beside the point

Mr. Floatie Goes to Washington?

OK, not really Washington, but Mr. Floatie was a candidate for the Mayor of Victoria, British Columbia. That is until he withdrew his name in the face of legal challenges to his appearance on the ballot. The city of Victoria had planned to contest Mr. Floatie’s candidacy on the grounds that only real people could run for office.

That’s right. Mr. Floatie is not a real person. He’s a character. Mr. Floatie is actually James Skwarok, a community activist who dresses as a 6-foot piece of human feces to protest and draw attention to the pumping of sewage into the Straits of Juan de Fuca without any treatment other than the filtering of solids (which presumably would include the very...umm..."objects" represented by Mr. Floatie himself). Skwarok has the best possible quote on the issue. "Of course I'm not a real person," he said in an interview last week. "I'm a big piece of poop."

Well, finally a politician who will fess up to it. As far as I’ve been able to determine, this is the first recorded case of excrement running for public office in North America – although some would argue that this is only the first candidate to be open about it. Certainly, I have felt at times that there are members of Congress, the State Legislature and certainly Lexington’s own local government who are full of...well...let’s just say...manure.

posted by Bryan @ 1:00 PM