There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home

Well. There's nothing like a week-long family visit to make me joyously, euphorically, orgasmically cognizant of how fortunate I am that I live here in San Francisco!

Yep, nothing like a quick trip to the rural hinterlands of Kansas to really shut up all of my whining about not making enough money, about not owning my own home yet, about starting to rapidly gain all of the mid-life mid-section weight I managed to stave off until these past couple of years, about our weather... all of it. No more whining from me, I am one happy camper.

We truly do live in a bubble. I giant blessed bubble that seemingly protects us and keeps many of them out. I think of the U.S. as a large country dotted with these beautiful, urban bubbles of culture, diversity, open-mindedness, liberalism, acceptance, inclusion, and a higher than average general awareness amongst most of their denizens. But most of the rest of this country....

How does that expression go?: "It's not that all Republicans are stupid people, but most stupid people are Republican."

We could switch the word "Republican" with words like: Midwesterner, Redneck, Yokel, God-fearing Christian...

And then we can swap out the word "stupid" for words like: racist, obnoxious, unaware, homophobic, inbred, sheep-like, naive...

Hopefully that demonstrates the enormity of the concept, and also clarifies that there are exceptions. That outside of these bubbles of enlightenment there are many wonderful, brave, liberal, open-minded folk planted among the flotsam and jetsam of ignoramity.

Here are a few clinical observations I made while in Kansas last week:

There were a plethora of George W. Bush bumperstickers fucking everywhere. Even though it is now... what, 7 months after the election.

Ninety percent of all the automobiles had some type of "Support Our Troops" message on them. But I didn't see a single "Bring Our Troops Home" ribbon.

Lots of trucks with gunracks. With guns.

I saw commercial vehicles (delivering identifiable products or working for identifiable companies) proudly displaying the confederate stars and bars in their front license plate areas.

The dreck on the radio stations is completely mind-numbing. Most mid-Western radio stations must have a daily minimum Lynard Skynard requirement. I mean, I enjoyed Bo Bice on American Idol, but hey there's a limit....

Lots of roadside, home-made billboards in yards of people crying out against the sins of abortion, and the necessity of saving the lives of unborn children. Many of them displaying photographs of renderings of fetuses either in utero or after an abortion.

Finding a good bottle of wine is definitely a unique challenge.

The trickle-down of fashion trends is not only late in arriving, but changes quite a bit along the way to get there.

Overall, given the reproduction rates of most Red-State folk, I'd say we're all in pretty big trouble. I'm fearful of what national political trends these voters may bestow upon the rest of us. Maybe it can get worse than George W. Bush...