It is early afternoon, I'm sitting here waiting for the other DrC to decide when or if she wants lunch. So I spot an article at RealClearPolitics with an intriguing title concerning left-behind towns in the great fly-over and give it a read.
Let's just say author Jessa Crispin and I don't see eye-to-eye. She apparently originated in Kansas, escaped to somewhere far from there, has a history of dragging herself back there on holidays, and has finally given up doing so. Her values are urban, those of Kansas are not. She whines:
Much of the midwest, south and west – really anything west of Chicago, south of St Louis or east of Reno – exists in this vacuum-sealed state. Deemed problematic by the coasts, this mushy middle often remains underserved by its own governors and legislators and cut off from cultural supply lines and opportunities for mobility and influence.
I hope she now lives somewhere she is more comfortable, with buses, subways, and fancy foreign food. It is my strong suspicion she isn't much missed back home in KS where she no longer visits. The people back home don't miss the things she forlornly wishes they had.
How do I know this? Because I voluntarily moved to "left behind" country and I love it. I summer in western Wyoming and winter 500 miles south in eastern Nevada, both places are the antithesis of urban.
My neighbors love it too. Having a motor vehicle is essential, everybody has one or more and we afford them. Distances are too far for EVs to be practical, a feature (as opposed to a defect) nobody I know complains about. Some fool put an EV charging station in the Walmart parking lot; in over two years I've seen it in use exactly one time.
Author Crispin is happy she escaped Kansas, I am happy I escaped California. Isn't it nice we both are happy with where we are? Isn't it nice not everywhere is alike? I celebrate the joys of federalism, of pluralism.
