Re: Making pictures

> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
> On 9/27/07, li_sasxsek@nutter.net <li_sasxsek@...> wrote:
> > I don't like picking on hometowns,
>
> And yet you bit the bullet and forced yourself to do so:
>
> > that pit known as Atlanta
>
> Good job.
>
> > It is very much the "real" South.
>
> And now you're insulting the entire region!  Excellent.
After 7 years, I'm definite in a mood to insult the region.  In fact
it's starting to look like it's time to move to another hemisphere.


> Everything is relative, I suppose.  But there are marked differences
> between Atlanta and the rest of Georgia; for one thing, there's the
> large number of non-Caucasians.   Heck, downtown in the city proper,
> Whites are a minority.  That's a far cry from some parts of the
state
> where discussions of race and racism are purely theoretical because
> nobody's ever actually *seen* a Black person (except maybe on the
> /'ti:vi:/).  Whereas in my daily travels I encounter people who hail
> from Ethiopia (took the opportunity to learn some Amharic), India,
> Pakistan, Iran, China . . . the UK, Spain, Australia . . . and of
> course Central and South America, which is a shorter trip.
>
> It's true that, despite having the busiest airport in the world,
> Atlanta is certainly nowhere near as cosmopolitan as New York or LA,
> much less London or Paris, no matter what the tourism board would
have
> you believe.  And it still has its stereotypical Southern aspects,
bad
> as well as good.  I mean, Stone Mountain is part of metro Atlanta,
and
> every Saturday in the summer you can find the good ol' boys whoopin'
> and hollerin' as they circle the mountain in their pickups with
their
> Confederate flags flying.
I hate big cities!  I hate the filth, the crime, the traffic, the
crowds, and having to live in a small box where you can hear the
neighbor's toilet flush.  As much as I've always hated L.A., I'd still
take it over towns like Atlanta because at least it's within close
proximity to the ocean, something (about the only thing) I really miss
about SoCal.


> But if you think Atlanta is at all typical, you should go spend some
> time in, say, McRae (population in the low three digits, 30 miles to
> get to a Wal-Mart, doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry).  Or Hahira
> /hej'haj.r@/, which is a little more sophisticated by dint of being
> closer to the Interstate.  Those are much more along the lines of
what
> people think of when they think of the South...
I've seen some of what's in Ga.  East Tennessee isn't all that
different (can you hear "Dueling Banjos" playing?).  Yeah, we have at
lot those rebel-flag flyin' (*), tobacco-chewin', trailer-dwellin'
types out there too.  Worse than that, we have Vols fans!
Orange-wearin', Orange "T"-flyin' drones that live for college
football, though many appear to have never finished high-school.
Saturday this town will look like part of some brainwashed religious
cult.


* The flag thing is generally done by high-school kids just before the
end of the school year.