“When You Feel The Pain In Your Foot, Stop Pulling The Trigger”
About the Author: I am an ex-urbanite who escaped the city life and has lived for the past 27 years in a rural, mountainous area of Virginia that in colonial and early-American times was part of the "Backcountry." Politics: Democrat by tradition, but moderate-to-conservative views on most issues; I fit the description of "traditionalist." Please visit my Web site, Backcountry Notes, at http://www.backcountrynotes.com/ Read more from this authorThere is a new twist to the attacks on Sarah Palin - - now the problem is not simply that she’s a woman; another reallyreallybad thing is that she’s an Alaskan. Seriously, guys . . . Alaskanism? Here we go again - - the arugulistas versus the Palinistas.
Here is a true and exact quote from a column which ran in - - where else? - - the New York Times:
Among Alaskans, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy, shooting wildlife out of season and courting an independent political party whose founder once said, “the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government,” are not disqualifying issues. They’re dinner-table stories.
(See: Palin’s True North.) The idea being, apparently, that Alaskans are crude, provincial, rustic types, and their rough-and-tumble lifestyle will be a turnoff to the voting public. Or at least to the brie-and-Chablis crowd which gets huffy if the local grocery is out of shallotes or truffles or arugula.
Now, I don’t want to sound . . . well, bitter . . . but what this NY Times hit piece describes as “dinner-table stories” in Alaska are also “dinner-table stories” in western Virginia, where I live. In fact, if you substitute “deer” wherever the Times piece has “moose” and then substitute a state or region for “Alaska” - - for example, “West Virginia,” or “East Kentucky,” or “South Dakota,” or “Oklahoma,” or “Wyoming,” or “Montana” - - the article still rings true. For New Hampshire and Down East Maine, you can leave in the word “moose.”
Which makes the Times’ hit piece a kind of advertisement for Sarah Palin.
A bit of advice for the Times, which I hope it doesn’t take: if you’re going to write about us rustic provincials, you might want to hunt up someone who has actually lived in the Heartland and gotten to know its peoples. Otherwise you’ll continue to make yourselves out to be a bunch of patronizing snobs.
Some years ago I happened to be in a local court when a young lawyer was making a complete fool of himself, in full public view. The young man seemed to be compelled by some inner demon to cover one gaffe with another. When he finally sat down, much to the relief of the judge and the audience, an older lawyer leaned across the bar and stage-whispered, “Son, when you feel the pain in your foot . . . stop pulling the trigger.”
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LINKS:
Sarah Palin versus The Establishment Elite
37.2 Million Watch Sarah Palin Accept Her Party’s Nomination
Sarah Palin - - Obama’s Worst Nightmare
Lions, and Tigers, and . . . SEXIST PIGS! Oh, My!
Reaction To McCain Choosing Palin As Running Mate
Good advise!
This is a delightful piece (if that’s not too frivolous a word for you).
Maybe I should say ” It’s so danged funny it made the RC Cola come out of my nose.” Come on Jay, stop trying to act like you were raised on side meat and turnip greens. True, that might have been on your menu once in a while, but so was paella, coq au vin, brie and a nice bottle of wine.
And fess up. Were you that young lawyer with the quick trigger finger?
Me thinks Phyllis has no knowledge of metaphoric speak. It is clear that the pick of Sarah Palin has the Lame Stream Media back on their heels attacking anything and everything. Sort of like throwing as much shit against the wall that they can and hoping some will stick. (metaphoric speak) Problem is that they no longer control the media and how we get our news and opinion. The constant attacks will back fire as they already showing in the most recent polls.
Oh yeah, we’re onto to you to Oprah b***h.
So if this is the case, aren’t a lot of Obama supporters “drug taking, people shooting and courting a radical anti-government agenda”? Do the Obamorons really want to compare the virtues of the people in Alaska to the virtues of Chicago inner city residents living in government housing?
Alaska, Hell no!! They are dissing ‘fly over country’ –(again!)
You(all) know their ain’t nothin else ta do sattity nite, cept what them illetes was sayin and ya know counins bein cousins al all.
An who could love a govement willin to remove liberties one at a time whilst tellin us(all) bout how they is helpin an shit.
“Arugulistas”? Priceless, Jay. Priceless.
Not that it matters, but I lived in NYC and Boston for about 20 years.
Being from the heartland, it was always trying to hear those urbanites speak so critically and arrogantly about American cultures, including mine, or places, including mine, about which they were clueless but thoroughly opinionated.
Or wondered if — yes, I heard it — there were there lights and running water and indoor plumbing back from where I came. Shoes? Inbreeding?
Me, I was advantaged by having a shorter right leg than the left, so I always told them I got it by walking one way around hills. Humored them. Confirmed suspicions.
And, you bet, being from what once was western Virginia, though that changed during the Civil War, I heard hundreds of times: “How close do you live to Richmond?” I usually asked if they ever studied American history or U.S. geography in the 8th grade.
But I adapted. Traded car for bicycle, buses and subways. And learned about new foods and wines and music and dance and art and people, even the professions I had to put money in pocket and bank — and life — in ways I could never have in the heartland.
Living in New York City, even Boston, was like being on another planet.
But, always my heart leapt when I saw the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies, from the air or by car, when I came back. I never forgot where I came from.
And always, it pained me to go back to all that concrete, glass, asphalt and all those attitudinal people in such a hurry. Actually, I became such attitudinal person, something I had to unlearn.
Heartland, though, Jay?
The Gray Lady can’t even spell it, much less find it. And, really, though, they don’t want to know.
Just as, it seems, neither does the new American Fascist Coalition, the gaggle of Demockacrats, liberals and fascists who demean all of us who differ from and with them. And who don’t seem to live east of the Hudson or west of Nevada. Or live in the Windy City or Beantown.
CKA:
Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I love New York, and like Boston a lot, as well. I don’t want to live in either place, but they are great places to visit. On a couple of visits to NYC, I had the good fortune to have a connection where I could stay in Brooklyn Heights and walk the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. I haven’t been to Boston in a long while, but the North End had some great Italian restaurants when I was there.
But, like I said, no desire to live in either place. As far as I am concerned, Heartland is homeland.
CKA: Oh, and the “arugulistas” - - I have been called a “wordsmith,” but I prefer to think of it this way - - I am a “word blacksmith,” using an anvil and hammer to pound words into a shape I like.
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