Monday, February 15, 2010

First came "MTV Unplugged"; now we have "CNN Unhinged".

So, I went to peruse the article on the latest round of snow and ice being deposited south of the Mason-Dixon and made the mistake of reading the comments. Oh boy.
All you eastern people are overreacting. here in the north like northern illinois. we get several feet of snow and everything goes smoothly after the first day. its just snow! its not acid people. really!
Well, that's because in northern Illinois, you have the infrastructure to deal with it. In Atlanta or Birmingham, it wouldn't make sense to spend money on salt trucks and plows that rust away between uses. It's cheaper to just let folks deal with it. Besides, it all melts off in a couple days, anyway.
Living here in the almost deep south, I can't help but think that a good, l-o-n-g, h-a-r-d, freeze of say 10- to 20-years might do the "deep South" some good. At least it would drive out all the crazies and bigots, and spread 'em around the country.
I know you think that you're terribly cosmopolitan compared to the rubes which surround you, but when you finally get your dream job busing tables in the Central Perk coffee house, you are going to be bitterly disappointed to find that bigots and crazies are pretty evenly geographically distributed throughout the US. (Also, if you carefully parse your comment, you'll realize that the nearest one is in the mirror.)
Ever see The Day After Tomorrow?
Please go play Kiss The Locomotive.

26 comments:

OA said...

"Living here in the almost deep south, I can't help but think that a good, l-o-n-g, h-a-r-d, freeze of say 10- to 20-years might do the "deep South" some good. At least it would drive out all the crazies and bigots, and spread 'em around the country."

Translation: I'm one of the many transplants that hasn't figured out being rude isn't appreciated here.

CGHill said...

It takes a true microcephalic to quote a Hollywood movie - and a not-very-good Hollywood movie at that - as backup for a statement he intends to be serious.

WV: "rearnses." What they needs the kicks in, my precious.

Tam said...

We grew them natively, too.

It's very fashionable to hate your birthplace in certain demographics; it's a sort of tribal tattoo that allows them to recognize each other during mating season around the water hole.

Poor little artistes never learn the Great Lesson of St. Banzai:"Wherever you go, there you are."

Joanna said...

The Day After Tomorrow? Is that the one with the scene where people trapped in a library resort to burning books instead of the fracking furniture? Because books are a more heart-wrenching fuel?

Weapons grade stupid, right there, and I'm talking about the filmmakers.

OA said...

"It's very fashionable to hate your birthplace in certain demographics..."

Aye. I know a guy that was born in Mississippi and lived there for a grand total of his first few months on the planet. He held that his birthplace, along with the people around him not being cosmopolitan enough, were why he had problems with friends and women. He now lives in Chicago and still has problems with friends and women. I guess it's easier to believe that some sort of Mississippi funk is what causes it, rather than social autism.

Divemedic said...

The people that move here to the south from more northern areas really torque me- no matter what, the north does it better, as in: "It is hotter in the summer, colder in the winter, we make more money, work harder, the food is better ...(ten minutes later)... up north."

Yet, it was so great wherever you came from that you moved. Here. and now you are trying to make here to be just like the place you left.

That's right. We here in the south are a bunch of ignorant rubes who must be taught everything by our betters in the northern states.

Jay T said...

Living in the South I've become accustomed to the comments about bigots, racists and sleeping with cousins. For some people I think they believe it sets them apart to state how terrible things are even while they live here. Frankly, the worst bigot I have personally met was from Boston.

Don said...

Shall I take this to mean that you didn't hear what Dick Durbin said on the floor of the Senate about how wussy Washingtonians are about snow and how manly Chicago is?

You should find it. It was all about being crazy. There was a dystopian system of OB-Gyn doctors brainwashing newborns via heartless conditioning and everything.

WV: "Cadian" Noun. Person who cooks things that look like monsters in boiling water and burned flour and never has to shovel snow 'cause de snow, she just float on de bayou 'till she melt anyways.

Anonymous said...

They can give the "North" back to the Indians...the problem is, the Indians are too smart...they won't take it!!

cap'n chumbucket

Noah D said...

Ever see The Day After Tomorrow?

Yes, and I fully support releasing dire wolves into Manhattan Island.

Old Grouch said...

Should I ever relocate "down South," I hope that I will acquire at least one friend to whom I can say, "If you ever catch me behaving like one of those damn Northerners, please smack me upside the head."

Trouble is, most of the southerners I've met are either too polite or too tolerant of eccentricity to ever take something like that seriously.

Tam said...

If you believe Florence King, it's actually a little shameful if you don't have at least one crazy relative locked in an attic someplace.

Firehand said...

Yes, but he likes politically-correct bigots! It's a big difference from the other kind!

Have family in Colorado who have to deal with assholes from CA and OR who move there 'to get away from (fill in the blank)', and then start trying to pass laws to make it more like where they left. Obvious question, "If it's so wonderful there, why are you here?" has never gotten a good answer.

Rojo said...

I have to agree that the south has a disproportionate population of "crazies". Being an X Texan, who had the good sense to move to California, I also have to say it extends to most of Texas and Oklahoma.

BobG said...

"Have family in Colorado who have to deal with assholes from CA and OR who move there 'to get away from (fill in the blank)', and then start trying to pass laws to make it more like where they left."

Same problem here in Utah; they keep trying to Caliform the place once they move here.

Tam said...

"I have to agree that the south has a disproportionate population of "crazies". Being an X Texan, who had the good sense to move to California..."

...you don't have a lot of room to point fingers.

Gewehr98 said...

Emigrate to Kalifornistan? Ewww...

(WV= "poxizite" - on your firstborn, no less...)

GeorgeH said...

Hey!
We're not totally unprepared. There is a snowplow thingie at the airport in Raleigh.

Stuart the Viking said...

My first ex-wife still lives in Illinois and was amazed that I am able to buy as many guns as I want down here in Florida (if I could afford it). I think it has something to do with living so close to Mordor (aka Chicago).

I don't hate the place I come from though. I really would love to move back to Illinois and find a little farm house and a few acres of land, but they would have to change the laws there to be more like here. Enforced helplessness is not my thing.

s

GuardDuck said...

"Have family in Colorado who have to deal with assholes from CA and OR who move there 'to get away from (fill in the blank)', and then start trying to pass laws to make it more like where they left."


Hey! Don't lump all us Oregonians in there. Those granola eating eco-freak commies came from Kalifornia in the first place. Either that or a native Oregonian caught the contagion from a Kalifornian.

Now, unfortunately for you, I've always done everything I can to encourage such peoples to leave Oregon for some nice place where it doesn't rain as much.

Joanna said...

How many Californians does it take to change a lightbulb? Five: One to change it and four to share the experience.

How many Oregonians does it take? Five: One to change it, and four to beat off the Californians who came to share the experience.

Anonymous said...

Such an attitude seems common. I once moved from the SF Bay Area to the New York metro area. Everyone in the New York area seemed a lot ruder and insulting...

Anonymous said...

It's interesting to note the place of Chicago and other cities in the riotous civil rights past, with Mayors uttering "shoot to kill" orders. The smarter Yankees immediately feel a bit less superior, at which point they are invited to share a glass of tea. I'll even give it to them unsweetened, if they like.

w.v distali: Boxing skill distribution application for Linux.

LabRat said...

Tam: believe Florence King. I grew up in Arizona, but my extended family are all boonies Gulf coast Southern. I could sit you down and regale you with beloved family tales of the time cousin Mayo or uncle Bing or aunt Lomie (all real names from my mother's side) went just a bit off and did things like sell the whole family's property or destroyed a graveyard on a lark.

Kevin said...

I've lived in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Kalifornia, and Arizona.
I came back to PA not for the people, but for (no kidding) the weather.

I'm far enough out of Pittsburgh where the people are rural and almost as friendly as southerners, yet I get all 4 seasons and it gets cold enough to kill most of the bugs and stunts the growth of the rest. Poisonous snakes are rare, and the wild turkeys and deer are not.
I would move back to Tennessee to be near my daughter and grandkids, but I detest the area around Ft Campbell - Stewart County is a blight on Tennessee, much like Philadelphia is the rectum of Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh is working hard to steal that title.

Neutrino Cannon said...

I always figured that we humans had this snow business whipped until the big march 2003 blizzard that was so bad that the snow-removal infrastructure didn't work anymore. Nothing went anywhere for about a week. Power, phone lines, cars, hell, even walking was hard if you didn't happen to have snowshoes. There was nothing to do but sit around and plead with the snow gods. I've made it a point not to underestimate mother nature anymore. She can still much stronger than we are and doesn't mind proving it once in a while.