Stupid? The Republican Party’s EEG trace is flatter than Kansas.
Technically, Kansas isn't actually flat. As a person travels upstream over four hundred miles from the state's eastern end to its western one, he rises more than half a mile higher as he approaches the great continental divide. There are actually 20 states that exhibit less change in elevation from their lowest points to their highest ones than Kansas does.
To be as annoyingly precise as possible, Florida is the most flat, barely able to raise itself out of the Atlantic or the gulf from the panhandle to Miami. At least it offers plenty of opportunities for alliteration.
Of course, Derb's intention is to conjure up images of western Kansas, devoid of the woods and hilliness of the state's eastern end, which, to the south, resembles the Ozarks more than it does the Kansas-Colorado border. That the state's highest natural point, "Mount Sunflower", is located less than a mile from Colorado and is indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain, attests to this. The gentle but steady incline across the state measures around 0.1 degree. The Derb's point is well taken, I promise!
The rank ordering of US states by the change in elevation from each state's lowest point to its highest:
As tangential to this post as this post was to the Derb's article, does this guy's photo epitomize everything that is wrong with the modern white male or what?
To be as annoyingly precise as possible, Florida is the most flat, barely able to raise itself out of the Atlantic or the gulf from the panhandle to Miami. At least it offers plenty of opportunities for alliteration.
Of course, Derb's intention is to conjure up images of western Kansas, devoid of the woods and hilliness of the state's eastern end, which, to the south, resembles the Ozarks more than it does the Kansas-Colorado border. That the state's highest natural point, "Mount Sunflower", is located less than a mile from Colorado and is indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain, attests to this. The gentle but steady incline across the state measures around 0.1 degree. The Derb's point is well taken, I promise!The rank ordering of US states by the change in elevation from each state's lowest point to its highest:
| State | Change (ft) |
| 1. Alaska | 20320 |
| 2. California | 14785 |
| 3. Washington | 14417 |
| 4. Hawaii | 13803 |
| 5. Nevada | 12665 |
| 6. Arizona | 12565 |
| 7. Idaho | 11955 |
| 8. Utah | 11338 |
| 9. Oregon | 11249 |
| 10. Colorado | 11123 |
| 11. Montana | 11003 |
| 12. Wyoming | 10709 |
| 13. New Mexico | 10323 |
| 14. Texas | 8751 |
| 15. North Carolina | 6684 |
| 16. Tennessee | 6466 |
| 17. New Hampshire | 6288 |
| 18. South Dakota | 6276 |
| 19. Virginia | 5729 |
| 20. New York | 5343 |
| 21. Maine | 5270 |
| 22. Georgia | 4784 |
| 23. Oklahoma | 4686 |
| 24. West Virginia | 4623 |
| 25. Nebraska | 4587 |
| 26. Vermont | 4300 |
| 27. Kentucky | 3887 |
| 28. South Carolina | 3560 |
| 29. Massachusetts | 3489 |
| 30. Kansas | 3361 |
| 31. Maryland | 3360 |
| 32. Pennsylvania | 3213 |
| 33. North Dakota | 2757 |
| 34. Arkansas | 2698 |
| 35. Alabama | 2413 |
| 36. Connecticut | 2379 |
| 37. New Jersey | 1802 |
| 38. Minnesota | 1700 |
| 39. Missouri | 1542 |
| 40. Michigan | 1408 |
| 41. Wisconsin | 1372 |
| 42. Iowa | 1191 |
| 43. Ohio | 1094 |
| 44. Illinois | 955 |
| 45. Indiana | 937 |
| 46. Rhode Island | 811 |
| 47. Mississippi | 807 |
| 48. Louisiana | 543 |
| 49. Delaware | 447 |
| 50. Florida | 345 |
As tangential to this post as this post was to the Derb's article, does this guy's photo epitomize everything that is wrong with the modern white male or what?
17 comments:
Now now, it's not the poor guy's fault his eyesight is bad. And the choice of glasses over contacts indicates that he may have some sort of hobby where the safety advantages of glasses may come in handy. They guy's probably into shooting, carpentry, and metalwork.
Naw just kidding.
(Good post; I too thought Kansas was way flatter than it really is.)
He certainly wouldn't pass for Pat Tillman.
The file name for the photo is hilarious.
Bad hygiene = self-esteem issues or has no social intelligence = Preole.
The majority of Americans will judge by appearance, hence news anchors/reports are always clean-cut. Even Ivy professors and geniuses are held to a certain level of acceptable presentation.
Why would one take anything seriously from an individual who can't even take care of themselves. Personally this also applies to obesity, unless the guy works 80 hours as an investment banker or lawyer... no excuse to be overweight.
This also applies to obesity, unless the guy works 80 hours as an investment banker or lawyer... no excuse to be overweight.
I would be floored if this guy works anything close to that. I pulled up some of his other things, and it is equally snarky and devoid of any thoughtfulness.
Hey, at least the guy doesn't sport a nose-ring and dreads.
PS--That topography table is a bit deceptive. West Virginia is one of the most mountainous states in the US, but because it has no coast and because none of the mountains are of Himalayan (or even Rocky) stature, one gets the impression from the table that it is fairly flat. But there is a world of difference between flatness and total elevation change.
@Ed
He probably sports a SpongeBob tramp stamp though...
"But there is a world of difference between flatness and total elevation change."
I was thinking the same thing when I first read this. The problem is that there is not a good statistical measure that I know of to quantify how "flat" an area is when you get into fractal considerations like this.
Ed,
Right. Even within the state of Kansas, the eastern end is a lot hillier than the western end, but the western end is where elevation above sea level is the highest. Don't take this post as an attempt at a statistically precise definition of flatness, please!
Here's a view from an elevated tee at Colbert Hills golf course at Kansas State U.:
http://www.manhattancvb.org/images/pages/N59/Colbert.jpg
He's a writer for Gawker, so he's probably into the whole hipster scene.
At first I thought he was Christian Lander.
Steve,
If you're ever on that course again, I have dibs on being your caddy. You heard it here first, everyone.
He might as well be gay--yuck.
"Why would one take anything seriously from an individual who can't even take care of themselves"
Did you ever see a picture of Einstein?
I've never played Colbert Hills, but I once told the course's designer Jeff Brauer that he should be proud of creating a golf course that Kansans can be proud of and can't point to as proof that their native state has a lot of interesting terrain.
This guy represents a very small minority of white men in the US and Europe, and the minority is becoming smaller in both absolute and relative terms. If men of color are included, Derb is a vanishingly small fraction of all men.
What is more important is that the secular humanist phenomenon is passing away. In part because of high immigration rates, it will be replaced in both the US and Europe by a patriarchal model similar to that in Latin America, Asian and Africa.
Reminds me of one of my favorite riddles, for the purposes of listening to people's stupid responses borne of an inability to process nested superlatives:
"What state has the lowest highest point?"
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