Across Difficult Country

At a Seattle area park last Sunday a group of involuntary celibates convened to stage a cardboard tube fighting tournament: "Two dozen fighters obeyed the tenets of cardboard-tube fighting Sunday, battling for the glory of becoming the champion. They took to a concrete surface at Seattle's Gas Works Park, wielding their weapons: 3-foot-long cardboard tubes that look like the kind used for gift wrap. Most fighters employed a two-handed grip; the more assured used one hand. Those who break their tubes do not advance to another round.” Every day I find it harder and harder not to hate my own country. One exceptionally pathetic contestant remarked: "I knew I had to go," he said of the tournament. "It sounded like something that was amazing and it was. This was the only thing we found to do that was entertaining all week."

In Seattle a new form of bias has been discovered: summer breakism. While not specifically racist, according to Caprice Hollins , the Director for the Office of Equity and Race Relations for the Seattle Schools, summer break is an example of a “systemic problem” which verges on racism because “summer break serves no educational purpose” and “puts struggling [i.e. black and Latino] students further behind.” I don’t know what Ms. Hollins wants, but voluntary summer school could be created. If it were, I’m sure a lot of Asian parents would force their kids to attend. Another unusual type of prejudice that’s rarely discussed is Intergalactic Racism. Most people think extraterrestrials only abduct white people, but that’s only true of the grey extraterrestrials. As this story from Canada’s finest newspaper recounts, white skinned aliens (including one sporting red pubic-hair) have been coming to this planet and targeting blacks for harassment. Potential abductees take note, there se...

King County, Washington is becoming more like North Korea , as: "The portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — part of a proposed new King County logo — will soon be found on county stationery, vehicles and buildings throughout the area.... The new logo will first appear on new county park signs and corrections-department uniforms, according to Carolyn Duncan, a spokeswoman for the county. The King logo will replace the gold-crown logo on stationery as it runs out and on Metro buses when they are replaced." - Seattle Times . (See also Larry Auster .) I imagine the next step will be to require the display of King’s portrait in every home. And after that - what? Will the delicious hamburger’s name be changed to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Burger King Whopper jr.? And must King’s supporters insist on including the honorific ‘Doctor' each time they mention his name? It would be embarrassing even if he hadn’t plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation. Big 'Brother' ...

Tragedy struck twice yesterday in the greater Seattle area, as two men drown in separate incidents . Meanwhile not a single person yesterday died solely because of second hand smoke, in the in the greater Seattle area or anywhere else . It’s illegal in Seattle to smoke within 25 feet of doorways to prevent the slightest involuntary exposure to non-harmful second hand smoke , but it would be far more sensible to make it illegal to go within 25 feet of deadly water.

At the opening of Toi Sennhauser's show audience members can whisper their secrets into a mouthpiece connected to a puff pastry. " Sennhauser , 29, is best known for the bread she baked with her vaginal yeast for last year's Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. The Seattle Health Department said she couldn't offer it to anyone, even though, thoroughly cooked, it wasn't a health risk. She displayed it along with the Health Department warning. Whether people ate it or not (many did) was up to them."

Today while standing on the street corner enjoying a cigarette (Seattle is yet another ‘progressive’ city which has banned smoking indoors; progressive being a popular euphemism for leftist authoritarianism), I reflected on how if I liked being outside I would have taken up jogging or riding about on a unicycle for a hobby instead of smoking. It was at this moment of legally induced vulnerability that my former colleague, Professor Glen Morangie , descended upon me. Morangie, who I had not seen for some time, was (typically) in the midst of a crisis. The good professor explained he had been for the past two months doing research in China and parts of Tibet, and while there his prized skull collection, consisting of 121 skulls, had been lost or stolen in transit at some point during a rail journey. Among Morangie’s many mental disorders he is unable to sleep in hotels without first counting each and every one of the 121 skulls in his collection, so it is vital the 121 skulls are returne...

Seattle Seahawks President Tim Ruskell is an interesting guy . His first job in the NFL was ballboy, he once worked as a DJ, now it is likely he will be named NFL Executive of the Year. At one time he was a visiting team’s locker-room manager for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. During this time, according to Ruskell: “We were playing Buffalo, and O.J. Simpson comes walking in about five hours before the game,” Ruskell said. “He befriends us. He’s talking to us and he’s practicing something for NBC. He’s going to be Othello . “So he asks us, my guys and us, if we could read some parts. He had all these little scripts because he’s practicing his lines. We’re a bunch of idiots, don’t know what the hell we’re doing, and he is doing his lines. “It was quick and then it was over. Didn’t think anything of it. But as I look back, doing Shakespeare with O.J. … that was a bizarre one.” I can’t find a listing of O.J. playing Othello. Is Ruskell’s memory wrong? Not necessarily. O.J. may have been ...

I often wonder if the city of Seattle could be any more boring. It turns out the answer is yes: Seattle Considers Lap Dance Ban ...the City Council is planning to vote Monday on some of the strictest adult-entertainment regulations of any big city in the country. No lap dances. No placing dollar bills in a dancer's G-string... Under these rules, dancers would have to stay 4 feet away from customers, private rooms would be barred, customers couldn't give money directly to entertainers, and the minimum lighting would be increased - think parking-garage brightness. If Jesus can have his feet washed by a whore, why is it wrong for an ordinary man to have his lap danced upon by a stripper? Obviously it isn’t. Sadly, arguments based on the Scriptures carry no weight with the God-hating Leftist types that run Seattle. That these regulations will force many girls, most of whom are capable of little else , into ‘other work’, is of no concern to these people. The zealots of the Seattle C...

Senator Patty ‘ Osama Daycare ’ Murray will be attending a "Town Hall" forum in Seattle tomorrow to hear suggestions on how to make it easier for Muslims to immigrate to the United States. Remind me again, why I would want it to be easier for Muslims to immigrate to the United States? I’m also unable to think of the last time a Senator was interested in making anything easier for me . It’s all very mysterious. In other mysterious local news, 58 years ago today the famous Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred over Washington State: "Nine bright saucer-like objects flying at "incredible speed" at 10,000 feet altitude were reported here today by Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho, pilot who said he could not hazard a guess as to what they were. Arnold, a United States Forest Service employee engaged in searching for a missing plane, said he sighted the mysterious objects yesterday at 3 P.M. They were flying between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, in Washington state, ...

Leftists complain incessantly about the malign effect corporations have on the political process, how corporate campaign donations buy politicians and subvert democracy, and how drastic measures must be taken to rid democracy of corporate influence. The book Dollars and Votes How Business Campaign Contributions Subvert Democracy provides numerous and typical examples of this complaint: "the problem is an entire system that is institutionally corrupt, that coerces politicians to put dollars over voters, that buys off democracy. The solution, therefore, must be a complete overhaul and the introduction of a fundamentally new system." "business uses campaign contributions in a way few other groups do, as part of an "access" process that provides corporations a chance to shape the details of legislation, crafting loopholes that undercut the stated purpose of the law." "The interests of business are diametrically opposed to those of the public." Now,...

Race relations take an unfortunate turn as a frenzy of black on white grappling erupts at a Seattle area community swimming pool. We still have a long way to go.

"Let's face it: People once laughed at acupuncture, and they weren't quite sure what to make of feng shui, either. Still, while Chinese face reading lags far behind its ancient Chinese cousins in terms of earning Western mainstream acceptance, at least 18 women considered it worth examining in Jean Haner-Dowsett's Lake Forest Park living room yesterday. It was her former mother-in-law who introduced her to face reading and feng shui (which teaches that location of one's home and placement of furnishings inside can promote success in the home) when she married into a Chinese family 25 years ago, and now Haner-Dowsett leads international workshops. Chinese face reading, she says, allows someone to detect personal qualities and foibles from another's facial features. Last fall, for instance, it was presidential candidate Wesley Clark's strong jaw that told her he was the only Democrat who could have won the election. Filmmaker Michael Moore's hooked nose ,...

Saturday, March 13. At 7:37 p.m. "A minor earthquake with a magnitude of 3.3 was reported". The quake was centered 15 miles north of Olympia, Washington. At 7:45 p.m. "A fireball streaked through the night sky across the western half of the Pacific Northwest on Saturday, startling people all the way from southern Oregon to the Seattle area...Scientists said the fireball was probably a meteor". One witness said "It was like a big ball of fire...behind it was a trail of blue". Then at 7:50 p.m. some parts of the city of Seattle experienced a power outage. Among the areas affected was the neighborhood of Magnolia. And I would like to think this was only a matter of chance...

I awake in the pretentious city of Seattle (future home of the homosexualist ‘manorail’ ), and discover my good friend Professor Glen Morangie (recently returned from his Tsunami relief mission ) has been trying to contact me all morning to alert me to this story : Reports of reptile on loose unnerve Medina residents Beware a caiman or some other large reptile spotted around Cozy Cove and Fairweather Bay, the Medina Police Department warned residents in a Friday e-mail. The department reported sightings, including one person who saw it lingering in the reeds at the back of the bay... If the sighting proves correct, it could be a caiman, which can grow to 7 feet long and usually makes its home much farther south, in the marshes and rivers of Latin American, said Dana Payne, a curator and reptile specialist at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Or it might be an American alligator, which can frequently reach 9 to 10 feet in length and hails from the Southeast, said Payne, who fielded a cal...

Various leftists are excited by an essay that was published in National Review in 1957 that stated in part: It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists....It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. If white leftists truly disagree with the above, why is it in the cities where most of them reside (Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.) white leftists choose, at great expense, not to live in predominantly black neighborhoods, and if at all possible not to send their children to predominantly black schools? Perhaps white leftists should explain their own incongruous behavior instead of attempting to discredit a magazine based on what it published nearly 50 years ago.

Before leaving Seattle, I thought I would take them time to marvel at some of her ugly buildings. The EMP , ostensibly a museum (in reality one man’s junk collection) was a 'gift' from billionerd Paul Allen. If I ever meet him I will be sure to give him the thanks he deserves. It should not be too surprising that the tastes of someone like Allen are frozen in adolescence, but did the city have to agree to indulge him simply because he was willing to pay for most of it? The new Seattle library was not the result of philanthropy. Designed by a Dutch flim-flam man named Rem Koolhass, it too, is ugly . The way it bulges out oppressively into the street makes it unpleasant even to walk by. Viewing its unbalanced angles creates a sense of unease. We have lost the ability to create beautiful buildings. We have lost the ability to create tolerable buildings. Our new buildings are a form of aesthetic assault. This is a description of the library by a critic who admires it: The Se...

Unfortunately, the weather in Seattle today is sunny and warm, with just a few tiny brush-strokes of cloud on one small corner of the vast blue canvas of sky. I say unfortunately because, as you may recall, the reason I returned to Seattle for the holidays was that Seattle’s usual grey, drizzly weather is soothing when I have a hangover. Oh well, boredom is also soothing when I have a hangover, and Seattle can still be counted on to provide plenty of that. My headache is interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from my good friend the renowned thinker Professor Glen Morangie, alerting me to a recent ‘scientific breakthrough’ in Australia. Use of the term scientific breakthrough leads me to expect something momentous, such as the discovery of a new kind of gravity or the invention of a machine which can ensure that the weather is grey and drizzly when I have a hangover. Instead I learn the breakthrough is : A team of north Queensland experts found one of the world's most deadli...

I am once again in unhappy Seattle (even Seattle’s homosexualists seem depressed these days, despite being promised a monorail). For all of her shortcomings, Seattle’s grey, drizzly weather makes it an ideal city to have a hangover in, and therefore a perfect place for me to be for the holidays. I will try to wring whatever small enjoyment out of Seattle I can before her miserable passive aggressive citizens destroy the city completely with dimwitted and obscenely expensive (in the billions) transportation schemes, which include the aforementioned ‘ manorail ’, light rail, and now possibly an underground tunnel for cars to drive in. Who will pay for all this? Those with any money and good sense will be leaving Seattle as soon as these projects commence being built, as the construction process will make an already depressing city unlivable. Much talk in Seattle centers around the controversial ballot recount in the Gov.s race. Accusations about election fraud have been made. It would...

A Seattle resident reacts upon hearing the news that the planned route of the world's first homosexualist monorail (or, as I call it, 'manorail') includes a stop near his favorite public restroom.

Seattle is a city of pretensions, though it is impossible to determine what the city has to be pretentious about. When you ask Seattlians (as I do) what Seattle has to be pretentious about, its meek and dull citizens will incongruously point to the nearby mountains as being at the heart of the city's charm (if the city's charm is from natural objects outside the city, why not point to the moon?) Some suggest Seattle's grotesque new sports stadiums (I can hardly believe it myself). Others point to the ridiculous glass junk that people in Seattle consider to be art because they don't know anything about art. A few honest ones will admit that while it rains a lot, the weather is never punitive, and unlike some places it is fairly easy for a person who minds his own business to avoid being attacked by Negroes, and besides there are a lot of Thai restaurants. So there you have it. Recently, the citizens of Seattle decided to make their already mediocre city even worse ...