I need to get out of this state. I just read about Fritz's law, the most asinine proposed ordinance I've heard of in a while. The utter lack of common sense and logic almost makes Eyman's initiatives look legit by comparison.

What in the hell is going on in Auburn?

If this ordinance passes, any dog weighing more than 30 pounds would be classified as "potentially dangerous."

Huh?

An old, fat labrador that can barely get up to drink out of the water dish could be considered dangerous! Not only that, but if this "potentially dangerous" dog happens to wander outside of the yard, he would instantly be upgraded to "dangerous" and would require insurance–the same kind of insurance that circus owners must have for lions and tigers.

Sheepdogs and poodles and mutts, oh my!

This stupid ordinance was written in honor of a terrier-poodle that was mauled by a pit bull. The pit bull was owned by a woman who repeatedly failed to keep the dog contained. In other words, she was already violating existing leash laws.

I'm sorry that Fritz was taken down, but making every other big dog legally "dangerous" wouldn't have saved the terrier-poodle. Pit bulls and other dogs who are bred as attack dogs and not properly contained are the problem, not big dogs as a whole.

"We need common sense solutions for irresponsible owners," said Auburn Mayor Jim Lewis, supporter of Frtz's law. "That's all we're looking for."

Please explain to me how punishing responsible dog owners will curb those folks who already don't observe the law.

I don't get it.

If this ordinance flies, the same logic could be applied to other problems that plague society.

Damn nice of McDonald's to stop supersizing their combo meals, but it just isn't enough. Maybe a weight limit should be used to designate people as "potentially dangerous" to themselves, and anyone designated as such would be instantly upgraded to "dangerous" if caught within 10 yards of Burger King.

Better yet, the kind people in Auburn could concern themselves with more pressing problems, like enforcing existing leash laws. Now THAT is common sense.

I'm not sure what just happened, but I am really glad that I was able to recover! As I was leaving to grab some lunch, not one, but BOTH of my heels caught the edge of the curb in front of my office building. Miraculously, I was able to avoid falling face-first on to the pavement. Such a graceful maneuver would have caused nasty scrapes embedded with asphalt on my knees, hands and my face. Very nice.

I don't know whether I should be mortified that I could be so clumsy, proud of my apparent agility and dexterity to be able to sidestep such a humiliating fall, or whether I should go on as if the whole thing never took place.

What's the fun in that? I've had some SPECTACULAR falls in public, the kind where when you see it happening to some other poor schlub, your first thought is "Damn, am I glad that's not me!"

Picture it: Borders bookstore in downtown Seattle. It is a nice spring day around noon. The streets are filled with tourists and workers alike, enjoying a decent day. Borders is packed as well. If you haven't been in the downtown store, you should know that right smack in the center of the store facing the street entrance is a large staircase that takes people to the fiction and music sections on the second floor. From the staircase, you get the grand view of all that is happening on the ground level: cash registers to the right, information desk and nonfiction to the left, periodicals in front, and best sellers lining the center aisle towards the door.

On my lunch break, I wandered the music aisles while listening to my walkman, and headed down the stairs to return to my office. About three quarters of the way down the stairs, one of my cool platform shoes caught the edge of the stair I was descending, sending me hurtling towards the floor– before I even had a nanosecond to react.

All of the sudden, I'm flying through the air in the middle of the busy store, soaring past the last four or five steps at the bottom of the staircase, and land on my hands and knees on the hard floor with a resounding crack.

Waiting for the pain to settle in, I noticed that the sounds of retail had diminished considerably as people stopped what they were doing to take in the spectacle that was me. They all had the same wide-eyed expression of amusement, pity and relief (see above). As I looked around, everyone immediately turned back to what they were doing as if I wasn't even there.

There was nothing I could do but laugh at myself. Laugh, I did...forgetting that my headphones were still intact. My laugh is already loud (and "gutsy" according to a former coworker, whatever the hell that means). I'm sure the usual crazies that wander around downtown probably went out of thier way to avoid me that day.

That's not even the best fall I've had. But I'll save that for another day.

I don't enjoy admitting when I'm wrong, but here it is: I could not have BEEN more wrong than I was in my blog yesterday. I hereby retract everything I wrote regarding Tim Eyman and his gambling/property tax initiatives.

In fact, if I were to criticize him today, I would say that he has not gone far enough with his brilliant plan to subsidize government with gambling profits.

Hopefully, tax "rebel" Eyman will see the same inspirational light that I have, before his paid felons (or whoever they are) succeed in getting the signatures he needs to get his existing initiatives on the ballot.

Stop the presses! Let's take this as far as the clever Ashley Revell, the man who liquidated everything he owned–including (quite literally) the shirt on his back–and rested his financial fate on the roulette wheel. Man bets it all--and wins.

Wake up, Tim! Let's go for big bucks and no whammys, slice our property tax by half and take our chances on the wheel of fortune. Everyone knows that real gamblers don't waste their time on the nickel slots. We can send the governor to Vegas on the first day of each fiscal year with all of our tax proceeds, and his/her bet will either double our money or lose it all.

If we lose, that single act might save a lot of time and money on a re-election campaign...two-for-one, Tim. Right up your alley!

No time to waste, let's rewrite those initiatives and put the plan into action. 50-50 odds ain't bad, right?

For more Eyman fun, check out KOMO TV's Ken Schram and his hilarious commentary:

In some ways, I admire Tim Eyman. Here is a regular guy, fed up with government bureacracy, who is practicing democracy at it's best: for the people and by the people.

Unfortunately, that is the only nice thing that I can say about him, because his foray into public policy is also democracy at it's worst. His initiatives are ill-concieved, fiscally irresponsible and appeal to an ugly combination of self-centered desire and greed.

While his lame car tab initiative stripped desperately needed money from public coffers, it didn't stop there. Add in the legal expenses of determining the constitutionality of his amendments, specifically for including two items in an initiative (tab fees, and the bit about public approval for tax increases).

His latest stroke of genius includes expanding gambling in Washington state while significantly reducing the property tax.

If he was really concerned about eliminating the government's waste of public tax money, why doesn't he do his part by drafting initiatives that are within constitutional boundaries and fiscally responsible?

This gambling initiative is a horrible idea, one that Washington residents will regret years down the road if it becomes a reality.

I will tell you why, aside from pointing out the questionable ethics of not requiring the residents who benefit from public services to pay for those services and instead shifting the burden to a "voluntary" tax (you don't gamble, you don't pay).

When the same idea of allowing electronic gambling machines to operate off of the reservations came about in Montana (I think it was the late 80's, early 90's), I was all for it. What a great opportunity to generate millions of dollars in public money, not to mention the revenue enjoyed by the proprieters hosting the machines. It is a decision that many citizens would rethink, if given the chance.

It wasn't long before the effects of the machines began to take their toll. First, it was the stories from bartenders and waitresses about little old ladies spending day after day in the dark confines of the casinos, playing nickel keno with coins carried in by the shoebox.

The machines began to spread outside the designated casino establishments into bars, restaurants, convenience stores–anywhere that had 3 square feet and a grounded outlet. It is not enough that you are constantly in the presence of the machines, but it is compounded by the viral effect the machines had on whatever environment they took hold of.

Lights would dim and window shades would be drawn to enhance the eye-catching screen graphics tempting patrons with hundreds, thousands of dollars in winnings–all for a quarter or two. The blinging-and bleeping sounds of each machine competed with each other, the chatter creating a constant cacophony of noise.

Places that used to be a vibrant social scene where people would discuss the daily events became filled with people perched in rows on stools, mindlessly sipping drinks while staring unblinkingly at the screen, one hand tapping on the "bet," "deal" or "play" buttons.

I might be overdramatizing the effect, but these things are all recognizable in places all over the state.

The machines had an effect on the social fabric of the state in different ways, too. In Missoula, it started with the conversion of the local IHOP into a casino (not a great cultural loss, I know, but stick with me). Then it was the bowling alley converting to a casino. Local restaurants, art galleries and shops morphing one-by-one into instant cash franchises and pawn shops. It was, and still is, depressing.

And maybe that wouldn't sting so much if I could say that schools in Montana don't suffer from the same budgetary woes that schools do elsewhere. I wish that our potholes were non-existent, our libraries brimming with more books and periodicals than you could ever imagine, or that social service agencies could now afford to serve all of those in need. I wish that I could say that our quality of life was a little bit better, that our wages were more competitive or that job opportunities were more readily available. But I can't. Montana has the same fiscal problems that Washington has. We are also not unique among other states that have traveled down this path.

While gambling brings in much-needed revenue, at what cost to our quality of life? Sadly, the money is significant enough to ensure that we can't do without it, but not enough to make a noticeable difference.

Don't be fooled by the notion that gambling brings in tourist revenue, as was argued in Montana (this was a compelling point in a state with no sales tax). People don't go to Montana to gamble, as they don't here. Studies show they aren't drawn into gambling once they get there.

Don't think that the social problems created by widespread gambling won't effect you as others clean out savings and checking accounts in hopes of that one big payoff.

As a citizen of the state of Washington, Tim Eyman has a social obligation to pay for the services that he enjoys. He should pay for the roads that he drives on, pay for the costs to improve and maintain the civil infrastructure that benefits him, and help pay to educate his children. He should pay for the police who protect his home and his business and the fire and paramedics who will come to his aid if something happens to him or someone he loves.

To shift that burden is unfair, as is devaluing those services so much by making paying them, in effect, a "choice."

Vote NO on Eyman's "Just Treat Us the Same" initiative.

Speaking of safety, my neighbor thwarted a burglary attempt into the garage of our 7-unit townhouse building this morning. One good thing about our location, I guess, is the quick response from the police. The thieves were able to walk away once they heard my neighbor, but the police were on site within three minutes of her call to 911.

When my unit was broken into three years ago, we had the same quick response-and caught the thieves red-handed with a lot of my stuff in their car.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a city girl. That point was well made when I moved here from a house (disco cabin, actually) in the slums of Magnolia. I thought I was being efficient when I decided to move some of the bulkier items that I don't use everyday into my new townhouse. Although blinds had not yet been installed on my windows, I figured that as long as anything was out of sight, I wouldn't have a problem.

Chuckling to yourself yet?

Missoula has it's own share of problems–as a college town, burglary is not nonexistent–but in the last few places I lived, we were lucky that people bothered to shut the door half the time, let alone lock it! (Sorry , Mom)

Anyway, so I loaded up my golf clubs, my skis, my kayaking gear, my laptop and printer and some jackets and tucked them away in closets.

Now I KNOW you are laughing at me.

So a few mornings later at 2:30, I get a call from the police, who asked me to come down and I.D. my stuff. I find all of my things sprawled out on the precinct floor with a cop rifling through all of it. The funny thing is, out of all of the things they stole, the cops were fascinated by a brown leather jacket that lay there on the floor.

Not just ANY brown leather jacket. I bought my "Starsky and Hutch" jacket at Carlos' One Night Stand, though it looks more like something Shaft would wear. Flared lapel, double-stitched detail and a fly buckle belt meant to be tied, not buckled.

I guess the jacket didn't look like something I'd wear to the cops, as I stood there in a fleece pullover and a baseball cap. Mostly, they were interested in the wallet they found in one of the pockets, that had 5 or 6 drivers' licenses, medical insurance cards, and a credit card–none of which matched my name, the thieves names, or each other.

"Are you SURE this is your jacket?" one of them said as he looked at me suspiciously.

"Absolutely."

The next day, a detective called and asked me again, "that jacket is really yours?"

For a second, I started to get a little nervous. They couldn't think I had something to do with that wallet, could they? Somehow, it ended up in my jacket, but what I would do with a bunch of IDs for middle-aged African-American men? After all, I was the one dumb enough to fill my empty townhouse with a bunch of pawnable items and then tra-la-la all the way back to Magnolia.

City girl, I am not.

I was planning on commenting on Eyman’s latest lame-brained initiative, but after being rudely awakened today by what seems to be an increasing number of news items related to abduction attempts, that commentary must wait.

Maybe I need to ease off on the A & E programming (I so enjoy Bill Kurtis…), but what in the hell is going on around here?

Dru Sjodin, Jennifer Lai (the Mercer Island girl) and many, many more local and national accounts of women and children being grabbed at bus stops, on sidewalks, or in parking lots seem to fill newspapers and take up air time on a regular basis. How many times was the Amber alert enacted last week in Washington alone? At least two? Three?

What a sad statement it is when so many women and children are taken, used and thrown away like fast food wrappers. And what about all of the attempts that go unreported? I bet most women you and I know have had at least one (if not many) encounters where they questioned their personal safety, fate changing the instant a car drives by or by unwittingly walking into a building or driving off in a car.

I don’t think too much about my personal safety, I’m not sure why. While my neighborhood feels relatively safe, it is adjacent to what the police have called the “crack triangle,” and while they generally keep to their side of the street (and me to mine), we are not separated. I’m frequently out in the dark, in the early morning hours and late at night to walk my dog. (On a side note, when I first moved there, my Dad expressed his concern over this. I explained to him that with a 75-pound dog attached to one hand and a bag of poop in the other, I wasn’t expecting too much trouble from anyone. I still don’t.)

Until this morning, I had long forgotten my refusal at age 19 to heed the warnings given to all women at American University in Washington D.C., located in a nice area near Embassy Row and Chevy Chase, Maryland. NEVER walk anywhere alone at night, we heard.

I was not about to have my lifestyle dictated by fear or by “what ifs..” (a city girl, I’m not). So I didn’t listen. Even after an incident where I felt very vulnerable, I would still walk home from the library late at night or insist on taking the Metro and walking home alone after meeting friends across town. It all turned out okay, but I don’t feel quite as fierce about that principle now as I did then.

Perhaps that is the same attitude that the woman in Kent had until yesterday when she had to mace a man trying to pull her into his car. Well, at least she was carrying mace and was able to use it.

Something is seriously wrong when there seems to be so many predators on our streets.

I don’t know who needs to address this or what measures should be taken (within the confines of our laws, anyway) but something needs to be done. It is not good enough to simply instruct women to always look over their shoulders and train our children how to avoid being abducted.

It makes me sick.