Hello to all of you out there in electroland. My reports to you have been somewhat slow in coming, in recent months. This is because after having come across some of my more incendiary earlier posts, members of the FBI came by my house and threatened that they would have to “take action” if the quality of my writing continued to be as questioning and as “lacking in allegience” as it had been. I felt really scared, standing in my doorway in front of them, but I asked them what sort of action they intended to take. They said that one possible scenario was that my fingers might all accidentally somehow get broken. Like, from karma. I think they were insinuating ever so subtly that there would be ways to get me to stop.

Since their visit, I have been practicing typing with my nose. This is my first completely-nose-typed post. It’s just my little act of defiance. I feel like having my face down closer to the keys actually makes it somehow easier to write more directly from my inner depths. Possibly, the more that we become threatened to give up our right to express ourselves honestly, the more we will be pushed to tell the more terrifying truths.

The FBI did not visit my house. They did, though, visit the home of a lady in Olympia, who had voiced concern at a city council meeting over the local port being used for military shipments. They heard about what she had said, and came to her house to ask her why she had said it. I imagine that the encounter went something like this:

(knock at the door)

Lady in early seventies is sitting in an easy chair in her front room.
LADY: whooo is it??

From outside the door, the callers answer: It’s the FBI.
Lady walks to door and opens it.

LADY: oh hello! How can I help you young gentlemen?

FBI’S: Please excuse us for disturbing you, maim. We had heard that you had been exercising your right as an American citizen to voice your opinion, and we were in the neighborhood, and we just wanted to come by and commend you for your bravery.

LADY: (begins to blush) oh, dear me. Come in! Come in. I have some biscuits that I baked yesterday, could I get some for you?

FBI’S: Oh, no maim, we wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.

LADY: Oh, why it’s no trouble at all. (Pulls a tray of biscuits and glasses of milk from under her chair.)

FBI’S: Well, if you insist. Maim, these are delicious biscuits. I have to say, I am impressed that someone could bake such delicious treats, AND be skilled at publicly voicing their opinion about the affairs of local government.

LADY: oh, goodness, (to one of the FBI’S), he’s a charmer, isn’t he? Well, I guess I just see it as my duty as an active citizen, to take advantage of the rights and freedoms that our forefathers struggled so hard for.

FBI’S: Yes, and isn’t it a blessing that throughout our American history, ordinary citizens have continued to struggle for freedoms that our forefathers hadn’t yet had the foresight to include in the Bill of Rights and in the Constitution? Such as the right for women to vote,

LADY: 1920! The nineteenth amendment to the Bill of Rights!

FBI’S: And for African Americans to vote

LADY: 1870! The fifteenth amendment! Further secured by the Voting Rights Act in 1965!

FBI’S: And that everyday citizens (such as yourself) are struggling today for recognition of rights that STILL haven’t been recognized on a national level. I mean, it really isn’t fair that same-sex couples aren’t allowed the legal privileges of marriage, wouldn’t you say?

LADY: Yes, it is a great nation that we live in, and it’s our job to stay on our toes, to keep plugging ahead to make it even more fair, and thus more great.

FBI’S: You said it, maim! Well, we’ll be on our way. Thanks for the biscuits!

LADY: My pleasure. Come again, any time!

FBI’S leave. Lady goes back to her chair.

Though I didn’t talk to the lady who was visited by the FBI, I am confident that things probably went just as I wrote them above. I am sure that there are a lot of agents who work for the “Federal Bureau of Investigation”, with the intention of pushing the meaning of the word “investigation” to the limit. They are probably really out there, investigating the U.S.A., asking themselves, “What does it really mean, to be a U.S. citizen? What are the people really like out there, and how can we help them to get the most out of their citizenship?”

A few days from now, the date will be June 6th, 2006.
When my mother was a little girl, back in the early fifties, she was playing with numbers in her head, and somehow happened upon the realization that in the year 2006, her older sister Charlotte, who’s birthday is June 6th, would turn 66 years old, on the sixth day of the sixth month, in the sixth year of the new century.
She is turning 66, on 6-6-06.

Happy Birthday Aunt Charlotte!
What does it all mean?

I wonder, if my mother had lived in the mid 1700’s, and had realized that her sister would turn 66 on 6-6-1806, if that would have meant anything to her. When do you think people started associating three sixes in a row with meaning something about the world falling apart? I know that it comes from the bible’s book of Revelations, which some guy supposedly wrote after having a bunch of visions. But when did the idea start popularly circulating that the rapture was coming any time soon.

I am starting a poll:

Do you have a secret feeling that our world is going to end in some kind of disaster? Please write to me, and tell me, as best you can, what you imagine is going to happen. I will think about this question, and get back to you on it.

p.s. If there is anyone out there who is really good at building websites, and would be interested in doing a trade with me, email me. This ugly thing has got to go.