I found the following in the latest volume of U.S. News and World Report. It seems that Senator Leahy hasn't learned that this is annoying yet.
OK, so Washingtonians can't drive in the snow. But do we have to be sneered at by smug snow senators like Vermont's Patrick Leahy? On a day last week when a few inches shut down much of the District, Leahy opened a committee hearing with some Green Mountain State chest-pounding. "A little snow's not going to stop us," he bragged at the sparsely populated hearing. "We had 2 feet of snow overnight," he says of his home state. "I'm told that a number of places opened as much as an hour late. It's a new generation, and they go slowly."
OK, so Washingtonians can't drive in the snow. But do we have to be sneered at by smug snow senators like Vermont's Patrick Leahy? On a day last week when a few inches shut down much of the District, Leahy opened a committee hearing with some Green Mountain State chest-pounding. "A little snow's not going to stop us," he bragged at the sparsely populated hearing. "We had 2 feet of snow overnight," he says of his home state. "I'm told that a number of places opened as much as an hour late. It's a new generation, and they go slowly."
4 comments:
No, I'm sorry, but for the first time I can remember, I think Senator Leahy is right. I completely disagree with your premise that pride in one's regional climate is annoying. He has earned the right to say what he did, and incompetent DC drivers should put up with it.
Pride in one's regional climate? That is not what is on display here. I love Vermont and the northeast, and I'm proud to hail from there, but something else is going on here.
"Your reaction to this snow exposes the fact that you are a small and cowardly man! Far too sheltered from the elements! Why, I bet that if we were in Vermont people would be walking around in speedos and flip-flops like it was July."
It's a thinly veiled declaration of superiority and makes the subtle claim that if you don't hail from the same region you are a weaker specimen because you have not been hardened. I have always hated it when people from New YorK city make the claim that I would be eaten alive there, or when people from Florida say that I couldn't live there becaue of the humidity or the mosquitoes. ...and it rubs me the wrong way when the Senator from VT criticizes the people of Washington D.C. for exercising caution because VT (which has no urban centers to speak of) sometimes gets more snow. Just annoying.
I would not be eaten alive in NYC.
I can adapt to any climate and region as well as the average homo sapien.
There is nothing inherently special about the people of any region or ethnicity.
Don't tell me I'm over reacting if I haven't invested in a pair of snow tires ...and yes I know what people do where you live.
Uh huh...oh really...wow! How do you guys manage back there?!?! Keep talking, I like it!
Is that Pat Leahy wants to hear? Does he want us to stand in awe of his hardiness?
Wow... really? Two feet! I guess I better man up!
Adversity breeds character, regardless of the source of the adversity. Frankly, I trust a Vermonter or a Texan or a Newfoundlander -- folks who have been shaped by, have overcome the unique challenges of their homes -- more than I trust a lifelong resident of San Diego or Hawaii, where life has been 75 and sunny all year round. I don't think it's snobbery, I think it's good sense, rather like going to the doctor who's treated a few patients before.
Snobbery
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