Mon cher Hawk,

   Bigotry is more temporal than geographic. Racial division is, and was, a problem in every area of our country and, alas, the world, in general. As for the sympathy for lefty folkies, I suggest you view the election results over the last forty years and check out the New England record vs. the rest of the country. Small towns are like big families. They are hard to break into and they tend to distrust change. They are, in a word, like countries. Canada is a beautiful land with great, natural splendor and with as horrendous a treatment of their natives as ours. Canada spends a pittance on defense, compared to the US, but, then again, they don't have to. Isolated from the madnesses in Europe and Asia and protected by the might of American armed forces, Canada has managed to remain the largest small country in the world. Hell, if it wasn't for your crappy weather and your rotten baseball team, I would move there in a New York minute.

                     Mike