Just back from a week in New York, where people are reputedly the rudest on the planet. Guess what? All I saw were good-natured people who smiled at each other and even talked and joked. I didn't meet a single rude person until waiting with all the Oregonians to return to Portland:

The couple talking on a speaker phone who yelled at the people speaking privately around them to shut up. The people in the reclining seats banging into the people behind them and then complaining because they dared to press the buttons on the monitor screen in the back of the seat. The woman who stood texting and keeping people from getting off the plane, including one guy who said more than once that he had to pee, and then got irate when he finally pushed past her. Children running out of control and almost knocking an old woman over. I saw lots of kids in NYC who had actually been taught how to behave in public. Actually that's true of almost everywhere else.

That's enough. I could go on and on. Portland — you're ruder than New Yorkers and not half as smart or interesting.