SlowpokeBlog

This cartoon bundles together three things that have been bugging me. First, I'm tired of this false division between the "authentic," salt-of-the-earth people of the heartland and the somehow less-American Americans who live on the coasts. I grew up in Pennsylvania and live in Virginia. So sue me! Except for those living in truly remote areas, we all have the same strip malls and Wal-Marts and crappy movies and TV shows and worries that the economy is going kaplooey. We also have country folk here on the East coast too -- lots of 'em! Abandoned factories? Check! Poverty? Check! The next time I hear someone calling me fancypants just because I don't live in Kansas, I'll... I'll... tell them to read this cartoon, dammit.

I've talked about why the term "regulation" is problematic before; I was reminded of this last week when I saw market fundamentalists on TV blathering about how any new laws to ensure the subprime crisis never happened again would impose "burdensome regulation" on Wall Street, blah blah blah.

Lastly, there was that NYT/CBS poll that showed 81% of the country saying "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track." Yet a considerable percentage of those people still seem willing to vote for McCain, who would continue the same reckless economic and foreign policies as the Bushies. It's just sad.