MISCmedia for 11/27/00
Non-Master Races

THIS IS THE SECOND of two consecutive, thematically non-symmetrical columns of listings.

Last Friday's piece was about Things I Like.

This one's a not-quite opposite. It's not Things I Hate per se, but people to beware. Specifically, it's people who are likely to claim they're better than everybody else for no good reason. It's a common human failing, and its given excuses are as diverse as humanity itself. The syndrome particularly preys on the young, the self-esteem-challenged, and those desperate for a "tribe" to belong to.

Herewith, in no particular order, are some of the character types to whom you should never let yourself feel inferior:

• Fundamentalist Christians.

• Fundamentalist Muslims.

• Fundamentalist vegans.

• Fundamentalist anarchists.

• Fundamentalist pagans.

• Fundamentalist atheists.

• Other males who are either tougher and/or taller than you.

• Other females whose busts are either larger or smaller than yours.

• People who make more money than you.

• People who have newer cars than you.

• People who wear flashier clothes than you.

• People who are thinner than you.

• New Yorkers.

• Southern Californians.

• Northern Californians.

• Ivy League students and alums.

• Evergreen State College students and alums.

• People who nevvuh watch teh-levision.

• People who only watch PBS and C-SPAN.

• People who only watch Christian cable channels.

• People who only watch judge shows and wrestling.

• Non-smokers.

• Smokers.

• Pot smokers.

• Ecstasy takers.

• Straight-edgers.

• Woman haters.

• Man haters.

• Male "radical feminists."

• "Lesbians" who sleep with men.

• People of supposedly "purer" ethnic descent than you.

• People who insist they're going to Heaven and you're not because they adhere to the "proper" doctrinal line concerning how many days Jesus was dead before he came back and what he did during that time.

• Other white people who try harder to fake blackness than you.

• Other black people who say they're "purer" than you because they don't buy into the system (i.e. have a real career).

• People who've had more sex than you, or claim to have.

• Insistant virgins or "born-again virgins."

• People who can outdrink you.

• People who claim that anybody who ever drinks is really an alcoholic in denial.

• People who claim that all straight women are really lesbians in denial.

• People who claim that all straight men are really misogynists in denial.

• People who claim that homosexuality is a "disease" in need of "curing."

• People who just got off the plane last week and insist they know "what this town needs."

• People who moved here in the '80s, complaining about the people who moved here in the '90s.

• People who disdain you because you weren't around for the '60s riots.

• People who disdain you because you weren't around for the WTO riots.

• Me.

NEWSPAPER STRIKE WATCH: The first Sunday scab Seattle Times was a severely truncated mini-edition, like the previous four days' worth of Seattle daily papers; only wrapped around ad circulars and feature sections printed before the strike (comics, TV, magazine).

All over western Washington (except in those rarified households that only take the NY Times), family members found themselves ending their reading ritual hours early, forcing them to actually look at and communicate with one another. It remains to be seen whether birth and/or divorce rates will show a resulting spike upward in the coming weeks or months.

Meanwhile, Friday saw the first print version of the strikers' own paper, The Seattle Union Record. It's also a small thing (20 tabloid pages with no ads), but far better written and edited. Indeed, I'd love if the strikers got together on their own and established the Record as a permanent alternative daily.

IN OTHER NEWS: Justin Ray Castillo, the second Seattleite to win a half million on that popular prime-time quiz show (in the episode airing on 10/26), turned out to be just my kinda Seattleite. He was falsely yet endearingly modest, has artistic ambitions (he studied video editing at the Art Institute) but an unglamorous job (washing dishes), found NYC "a bit too rich for my tastes," and expressed a near-total ignorance of San Francisco trivia (causing him to bluff his way thru the $250,000 question)!

TOMORROW: How not to face pending unemployment.

ELSEWHERE:

• Robert Shapiro claims G.W.B. is "out to win the election not through politics and law but through a democracy-subverting concatenation of through-the-looking-glass logic, conspiracy theories and outright bullying...."
• Someone else I'm not related to, the Australian kidvid character Humphrey Bear....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• A short list of of Things I Like.
• The Net newscast of complete disclosure.
• How Seattle's big newspaper strike might affect the local media landscape.
• Our fictional sullen barista keeps a secret.
• Target comes to town.
• The coming post-Napster chaos.
• Imagining what could not even possibly be entertaining.
• Hollywood gets even more scared and stupid.
• Why people write, and read, book reviews.
• We meet some of our new fictional alter egos.
• Imagining what might happen if bigtime sports went coed.
• The war on drugs as a drug.
• The election aftermath.
• Should we pity the San Franciscans yet?
• Our first annual pre-election rant.
• The Clash, Motown, and indie-pop ideology.
• A sort-of defense of negative campaign ads.
• Parts one and two of a Halloween look at Bremerton's graveyards and pit-bull factories.
• Pondering why old fake architecture is more fun than new fake architecture.
• The war on drugs as a drug.

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