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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Keely,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I originally wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>“…and that half of my country was filled with a culture far
more respectable than the one I currently live in.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The context (half my country destroyed another half) made it clear that
I was sad regarding the fruit of brutal civil war. There is not any clear
evidence of ‘idealizing’ anything here. My statement was
merely a comparison, and it is remarkable how easily it was taken out of
context and turned into an entire story of my private mental life. It is true
that I have a higher evaluation of southern culture than the culture of the
North at the time of the civil war. However, given the charge of ‘idealizing’
the south, I thought it worth while making the additional point that I would be
happy comparing the North favorably to our current culture as well as the
South. I listed architecture only in my second response where I was
speaking of both the North and the South. I actually had in mind architecture
in <st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> and <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">New Jersey</st1:place></st1:State>, where I lived for four years.
In your comments about post-war South, it seems that you are idealizing the
North.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Metzler<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I trust you're wearing your Keds, because I see a good bit of
backpedaling going on. You were clearly idealizing the Southern past, and
it's beyond me how anyone could have read your post and not come to the
conclusion that you <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>called Southern culture, pre-Civil War, more noble than our
own. I believe <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>that's what you intended, certainly. To top it off, you list
"architecture" <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>as one of the cultural glories of <st1:place w:st="on">Dixie</st1:place>,
as well as -- belatedly -- of the North at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>As in, "Well, sure -- in the name of Christ they stole and traded
slaves, beat them, tore up families, raped the women, scattered the children,
and denied the slaves the right to even minimal enfranchisement and civil
protection. But, hey -- those neo-Georgian rooflines were truly
awe-inspiring and I love what they did with the cornices . . . "<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>It makes me wonder if the evils of Jim Crow nearly a century later were
because of the pervasive racism it trumpeted, or because Southern people would
make a most unmannerly fuss to keep Blacks from those lunch counters that,
after all, were so poorly designed, and be ungentlemanly trying to bar them
from those dreary, industrial-looking drinking fountains . . .<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>keely<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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