November 14, 2004 in City

Hard to mourn Arafat’s death

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I‘m so ashamed of Spokane.

The Middle East is gushing like an oil well of misery over the passing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Yet in my hometown the reaction has been flaccid.

If I didn’t know better I’d think nobody cares.

We can do better, people. We’re Americans. We can’t let ourselves be out-grieved.

Sure Arafat was a terrorist who murdered innocents and sold out his own people for power.

But he was also a Nobel Prize-winning terrorist who murdered innocents, sold out his own people for power and looked a lot like Ringo Starr.

Now he’s dead of poison or disease or rancor at age 75.

Television news clips show stricken mourners rat-a-tat-tatting assault rifles and jumping like jackrabbits atop Arafat’s coffin.

These guys really know how to put the fun back in funeral.

In his piece for Outside the Beltway – an Internet news site – reporter James Joyner noted that: “Black smoke from burning tires rose across the Gaza Strip” in honor of Arafat.

Yep. Nothing sums up the life of a fallen despot like plumes of toxic smoke.

Maybe we Americans are too self-conscious to let go of our emotions with such unbridled insanity.

Fortunately I don’t share that problem. So on Friday I set about trying to get permission to join the frenzy and burn a tire for Arafat.

You’d think our leaders would be more open-minded.

Guess again.

Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority director Eric Skelton doused my scheme with a cold bucket of bureaucracy.

I was thinking maybe the West Bank of the Spokane River would be a fitting place for a Yasser tire fire.

“I would say probably nowhere,” said Skelton.

That was just the beginning of my disappointment. Skelton said if I went ahead I could be fined up to $10,000. Although typically, he added, on a first offense the fine is about 400 bucks.

Nobody says boo when you light a votive candle in a church.

What hypocrisy.

Skelton suggested I try my luck with Spokane Mayor Jim West.

“Maybe he could declare a City of Spokane Day of Mourning for Yasser Arafat.”

It sounded like a swell idea. A Yasser Day could help West sew up the suicide bomber vote for the next election.

Best of all, I wouldn’t even have to buy a tire since West keeps one in his office.

The Junior League gave him a radial last spring when the mayor kept prattling on about how he was “kicking the tires” on a number of cost-cutting ideas.

“You’re not burning my tire!” snapped West when I called him.

You’d think in this cradle of free speech I’d be able to express my condolences properly.

I couldn’t even find a proper sympathy card to send to Arafat’s widow.

Kathy Johnson, a manager at the 50% Off Card Shop, 2927 E. 27th, said the store didn’t have any cards that fit into the category of “terrorist bereavement.”

“He is Just Away,” read the front page on one card I examined.

Nope. I was looking for something more along the lines of “He is Just Away – Roasting in Hell.”

Johnson pointed out a section of sympathy cards designed for people who have lost pets.

That almost works. Many consider that, as a human being, Yasser Arafat was a total and complete pig.

Johnson picked up a card. Here’s one that might do, she suggested.

The front page was covered with the words “thank you, thank you, thank you…”

I don’t know. Sending a $2.95 card seems like a cheesy way to revere a man who stole an estimated $11 billion from his impoverished people.

Maybe I’m just being stubborn. But dousing a tire with lighter fluid and setting it ablaze strikes me as the only symbolic tribute worthy of a world class pustule like Yasser Arafat.

As a friend observed, who wants a tombstone when you can get a Firestone?

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