The Nossiter Net
The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
What's The Matter With Ohio
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
The Nossiter Net is cast  to snare some of  the riper rascalities of the day.  Comments?  Send a letter to the editor.
What’s the matter with Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island?  The failing Clinton campaign won all three primaries, despite running a candidate the Financial Times congratulates on the high degree of difficulty but low style points feat of being simultaneously angry and dreary. Conventional wisdom says Clinton won by complaining about her treatment by the press, by both denouncing AND rejecting her opponent’s charisma and eloquence, and by gaining the endorsement of Saturday Night Live. Further study suggests her wins were predicated on qualities unique to these three particular states.

Ohio is known primarily for its rich farm lands and rusting steel mills. Less famous is the active cultural life of the Buckeye State, which provides valuable clues about the Ohio vote.  Over in bustling Findlay, the Fort Findlay Playhouse is featuring Annie Get Your Gun, a show with a “sure-fire finale that hits the mark every time.”  Columbus, the state’s political and educational heart, boasts The Convict Conundrum Mystery Dinner Theater. At the Hoover Historical Center in North Canton, the 100 Years of Hoover Legacy is a can’t miss exhibition celebrating a century of great moments in the vacuum cleaner industry.

Take a jolly musical about guns and the people who shoot them. A theatrical piece about prison convicts, possible last meals (given Ohio’s cuisine) included. And a historical retrospective of  the vacuum cleaner. Add a country of three hundred million people enamoured of their hundred million plus guns, which incarcerates one in one hundred of its citizens for a convict population vastly greater than anywhere else on earth, and a candidate whose career vicissitudes give her an unparalleled ability to suck it up. Could Ohio have voted for anyone but Clinton?

Little Rhode Island gets easily overlooked on the drive from Boston to New York. Let your mind wander for a few minutes on I 95 and you’ll miss the place entirely. In a nation built on a big scale, this geographical insignificance doesn’t make the inhabitants so much resentful as it does dreary.  This trait might also have something to do with the appalling Atlantic coastal weather. Founded in the 17th century as a haven of religious freedom, more recent history has seen the Ocean State overrun with unemployed blue collar workers and Mafiosi. The result is a lot of anger about the state’s loss of purpose. Angry and dreary. Is it any wonder that Little Rhody voted Clinton?

Texas we all know for its big steaks and big hair, big oil and big pollution, big boots and big heels, big mouths and big attitudes, big homicide and big execution rates. As its most famous non-native son put it, “some say I swagger. In Texas, we call it walkin’.” Over-sized and loud-mouthed, dirty, violent, and swaggering. The pathology is familiar to any parent of small children. It’s exhibited every day by playground bullies around the nation, who become so due to a combination of excessive size and consistent maternal neglect.

Those Texans just wanted their mommy. It’s too late to remind them to be careful what you wish for.


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A NOTE TO READERS
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and April 26th, 2007, nearly eight weeks.  The reason:  tech sabotage. Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire period.  At one point, they even managed to lose all the files.  In many discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming.  No one seemed able to fix the problem.  Ruling out the possibility of Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone since the beginning of March.  A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer named Jason called.  He had my letter before him.  Though he couldn’t do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day.  That was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first place.

The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo Geocities.

                              

©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2008


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