ILL LITERACY

a new development in the argument over which city is best suited to be the seat of government for the emerging nation of cascadia emerged yesterday with the publication of central connecticut university's list of "america's most literate cities" (over 250,000 in population) for 2010. not only did seattle outrank portland overall (seattle was pushed down to second from the previous year's rankings by washington d.c., and portland tied with st. louis for ninth), but seattle also bested the rose city in each scored category, which include booksellers, education, internet, libraries, newspapers and periodicals. seattle in fact topped the category rankings in both of the categories into which portland made the top ten, booksellers and education (portland ranked fourth in both categories but shared that rank with cincinnati in the booksellers category).

it's likely that data collectors at central connecticut didn't account for the retail volume of the booksellers they counted, because powell's probably takes care of at least a dozen times the business of the average bookstore, and the study simply counted retail bookstores per 10,000 population. and portland would seem from it's ranking in the internet category to make many fewer online book orders per capita than seattle, so we would seem also to be supporting our local booksellers, in keeping with the cascadian spirit; but neither of those considerations can deny seattle's manifest ascendancy in educational attainment.

after just a moment of broader analysis, however, it seems arguable that seattle might be a little too book smart, whereas a still educated but less stridently institutionalized portland is probably more experienced with the streets, a quality that will undoubtedly be a boon in governing the cultural hinterland that is the pacific northwest. moreover, central connecticut's study really should have factored in numbers of retired young people, because really, we're reading all the time.

but literacy, of course, isn't everything. washington d.c. made the top of the 2010 list, and we all know how well that city has been working for the united states. reading (and reading well) or not (or reading poorly), a government need ultimately be sustained by results and efficacy. so, after every consideration, maybe it's better cascadia's wasn't in portland after all. seattle, though, didn't even show up for kickball. we might just have to cede the capital to the british columbians after all. they made quite the showing on that rainy saturday diamond.

or, in the grand tradition of republican compromise, we could just establish a cascadia city and site it somewhere else, somewhere not inside the boundaries of any of the big three. i don't think anyone's using tacoma.