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Show Thursday, April 24, 2008 16 SPRINGVILLE HERALD Barack Obama: Cultural Anthropologist Dr. Warren Throckmorton Barack Obama has a way with words. They trip lightly from his tongue, and some onlookers onlook-ers have swooned during his oratory. No one doubts his speechmaking ability. abil-ity. When opining off-the-cuff, however, he can get into trouble. Case in point: At a recent fundraiser among wealthy donors in San Francisco, some in the audience were preparing to join the Pennsylvania campaign and wondered aloud what questions Pennsylvanians might ask them. In taped remarks, Mr. Obama rightly noted that Pennsylvania is quite diverse and dismissed racism as a barrier to his campaign. However, he offered this preparation for his volunteers: "But the truth is ... our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, Pennsylva-nia, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration adminis-tration has said that somehow some-how these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy antipa-thy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." frus-trations." Posted on the Huffing -ton Post website, these comments brought quick . criticism. Seeing an opening, open-ing, opponents Hillary Clinton and John McCain pounced on Mr. Obama as elitist and "out of touch" with working folk in the heartland. It is easy to see their point. Hovering around 4.5 . percent, unemployment rates are relatively low in Pennsylvania. Thus, it is mm ' ". If Aim nuitif f ' "PJ Large Selection of Colors & Styles - .-. . :725 South 900 East Prow, fc&h 374-0580 -' Looking for a Great Garage Door? 1932 H. MAIN St. hard to sustain agreement that "nothing's replaced" the departed jobs of 25 years ago. More telling, perhaps, is Mr. Obama's analysis of the small-town psyche. Speaking to affluent af-fluent San Franciscans, Mr. Obama endeavors to explain the traditions of the inhabitants of the "fly-over" territories, inscrutable in-scrutable to coastal elites. Mr. Obama takes on the role of an anthropologist, speaking about small-town Pennsylvanians as Margaret Mar-garet Mead did about Pacific Pa-cific Islanders. I can see heads nodding as Professor Profes-sor Obama describes the odd and outdated native customs of church-going oiiu 6un-iuiiii6. iW the "aha!" moments were , ,, ., i many: "Oh, so that's why they go to church! The poor folks just have nothing noth-ing else to cling to." Barack Obama, cultural anthropologist. I live in one of those small towns in Pennsylvania. Pennsyl-vania. Are we small-town dwellers, with our small minds and small hopes, supposed to swoon with joy that someone has now properly diagnosed our plight? We have the bitters, bit-ters, and Mr. Obama will come and do what religion, guns and xenophobia have been unable to do. If Mr. Obama is elected president, will church attendance and gun sales plummet? No doubt, Mr. Obama wishes he could take it all back. In fact, according to the Washington Post, he said "I didn't say it as well as I could have." The question ques-tion remains: what didn't he say as well as he could have? Perhaps, he should have taken his cue from that great philosopher, John Cougar Mellencamp, who sung this about small towns: Educated in a small town Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town Used to daydream in that small town . Another boring romantic roman-tic that's me. Got nothing against a big town SPANISH FORK eg : jr Still hayseed enough to say Look who's in the big town But my bed is in a small town Oh, and that's good enough for me. , Mellencamp's 1985 hit evokes the highs and lows of small-town life. Far from a resignation to desperation, des-peration, Mellencamp provides pro-vides an anthem. McCain and Clinton should have this song playing at every campaign stop in a rural or smalltown. When Mr.:, Obama's California crew hits the pavement in small-town Pennsylvania, they might a 'a t:A ni,a,v5 .m j .. find folks ready to trade ,l . i 1 ;U ineir irauniuns auu imm for a political salvation. While there is alwavs While tnere is always room for economic im- provement, perhaps Perm- SsssffiS hear some concrete pro- posals or find Mr. Obama's Senate voting too liberal 7th Grade: Devri Adams, and too partisan. When Mercedes Allred, Abi-you Abi-you vote 97 percent of the gail Bean, Matthew Ben-time Ben-time with your party and nion, Stacia Burgi, Shan-have Shan-have the most liberal vot- non Chidester, Terrence ing record in the Senate, Crowe, Chantelle Fenn, your claims to be able to Steven Fisher, Ruben Gra-unite Gra-unite the country should nados, Kalin Hall, Tayler raise concerns. These are Johnson, Lauren Lewis, issues Mr. Obama's volun- Braydon Madson, Oaks teers should be prepared to Morley, Katie Muhlestein, address. Warren Throckmorton, PhD is an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College and fellow for psychology and public policy with the Center for Vision & Values. He maintains an active blog at www. wthrockmorton.com. More big game hunting permits More hunters will be hunting on some of Utah's best big game units this fall. On April 10, members of the Utah Wildlife Board raised the number of permits per-mits for many of Utah's big game hunts. The Northern Region wasn't one of those hunts, though. Board members cut 1,000 general season buck deer permits from the region for this fall. "This is a great time to hunt big game in Utah," says Anis Aoude, big game coordinator for the Divi- sion of Wildlife Resources. Utah s big game herds are doing well, and the state has a wider variety of animals to hunt than ever before." Limited entry elk and deer and once-in-a-lifetime moose permits are among the permits board members increased. V $MJmid Emm I flyiiyyu U FRIDAY APRIL 25 YE Ira Allen Park in Mapleton 6:30 to 8:30p.m. iv I J'JJ ,.,J -t ' V'immm . x,vfw '.v (A "" K s V, - Mapeton Elementary School would like to congratulate our Sensational Citizens for the week. These students were recognized by their teachers and classmates for doing great work at school. Students i., hoon wnririnn psnedallv hard to prepare for vear-end testing Reading Minutes and other school Dersona Desti your efforts are appreciated! picturea irom leu io g . 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