Methland vs. Mythland
Timothy Egan
NYT Blog
Like a brief, intense summer squall, a media storm passed over small-town America a few years ago, stripping away what was left of the myth of the rural idyll to reveal a cast of hollow-cheeked white people smoking meth behind the corn silo.
It was going to destroy the heartland, this methamphetamine epidemic, just as crack cocaine had done to the inner city. There was no George Bailey in this version of Bedford Falls. No John Mellencamp melodies on the soundtrack. Just toothless boys on bikes peddling some nasty stuff cooked up from cold medicine and farm products.
And then it all passed, as these things do, the damage done, leaving the impression of rural America as a broken land, scary. In the interim, the more traditional narrative, of country people somehow more authentic than city folk — “the best of America in these small towns” — came roaring back in the form of Sarah Palin.
In truth, neither of these images does justice to the complexities of small-town life. And neither version does anything to advance the cause of an honest rural policy, something that might help some of the worst casualties of global economic tumult.
(Continued here.)
NYT Blog
Like a brief, intense summer squall, a media storm passed over small-town America a few years ago, stripping away what was left of the myth of the rural idyll to reveal a cast of hollow-cheeked white people smoking meth behind the corn silo.
It was going to destroy the heartland, this methamphetamine epidemic, just as crack cocaine had done to the inner city. There was no George Bailey in this version of Bedford Falls. No John Mellencamp melodies on the soundtrack. Just toothless boys on bikes peddling some nasty stuff cooked up from cold medicine and farm products.
And then it all passed, as these things do, the damage done, leaving the impression of rural America as a broken land, scary. In the interim, the more traditional narrative, of country people somehow more authentic than city folk — “the best of America in these small towns” — came roaring back in the form of Sarah Palin.
In truth, neither of these images does justice to the complexities of small-town life. And neither version does anything to advance the cause of an honest rural policy, something that might help some of the worst casualties of global economic tumult.
(Continued here.)
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