Attachment to the Land

Blogger Z writes:

Academics say you must be able to live anywhere but I think it is because they do not know what it is to form a deep connection with land. They feel that to have preferences about places is a form of snobbery or a lack of hardiness.

I think this is more than just a belief that is sustained by academics. Isn’t the American identity based on the idea that attachment to a specific geographical space is a sign of weakness?

This is a country of immigrants, and everybody who wanted to survive here needed to get rid of the nostalgic attachment to home. The national symbol is that of a settler who keeps moving to the West because “someplace else” is always better than “right here.” People move away for college as a matter of course, everybody has a dream place where they’d like to live which is always located thousands of miles away, businesses shut down and move overseas with extreme ease, and even in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere anybody who says “I’m from here” looks apologetic and uncomfortable with being such an unusually rooted individual.

I’ve led a nomadic existence for decades but now that we are buying a house here in Southern Illinois, I want to discover what this region is really like. It looks like I might spend the rest of my life here, which is a novel and not unpleasant idea, so it makes sense to know what “here” actually means.

Soon, I will have a car and I will drive around, visiting neighboring towns and observing life there. I have no doubt that this will be a fascinating process.

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68 responses to “Attachment to the Land”

Evelina Anville

May 19, 2014

I have found that people from California, Washington State, Oregon , and parts of the East coast are strangely attached to their home states. I’m from California so I’m speaking from some experience here. And I really do adore California. It’s beautiful and many people I love live there. But there are other beautiful places in this country. And when Californians do move, it seems like all they talk about is how much better CA is than the rest of the country. It’s actually a personal pet peeve of mine.

I remember one time one of my fellow Californians and I were discussing a really beautiful vacation-y spot along the shores of Lake Michigan. “Isn’t it beautiful there?” I gushed. “It was OK” sniffed my fellow Californian. “But it’s not the Pacific ocean.” I was sooo irritated. Yes. Lake Michigan is not the Pacific Ocean. It’s Lake Michigan. And beautiful in it’s own way and for it’s own reasons.

So this is a long way of saying that some Americans are much more attached to home than other Americans.

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Clarissa

May 19, 2014

” And when Californians do move, it seems like all they talk about is how much better CA is than the rest of the country. It’s actually a personal pet peeve of mine.”

– Yes, this is so true! And completely incomprehensible to me, I might add. I’m not judging anybody’s attachments, but how anybody can avoid hating that impossible climate is a mystery to me. Both times when I was in California I also didn’t get the nature. It was too unfamiliar for me. Midwestern nature with the planes, the endless corn fields and the immense blue sky is more familiar to me because it reminds me of Ukrainian landscapes. Of course, the illusion is always broken by the very clean and fat American cattle and the huge herds of deer.

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Z

May 19, 2014

One of my colleagues was just in Northern California on a job interview, visiting for the first time. He wrote in part:

“Lots to recount but presently am distracted by UTTER BEAUTY of this place. Off to eat finally but just wanted to say that I have a different and deeper understanding of you now that I’ve seen the madre patria…you never talk about it, but I see what you have lost.
…

“My sister and I have spent a truly glorious day after the interview in Marin County and later in SF. We stopped for drinks in the middle of the afternoon and had sparkling conversations with anyone sat to the left and right of us, then we walked down a hill and, without changing streets, up a hill and then finally stopped for a fantastic meal that took place entirely in Italian (Roman Italian, without any provocation at all) then walked to the Bay then up a hill then down another hill. It’s only 8:30 and I feel like I’ve done more living than I have in the past eight years. Before we crossed over the bridge to return to SF, we visited two different beaches and drove through what had to be the most exquisite forest I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen many!

“Naturally, this is not wise advice, but you should know that packing up and moving without a job is what I would call healthy. Not moving is folly. How could you do anything else? I pray I didn’t blow the interview though I fear I was overly enthused and not cool at all. According to me, I was charming as hell….

“I understand the comparisons with NOLA though it’s bigger, hillier and more stylish than I remember how to be. It’s its own creature and a thing of wonder. I may just move here myself without a job. It’s true, it’s crazy-expensive but I feel it’s worth so much more. I love being viewed without suspicion or overt scrutiny, as if I were not worthy of trust, deserving of free-will and as if others had better things to do than to give a shit…. I’m sick of being viewed as a fucking Martian with plans of overtaking all Earthlings.

“Anyway, I’m off to sleep so I can get as much of a fix as possible before my return to hell on Sunday AM. When I move here, I’ll work on a nice cozy home for you, me, N. and one or more of his various ladies so that we can all live happily after in this place that, for God’s sake, we deserve.”

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  “I love being viewed without suspicion or overt scrutiny, as if I were not worthy of trust, deserving of free-will and as if others had better things to do than to give a shit…. ”
  
  – I know somebody who is a life-long resident of California and who says that the only bad thing about the state is that people view you constantly with “suspicion or overt scrutiny, as if I were not worthy of trust, deserving of free-will and as if others had better things to do than to give a shit.”
  
  I hope he gets the job, of course!
  
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  1. Z
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    Where does your associate live? Remember, it ain’t a state, it’s a country with many regions, and some of them are dominated by immigrants from points east and they are very judgmental. You should see my HS graduating class — truly nasty people, most of them.
    
    And — you haven’t met suspicion/scrutiny until you get here. It is un-freakin’-believable.
    
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Z

May 19, 2014

I am up for a job in the Midwest, that I want because of the job. There are some academic jobs in California that I might be viable for but that do not inspire me. My friends in Midwest say this is highly unrealistic of me, from anywhere in CA I can drive to where I would like to be in CA whereas in Midwest winters are brutal in ways I cannot understand. So I put it to you: I am hardly the one fixated on living at home, or saying CA or bust. It’s the Midwesterners who seem to feel that way. 🙂

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  Brutal winters? Yes, walking in my summer sandals everywhere all winter long, as I did in the winter before last, is brutal! I hated it!
  
  In my opinion, the worst place in the US is the East Coast. I still have nightmares. Here, at least, I don’t see mentally ill people living in the streets and begging for money.
  
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  1. Z
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    You’re in southern Illinois, that is practically the South. This is up on the real steppes. I am told it will “make me want to crumple up and die.” But I am more interested in it than I am in the East Coast, and I especially dislike New England. I am aware of all possible desolation and I am somehow unperturbed.
    
    Mentally ill people living in streets and begging for money, you get that in N.O., S.F., L.A., Houston, and I expect to see it in Chicago this week.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      May 19, 2014
      
      Good luck on the interview!! If you get into the salary range that corresponds to your qualifications the weather will be much less of an issue.
      
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      1. Z
        
        May 19, 2014
        
        That is what I think, too! 🙂
        
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2. Evelina Anville
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  Re: the brutal winters…..I agree with Z. The winters in Southern Illinois don’t compare with the rest of the Midwest. I live n the “upper Midwest” and this past winter was truly rough. I actually like winter and snow and seasons. And this past winter was unendurable at times even for me.
  
  Generally though, as long as you get yourself a good stylish coat, some pretty boots, and some nice gloves, winters are sot of fun around here (in my opinion.)
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    I’ve also lived in Indiana. I’m a Ukrainian Canadian. For me, if you can still see what’s behind the snow mounds, that’s summer. 🙂
    
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3. Evelina Anville
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  Southern, central, or northern IN? Northern IN can get quite cold. But the rest of IN is comparatively “warm.” Regardless, I think even you would be impressed by the winters in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan (or the Chicago/ Wisconsin border area of Illinois.) They are truly different from the winters in the rest of the region. 🙂
  
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  1. Z
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    Not Indiana, more like the other places you mention. Yes, I am told winter is truly bad!
    
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4. Good Enough Professor
  
  May 20, 2014
  
  I’ve never really minded the cold, so I’ve never understood people who see it as a deciding factor in where to live. That said, this last winter was pretty rough. I’d advise the following precautions if you end up taking the job: (1) find a house with a real woodburning fireplace (it doesn’t actually generate that much more heat, but it’s very psychologically warming); (2) find a relevant conference (or plan a short vacation) for February or March that will take you someplace warmer and more colorful; (3) silk long-john bottoms, in a variety of weights.
  
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  1. Z
    
    May 20, 2014
    
    Will do. If I go to this place it will be colder and more desolate than yours, but I am very interested. I will have an affair with the ceramics professor and spend weekends sitting next to a glaze fires — 1200 degrees F!
    
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  2. Z
    
    May 22, 2014
    
    I will do these things when I move to the cold and more … although I just got my rejection letter from that job, so I am safe for now!
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      May 22, 2014
      
      Oh, this sucks! I’m so sorry. Guck those loseroids!
      
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      1. Z
        
        May 22, 2014
        
        It saves me the work of moving, though, and it will be fascinating to find out who got the job!
        
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Erik McDonald

May 19, 2014

You make a good point about the image of the settler, but in the US today I think this is a class-driven phenomenon – one group of people will go anywhere in the country to pursue the most prestigious college or job, and another group doesn’t want to leave their region, state, county, or town, for college or anything else.

As for academics, isn’t it a philosophy driven by necessity, or self-selection? Choosing a place and then looking for a job can be a way to remove oneself from academia. The people who stay in the set of academics are the ones who care about working in their field more than where they live.

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Z

May 19, 2014

Or who have been convinced that a *simulacrum* of “working in their field” is worth all other sacrifices.

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Crystallizing Chaos

May 19, 2014

You might find this interesting: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/09/27/cloud-mouse-metro-mouse/

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Shakti

May 19, 2014

Americans are deeply nostalgic about the idea they are a nation of immigrants and westward moving settlers. If they weren’t, the Wizard of Oz wouldn’t be a beloved classic movie. They have sepia toned memories of immigrants from the 1800s and hostile incomprehension of present day immigrants.
Most people don’t move and they don’t usually move far
I

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Z

May 19, 2014

That is key. I am famous here for being the professor who will encourage and support students who want to move away (also study abroad) because people here in the heartland are so against moving.

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J. Otto Pohl

May 19, 2014

Many US academics are strongly anti-nationalist, they actually don’t understand the concept and this is one reason why there is so much bad analysis about what happens in foreign countries like Ukraine. They instead think in abstract internationalist terms that only exist for intellectuals. At the same time US academics are extremely parochial and this extends to their lack of mobility. Europeans, Africans, and people from the Caribbean are far more likely than US academics to move to a foreign country permanently to work and the vast majority of those that do go to places similar to the US like Canada or the UK. This in part because the internationalist cosmopolitanism they think is a rejection of nationalism is in fact the nationalism of intellectuals living in NY, Boston, LA, and Chicago.

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Clarissa

May 19, 2014

“Europeans, Africans, and people from the Caribbean are far more likely than US academics to move to a foreign country permanently to work and the vast majority of those that do go to places similar to the US like Canada or the UK.”

– The problem is that after living for a while in the US it is very difficult to contemplate moving anywhere else. One gets addicted to the wide variety of goods and services that are not available anywhere else in the world. I used to dream of going back to Canada but, to be honest, I couldn’t survive in the consumer desert (comparatively speaking, of course). I need my goods, I can’t do without them! And I don’t want to pay more taxes. So that’s that.

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Z

May 19, 2014

It is that in many countries there are either no academic jobs, or academic jobs do not pay a living wage. I would have been gone to Lat Am long ago were it not for visa issues and the living wage issue. And I have applied regularly to Europe and Canada but not gotten an interview. Repeat: people come to US because there is work here. (Yes I know it was the opposite for you.) There is also the issue of libraries — many come to do PhD in US not because universities or faculty are better but because there are libraries with the texts they want to see.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  No, I also stayed in the US because I needed a job. Canadian Hispanic Studies are controlled by the mafia. You can apply but it’s a waste of time because the jobs will go to the people favored by the mafia. Believe me, I know this system like the back of my hand. Canada has such a small population that this sort if parochialism is possible. I was told very directly even back when I was doing my MA that I’m to independent and should go the US.
  
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2. J. Otto Pohl
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  From what I can tell Latin American countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and even Ecuador pay a lot more than I am earning. But, my Spanish is very bad and my Portuguese non-existent. So there is no chance of me working in those countries.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    Argentina pays nothing to professors. They all have 2-3 more jobs to allow them to remain professors.
    
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  2. Z
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    Depends on the school and the field, and this higher salary situation is very recent. You have to also realize that there are a lot of months in which pay is delayed. It is OK if you are living in a paid-off flat, or married to someone in business, or living with parents, and so on, and many have those situations. But if you are really going to be completely self supporting, you have to really be sure what the pay situation is going to be in practice and on the ground.
    
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3. J. Otto Pohl
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  It looks like lecturers in Argentina make over three times what I do. They have a monthly salary of $3,750 or a gross annual salary of over 28,000 British pounds. If I had that kind of money I would be very happy. As it is it takes me over two months total salary just to buy a plane ticket to go see my family in Kyrgyzstan.
  
  http://www.chileno.co.uk/chile/academic-salary-in-29-countries#.U3o4zfldWPs
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    “It looks like lecturers in Argentina make over three times what I do. They have a monthly salary of $3,750 or a gross annual salary of over 28,000 British pounds.”
    
    – This is simply untrue. Most Argentinean professors work FOR FREE. Their money comes from completely different sources. And the work environment is absolutely horrifying. I know literally crowds of Argentinean academics and they have told me too many horror stories. If there is a group of people not to be envied it’s the LatAm academics.
    
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  2. Z
    
    May 20, 2014
    
    They are including in the average the salaries of the higher paid fields, e.g. professional schools, and *any* of the really good jobs are really hard to get, harder than in US. But still, in less fancy places even I might be able to get in … I need to work on this in a much more concentrated way.
    
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4. J. Otto Pohl
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  Salaries are consistently delayed in Africa as well. One time our monthly pay was nine weeks late because the govt. did not want to pay lecturer salaries.
  
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cliff arroyo

May 19, 2014

Well I don’t think the US has ever been primarily a country of immigrants. The early settlers were colonists (wanting to start a new society or continue an old society in a new place) rather than immigrants (wanting to join an already existing society).

Subsequently immigrants were always a minority of the population (as those born in the US are by definition not immigrants). Descendents of immigrants yes, but that’s a different sort of proposition.

I’d say on the whole that the US is full of people with the normal human tendency to become attached to familiar landscapes (natural and urban) and social settings. For me not all landscapes are equal and those I prefer are disporportionately those familiar from my early life. Some are just idiosyncratic, I don’t mind high rocky mountains (like the Rockies) but wooded mountain areas (like the Smokies) fill me with dread and claustrophobia.

For some individuals perceived opportunities can outweigh local attachments and occasionally catastrophic things happen (like the dustbowl or Katrina) that cause larger displacements but that’s the exception.

There’s supposedly less movement now because the jobs that can be had for moving are mostly not worth the trauma and expense of displacement.

I would say that Americans are emotionally attached to the idea of frontiers, expanding their presence into new territories but that also was directly experience by a minority of the population (and the frontier kept moving as the number of people who’d decided they’d moved far enough increased.

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Clarissa

May 19, 2014

“Subsequently immigrants were always a minority of the population (as those born in the US are by definition not immigrants). Descendents of immigrants yes, but that’s a different sort of proposition.”

– The important thing is how people perceive themselves. In my town, I constantly meet people who have never even been out of the state, yet who introduce themselves as Germans. Obviously, they don’t speak a word of German and wouldn’t be able to find Germany on a map. But in their minds, they are Germans.

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1. cliff arroyo
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  That’s the weakness of a propositional nation that’s devoted to commercializing its symbolic culture. A proposition is ultimately not a very emotionally satisfying identity for the majority of people who don’t want to chisel out an individual identity. And how much can local American things identify people if people in Africa and Asia are consuming them too?
  
  I have a soft spot for thinking of myself as German (a majority of my ancestry) myself though my contact with real Germans makes it clear how un-German I am culturally.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    ” A proposition is ultimately not a very emotionally satisfying identity for the majority of people who don’t want to chisel out an individual identity. And how much can local American things identify people if people in Africa and Asia are consuming them too?”
    
    – This is very insightful!
    
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2. Z
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  One of the things I would love to do is study the Cajun Renaissance along the lines of Cliff’s comment. It would be scandalous as Cajun studies are honorific, not critical, and it could be hard to publish. But I am convinced this is the way to go.
  
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NancyP

May 19, 2014

First assignment. Spend some time near or on the River.
Here’s an itinerary in Alton and environs. Go the the Great Rivers Museum at the Alton Locks-and-Dam, do the tour of the mechanics of the dam as well. There are several additional options nearby.
A. If you want to get as close as you can to the river, go to one of the two confluence parks. IF you are up to driving on gravel roads (note, I’d stay under 25 mph if I were you) I’d recommend the Jones Park – cross the Alton Bridge to MO and turn right immediately (100 meters?) after you cross the bridge, there is a gas station at the south side of the road. Go straight on a paved road south until you are across from the dam. A gravel road on the right has the sign “Ted Jones Confluence Park”. Take this road to the end (5 miles), it has some turns, but farmers’ private roads are well marked as private, so it is foolproof. At the end is a parking lot. Go on the single trail maybe 200 meters, and you will be standing on the spit of land between the Mississippi and Missouri.
B. If you want a nice long drive instead, go north on IL route 3 toward Grafton. You will be driving more or less on river level (5 meters above?) with the river on one side and bluffs on the other side. Eat lunch somewhere – lots of restaurants. If you have more time to kill, take the Brussels ferry over to Calhoun COunty and drive around farmland. If you want to get fit, pass Brussels ferry and go another mile to Pere Marquette park, pick up a map at the lodge, and hike the “goat” trail to the overlooks.

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ladyleahjane

May 19, 2014

As a younger American, I can say that age also plays a factor in this, and that my generation (at least ones I’ve interacted with) aren’t very attached to where we grew up, but we’re definitely attached to places where we want to be. In my case, there’s no point in me being attached to my hometown, it’s too expensive and the only way I’d ever be able to live there is if I inherited my childhood house from my mother. However, like most people in my age group and location, I’m very attached to staying in large cities (preferably on the West Coast). I’m not planning my life/career around this wish to stay put in the region, but many of my peers are, because they can’t imagine life anywhere being as good outside of Portland, Victoria, Seattle, or Vancouver.

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Z

May 19, 2014

Part of why I left was to get away from the type of person who would be a barista forever just to stay. It was/is important. At present, though, I could practically be convinced to go back as a barista … I would have more intellectual stimulation, better libraries, art exhibits, films, be able to do my research and writing more easily.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  To be this kind of an enlightened barista, you first need to leave, develop intellectually, see the world, accumulate knowledge, and then come back and be happy.
  
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2. ladyleahjane
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  I actually know somebody like that here, not a bartender, but a cook. He gives me and other students a little bit of money or free meals in exchange for our institutional access to library resources and JSTOR/Project Muse.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 19, 2014
    
    “He gives me and other students a little bit of money or free meals in exchange for our institutional access to library resources and JSTOR/Project Muse.”
    
    – Brilliant! :-)))))))))))))
    
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Clarissa

May 19, 2014

I’m also very much a big-city person but I have come to realize that it’s an issue of money. If you have the income to travel several times a year and order all you need online, it doesn’t matter where you live.

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1. ladyleahjane
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  That’s comforting! I could easily see myself in a situation where I live someplace that’s not my ideal big city, but I get to travel enough so I get my taste for it satisfied, since that mimics my childhood of travelling to Vancouver during the summers pretty well.
  
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2. xykademiqz
  
  May 21, 2014
  
  I grew up in a big city in Europe and thought I could never live in anything under a few million inhabitants. Yet here I am, several hundred thousand people in my city; I am fully suburbanized and get uncomfortable when we venture into big cities.
  
  I have become provincialized. The worst part is that I don’t think I care much any more…
  
  The surroundings do matter. I am in the bitter-cold-winter Midwest. The people are so freakin’ nice it’s infuriating (darn ultrapolite WASPs) and very hard to get to know in any meaningful way. The job is good, the public schools for my kids are good. I love my students. I can afford a big house so we don’t all kill each other as we are cooped up indoors during the endless winters.
  
  But it’s a cold provincial place. I suppose it is beautiful, and it’s got a lot going for it. But there is a difference between really loving the place where you are, feeling at home, having kindred folk around, and doing what I do, which is willing myself to acknowledge and play up the good parts while downplaying the bad parts. As someone said upthread (or dowthread?), there is “sensational” and “beautful in its own right.” Or better yet, there is “the place I LOVE” versus “the place that’s good for me and that may would love to be at and that I really have no big reasons to complain about.”
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 21, 2014
    
    “I grew up in a big city in Europe and thought I could never live in anything under a few million inhabitants. Yet here I am, several hundred thousand people in my city; I am fully suburbanized and get uncomfortable when we venture into big cities. I have become provincialized. The worst part is that I don’t think I care much any more…”
    
    – That’s my story exactly!!!!!!
    
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Good Enough Professor

May 19, 2014

I was raised in Appalachia by a displaced Oregonian. I was taught that the mountains and trees around me didn’t count–the real mountains and trees were in the West. Much to the Oregonian’s dismay, I turned down the opportunity to go to college in Oregon and instead lived in a succession of cities where the displaced Oregonian came to visit. The sights, the restaurants, the people, the culture, the civic life–they were never as vibrant or as interesting as what could be found in Oregon. Eventually the Oregonian retired from a job he hated in the small Appalachian city he hated, but not before the wife (whom he didn’t hate) got fed up with the negativity and left. He had the option of relocating to anywhere in the world–including Oregon–but decided to stay put rather than risk discovering that his unhappiness had followed him to the promised land. Then he died. The end. True story.

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Evelina Anville

May 19, 2014

That’s very sad. It also describes the experience of almost every California ex pat that I know. Especially the descriptor “real.” I’ve heard things like “that’s not a real beach,” “not a real forest,” “not a real gourmet restaurant” etc etc. Personally, I think it is a sad failure of the imagination to be unable to experience beauty or pleasure everywhere.

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1. J. Otto Pohl
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  I grew up in California and I really don’t like the state. I have lived in both Northern and Southern California and if it were not for the fact that my parents and brother and some other relatives still live there I would be happy to never return. Southern California does not for the most part have real people.
  
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2. Evelina Anville
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  Maybe I occupy the middle ground then. I do California, think it’s beautiful, adore the ocean. I would move back if I found a good job too– mostly because I would love to live near my family (whom I’m very close to.) But I also can find happiness and beauty in other regions of the country. 🙂
  
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3. musteryou
  
  May 19, 2014
  
  If you knew about psychology and about what are termed “transitional objects”, you would realize that there is a real sense in which the objects we were exposed to during our childhood become more emotionally fleshed out and “real”. This is not a metaphor or a complaint. It’s how we really experience things if we have forged a deep connection to certain environmental features when very young. And we all do that to some extent, depending on our levels of imagination.
  
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4. Z
  
  May 23, 2014
  
  For 25 years I have been saying California is not better and there are many nice places in US but I have finally realized this is simply not true — other places are nice to visit but I am not really comfortable in US culture and would prefer not to have to live there. Oregon, for instance, is all too insipid and self-righteous, although sweet in its way.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    May 23, 2014
    
    The problem is, what is there other than the US? Canadian Hispanism is corrupt. Western Europe destroyed its academia altogether. Latin America is very inhospitable towards women. Eastern Europe can’t afford scholarship and won’t be able to afford it for the next 100 years. Japan uses Western academics like second-hand goods.
    
    Australia and New Zealand might be a possibility.
    
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    1. Z
      
      May 23, 2014
      
      On women, Latin America is noticeably better than southern US, at least in my quite long experience of both. I have never managed to get interested in Australia or NZ and people there complain of isolation — and I fear they may have all the worst features of US culture and none of its redeeming characteristics. I would bet Australia is even more sexist than Louisiana. In the end one has to be in US or Lat Am, or in your case, in US. Why-how is Canadian HIspanism corrupt?
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        May 23, 2014
        
        “On women, Latin America is noticeably better than southern US, at least in my quite long experience of both. ”
        
        – So there are job announcements in the US South saying, “Candidates should be female, good-looking, blonde and under the age of 25”? There are TV shows where a man spends 20 minutes brutalizing a woman and then the entire audience yells at the victim for trying to leave such a good husband? Women get grabbed on the street and molested on the bus 20 times a day every day? Illegal abortions and domestic violence are the main causes of mortality among young women?
        
        Latin America hasn’t even approached the second feminist revolution that happened in the US in 1960-1970s. That is a journey LatAm women still have to travel. But compared to the American women whose main issues are, “Somebody looked at me sideways and thought I’m fat, I will die immediately of this enormous trauma”, women in Latin America are still only beginning to acquire a status that is a little higher up than that of a house pet. Of course, there are many places in the world where even that hasn’t been achieved yet.
        
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        Z
        
        May 23, 2014
        
        On paragraph 2, versions of, yes. Of course, I live in the state that by all metrics is apparently the worst for women in US!
        
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      2. Clarissa
        
        May 23, 2014
        
        “Why-how is Canadian HIspanism corrupt?”
        
        – There is a mafia. If you are a wife / husband / son / daughter / daughter of a close friend of somebody in the mafia, you’ll get a job. You don’t need any degree for the job. You don’t even need to speak Spanish. You can come to the classroom and teach students to say, “Hola, mi llama es Becky”, and that will be fine as long as you belong to the in-group. But if you don’t, you will never get employed. Even if you manage to squeeze into some dinky little job somewhere, you will be subjected to such persecution and horrible mistreatment that you will run away of your own free will.
        
        There are also (at least) two places where young, fresh, blonde female grad students are groomed for consumption (in every sense of the way) by the members of the mafia. Then those who are not able to make themselves indispensable get kicked to the curb and begin trawling the Internet, bemoaning the injustices of academia. I recently discovered one such former popular-blonde club member bravely denouncing academic corruption (which was, of course, perfectly fine with her when it used to benefit her). That was very entertaining.
        
        There is A LOT of money floating in that system. There is money of the kind we can’t even imagine coming into Humanities here in the US. But that money is tightly guarded.
        
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        Z
        
        May 23, 2014
        
        Interesting … I have heard similar things about a couple of other fields in Canada as well.
        
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NancyP

May 19, 2014

There’s “spectacular” and there’s “beautiful in its own way”. MO and Southern IL are the latter.

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Clarissa

May 19, 2014

I don’t think we need to argue about whose aesthetic preferences are more correct. 🙂

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musteryou

May 19, 2014

I’m of the view that most people, especially those whose training has been under extreme capitalism, do not have any morality. They make believe themselves to have views about stength or weakness, but what they really believe in is survival or winning, or occasionally helping people just like them. Once one sees through the rhetoric, one finally understands.

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Jones

May 22, 2014

“Soon, I will have a car and I will drive around …”

I’ll offer one recommendation on the car: get a rather crappy car for your first one.

There are several reasons:
— When someone smacks into it, you’ll spend less on replacing it
— Insurance is usually cheaper
— Nobody will accuse you of being a spendthrift
— Police will not consider it a suitable target for opportunistic “revenue enhancement”
— Your students will not think that riding with Dear Professor is very cool 🙂

When I was in the US, I used to drive GM products on the basis that they were the most serviceable vehicles you could own that would elicit sympathy and spare parts. They were rarely good in the automatic gearbox past 110k miles, and if you managed to push one farther, people would regard you as a sort of Pinball Wizard (ala The Who’s “Tommy”) of the gearbox.

A corollary recommendation: install a “transmission cooler” (or gearbox radiator) on the outlet transmission line as an in-line installation. As for size, I suggest the largest one that will physically fit on the back of the radiator — I used to install the ones that were meant for delivery vans with 6+ litre engines on 2.4 litre GM products. My last piece of GM crap made it to 130k miles before I pushed it off on someone else. 🙂

Otherwise …

An interesting but not very nice looking place somewhat near you is called Future City, Illinois — there’s a section of Illinois near the Kentucky border that has a cut-through road that connects two US interstates that wouldn’t otherwise be connected. Several cities along the river thought they’d be the next Chicago, and of course that didn’t happen for any of them.

I think it’s a good place for looking at long-term economic realities within the US — no amount of magical thinking is going to turn around Future City, Illinois, as you will undoubtedly be able to observe …

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May 23, 2014

Here is the thing on landscape: Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Andes, and other really high mountains, rocky and abrupt and relatively young, are real mountains. Old, well worn, lower ones are hills. When told one is going to a mountain and finding that it is only a hill, one gets disappointed … although it is a nice hill. Similarly, lakes and seas are not the same as oceans. My mother would try to convince me that baths were as good as swims in swimming pools but I was not convinced by this, either.

Also: a deciduous forest is not an evergreen forest, and the subtropical marshes are not Alpine lakes. Bayous are not clear streams rushing over rocks. People who try to say the one is the other have no discernment and are not seriously interested in nature.

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May 23, 2014

Also: people are very convinced their priorities are objective. I keep being told, for instance, that I could not live in the cold but should accustom myself to the rural suburbs. I say I do not mind the cold and want a city. They say I lack experience and self knowledge, and I should prefer the warm rural (and Republican/Baptist!) suburbs to any city that is cold. Similarly, they feel it is immature of me to prefer high to low mountains, the ocean over the Gulf, and so on. Why suburbs, warm seas, and low hills should be preferable, especially if populated by Creationists and so on, I am not sure.

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