Issue 24
July 21, 2003


Running with Scissors
Since 1999

An e-journal documenting modern culture as it manifests on or near that hotspot on the surrealistic powergrid known as Spokane, WA and/or the known or unknown universe
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Stik Mann's
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Issues 1 - 5

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The Martyrdom of

#1 - #2 - #3 - #4

My meeting with
Stacey #1 - #2

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OtherSpokane.com
is protected speech pursuant to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Don't you freakin' tread on me.
 

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"If freedom of speech
is taken away,
then dumb and silent
we may be led,
like sheep
to the slaughter."

George Washington

                                       and welcome to this very special

SMOKE & MIRRORS

issue of Stik Mann's OtherSpokane.

This a special issue, I say, because your humble e-pamphleteer smells a rat. 

It was the Fourth of July, recent. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was speaking at the opening of the National Constitution Center. At the climax of her patriotic speech, an enormous wood and steel beam tipped and fell, injuring many, and coming inches from lopping off O'Connor's Supremely controversial cranium.

I saw the video of the incident on NBC news. Seconds after nearly having her grape plucked, O'Connor reacted like any human would: "We could have all been killed," she said.

Whereupon the Weirdness was set into motion:

"Well, hell, yeah, you could of," I shouted. I jumped up and stumbled to the TV and waited for a battalion of Secret Service men to whisk away O'Conner and the other dignitaries. To my surprise, Tom Brokaw's face is once again smeared all over the screen, saying something that has nothing to do with what I know just happened:

Madam Swing Vote had pissed off the wrong people with her opinions and votes on the Texas Sodomy and Affirmative Action rulings -- somebody tried to kill Sandra Day O'Connor.

And yet, NBC went to a commercial. Doubt began to creep in my mind.

The next day I got on the web: I went to the ultra-conservative Fox News site and found that they had bizarrely reported her as saying, "We could have all been hit, bumped," source  Hit? Bumped? It seemed to me a strange and preposterous statement coming from a learned legal scholar who had just witnessing a number of people certainly getting hit and most assuredly getting bumped.

The Washington Post also reported the quote as, "We could have all been hit." But, a few hours later they pulled the photo of the incident and replaced it with a photo of a soldier returning from Iraq ( ! ), being greeted by his toddler son. source

In desperation, I went to Matt Drudge. His list of news links originally presented a TV news site which reported the "could have been killed" quote, along with a link to a video of the incident. When I checked back the next day, the video had mysteriously disappeared, and the link to the "killed" quote was rendered inoperable. Drudge later added the Fox News story with the ludicrous "bump" quote. source

I sent e-mails to Drudge, Fox, The Post and others, asking, "what's up?" To date, I've received no replies.

Try to run a search for a photo, video or news story that correctly reports the "accident." It's not there.

A conspiracy? With everyone from Matt Drudge to the people keeping Kennedy's head alive in a vat involved? Unlikely. A murder attempt? Well, probably not; any assassin worth his salt would have know that the trajectory of the falling beam would have missed the podium. Perhaps it was meant to scare her, to edge her back into the proper Florida election mindset.

Still, it seems obvious to me that a very powerful someone or group of someones clearly did not like the "killed" quote. Memos were sent. Muscles were flexed.

Why?
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Gag Me with a Musket Ball
"Declare your independence from high prices!"
A local, July 4 TV ad selling mattresses. 
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Smash the Plate that Makes You Hate!
Revolution is in the air. The dishwashers at the restaurant (where I haphazardly manage the kitchen) are rebelling. I'm not sure what they want; but it's starting to make me really nervous.

I think it might have all started with the circulation of a short essay by the peace-loving "Hariamus," morning janitor and lord of the lunch rush deluge. Click here to read Hariamus' dish pit apology, a defense of the dignity and worthiness of the Cleansers of Cutlery, and on their potentiality as a political force.

This noble sentiment was taken by the other faction, the norm of the back-of-the-house populace -- parolees, vagabonds, drug addicts, radical homosexuals, communists and anarchists, artists, murderers, punk rockers, New Age prophets, tattoo fetishists, nymphomaniacs, poets, those with freaky haircuts and nails in their tongues, and those probed during alien abductions.

It was they who plastered the kitchen with stickers bearing the slogan "SMASH THE PLATE THAT MAKES YOU HATE!" emblazoned above a fist breaking through what appears to be an expensive piece of china.

No demands have yet been made.

I'll keep you posted.
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You Can Exhale Now
Nothing in this issue is based on British Intelligence.
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UFOs Buzzing (and burrowing) Spokane's Tower Mountain?
I recently saw a collection of Spokane UFO photos on Rense.com. I sent an e-mail to "Ed," who took the photos. He promptly returned this friendly (albeit somewhat unsettling) reply. To see the photos click here and here and here. If you've experienced any "sightings" around Tower Mountain, I'm sure Ed would love to here from you (his e-address is available at aforementioned sites).
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Truth in Advertising
A graphic proclaiming George W. Bush a "Professional Fascist" briefly appeared on a New Zealand television spot promoting an upcoming weather report.
     TV3 quickly issued an apology for the "unintentional mistake."
     Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
source
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Which Finger was that You Hushed with?
Spokane librarians are putting fingers to lips to collectively "Ssssssh" US Attorney General Ashcroft's Little Shop of Nazi-esqe Horrors. New laws compel librarians to turn over to the FBI -- at their demand -- the reading, research, and internet records of any and all library users, as well as prohibiting librarians from even telling you that your records have been seized by government agents. Rather than hold your records, librarians are now routinely destroying as many as possible, so they don't have to be complicit in Ashcroft's goose-stomping of our Fourth Amendment right to privacy.
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Our Fourth Amendment Right
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
___

Looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Well, go to Google and click the "Feeling Lucky" button.
___

Bonus Non Sequitur Diversion
Pull aside this curtain to reveal a 3D two-faced sheep skull.
___

Sucking Up to the "Nonexistent" Taliban
Better sit down for this one, faithful readers: The United States is now DEALING WITH THE TALIBAN -- yeah, that's right, the "evildoers" -- about how they can get back into the tyranny biz. This was in the works weeks before Bush said in a speech in Minnesota (to thunderous applause), "The Taliban is no more, and the people of Afghanistan are free..."
source - source
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"We condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder."
     Bush, in a speech given nine days after 9/11
[Editor's note: Then what are we committing by abetting the Taliban?]
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It's Not Who You Know, It's....(well, wait, it is who you know)
The Pentagon has already paid Halliburton, the Texas oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, more than $800 million for work in Iraq. But that's just business as usual for the Houston firm. Since September 11, the Bush administration has awarded at least $2.2 billion in defense-related business to Halliburton.
source
___

"We the people are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
     Abraham Lincoln
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Let's Not Forget to Consider this Candidate
At a press conference in Washington, John Hagelin - follower of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and former Presidential candidate of the Natural Law Party - announced the formation of a US Peace Government (not to be confused with the one in the Constitution). The Peace Government will focus on the prevention of society's problems. Hagelin as president would institute "consciousness-based total brain education" as well as Peace Palaces, where advanced practitioners of Transcendental Meditation will meditate away the evils of society. The Peace Government will be an unelected meritocracy, as opposed to our current "rule by the incompetent."  If democratic elections stand in the way of peace, Hagelin argues, it's time to change the way we choose our leaders.
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Compare Your Tax Cut to a CEO's!
     Click here to see how your "tax relief" sizes up to a "Bushbuddy's."
___

The Proof's in the Strangely Glowing Pudding
It's interesting that the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad was one of the first institutions to be secured from looters.
     The military eventually got around to securing the Tuwaitha nuclear facility, but not until it was ransacked of everything not nailed down, including barrels of radioactive material (which were dumped and the barrels sold to villagers for storage containers).
     The Bush gang claimed that Saddam still had an active nuclear weapons program. Wouldn't a potential nuke shop be more of a concern?
     But, it's not about oil . . .
source
___

Not Enough Hate in Your Life?
<--- This guy hates everything - especially music. Type in your favorite band or album and rest assured that he will severely trash it.
___

Click here for more ACLU information about the PATRIOT Act and the movement to resolve its injustices. You can send a free fax to your Members of Congress.
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"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
     James Madison
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Purple (or is it Red?) Political Punditry
This amazing bit of anti-Bush rhetoric from The Moscow Times (that's Moscow as in "Moss Cow"), strangely reminiscent of the Soviet spiel of the prior era:
     "He can twist the truth, oppress the poor, exalt the rich, despoil the Earth, ignore the law -- and murder children -- without the slightest compunction, the briefest moment of doubt or self-reflection, because he believes, he truly believes, that God squats in his brainpan and tells him what to do..."
     A bit purple for my tastes (unless I'm writing it), but not too far off the mark.
     Read the entire article.
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Turncoat Tee-Hees
Look! There's funny guy Dennis Miller, doing a stand-up routine at a Republican fundraiser. There, he's flying on Air Force One. Miller is gaining a reputation as a conservative comic, calling the nine Democratic candidates "empty-headed scrum." He compared Howard Dean (the leading Demo contender) to Neville Chamberlain , the British prime minister who followed a policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II.
     [Editor's note: I've heard Miller compared to the weasels who ratted on their friends during the McCarthy Era.]
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"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority."
     Benjamin Franklin
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Special Bonus WebFind
Madman, Prophet, or Dip Shit? This is what makes free speech and liberty great (okay, if not great, then at least really, really interesting in a really warped way). True, Spokane has its share of fire-and-brimstone street preachers, but only Harrodsburg, KY has the like of Bart McQueary.
     Go to God Hates Harrodsburg.