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Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Saturday, July 5, 2003, 1:33
On Fri, Jul 04, 2003 at 09:13:01PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > not just in the USA, but in Atlanta, Georgia, smack dab in the > > middle of the Bible Belt. > > Come come. Atlanta may be in, but is surely not of, the Bible Belt. > It's a fairly cosmopolitan city, in fact. Try singing the same tune in > small-town Georgia.
Fair enough. Though the town where I grew up, about 100 miles south of Atlanta and sporting a population under 50,000, was also unusually cosmopolitan for this part of the country, mostly due to the presence of an Air Force base. But the point was how such people are treated in the US, and Atlanta is unquestionably in the US, and in a fairly conservative part of the country. However cosmopolitan it is, it can't compare with those ultra-liberals out on the Left Coast. I wouldn't credit any examples from, say, the Bay Area as being representative of the country at large, but I have to think that getting domestic partnership health benefits as an HIV+ homosexual in Atlanta is pretty impressive progress. -Mark