<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV><FONT size=4>Dear Visionaries,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>I am back in Moscow at long last and damn glad of it. I don't care about the snow. I don't care about the supposed redness of the state. I don't care that some people on this list (and you know who you are, you small-minded, self-righteous, give-me-my-farm-subsidies-but-starve-the-urban-poor, morality police hypocrites) seem to have been licking lead paint. Nope. North Idaho is beautiful. And empty. Moose and elk walk our hillsides, hawks fly overhead, and there seem to be porcupines everywhere. One crossed the driveway in front of me night before last; he looked like a little old man with a Billy Idol hair-do.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Freshly-returned as I am from the East Coast, specifically from the buckle of the Bible Belt, I want to tell you all something before I forget it: we are damn lucky to live out here in the happy back end of beyond. Doug Wilson and company are an oddity in Moscow -- a wishful theocracy, not an Iranian reality. You've all seen that political map featuring the blue "United States of Canada" and below it the red "Jesusland?" Well, I think the dimensions are a little bit off -- Jesusland starts at Virginia, runs south to Florida, and then west to Texas. Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Montana and the Dakotas -- these are libertarian reds who haven't yet figured out that what Bush and his Southern brethren are really all about is the reallocation of wealth from poor to rich and big government intrusion. George and his friends don't believe in states' rights; they want to be the bedroom police. They want to make sure that none of us enjoy any exotic sexual practices that might scare the bloomers off of Laura. (If I'm not mistaken, I believe this includes foreplay, so skip that dinner and a movie, ladies, and hop right into the missionary position. If you can't remember what that is, then lie on your back and stare at the ceiling until visions of Queen Victoria dance in your head.) </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Your party is schizophrenic, my dear GOPers. Southern Republicans are not like Western Republicans. Westerners want to be left alone; they want low taxes and lots of guns and as little federal presence as possible without actually having to move to Vanuatu. That is <STRONG><U>not</U></STRONG> what the Southern GOP wants. The Southern GOP wants to make sure that we all pray to the same God (whose name is pronounced Jehovah but who spells it Wal-Mart). They want to make sure that we all read the same books; Jan Caron is in, Gore Vidal is out. Sure, the Southern Republicans are on board with the guns thing, but only because they hope that a loaded weapon will help persuade the rest of us to decorate our walls with Thomas Kinkeade (tr.) paintings and not Keith Haring or art glass or, God forbid, a menorah. If variety is the spice of life, then the Southern Republicans are mashed potatoes. Just picture Bill Frist in a big bowl with a melting pat of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" on his shiny hair-sprayed head.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Wake up, Dan, Pat, and Dale "The Lurker" Courteney: the Southern GOP does not care about the West. They could give a rat's ass about dams or conservation or snowmobiling or grazing rights. Your issues are not their issues. Why not? Because they're rich. Stinking, filthy rich. The myth of the New South is that it's still the Old South, all tobacco chewing and trailer parks. Well, bullshit. The New South hides its poor in trailer parks thirty miles outside of the city limits. My hometown of Raleigh now sports 310,000 residents. The cheapest, dumpiest house inside the beltline sells for an average of $210,000 -- and we're talking about two bedrooms, one bath, and neighbors so close they can not only hear you belch but make a fairly accurate guess from the resulting aroma of what you had for dinner. The city of Raleigh is littered with neighborhoods that dictate what color you may paint your house, what make, model, and year of car you may park in your driveway, and whether or not you may own a pickup truck or an ATV. (Some say yes, but only if you keep them tastefully hidden in the garage; others forbid them outright on the grounds that they are declasse.) </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Raleigh now has an outer loop to the outer loop of the outer loop of its beltline. From Friday the 19th through Monday the 29th, I had 18 near-death experiences driving on Raleigh's roads. Traffic zips around and through the city at twenty to thirty miles per hour faster than the posted speed limit. If you're law-abiding, you're dead. Someone in a Lexus talking to Jesus on a cellphone is going to change lanes without looking and knock your rented Toyota Corolla into the sweet hereafter. I spent so much time preparing to kiss my ass goodbye that I feel like I ought to buy it an engagement ring.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>I love Idaho, I really do. Red state my fanny. Moscow is blue, blue, blue; blue-er than Mel Gibson's backside in "Braveheart." By God, let's keep it that way. I don't know who Dan's been talking to, but I have yet to be invited to a Democratic Pity Party. I've been invited (and have done some inviting) to several Democratic Rabble-Rousing Raves. None, alas, has featured the use of marijuana, either medicinal or recreational, but one lives in hope. I've also felt free to drive my 1976 Chevy Suburban to these joyous events, even though it sports several pop-riveted replacement panels and a ten-dollar spray-can paint job. We've got it good here, we really do.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Happy to be home,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=4>Adopted Idahoan and permanent Southern ex-patriot </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML><br clear=all><hr>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <a href='http://explorer.msn.com'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>