, the mobilization of the poor. True political democracy and true economic democracy must go hand in hand.

It is hard to argue with this book unless one claims, as Aristide's critics do, that it is a lie from beginning to end. The book leaves me wanting to know a lot more about Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and about Haiti.

Quotes from the book:

"At home we are hungry. But if we sit home we will surely die. If we go to the street we may also die, but there at least is a glimmer of hope."
"There will never be money enough, but there are people enough... A wealth of experience, knowledge, skill, energy and the power to mobilize resides with the poor. From this creativity, this panorama of human endurance of the poor in Haiti, and the poor in Mexico, and in Brazil, and Southeast Asia and Africa, and more and more of the poor in North America and Europe, we can learn."
"Do not confuse democracy with the holding of elections. Elections are the exam, testing the health of our system. Voter participation is the grade. But school is in session every day. Only the day-to-day participation of the people at all levels of government can breathe life into democracy and create the possibility for people to play a significant role in shaping the state and the society that they want."
"Democracy asks us to put the needs and rights of people at the center of our endeavors. This means investing in people. Investing in people means first of all food, clean water, education and healthcare. These are basic human rights. It is the challenge of any real democracy to guarantee them."
"Remember that history moves in waves. We cannot expect to always live on the crests. We have to keep floating even when the waters ebb."

Links:

Online Book Club: pro-Aristide, includes forums

Aristide.org: pro-Aristide, includes forums

Aristide Timeline at CooperativeResearch.org: attempts to be neutral, is somewhat
pro-Aristide

The Left’s Favorite Thug by Rich Lowry of the National Review: anti-Aristide

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the prophet of deception, by Yves A. Isidor, first published in The Boston Connection Magazine, June 1999: anti-Aristide

Enemy Ally: The Demonization of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, at Fair.org, specifically refutes charges made in the anti-Aristide articles

New York Times archive of articles on Aristide from 1988 to August 17, 2006

Current news on Haiti and Aristide

Sometime during Aristide's presidency, Real Change published an article about the program for Haitian street youth that he founded, and speaks of in Eyes of the Heart, Lafanmi Selavi. The article is very positive about the organization, and by implication, about Aristide.

A Wikipedia article on Aristide attempts to be neutral, but its neutrality is disputed.

Write On!
Anitra

Get to Know Me!

2007-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

You're not truly awake until the first fart of the day. In that spirit here is my first blog that isn't a regurgitation of a column.

Yesterday I filled out my Blogger's® Profile and one aspect of it ticked me off. I mean, I've done this kind of thing all over the internet and it's always the same. "What are your interests?" "What are your favorite movies?" "What are your favorite books?" Retch.

It's all about creating a jolly happy time and place. It's the Prozac Nation. It's telling me I'm welcome here to be as chipper and positive as all the other brain dead blissed out cult fodder.

OK. I exaggerate. But my point is, if you DON'T really want to know me you say, "Hey, Westofer, Dude, what do you like?" Whereas if you DO want to know me you lay off the dude-speak and you prostate* yourself before me, trembling. Then you wash your hands, filthy monkey, & you offer me a back rub, & you say, "Please, Wes, permit me to know what pisses you off, and all the things that you consider foul, and that spoils the Earth, so that I may do Your Will and Your Will Only and eradicate all of them to the last one and cause great pain to their nether regions on the way out."

So here are just some of my non-interests: I hate team sports. There's no i in team, because I'm not there. Why should I help someone else win something? Why should I even cheer their sorry asses on? I hate all spectator sports, even those involving individual competitors, unless those competitors are scantily clad females twisting their bodies in interesting ways. Female bodies twisting, Yes. Watching ego-bloated strangers compete for pointless points and medals, No.

I hate bigots. This includes not only the usual racists, ethnic bigots, sexists, religious bigots, and people who threaten to beat me up for not caring about the Seahawks, but also large herds of bigots on the fringes of Bigotdom. For example a person I know who says all baby-boomers are bigoted against younger people, is himself a bigot. I once praised the value of Viagra within a committed consensual relationship, and I got hate-mail from an idiot anti-erectionist bigot, who said erections cause rape. I found this most ironic having once been raped as a male-child by an adult (penis-less!) woman using a screwdriver handle. I guess she hadn't got the memo.

I hate ignorance. I don't mean stupidity, which is a great force of nature and inevitable. I'm referring to avoidable ignorance, that which you get by being too lazy to be bothered knowing the truth about matters you choose to meddle in. Ignorance adheres to people with power over others. "People with power" over others includes not only politicians but voters and members of neighborhood groups, if they are deciding policy that severely impacts homeless people. Such people need to stick to their own damn self-determination and stay out of other people's self-determination, until they have the wisdom and insight of gods, i.e. until the end of time.

Later, I will describe movies and books that I hate. Thank you Anitra, for setting this up and making all this possible.

*I spelled it right.

Adventures in Irony, Jan 24, '07

2007-01-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

[Until I can redo and update my home website, I'll post these here along with whatever else.]

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.

Crazed Anatomy

2007-01-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

The latest from © Dr. Wes Browning's columns for Real Change, Adventures in Irony:

Crazed Anatomy

Last month I fell and broke some bones. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention a thing like that here, because broken bones are not everybody’s idea of a treasure trove of socio-political humor. I only mention it now because the breaks in question have had amusing consequences indicative of socio-political realities. I went to Harborview for treatment.

Due to a pre-existing mental condition (being nuts) I waited two days to go to Harborview ER. Forget what I ever said about Harborview, just now. I love Harborview ER. I love sitting on the bench for an hour waiting for triage. I love triage. I love waiting half an hour after triage to check-in. I love waiting another half-hour to be taken to a bed, probably in a hall next to a screaming man strapped and manacled to a gurney. I love waiting another half-hour for a doctor to see me for the first time, while I listen to a man at the other end of the hall scream “I am Hitler!” or, alternatively, “I am the light!” repeatedly for five minutes at a time.

I love being seen by random doctors whose names I can’t remember, there being as many of them as dancers in a Busby Berkeley spectacular. Somewhere well into the fourth hour I was led to the X-ray room, where twenty or thirty X-rays were taken, and all I could think was, “That’s a lot of film there. I hope they know somebody’s going to have to pay for all that film.” Then I waited some more.

Finally, a verdict: “Good news, Mr. Browning! You have contusions, swelling, lacerations, and (I forget the fourth thing), but you have no broken bones! Just get a tetanus shot on the way out and go home, and nature will slowly heal you, and the pain will subside by April!”

The next day I checked my phone messages, and found out that even as I was on my way home a doctor I hadn’t even met yet had called me to tell me they made a mistake reading my X-rays and my wrist was broken after all, so come back!

So I came back and I told the people in ER I was just continuing treatment from the day before, and they said, no problem: Just wait on the bench for triage, wait then to check-in, wait then to be led in, listen to the other patients scream, and wait then for a doctor to appear. Which I did as directed, so only four hours later I got the splint on my right arm I should have gotten the previous day. Then they said, go home, you’re done.

The next day I found out I had a phone call from yet another doctor even as I was making my way home. They had missed a break of my other arm. Please come back.

So I came back and I told the people in ER I was just continuing treatment from the day before, and the day before that, and they said, no problem: Just wait on the bench for triage, wait then to check-in, wait then to be led in, etc., and I said, “Right, so I’m living in an Early Medieval Irish folk story,” and I did it all as directed, and four plus hours later I had a new sling for my left arm, and effusive apologies from at least two new doctors I didn’t remember. I told them there was no need to apologize, this is material!

So right now you should be asking, “Alright, what’s your socio-political point, Wes?”

Well, I could say that my experience is just indicative of the state of health care in this country, but I won’t go there, because I actually appreciate the treatment, and I know mistakes happen to the best of us. Hey, I didn’t plan to fall, either.

But, think about this: what if I’d had no home to go to, and no voice mail to retrieve?

walking through the shadows of the row part 1

2007-01-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

In this world of fast moving technology, and new inventions, we have set our agendas only on one mission and that is to serve our own egos. have we forgotten about our fellow man, have we forgotten how to care and be compassionate towards one another. as I walk the streets of seattle washington I see the weary and tired faces of men and women who roam the streets of our city, I came from washington DC. a city very much in turmoil as seattle. however the many services available in seattle does out weigh what services that are available in DC. I have to ask myself sometimes. where have all of the jobs gone. why is there so much poverty in our nation. we are considered a superpower, but yet we ignore our poor. we say we are the greatest nation in the world. but our actions say otherwise. we say we are a nation of opportunity, but for whom are we the nation of opportunity for. americans born and raisied in this country have a hard time getting the main essential things needed to live on. but yet america says we are a land of opportunity. poverty and homelessness is rising to tremendous heights but yet america says there is opportunity for everyone. where is that opportunity that america speaks of. where is the generosity of the american people. veterans who went to fight for america, have now come home, and even they cannot find decent jobs and good wages. they are not treated with the respect that they deserve.
america can be a very cold hearted and ruthless place to live for anyone. when you are an honest person you are practically walked all over. maybe that's why people who are honest are in poverty, because of their honesty. religion in america has become big business, and is in many cases a corrupt system of organizing. in the case of many gospel rescue missions, this one rackett if you will how a hypocritcal form of thinking will control the weak. I have been across america and I see this sort of thing go on all of the time. and when a person speaks out against their system, that person is automatically banned forever from that property. and african americans are very easily duped into this type of hypocrisy. it is sad. because as an african american myself I see the brainwashing that my people endure. and who gets all of the gravey. the institution of course. as I go across america. why are so many african americans homeless. I have even written the NAACP concerning the issue. not once have I gotten a response. which comes to show that african americans don't really give a damn about one another. we blame this on whites, which in fact maybe true, but I still think that african americans can show more compassion toward one another. walking through the shadows of the row part 2 will continue later

this story written by August H Mallory

It's a new year!

2007-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

And, hopefully, this blog is now going to take off! We have new members signed up... the Seattle group is putting together a show to be presented at Hugo House this spring... Real Change plans to re-start the Out of the Margins newsletter AND chapbook printing this spring... so there will be lots to talk about. :)

Out of the Margins

2006-09-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

This will be a group blog of several members of StreetWrites, a workshop of homeless and low-income writers in Seattle, Washington, supported by Real Change, Seattle's progressive community street newspaper.