Life In The Peace Garden State
Up here in North by-Gawd Dakota the following email has been making the rounds. Let me make clear: I DID NOT WRITE THIS!
North Dakota News Bulletin
WEATHER BULLETIN Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" — with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.
FYI: George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Phil Cantori of the Weather Channel did not come....
And Geraldo Rivera did not move in.
Nope, we just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps, and put on an extra layer of clothes because up here it is 'work or die'. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the worlds social problems evaporate."
Again, for the record: I DID NOT WRITE THAT!
I think the Snopes folks do a pretty good job of debunking the "facts" in the emailing. What they don't mention (but I will) is that the person who did write that is arrogantly provincial and inexcusably insensitive to the suffering of others...not to mention a racist jerk.
Unfortunately those are the kinds of "social problems" you can't run away from, not even in the Peace Garden State...
North Dakota News Bulletin
WEATHER BULLETIN Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" — with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.
FYI: George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Phil Cantori of the Weather Channel did not come....
And Geraldo Rivera did not move in.
Nope, we just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps, and put on an extra layer of clothes because up here it is 'work or die'. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the worlds social problems evaporate."
Again, for the record: I DID NOT WRITE THAT!
I think the Snopes folks do a pretty good job of debunking the "facts" in the emailing. What they don't mention (but I will) is that the person who did write that is arrogantly provincial and inexcusably insensitive to the suffering of others...not to mention a racist jerk.
Unfortunately those are the kinds of "social problems" you can't run away from, not even in the Peace Garden State...
posted by Jim Walsh at
Thursday, November 10, 2005
