THE 10 COOLEST CITIES IN AMERICA

The catch-all adjective "cool" has a hundred different meanings. Generally, it means whatever one wants it to mean in contrast to whatever one means by dull. Or is that being gratuitously complicated...?

Leaving the linguistics to others, here is Forbes Magazine's arguable choice for America's Ten Coolest Cities: New York City, Vegas, Seattle, Chicago, Oakland, Orlando, San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington DC.

The survey asked the city locals a batch of questions about eateries, night spots, and other cool social diversions. Here, though, is one question they did not ask: What do your citizens think of their nation's government?

There is good reason to suspect the local citizenry would have been of two minds. One mind is usually anthropomorphized these days in the form of angry paraders, shouting dissenters, and fork-tongued politicians who maintain "government is the problem." Their corollary is "government can't do anything right."

This is not to dispute their angry logic, but to pose a follow-up question. Why is it, then, that millions of Americans buy novels and watch films in which this very same government is energetically portrayed as a cunning, skilled body of achievers with a vast array of modern technology at their fingertips? Say like CIA agents equipped with fleets of helicopters and GPS systems as they trace and track evil-doers throughout the globe? Say like FBI agents and Coast Guard crews keeping 24/7 watch on both criminals and invaders? Say like hard-hitting Swat Teams charging into dens of treason and terror with the swiftness of the ancient gods?

Here's the point....

America's general population is something like the Bleacher Bum population at Wrigley Field. One mind (or minute) they are taunting the players as idiots who can't play the game; the next, they are cheering their players' home run or diving catch like they belong in the Hall of Fame. So, OK, in a ball park this kind of quirky fandom is all part of the sport. But the sport of government is a little more serious, with a lot more at stake.

There was a time in America when what people said and sang on the Fourth of July was really a part of their DNA. Today, we are advised, good citizenship is critical citizenship. And that has the ring of truth to it. But only, only if an authentic sense of citizenship accompanies the criticism...!

Just maybe the "coolest" thing about any American city today would be a population informed and mature enough to exercise its inalienable right to complain with as much reason as rage. Now THAT kind of "criticism" rises to the level of "constructive."