| You can find it at the Seattle Times website,
www.seattletimes.com. Do a search of the Today's News archive
using lacitis as a keyword.
Here's the entire article, with the subject section highlighted
with "|".
He's asking people to send him their gripes and peeves. This
could be interesting.
Wes
========================================================================
Erik Lacitis: 'Hey, Erik, I'm really sick of . . .'
It was a dark and stormy . . . a dark and stormy morning commute,
a dark and stormy day, a dark and stormy evening commute home.
Behind me on the freeway, in the left lane, a guy driving a
brand-new Suburban speeded up on purpose so I couldn't switch
lanes. In my lane, I could see the headlights of a huge truck get
within a couple of inches of my rear bumper, the trucker wanting
me to . . .? Just careen off the edge of the freeway?
| Meanwhile, on the radio, I was hearing a commercial for a company
| called Digital-something-or-other. Nothing registered about the
| commercial, except the fatuous slogan it kept repeating:
| "Whatever it takes."
| Whatever it takes. Who came up with that innovative piece of
| copywriting?
There is a local TV station that uses the same cliche to
advertise its newscast. "Whatever it takes." Does that mean the
station's reporters are REALLY going to do whatever it takes to
get a story? Maybe carry bundles of cash to pry open reticent
sources?
Jeesh, nothing like a freeway drive on a dark and stormy day to
get you to start listing your peeves.
I'm sick and tired of: ATM machines that rip you off with $1.50
"service" charges, when the banks already are making a tidy
profit from them. Sick and tired of that latest TCI bill, telling
you rates are going to - guess what? - increase again. Ever
looked at a TCI bill? There is the fee for basic service,
"expanded service" that used to be basic service, "fees and
taxes," an "FCC user fee" and "franchise costs," whatever that
means. Well, actually, we all know what it means. We're paying
obscenely more for essentially the same service we used to get at
half the price.
I'm sick and tired of stories like this one on the radio: about
yet another news conference held by congressmen/senators/the
White House, with somebody accusing somebody else with hobnobbing
with the rich and powerful.
Tell me something new. Weren't politicians doing the same thing
in 500 B.C.?
Hey, congressmen/senators/the White House, how about spending
your time on something useful, like kids and education, or like
how not to turn our cities into fortified camps between the haves
and have-nots? But that would require some tough thinking and
tough decisions.
The gripes of March. Might as well enjoy the depressing weather.
Why don't you join in? I soon found I wasn't the only one with a
long list of things I'm sick and tired of. A little electronic
memo, and the staffers in my section didn't have much trouble
zapping me their lists to help compile mine.
Here we go:
The seemingly daily announcements from Microsoft about another
product or venture that'll further ensure world domination for
Bill Gates. Companies and government agencies that tell you how
sorry they are about voice mail, then stick you on an endless
voice-mail "menu." How much of a company's profits would it take
to have a live operator? Having to look at joggers and bicyclists
in Spandex outfits, since most people who wear them look like
skinny-legged parrots or water buffalos. What happened to good
old cotton?
The "controversy" in Ellen DeGeneres' TV show character
announcing she's lesbian. The "controversy" in Dennis Rodman,
which sounds more like lazy sportswriting. The continuing scorn
that the American fashion industry shows toward the public by
foisting vacuous-faced, aneroxically built and jadedly posed
models in full-page ads, Calvin Klein being the most prominent
scorner. Mailers for high-priced supplemental insurance policies
that sound like life insurance but are good only if you're in an
accident. Tattoos, especially on ballplayers; also, all those
lists of their exorbitant salaries. The people at the supermarket
with 18 items but who go stand in the nine-items-or-less line and
then act surprised they had 18 items. That guy in black leather
pants, tap-dancing in front of a bunch of other black leather
pants, whom you see all the time when channel surfing.
Ads for "sex education" videos. Ads for elongation of a certain
male organ. Ads from the Church of Scientology. Web pages on the
Internet that take 20 minutes to download so you can look at
something you'd flip past in a second if it were in a magazine.
Talking about building stadiums with taxpayer money for pro teams
as if the future of a city actually depended on it. Big-time
lawyers who use the race card in trials and then go on TV talk
shows bemoaning racial politics in our country. Going to a video
rental store and having to choose between a Pauly Shore movie or
another straight-to-video "erotic thriller" that's portrayed on
the video box as a real movie, but isn't. "Whitening" toothpaste
that's an excuse to charge three times the regular price.
Yes, I feel better now.
Hey, you know what? How about we do one of those reader-response
things that newspapers like because it keeps them "in touch" with
the public, and that I'm sure you're not yet sick of? Somewhere
on this page will be all the info.
But, please, don't include "local-interest columnists whose
initials are E.L." on your list. Trust me, that one's already
been nominated.
Erik Lacitis' e-mail address is elac-new@seatimes.com
|