• Who are you?
• Why do you write anonymously?
• How can I contact you?
• Do you have any press materials?
• Why do you call yourself “Himself”?
• Who is “Hockey God”?
• Why “More Hockey Less War”?
• What are you, some kind of liberal?
• How come you write about ____ and not so much about hockey and war?
• What’s up with the Che logo? (or, Didn’t you know that image is copyrighted? or What are you, some kind of Freakin’ Commie?)”

Who are you?

Good question! But I’m not going to answer it. My name is out there on blogs and in print media, so if you really want to know, you can find out. But I don’t publish my full name here.

Why do you write semi-anonymously?

It used to be to protect the privacy of my family. I have two young children in the Portland Public Schools, and I write about school politics here. I also have a professional life completely separate from my political/social life, and I didn’t want them mixed up together. Now, however, I blog by my real name on PPS Equity, so my anonymity here is a moot point. I’ll leave it as a simple exercise to figure out my real name.

How can I contact you?

You can always leave a comment, on this page or most recent entries. Private inquiries can be e-mailed to himself <at> wackymonkey <dot> org. Please be patient if I don’t respond. Your message may have landed in my hyper-aggressive spam trap (sorry about that; I don’t have much time to weed through it all).

Do you have any press materials?

Not much, but I’ve started to put together a press room page.

Why do you call yourself “Himself”?

I don’t anymore, but here’s the history of that moniker.

There was this awful movie, Babe: Pig in the City. (I say it was awful, because it was much darker than the original, and when I saw it there was a young boy there with his Dad, and he kept screaming out “No no, don’t hurt the little dog! Oh please, no!” and his Dad wouldn’t take him home.) Anyway, there was this imperious, pompous simian named Thelonius, referred to as “Himself” by his subjects. Since the World Wide Web affords me the arena to be king of my own domain — and I’m a bit of an imperious, pompous simian myself — I took it on as my moniker. Also, it is amusing to see people trying to figure out how use the reflexive pronoun “himself” in the nominative case. Himself loves it!

Who is “Hockey God”?

My wife has taken to calling me that on her blog. Evidently that’s what Susan Sarandon calls Tim Robbins. Unfortunately, some in the Portland schools community have taken to calling me that, too. Let’s be clear: I am a mediocre hockey player at best. I have no illusions about my hockey prowess!

Why “More Hockey Less War”?

In the fall of 2004, as the US war in Iraq bogged down and the NHL embarked on what would become the first canceled season in US pro sports, I attended a peace rally and march with my family in Portland, Ore. My wife took the opportunity to make signs for the occasion, one for each of us. For Wacky Mommy it was “Fuck War” (a reprise of a sign I carried during a protest of Gulf War I). For precious little Thing One, it was “More Candy, Less War.” For sweet little Thing Two, it was “More Hockey Less War.” I don’t remember what mine said, but since I was pushing the boy in the stroller, I carried the “More Hockey Less War” sign. Later, I designed a bumper sticker with the slogan. In January of 2006, I bought the domain name, and on February 1, 2006, I wrote my first entry on this blog. In June 2007, I spun off the Left Coast Hockey League as the mercantile arm of More Hockey Less War, featuring t-shirts, stickers, bags, hats and more.

What are you, some kind of liberal?

Yeah, sure, but I hate that term, since it’s become such a bad word. I’m a social democrat (small d). I am anti-Libertarian and a strong supporter of civil liberties. That is, I believe in the right to smoke pot, but think business should be strongly regulated. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, my libertoonian lurker friends.

I believe civilization has gotten where it is today based on a sense of collective responsibility.

Libertarianism, neoliberalism, neoclassical capitalist economics—whatever the hell you want to call it—is evolutionary regression. Neoconservatism, or military neocolonialism, or whatever you want to call that (e.g. Iraq) is the other side of the same coin.

Counfused? Maybe this will help clear things up.

How come you write about ____ and not so much about hockey and war?

I write about whatever strikes my fancy. Sometimes it’s hockey. But hockey is just a game. It’s passionate as hell, and I really, really like playing it. I like watching, too, but I’m not obsessive about who’s on what team, who’s getting drafted by whom, or how my birth town Penguins are doing. There are lots and lots of hockey blogs out there if you want that stuff.

I’ve written a lot about war, and I strongly believe that it is immoral and obsolete. The only wars we should be fighting are wars of ideas. The fact that so much of our gross domestic product goes to producing human-killing machines is shameful. But I’ve got other fish to fry, too. Like our Portland Public Schools, which, like public schools across the nation, are under the dual assault of being starved for funding and “reformed” by free-market, corporatist foundations like Gates and Eli Broad.

What’s up with the Che logo? (or, Didn’t you know that image is copyrighted? or What are you, some kind of Freakin’ Commie?)

See here.