Arrogance -

1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others.

  What do I think about seven (7) members of the city council, the city manager, a cadre of lawyers, the police chief and several city staff all working to pass a law against the homeless on the steps of city hall without so much as an invitation to them to come into the meeting?   Plug your ears.

  Is this a scene from a bad movie?  A re-mix of the WTO Battle in Seattle? Bad manners run amok on both sides of the doors?No! Unfortunately this is how we choose to govern ourselves in Olympia. We sit back and watch and listen as 10 or so people make up the rules that don't even affect them. It is as the bumpersticker says, "We get the government we are willing to stand up for." Nothing less. Nothing more.

  A toast to you, the people of Olympia.  Happy New Year!

     I would like those cops who use their position of power to stop being bullies and harassing people they don't like. It isn't their job to pick and choose who deserves punishment. Their job is to protect all of us from those who would do us harm. And just because a law is "on the books" doesn't give them license to use the law against people.

    If they actually feel as though their life is in danger, of course they have a right to protect themselves. We all do. But for them to use that argument as a defense whenever their ego is bruised or their sense of superiority is challenged is, I say, not a valid use of the law.

(edited by request)

    I seem to always be in some parallel universe where hate doesn't exist. At least not for me personally. I guess I just don't pay close enoough attention to the rules of the game according to the "authorities".
    When I was in elementary school, one of my best friends was Vernon Johnson. The time was the 1950's. Vernon and I hung out together. I visited him at his house. He visited me at mine. We walked around the neighborhood together. He was, and if still alive, is black. I didn't know anything about civil rights. If he did, he never said anything. We were just friends. 
    When I went to community college in the 60's, one of my friends in art classes was Randy Moe. He lived in an old mansion with several other guys who all liked to dress up in women's hoop skirts and have fashion shows. He was as gay as anyone I knew. He invited me to his birthday party one year when he and his friends (and I) went to a transvestite bar. He told me not to worry, I wasn't pretty enough for them. I never heard a peep from him about persecution of gays. And it never crossed my mind.
    In the 70's, after college, Randy, myself and Char (an unmarried mother of middle eastern heritage ) started a neighborhood cultural center in a small unused church that we rented and renovated. We had a great time bringing plays, music, drawing classes, exhibits, coffee house style entertainment to the community. It never dawned on me that I was supposed to hate them for who or what they were.