--- Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
> > This stereotype goes to show what New Yorkers know
> > about the Midwest.
> >
> > jks (of Chicago, a city in the Midwest. We have
> tall
> > buildings and several stoplights)
>
> Not too defensive here, eh Justin?
I'm just amused at East Coast, and in particular NY, stereotypes about us flatlanders. My dyed-in-the-wool-born-and-raised NY M-i-L, when I was first showing her this fair city, commented, "This isn't like New York, it's boring." ("Yeah," I snarled, "and it's flat, too!" She also asked, when we said we were taking the kids swimming in the summer, whether there was a "pond nearby." (For all you bicoasters, Chicago is on Lake Michigan, an inland sea of considerable size.)
>
> I've lived in NYC, and now live in the Midwest
> (where I was born and
> raised), so I'm aware of the differences and the
> similarities. Are you
> saying that there aren't fat, disgruntled cubicle
> jockeys in Lawrence who
> support Bush's plan to attack Iraq? Ann Arbor's
I'm sure there are. In fact, after 9 years in AA myself, I know lots like that there. (Chicago too, but Shytown's not cool. Tough and mean, maybe. And boring and flat.) But Matt didn't use AA as his example, because AA, even in NY, has a vague rep for being as cool and hip as the Medwest gets. There are even people in NYC who went to U-M, one might know such unfortunates who, presumably, couldn't get into Yale or Columbia. But Lawrence, who knows about Lawrence. The stereotypes about fat midwesterners with their fat wives, who (no doubt) shop at Wal-Mart and hate their lives, kicks in. Hey, I lived for 9 nears in Columbus, Ohio, where Matt's stereotypes are a lot more true. But not in Lawrence, KS.
All that said, there's a lot to what Matt says about the tone of the left in America, its dull style, heavy-handed unfunny humor, narcissistic political correctness, and inability to connect with ordinary folk, is absolutely true. I gave up on Z Mag for precisely these reasons. It has generated a stable of writers who can make the most interesting truth seem tedious, self-righteous, and of no concern to anyone who doesn't already agree, as well as many who do (like me). It's sort of Chomsky's style degraded, without his awesome encyclopaediac knowledge and effortless command of everything. Solomon is also guilty of that -- though I don't think EXTRA! is, curiously -- he once wrote a book attacking Dilbert as a corporate tool. I mean, rilly, as Kelly would say. The Nation isn't dreary in precisely that way, but it's getting dreary in another way, too much Corn and Alterperson and Cooper, ruminating about how to save the Demicans from themselves.
We need more Henwoods and indeed more Kellys doing this sort of thing, more spikes and odd unpredictable angles and a bettah sensahuma. That's partly why Hitchens is such a loss, he brought a sort of class and elegance to left wing polemics that few others here can; Cockburn used to be able to do this too, but not lately.
So what is to be done?
jks
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