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Buying In

Thanks for the thoughtful article about "bought girls." My stalker, [name edited], purchased a Filipina Catholic girl last year. I have no idea how that's going, but can imagine how it will likely go. She appears, from the proud photo he has posted on the Internet, to be all of 20 (or younger). It's bad enough ... gets state money to do his job, but he used that money to buy a person. Ugh.

I am surviving. I am considering a move back to Colorado to be closer to extended family members. I don't like the politics in that state, but I do like going dancing with my crazy cousins. Take Care!

--Alison Whiteman, via e-mail

Calling Local Anarchists

Hi, I'm an anti-authoritarian type from Connecticut who's looking for contacts in Seattle. I'm a member of the Ironweed Collective in Albany, New York. I'm coming to town in a few days, and I'm looking for a place to stay and things to do and learn. I'd be grateful for any tips you can give me.

Thanks,

--el David, via e-mail at oelda@hotmail.xom

The No-Fly Myth

State Dept. officials said before the passage of the UN resolution on Iraq (i.e., new inspections) that they would consider any attacks on US/British aircraft in the no-fly zones a material breach of the UN resolution. The following excerpt is from an article [by Stepyeh R. Shalom & Michael Albert--Ed.] that appeared this summer (copied from Znet.org):

Who authorized the US and British air forces to patrol the no-fly zones over Iraq? The US and Britain. In April 1991, when Hussein was crushing uprisings in the north and south of the country, the UN passed a resolution calling on Iraq to cease its repression and urging member states to provide humanitarian aid to refugees. Embarrassed and under political pressure for allowing the uprisings to be crushed, President Bush senior ordered air drops to Kurdish refugees on the Turkish border and then ground troops which assisted the refugees as part of Operation Provide Comfort. The US, Britain, and France demanded Iraq observe a no-fly zone in the area, and when the troops were withdrawn, the no-fly zone was maintained, and patrolled by coalition air forces. Nothing in the UN resolution authorized Operation Provide Comfort, the no-fly zones, or the air patrols. The no-fly zone was ostensibly to protect the Kurds, but the protection was rather limited: it only applied to Iraqi attacks, not to Turkish air or ground incursions into Kurdish areas of Iraq--which have never been protested or opposed by the United States. The boundaries of the northern no-fly zone do not coincide with the boundaries of the autonomous Kurdish-held area. In 1992, a similar no-fly zone was established in the south, even though Iraqi forces had not withdrawn from the area as they had from the north. France withdrew from participation in the no-fly zones and since then Washington and London alone have unilaterally extended the boundaries of the two no-fly zones and unilaterally expanded their rules for engagement, allowing broad attacks on Iraqi installations if the planes are fired upon.

The initial no-fly zone in the north may have played some humanitarian role with respect to the Kurds. But essentially the zones are unilateral US and British impositions, without any basis in international law, designed to put pressure on Saddam Hussein. Under the new rules of engagement, they represent the opening salvos of a unilateral US-UK war.

ETS: As you can see from the above, the no-fly zones were not a part of any previous UN resolution and would not likely be part of the new one, given, it allows the US a unilateral ability to provoke Iraq into what Iraq would consider defending its sovereignty. When the US claims that an attack on (or retaliation to?) US warplanes in the no-fly zones would be considered a material breach of the resolution, they are deliberately misrepresenting the UN resolution. The UN certainly knows that the no-fly zones have not been part of any UN sanctioned action. I'm sure you recall when the UN resolution was under deliberation the talk of hidden "triggers" to war. France and Russia were adamant about extricating such wording that would provide "automaticity" to war. The intent of the current resolution is to allow the inspection process to work, that is, to avoid war. Considering the no-fly zones as part of the UN resolution is a cynical way for the Bush administration to do the end-around on the UN and to provide the "trigger" to war that the US is looking for. I conclude that the administration is counting on the press and the American people to miss the deception.

--Tom Larsen, Seattle

More On the Monorail

Hats off to Maria for sticking to her guns and continuing to support the monorail. One must recognize that key to building a vital urb with actual usable transit is, oddly enough, to actually build transit. While I don't agree with all of her points (particularly the "Cost" issue; the first referendum on this thing had us believing we'd be getting a wonderfully grand "X" connecting the opposing points of the city, and now the same dollars get us a little backwards "L"), she's damn straight with her take on auto excise taxes and ridership.

I would urge Geov and all the naysayers to look at any city with a functioning transit system and you will inevitably see that it was built piecemeal, often by competing transit companies who did their best to fatten up at the public trough and to gouge the paying customer wherever possible. And along the way, streets were closed (sometimes permanently), torn up, businesses impacted and in general, chaos reigned for a while as a wholesale change in the environment was instituted up and down the line. Years later, the memory of all that disruption fades as an interconnected network of trains and trams coalesces, administered inevitably by a single (possibly even accountable) transit agency, and a happy populace zooms its way around town without having to step foot in a car or a parking lot.

As predicted, the romance with monorail-the-idea appears to be fading as monorail-the-transit-system comes into clearer focus. But before we all gag on the devil in the details, it is well to remember a few key points: change is often difficult but construction is always painful; committees cannot successfully design (even something as utilitarian as a transit system); and democracy doesn't build all the nifty items we need in this town (witness Portland and the initial end-run around the public process to initiate their by-now wildly popular light-rail system). In short, cut the crap, Seattle, just lay some tracks--overhead, at-grade, in tunnels, light rail, monorail, any-kind-of rail. Just give me an alternative to my bike before I'm too old to ride it.

--Jeffrey S. Floor, via e-mail

Dear Eat the State!

Too bad about the monorail, really. I thought it was a great idea when Dick Falkenbury brought it back into the civic consciousness five years ago. I truly--and evidently naively--wondered who could possibly put it down; imagine using what was in retrospect a frivolous exercise in applied science fiction as the basis for something truly useful. How more "Century 21" could one get? Consequently, I was extremely discouraged when the city basically told the voters (myself among them) who thought they'd succeeded in having it implemented that it was a stupid idea with absolutely no redeeming social importance, since it was obviously much more realistic to tunnel into Capitol Hill!

In other words, 40 years after the monorail was envisioned as the wave of the future in urban transportation, the concept still has all the cultural status of a carnival ride. Why?! If the city thought it was a good enough idea to pour all those bucks into building what has turned out to be a damned efficient means of getting pedestrians from downtown to Seattle Center, then they ought to be able to view and pursue it as a viable means of traveling between two or more other points that just happen to be a bit further apart.

Still, I understand Mr. Parrish's points about bureaucratic turf wars. Our lust for individual control and glory in this country--the flip side of our fear of "socialism"--has led us to the point where we can barely work together. Even outside of the competitive environment of the market, in departments where we're supposed to be working for the common good, we can't stop competing. It's as though we just can't imagine joining muscles and brains in a common endeavor unless there's a manager who tells us what to do and then takes the credit (and who--if we're not it--we secretly despise). Or unless we've become a mob (next stop--Bagdhad!).

Er, sorry--got carried away there, I guess. But it really is too bad about the monorail.

--Kerry Canfield, Portland, Oregon

In other words, one of the city's slickest developers and dealmakers now runs the "people's" initiative--another reminder that transit isn't just about choosing a technology. Monorail could be perfect for Seattle. Putting it in the hands of yet another bureaucracy, headed by yet another collection of cronies intent on milking the deal and unnecessarily destroying businesses and neighborhoods on our dimes along the way, doesn't need to be part of the deal.