It was NOT my intention to turn this into some overblown, inflammatory thread that goes on for 200 pages. I just thought Jimmy Fallon's joke was funny.
I finally settled in Nashville after ten years in Alabama. And I really do love the South. I've been all over the world, and the fact is that Nashville is a terrific town. It's big enough to be cosmopolitan, but small enough that I don't feel the overwhelming need to take a hostage every day on the drive to work. I don't know how you can deal with living in Atlanta.
Stereotypes are stereotypes because there's a certain element of truth to them. But the Northerners I know usually make me laugh, too. I can find plenty of examples of locals and dislocated folks from other parts of the country who are equally incoherent, unintelligible, bigoted oxygen thieves. But it's the fanaticism that I find the most frightening, and my guess is that it's probably centered here in the South and in the Midwest. The Southern Nazi...I mean Baptist...the Southern Baptist Convention is based here in Nashville, and some of these people are just insane. Faith can be a remarkable thing, but reason often gets short shrift and that's probably what most concerns me. And that applies to ANY religion or belief system.
