March 13, 2001

10:22 PM

"Red vs. Blue" gets a whole lot worseOn Slate.com, Mark Strauss makes a (I hope) sarcastic argument for the secession of the North from the South... or the South from the North, based on perceived intractable divisions between Northern states and Southern states. Basically, his whole thesis is "Those Southern Yahoos like NASCAR and pro wrestling; so we should get rid of them and have an entire society modeled on the way my freelance journalism and fiction-writing friends here in New York think." On this post, my tongue is in my cheek about as far as Strauss' is. Tell me if I'm overreacting on this one.
posted by GriffX (22 comments total)

You're right about these fiction-writing, freelance journalist New York bastards. Hang 'em and burn the bodies.
posted by ftrain at 12:05 AM on March 14, 2001

I makes you wonder, tho... how many Democrats cursed the South [and it's political clout] as their candidate slowly lost the election?

Honestly, I'd settle for California being split in two, if only to get the water situation settled. Maybe they'd even expand the 5 to four lanes if it were an interstate...
posted by gangcandy at 2:06 AM on March 14, 2001

Troll. Move on.
posted by holgate at 5:49 AM on March 14, 2001

Anyway, it's everything from North Dakota down to Texas that should be expelled, then incorporated into NAFTA.

Divide the US according to timezone, kids.
posted by holgate at 5:52 AM on March 14, 2001

This is silly. As if everyone in the North would rather watch PBS than NASCAR? Riiight...
posted by dagnyscott at 6:35 AM on March 14, 2001

Anybody know if this guy has ever been in the South?
posted by harmful at 7:02 AM on March 14, 2001

A troll post needs troll comments.

If Californians spoke a different language (heck, Spanish is nearly the main language of the place) it'd be the American version of Quebec. I say independence for California!

(And a whole bunch of laws that forces everyone to learn Spanish too)
posted by wackybrit at 7:15 AM on March 14, 2001

Heck, I just want to give New York City to New Jersey.
posted by drothgery at 7:19 AM on March 14, 2001

This is silly. As if everyone in the North would rather watch PBS than NASCAR? Riiight...


Red Green Show!
posted by eckeric at 8:29 AM on March 14, 2001

I would say this guy has a thing against racing... what a freak..
posted by racer271 at 8:47 AM on March 14, 2001

well, I'd post graphic rumination on the unique physical abnormalities that must be required for any writer to have his head so deeply planted in his own posterior, except I'm still busy trying to understand the math behind the opening paragraph: "Last year, under the watchful eyes of God and the rheumy stare of the last surviving, 93-year-old Confederate war widow..."

the Civil War ended in 1865; if someone could explain how a woman born in 1907 could possibly be a Confederate war widow, then I could move on to the fiery invective for which tripe like this article is an irresistible target.
posted by Sapphireblue at 9:09 AM on March 14, 2001

I say the big blue country in the middle with the lakes secedes. Maybe we can get Ontario to join us. There are good defensive river borders; it'd be easy to set up toll bridges and post militia.

Sapphire, imagine a soldier born in 1847. He'd only be 60 when his future bride was born.
posted by dhartung at 9:15 AM on March 14, 2001

(Oh, actually, the woman in the Allan Gurganus novel was presumed to be 99 in the year 1984. But there WAS a real oldest-living-confederate-war-widow, who was 97 in 1989.)
posted by dhartung at 9:20 AM on March 14, 2001

I'm sure we could find some use for NYC if we set our minds to it.
posted by harmful at 9:39 AM on March 14, 2001

oh, Dan. I know I asked but now I wish you hadn't answered. 'cause I'm too grossed out to do the fiery-invective thing.

bleah.
posted by Sapphireblue at 11:05 AM on March 14, 2001

Well, it doesn't really matter what's done with NYC, as long as it's not part of New York.

Can you tell I'm conservative upstate New Yorker?
posted by drothgery at 11:45 AM on March 14, 2001

I think the idea has some merit.
posted by lagado at 3:43 PM on March 14, 2001

Heh, funny... I live in Manhattan, having just returned from the South (Austin, Memphis, and Houston) and I think I suggested this a week ago.
posted by anildash at 7:35 PM on March 14, 2001

My favorite comment: "The White House has been occupied by a Southerner for 17 of the last 37 years." Omigod! You don't mean it. Less than half! And not a single one of those was Nixon or Ronald Reagan, the man who led to the national stage the conservatism that is really the focus of the author's bitching? Also, one of those "southerners" who held the office was George the Elder Bush. OK.
posted by raysmj at 9:05 PM on March 14, 2001

This is only vaguely relevant but I've just read Mr T. Pynchon's Mason & Dixon which, as you surely know, concerns Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon's various adventures before, during and after their surveying of the Mason Dixon line. I wonder whether Mr Pynchon's continual reference to the line as bad feng shui were meant to mirror the negative effects of it's foundation?
posted by davidgentle at 10:36 PM on March 14, 2001

this has shown up here before, but both allan gurganus and the oldest living confederate widow appear in this movie.
posted by subpixel at 4:10 PM on March 15, 2001