Rod Filbrandt

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

There seems to be an increase in ranting street people downtown lately. Sometimes their commentary is surprisingly entertaining and funny. Is it OK to laugh?Amused Rantee

Dear Rantee,

It depends. If the ranting person is genuinely disturbed, and their rant is a cry of despair, then no, you should not laugh. Consider a donation to FareStart or Real Change instead. If, however, the ranter has a theatrical delivery and seems to want attention, laughter is permitted. Indeed, it may be just the thing to brighten a crazy person's day.

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

I'm doing a bit of birding on the beach by the Ballard Locks when this hippie-ish couple show up with their dog. They proceed to remove the dog's leash and let him chase the birds I'm quietly watching. My girlfriend says I shouldn't get into a confrontation, so I just give them a dirty look. But what is the deal with people and their dogs? What part of "you're stressing the goldeneyes, mergansers, and greater white-fronted geese" do they not understand?Irked Birder

Dear Birder,

The socio-ecosystem of a public beach is a delicate balance of humans and nature, rights and responsibilities. Nature has most of the rights, while we humans have most of the responsibilities. (Quick aside to my friends in Blue Ridge: You can say hello to some of our rights at the upcoming vegan beach barbecue on your beach. Your lawyers are invited, too!) So how do dogs fit in? Very subtly, Birder. A Seattle dog is a family member. A quasi-child. A mini-human, if you will. That's why evening activities in this city are always cut short—everyone has to rush home and attend to the bowel movements of these mini-humans. Stew in your microbrew alone at the bar as much as you want, but valuing the needs of an animal over interaction with other humans is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice.

And it's also why a dog at the beach holds the full rights of both nature and mini-humanity. If you have trouble understanding this, consider how a bicycle is equal to a car on the road but can hop on the sidewalk and instantly gain the status of a pedestrian. A really fast pedestrian. Ding, ding! On your left! Anyway, how can you legitimately say dogs aren't allowed to chase the birds? Isn't that like saying the birds aren't allowed to eat worms? And about those birds of yours. How natural are they, really? Lounging about in the city instead of foraging in the wild? They just sound kind of frivolous.

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

After quitting my job as a local probation officer, I became a speaker for a national anti-prohibitionist organization (www.leap.cc). Since then I have spoken to college classes, church congregations, community groups, and fraternal chapters all around the city. I mostly talk about the law, race, and the many sins committed in the name of the new Prohibition. Did you know that a black man in "drug free" America is about six times more likely to be in prison than a black man in Apartheid-era South Africa? Seattle folks roll their eyes and cluck their tongues when I lecture about the institutional racism that is the War on Drugs, but, except for the hipsters at Hempfest, they don't join the group I represent, and they don't make donations. Why not?Respectfully,
Matt "The Man" McCally

Dear Matt,

I don't know if I've ever gotten a letter signed "respectfully" before. It's a little bit different from what I'm used to. That's OK, though. Like when I sneezed the other day and this older Hispanic woman said, "God bless you." I knew it would be wrong to resist a blessing, even one from a problematically patriarchal deity.

Your "respectfully" actually reminds me of the men with tidy haircuts I used to see in the part of the country my mom is from. Men who can say "yes ma'am" with courtly ease, change a tire in the rain, and fold a flag with their eyes closed. There's something sturdy and reassuring about these men, something I sometimes miss around here. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. See, men like that, supposed "heartland conservatives," are joining together with people like me, supposed "elitist liberals," in a coast-to-coast movement that's going to elevate a black man to the presidency.

Turning to the actual contents of your letter for a sec, though, I hope that you don't mean to include me in your statements about white people who don't care about black people. I did mention that I'm an Obama supporter, right?

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