Tonight, at my local bar during happy hour, I was somewhat surprised to hear all the anger directed to people in Florida. The general opinion was that our tax dollars are being wasted in Florida to help rebuild after yet another hurricane. There seemed to be a lot of “serves them right” attitude or “why can’t one blow away Miami?”
I’ve lived in both Florida and Ohio. I’ve come up with a few reasons as to why there seems to be such an increase in anger towards Florida.
The continuous coverage of the storms. People 1000 miles away are tired of watching it on the news.
Anger towards people who have moved from Ohio to Florida. I’m not going to stereotype everyone who moves from OH to FL, but let’s say that sometimes they can be a bit obnoxious about it. I’ve known several people who have moved to Florida and If I never hear the phrase, “You don’t have to shovel sunshine” again, it will be too soon.
The dominance of Florida’s college football teams. The arrogance and dominance of college football teams from Florida doesn’t go over well in Buckeye crazy Columbus.
A really strong dislike of the Cuban population in Miami. The non stop coverage of Elian Gonzales in 2000 didn’t help Miami’s image up here one bit.
Lingering resentment over the 2000 elections. Not necessarily the final outcome, but the whole, “Can’t you people figure out how to vote?” attitude.
Has anyone else noted an increase in anti-Florida attitudes? Is my list reasonable?
About number 5, it’s that they are repeating the worst things they did with the 2000 vote and compounding it with other new and improved methods.
OH and I hate the Hurricane coverage. If I owned a news station I would not send people to do ‘stand-ups’ in the hurricane. I would go in after but not during.
Wasted? What do they think, we’re using the money to buy yachts and play the lottery? There are people without power, who still have blown trees in their houses, and are still waiting for the insurance check. A major bridge in Pensacola has been washed out. Some streets are impassable due to flooding. What, do your bar buddies think this was just a big thunderstorm? Yes, it’s a big storm. With rain and wind up to 150 mph. Children can’t go to school because the schools suffered damage from either the storm, or believe it or not, vandalism! After Andrew, the insurance industry successfully lobbied the state legislature to change the deductible allowances from a set amount to a percentage. And with Charley and Frances, some unlucky folk get to pay two deductibles in the thousands.
We’ve had power companies from across the country come to get our electricity flowing. Our own Heppie was without power for more than a week…quite a treat in Florida in August. People were standing in line for water and ice. People died.
I’ll give you that one. Even I was sick of hearing about it, and I was stuck in the middle of it.
Sounds like the Ohians may be a bit jealous of our weather.
Give me a freaking break. Yeah, that’s why we were hit three times by major storms. It’s Og’s punishment for rooting for our home football teams.
:rolleyes:
Again, :rolleyes:
Was there resentment in Ohio for New York after the Sept 11 attacks? It’s not like we asked for the storms. It was a horrible slap from Mother Nature, and it’s going to take years before some areas recover fully.
Sounds like your bar buddies need to grow some compassion. I will cross off Ohio from my list of places to visit if the feeling there is widespread.
I grant that this is a little annoying, but blaming Florida or Floridians for it is ignorant and lazy.
So, jealousy then?
If Ohioans want to be angry with every place that beats them in sports, I suppose that’s their business. Maybe they can bury the hatchet with Michigan and team up against Florida?
Why would people in Ohio hate Cubans in Miami? Is it more of the “News Media Should Only Report Things *I’m * Interested In” mentality?
This, from the state that sent James “Kick You In The Crotch” Traficant to Congress for eighteen years?
Well let’s see… jealousy over meda coverage and climate, sports rivalry, and long-distance bigotry. I wouldn’t call those things “reasonable”. But if you’re asking whether it’s plausible that these phenomena cause Ohioans to resent Florida, then yeah, I guess so.
Disclaimer: I personally like Ohio because one of my closest friends is originally from there, although she doesn’t live there anymore.
I’ve heard a some similar sentiments, maybe it’s a Midwest thing?
The grumbling I hear has nothing to do with elections or football or even Cubans, it’s all about “Why should the rest of us have to foot the bill because they’re too lazy/stupid to move away from where hurricanes are going to hit?”
When I point out that Michigan suffers with the occasional randy tornado, or that plenty of old and/or infirm people die every summer in the humidity and every winter we hear reports of people freezing to death, dropping dead while shoveling snow, etc. they still argue. Nope, those are isolated incidents, we don’t get enough tornado damage in five years to equal the devestation Charley wrought, blah blah. They usually lump in the Carolinas and Louisiana, and move on to ranting about the idiocy of living in Cali as well, go figure.
Always cracks me up when folks act like fed disaster money is personally affecting them, what benefit or tax break are *you * gonna miss out on because Washington sent money to Florida?
I haven’t noticed a lot of malice toward Florida around here. For a while I considered moving there after I retired. Several factors convinced me that the good time to do that has passed. With only a few exceptions, I wish the Floridians well. I see no good reason to tell you who those exceptions are. I’m pretty sure they’re not members here.
I’m with you on this one, Ivylass. My Aunt and Uncle lost their home in Punta Gorda, an area that hadn’t been hit in ages as far as I know.
The folks I hear grumbling about it, it’s a given they aren’t the brightest crayons in the box to begin with. Their POV, as I understand it, is more like the Sam Kinison rant about sending food to the Ethiopians when what we should have been sending them was UHauls instead, move to where the food is! They see all of Florida as naturally dangerous, as well as Tornado alley, and California because of the fault lines…these are folks who’re about an inch deep.
I’ve no idea where they expect everyone in half the nation they deem ‘irresponsibly dangerous to live in’ to move to exactly, big sky country in Montana maybe? They’re just bitching to bitch, basically, and Florida is their latest rant, that’s all.
I don’t have anythign against floridians, but I’m pissed about the way its politicians and political machinery handled the 2000 (and, apparently, the upcoming 2004) election.
I’ve been saying (jokingly) that the hurricanes this year are Divine Intervention for the 2000 election results.
Otherwise, no probs here with FL ('cept for disliking their uniformly cocky and too-good football teams)
Well, I live in New England and I have never noticed any pervasive anti-Florida sentiment. The fact that some crews from up here went down there to help with restoring power after the hurricane damage got coverage here on the local news of the “good for them” variety. This region gets hit with blizzards and ice storms often enough that we are often the recipient of such help from other states, and Canada too.
I think if there are problems with the 2004 election vote counts in Florida there might be some griping, but only if it again has national implications.
I think a lot of the people that say “they should move away from where the hurricanes always hit” really don’t have a good grasp of geography. They seem to think that all the major hurricane incidents of the last 20 years that hit south of the Mason Dixon line hit one smallish area, and the people there insist on rebuilding.
I haven’t heard anything negative about Florida recently. Some joking after the 200 elections, but nothing serious.
I do hear complaints after natural disasters when the media comments on the burdens on people without insurance. Sort of the “it serves them right for not getting insurance” type comment.
I have to confess I may have felt a bit that way myself before I had to get flood insurance myself. Boy is that a nightmare of complexity to get! It’s also really expensive. It was required for my mortgage so I never even considered not getting it. However, I can see how an older homeowner with no mortgage and little risk of flooding may not find it worthwhile. So I have more sympathy now when I hear about uninsured people getting hit with flood damages.
I don’t mind the hurricane/disaster news coverage. California gets its share of wildfire and mudslide coverage every year. Even here in CA, whenever they show a million dollar home slipping into the ocean during a mudslide there is some gleeful “rich fuckers deserve it for building there” snickering.
I suppose that’s a little part of the anti-Florida attitude. People who don’t live there sort of assume a lot of the people “suffering” in Florida are rich pukes with multi-million dollar beach homes.
Speaking of beaches. I do have a case of the ass with Florida about that. Mother nature seems intent on moving those beaches, but we spend ungodly amounts of money artificially building/replacing them. Supposedly for the “good of all” but probably just for the good of some hotels and a few wealthy retirees who insist on preserving their beach front properties.
You’ll hear a lot of griping about Floridians around here, but it’s not hurricane-related. We get a lot of Floridians, particularly retirees, as summer tourists. The economy is dependent on tourism, but lots of locals resent them. They can be condescending; they don’t tip well; it’s murder being stuck behind them in traffic, etc. Obviously, these stereotypes don’t apply to all tourists or all Floridians, but they’re true just often enough to raise folks’ ire.
I haven’t heard any anti-Florida talk. IIRC, a John Stossel (sp?) story a few years back did raise some ire; but it was directed at the wealthy rather than the average slob just trying to get by.
I just wanted to note that none of that actually addresses the point being made. The idea isn’t whether people died or whether the money doesn’t affect the average pocket book that much. The point is that if one’s place is wrecked by a hurricane, maybe one should take the insurance money and use it to relocate to someplace not affected by hurricanes. If one is going to play Russian Roulette, then one is going to have to accept the risks.
I’m not saying that I agree with that view. For example, it could apply broadly to many areas habitated by people. I haven’t seen any odds calculated, but I would bet that the chances of major damage to an individual in Florida probably aren’t as high as the news would suggest. Nevertheless, losing power, getting killed, and paying for reconstruction doesn’t really address the complaint that if one is going to play with fire, then one may very likely get burned.
Well sometimes we aren’t the brightest state in the union.
I mean we have more manufactured homes (that’s fancy talk for TRAILERS) than any other state and we have the greatest chance of getting hit by hurricanes.
Homes get wiped out on barrier islands (that’s fancy talk for SAND BAR) and then we go and let people build right back on them after their homes are destoyed.
And worst of all…we elected a BUSH twice for Governor. :smack:
Yep. But it is affordable housing and, based on history, just how bad are they, really? It may be worth the Feds insuring them so that people can live and have places to live. So they’re not necessarily dumb. I mean, how much would hurricane-proof housing cost?
That’s why I was only bringing a bone of contention to Ivylass’s arguments per se, since I think they were off-point.