Doug Blough

A nation celebrates the recent death of Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, at 81. It’s not lost on me the Harvard-educated mathematician mailed bombs, killing three and injuring 23, but I can’t help but see parallels between the man in his youth and myself. Two kooks in a pod.

The young among you may not remember Ted, a genius to his own downfall, was disillusioned with the technological world and as the newspaper states, “he retreated to a dingy shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign.” No one who’s visited me — and like Ted, visitors are few — can deny my townhouse is dingy. Actually more of a general mustiness.

Before moving to Cody, I too ran a campaign of terror, railing against spellchecker and other horrors of technology. I too left many victims and was known as “the Flaming-bag-of-poop Terrorist.” None of my daring exploits were fatal, but plenty of ruined shoes and psyches damaged beyond repair. The flaming-bag-of poop is the mini-arson that keeps on giving.

One glaring similarity in our cases is that Kaczynski demanded his rambling, 35,000-word manifesto, titled “The Industrial Society and its Future” be printed by the leading newspapers. I too had a rambling, and I mean rambling, manifesto that I blackmailed publication of, titled “Somebody Answer the Dang Phone!” As I’ve admitted, contrary to Ted’s Harvard, I’m lucky to have graduated high school, so his manifesto may be described by some as possibly more profound than my own. But we obviously had both gotten up on the wrong side of the the dumpster.

Following is my manifesto, reprinted because my message is no less apropos today. Thankfully I received help, and as God is my waitress, haven’t planted a flaming bag in decades. I wrote …

“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. See how they run, like pigs from a gun; see how they fly. I’m crying. Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come; Corporation Tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday. Man you’ve been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long.

“I am the eggman; they are the eggman; I am the walrus … goo goo a joob!” I can’t recall exactly what I was thinking when I scribbled that, but went on to say, “I am not ‘The Feces Bomber,’ but I am you, you dark society with your spellchecker and your nehru shirt and pink culottes. I have not come to praise society, but to bury your dead pet gerbils. I’ve always loved feet, so why do I destroy your corporate shoes with my bombs of infallible genius?

“I could have become a a celebrated, tormented podiatrist, but once my evil computer changed the word ‘were’ to ‘we’re’ and your corrupt government with unsightly acne scars waged war against my corn flakes, I became a monster to your societal pointed shoes. Goo goo a joob. They’re all against me with the algorithms of Pol Pot torturing my glandular sensibilities. Your U.S of lies conspires along with the government of Sri Lanka to prevent my graduation from ‘Fred’s School of Feet.’”

I’m sorry you had to see that, but I was a very sick man. A nation celebrates my recovery.