verstehen libre.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Um.
Maybe I'm just a callous asshole, but I don't exactly understand what the problem is here.
With growing evidence of an Alaska Native exodus from villages to the city, Mayor Mark Begich and Schools Superintendent Carol Comeau sent a letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday asking her to organize an emergency task force to find ways to stem the migration. Anchorage and the state "cannot stand by and tolerate the deterioration of rural Alaska," the letter said.
What exactly is your solution, Marky-Mark? Throwing more subsidies at the problem to maintain the abysmal standard of life in communities that you'll just have to pay 70-100 million clams to rescue from environmental destruction within the next 5-10 years? It's clear from the article that this "emergency task force" isn't about preserving village life for its own, intrinsically valuable sake (which is a whole other conversation, in any case), but sparing the Anchorage School District overenrollment pressures. But instead of being up-front about that, you're exploiting narratives of rural exceptionalism that are not just insulting and misleading, but increasingly dangerous for these communities that must move if they're going to survive. Rural Alaska needs an emergency task force, no doubt. A few of them, actually. Just not this one. Not even close. ¶ 5:16 AM
With growing evidence of an Alaska Native exodus from villages to the city, Mayor Mark Begich and Schools Superintendent Carol Comeau sent a letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday asking her to organize an emergency task force to find ways to stem the migration. Anchorage and the state "cannot stand by and tolerate the deterioration of rural Alaska," the letter said.
What exactly is your solution, Marky-Mark? Throwing more subsidies at the problem to maintain the abysmal standard of life in communities that you'll just have to pay 70-100 million clams to rescue from environmental destruction within the next 5-10 years? It's clear from the article that this "emergency task force" isn't about preserving village life for its own, intrinsically valuable sake (which is a whole other conversation, in any case), but sparing the Anchorage School District overenrollment pressures. But instead of being up-front about that, you're exploiting narratives of rural exceptionalism that are not just insulting and misleading, but increasingly dangerous for these communities that must move if they're going to survive. Rural Alaska needs an emergency task force, no doubt. A few of them, actually. Just not this one. Not even close. ¶ 5:16 AM
