There are a lot of great things about the South, and a rich cultural heritage in music, the arts and literature… but it seems the only time we get national coverage is when it’s something embarrassing, like this flap, or Justice Moore in Alabama, or Confederate flags, or some Klan sumbitch like David Duke.
Move along, nothing to see down here. Really, if this keeps up, I may remove the Stars and Bars from the roof of my Hemi Cuda.
This is a nationwide problem involving more issues than just evolution. Textbook revision is almost as political as politics.
Georgia just keeps stepping in it. First the flag, now this. GA needs a PR firm at this point. “GA: we don’t all wear overalls to church.” “GA: Atlanta is here!” “GA: you got a mighty pretty mouth.” No, not that one.
I don’t think anyone is picking on the South in general or Georgia as a whole–I, born and raised in thge
I didn’t hit Submit–WTF happened?
Anyway. . . I don’t think anyone is picking on the South in general or Georgia as a whole–I, born and raised in the South, certainly am not–and one only has to look at Ohio’s homophobic laws to see that boneheaded bigotry is not limited by geography.
OTOH, I am trashing fundie Christians, who enact policies to drag 21st century American back to the Bronze age.
OMG! The Creationists got him!
when there is something to see there, BTW.
You may criticize the South generally, so long as you are specific. Clear? No? Good, I’m not sure what the hell is going on either. There is a New South that exists uneasily side-by-side with an Old South. The good parts of the Old South (there were a few) are hard to keep without someone pointing out that they were backward, “medieval”, often racist, idiots. That’s fair.
OTOH, one of my friends in ATL asked me last night, sheepishly:
“They aren’t making a big deal of this evolution fad down there are they?”
“We all know the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.”
He’s not an idiot, no. He’s sarcastic. He knows it’s a nationwide story. Doh, as they say. He was making a wry observation about GA’s ‘brilliant’ PR move.
We then talked about the cool PBS special that outlines the new dog theories. It tries to explain the domestication and diversity of dogs. Read: forced evolution through scavanging and various jobs. I could envision Stone Age man bashing the poor dog’s head in that ate the whole bird. It was for kids also, they didn’t mention that part.
Maybe Stone Age man would not do that, just starve to death, and let his dog eat him first. Right.
Then the discussion of dog breeders forcing characteristics out a different – read, bad – way. Again, evolution.
So, as a rule, I find it hard to discuss even my household pet without evolution. Rage On, Against the Machine!
gobear-We’re not talking about anyone making fun of us in particular. We’re talking about the obnoxious tendancy of our beloved home/former home states to do really stupid things that only hurt the reputation of a region that doesn’t have a good one to begin with. The shame of it is, the South has some really great features that don’t get noticed because everyone’s too busy doing stupid shit.
Beagle-I know! I have to work hard to convince people that I don’t live in a rusty shack with my cousin and play the banjo–and I’m not joking that much. When I visited a friend’s family outside the South, they were SHOCKED that I didn’t come in drawling like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.
On the evolution thing, what really gets to me is…the more I study science, the more I wonder how anyone could possibly doubt it. I’m sure there are areas of the particular theory that are problematic, but the core “natural selection over time” is so elegantly simple and you see it in everything.