Why D. Parvaz is my hero

Columnists can be a little frightening to editors. Especially good ones, because they tend to have, you know, opinions ... and man, that can really get on readers' nerves.

And I'm sure this latest column by D. Parvaz will annoy people. As far as I'm concerned, that's a big part of her charm. She and I didn't always get along. You know, it's that opinion thing. She had lots of them, and preferred them to mine. Aggressively. But under all that, I eventually came to appreciate, was profound respect on both sides. We just had to earn it with each other a little.

Anyway, D. has a weekly column for the Seattle P-I. Ostensibly, it's about pop culture, which to me is the kind of rocket fuel that has propelled Entertainment Weekly and Us into the stratosphere. For her, however, politics is cultural. This is the start of her most recent one, about Stephen Colbert, the comedian/commentator currently riding out a backlash for his brave and incisive remarks at the latest White House press dinner/confab thingy:

Complacency isn't a modern disease, and it's not unique to Americans.
We have perfected it, however. We are -- to speak in broad terms -- docile, doughy and incapable of effecting large-scale change from the ground up. We're a nation of centrist shruggers, letting those few on either end of the political scale run the show.
Which is why this week, Stephen Colbert is my hero.

For the rest, click here:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/poppingoff/269205_popping06.html

You will laugh, I promise. And maybe think a little too.

D is anything but docile her own self. If she were, I'd be less of an editor. And she wouldn't be a columnist.