Forty Eight Degrees North

Earlier this week, Mardi sent me the following e-mail. Before you read it, I would like to remind you that I neither advocate stupidity during the times of a weather crisis, nor do I advocate expecting the government to come save me; I understand that I choose to live in an area affected by hurricanes on a regular basis.

But this still pissed me off. After you read the e-mail, read my response.

Because I REALLY hate stupid people, I have NOT corrected the spelling and grammatical errors.
Enjoy.
Oh, and to my uncle, who will one day live above 48 degrees latitude… obviously this doesn’t include you or my aunt (Maine is different, anyway… such a cool state should be down here instead of Kentucky or Alabama.)

>THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT

South Dakota News
This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of South Dakota state after the recent snow storm.

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10’s of thousands .
FYI:
a.. George Bush did not come….

b.. FEMA did nothing….

c.. No one howled for the government…

d.. No one blamed the government

e.. No one even uttered an expletive on TV…

f.. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit

g.. Our Mayor’s did not blame Bush or anyone else

h.. Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else either

i.. CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit – or report on this category 5 snow storm

j.. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards…..

k.. No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House….

l.. No one looted….

m.. Nobody – I mean Nobody demanded the government do something

n.. Nobody expected the government to do anything either

o. No Larry King, No Bill O’Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera

p.. No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found

And
a.. Nope, we just melted the snow for water

b.. Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars

c. The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny

d. Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snow bound families

e.. Families took in the stranded people – total strangers

f.. We Fired up wood stoves

g.. Broke out coal oi l lanterns or coleman lanterns

h.. We put on an extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”

i.. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess cre ated by being immobilized by a

j.. welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.

k.. Even though a Category “5” blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early…we know it can happen and how to deal with it

l.. ourselves.

“In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% most of the world’s social problems evaporate.”

I would have been ok except for that last little quote. Actually, I resent the whole thing because it generalizes about the entire Gulf coast and the people who live there. Anyway, here’s what I said…

While I agree that we have to solve our own problems, and applaud the three people who live in South Dakota for doing so, I take GREAT offense to the idea that “once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% most of the world’s social problems evaporate.”

Pretty ballsy of the writer to say, especially when you consider the following…

North of 48 degrees latitude, you will find Germany. Yeah, the Nazis were only about 2 percent of the world’s problems. Oh, wait, that’s the percentage of Jews remaining in the world today THANKS to the Nazis.

North of 48 degrees latitude, you will find Canada. Anyone who has EVER spent winter in Florida knows that they are about 90% of the problem down here. No tipping, big white cars with their right turn signal on as they drive 15 mph in the passing lane, and a real attitude problem when it comes to paying for things.

North of 48 degrees latitude, you will find Seattle. Microsoft and grunge rock… do you REALLY want to go there?

North of 48 degrees latitude, you will find Russia. Since Russia’s land mass covers a substantial portion of the globe (almost half the globe from a longitudinal standpoint) and most people over there still stand in bread lines and their economy makes crack whores ridiculously wealthy by comparison, I wonder if the 143,420,309 people who live in Russia would agree with this.

And finally… north of 48 degrees latitude you will find France. These people think Jerry Lewis is funny. Need I say more?

While I’m at it, that comment about “up here it’s work or die”… what the HELL do you think we do down here? Since there’s only about 567 Americans actually LIVING north or 48 degrees latitude, we’re down here, sweating our asses off to give you nice vacation spots, culture, and other commodities.

Oh, and if everyone north of 48 degrees latitude thinks we’re so fucked up down here, then stop clogging our roads every winter, don’t import our oranges, don’t bother going to Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets, and for chissakes, stop putting your Starbucks and their $4 coffees down here. If your ancestors hadn’t moved their asses down here and screwed with environmental features (you know, like replumbing Florida and Louisiana so you could get away from the lack of social problems up there), we wouldn’t have 98% of the social problems we do.

So, stay up there and enjoy your lack of social problems. I hope you also enjoy a disproportionate amount of pedophiles, your twenty minutes of summer, and wheat and corn as far as the eye can see. We’ll be down here, wearing shorts in January and saying good riddance.