Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Why, It's Just That Kind of Place!

And the award for best non-Arab America hater goes to -

A young man from Minnesota was arrested recently in connection with a number of pipe bombs placed in rural mailboxes across America's Heartland. According to reports, his ambitious and imaginative plan included leaving bombs in the pattern of a gigantic, multi-state smiley face, presumably as observed from outer space. He left messages along with his bombs, messages containing the delusional ramblings one associates with anti-government residents of remote compounds stocked with automatic weapons, ammo, and freeze-dried rations.

Having grown up in the region, this richly-nuanced bit of Heartland Americana just naturally set me reminiscing.

John Chuckman of Yellowtimes.org. and he's just getting started. First, his experiences with an unfortunate church school:

There were the hot summer nights spent in a cinder-block chapel at Camp Sycamore (not its real name). Here, every night, an evangelist with greasy, swept-back hairdo and heavy black-rimmed glasses, a la Buddy Holly, shouted and sputtered, spewing beads of sweat and saliva visibly into the stage-lighting, trying his hardest to scare a bunch of thirteen-year olds half to death in an effort to win souls for Jesus....

The experience at least taught an observant young man a good deal about the methods and purposes of tyranny. It was a few years later, after reading Allan Bullock on Hitler, that I realized that the Buddy-Holly preacher at Camp Sycamore had more in common with Adolf than Jesus. And all that panic-laden, nuclear-attack stuff at school owed more to Goebbels than concern for public safety. Still later, I understood that there is a connection between the fundamentalist obsession over the destruction of the world and Hitler's Götterdämmerung-destruction of Germany when his bid to rule Europe had failed. Nihilism is a common thread.

Ah, the good old days, when the evangelist would wearily shuffle the kids into the gas chamber, or plan an invasion of Poland...

When Timothy McVeigh put Oklahoma City on the map by trying to erase it, there were many editorials and columns opining how such a terrible thing could happen in the Heartland. The Heartland: that mythical place of cherry pie, gingham dresses, honesty, and big-hearted neighbors. Dorothy's Kansas. Little House on the Prairie. I detected a certain feebleness of insight in these pieces. There was nothing to be surprised about....

The fact is that the Midwest has always been more accurately pictured by the brutality of bloody Kansas just before the Civil War than by the schmaltz of Dorothy's Kansas, for even though the "Wizard of Oz" is a parable about American politics, its popularity has nothing to do with that fact. Crazed gangs, violent racist attitudes, and a dedication to choking your views down the throats of others are just some of the cultural landmarks that never make it into sugary television shows or Hollywood movies about the place.

Don't think your home will be spared, he's got a few more:

Buffalo, while not properly part of the Midwest, is definitely a close spiritual relative. Not just in its treasury of Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan buildings, Frederick Law Olmsted parks, and location on a Great Lake, but right down to its flat-vowel, nasally accent and many colorful cultural attitudes....

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, grew up and got his start maiming and killing around Chicago. He moved on to pursue the greater part of his career from a remote cabin out West, a fact which may reflect the early formative influence of a place like Camp Sycamore.

Chuckman and Kaczynski - don't blame them, blame their upbringing!

Recently, the remarkable English journalist Robert Fisk wrote a piece on why Hollywood actor John Malkovitch wants to kill him, something the actor, upset over Fisk's reporting from the Mideast, apparently ranted about in a speech on a visit to England. But I think Fisk is likely unaware that Malkovitch comes from the Midwest, actually the Chicago area, or he would not think there is anything unusual in his behavior. People do threaten to kill people there because they don't like their views or their color. It's just that kind of place...

Yes, the Heartland is full of unusual stories. It is a mysterious, fascinating place, one that leaves an intoxicating spell on you many years afterward. Of course, I remind myself, it could have been worse. I could have grown up in the South.

There's a hidden genius in this guy's style. He peels off cities and states like James Brown in concert, whipping up the crowd -

Detroit! Jackboots exploit! jump back!

Texas! All enmeshed in David Koresh! uh-huh!

New York! Thank you M'am, meet Son-of-Sam! Pow!

It's just that kind of place!..

Imagine if you just substituted random African cities in for the U.S. locales above? How would our Mr. Chuckman sound? A bit Nazi-like himself, I think.

By the way, sorry Damian, Mark, David, and others, this fellow exported himself North. He's one of yours now.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at May 30, 2002 10:31 PM | Technorati inbound links