The Glass is 49 Percent Full

Okay, I've been thinking this over. I'm a Midwesterner, darn it. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone make me feel like a freak in my own country.

The typical red state blue state graphic looks bad and fails to illustrate, for example, that large as it is, hardly anyone lives in Montana. Better to look at this nifty graphic for a clearer picture.

Yes, we must keep fighting, but the thing is, urbane types, the weirdos aren't as weird as we'd like to think. Half of the people who live in any big blue city are actually from someplace else.

Yes, I live in a big East Coast city, listen to NPR, read subtitles and enjoy eating fancy little pieces of raw fish; but practically all my relatives live in the South, (yes, Alexandria, VA counts)go to church and a good chunk of them would say they are born again. My grandma's concept of wildlife is linked to how good it tastes. My cousin and his wife even like to shoot guns and do "donuts" in their pick-up trucks. Yeah, I think they're goofier than Barney Fife, but they're my people, too. And it looks like people like me are going to have to deal with people like my relatives and set the record straight on some serious stuff, especially since it's people like my relatives who are on the front lines of our wars (One cousin is still in the navy--though she never learned to swim. Another served in the army during Iraq War I).

Of course most of my relatives didn't vote for Bush. They're not that goofy.

Pretentious people like me are going to have to learn to have empathy with traditional people so that we can work together. We must stop doing things like this.

It's not easy talking to people who have been repeatedly exposed to some messed up memes or what they would call powerful notions. These memes are like neurotransmitter blockers that prevent good sense from getting into people's brains. For example, I was sitting around with a bunch of relatives in grandma's living room in Elvisville when someone brought up the evils of Harry Potter. None of the locals in the room could dare challenge that notion and be tainted with witchcraft. I could, and did, say, "If the biggest evil you're dealing with is a children's book about wizards, then you're pretty lucky." Some people were upset at this outburst of reason, but others were relieved. The meme spell had been broken for them and hopefully they would feel more free to openly enjoy books and avoid things that might actually harm them.