I was a kid in NW Iowa and was raised more-or-less Methodist. As they say, if you simply assume that there will be a covered dish potluck after the religious observation, you might be a Methodist.
I first realized that this was actually a stereotype when I read Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novel Some Buried Caesar, where the gourmand Wolfe eats chicken fricassee and dumplings repeatedly, under what would otherwise be intolerable conditions, at the Methodist tent.
I'll argue that regionalism answers some of the concerns in the OP.
My favorite example currently is California [1]. There's a perception outside the state of the laid-back Californian, be it someone in their Marin County hot tub with a glass of white wine or surfers or potheads or valley girls or OT's very own Burt Likko, who has a hell of a stressful job and still comes across as laid back. While there's some truth to that external view, it completely misses the California that I see as a regular business visitor over the years: smarts, and energy, and the whole "we can fix our problems" vibe. California dealt with its initial water problems, its air problems, and has led much of the rest of the country during the process. Non-Californians write pieces about the disaster of the current drought; but at least IMO, there's no place in the country better suited to making whatever changes are necessary to deal with the problem. There's a regional identity that transcends many of the ethnic divisions [2].
[1] Full disclosure. I have a California birth certificate. Over the decades, there have been at least a half-dozen times when I could have ended up in California, quite happily I think, but the circumstances just never quite worked out that way.
[2] Here at OT, Saul Degraw and LeeEsq are New York suburb Jewish brothers. I enjoy reading their comments a lot, and have the impression that Lee is rapidly becoming Californian in a way that Saul is not.
In Omaha for my niece's wedding. Spent yesterday driving from Denver with my almost-two-year-old granddaughter, who was terrific. To the zoo today, then the wedding tomorrow, and drive home on Sunday.
Still, it seems to me that the trigger event that determines whether he gets taxed or not is something King can control...
There are a number of reasons that this statement makes me nervous, although I admit that there's not enough information available for me to understand if my concerns are real or not. For one thing, the range of incomes that we're discussing here are pretty low. It's one thing to tell a top neurosurgeon "lower your fee" or "take fewer cases"; it's another to tell someone near the poverty line "earn less money so you don't have to buy insurance." The second is that the person may not have a choice. If, for example, you're on a military pension (King is a Vietnam vet), your income is what the government says it is -- there's no option to say "Only send me 90% of the pension, please."
@pinky
Bah. The other three are just sidekicks. My standard would be, who do you want in a huge end-of-the-world scenario. Superman and Mr. Fantastic make that list, but it's a big step down to whoever comes next. Spidey and the Batman are terrific on a save-the-city scale, but don't make the big time.
On “Rethinking White Identity”
I was a kid in NW Iowa and was raised more-or-less Methodist. As they say, if you simply assume that there will be a covered dish potluck after the religious observation, you might be a Methodist.
I first realized that this was actually a stereotype when I read Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novel Some Buried Caesar, where the gourmand Wolfe eats chicken fricassee and dumplings repeatedly, under what would otherwise be intolerable conditions, at the Methodist tent.
"
I'll argue that regionalism answers some of the concerns in the OP.
My favorite example currently is California [1]. There's a perception outside the state of the laid-back Californian, be it someone in their Marin County hot tub with a glass of white wine or surfers or potheads or valley girls or OT's very own Burt Likko, who has a hell of a stressful job and still comes across as laid back. While there's some truth to that external view, it completely misses the California that I see as a regular business visitor over the years: smarts, and energy, and the whole "we can fix our problems" vibe. California dealt with its initial water problems, its air problems, and has led much of the rest of the country during the process. Non-Californians write pieces about the disaster of the current drought; but at least IMO, there's no place in the country better suited to making whatever changes are necessary to deal with the problem. There's a regional identity that transcends many of the ethnic divisions [2].
[1] Full disclosure. I have a California birth certificate. Over the decades, there have been at least a half-dozen times when I could have ended up in California, quite happily I think, but the circumstances just never quite worked out that way.
[2] Here at OT, Saul Degraw and LeeEsq are New York suburb Jewish brothers. I enjoy reading their comments a lot, and have the impression that Lee is rapidly becoming Californian in a way that Saul is not.
On “Weekend!”
In Omaha for my niece's wedding. Spent yesterday driving from Denver with my almost-two-year-old granddaughter, who was terrific. To the zoo today, then the wedding tomorrow, and drive home on Sunday.
On “When Text And Context Collide”
Still, it seems to me that the trigger event that determines whether he gets taxed or not is something King can control...
There are a number of reasons that this statement makes me nervous, although I admit that there's not enough information available for me to understand if my concerns are real or not. For one thing, the range of incomes that we're discussing here are pretty low. It's one thing to tell a top neurosurgeon "lower your fee" or "take fewer cases"; it's another to tell someone near the poverty line "earn less money so you don't have to buy insurance." The second is that the person may not have a choice. If, for example, you're on a military pension (King is a Vietnam vet), your income is what the government says it is -- there's no option to say "Only send me 90% of the pension, please."
On “Mount Rushmore — Super Edition”
@pinky
Bah. The other three are just sidekicks. My standard would be, who do you want in a huge end-of-the-world scenario. Superman and Mr. Fantastic make that list, but it's a big step down to whoever comes next. Spidey and the Batman are terrific on a save-the-city scale, but don't make the big time.
On “No Kidding?”
At the risk of being troll-like, Gifts of Gab has stopped loading in both Firefox and Chrome on my Mac (still works on Safari).
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