BS: Understanding the Midwest and West

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 07:23 PM

Maybe it's your context, Jerry. I don't really come from either of those kinds of backgrounds, and both Rapaire's and Nerd's bits of "humor" sound equally mean-spirited to me. Like I said, if it's your ox being gored, etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 07:24 PM

One last comment, Carol. You may indeed be right. Funny how we all read things differently. I looked upon the first posting as a humorous knock at Midwesterners. You read it as a knock against everyone BUT Midwesterners. Reading it one last time, I see comments that seem nasty about outsiders, which seem offensive. Being both a New Englander and a Midwesterner, I'm offending myself!

Maybe it's healthiest if we all laugh at ourselves and how foolish we can be.

I'll buy that.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 08:49 PM

No, Carol. I'm not at all mean spirited, nor do I intentionally offend anyone.

That bit was passed on to me by a friend in the Midwest, a professor at Purdue actually. I'd seen it before over a year ago and thought that others might like to see it. If you see in something that which I do not, perhaps you are more perceptive than I am.

But I will tell you this: I was born, raised, educated, and went to war from the Midwest. I worked there for more than 28 years, and only recently have I migrated to the Pacific Northwest. Much of what is contained in that list I posted is believed by a huge number of folks in the West and Midwest -- even many who live in such small towns as Chicago, Denver, or Minneapolis (and I am NOT indicating in the least my own beliefs in this matter).

I'm not posting here again. Sorry, but I think that in this case you have been overly sensitive and have read into things stuff that just wasn't intended and isn't there.

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 09:18 PM

I don't think you're mean spirited, Rapaire. I just think people sometimes have double standards about what they consider funny. I don't see any more mean-spiritedness in Nerd's post than in your post. If you see a difference, it might be because your perspective is shaped by the fact that you come from the Midwest.

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 09:30 PM

Think I'll go read some Mark Twain..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 09:53 PM

It occurs to me, Rapaire, that we may have a bit of miscommunication of the sort that Jerry described. It looks like you see your post as being a poke at Midwesterners. But to someone who doesn't come from the Midwest, it looks like a poke, by Midwesterners, at people who aren't from the Midwest.

And that's what I mean by double standards. If you're from the Midwest and you think it's funny to poke fun at people who aren't in whatever way you find amusing, it's a bit of a double standard if you think it's mean spirited when people who aren't from the Midwest poke fun of Midwesterners in whatever way they find amusing. I think others in this thread have tried to make the same point.

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 10:12 PM

When I read this initial post and found it amusing and somewhat right on (remember I'm from Chicago), I just knew it would cause discussion and be misinterpreted by the uptight.

I love the midwest.

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 10:26 PM

One last point:

It's not okay for Midwesterners to poke fun at, say, folks from New York City. But it IS okay for these New Yorkers to say that the Midwest (or West, or South) is peopled by Skoal-dipping, gun-crazy, pig-raising, education-fearing, overweight, racist, pickup-driving, ignorant, bible-thumping, conservatives? That when someone from the Midwest creates a list which pokes fun at urbanites, that's wrong, but when urbanites create lists that poke fun at rural folk, that okay?

Wow! Talk about your double standard!!

Bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Understanding the Midwest and West
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Feb 04 - 10:42 PM

I don't know, Rapaire. It's kind of hard for me to make that determination. I haven't seen any threads started by people from New York saying those kinds of things about people from the Midwest or the South.

I started out my life living sandwiched between the ocean, a salt water marsh, and a very thin strip of civilization (a single row of houses) that connected us to the nearest neighborhood. It wasn't rural, it wasn't urban, and it wasn't really suburban, either. I thought I was living in paradise. I spent the rest of my growing up wishing we hadn't moved from there to the Washington DC area. I've spent most of my adulthood living in the rural parts of areas that get made fun of a lot: Oklahoma, West Virginia (and other parts of Appalachia), and now, I'm living in a travel trailer in a mobile home park in rural Alabama.

I've seen urban people acting haughty in the rural areas where I've lived. I didn't enjoy that very much. And I've seen rural people make fun of urban people while they were guests in those urban areas. I was embarassed for them when they did that. Personally, I don't see the point in any of it. We're all just people, right?