The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

So you think ending a pregnancy is baby killing. Pure and simple like most things in life, right? No room for compromise on this, I guess, too bad for the victim of rape or the mother whose life is endangered if the embryo is carried to term. Tough luck, will of God, the Bible tells you so, whatever. A doctor who performs an abortion, they’re a murderer. Someone who helps, they’re an accomplice to infanticide. A pharmaceutical company that makes and sells an abortion pill, well, they’re selling poison and they’re killers. Pure and simple.

I wish I could think like this, all blacks and whites, no greys, no ambiguities, nothing that would keep me awake at night. Just read my religious text, Christian, Moslem, Dr. Seuss and find the answers spelled out. Women need to cover their bodies and their faces, music is evil, blasphemers should be punished. Says so in the Quaran. Says so in the Bible. Says so by the cat with the hat. Even when I refuse to believe science or the news, I can believe in that. And I have a hat.

The trouble is we need to all come to some kind of accommodation on what is right and what is wrong and what falls in between. What you call murder, most people in this country – and I literally mean most – consider this a woman’s health issue, a women’s rights issue, a question of who controls her own body, you or her. We could agree to make having a child less burdensome for the poor, we could make contraceptives and sex education available to more of us, we could make abortion something other than a desperate solution. But no, we aren’t really a very baby friendly nation, us Americans. Poor health care, high infant mortality rates, high mother mortality rates, poor parental leave programs, high daycare rates, do I need to go on?

If abortion is killing, what is selling handguns or semi-automatic rifles? Where’s your outrage? Where’s your consistency? Guns don’t kill, outlaws do? I will tell you, as warning, you may think you can tell women what to do but those days are long gone with Ozzie and Harriet and the Beaver. They’re not going to wear the burqa and they’re not going to turn back the clock to the Eisenhower Era. You may think this is making America great again, but you will reap the whirlwind of women’s rage. Be careful what you wish for….

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The Southendomish Casino celebrated its Grand Opening last week. The ‘Big Hearted Little Casino” advertised itself as the gambling emporium with the most generous sluts in Puget Sound. Unfortunately, a typo in the Gazette brought unwanted scrutiny from the Sheriff’s department and the gambling commissioner, but the next issue’s correction cleared the air. SLOTS. Probably a lot of disappointed johns … but it IS a gambling joint, not a brothel.

Even so a small group from the Little Chapel in the Ravine, led by Pastor Paul, picketed noisily in the parking lot until Casino Security asked them to protest somewhere NOT on their private property. Trudy Hawkins and her husband Bobby lobbied to stand their ground against the Devil’s Playground, but Pastor Paul argued for setting up at the highway where their placards would be just as effective where cars turned in to the casino’s fresh blacktop entry. WOULD JESUS GAMBLE HIS PAYCHECK??? DON’T BET AGAINST HELL! An hour of marching in circles on the shoulder, Trudy needed to use a restroom and so did Wanda Jenkins, but damned if they were going to go into the casino to relieve themselves. Pastor Paul, always the mediator, reckoned they’d made their point anyway so the little band of righteous warriors broke for a potty stop. By then the Casino parking lot was crammed with their neighbors and friends hoping to cash in on generous slots and inexpensive bar specials.

The South End doesn’t have a patent on Sin, but we sure welcomed a place to house it. At least the first few days….. Generous or not, the casino always won over time, although plenty of folks happily tell me they’re lucky at the tables. The Laws of Probability don’t apply apparently, or else their bookkeeping is sloppy. I don’t think the Southendomish are going to get rich, not so far from the freeway. But I’m betting they’ll do okay even WITH the folks who never lose.

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It’s not uncommon down here on the South End to be at the leading edge of the breaking wave. So far ahead, actually, that those trailing behind misunderstand us. And of course misunderstanding leads to mistrust and mistrust leads to avoidance and avoidance leads to contempt and contempt leads to fear and fear leads to hatred. We artists understand this implicitly. Or at least we like to say that is why our work is reviewed with such negative criticism. We’re just ahead of the Curve. We’re misunderstood. We’re too sensitive for this world.

Just recently the Institute of Medicine called for a review of a malady we South Enders have lived with most of our lives, one that heretofore was considered, not a disease, but a psychosomatic condition. Those who have never known its symptoms easily viewed us as whiners and misfits, slaggards and sloths. We were treated as psychological lepers, shunned by our newly arrived neighbors and subjected to their silent scorn, just as those with depression and anxiety were once similarly abused before science substantiated the underlying root cause. We suffered silently, secure in the knowledge that we were victims of a disease little understood or studied by the medical community.

Until now. What previously was diagnosed by our decidedly non-medical neighbors to the north as chronic laziness or chronic fatigue syndrome has now been deemed a true physiologic pathology deserving of a proper name: Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID), a crippling affliction most of my buddies and me have lived with for years with little sympathy from our mizzuses. Well, guess who’s going to have to apologize now, eh, little Miss Critical?? And, with a kinder gentler healthcare system in place, maybe now we can get the care and treatment we need … and even a sizeable disability check to help us cope with our difficult lives.

So next time you see a South Ender balking at work or employment, maybe you’ll show a bit of compassion. All I can say is you better hope this isn’t contagious.

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House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy received a standing ovation from House Republicans during a meeting on Wednesday after he addressed leaked audio from a phone call he made days after the January 6 Capitol riot.

Just to recount the events that led up to this standing ovation from the Grand Old Party, Rep. McCarthy denied he ever made disparaging remarks about m’lord Trump, going so far in those comments where he stated he would ask His Majesty to step down, things had gone too far, insurrection had been incited and encouraged without condemning the storming of the halls of government. He didn’t say that, he told reporters, but of course … then came the transcripts and audio of the phone call where he had said all those things and more.

Honesty these days is a devalued value for the Republicans, obviously. Caught in a bald faced lie, some folks might be chagrined, some might apologize, some might ask forgiveness. But not the GOP leader. And not the House Republicans. Truth? YOU COULDN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!! Now, if this was just cutting down the Washington family cherry tree, we might shake our head and tsk tsk a bit. Trying to overthrow the election and the government, calling for the head of Mike Pence, sacking the Capitol, planning the revolt, I don’t know, call me Pollyannish, but geez, this is a bridge slightly too far. And what I fear here is that these folks would gladly do it again, just doing a little less texting and phoning in case the press got hold of the evidence.

Remorse? No sir, no remorse. Apology? Get real. A standing ovation? C’mon now, have you no shame, sirs and ladies? Make America Great Again? What kind of America is this? Because I don’t think our parents would recognize it. My old man who fought in World War 2 might. It would look more like the country he fought than the one he fought for. Zieg Heil!

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Well, it’s a sad day down here on the South End for many of the faithful congregation who worshipped every Sunday with the man we called Father
Freddy. Father Freddy was summoned home far too early to the Halls of Heaven this week and his sudden departure was a terrible shock to his many followers, many of whom have held vigil at the make-shift church that once was the Tyee Grocery. Candles flickered in the old concrete block store, giving a mournful reminder to traffic out on the highway that one of our own has passed.

Father Freddy died the way he lived, doing what he loved. He was what the press called — with so little real understanding — a Nettle Handler, one of those men who believed that the Word of God could be divined through manipulation of the dangerous weed. Every Sunday, as his congregation held their collective breaths, Father Freddy would grab those eight foot stalks of Itching Torment and squeeze Testimony from each and every one as the congregation moaned and swayed and sang and prayed. Every Sunday, until this last, Father Freddy would wrassle those stinging stalks to their Rightful Place, prone against the homemade pulpit of stacked Coca-Cola crates left over from Tyee Grocery’s halcyon days.

“Get thee BACK, you poisonous serpents,” he’d yell, wrapped in their toxic embrace. “You hold no fear for those assembled here!” he’d holler, soon to be victorious. And as One, the entire flock, exhausted from exhortation, would wail their Hosannahs on High, their faith once more confirmed and restored.

Last Sunday, Father Freddy succumbed to the hideous stings of a 10 foot monster he’d grown under halogens in the nettlearium behind his trailer, a greenhouse filled with stingers of every size and variety. Parishioners wanted to call 911, but Fred avowed that his faith would sustain him. Horrified, they watched him slowly scratch himself to death. Services will be held this coming Saturday in Father Fred’s special grove of wild nettles back in the ravine behind the church. Gloves are recommended. Donations can be made to the Nettle Survivor Network in the name of the Nettlecostal Church. Father Fred, I know, will be Sorely missed!!

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