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.
    -------------------------------------------------

		           - 113 -

 If you take I-5 towards downtown in the mornings you may have
 looked down at Lake Union and noticed a warship sitting at the
 Lake Union Drydock Company's facility on the south shore of
 Lake Union. That's the USS TURNER JOY. Normally she's parked 
 next to the ferry dock in Bremerton where she's available for
 tours. Must be in LUD for a little lipo-suction and facial-tuck.

 She's no ordinary destroyer. She's a genuine piece of history.
 President Lyndon Baines Johnson used an attack on her by North 
 Vietnamese gunboats, to ram the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through
 Congress. Our misguided military adventure in Vietnam began in 
 earnest from that very moment. 

 It was nearly a unamimous vote. Only two people voted against 
 it: Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Senator Ernest Gruening 
 of Alaska. Every other Congressman and Senator jumped on LBJ's
 bandwagon and whooped it up for War. Needless to say, Wayne and
 Ernie were reviled at the time as everything from traitors to 
 unpatriotic scoundrels of the worst sort. But, as history has 
 shown, they turned out to be the only two politicians in the 
 entire country who were smart enough to recognize a con-job when 
 they saw one. Years later when the last chopper lifted off our 
 embassy building in Saigon during our ungraceful bug-out leaving 
 over 60,000 dead young Americans and over a million dead Vietnamese 
 civilians in its prop-wash, both men and their wisdom were long 
 forgotten. The 'dominoes' never did fall as predicted. Everything 
 LBJ and his cronnies said was pure, USDA Grade-A Government 
 Guano.

 This time when the 'con' was in there was only one Congress
 Critter with the courage to say 'no' - Barbara Lee of California.
 She stands in distinguished company. It has earned her a withering
 smear campaign from the usual VFW beer-gut/butt-cracks and enough 
 death threats that the Capital Police have a assigned a cop to
 follow her around. But undoubtably, after we royally screw this 
 pooch as we inevitably will, she too will be forgotten by most.
 But not all. Bernie Sanders, the balless Progressive formerly 
 known as Socialist and our own cowardly Big Jim McDermott lacked 
 the cojunes to vote against it. With election time just around the
 corner, screw principles - they want to get re-elected. Their first 
 priority is to keep their snouts in the Public Trough and that Easy 
 Money flowing. That's worth more to them than the lives that will 
 be lost. What are Little People for afterall?

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

                    'OL YELLER GOES TO WAR

 Wearing his souvenir "Nebraska - Love It or Leave It" t-shirt and 
 nifty chrome helmet with "Da Man" emblazoned on it, President 
 Yellowbelly paced the Oval Office carpet before a bevy of aides. 
 'IT'S WAR! IT'S WAR!", he bellowed to nobody in particular, 
 dangerously waving a laser pointer in the air. At the word 'war' 
 all the military aides jumped up from their chairs and dashed off 
 to the Pentagon carrying the news. As their footsteps faded into 
 the distance..."No! Wait! Gol darn it. That's too harsh.", 'Ol 
 Yeller vexated. How about 'Everybody just act normal and leave it 
 to us.'" At this change of plans, all the State Department aides 
 jumped up from their chairs and ran off to General Powell's office 
 with the new strategy. As the last doors slammed in the distance...
 "No, no, people'll think I'm some kind of wimp after what's happened. 
 I can't say that." Back and forth he paced, up and down on the Oval 
 Office rug. 'IT'S A CRUSADE AGAINST EVIL!', he suddenly gushed forth 
 with inspiration. The National Security aides all jumped up to their 
 feet and dashed off to the NSC with the new plan. "Nah! Doggone it! 
 Them Diaper Heads get pretty nervous about that word 'crusade'. I 
 can't use that." More pacing. "I know...I'll wage a SILENT WAR. Yeah. 
 That's the ticket! That way if we screw up and lose again, nobody 
 will know!"

 The only other person left in the room at this point was one of his
 daughters. "Daddy? Yo Pops!", she impatiently interjected. "Yeah
 Honeybunch. Whatcha want? Daddy's kind of busy right now.", replied 
 the Leader of the Free World aiming his laser pointer at a squirrel
 outside the window while making little 'ping' noises. "Daddy. I need 
 a Fin for a 6-pack and Mommy says I already maxed out her Plastic. 
 She won't give me any Scratch. Come on Daddy - Baby needs a new pair 
 of shoes. Show me the money." Absent-mindedly 'Ol Yeller fished around 
 in his pockets and came up with a twenty. "Get me a family-pak of that 
 new 'Jesus Juice' too while your at it Honey. The red stuff with the 
 smiling Savior giving the 'thumbs up' on the label.", he mumbled as 
 he continued to ponder the situation alone and ping the squirrel.

 Cheap Revenge 2001 is a little slow off the mark. After failing to
 respond at all to a major attack on our soil, the butt-draggers at
 the Pentagon continue to have difficulty putting together a timely
 response against even an utterly helpless scapegoat. Thank heavens 
 this wasn't an invasion by someone who knew what they were doing or 
 we'd all be taking language lessons. It took them all this time to 
 field a Special Forces Lynch Mob to search for Osama bin Ladin, like 
 he was going to patiently sit around for weeks waiting for them to 
 show up. They're wasting their time. And already, a few of them got 
 nabbed by the Taliban. A story that was promptly buried. Osama's 
 probably vacationing in Florida trying to wind-down after all that 
 excitement. His sister lives in London. Why not grab her as a hostage 
 and threaten to have her baptised as a Methodist if he don't turn 
 himself in. That'd give him something to think about.

 [BTW - I don't know if it occurred to anyone, but your average
 Afghani likely doesn't have a TV and, preoccupied as they constantly
 are with finding something to eat, very probably is largely unaware 
 of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington (not that they
 would know which country either city is in). They may not be able
 to read those Army propaganda leaflets but at least they won't have
 to worrry about toilet paper or cigarette rolling paper for a few 
 years.]

 Still only guessing at who pulled off the attacks, and after weeks 
 of promising to come up with the evidence linking ObL to the attacks,
 President Yellowbelly still hasn't come up with anything at all 
 beyond that lame, limp-wristed malarchy he slung at Congress. After
 trying to bluff his way through with a 'don't have to explain nothing' 
 routine, that nice Mr. Blair in England felt sorry for him and jumped 
 in with some ready cooked stuff. What the heck - it's not like anybody 
 is going to be checking for accuracy eh. 
 
 The Egyptians and Iranians, previously so certain Uncle Sammy would 
 come barreling across the Atlantic with six-guns blazing that they 
 pledged their undying affection, have now crawled back out from under 
 their tents and are bravely thumbing their noses at us again. Even
 the Saudi Royal Family has had to resort to lying about not being
 a participant in Yeller's Lynch Mob. Poor India, so sure only a week 
 ago that we'd destabilize Pakistan enough to give them an excuse to 
 invade and reclaim it, are forced to watch their dream evaporate. And 
 the Rooskies and Israelis are hoping and praying we nuke somebody so 
 they can nuke their Booger Men too. The U.N. has obligingly redefined 
 'terrorist' to mean anyone who dissents from an existing government 
 i.e. Nelson Mandela, George Washington, etc. We did manage to find 
 some old Dumpster Diver who claims to be the former King of Afghanistan 
 and are trying to flog him as the successor to the Taliban. Hopefully 
 they can sober him up in time for the Big Show.

 [BTW - the best suggestion of a long-term strategy I've heard for 
 dealing with the Taliban is for us to kidnap all their women and 
 give them college educations before returning them home. That'd 
 fix 'em good.]

 After millions of bucks spent over the last decade or so on how to
 deal with a terrorist attack, this is what we get after the real
 thing: a bunch of bureaucratic Boobs wandering aimlessly around,
 bouncing off the walls in a mad panic, utterly clueless as to what 
 to do next. A lot of Cheap Excuses and gibberish about how 'nobody 
 could have foreseen an attack of this type' and 'this is the price 
 we pay for living in a free society'. Hogwash! Plenty of people 
 foresaw the scenario (novelist Tom Clancy for one) and national 
 suicide has never been part of our Constitution. Heaven help us all 
 if there's a follow-up attack. That'd send our Guardians into a 
 Mach-10 Panic. They'd be hitting every button on the board sending 
 us into irreversible self-destruct mode. Fine for them - they got 
 bunkers to hide in, we don't.

 I haven't heard anyone mention in casual conversation anything about
 the attacks since the day they occurred. Out here in the Boondocks,
 thousands of miles from Ground Zero, this was entirely a Media Event.
 If you weren't plugged-in you wouldn't know anything was going on.
 Though you might have been curious about the smattering of flags -
 too few for the 4th of July and vastly outnumbered by peace-signs in
 some neighborhoods. Easily mistaken for the anniversary of Jerry 
 Garcia's death. With diminished TV coverage has come diminished
 interest. Aside from the people with personal connections in NYC and
 military reservists worrying about getting called up, everyone else 
 is back to their normal bitchy selves.

 Our News Nazis have chattered about little else except the attacks.
 Stupid debates, ignorant opinions and xenophobic brain farts litter 
 the electromagnetic spectrum. Like somehow a moron with a microphone 
 miraculously is no longer a moron but an expert. The notion is as
 rediculous as that of a brainless President miraculously becoming 
 endowed with wisdom and brilliance when a crisis hits. Stuff like the 
 pointless arguments about whether the attackers were courageous or
 cowardly. Who cares? Either way - they're dead and their plan worked
 gangbusters. Whenever our News Nazis need some Public Opinion they just
 whip up one of their phony opinion-polls. Nothing in the Free World 
 is as easy to rig and fix as a media poll. Even easier than an election. 
 They're meaningless. 

 The simple, unalterable, naked reality is that nobody running America 
 gives a fig what the average American thinks. Our job is to shut-up, 
 pay the bills, do the dying and applaude when the sign comes on. We
 didn't choose this President and despite the rantings and ravings of
 the News Nazis, few people accept him as our leader. Tough luck for 
 us. They don't care - we're stuck with him anyways.

 And ultimately, things are much as they were before the attack. Our
 intelligence agencies are as just as clueless, leaving our Border
 Patrol still uninformed and still helpless as well as still under-
 staffed. Security still means some dude in a snazzy fake-cop uniform 
 with a Smokey the Bear hat and gun who doesn't understand English let
 alone Arabic. Heaven only knows what the National Guard are supposed 
 to do at our airports. They ain't got a clue either. If the attackers
 were to do their thing today, it would come off exactly as it did 
 three weeks ago. Uncle Sammy would still be standing there holding 
 the door open for them. Like Louis Celine once said, "Before a 
 thought can start up in the brain of a jughead, a lot of cruel things
 must happen to him." We got a ways to go before we wake up and smell
 the coffee.

 It's difficult to imagine why there wouldn't be further attacks. This
 one was simple, cheap and has become the stuff of legends. It was wildly
 successful. Not only did go completely undetected, it utterly destroyed 
 its targets and the resulting national panic and confusion fed by the
 Media coverage, infinitely increased the effect far beyond the initial
 damage. The political, social and financial consequences will be felt 
 for years to come. And after the dust cleared, we had no idea of whom 
 to retaliate against - left to impotently attack imaginary Booger Men
 for revenge. What more incentive could we possibly provide?

 I always have my flag in my window. All the time - summer, winter,
 rainy days, sunny days, election days, Christmas, Easter, during
 crisis, during quiet times. I'm an American. My flag never fails
 to remind me that being an American is something unique and special.
 What makes it such a distinction is not our wealth or our power. 
 That stuff comes and goes. Besides, anyone can do that. Money and
 brains are mutually exclusive - just look at Bill Gates. What makes
 being an American so special is our Dream of Freedom, Liberty and
 Equality for all people. No other country in the world has taken
 that on as its Mission. Nobody else in the world has put it down 
 in black and white like we have. The tiny spark that has sprung to
 life so many times in history only to fade away, ignited into full
 glorious flame when America was invented. Centuries from now when 
 we are mentioned, it won't be for our amazing GDP in the year 2000 
 or our supposedly indominable military might. Nope. It will be for 
 our faithfulness to our Dream in the name of all mankind. It is our
 historically defining characteristic. That's why I fly my flag. It's 
 neither a flag of War or Peace. It's a flag of Hope. And hope as we 
 all know, springs eternal.

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

 		    COMPARATIVE DOT.COMOLOGY

 Aside from being a new form of business, Dot.coms bring a different
 style to the work-place as well. They commonly have an unorthodox
 approach to 'taking care of business'. I've made the rounds of a few 
 of them in the Seattle area and pass along my observations.

 Microsoft - the least Dot.commish of the bunch. The decor is standard
             office cubes and the employees readily mistakable for bank
             employees. They have a couple token Freaks but that's
             as close as they get to the Real Thing. Strictly Dullsville 
             Daddy-o.

 Q-Pass    - pretty standard except for the Fussball game in the 
             kitchen and the constant milling about. They chat so
             much you have to wonder when they actually work. Typical 
             undergrad dress-code and Dilbert furniture. Corporate
             lollypops at the reception desk.

 Amazon    - moderately Grungy environment that screams 'under
             construction'. Everyday is 'Dress Down Friday'. But the
             their unique contribution is the dogs. Many employees
             have dogs and they bring them to work with them. They 
             sniff each others butts, bark at strangers, get into fights
             and hump one another unmercifully. And that's just the
             employees. You should see what the dogs are like! Oi! 
             The only serious Bummer is the bizarre security overkill.
             They're the world's biggest non-profit corporation. What 
             in the hell do they have that anybody'd want to steal?

 Loudeye   - the Creme de la Creme of Dot.commiedom. The whole place
             looks like something out of the movie "Bladerunner". And
             there's nothing pretentious about it either - they did
             it with recycled materials - old 2x4s and plywood, etc. 
             If there was a Dot.com Stage-design award, they'd win it
             hands down. No kids or pets. The dress code isn't as 
             relaxed as Amazon but that's by the employees choice. You 
             can be freaky if you want but it won't buy you any points. 
             Very laid-back and amiable bunch. They look after one 
             another more than any of the others. 

 The Hutch - Not a Dot.com but hardly an orthodox work environment.
             People come and go as they will. Their work is project
             oriented - as long as you pull your weight nobody cares
             what time of day you work. Pets of all kinds are common
             but not as plentiful as Amazon's dogs. Kids too. Many
             of the researchers and support people bring their kids
             along for a few days at a time. Aside from the people on
             the top-floor, the pay is pretty low so any savings on
             day-care helps out a lot. They meet a lot. Formal meetings
             are well-advertised and often feature international guests.
             But they hold lots and lots of small, informal ones all
             the time to make sure everybody's 'on the same page'. It's
             all team-work and TeamThink. The only place with a majority
             female work-force. Since everybody wears lab-coats and
             PPG suits, dress-code is a moot point. The only place with 
             a regular Friday After-Work Beer Bash. The labs take turns
             doing the weekly posters for this thing and it often results
             in outrageously elaborate efforts -  true masterpieces of
             poster art.

 But for outrageous, nothing beat an un-named Medical Insurance
 company surreptitiously squirreled away in one of the big Dilbert
 towers downtown that I passed through once. It was nearly an all-
 female staff whose feminist consciousness was cranked to the max. 
 It should have been typical Dilbertville eh. Unh unh. First thing 
 you saw walking through the door is a half-naked store-dummy scantily
 attired in leather, rubber and chains holding a long whip in her 
 hand. Lots of kids and babies wandering around the place. Enough 
 candy and snacks to rot your teeth right out of your head inside 
 a week. Board meetings featured many execs breast-feeding their 
 infants as they mapped out corporate strategy in the latest chic
 up-scale leisure togs. And they never talked without food nearby. 
 All significant meetings were catered affairs.  It looked like they 
 were having a dinner party complete right down to the circulating 
 wine bottles. A delightfully weird and kinky place. The Mothership 
 would be highly dismayed if anyone found out who they are.

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

 		         MONDO VATICANO

 Won't be long now. Future-Super-Saint JP-2 is inching ever closer to
 his Final Reckoning. If I were him I'd be worried - very worried. He's
 got an awful lot to answer for. His deliberate falsification to get
 the Papacy, his vicious repression of anyone who even so much as
 thought out of turn, his silence in the face of political repression
 around the world, his Velvet Glove bigotry and the utter mess he's made
 of the Church's liturgy, Sacraments and priesthood. He's about to find
 out there is nothing allegorical about Hell. Few have betrayed God's
 People so profoundly.
			+	+	+
 Roma was kind of vacillating on whether or not to morally sanction
 retaliation for the recent terrorists attacks on New York City and
 Washington, D.C. The Old Pollock, on tour in Armenia, was making 
 pacifist noises again like he did during the Gulf War. Navarro-Valls,
 back at his familiar spot behind the Holy Wheelchair, felt compelled 
 to 'clarify' that the Holy Father loves wars as long as they are 
 'just'. Then the magic word got mentioned - crusade. That pushed the
 right button. 'Nuff said, they were firmly in the retaliation camp 
 after that. It's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" as far as 
 the Vatican is concerned. Bomb the hell outta the infidels. Nail a
 few Jews while we're at it. Anything that cuts down the competition
 works for them.
			+	+	+
 The first book examining the Vatican's history of anti-semitism, and
 particularly the consequences of it in Nazi Germany, drawing on the 
 Holy Office of the Inquistion archives (aka Ratso Ratzinger's
 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) will be coming out soon. 
 The CDF archives weren't made available to historians until 1998. 
 Future-Super-Saint JP-2 aint' gonna like it. "The Popes Against The 
 Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism" by David 
 I. Kertzer of Brown University will get short shrift from the True
 Believers and apologists amongst the Faithful. It's critical, ergo
 heretical, ergo not worth reading beyond the dust-cover. But it
 is a serious academic work and it won't be as casually dismissed by
 the rest of the world. Many are seeing it as a response to the 
 Vatican's 1998 white-wash of its historical bigotry in "We Remember: 
 A Reflection on the Shoah". Needless to say, that memory was highly
 selective and inventive. My old buddy, the erudite and learned Leo 
 the XIII, sadly turns out to be one of the biggest scumbags ignoring 
 even his own local bishops to fund and support the anti-semite movement
 in Austria.
			+	+	+
 This past week was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, for Jews. One
 of  their highest of holy days. It was the only day the High
 Priest of the Great Temple of Jerusalem entered the Holy of Holies -
 the Inner Temple. And he was the only one allowed in there. It was
 the day on which a goat, laiden with the sins and wretchedness of
 all Jews, was sent off into the wilderness to fend for itself -
 a scapegoat. Much later long after the Temple was destroyed, it 
 became the tradition to wave a chicken over the sinner's head, then
 give it away (or the monetary equivalent) to the poor - a scape
 chicken. Sounds a little more interesting than 'say 3 Our Fathers,
 3 Hail Marys and an Act of Contrition'.
			+	+	+
 John Cornwell, whose book on Pope Pius the XII's failure to oppose
 the Nazis Jewish extermination policy, is also coming out with yet
 another book - "Breaking Faith: The Pope, The People and the Fate
 of Catholocism". The Doctrine Nazis went bonkers over the earlier
 book casting Evil-Eyes and no end of bad Mojo on him for it. They
 ain't gonna like this one any better. He explores one of my favorite
 topics: the dictomy between Roma and the Butts In The Pews. The BITPs
 blatantly ignore many of Roma's basic doctrinal teachings, most
 especially on birth-control and abortion. This puts them technically
 in a state of mortal sin yet, the insubordinate apostates still insist 
 they're Catholics and go to Mass every Sunday happily partaking 
 in Holy Communion and the other Sacraments. It amounts to a quiet 
 schism of sorts within the Church in which Roma is fading into
 irrelevancy. Rather than a noisey confrontation, there is a quiet
 non-compliant resistance. A reversion to the primacy of personal
 conscience in the vacumn left by Roma's failure to provide worthy
 counsel. The Boyz over on Planet Vaticano are utterly oblivious
 to all this. If you're too stupid to know it's broke, you ain't
 going to be smart enough to fix it.
			+	+	+
 Saint Antonio Gaudi? He's been nominated for the honor by probably 
 won't get it. The turn-of-the-century Spanish architect famed for
 his bizarrely surrealistic buildings that actually appear to to have
 grown in place, never married and claimed to never have even had 
 sex. But he did like to play the part of the dandy when he had a few
 bucks to throw around and he had an indecent affection for the poor. 
 Roma would go for a Spanish fascist but never a Spanish lover of the 
 proletariat. That sends the wrong message. His Sagrada Familia
 cathedral in Barcelona, to which he devoted his final 40 some odd 
 years, is still under construction and likely will remain so for many
 decades to come. It's not one of those modern Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Mam
 jobs. It's more like the grand old cathedrals of Europe - an extended
 project. 

 Too bad he got run over by that Barcelona street-car at the tender 
 age of 74. It did allow him to fulfill one of his final wishes: to 
 die amongst the poor. The cabbies at the scene of the accident mistook
 him for a bum and refused to transport him to the hospital. One of the
 local Cops had to do the job. Then he came back and slapped each of 
 the cabbies with tickets for failing to help an injured man. Barcelona
 dressed in black for his funeral. They still love him - saint or not.
 
-------------------------------------------------- 
 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
---------------------------------------------------