Folks, I think it's time that your doctor ups the dosage and takes away your crayons.

Bobert was nowhere close when he stated that he lived in a backward part of West Virginia. He lives some 10 miles from me, near Harpers Ferry, which for many years was a hippie community before the historical park took over most of the terrain. Jefferson County is the richest county in West Virginia, and is included as part of the Federal Government's pay-scale local parity increase, together with DC and the richest counties in Virginia and Maryland. The median new house price in this county is well over $200,000.

As I have mentioned before, my town of Shepherdstown, WV has been cited several times as the "Most Intelligent Small Town in the Washington Area", with an average education of a four year degree plus one year of graduate school [I have Masters and three additional years of graduate study] for a town of 1,000 residents (due to the presence of Shepherd College within the town limits).

And according to the latest census numbers, 81 percent of this county's residents were not born in West Virginia. Bobert must be down in a really small pocket of poverty, and definitely needs to get out more.


My second comment is far more dangerous. I'm not aware that the "nature versus nurture" arguement has been settled with the finality that, were it applied to groups you tend to advocate for, you would decry the same comment as racism or prejudice (and you would be correct). Need I say more...


And since the laws governing this country, including those which deal with gun possession and sales, tend to be generated and passed by the moderate middle of the Nation's citizenry, I think that the time spent in arguing beliefs with the hooting loonies of both the right and left, is wasted. During my experiences as a hostage negotiator, we would note the indiscrinate use of adjectives during the conversations, as an indication of the lucidity of the suspect. The greater the use of symbolic, rote-learned or contextually inappropriate adjectives, the less the suspect was capable of rational decision-making. If you don't live with them, why make the effort? The best solution for the rational person, is to vote.