I read this paper from cover to cover.
One, because I write here every week. Two, because I think it's the best weekly in the city. And that's not favoritism, since I write for more than one paper.
One of the features I like a lot is Street Talk, where the populace is polled for their thoughts. The only time I was an editor, at the Bremerton Patriot in 1999-2000, I always ran a Street Talk, despite complaints from young, eager-beaver reporters who thought the space taken up by readers' photos could host another of their epic prose pieces about whatever hobbyhorse they were riding that week.
I thought the May 25 Street Talk, about rising anti-American sentiment in the world, was especially interesting.
Surprisingly, only three of the six local folks polled thought we sort of earned it. Since Bush Jr. assumed the helm and began declaring war wherever he felt like it - not exactly what Americans did previously - I've figured we're hated the way bullies usually are hated.
There's no comparing the Iraq folks with Japan or Germany circa 1940 (I supported our incursion into Afghanistan, which had harbored the thugs who blew up the big buildings in NYC). But there is evidently a sentiment abroad in the land, even here, that whatever we do is cool and the rest of the world is simply envious.
Well, maybe....
On a similar note - you might call it a wakeup call, if your jingoistic muscles are in the relaxed mode - the Pew Global Attitudes Projects surveyed 16 countries recently and asked those 16 countries whether they prefer us or the new, Maoless China.
Fourteen preferred the Chinese. Not even the Americans polled thought the latest war had made the world safer.
Now whether you're a Bushite or a Shi'ite, you ought to be able to read the tea leaves here. Defensiveness does us no good. We are perceived as arro-gant bullies who care about nobody but ourselves. It is not good news to be hated in Asia, Europe and Africa.
"Check thyself, America" might be a good way to spend one of those holidays when we customarily wave flags and tell each other how cool we are. Or is everybody but us wrong?
IN REALLY DISTURBING NEWS that points out problems even here in our national bosom, where those danged foreigners don't have a say:
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an American-based outfit that funded a $20-million survey on the nation's mental health, fully 25 percent of Americans met the criteria for having a mental illness last year.
Can you say cellphones, I-Pods, Hummers, high unemployment, the world's highest percent of cocaine use and rampant social inequities?
The government-sponsored survey blames inadequate health insurance and the stigma still attached to mental-health issues in this country, along with inattention to early warning signs for our head troubles as a culture.
Locally, the recent killing of a white tennis teacher by a black teen - a youth constantly in trouble within the system, who told friends he wanted to kill a white man, a youth whose own family said they feared him - points out how much we ignore in the area of mental health.
This fella was in the clutches of the cops twice within days of allegedly committing a senseless, racially inspired murder. But the cops let him go. Had to write some parking tickets, I guess, while at the same time ignoring the SUVs trying to run over folks inside the lines of the crosswalks around Queen Anne.
AND FINALLY, why doesn't the city take down the embarrassing sign bragging about the alleged "park" at the corner of Roy and Queen Anne Avenue? You know, the gravel-covered place with the flimsy gazebo and the knee-high litter, where the homeless drunk guys sleep.
This is our tax dollars at work. I'm hoping Paul Allen will buy the corner.
That's the only way Fat Greg, our fearless (never met a meal that scared him) mayor, will actually do something to improve the corner.
I miss the Blob they tore down years ago to make room for the gravel, litter and antagonistic alkies.
What about you all?
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