Everything I know...

When we first moved here (almost a year ago now) I knew nothing about the Naples/Southwest Florida area. Nothing.

So I set out to learn.

First I tried the paper and the local electronic media. Nada. Zip. They can report the news, but they can't and don't generally tell what the people are thinking.

I searched the blogosphere. Nada. (If there IS a local blogosphere, I sure can't find it...)

Then I found it. Right back in the newspaper. But not on the front page or the local front.

If you want to now about a community, check out your paper's letters to the editor. The Naples Daily News runs a TON of letters daily.

And if you read all of them, you'll find out a LOT about an area.

For instance: There a LOT of conservatives here. There are a lot of very wealthy people here (but I repeat myself). There are a LOT of people with a lot of time on their hands.

And there are a LOT of people here with the urge to complain while having not much to complain about. In reality, there isn't much to complain about down here in paradise - or its suburbs.

A few observations:

*- If your major concern in life is loud leaf blowers, you have no major concerns in life.

*- If your major concern is that the city just painted the street outside your house and the white paint is too bright (!), you have no major concerns. And no life.

*- The old folks in Old Naples, the richest, most conservative tight-assed area of downtown Naples, does not know or believe there is life after 11 p.m., and they damn sure want it kept that way. Music in a bar after 10:30? The nerve. No way! Attracting people under age 75 to downtown? But they're so LOUD! Destroys the nature of the community (think rest home).

*- Not allowing planes to land at the Naples Airport after 10:30 p.m. is stupid. What? Pilots should land at Ft. Myers and wait until you've had enough sleep and then finish their trip?

*- People who consider George W. Bush an idiot, a liar, and a manipulative and manipulated moron are not traitors. They're just looking critically at one of the most corrupt administrations in the history of the U.S.

*- People who support abortion on demand are not baby killers. In fact, given the situation too many babies are born into, they probably care more about babies than you do. Or have you adopted your 10 or 12 unwanted babies this year? An unwanted, unloved baby is much sadder and more destructive to society than a few grams of unwanted tissue.

*- If opening public meetings with prayer is OK because you aren't endorsing any one religion, then at the next Naples City Council meeting, I want someone to kill a chicken and pass around some ganja. And next week we can sacrifice a virgin. (What's that you say? It's only OK if it's YOUR particular religion? I see.)

*- They're not closing the Vanderbilt library because they hate you. They're closing the library because you aren't willing to pay for it. What's that? You'll pay for yours; let them close that one over there? Oh, I see.

*- Complaining about 'illegals' around here is simply a coded form of racism. Don't kid yourself. Or me. It's not the illegals you're worried about, it's all those spicks and beaners and wetbacks, isn't it? And you really don't want them to go; you just want them to shut up about the cost of housing and living conditions while they manicure your lawn and do about a hundred other jobs that no one else around here is gonna do. And if you think they're taking jobs from 'real' Americans, when was the last time you saw 'leaf blower operator' or 'lawn manicurist' 'street sweeper' on a 'real' American's resume? And God Bless America.

*- All those beaners and spicks and wetbacks had damned sure better learn to speak English and God Bless America. How? ESL classes, of course. What? We had to cancel those classes to give you old rich bas***ds some tax relief? Too bad. Jesus spoke English; why can't they?

. *- Signing your letters "God Bless America' does not make you more patriotic than I am. But it does make you look sillier. You think god's gonna bless the U.S. more than any other country? Oh, yeah, I forgot, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, PA., right?

And so it goes.