If I’d realized I was exaggerating I’d have exaggerated better

Jobs, Journalism, Justice

Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor who has experienced homelessness several times. He supplied the art for the first cover of Real Change in November of 1994 and has been involved with the organization ever since. This is his weekly column, Adventures in Irony, a dry verbal romp of the absurd. He can be reached at drwes@realchangenews.org.

Articles by Dr. Wes Browning

Let’s put a restaurant as high as we can without so much as a barber shop or a haberdashery on the way up

by Dr. Wes Browning | October 30th, 2019

Real Change columnist

Something I’ve learned over the years: Seattle can’t ever have anything cheap.

Not since 1962, when we spent millions of dollars to put a spinning restaurant more than 500 feet in the air, completely out of reach for the average, out-of-shape pedestrian.

The SR 99 tunnel wouldn’t have been cheap, even if it had been built under budget.

Trump and company want the ’50s back but without the funding

by Dr. Wes Browning | October 23rd, 2019

Real Change columnist

Every time I sit down to write a column, “insert column here:” faces me, because I put it there the night before. There are times that’s the only way I can get started. This is one of those times. I hate this week’s news. I want to go back to the good old days, when we only had advisors in Vietnam. When Russians were Communists and couldn’t be friends with our president.

This column is guaranteed to give our managing director a crushing headache, but won’t give you a headache, I hope, dear reader.

Not that there’s anything wrong with smoking pot now and again

by Dr. Wes Browning | October 16th, 2019

Real Change columnist

I’m trying hard to not talk about Trump. But it’s so hard. He says it’s OK to abandon the Kurds to the Turkish armed forces because the Kurds didn’t help the United States in World War II. This makes me feel good about watching the U.S. House of Representatives impeachment inquiry shred Trump’s presidency, since Trump never lifted a finger to help us in that war, either.

I know it isn’t fair. He didn’t have fingers during WW II. But that’s just the kind of excuse losers make.

Let’s turn to the local news.

If Clark Kent ever wore red panties, he’d wear them under his blue tights, not over them

by Dr. Wes Browning | October 9th, 2019

Let’s talk about facial identification technology again!

While we’re at it, we’ll get more Libertarian than usual.

I’ve done this before. In 2011, I tried to find a silver lining to it. Right now, when you have to pass a background check just to rent an apartment, they can make you pay to be surveilled. But within a decade or two, all our movements will be tracked by a massive network of artificial intelligence machines operating with all the surveillance videos needed. Your background check could be a free online search. Yay, technology.

‘Let there be inquiry.’ And there was inquiry. And the Nancy saw the inquiry, and it was good.

by Dr. Wes Browning | October 2nd, 2019

Real Change columnist

I was sure I was going to be working up a rant for this week’s column. I figured everybody in the U.S. House of Representatives’ chamber would be chewing gum and tossing paper airplanes back and forth all week long, and I’d be sputtering by now, and it would show.

Then, Nancy Pelosi says there’s going to be an impeachment inquiry and, lo, there is an impeachment inquiry. Next thing, I’m binge-watching CNN and scouring online news sites for eight hours straight. I love a good impeachment inquiry. No longer sputtering, my mood has completely turned around.

Whatever it takes, please give me the streetcar of my desire

by Dr. Wes Browning | September 25th, 2019

Real Change columnist

There’s a remote chance I might get my dream streetcar yet.

Mayor Jenny Durkan has to get her way and increase the ridesharing tax on Uber and Lyft inside the city by about a half dollar per ride. There’s also a proposed minimum wage for drivers, but the tax would let the downtown streetcar be built, along with getting us some housing we’ve been waiting for since 1989.

Let’s not bus a whole lot of homeless people to LA for a while, OK?

by Dr. Wes Browning | September 18th, 2019

Real Change columnist

Reagan Dunn is a King County councilmember who wants the county to spend $1 million on tickets to bus homeless people away.

We already have programs that do that, but they don’t have that much money. With $1 million, we could lob homeless people all over the country like paper towel rolls.

Ticket-out programs are popular. Communities all over the country are either buying Greyhound tickets outright or subsidizing them to get homeless people reunited with families or friends or just “on their way.”

CEHKC, KCRHA: No matter how you spell it, the process just increases

by Dr. Wes Browning | September 11th, 2019

Real Change columnist

At the end of last month we learned that even though Seattle has a homeless emergency, we don’t have a wealth emergency. “You’re doing great!” said FEMA. “So, we’re taking our funding for shelters and food banks away to give to truly needy cities.”

Hey, it could be worse. The federal program could have demanded we use our overflowing wealth to pay them back for previous years’ funding.

The fallout from nuking a hurricane might make us all look a bit orangey

by Dr. Wes Browning | September 4th, 2019

Real Change columnist

What’s Trump smoking?

The president of the United States is interested in the application of nuclear weapons to control the weather. This is rich. The man considers global warming a Chinese hoax, and buys the line that even if the climate is warming it’s no big deal, let nature run its course. At least up until a hurricane threatens Mar-a-Lago on his watch, and then all of a sudden we need to waste a nuke to correct the weather.