Last fall, my son talked me into a visit to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. You know, Paul Allen’s place at the Seattle Center. It’s in the same fantastic building as his other museum, the Experience Music Project.
I know about as much about science fiction as I know about football: next to nothing. I’ve never even read “Dune,” Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece. I’d like to read it, though.
The museum offers a crash course in the literary genre, as well as a chance to see supercool artifacts. The alien queen from the movie “Aliens” is under the same roof as the crossbow from Jane Fonda’s “Barbarella.”
Sorry, science fiction fans. Our museum outing was great fun, but I mention it only as a bait-and-switch gimmick, a way to broach a painful subject. If I started with “Super Bowl,” I was afraid you’d quit reading. Here in Seahawks country, we have much to smile about. Never mind the sad look on billionaire Allen’s face when an ABC camera caught a glimpse of the Seahawks’ owner near the end of Sunday’s game.
Think back a week. As Super Bowl fever heated up, so did tired comparisons. Bookish Seattle. Hard-living Pittsburgh.
While some mythical Seahawks fan sips a Starbucks caramel macchiato, tough Steelers guys chug Iron City beer – or that’s how the stereotypes go.
So what if this isn’t Steeler Nation? That’s how Pittsburgh’s football loyalists label themselves. Who’d want to live there? Or in Detroit, which by all accounts celebrated its blue-collar kinship with Pittsburgh last week?
In March 2004, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette lifestyle columnist Brian O’Neill wrote about one Pittsburgh resident’s effort to save the economy by selling sweat shirts and donating $5 from each sale to the city. The shirts’ slogan? “Pittsburgh Will Make It!”
That’s how bad things have gotten in Steeler Nation.
It’s tough to miss this irony: While Super Bowl XL was played at Detroit’s Ford Field – where a face-value ticket would set you back $600 – the Ford Motor Co. had just announced in nearby Dearborn, Mich., that it was cutting up to 30,000 jobs and closing as many as 14 U.S. factories. Two months ago, it was General Motors saying it would close all or part of a dozen auto plants.
A United Auto Workers statement in The New York Times Jan. 24 said Ford’s cuts were “deeply disappointing and devastating.” Yes, The Herald’s big, fat headline Monday was “Dejected in Detroit.” But chin up. Our way of life is intact.
Another headline sticks out in my mind. “At Boeing, good times roll,” The Herald’s Page A1 banner said Feb. 2. Profits are up and production is soaring at Puget Sound-area jet factories.
As Pittsburgh’s “Terrible Towels” and trash talk flew before the Super Bowl, I was dispirited by the latte-loving Seattle jokes.
So I rented “Roger &Me,” Michael Moore’s heartfelt documentary about despair in Flint, Mich., Moore’s hometown, where GM closed a big factory. Whatever your views of Moore’s controversial film “Fahrenheit 911,” his images of a GM town gone bust are searing.
In Pittsburgh, that shiny Vince Lombardi Trophy can’t stop a nasty population hemorrhage that has hurt the area in everything from city services to school funding. Before the 1980 census, Pittsburgh had more than 500,000 people. By 2000, fewer than 339,000 called the Steelers’ hometown their own.
Reading about Pittsburgh’s problems, I could almost hear Bruce Springsteen singing: “These jobs are going, boys, and they ain’t coming back.”
I’d never smile on the economic misfortunes of another place. We have our own troubles. People like Allen, Bill Gates and all the savvy Microsoft Corp. workers who came after them have helped push the price of ordinary houses into the quarter-million-dollar range.
To be sure, some here can’t even afford a $12.95 ticket to the Science Fiction Museum, let alone a Super Bowl trip. But as Springsteen’s “My Hometown” commands, “take a good look around.”
Look at this place, from the new Future of Flight Aviation Center &Boeing Tour to plans for the Everett waterfront. We live in one of the most literate areas on the planet. People are nice. Our economy is roaring.
Speaking of a roar, the “12th Man” has no need for wounded pride. Standing tall in this great place, the 12th Man very likely has a job.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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