Perhaps the more interesting discussion / debate in the Oregonian editorial / Letters to the Editor complex concerns high school football, and the disparity in resources available to rich suburban schools compared to poorer schools.  A Lake Oswego resident charged in, railed for the great support and hard work they all put in to make their high school football program successful, and charged anyone bemoaning the disparity with demanding “Socialism”, which may or may not be the case.

I think what you find if you scope around the nation, in general, is that less financially advantaged high schools tend to have better basketball programs and richer high schools tend to have better football programs — football being a more expensive proposition.  None of which is to say I give two rips about the state of anyone’s high school athletics, and on that score figure there’s no real problem anywhere with how things turn out one way or the other.  But as for the decrying from the Lake Oswegon of creeping Socialism to whatever might be devised to get resources into poorer athletic programs, no less a sports force than the National Football League runs off of a Socialist program, and Pete Bozell’s great dream of “Parity”.  Of course, this has lead to every few years, right on schedule, since the early 1980s a bemoaning of the league as steeped in mediocre without any good team, but fans who yell this line tend to stop after their team mediocrely wins their big game.  In the end, this seems to have helped it’s bottom line in earning large quantities of money.

But I leave that all aside and try to digest this letter.:

Rural bias widely accepted
If you take a good look at the election maps, it’s obvious that the most widely accepted bias is the one held by urban residents against rural residents.

Consider comments directed at Sarah Palin like, “caribou Barbie” or columnist Katha Pollitt urging Palin to, “Get back to your iceberg.”

If someone advised an urban candidate to, “Get back to your slum tenement,” would that be considered acceptable?

Critical comments were directed against Levi Johnston (Palin’s future son-in-law) regarding his search for work out of town rather than staying in Wasilla with his pregnant fiance, Bristol.

This displayed a profound lack of understanding about the realities of finding meaningful and profitable work in a small rural community.

It’s going to be interesting to watch how the lack of representation for rural voters plays out in the coming years.

RAY PENDLETON
Southeast Portland

We’ve sort of been hitting ice burgs of arguments existence of “double standards” for one side or the other of the great donkey / elephant game — or other demarcations of this divide (urban versus rural?  Really, must I?), sorting out “the way we live our lives in actuality”.  But imagine reactions if Barack Obama had a teenage daughter who was knocked up by his boyfriend, and as a result dropped out of high school to get work.  “Slum tenemant” indeed.  Meanwhile, that “interesting to see how the lack representation for rural voters” final sentence almost sounds threatening — but I don’t have any guage on where it’s going.

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