It Snowed in New York

I'm sure you haven't heard.

I have some strong feelings on the snow, or, mainly New Yorkers' whiny response to it. First, judging by the breathless coverage on the news you'd think all of the following:

1. It had never snowed in New York before.
2. New York snow is thicker, heavier, slipperier, and generally more problematic than snow in the rest of the country.
3. There might be a rest of the country, but it's not all that important what happens there, unless what happens there somehow demonstrates that the people who live in that part of the country (which, lest you forget, is not New York) are less civilized than those who live in New York. Like that crazy pastor who wanted to burn the Korans.

Now I'm going to admit something that I shouldn't. It gratifies me that a bunch of New Yorkers are stuck in the snow. It makes me happy that these folks who so casually deride rural living are now trapped by the urban congestion they profess to love. I laugh at the folly of their narrow streets, at the fickleness of their public transportation system, at their lack of wide open parking spaces. It makes me smile to know that we hicks who live in the middle of the country, if we don't have one ourselves, know somebody who can attach a plow to the front of their gas guzzling pick-up truck and plow their own damn road. It pleases me to think that these sophisticated people, who willingly pay exorbitant taxes for the privilege of living in the "greatest city in the world" are suddenly left in the lurch when their precious government can't compete with nature. I chortle in glee as I picture the stranded car waiting to be freed by the disgruntled plow driver.

Perhaps now, more than five years after Hurricane Katrina, people will finally begin to realize that no matter how much faith we put in government, there are things for which it will be woefully overmatched. Maybe now, with self-important New Yorkers blaming their mayor for an inadequate response, we'll finally admit that no matter how often government promises to take care of us, the reality is we better, when the shit hits the fan, be prepared to take care of ourselves. Maybe now, now that their self-assured, smug, condescending attitudes have been covered in a little snow, they'll realize that the New York way isn't the only way. That there are people out here in the great middle whose ideas aren't stuck in the past and whose way of life deserves a little more than the supercilious scorn usually reserved for it by the self-appointed elite.

But probably not.