Fame

About every 5 or 6 years, some writer in ROTUS (rest of the U.S.) discovers Point Roberts and then publishes some cutesy article about us.  The last one, I think was the National Geographic, whose article particularly irritated our Canadians neighbors by describing Tsawwassen, as I recall, as "strip mall hell."

This week's article is in some internet journal called Atlantic Cities and you can find it here.  Turns out we have 50 people in the U.S. Marshal's witness protection program living up here.  (I thought it was the FBI that ran witness protection?  It turns out that Justice Department has one such program and the U.S. Marshals have a different one.)  Turns out some lady named Kathryn Booth has appointed herself as our unofficial public relations representative.  Who knew?  That we had one or that we needed one or that she was the one we would want?  Ms. Booth thinks that in some ways, living here feels 'like a police state.'  She's been here a couple of years.  Too bad she wasn't here in the first few years after 9/11.

Talking to journalists is always a dicey matter.  You say what you say and they write what they write and the distance between the two may be big or it may be little.  However, I would like to know who it was (other than Ms. Booth) who "rated" Point Roberts 'the safest community.'  Who even managed to find it to do the rating?

Ah, well, famous again.  Steve O'Neill is quoted saying that Point Roberts doesn't promote its businesses because it has no businesses to promote.  Okay.  Got it.

The author seems to think reasonably well of us: pretty and all that.  But I'm glad that the publication didn't require the death of any trees.  There's that for digital writing...

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about those 50 witnesses being protected among us.  If they cross the border, do they lose their protection?