These are the continuing adventures of a typical resident 
 of the self-proclaimed center of the Pugetopolis universe - 
 Seattle. Most are true stories but some are made of whole-
 cloth. I ain't the Mayor, the Governor or a Big Shot. Just 
 another Working Stiff with a Bad Attitude.

    ------------------------------------------------
    WARNING: This is not a Child-Proof Neighborhood.
    If you're a kid - scram!, beat it! you little
    punk before your Old Lady catches you and calls
    the cops. They'll throw you in the Big House in
    Walla Walla and won't let you out until you're
    89 years old. There. Don't say I didn't warn you.
    -------------------------------------------------

		            - 111 -

 
 It will have been 108 years ago this coming Wednesday that the
 City Treasurer, Adolph Krug, didn't show up for work at City
 Hall. He was instead boarding the east-bound train heading for 
 New York City. And if he seemed a little nervous about that bag 
 under his arm, it was for good reason - it contained our entire 
 Civic Nestegg. He'd made a little un-authorized withdrawal to
 the tune of $225,000. A huge sum of money in those days. Adolph 
 was East-Bounder Down, loaded up and Truck'n. Skeedaddle'n from
 Seattle.

 1893 was a bad year around Seattle. A huge drop in the U.S. Gold
 Reserves back in the spring had triggered a national depression
 aka The Panic of '93. On the rebound from the Great Fire, we were 
 heavily leveraged to eastern banking concerns at the time and
 we got it in the teeth baby. Banks and companies were dropping like
 flies as that eastern financial rug was pulled out from under them.
 All their jobs went with them. Coxey's Army of the unemployed was 
 on the eastward march to The Other Washington and 1500 local
 laborers joined it, led by David Denny - one of the original Ohio 
 Virgins who helped invent 'Seattle'. In the midst of this economic
 free-fall, many of the Office Boys around town kept a step ahead
 of the crowd by grabbing the company bank-account before those
 Eastern Bastards got it, and quietly faded into the shadows. In
 that sense, Adolph was just doing what everybody else was doing.

 Unfortunately for him, the Police Department payroll was part of
 his loot and they took the loss personally. Provided with this
 powerful incentive, they pulled out all the stops and caught up 
 with him during a stop-over in Minneapolis. A few weeks later, he 
 was indicted along with 5 local Office Boys for the heist. They
 had to pull Mr. Pioneer - David Denny - out of Coxey's March to
 Washington. He was part of the scam.
 
 Seattle likely would have shriveled on the vine because of The 
 Panic of '93. Lacking any local source of capital, Hooterville 
 limped along for years afterward while trying to crawl out from 
 under the damage. Then a miracle happened: somebody discovered 
 gold up in the Yukon. All of a sudden we became The Gateway To 
 Alaska. Tons of people and money came rolling into town, Northern 
 Pacific Railway built the first of the waterfront piers (54, 55 
 and 56) and it was Good Times again. Sometimes you just get lucky.

	                      - * -

 It must be reassuring to lawyers everywhere to know that no matter
 how stupid or incompetent they might be, there is always a place for 
 them in the King County Inferior Court - where any idiot can become 
 a judge. They got no standards at all. 

 BALIFF: King County Inferior Court is now in session. Judge Hee-Haw
 Haley preciding. Y'all jump up and yell "HEE HAW!". Thank you. 
 Please be seated.

 HEE-HAW: Baliff! Where's that Sassy Negro Aristotle Marr? Haul his
 black butt out here and keep an eye on him. The dope was dumb enough 
 to turn himself in and trust himself to the justice and fairness of 
 this 'er Inferior court. He ain't likely to be goofy enough to do that 
 again if he slips away.
 
 Boy! Tell me straight now, you make bail yet?

 ARISTOTLE: Yes I have Judge Hee-Haw.

 HEE-HAW: What! That's impossible! A no-account, shiftless Pickaninny 
 like you couldn't get his hands on that kind of Dough. How the hell 
 you manage it?

 ARISTOTLE: A friend has posted it. 

 HEE-HAW: Bull-sh*t! Don't be feed'n me no crap like that. Only a 
 white man would have that kind of Dough and no white man in his
 right mind would risk it on no Gol dang Jungle Bunny. You think all
 there is to making bail is to post the money? You think you're going
 to hoodwink this 'er court with a sleezy, underhanded move like
 that? You think I'm some sort of fool? Don't answer that last one.

 ARISTOTLE: He isn't white judge. He's black, he's Jamaican and he's
 got more money than you and all your relatives put together. Besides,
 you set bail and now I've made it. If you didn't want to set bail,
 then why did you?

 HEE-HAW: Don't be sass'n me Boy! I'm run'n this 'er courtroom. Yes 
 I did set bail but I will not accept it under ANY circumstances. 
 Why the hell you think I made it so rediculously huge!? I don't like 
 the color of your money anymore than I like the color of your skin. 

 ARISTOTLE: But judge...

 HEE-HAW: Shut the hell up dammit! Baliff! Haul that black bastard out 
 of my courtroom and throw him back in the slammer. Throw the damn
 key away while you're at it. I declare him guilty as hell. No need
 to waste any precious public funds on no stink'n trial. 

 On second thought Baliff...get my hang'n rope. I gotta mind to see
 some black meat swing'n from a tree. Let's show this Boy a little 
 justice King County Inferior Court style. They don't call me me Hang 
 Man Haley for nuth'n.

                              - * -

 It was almost like the Good Old Days in a B.C. courtroom recently.
 Mary Brown, an 81-year old Sons of Freedom Doukhobour lady from
 Nelson (BC), sat butt-nekkid in court during her trial for setting
 the local community college on fire. They threw a blanket over her 
 for a number of obvious reasons. Back in the 50's and 60's there 
 used to be whole B.C. courtrooms full of nekkid Doukhobours. It was 
 quite a shock to the prim, proper and rather prudish Canuks eh. They
 never get nekkid until they get drunk enough to lose their scruples. 
 The Doukhobours are one of those weird Russian Christian sects that 
 got booted out of their home country ages ago by the Russian Orthodox
 Church to avoid the effort of murdering them all off in a pogram like
 they did with so many others. They believe, amongst other things, that 
 getting nekkid and burning your Stuff is a spiritually cleansing 
 exercise. They really do. Now that they've pretty much burnt off all 
 their Stuff, they don't hardly get nekkid any more. Mary was must have
 been a little confused about the ownership eh. Or maybe she just felt
 like having one final fling for posterity's sake.

			         - * -

 On her way out here, Jane Goodall dropped off at the National Zoo in
 The Other Washington. And the Smithsonian paid tribute to her. She
 says she hasn't had time to see the new Planet of the Apes movie yet
 but she liked the first batch. She'll be at Town Hall up by Virgina
 Mason Hospital on the 16th.

 Bill Ayers is going to be at the U Dub Bookstore signing his books
 on September 25th. The entire Seattle FBI Office will likely be in
 the audience with their little hidden tape-recorders running. Maybe
 the Army's Delta Force lent them a couple of those neato mini wireless
 cams like they used during WTO too. Unlike them, Bill wasn't a traitor
 willing to sell his country out for a few bucks - he just wanted to
 change it. Nothing those buck-sucking traitors at the FBI hate more 
 than a patriotic Goody-Two-Shoes eh.

.......................................................................

 Special Foggy Public Service Announcement:


                     DON'T FART NAKED NEAR FOOD
   
 "It all started with an enquiry from a nurse," Dr Karl Kruszelnicki 
  told listeners to his science phone-in show on the Triple J radio
  station in Brisbane. "She wanted to know whether she was contaminating
  the operating theatre she worked in by quietly farting in the sterile 
  environment during operations, and I realised that I didn't know. But 
  I was determined to find out."

  Dr Kruszelnicki then described the method by which he had established
  whether human flatus was germ-laden, or merely malodorous. "I
  contacted Luke Tennent, a microbiologist in Canberra, and together we
  devised an experiment. He asked a colleague to break wind directly
  onto two Petri dishes from a distance of five centimetres, first fully
  clothed, then with his trousers down. Then he observed what happened.
  Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types
  of bacteria that are usually only found in the gut and on the skin.
  But the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to
  sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a filter.

 "Our deduction is that the enteric zone in the second Petri dish was
  caused by the flatus itself, and the splatter ring around that was
  caused by the sheer velocity of the fart, which blew skin bacteria
  from the cheeks and blasted it onto the dish. It seems, therefore,
  that flatus can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if 
  he or she is clothed. But the results of the experiment should not be
  considered alarming, because neither type of bacterium is harmful. In
  fact, they're similar to the 'friendly' bacteria found in yoghurt.

  "Our final conclusion? Don't fart naked near food. Alright, it's not
  rocket science. But then again, maybe it is?" 

                        Canberra Times,
                            7/17/01
 
.......................................................................

		  ON TOP OF OLD SMOKEY

 Anybody who smokes has invariably run into a non-smoker who
 just can't resist putting them down for the habit. Few of the
 bastards are nice about it either. With the smarmiest, most
 self-righteous smile imaginable, they proceed to trash talk you
 right to your face like they got some kind of licence. Many of 
 them imagine themselves On A Mission From God: they are doing 
 this for 'our own good'. Anytime you find yourself doing ANYTHING 
 for somebody else's own good, you're screwing up. That's a fact. 
 You're being a pompous jerk. Cuz there ain't NOBODY in this world 
 holy enough to imagine themselves that much superior that they 
 can afford to pontificate. Not even the Pope. That also is a fact. 
 We all live in glass houses. Most of us are just discrete enough 
 to hang curtains. 

 By far the worst are the ones who imagine the smoker in question
 to be too stoopid to understand their compassionate advice. They
 don't even bother explaining themselves. They just make funny
 faces and cop a Major Attitude. Aside from the superiority angle, 
 it's also a lot safer that way. Their victim never has the chance
 to cross-examine them. Cowardly but cute.

 So much for indignation. The real point of all this is that every
 single one of these jerks that I've run into, drives a car. Every
 single one of them. No exceptions. When I ask them if this is the
 case, they always look at me with one of those 'what in the hell
 does that have to do with this conversation' looks on their mugs.
 So I ask them, what's that crap coming out of your tailpipe? Is
 that pure air? Unh unh. If you wrapped your fat lips around that
 tailpipe, how long do you think you'd live? And just where is all
 that crap you and your stink'n car produce going? Do you pump it
 safely inside so nobody else has to breathe it? Hell no! It'd kill 
 you, wouldn't it. No. YOU pump that crap all over the freak'n
 place so EVERYBODY can get a whiff of it. Thanks jerk! I'm the only
 one who breathes my smoke. Everybody has to breathe your freak'n
 exhaust. And just what in the hell do you imagine that is doing to 
 their health? Improving it? Hell no. It's making them sick. It's
 killing people. Every single day people die from your stinking
 pollution. Little kids, kindly old Granny Women, harmless Space 
 Cadets, helpless homeless people, brilliant scientists, saintly 
 nuns, professional baseball players - you're nailing every last 
 one of them  with your crap. At worst, I make one person sick - me. 
 But you're a freak'n one man Weapon of Mass Destruction - you make
 thousands and thousands of people sick. And you imagine you can
 look down your nose at me? No freak'n way Jose.

 That generally leaves them speechless. Some of them try the lame 
 old 'everybody's doing it' routine. Not me; not the people riding
 bikes; not the people walking; not the people taking buses. They 
 aren't doing it or they're at least minimizing their damage. But 
 when push comes to shove, they really don't give a damn. They
 didn't start this stupid conversation to 'do good', they started it
 to get their rocks off at someone else's expense - mine - while
 inflating their own pathetic ego. It really pisses them off when 
 it blows up in their face. Especially because they know their full
 of guano.

 For some of us, cigarettes are as Frank Zappa once said: one of the
 basic food groups. Frank's dead of course. Of lung cancer? Nope.
 Frank died of prostrate cancer. Some medical Quack misdiagnosed
 it many years earlier and allowed it to develop. He died of some
 doctor's stupidity. The same Quack who advised him to quit smoking.

........................................................................

 "Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are ANGER and COURAGE;
 anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not
 remain the way they are." 

                       - St. Augustine -
 
........................................................................

 		         MONDO VATICANO

 I was listening to Mother Angelica over the weekend on EWTN. She's
 a phony ultra-opinionated old nun who puts on a Tough Guy schtick 
 that's supposed to be cute. The Cardinal in L.A. don't think she's 
 so cute. She tried telling him how to run his diocese and he told 
 her to bugger off and mind her own business, politely of course.
 Being a Bigtime Radio Personality goes to her head sometimes. She's
 obviously pretty ancient and has had a stroke or two as her voice 
 has a definite slur to it. And she's far more political than she 
 is religious - ultra-Conservative. The religous thing is just a 
 sideline. She don't know much about it.

 Anyways...she's babbling on about how wonderful it is that despite
 numerous Goof-Ball Popes, all of their teachings have miraculously
 been accurate and consistent. The Holy Spirit in action. Huh? 
 Apparentlhy she's unaware of the 30 or so Popes who were declared
 heretics. Future-Super-Saint JP-2's predecessor, Pius VIth had their
 teachings declared null and void. Which, incidently, pretty much
 wiped out the unbroken Apostolic Succession Roma claims from St. 
 Peter to JP-2. It's been broken numerous times. It's got more holes 
 in it than Swiss Cheese. The Bishop of Roma isn't St. Pete's successor
 anymore than I'm first-cousin to the Easter Bunny. Of course none of 
 that phases Mother Angelica or her little brood of zombies - when 
 reality don't fit - just pretend. Not exactly in accord with Catholic
 traditions but then, neither are they. Catholicism is just a form 
 of extertainment for them. A cute and comforting Fairy Tale.
			+	+	+
 Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has thrown in the towel. He says
 Christianity is dead in England. Being personally familiar with
 each surviving Christian in the U.K. he, of course, knows exactly
 what he's talking about. Or maybe he's just an arrogant, delusion 
 Old Coot who hasn't got a clue. Take your pick. I think what he 
 REALLY means is that the institutional Church is dead. After 
 centuries of lying, misleading, abusive and exploitive behavior; 
 after centuries of sucking-up to every political Wing Ding who 
 came down the pike, they now have zero credibility and nobody in
 their right mind wants anything to do with them. Everyone in
 England heaved a collective yawn at the news of his comments.
			+	+	+
 Cardinal Winning of Scotland, who recently croaked, died penliless 
 and destitute. So we are led to believe. That means he was living in 
 a cardboard box in some back alley, right? Well, no - he was living 
 in a very comfortable, well-provisioned rectory with a soft, warm bed
 to sleep in. Then he at least went hungry, right? No - he got 3 squares
 a day if he wanted them. Okay, but like nobody would talk to him 
 because they thought he was a bum and would start hitting on them,
 right? Nope - he was surrounded by many friends and acquaintances who
 at least respected him and, no doubt, a few of whom had real affection
 for him. His poverty was phony. He had everything he needed. He died
 comfortable and contented. The truely destitute and penniless die
 miserable and forgotten. Nobody notices when they croak. The good
 Cardinal just cashed out his assets so the government couldn't tax
 them.
			+	+	+
 Frenchie Bishop Pierre Pican got his last week. He's the jerk who hid
 a pervert priest who had confessed his monsterous sins to him that
 involved raping young boys in his parish. Instead of requiring him to
 turn himself in to the authorities as part of his penance, Bishop Pican
 just kept it their little secret. So now he gets to share accomodations
 with his buddy for the next three months in the slammer. The good 
 Bishop is swooning like a wounded swan these days hoping someone will
 mistake him for a saint. He's just a common jerk who's too stupid to
 know what a low-grade bag of sh*t he really is. At least the kids are
 safe from Fr. Pervert, no thanks to Bishop Pican.
			+	+	+
 The Vatican, of course, is not Catholicism. The Pope and the Curia
 (the Vatican's bureaucracy) like to imagine themselves the embodiment
 of Catholicism. After over a millenium of political and economic
 power, that demensia is hard-wired into the system. It long ago lost
 the ability to honestly look at itself. You can't rule unless you
 believe, heart and soul, that you have have the perogative. Even 
 though they no longer rule, they still believe they have the
 perogative. They still think and act as though they do. By force of
 centuries of habit, they delusionally imagine themselves to be 'in
 control'. They simply no longer are. And they're the only ones who 
 don't seem to realize it.

 I often get accused of 'not being in communion with Rome'. It's a
 technical term and, judging from the casual and sloppy way my
 accussors throw it about, they don't actually know (or care) what 
 it means. They imagine it to be an insult. In fact I AM in communion 
 with Rome. Just not in the way they'd like me to be. That's their
 problem, not mine. Catholicism is not a commodity over which they
 exercise a monopoly. It's much bigger than just the Pope and Curia. 
 Those two, in fact, are the least relevant aspects of it. If Rome 
 didn't exist, there would still be a Catholic Church. Just as Judaism
 didn't evaporate with the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem. God
 preserves and protects what is His. It's in the Bible somewhere.

 Rome's contribution to my parish church has been precisely 'zero'. 
 Its Bishop imposed a priest on us. We had no say in the choice. He 
 got his job by the standard American route: it's not WHAT you know 
 that counts, it's WHO you know. He knew the bishop, ergo, he got the 
 job. He spends most of his time 'being useful' in the social sense.
 The religious end of his job seems almost a sideline. Sort of a
 hobby. And he has no life-experience to speak of - he's never gotten
 drunk, fallen in love, been stiffed or ripped off, punched out 
 anyone's lights, gotten arrested, been down-sized/laid-off/fired,
 been broke, gone hungry, wished to God he was dead, etc. Or if he
 has, he ain't talk'n about it. Right out of high-school, into the 
 seminary and out to the parishes - hopping from one secure/comfortable
 environment to the next pretty as you please. A safe but shallow
 existence. A nice guy but a Bimbo. He really should get a life
 before he tries advising others on how to live theirs eh.

-------------------------------------------------- 
 The above is copyright material. You want to use it, 
 ask. You want to make money off it, gimme some first. 
 I'll let you know if it's enough. You want to steal it, 
 I'll sic my lawyer Yoshi 'The Proctologist' Rasmussen 
 on you baby. He'll teriyaki your sorry butt and turn 
 it into Lutefisk.
~-------------------------------------------------- 
 MAIL:    tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
 ARCHIVE: http://www.geocities.com/tofoggymoment
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