Puck

commentary by Brian Charles Clark and Nisi Shawl

As devout readers of just about everything that dares pass before our eyeballs, Nisi Shawl and I were talking about the recently arrived Washington Voters’ Guide. Surely a favorite of Puckleberry Houndsters nationwide for its audacious irrepressibility, this political season’s Voters’ Guide is blessed by candidates who write a finely deliquescent prose that, as perennially, includes ALL CAPS, abundant exclamation points, and a complete; disregard for the niceties of punctuation!

Indeed, as regards the latter, Nisi and I have established a bar over which any candidate must pass in order to win our support, to whit: an individual running for office sure as fuck better be able to punctuate a sentence. Or at least have the sense to consult a friend who does. And if the candidate doesn’t have such a friend, then we don’t want any part of him or her.

This season there are several candidates willing to serve as representative from Washington’s 7th District in the U.S. Congress. For sheer Nick Bottomish naiveté and go-forthness, it’s hard to beat Goodspaceguy Nelson.

Mr. Nelson writes of his “significant career experience,”

“Trying to understand the universe, Goodspaceguy became an amateur jack-of-all-trades and astronomer and economist and wants to advance rejuvenation and medical technology and wants tall buildings and more movies to be made in Washington State.”

It’s a bit of a run-on sentence, but tall buildings are a good idea (link, link), and I’m all for movies, medical tech, rejuvenation, and astronomy.

“The life of Spaceship Earth” is Goodspaceguy’s family, and he

believes that the number one problem on Spaceship Earth is the tripling of people during the last hundred years. We numerous, brainy humans are exterminating wilderness and wildlife. Instead of starvation, genocide, and war, we should use nicer methods (such as the head tax and birth fees and study and work and social security) to decrease the number of people boarding Spaceship Earth. Goodspaceguy is pro choice on almost everything.”

One wonders about the qualifier attached to “everything”: what specifically are the issues for which choice is not part of Goodspaceguy’s countdown to ecstasy? We may never see a live demo, alas; the comma splice in the sentence “Instead of starvation” gets him a vote of NO CONFIDENCE. Mr. Nelson is a not-so-avid blogger (though he has at least two); his most recent post (from early July) on Colonize Orbital Space is called “Beam Goodspaceguy Up to Congress.”

Beam us over to Al Shafer, who says that with our help he will “seek to correct injustice.” Roger that. We stand ready, willing and able to help correct injustice at every juncture.

More specifically, Mr. Shafer is a jury-nullification activist and for that deserves a rousing round of hey-nows and go-man-goes. Here is his statement on the matter, written as if it were trying to fight its way out from under a wet wool blanket armed with a dull word-count knife:

“When judges infringe upon our individual sovereign Rights we are obliged to correct the violation. Specifically, Jury Nullification has been nullified by judges. Rarely do judges fully inform jurors of their power to judge the law and vote on the verdict according to their conscience. Knowing this, each of us can correct un-accommodating judges. Please support me in a law which explicitly requires judges to inform jurors of their right and power to judge the law and inform attorneys they may include an appeal to conscience in their arguments. Thus, as sovereigns, we can repeal an unjust law as applied to a specific case. (Give me Liberty by Gerry Spence.)”

I’m totally down with fully informed jurors, and have occasionally been able to donate to FIJA. Read more easily parsed ideas about the Fully Informed Jury Association here. But I’m skeptical of Mr. Shafer’s motives, as his next paragraph is all about how unfair taxes are—especially taxes on wages, which he claims aren’t income. So perhaps he’d like juries to start nullifying tax laws. On that, we part ways, as taxes are perfectly conscionable while drug laws are barbaric. In any case, Mr. Shafer receives a vote of NO CONFIDENCE for his stentorian use of capitalization: “As a Representative, I am devoted to the ideals expressed in the Preamble, Bill of Rights, and the DECLARATION.”

Mark A. Goldman takes a soulful rhetorical stance totally at odds with Shafer’s stentorianism and Goodspaceguy’s neo-nerd run-ons. His Candidate Statement reads like a bard’s manifesto:

“I rise to defend the moon and stars, the air we breathe, the oceans and the rivers, the plants, and all living things upon this our Mother Earth… and you… and your children… and your sacred poem…”

Yes, Nisi wants to say, yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and draw him down so he can feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart is going like mad and yes—but then there are those damn spaces after the ellipses, and so she must instead say NO CONFIDENCE.

Mr. Goldman seems to be on something of a bum trip, as further reading of the Voters’ Guide reveals: “…honor is wounded… many of us have become blind and deaf to the weeping and the pain.” A scenario right out of Tennyson: the land is traumatized and the Fisher King bleeds in sympathy. Soon, Goldman warns us, salmon will die, birds will cease singing, and bees will lose their inborn grasp of aerodynamics. Our only chance to avoid this dismal apocalypse is to read Mr. Goldman’s Web site for “an hour, a day, a month,” or however long it takes us to understand. Hopefully, we will achieve clear and total comprehension before August 19, when the State’s primary is held. Be warned, though: the text, while obviously sincere, includes multiple conversations with Jesus, plus many additional instances of ellipsis abuse.

So much for the candidates from the 7th; next time we’ll take a peek at a couple Washington gubernatorial candidates. But first, this snip from a Goodspaceguy post on Colonize Orbital Space called “Life in One of the Earth Orbiting Space Colonies: SPACE SONJA and MONORAILS”:

Sonja, high in orbit above the Earth and building her career and wearing a pink dress and matching lipstick, floated quickly into the Central Conversation Room of the Boeing Blue District of the Earth orbiting space colony.

Music followed her. Air propelled, computerized, robotic entertainment equipment on a tow line floated in after her. Sonja glanced at the wall size, digital view screen depicting the large blue and white Earth rotating below.

While her computerized equipment set itself up, Sonja smiled at councilors Dave Duwamish and Goodspaceguy. She said, “Davie dear, I received your communicator call while I was having my very, very effective, rejuvenation treatment, and I’m feeling great, and I want to know what you think?” She twirled in zero gravity for him.

Looking at Sonja’s healthy, young appearance, councilor Dave said, “It is amazing what our advancement in rejuvenation technology has achieved. We who can afford it are regaining our youth.”

Staring at joyous Sonja, Goodspaceguy said, “You are beautiful!”