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Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

matduggan.com

71–80 of 352 posts

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#71
post #65
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly not a fan of musical theater. The Music Man ~~takes place in~~ repeatedly refers to Gary. Ron Howard sings a song called Gary Indiana in the movie version. He’s about waist high in that movie.

Pretty close, but the musical takes place in the fictional town of River City, Iowa and Henry Hill claims to be an alumnus of the Gary Conservatory (class of '05), which is the hook used to launch the song in question.

D’oh. You are correct.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#72

[flagged]

The people wanting to buy your house don't have the World's most powerful military and a penchant for abusing others with it. The store selling cookies or belts want to sell these things, as opposed to being coerced. If I buy your car at gunpoint, the money I leave you with doesn't make my actions legal or ethical.

> If I buy your car at gunpoint

That isn't buying it. It is stealing it.

Threatening to buy is an oxymoron.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#73
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenland may be a good place to put data centers on

I must have missed that bit in the post.

Lots of hydroelectric power (when they need more electricity in Greenland, they just put up another dam) and lots of access to cooling for data centres.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#74
post #5

It's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.

Yeah I didn't open this link to see Indiana catching stray bullets. Does a disservice to this article.

I prefer to see that part as an up-front, honest disclosure of his biases and negativity.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people wanting to buy your house don't have the World's most powerful military and a penchant for abusing others with it. The store selling cookies or belts want to sell these things, as opposed to being coerced. If I buy your car at gunpoint, the money I leave you with doesn't make my actions legal or ethical.

> If I buy your car at gunpoint That isn't buying it. It is stealing it. Threatening to buy is an oxymoron.

Making you an offer you can't refuse.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, that stretch also has Gary. Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc. If you read the history of westward expansion,…

I took a moment to realize there’s a place called Gary, Indiana. And that there isn’t just some guy who is so infamous that he’s just known as Gary.

The town's even referenced in Futurama:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUW1pabZpLE

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#77
post #5

It's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.

Then again, that stretch also has Gary. Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc. If you read the history of westward expansion,…

Yep. Even worse, the problem is recursive: a town I lived in for a while growing up, Vandalia, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton, itself not exactly a booming metropolis in this millennium, but I digress) was settled by westward migrants aiming for Vandalia, Illinois - a town in the absolute middle of nowhere that just so happened to be the end of the National Road, presumably because the road builders got bored and/or ran out of money. Anyway, the travelers got bored and/or ran out of money on their way to Illinois, gave up, said "good enough", and named their new Ohio settlement after the place they failed to reach.

The Midwest is many things, but for quite a lot of it, "where anyone really wanted to get stuck" is not one of them.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#79
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irked me too. I'm running for state representative in House District 9, which covers much of that area. The district is drop dead gorgeous and it's growing rapidly. There's a lot here.

Pretty much everyone on earth is proud of their home area. I've never really been to a place where people didn't describe their home as one of the most beautiful places on earth. Earth has a lot of nice places. The flatness of Indiana can be calming and beautiful. But if you're driving on main roads, it's not very exciting, and it's not the kind of exciting people will fly across the world to see. And that was the po…

I love my home town. I grew up there, and it was fine. I would never describe it as one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm I proud of it? Only in the sense it's home and I have family there.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#80
post #5

It's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.

Heh, as someone who lives there (Northwest Indiana) that was a rough read. Then again, our state motto did used to be "Crossroads of America", so I guess that's kind of fair. These days it's the more aspirational "More to Discover".

I live somewhere that you’ll find almost nothing but insults about online. Meanwhile it remains a great place to live because those people don’t come here. Consider it a blessing.
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