For Bellingham's New Mayor

SAVE A BEAR: Just say no to Ron Paul and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (state’s rights). Turn the WMD (motor vehicle) parking lot at the health food co-op into a seating area/garden in memorium to “poor, poor Sebastian” from ‘Suddenly Last Summer’(Elizabeth Taylor; Katherine Hepburn; Montgomery Clift)[lol]. A Co-op employee responded they’d lose half their business. Not necessarily. WMD pilots would simply have to adapt–that’s what WTA bus riders had to do when denied bus service this entire past winter (though not WWU students–they had university buses running a devil’s triangle loop–WWU-Sehome-downtown-WWU throughout the winter on Sunday’s; while WTA riders in wheelchairs stayed home and ate peanut butter/crackers if they didn’t have a refrigerator).

District Judge Malloy explained in 2009 (when reinstating Yellowstone grizzlies under Endangered Species Act protection) that WMD threaten white bark pine nut through global climate change. That and roadkill are the real threat to grizzlies, not pepper spray. REI sells Counter Assault bear spray but consumers are not informed biologists have stated on record that pepper spray does not work on black bears “due to a unique protective mucous coating”(’Pepper Spray? Bad Bet’; Anchorage Daily News; 9/29/96). I wouldn’t mind seeing the traffic camera issue go to a (legally binding) vote, but have always wondered why those piloting WMD expect to have their ‘Own Private Idaho’ while public bus riders are under camera surveillance all the time–not just when passing through intersections/school zones.

And it's unfortunate the new mayor is very pro-legalization/taxation of marijuana. Granted, U.S. has the highest incarceration rate on the planet, but is a pscyhotropic drug that can cause schizophrenia, etc./lung disease the answer? U.S. gov't in collusion with marijuana drug cartels apparently. Very unfortunate, very disappointing--signature gatherers are out at Haagens as this is written.

Mothr Jones article from
Mon Oct. 24, 2011 1:23 AM PDT

<snippets>

...Of course, political protesters do not face the challenges of urban camping alone. Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how to scrape together meals, keep warm at night by covering themselves with cardboard or tarp, and relieve themselves without committing a crime. Public restrooms are sparse in American cities—"as if the need to go to the bathroom does not exist," travel expert Arthur Frommer once observed. And yet to yield to bladder pressure is to risk arrest.

....homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets—not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping.

...It is illegal, in other words, to be homeless or live outdoors for any other reason. It should be noted, though, that there are no laws requiring cities to provide food, shelter, or restrooms for their indigent citizens.

The current prohibition on homelessness began to take shape in the 1980s, along with the ferocious growth of the financial industry (Wall Street and all its tributaries throughout the nation).

....to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born "illegals," facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn.

They want you to buy something in order to gain access to a bathroom. But even when you do, and its known to all present you are a homeless person taking a bowel movement in a business restroom, the gnashing of teeth begins, and the profound resentment of the oppressors may give place to violence against the oppressed. Most especially should you object to their disrespectful pounding on the door and telling you to hurry up. That's what happened to me at Woods Coffee, comprised of WWU Seattle eastside (Bellevue) transplants, last week--almost physically assaulted--threatened to be dragged out of the coffe shop by my beard (a poor man was humiliated in just such a fashion in Dostoevsky's 'Brothers Karamazov').