Hers an interesting article about hostility to attempts to control COVID resulted in health care workers being pushed out of rural America. In Kansas, more than 25% I’d health care administrators left their jobs in 2020. Doctors receive death threats for telling people to wear masks. It reminds me of the Khmer Rouge’s hostility to anyone with an education.
From the article:
“ A wave of departing medical professionals would leave gaping holes in the rural health care system, and small-town economies, triggering a death spiral in some of these areas that may be hard to stop.”
I think that if a community is so hostile to knowledge that it drives its doctors away with death threats, maybe it’s a good thing for it to die.
It’s really hard to find anything good about the suburbs except for all the taxes we pay and jobs we do and provide in order to keep the cities and rural areas from going broke. That’s really it I think, The crime rate is usually lower than the cities, I guess, and we have the best school systems, if you want to count things like that.
I’ve seen the same thing in many other rural towns—it seems to be a pattern. The school district gets money for a shiny new state-of-the-art high school, and builds an enormous sprawling campus on a highway outside of town.
High schools need lots of open space for all the athletic stuff that goes on there, so I’m guessing they build where they can get the most land for the least money.
Clarification: In Kansas, more than 25% of public health administrators left their jobs in 2020. This is generally a county level position, responsible for recommending guidelines for the county. Often these are medical professionals who take on this responsibility in addition to their current medical duties. According to this article, 27 county health officials (out of 105 counties) left their posts. Certainly not a good situation, but it is most definitely NOT communities driving their doctors away with death threats. In fact, the NPR article explicitly talks about the doctor who left the public administrator position, but stayed to continue her medical practice.
The article also said:
“ And who, she asks, is going to take the jobs health care directors are leaving?
“It’s not a secret that the position is open because of extreme tension between the health department director and the city commissioner, county commission, or because the person has required a guard,” Collie-Akers says.”
More school districts should take a cue from what Arlington County did with Wakefield High: brand-new school where the athletic fields used to be and athletic fields where the old school used to be. Construction was staged so the old school could stay open while the new one was being built.
Frankly, I’m the opposite of almost everyone posting here: there is no reason I can think of to go to an urban area unless I’m being airlifted to a major medical facility God forbid. Three years ago moved to a village two hours from Boston, and I have not only never been to Boston except once to the airport, ech ech ech, I have no particular intention of ever going there.
I am a staunch believer in Edward Abbey’s not very famous dictum, “If you can’t piss in your own front yard, you’re living too close to town.”
I like everything about rurality, particularly how few people there are.
As far as those few people go, I would like to state that my experience is, wait for it, they VARY. Just like rural places vary, far more than an urban person can be persuaded of.
I don’t disagree. But it’s not only rural communities in Kansas, as you have inferred. From an article in June:
On Thursday, Ohio’s state health director, who had armed protesters come to her house, resigned. The health officer for Orange County, California, quit Monday after weeks of criticism and personal threats from residents and other public officials over an order requiring face coverings in public.
In my home town they already had a football field/track, a baseball field, a practice field, and a fairly new shop building that were each a block away. Also two or three blocks away they had tennis courts. But they chunked it all and built new. There were other sites they already owned that I think they could have used. Or they could have bought other land, but I’m not sure what the price difference would have been—or if the state had attached some stipulations that forced their hand. ISTM that the buses will burn the savings in gas.
But IMO the worst part is that with so little for teens to do they’ve made it harder for many of them to participate in extracurriculars etc. I remember growing up there and it makes me cry on their behalf…nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.
Years ago I heard about a type of community someone proposed. Imagine a circle ringed with circles. The center circle would be businesses, schools, churches, etc. No cars but lots of sidewalks and bike paths. The ring of circles around the center circle would be houses, apartments, etc. Outside that is where the cars can drive.
A good friend of mine, who lived on a farm, had basically all the room you’d want to play baseball, football, etc. My brother in law hunts. Deer. Bear. Frogs. Ducks. Etc. And he fishes, likes to go boating. Up until about 20 years ago it seemed pretty safe for raising kids, too (then drug dealers decided to expand their territory). Rural living is where it’s at for some. As I posted upthread, maybe a town of 100K would be a good tradeoff for me.
No, it’s all of rural America and the article mentions that. Think about what kind of sick culture produces multiple people who will threaten the lives of health care professionals for speaking truths they don’t like. It’s like theTaliban in Pakistan shooting Malala.
So now you’re talking about American culture in general? Because the article I linked talked about the director of Orange County receiving personal threats, and Ohio’s state health director having armed thugs show up at her house. The point I’m making is that it’s everywhere in America, not just rural America.
Same here. And it surprises me that people are finding so many chain restaurants. Not the case at all in my mountain community. Private (and often very good) restaurants far out number the chains. The town closest to me there is a Starbucks, a Subway, and about a dozen non-chain restaurants. The closest fast food burger, when I partake is 45 minutes away.
It doesn’t matter if I want rural America to die, it is killing itself and good riddance. Once they’ve burned all the doctors and scientists for being witches, they’ll have no one to de-worm their children and treat their rickets.
I’m talking about rural, or red state, America. To paraphrase their president, it’s a third world shithole and has as much in common with my culture as Bronze Age Gaul has with modern day Paris.
Take a look at one of those maps that show how every state actually voted – not the solid Blue State Red State ones. They are ALL purple. Every single state, even West Virginia. Okay maybe not Wyoming.
Well, you are generalizing. Take a look at this map and you can see that it can’t be broken down like that so easily.
White rural voters with a high school education or less, maybe. But that doesn’t account for millions of people who are rural and aren’t the other things. My New Year’s resolution is to avoid blanket statements. Youse liberals are so into nuance, maybe demonstrate your commitment.
The fact is hat rural America went for Trump. Rural America also, not coincidentally, resisted basic measures to fight COVID and health care workers in rural America face harassment. A pocket of these savages in an otherwise civilized state is one thing, but our political system gives way too much power to rural America and they are an anchor around our necks. American history has always been rural America fighting progress tooth and nail. Like I said, they’re savages and we can’t keep carrying them, they’re too much of a burden.
Nobody in this thread, or elsewhere on this board, has argued otherwise.
You refuse to acknowledge that this resistance and harassment have occurred across the country, and not just in rural areas or red states. Continuation of this argument is pointless. This savage from rural America will bow out of this discussion.