When people like me appear on television, they appear as fools. It's really frustrating. Whenever they show small town america, farmers, anarchists, non-consumers they are stupid, bumbling, fringe, crazy, thoughtless, narrow-minded....

I don't know what it's like to be an average american. I don't know what it's like to be the target audience for ads and television shows. I don't know what it's like to not be me.

But I'm looking around and seeing that people up here, the farmers, that are making their living by feeding people, they are barely making it. They start their seasons with nothing, they scrimp and save just to buy the seeds they need to get started in the spring. I look around and see my friends that hitchhike and dumpster dive and reuse in ways that are inventive and surprising and I marvel at how far they will go to walk a little softer on this earth, to respect the place we all call home. I look around and see my town as a place where people help each other, care about their neighbors, smile at you in the street, and pick you up when you put your thumb out.

I don't know...

What am I trying to say?

People are just people and some of us look at the big picture and worry not about global markets but local economies, not about international relations but interpersonal ones, and not about the biggest, newest, brightest gadget but about meeting our needs as directly as possible. And I don't think ti's something to be ashamed of, to make fun of.

I'm tired of being ridiculed.