I’ve long had a fair bit of affection for the South and its people, which is odd because I doubt I could ever live in the South in comfort except in carefully selected areas, maybe not even then.  It’s nothing by any means common to most Southerners; rather, its vocal minority is simply more vocal than would enable me to live in peace, me being not particularly prone to withstand certain things in silence.  It’s a rough situation for the vast majority, whom I find a diverse, thoughtful, friendly and self-honest bunch.  They are sick of being caught up in broad generalizations, and I completely get that because I’m a Kansas boy.  I get the same sort of crap, and by and large, Southerners seem to deal with those broad generalizations based on minority viewpoints better than I do those about Kansas.  I guess they’ve had long practice.

Thus, there’s more than one reason a son of Kansas roots watching twisters tear the living hell out of Dixie can feel pretty badly for them.  Hang tough, folks.  My condolences for your losses, which are appallingly grave.  You have a lot of good people, a lot of tough people, and you’ll rebuild.