Public Health, circa 1899

Today I went down to the library and read the Seattle health officer's "Annual Report of the Health Officer for the Year Ending December 31, 1899." Here are a few gems:

Unsanitary Localities: One cesspool of vast magnitude and long standing, covering the greater part of two squares on Jackson Street between Second Avenue South and Fourth Avenue South, has engaged our attention at different times, but without any improvement whatever. The region is a disgrace to the city, and time only adds to the magnitude of a nuisance which, in summer especially, is a serious menace to the health of the community."

Among the health officer's other concerns and suggestions were installing public urinals downtown to provide a "great convenience and remove a disgusting and oft-complained-of nuisance in the shape of filthy alleys"; forbidding peddlers to yell because their yelling tormented the sick; requiring scavengers to register for licenses and finding "some rational means of disposing of garbage" so that no one should have to deal with massive mounds of rubbish.

Another serious concern of his was the fact that even though there were public sewers being dug around town, no one was connecting their house to the sewers.

Which all reminds me of what I recently read in Slavoj Zizek's Parallax View: “one definition of being-human is that disposing of shit is a problem” (194). Of course it's not just about shit, although it is partly that, but aren't we learning more and more all the time about how much trouble our garbage is?

Baudelaire

I don't know anything about Baudelaire, except that he was a French poet, but I do know enough to say that his Flowers of Evil shouldn't be shelved in the gardening section at a book sale.

I know quite a bit more about Murakami, and enough to know that Sputnik Sweetheart shouldn't be shelved in the romance section at the same book sale. But hey, it worked out well for me.

Short story abut my life: Last night as my roommate and I were brushing our teeth, getting ready to go to sleep, etc, we hear some fellows outside yelling about the "fucking raccoons." We hurried to the window of our apartment and looked across the street, where three or four raccoons were crawling over the chain link fence. Appropriate response to the situation? Grabbing the raccoon pelt from my room and throwing it out the window at the yelling spectators.

crimes

Here's a list of crimes perpetrated on my friends, my acquaintances and I in Seattle over the last 4 years.

4 stolen bikes (including my own)
1 stolen car (later recovered)
1 stolen i-pod
my professor's house was burglarized/trashed
1 case of breaking and entry
1 case of identity theft
1 stolen car radio

That's all I can come up with right now, although there's more that I'm forgetting. As far as shady activity on the part of my friends, the list I can come up with is shoplifting, growing/selling/buying pot and underage drinking. Not enough material to start writing a crime novel.