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My husband and I grew up in small southern towns like the ones in this article. What's dispiriting is that the idea of "book learning" being somehow inferior to "common sense" is still alive and well and that one can be rewarded for ignorance both real and feigned. This cavil, along with virulent racism, was part and parcel of my early life. I had thought that we were finally past it.
The news that 19% of rural people believe that Barak Obama is a Muslim simply blows me away. I can't understand how anyone, anywhere could honestly believe that idiotic lie. Especially now that every candidate for any public office has to, literally, put his or her faith out front.
When I look at the real crises facing my country--the dismal state of the economy as yet another major financial institution collapses, the millions of people without health care, the desperate plight of the poor, the shoddy schools and impoverished small towns--I want to sit and cry.
Meanwhile, the most important election in decades has been highjacked by moosehunting, "family values", and bafflegab about lipstick and taking good small town values to Washington. If the American people really believe that having a college degree ( as I recall, quite a few of the most recent American Presidents went to Harvard, including JFK, both Bushes, and FDR) doesn't recommend a person for public office, then we deserve whatever we get and if that includes a two-front war in the Middle East and the crash of our economy (that $407 billion debt is growing)then God help us because nobody else will.
