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You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Myth of Rural Virtue and Urban Vice

The Myth of Rural Virtue and Urban Vice

by Michael D.|  October 2, 200810:52 am| 106 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Steve Chapman lays waste to the myth that, somehow, country folk from rural areas are morally superior to those of us city folk with edumacations.

“We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity,” [Sarah Palin] declared, quoting the late journalist Westbrook Pegler. “They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America.” Not like those idle, insincere, lying city folks who dare to suggest that America can sometimes be wrong.

But no one seemed to take offense. The myth of rural virtue and urban vice is an old one in this country, and it persists no matter what the changes in the landscape. And whatever questions Palin may face in her debate with Biden, her paeans to small-town virtue aren’t likely to be among them.

Most Americans, it seems, can tolerate hearing of the superiority of the small town, as long as they don’t have to live in one. You wouldn’t know it from listening to country music stations, or to the governor of Alaska, but four out of every five Americans choose not to reside in rural areas.

Because they are elitists! City dwellers obviously haven’t discovered that the best meth is served up in the sticks!

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    leo

    October 2, 2008 at 10:56 am

    Sentimentalism aside, I want to know who’s paying the bills!

  2. 2.

    Dave

    October 2, 2008 at 10:56 am

    Jon Stewart went on a rant on this very subject last night when
    talking to Peggy Noonan. I believe his line was “Cities are just
    like towns, but stacked on top of one another.”

  3. 3.

    Sarcastro

    October 2, 2008 at 10:57 am

    If I may quote Owen Harper in re cannibalism; “Only in the
    countryside!”

  4. 4.

    leo

    October 2, 2008 at 10:57 am

    P.S. OT but most of those HTML formatting buttons after “B-QUOTE”
    you probably don’t need.

  5. 5.

    greynoldsct00

    October 2, 2008 at 11:01 am

    Yeah, rural=moral… like a house I used to drive by in a suburb of
    Atlanta that hung teh confederate flag off their front porch…
    slavery so just SO moral… give me a break

  6. 6.

    Comrade Dreggas

    October 2, 2008 at 11:03 am

    No shit sherlock. I grew up in a small town, the people there are
    just as fucked up as the rest of us they just try and hide it by
    going to church every sunday and putting on airs.

    What’s worse everyone knew everyone else’s business and the
    gossip and rumor mills were always running full tilt. Anyone who
    claims small towns are better than big cities hasn’t lived in a
    small town, if they did then they have an inferiority complex
    fighting against their superiority complex.

    I’ll take the anonymity I get living in the city over being known
    by everyone in a small town any day.

  7. 7.

    Dave

    October 2, 2008 at 11:05 am

    Rural morality: Starkweather, Ed Gein and the BTK Killer.

  8. 8.

    Lee

    October 2, 2008 at 11:06 am

    I was at a neighborhood part awhile back and was chatting up a
    neighbor, we both grew up in small towns and commented that there
    is no way in hell would would raise our kids in a small town. All
    there is to do in a small town is drink and fuck.

  9. 9.

    PeakVT

    October 2, 2008 at 11:09 am

    You wouldn’t know it from listening to country music stations

    God how I hate country music, and the fake ruralism is
    reason numero uno.

  10. 10.

    Glenn

    October 2, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Drink and fuck ? This is so bad? What do people in big towns do
    then? Snort coke and fuck? The whole argument stinks. The one thing
    a big town offers over a small one is u can do all of the above
    anonymously for the most part. In a small town if u fart everyone
    smells it so too speak.

  11. 11.

    greynoldsct00

    October 2, 2008 at 11:09 am

    @Lee: and not necessarily fucking
    the person you’re supposed to…

  12. 12.

    PeakVT

    October 2, 2008 at 11:12 am

    Sheesh, what does a guy have to do to get a properly formatted
    blockquote around here?

  13. 13.

    greynoldsct00

    October 2, 2008 at 11:12 am

    …and then there’s small town politics…I live in a relatively
    small Connecticut town and let me tell you, it’s a CONTACT SPORT.
    It’s just insane to watch some townie get elected First Selectman
    and try to manage and multi-million dollar budget. No morals there
    either, all cronyism (sp?)

  14. 14.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:13 am

    I’ve spent a lot of time driving through this great nation of ours,
    and let me tell you: I am never so concerned about my physical
    well-being as when I’m traveling in a rural area at night. And I
    used to live in Harlem (141st and Malcolm X, y’all). The people out
    in the sticks have GUNS, fer cryin’ out loud.

    All there is to do in a small town is drink and fuck.

    You say that like it’s a bad thing.

  15. 15.

    lilly Von Schtupp

    October 2, 2008 at 11:14 am

    In the small town I grew up in, rural New England, as teenagers all
    we did was drink and drive. Every year our town would lose someone
    to a drunk driving accident. So sad. There really is nothing to do
    for many teens out in the sticks.

  16. 16.

    LiberalTarian

    October 2, 2008 at 11:14 am

    I had a graduating class of 30, and at least 8 of those were from
    “out of town.” Small towns have some upsides, but unlike cities,
    you know where the rapist lives, who the pedophile is, who cheats
    on his wife and probably who cheats on their taxes. There aren’t
    any real secrets in a small town, and there are plenty of bullies.
    You also know who the real Christians are and who are hypocrites,
    who you can call when you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and
    who you can lend a ladder to and get it back. Small towns have
    small economies, and you make genuine sacrifices to live there,
    i.e. drive old cars, re-use and recycle, and often do without
    because you don’t have the money to spend on luxuries. None of
    these things make small towns bad; but just by virtue of being
    small doesn’t make it good. What does really get under my skin are
    people who have never lived in one knocking small towns–STFU. Big
    town ignorance is no more attractive than small town ignorance.

  17. 17.

    jrg

    October 2, 2008 at 11:16 am

    None of this would be a problem if the city folk didn’t run around
    burning Christmas trees, burning flags, and forcing the simple
    townsfolk to gay marry one another. Besides, there are lots of
    citys in Iran, so people that live in citys hate America.

  18. 18.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:17 am

    [The following should be in blockquote]

    “Small towns have small economies, and you make genuine
    sacrifices to live there, i.e. drive old cars, re-use and
    recycle, and often do without because you don’t have the money to
    spend on luxuries”

    [Thus endeth imaginary blockquote] Oh, unlike the
    people in Harlem?

  19. 19.

    b. hussein canuckistani (comrade)

    October 2, 2008 at 11:21 am

    In my big-city neighbourhood: A library, A Boys and Girls club with
    a pool, gym, computer lab, chess club, etc. A rep movie theatre.
    Parks with all the usual attractions plus a minor league baseball
    team and boules courts. Many restaurants, cafes and dessert shops
    New and used bookstores (including a good comic store). A
    Tae-kwon-do school. A ballroom dancing school. and so on. Within
    a15 minute bike ride, the list grows exponentially. Put me on the
    list of people who would rather raise their kids in a city. If my
    kids end up getting drunk and fucking, it won’t be because there is
    nothing else around for them to do.

  20. 20.

    YellowJournalism

    October 2, 2008 at 11:21 am

    I grew up in a relatively small town, but my aunt and uncle live in
    an even smaller one. It’s the type of town where the busiest hang
    out is the worn-out Dairy Queen. My relatives live in the rural
    area of town. They used to live near the nicest neighbors, the type
    of people, as another poster said, who you could loan a ladder to
    and know you’d get it back. When my aunt’s dog got lost, the
    neighbors helped her look for him on their property. It was just a
    shame, though, that it turned out the neighbors had murdered two
    women and buried them in their backyard. Police said they were a
    few steps away from being serial killers.

  21. 21.

    Dennis - SGMM

    October 2, 2008 at 11:22 am

    “They are the ones who…run our factories…” She must have been
    talking about small towns in China. Ever since the Republicans,
    aided by Bill Clinton, offshored just about our entire
    manufacturing sector (Because we’d have all the cool, high-tech
    jobs – right?) most our mills and factories are just so many pigeon
    coops.

  22. 22.

    jake

    October 2, 2008 at 11:22 am

    Here’s how a person pushes the idea that people a morally superior
    by virtue of living in rural areas/small towns with a straight
    face: 1. They’ve never been within 100 miles of either. 2. They
    have but they’re a pathological liar. Since this woman was the
    mayor of a small town, I’m going to assume she was familiar with
    crime rates in Wasilla and therefore, she’s a filthy liar. Hey, I
    get an error message when I post, but then the message shows up.
    Thanks for giving us a reminder of dear old WPE. Also, Return
    doesn’t create a paragraph. Love the edit function!

  23. 23.

    Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)

    October 2, 2008 at 11:23 am

    I live in north Alabama, in a town that is at the heart of the
    military/industrial complex. We have an interesting dichotomy:
    the defense contractors are staffed by engineers, while NASA
    tends to be staffed by scientists.

    Engineers = McCain = jobs based on killing people iz OK
    Scientists = Obama

    But yeah: the rural = moral meme is bullshit. The most moral
    place I ever lived was New Orleans, a big city full of brown
    people and teh ghey.

    Bloggy stuff: does anyone know why I can login at wordpress.com
    w/no problem, but logging into Balloon Juice (a WordPress login)
    results in Fail?

    I can haz paragraphs!

  24. 24.

    Tim C.

    October 2, 2008 at 11:28 am

    Not to say that in their proper place drinking and screwing aren’t
    awesome, but I really think 14 is a bit young for that. (I’m
    looking at you La Grande, Oregon)

  25. 25.

    wingnuts to iraq

    October 2, 2008 at 11:30 am

    nothing like meth addicts and pregnant teens. That’s the real
    america.

  26. 26.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:30 am

    LiberalTarian: [Imagine this is in blockquotes]

    “Big town ignorance is no more attractive than small town ignorance.”

    [imagine the blockquotes end here, followed by a line break] . . . You’re absolutely right, and I suppose I should try to limit my parochial bigotry (New Yorkers are the most parochial people around, if you ask me). But try and find a national political figure who would ever dare to impugn the name of small town America in the same way that New York or San Francisco have been demonized by the right. [imagine line break here] . . . Additionally, I should add that I have seen communities in the Big Scary City come out in solidarity to help each other out in the same way that small towns can. Of course, the communities I’ve lived in are mostly poor and/or immigrant communities, so it might very well be an economic factor, rather than urban v rural (how much community spirit is there in, say, Greenwich Ct, which is, arguably, a “small town”?).

  27. 27.

    Juan del Llano

    October 2, 2008 at 11:30 am

    All good arguments… however, at the age of 63, I have new
    criteria: peace, quiet, nature, and clean air. At the moment my
    wife and I live at the end of a dirt road on the south end of Taos,
    where we almost never hear a car and no one locks their doors. Just
    now there were three western bluebirds in the birdbath outside my
    window. I never hear any aircraft overhead, but we have ravens,
    magpies, coyotes, and occasionally a bear. This is frigging heaven
    to me. I understand perfectly the cultural benefits of living in a
    city. So does my wife, a classical pianist, who never met a curb or
    sidewalk she didn’t like. On the other hand, there’s a 90-mile view
    at the top of the driveway. Most days (and nights) I don’t want to
    go anywhere, except maybe farther into the wilderness. It’s nice to
    come home to DSL, however. :-)

  28. 28.

    Frank Sobotka

    October 2, 2008 at 11:31 am

    “Small-town values” was another one of those brief messages that
    McCain and his message people clung to virulently for a week,
    before giving up and moving on to something else. It’s such an open
    avenue for ‘acceptable’ race baiting, I’m surprised they haven’t
    deployed it more regularly. Sarah Palin’s “small town values” v.
    Barack Obama’s “Chicago morals,” white rural woman versus scary
    urban dwelling black man. There’s a narrative that would stick, and
    probably a less sleazy one than anything else conjured to date by
    McCain

  29. 29.

    Kamishna ya Watu Xenos

    October 2, 2008 at 11:32 am

    This is just class-based and sectarian moral vanity, which sells
    well to the rubes in Wassilla, Philadelphia, rural/hippy New
    England, the Bay Area, or Orange County. Both parties indulge in
    it, and it is stupid and counterproductive. … No different from
    the standard MSNBC encomiums about salt-of-the-earth Big Russ or
    Chris Matthews’ real american ethnic Catholics or the the
    Union-card bearing “real middle class” and the christianist “real
    Christians” and how the non-Zionist Jews are not “real Jews” and so
    on and so on. … The only people who deserve to talk like this are
    the African Americans and the Native Americans. But even there it
    ends up being counterproductive.

  30. 30.

    Lee

    October 2, 2008 at 11:32 am

    While there is nothing wrong with drinking and fucking, for the
    kids you are raising there needs to be a few more outlets for them
    to entertain themselves.

  31. 31.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:32 am

    [imaginary blockquote begins]I can haz paragraphs![imaginary
    blockquote ends] Hows? Hows can we haz paragraphs?!

  32. 32.

    Martin

    October 2, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Small towns have some upsides, but unlike cities, you know where
    the rapist lives, who the pedophile is, who cheats on his wife
    and probably who cheats on their taxes. There aren’t any real
    secrets in a small town, and there are plenty of bullies. You
    also know who the real Christians are and who are hypocrites, who
    you can call when you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and who
    you can lend a ladder to and get it back.

    Exactly. That’s what ‘small town values’ really means
    – knowing where everyone stands and knowing where you fit in. It’s
    not that they are any more moral than anyone else, but there is a
    lot less surprise amorality compared to a city. When the guy the
    block over beats his wife to death, you aren’t really surprised
    because everyone knows he beat his wife and you aren’t fearful for
    your own well being because you know that he only beats his wife.
    But small town values also means that everyone wrote her life off
    long before she died. There’s a reason why TDS couldn’t get anyone
    at the RNC to explain what small town values are – because there
    aren’t any. Ultimately, it means fewer unknowns in your worldly
    reach and that’s about it. A maximum security prison has the same
    unique values, as it happens. I’ve lived everywhere from NYC to
    small Amish/Mennonite farming communities and everyplace in between
    and the people are fundamentally all pretty much the same. You get
    good and bad clusters, but that’s true of L.A. as well as LA.

  33. 33.

    libarbarian

    October 2, 2008 at 11:33 am

    I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m sick of small-town bullshit.
    I’ve been to small towns that were nice and I’ve been to those
    which we havens of drug abuse and trailer-park welfare queens. They
    have no claim to moral superiority. Also -I need to get this off my
    chest – I wish Texas would shut the fuck up about how “American”
    they are. I’m from the East – how many regiments from Texas took
    part in the Revolution? Oh, thats right, none – because it was part
    of Mexico then and, as far as I’m concerned, still fucking is. Fuck
    Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.

  34. 34.

    RememberNovember

    October 2, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Yeah, not like those elitest snobs in the Brooklyn Navy Yards who
    helped build battleships, or those effete American Indians who
    built some of America’s greatest architectural giants, or them
    slackers who plastered some cement to connect the 5 Boros together
    in the form of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Triboro and Queensboro
    bridges….. Or those dandies who flung fish caught in far off
    waters ( maybe even Alaska) on Fulton Street… what a donut ( or
    mebbe a bagel, since Im a NY’er)

  35. 35.

    Kamishna ya Watu Xenos

    October 2, 2008 at 11:36 am

    I can haz paragraphs!

    How? I tried to follow all the techie threads, but
    this latest version of the site confounds me.

  36. 36.

    Va Highlander

    October 2, 2008 at 11:39 am

    I live in a rural town smaller than Wasilla, Alaska. We have one of
    the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the state. I’ve seen
    ten-year-old kids on bicycles acting as go betweens for drug deals,
    watched the hand-off take place right in front of me within sight
    of the police station.<br><br> I don’t really mind
    living here, not really. The people are relatively friendly. The
    people running the government are a corrupt, greedy bunch of
    know-nothing assholes and being a small town, there’s fuck all you
    can do about it. There are upwards of 30 churches in this county,
    most of them fundamentalist snake handlers, but it’s just not what
    I’d call and idyllic setting or even particularly moral or
    upstanding, not once you scratch the surface.<br><br>
    I’ve lived in much more densely populated areas. They just weren’t
    quite so clean and the social scene was more intense – and honest.

  37. 37.

    Shaggy

    October 2, 2008 at 11:39 am

    Montysano, That makes sense to me. As a former (gulp) scientist,
    who had to get out of science about 3 years ago because of a lack
    of funding, I think it is fair to say that I know many scientists
    in certain fields who feel that Democrats provide more funding than
    Republicans for scientific research (including that bear study
    McCain ridiculed). Furthermore, if we have more wars in the near
    future, or protract our current wars, those lovely engineers in
    north Alabama get to keep their jobs.

  38. 38.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:39 am

    [fuck it, I’m not even going to try and blockquote] Juan del Llano
    said: “I have new criteria: peace, quiet, nature, and clean
    air. At the moment my wife and I live at the end of a dirt road on
    the south end of Taos.” . . . Ok, you’ve got me there. Peace,
    quiet, nature, and clean air are definitely not a regular aspect of
    Big City living (tho’ my new neighborhood has an absolutely
    gob-smackingly beautiful and amazing park – Old growth trees! A
    Bald eagle! A coyote (since died, poor thing). Also: decapitated
    chicken heads left over from Santaria rituals! And the West Side
    Highway! So it’s a compromise). It’s always been my plan to retire
    to the SW, eventually: maybe the Las Vegas area (New Mexico, not
    Nevada, natch), or somewhere around Flagstaff. But it’s either that
    or NYC, in my book. No middle ground for me.

  39. 39.

    jake

    October 2, 2008 at 11:41 am

    JdL’s post raises the question of how one acquires small town
    values. Does one have to be born and raised in a small town? Do
    people who move there from large cities clutter up the moral
    environment or do they gradually acquire the ideal characteristics?
    What about people who move from small to large towns? Are they
    doomed to become depraved, baby eating, gay aborting fiends? And
    finally, who do I have to blow to get a paragraph in this place?

  40. 40.

    bago

    October 2, 2008 at 11:42 am

    Sometimes I find it hard to sleep without the sounds of server
    fans.

  41. 41.

    bago

    October 2, 2008 at 11:43 am

    OOh, ninja edits! sexy. Like that.

  42. 42.

    Ned Raggett

    October 2, 2008 at 11:45 am

    @Comrade Dreggas: No shit
    sherlock.
    It’s funny you should say that, Dreggas — when I
    first saw this post, I thought of one of my favorite bits from,
    indeed, Sherlock Holmes. To quote: —- By eleven o’clock the next
    day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes
    had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after
    we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to
    admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky,
    flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west
    to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an
    exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy.
    All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around
    Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings
    peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage. “Are they
    not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man
    fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. But Holmes shook his head
    gravely. “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the
    curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at
    everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at
    these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I
    look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling
    of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be
    committed there.” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate
    crime with these dear old homesteads?” “They always fill me with a
    certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my
    experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not
    present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and
    beautiful countryside.” “You horrify me!” “But the reason is very
    obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the
    law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of
    a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget
    sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole
    machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can
    set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the
    dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields,
    filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of
    the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden
    wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and
    none the wiser.” — A classic bit of Conan Doyle melodrama, to be
    sure, and one from over a century ago in a different country. And
    yet… (For those interested, the story is “The Adventure of the
    Copper Beeches,” which you can find pretty much anywhere on the
    net, the stories of Holmes being long out of copyright.)

  43. 43.

    Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)

    October 2, 2008 at 11:47 am

    @Kamishna ya Watu Xenos: Re:
    paragraphs. Type your text, then highlight it and push the “P”
    button.

  44. 44.

    Josh Huaco

    October 2, 2008 at 11:47 am

    I wish Texas would shut the fuck up about how “American” they
    are.

    Don’t get me started. This state has an
    angry-fucking-midget complex the size of,
    well……………..FRANCE!

  45. 45.

    Komrade Kharles

    October 2, 2008 at 11:48 am

    My favorite part: that four out of every five Americans are
    elitists! Kinda like “the non-conformist clique” or “all
    Republicans are mavericks.”

  46. 46.

    Martin

    October 2, 2008 at 11:49 am

    Well, looks like the template is still pretty fucked for quoting
    and paragraphs.

  47. 47.

    Deb T

    October 2, 2008 at 11:51 am

    I’m grew up in a small town and even though I live in a moderate
    sized city now, I visit my relatives in the country quite often.
    Let me assure you. There is no truth to rural superior morality –
    there’s just fewer people. Rural local governing bodies are often
    as corrupt as anything you’ll find in the city, state or federal
    governments- again, there just not as much money at stake, even
    though local corruption can have a more immediate, direct effect on
    the people. In the county where my cousin lives, the local water
    board was siphoning money and cutting illegal deals under the
    carpet for years. They spent homeland securtiy money on gambling,
    new trucks and whatever the hell else they desired. They didn’t
    care about their neighbors. When there was a shortfall in funds,
    they raised the water bills. You could get one for $40 one month
    and $300 the next. Folks finally had enough. It took almost two
    years, but they finally got busted. The farm down the road was
    raided for growing marijuana and while the cops where there, they
    found the beginnings of a meth lab. There are meth labs all over
    the county. There are murders, usually spouse on spouse, and plenty
    of assaults, especially domestic battery. And there’s a lot of
    adultery. Rural folk are not exempt from divorce statistics. People
    are people and rural folk are no different than city folk, there’s
    just fewer of them. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

  48. 48.

    KXB

    October 2, 2008 at 11:52 am

    While the argument of small towns versus big cities is as old as
    the Republic itself, there is one thing that is left out. Most
    Americans no longer live in small towns or big cities, but in
    suburbs. In that case, you can argue that metropolitan area values
    are up for debate. And increasingly, suburbs do offer many of the
    attractions that used to once be found solely in big cities. In the
    Chicago area, Indian and other Asian immigrants increasingly move
    from their home countries straight to the suburbs, bypassing a stay
    in Chicago. And given that many of these immigrants are
    old-fashioned, they sure seem to find a hospitable environment in
    those suburbs. My biggest problem for the small town values
    argument is that if they wee such great places to live, why do they
    keep dwindling? Cities can re-invent themselves. Charlotte remade
    itself from being merely an important business center in NC to one
    of the nation’s banking capitals – but what has happened to the
    small towns of North Carolina? Why are they not attracting
    hard-working Americans?

  49. 49.

    Josh Huaco

    October 2, 2008 at 11:52 am

    “Fuck Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.” No offense taken, bro. I
    understand. Texas would be as great a place as Texans think it is
    if they only possessed the self-awareness and humility necessary to
    understand that it totally underachieves and needs to be better.

  50. 50.

    pb

    October 2, 2008 at 11:52 am

    <blockquote>This is how you do it</blockquote>

    It’s messing up the entities, just like the old site used to…

    use &amp;lt; and &amp;gt; instead of &lt; and
    &gt; until it’s fixed. Ugh.

  51. 51.

    cyntax

    October 2, 2008 at 11:53 am

    How many big city first-respnders died on 9/11? You know, that
    event that the Repubs so dearly love to trot out during election
    years (or any other time they want something from the electorate).

  52. 52.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:56 am

    “I wish Texas would shut the fuck up about how “American” they
    are.”

    As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. They were their own
    country at one time: and, therefore, the least “American” of any
    of the states.

    . . .

    Of course, I’m a Yankee at heart and I kind of think that there
    are only 13 “American” States, so you shouldn’t listen to me. ;)

  53. 53.

    BombIranForChrist

    October 2, 2008 at 11:58 am

    “Because they are elitists! City dwellers obviously haven’t
    discovered that the best meth is served up in the sticks! ” Oh
    yeah. This is very high quality snark. Who needs the sweet, sweet
    call of crystal meth when you have this stuff. I don’t.

  54. 54.

    Melinda

    October 2, 2008 at 11:58 am

    I can’t remember the source or the exact text of one of my favorite
    comments about this stuff, which is along the lines that listening
    to the likes of Peggy Noonan and David Brooks talk about rural
    people is like listening to some assistant professor at a
    not-very-distinguished junior college extol the dignity of the
    indigenous people of Peru. I live on a small farm in the boondocks.
    I’ve tried living in cities and nearly went nuts. I don’t expect
    other people to like living the way I do – each to their own. I
    find that Democrats tend to be as witlessly derisive about small
    town and rural living as Republicans tend to be witlessly
    adulatory, and both can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. I’d
    like to see both Republicans and Democrats try to be a little more
    policy-focused and a lot less values-focused when talking about
    this stuff.

  55. 55.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 11:59 am

    “How many big city first-respnders died on 9/11? You know, that
    event that the Repubs so dearly love to trot out during election
    years (or any other time they want something from the electorate).”

    Don’t even get this previously downtown New Yorker started.

  56. 56.

    Walker

    October 2, 2008 at 11:59 am

    For everyone bitching about small towns (the drink and fuck crowd),
    the internet has changed a lot of that. My wife comes from big
    cities, but we live in a farmhouse in rural central New York. She
    remarks that because of the internet she never really feels
    isolated (she is also ten years my junior, and spent her teens with
    full internet access).

    Furthermore, a lot of kids these days are forming more social
    groups online than they are in the real world.

  57. 57.

    libarbarian

    October 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    “Fuck Texas. Ok, I’m feeling better now.” No offense taken, bro.
    I understand. Texas would be as great a place as Texans think it is
    if they only possessed the self-awareness and humility necessary to
    understand that it totally underachieves and needs to be
    better.
    Thanks for understanding. I got nothing against it
    really, but Ive met too many Texans who think the world revolves
    around Texas to not have a small chip on my shoulder :).

  58. 58.

    GSD

    October 2, 2008 at 12:01 pm

    We’re proud of our highest rape in the nation statistics here in
    small town Alaska. We’re number one. -Sarah the Mooseburger Maker

  59. 59.

    Josh Huaco

    October 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    “As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. They were their
    own country at one time: and, therefore, the least “American” of
    any of the states.”
    I hear that shit all the time down here as
    a point of pride, ‘Yuh know, Texas is the only state that used to
    be its own kuntree.’ If you really want to piss off a Texan, remind
    them that they tried being their own country twice and EPIC FAIL’d
    it both times. Thanks for understanding. I got nothing against
    it really, but Ive met too many Texans who think the world revolves
    around Texas to not have a small chip on my shoulder :).
    No
    worries. :) Most Texans are actually all right, if a little behind
    the curve socially. It’s the mouthy shitheads who you’re talking
    about that give it a bad name.

  60. 60.

    cyntax

    October 2, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede. Most Texans
    I’ve met would be totally on-board with this. I get the impression
    that they see themselves as the standard we should all aspire to
    but can’t since we aren’t from Texas. =)

  61. 61.

    Comrade Dread

    October 2, 2008 at 12:09 pm

    California was its own Republic too. But the wingnuts already think
    we’re the least American. The small town moral superiority thing is
    mostly based on community. The town is small enough that everyone
    knows everyone else. This completely ignores the fact that people
    find and build communities in urban areas through schools,
    churches, neighborhood activities, etc.

  62. 62.

    cyntax

    October 2, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Don’t even get this previously downtown New Yorker started.
    Wow, and I thought I found Guilani annoying… I can only imagine
    the blood pressure meds you must need when he’s on-screen. Is it
    just my lame ass or is the {br} tag not working now in comments?

  63. 63.

    Shaggy

    October 2, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    @Melinda: To the best of my
    recollection, the Republicans (at least in this election cycle)
    sort of have a monopoly on this kind of geography-speak. Or have
    you noticed otherwise? Not that it matters; they both do it, and
    it’s all just more needless pandering to a particular voting bloc.

  64. 64.

    Dennis - SGMM

    October 2, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    The myth of rural virtue is just the latest manifestation of the
    18th century’s sentimentalizing of primitivism in The Noble Savage.
    Like those 18th savants, the people who are most emphatic about the
    virtues of primitivism are those who never lived it.

  65. 65.

    Marshall

    October 2, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    California was a republic, as was Hawaii.

  66. 66.

    libarbarian

    October 2, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    No worries. :) Most Texans are actually all right, if a little
    behind the curve socially. It’s the mouthy shitheads who you’re
    talking about that give it a bad name.
        Actually,
    some were my good friends, but when they got drunk the “Texas is
    the best” talk would begin :).

  67. 67.

    D. Mason

    October 2, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    I’ve lived in small towns, small cities and suburbs of small
    cities, never in a large city like Chicago or New York. I can only
    agree with the sentiment that you have vice, immorality, kindness
    and charity based on the people around you and not on the
    population density of the place you live. I think a lot of people,
    especially politicians use the term “small town values” to describe
    something more accurately called “community values”, which is
    something America is sorely lacking in. Assholes like Sarah Palin
    make the assumption that because people live in a small town they
    naturally have community values and that’s bullshit. Palin has a
    myopic view of the world based on her life in Alaska and she puts
    country living(not that there’s anything wrong with country living)
    way up on a pedestal. Maybe it’s grounded in her experiences and
    Wasilla really does have a nice community going, but I’ll never
    know. What I do know is that you can’t judge someone lifestyle
    without having experienced it and she is mighty thin on life
    experience to be passing as much judgment as she does. (edit)P.S.
    thanks for the edit function, I can has paragraphs pls? kthxbai.

  68. 68.

    libarbarian

    October 2, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Like those 18th savants, the people who are most emphatic about
    the virtues of primitivism are those who never lived it.
    Hit
    the nail on the head.

  69. 69.

    GeneJockey

    October 2, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    The reason “Small Town” appeals work with a lot of people is
    because they still think of America as a country of small towns,
    and see the metro areas where most Americans actually live as
    not-REALLY-American. I remember watching “Armageddon”, one of the
    two “Comet threatens the Earth” movies from a few years back. After
    the comet was successfully defeated (after a fragment destroyed
    them snooty Frenchies in Paris), one of the scenes they showed was
    a group of kids dressed in archetypal small town costumes – like
    overalls with no shirt – pushing a cobbled-together space
    shuttle-lookin’ thing down the unpaved main street of Mythical
    Small Town, USA. It really summed it all up for me – that’s how we
    want to see ourselves. It also explains, I think, why so many still
    cling to caveat emptor, anti-unionism, and opposition to government
    regulations. They want to see business and the economy as if it
    were still one-on-one transactions, and that cheating or shoddy
    goods will inevitably lead to loss of customers, or that nobody
    would work for an employer who didn’t take their safety seriously.

  70. 70.

    Shinobi

    October 2, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    My boyfriend is from a small town. A few months ago the bank teller
    in his former small town told my boyfriend’s Mom that I am
    bisexual. A random bank teller, whom I have never met.

    Small town values: Closemindedness, Gossip and Guns

    I only visit for the guns.

  71. 71.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    “I can only imagine the blood pressure meds you must need when he’s
    on-screen”

    Oh, you have no idea whatsoever.

    Let me put it this way: I used to work with a homeless
    organization during Giuliani’s mayoralty. We used the term “death
    squad” quite literally.

  72. 72.

    vaux-rien

    October 2, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    @SGEW: <i>Let me put it this
    way: I used to work with a homeless organization during Giuliani’s
    mayoralty. We used the term “death squad” quite
    literally.</i> <p> My old roommate had a theory about
    the Ranch One chain of chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the
    same time that all the homeless disappeared.

  73. 73.

    CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII

    October 2, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    California was a republic, as was Hawaii.

    What was Alaska?

  74. 74.

    Marshall

    October 2, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    It is my belief, Watson, founded on my experience, that the
    lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful
    record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside….

    But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion
    can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no
    lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child or the thud of a
    drunkard’s blow, does not begat sympathy and indignation among
    the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is so
    close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but
    a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely
    houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with
    poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds
    of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year
    in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

    Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.

  75. 75.

    Marshall

    October 2, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    Alaska was a Russian colony and then an America territory. It was
    never an independent country in the Western sense.

  76. 76.

    A la lanterne les aristos!

    October 2, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    People are people all over, but I think cities are the best thing
    to happen to civilization. Heck, I think they are
    civilization. Cities mean having to think bigger, to deal with
    folks and situations outside of your comfort zone. I essentially
    lived in a small town when I was little, everyone knew who the gay
    guy was and which families were poor. In a city the disenfranchised
    can find each other and form communities of their own. And with
    communities comes power and a voice. Civil rights movements don’t
    generally spring up in small towns. So yeah, there are nice things
    about small communities, and I can picture maybe living in a small
    town someday. But if I do it’ll probably be near a big city.

  77. 77.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    “My old roommate had a theory about the Ranch One chain of
    chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the same time that all the
    homeless disappeared.”

    . . .

    Oh shit. That’s fucked up, yo.

    But there’s no need for theories about the homeless. Giuliani’s
    goons just killed them on the streets and on Rikers, and then
    dumped ’em in Freshkills, where they still rest with the remains of
    some of the WTC victims.

    . . .

    I need to go lie down for a minute. God I hate that monstrous
    motherfucker.

  78. 78.

    jake

    October 2, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
    paragraph breaks.

    I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
    paragraph breaks.

    I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
    paragraph breaks.

    I will not complain about the fact that I have to hand code
    paragraph breaks.

  79. 79.

    Marshall

    October 2, 2008 at 12:44 pm

    Oh, and Hawaii was originally a monarchy, and if you go there and
    talk to the Hawaii Sovereignty people you will get an earful about
    its illegal overthrow.

  80. 80.

    A la lanterne les aristos!

    October 2, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    Hmmm

    I guess line breaks in the preview are lies.

    They need to be added manually?

  81. 81.

    Bootlegger

    October 2, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    I was raised in the suburbs of Dallas–Plano, TX. We made the cover of "Rolling Stone" twice, first for the 15 suicides my senior year in high school (’84), then in the 90’s for a heroin epidemic that took another 20 (the kids claimed they didn’t know it was heroin, it was sold to them as "chivas" and they snorted it).

    I spent a lot of time in cesspool urban areas: Dallas, Denver, Tucson, Chicago, where you can barely breathe through the pollution, a locked car is a target, and traffic makes driving a car an absolute nightmare.

    I currently live in "rural" Kentucky, a town of 15,000 with a small liberal arts college. It is very progressive, quiet and a great place to raise kids. I rarely lock the doors to my home in the Appalaichan foothills. We have an awesome public library and the college and two nearby universities bring in all kinds of cultural events. You couldn’t pay me enough money to move back to the suburbs or do anything other than visit an urban center.

    That said, the idea that small-town values are superior is as fatuous as the idea that urban-dwellers are smarter. People can suck anywhere. Stupid people can live anywhere. Crime happens everywhere. Redneck racists live all over the US (check out the Southern Poverty Law Center’s map, the Bay Area has a large concentration). Lifestyles are a matter of personal choice and not one of character and people who build straw men of either cities or towns do so just to blow a wad when they knock it down.

  82. 82.

    Marshall

    October 2, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    I see that Ned Raggett got the Sherlock Holmes quote in before me. Pardons for the duplication.

  83. 83.

    Bootlegger

    October 2, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    If I may quote Owen Harper in re cannibalism; “Only in the
    countryside!”

    Dhamer was from Milwaukee.

  84. 84.

    Comrade Dread

    October 2, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Oh, and Hawaii was originally a monarchy, and if you go there and talk to the Hawaii Sovereignty people you will get an earful about its illegal overthrow.

    cite>

    No, no. Get your verbiage up to date.

    We helped ‘liberate’ them from an oppressive autocrat who had the gall to want to exert more influence over the sugar plantations owned by US companies. Whether they wanted to be liberated or not.

  85. 85.

    Doctor Jay

    October 2, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    The kind of person that bugged me most in the small town I grew up in was the kind that would tell you how it was the greatest place to live on earth even though they had never lived anywhere else.

    That sort of person, I’ve found, can live anywhere.

  86. 86.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    Ned Raggett @43, and Marshall, y’all beat me to it. Sherlock was on to something.
    I live in a small town with a high pregnancy rate, high child and spousal abuse rate, high incest rate… Not too much overt crime (ok, a trailer meth lab will explode occasionally, and there are some ‘trailers of ill repute’ so to speak), the cops will bust a certain roadside rest stop periodically, and arrest a number of men having sex with men, and a couple will be ministers…
    The politics are awful, one city has reelected a mayor who was busted for cockfighting (after telling me that the local "Arts in the Park" show "brings in a bad crowd…"), and the newspaper routinely covers up criminality in the business classes.
    I like living here for the scenery, and ’cause it’s home, there are good folks and and bad folks… I’ll not sentimentalize it. It is "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy", but it’s my more wretched hive…

  87. 87.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    I hope this moderation thingy is just automatic and not ’cause of anything I said…

  88. 88.

    RemeberNovember

    October 2, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    @vaux-rien

    "My old roommate had a theory about
    the Ranch One chain of chicken sandwich restaurants emerging at the
    same time that all the homeless disappeared."

    kind of funny cuz they’re not really around anymore- the one on Seventh and 28th is out of business. Coincidence?

  89. 89.

    Mike

    October 2, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    I think it was Dave Marsh who pointed out that even people from big cities love John Mellancamp’s "Small Town". The only difference is that their small town is the neighborhood in Brooklyn where they grew up.

  90. 90.

    gex

    October 2, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Aren’t they one of those welfare red states that gets more from the Feds than they pay in? They talk big, but they loves them that sweet sweet welfare they get from those tax-loving liberal blue states.

  91. 91.

    gex

    October 2, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    The blockquotes should contain "As far as I’m concerned, Texas should secede." But I tried following the XHTML instructions above the post, so I was clearly asking for it.

  92. 92.

    Soylent Green

    October 2, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    Remember this?
     

    We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
    We don’t take our trips on LSD
    We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
    We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.
     
    I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
    A place where even squares can have a ball
    We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
    And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all
     
    We don’t make a party out of lovin’;
    We like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo;
    We don’t let our hair grow long and shaggy,
    Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.
     
    And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
    A place where even squares can have a ball.
    We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
    And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.
     
    Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear;
    Beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen.
    Football’s still the roughest thing on campus,
    And the kids here still respect the college dean.
     
    We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
    In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

     
     
    Of course the rubes never figured out that Haggard was making fun of them.

  93. 93.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    The kind of person that bugged me most in the small town I grew up in was the kind that would tell you how it was the greatest place to live on earth even though they had never lived anywhere else.

    But I live in NYC: we’re officially the "Greatest City On Earth."

    It says so right on the signs on the lightposts. That is why Mr. Bloomberg will be Mayor for Life.

    . . .

    Are you saying that Mr. Bloomberg is lying to me? ;)

  94. 94.

    gex

    October 2, 2008 at 1:53 pm

    "The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. "

    Kinda like that news story about a clan in NC who, when one of their own was hurt, went and killed the wrong guy. But they thought he did it, and that was good enough. Talk about applying pressure!

  95. 95.

    Fledermaus

    October 2, 2008 at 1:59 pm

    The thing that annoys me is the bizarre need for validation that the small town folk have (and southerners). It’s not enough that they lead superior lives (or believe they do) but everyone must agree with them that they’re superior or else they’re an elitist snob. Just like NASCAR and hunting. It’s not enough to see the appeal or have no problem with those things, you must say that they are the best.things.evar! and you’re interests are stupid and dumb and elitiest.

    It’s kinda sad living with the constant need for validation, it’s almost as if they really don’t believe what they are saying. Also news flash rural people, us urban elitists don’t spend all our time snickering behing our hands at you, we actually have better things to do. To tell the truth we really don’t think about you much at all. Perhaps one day you’ll extend us the same courtisey

  96. 96.

    Fledermaus

    October 2, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    I guess it could be chalked up to the fact that you have to give a crap about people’s opinions of you in small towns because of the clickishness and the fact that there aren’t many other people there. While in the city you get used to the fact that some people are going to think you’re an asshole or whatever. But it’s easy to not give a shit because unless you work with them it’s just not going to affect you that much.

  97. 97.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    I, as a rural guy, am tired of the protestations of rural virtue, or superiority. As a southerner, heck, hillbilly, I think the Confederacy and the mindset that lead to it was insane. I can see why some folks felt demonized during the Civil Rights era, and they should feel that way, because of the apartheid that was the Jim Crow south. I like cities, or at least see the need for them. I’ve traveled (Florence I my favorite city, followed by Arretzo, then Asheville NC, then San Francisco), like the Northeast (y’all have the same backcountry deer huntin’, beer drinkin’, truck drivin’ culture, they just talk funny). There are plenty of sane and non ignorant people here. There are just too many folks who captured by silly versions of religion and politics. But the weird little town I live in has had the most astonishing inmigration of gay people who want to try some thing different and they have enriched this burgs life, dispite a lot of prejudice. Heck, I finally felt comfortable about coming to terms with being gay at 45.
    I moved back home when my late wife and I, confronted with the choice of her taking a teaching job here or me keeping a teaching job in ATL, were awoken when someone blew a pimp’s Lincoln behind our apartment at 3 a.m. It was a decent choice, and our kids have done well, and we have made sure to let them see the bigger world. They may still want to live here if there is a livelihood. But they text, are mad for anime, have friends in other countries. Their peers, as a group, aren’t as perjudiced as their parents, and seem less worried about sexuality and crazy religion.
    There are real people, and good people everywhere, as well as fakes and bad people. For my part, a lot of folks could save themselves some trouble in asserting, say, Northern superiority (in all things;y’all got us beat in snow removal), or Southern superiority (in gettin’ government largess, say). The politics of morality is immoral, and I apologize for my region’s heavy hand there. I have been annoyed by some urbanites (guys I went to school with, who were shocked we had always had flush toilets and tv on the farm, the dude who inevitably said "oh, the only real cheesecake is from" a certain deli I would probably never visit), but I tried to be polite. There is an identity politics in regionalism that once spun out of control, and it should be avoided.
    Either we hang together (no matter how difficult or annoying) or we all hang separately. And forgive these sort of random mootings here.

  98. 98.

    nicethugbert

    October 2, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    Oh stop it, rural virtue some sheep’s bleater!

  99. 99.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    And I meant to say, cites cannot exist with out a rural infrastructure. Issac Asimov’s planet-city of Trantor (and it’s conceptual child, Coruscant in Star Wars) were fantasies. The Farmer and the Merchant need each other.
    And Rural America is probably somewhat resentful at it’s need for Urban America, which politicians of a certain type exploit….

  100. 100.

    Ras

    October 2, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    I’m personally sick of the condenscending "salt of the earth" bullshit Palin has re-ignited about rural and small town people.

    I grew up on a family farm in Central Missouri, population 4. I didn’t care about the cities, it was the townies like Palin who were the elitists in my life. (Sorry bud, if you live in a town, you ain’t "rural".)

    In fact we used to laugh that every small-town jack-off with a pickup truck thinks they’re some kind of farmer. One comparison of the shiny, unscratched bed of their immaculate pickup with the pigshit-encrusted, dented beaters we drove made the point.

    Racism, ignorance, and dishonesty are just as common among us "salts" as they are in any other demographic group. I knew farmers that grew weed to help make ends meet. Not that I would ever do anything like that…ahem.

    The problem now is that a major political party made up of dishonest, greedy assholes from the very metroplises they decry think that they can pander to the egotistical townies among us to whore a few more votes.

    Don’t fall for it.

  101. 101.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 3:25 pm

    @MR Bill: Great post. (Sincerely!)

    But I have one quibble:

    the dude who inevitably said "oh, the only real cheesecake is from" a certain deli I would probably never visit

    I am that dude. And I’m right. There’s only one real cheesecake. I swears it. ;)

    No, seriously. Junior’s cheesecake is unbelievably good, and I’ve had a lot of cheesecake in a lot of places. (oh noes! Not the cheesecake flame war!)

  102. 102.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    No, seriously. Junior’s cheesecake is unbelievably good, and I’ve had a lot of cheesecake in a lot of places. (oh noes! Not the cheesecake flame war!)

    Sir, such an assertion makes me want action.

    I propose you Fed-ex me one of said cheesecake, and I’ll get back to you on the quality….

  103. 103.

    jj

    October 2, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Last seen on a billboard while driving through a small town in rural Maryland

    "If She’s 17, It’s Rape"

    Erm, what was that you were saying governor Palin?

  104. 104.

    SGEW

    October 2, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    I propose you Fed-ex me one of said cheesecake, and I’ll get back to you on the quality….

    A friend of mine actually did this*, and the results were disastrous. Disastrous! There were ramifications and incriminations. No cheesecake was enjoyed in the process.

    Disclosure: Junior’s cheesecake is much, much too rich and sweet, too creamy, and has a "weird" mouth-feel for some people (primarily midwesteners**; they hate it!). But for those of us (NE folk, but not those weirdos in PA) who are used to it, Junior’s is da bomb. . . . Oh jeez. Now I gotta go and get some double chocolate on my way to the debate party tonight.

    *Ok ok, I admit it. It was a friend of a friend, but my friend swears it’s true!
    **What, you like your cheesecake chewy? What the hell is wrong with you?! :)

  105. 105.

    MR Bill

    October 2, 2008 at 4:24 pm

    DANG. I guess I’ll have to take yer word for it…

  106. 106.

    hw

    October 2, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    There’s something to be said for small-town living (sense of community, livable scale), but this is way over-played by the right. In small towns and rural areas you’ll also find:

    -vindictive gossip
    -small-mindedness
    -intolerance
    -truly epic drunkenness
    -surprisingly high amounts of substance abuse
    -wanton drinking and driving / drinking and snowmobiling etc.
    -misogyny
    -homophobia
    -some of the fattest and least healthy people you’ll meet anywhere (lots of smokers, too)
    -widespread boredom and malaise
    -horrifying cases of sexual and physical abuse
    -lax law enforcement

    The list goes on and on. These are all observations from personal experiences growing up in several different rural areas. I’m sure that suburban and urban areas are similarly blighted, but my experience in cities has been slightly better.

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