My first Seahawks report of the year is not a happy one. The Blue Men lost to the Buffalo Bills 34-10, and it wasn’t that close.

The story of the off season for Seattle has been injuries. Oh, and the utter collapse of Shaun Alexander’s career, but that one I sort of saw coming (more on that some other time).

Over the pre-season, guys seemed to be going down regularly. No where is this more apparent than with receivers. Not two years ago Seattle had too many receivers to throw the ball to. At the end of last season, Deion Branch went down; he’s still not back. After a long holdout seeking a contract extension, Bobby Engram came back, and went down. D. J. Hackett went to Carolina. This left Ben Obamanu and Nate Burleson as the only receivers with much experience. Obamanu went down in the preseason and is done for the year. Branch is week-to-week on when he’ll be back. This weekend, Burleson went down for the year. Yikes!

So, on to the game. Matt Hasselbeck, our plucky bald QB of Chunky Soup fame, has apparently developed a bad back, and didn’t play much in the preseason. It showed. The offensive line struggled with multiple guys out during the preseason. Coupled with a new running game (Alexander being gone, Julian Jones having been picked up from the Cowboys as a free agent) and well, the offense partly to mostly sucked.

The defense played ok; two of the touchdowns scored against the Hawks came on special teams. One was an sucker punch of a fake field goal pass to a defensive end who was so wide open even I could have caught the ball. The other was on a punt return on which I swear the Seattle coverage team looked like they were hoping the guy would just trip.

So as often the case when they go back east to play, the Hawks take the loss. I am slightly contented to remember that the Super Bowl season of ’05 they started the same way with a crappy loss in Jacksonville. We’ll see.

The next two games are at home against two of the poorer teams in the NFC, San Francisco and St. Louis. My prediction? If Seattle doesn’t beat both teams, and soundly, it is going to be a long year.

Coupled with the Washington State Cougs only taking the WORST loss in Pac-10 history, it was a pretty dismal football weekend. I think it can only get better. It better…

Usually, I try to keep Smug Puppies to PG 13, since extended family and even occasionally my children read this. My nearest and dearest have no illusions about my twisted mind and sailor mouth, but still, I try to keep it relatively clean.

This post pushes those limits, so stop here if you don’t want to go that direction.

Yesterday’s Seattle Times ran an interesting article detailing the shutdown of a suburban Seattle swingers’ club.

Apparently, this couple rented a home in a suburb of Seattle, set it up with all sorts of erotic paraphernalia & facilities, and started throwing parties.

They started out at just a couple of events a month, but quickly grew to two or three times a week, with as many as sixty guests at the more popular events. Neighbors continually filed complaints about noise, public nudity and parking violations, not to mention the festivities spilling over onto neighboring property.

Nothing conclusive came from those complaints, but city officers did note a possible issue with operating a business without a license, issuing a warning and then a citation, which finally shut the operation down.

Apparently the club was advertised online, and the hosts solicited donations at the door to help defray operating expenses like laundry service, housekeeping, groundskeeping & utility costs. The combination of advertising and cash exchange made it a business, in the eyes of the city.

As I read through through this, my reactions were mixed.

Naïve me was amazed that such clubs actually exist outside the pages of soft-core novels and magazines.

Practical me wondered why the heck this couple didn’t buy secluded property in the country, rather than rent a house in the suburbs, for their activities. Where was their landlord?

And homeowner me tried to put myself in their neighbors’ shoes. As most of you know, I’m a small-l libertarian, and believe that everyone has a right to do what they want in the privacy of their own home without government interference. “An it harm none, do as ye will.”

But even if my neighborhood is well-treed and somewhat secluded, do I want sprawling, noisy, well-attended sex parties next door, complete with noise, casual nudity, kinky strangers wandering my subdivision, cars blocking my driveway and detritus in my shrubbery?

Absolutely no way in hell!

I think those neighbors were amazingly patient. I probably would have plotted the perfect arson several months ago. Or worse.

Isn’t life in the suburbs grand?

Seattle has a curious institution – two tent cities to house transitional homeless.

Tent city 3 operates primarily within the Seattle city limits and tent city 4 is located outside Seattle, in the eastern outlying suburbs. Life in the tent cities is hard; the communities of up to 100 transitional residents are strictly regulated and secured, with a single guarded entrance and no drugs, alcohol or fighting allowed. No minors or pets are allowed in the encampments.

The tent cities are are typically hosted on the grounds of local churches, and are sponsored by community agencies, supplied with portable toilets, showers and dumpsters. Residents may use their own tents, or sleep in community tents that are gender-segregated. They are provided with bus passes for job-seeking and employment purposes. Hot dinners are often provided by local churches or charitable organizations, but in general, residents are on their own for daily supplies.

Not all residents of the tent cities are bums. Many of them work, they are simply too poor to afford rent. Unfortunately, the stigma of living in the tent cities is a barrier to getting and keeping a job.

The interesting and disconcerting thing about the tent cities is that they are required to move every three to six months. This, also, plays havoc with getting and keeping a job.

Here is the real point of my post. In my opinion, the tent cities are sad but helpful institution. If people cannot afford a home, and choose to camp, then yes, let’s provide them a safe place to camp and some infrastructure to help them do so in a sanitary fashion. The hope is that these people can someday get back on their feet.

The sad but not surprising fact is that Tent City 4 meets with stiff resistance wherever it goes. “Not in my backyard” seems to be the prevailing mentality. The encampment is currently scheduled to move to a Mercer Island church next week, and a group of island residents has gone to court to try to block the move. This is nothing new; residents seem to organize to try to block Tent City 4 every time it moves to its new location. (Tent City 3, with its more urban location, enounters less opposition.)

Would it make me a little bit uncomfortable to have a homeless encampment at the church a couple of blocks from my house? Honestly, yes. But I deserve to be uncomfortable. The difference between the folks in those tents and my family is as slim as the paper our paycheck is written on.

I am ashamed that the richest communities in Seattle can think of nothing but their property values and complacent lifestyle, and react in fear when asked to care for those who have less, who need help to get back on their feet. Safety and crime fears are unfounded; residents of these encampments are checked and the camps guarded. According to the police in host communities, there has been no measurable increase in crime in neighborhoods near any Tent City. The Seattle Times also published an independent investigation which found that the Tent Cities do not affect crime rates.

Pardon the preaching, but Matthew 25:35 says “Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs? He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’”

I simply cannot understand or respect people who have it in their power to do great good – and choose not to out of small mindedness, spite, fear, or ‘not in my backyard’ mentality. To those whom much is given, much is expected.

Host the damn homeless encampment. Give graciously, and learn from it.

Apparently, in Washington, rain belongs to the state. Really.

Rain is considered a state-regulated resource, part of the public water system which encompasses rainfall to runoff to rivers to reservoirs. If there is insufficient runoff, then reservoirs, water supply and even fish habitat could be be affected.

Oh-kay.

I understand resource management, but this is rain. It’s falling from the sky, arbitrarily, unpredictably. No one owns it, controls it. Thank goodness, no one bills for it, but it’s probably only because tax-happy Washington state hasn’t thought of a way to impose a rain tax. (Shhhh!)

Does the federal government regulate the sun? And will there be international treaties governing use and movement of the air?

What’s next?

Last night, the trip home on the ferry was gorgeous. It was one of those perfect evenings – the sunset was tangerine and the air was soft and warm. All we needed was a reggae band and we could have been in the Caribbean.

The Seattle fire department boat Leschi trying to put out the sun.

The Leschi coming back to port.

The Seattle skyline as the ferry pulls away toward Bainbridge Island. If you’re ever visiting Seattle, take the ferry across to Bainbridge and back. It’s cheap entertainment and the views are spectacular!