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Rural areas produce bumper crop of pundits
After reading the letters to the editor, I have one question. How is it that the experts who have such a total understanding of economics, foreign policy, domestic affairs and social programs end up living in Aztec, Hesperus or Bayfield? – John R.
It’s one of the ironies of rural living.
Many people choose to live in the boonies because they want less government. Yet a noisy few complain bitterly when roads don’t get fixed and “Washington ignores us.”
The country appeals to folks who want to live life on their own terms without interference from neighbors. Yet a handful of back-roads misanthropes take great pain to criticize other people’s lifestyles, opinions and belief systems.
Or maybe it’s the slow pace and bucolic setting that give our outspoken military and foreign-policy experts the time to craft ideological solutions to the problems in lands they’ve never seen and inhabited by people they have never met.
But that’s what makes America great. People are free to speak their mind and voice their opinions, no matter how wacky, unreasonable or misinformed.
It’s probably something in the water. Like fluoride.
You know, fluoride is a conspiracy, just like jet contrails in the sky, the Trilateral Commission and National Public Radio.
But that’s another story.
One of Action Line’s journalism professors called letters to the editor “a community’s emergency steam escape valve.”
Indeed we are fortunate to have so much venting.
We wouldn’t want our far-flung observers to blow a gasket.
I went to the Durango Farmers Market on Saturday to buy a farmer, but there were none for sale. How can they call it a “farmers market” if they don’t sell farmers? – Darrell Mir
A leisurely Saturday stroll with Mrs. Action Line through our home-grown bazaar confirmed your observation.
There were plentiful meats, cheeses, baked goods, coffee, produce, ceramics, candles, chair massages and some regrettable folk music. But no farmers for sale.
Peg Redford, the market’s organizer, didn’t miss a beat when asked about this blatant contradiction.
“Farmers aren’t in season right now,” she said with a smile on a bustling Saturday morning between selling Durango Farmers Market denim aprons and commemorative T-shirts.
“Farmers take quite a while to ripen and reach market condition, so it will take some time – many years in most cases.”
Peg suggested a visit to the nice folks at the Colorado Master Gardeners booth a couple of spaces down next to the pumpkin stand.
“Rather than buy a farmer, why not talk to the master gardeners? Their programs and advice will give you all the skills needed to become your own farmer,” she added. “No need to buy one when you can be one.”
There’s also the little matter of the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment, which outlaws the possession or trafficking of human beings.
These days, people are taking the Constitution a bit more seriously than in the last couple of years when officials pretty much regarded the document as advisory in nature and optional in application.
Anyway, don’t expect the name of a business to match its wares.
Walls are not sold at Wal-Mart. You can purchase neither a diamond nor a shamrock from the Diamond Shamrock station. And City Market is a chain of stores devoted to small towns.
Go figure.
E-mail questions to actionline@
durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can request anonymity if you can explain why Columbus Day is a holiday in America when Columbus never set foot here.
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