I was on my way home this afternoon, on Lincoln Rd just outside Poulsbo, sitting behind a little hatchback that was moving slower than I would have liked. (map)

The road was straight, visibility was good, I had a dashed yellow line, and all the room in the world to pass the little hatchback.  I accelerated, signaled, moved into the oncoming lane, and began to overtake him.  As I was overtaking, a small SUV approached the road from the left.  He had a stop sign, which he more or less obeyed, then proceeded to turn right, directly into my path.  To avoid a nasty head on collision, I stomped on my brakes and quickly moved back into the right-hand lane, behind the hatchback, at which point the driver of the small SUV honked his horn and threw his arms up in the air, as if to say “what in the hell is wrong with you?!”

My response: LOOK BOTH WAYS!!

I saw the SUV driver quite clearly when he got to the stop sign.  His head never even faced my direction.

When turning right, you MUST look both ways.  For all you know, a pedestrian or bicyclist could be crossing the street on your right, or could be approaching from the right, to cross in front of you.  If you don’t look, you could run into them.  In this particular instance, by not looking both ways, the SUV driver positioned himself for a head-on collision.  On page 41, the Washington State Driver’s Guide says the following:

Drivers entering a road from a driveway, alley, parking lot, or roadside must yield to vehicles already on the main road.

This does not specifically mention drivers entering a road from a side-street, but the principle is the same.  On a two lane road, you have no idea if a driver to your right is overtaking a slower driver, and is therefore in your intended lane of travel.  As that vehicle is already on the main road, you, being the vehicle on the side-street must yield the right-of-way to vehicles already on the main road.

Overtaking on a two lane road is never completely safe, but I was in a legal passing zone, with plenty of lane space.  He’s the idiot that didn’t look both ways.  This SUV driver put us both in harm’s way, then acted as if I was the one who did something wrong.

Get a clue, buddy.

This whole hyphenated-American nonsense has gone so far over the top, it’s laughable.  There have been numerous cases where, in their zeal for “political correctness,” media outlets have actually mis-reported the facts.

• In the 1980s, an interviewer asked British hurdler Kriss Akabusi “what does this mean to you as an African-American?”, to which he responded “I’m not African, I’m not American, I’m British.”  The interviewer couldn’t grasp what he meant.
• Another instance was recorded, where the leader of an African country was referred to as African-American
• Within the last few years, a newspaper article was published where a black British man was identified as African-American.

The media are so afraid of offending black people, that they don’t call them black.  They’re African-American, even if they’re not American at all.  The term African-American is such a sacred cow, that now, a white man, who is genuinely African-American (born in Mozambique, immigrated to the U.S.) gets harassed for stating facts about his ethnic and cultural background.

Paulo Serodio is more African-American than Jesse James, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, or pretty much any other outspoken black person I can think of, and yet, he’s been ostracized for it, because according to the idiotic decree of political correctness, all black people are African-Americans, and all African-Americans are black.

Teddy Roosevelt said in 1915:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all… The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic… There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Woodrow Wilson said:

Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.

I’m not Irish-American, English-American, Scottish-American, Dutch-American, German-American, and French-American any more than most black people in this country are African-American, so why do hyphenated-Americans have such a hard time being simply “American”?  I understand wanting to hold onto your ancestors’ culture, and I do think that knowing about our ancestry is an important part of knowing ourselves, but if hyphenation makes someone feel “closer to their roots,” they have got to be one of the most superficial people on the face of the earth.

Get on board with THIS country, people.  You’re either 100% American, or you’re 0% American.  Make a decision.

H1N1 Flu Facts: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

• Confirmed cases of H1N1 Flu in the U.S.: 403 (as of 11:00 am ET, May 5, 2009)
• Deaths related to H1N1 Flu in the U.S.: 1 (as of 11:00 am ET, May 5, 2009)

Common Flu Facts: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

• Approximate cases of Flu in the U.S. each year: 5-20% of the population (15,000,000-60,000,000)
• Approximate Flu-related hospitalizations in the U.S. each year: 200,000
• Approximate Flu-related deaths in the U.S. each year: 36,000

That’s right, there are 98 times as many common flu deaths each year than there are H1N1 flu infections now.

I think it’s time the media stop making a big deal over this, because it’s not.

And neither was Avian Flu, West Nile Virus, SARS, or Mad Cow Disease.

Relax!