Dunes: the gift that keeps on giving (photographically speaking)

 

On May 13th Monahans Sandhills State Park let me play with dunescapes,
including a low-sun-shadowed one sheltering what I thought of as a mini-oasis.

 

 

There’s sparser vegetation in the middle scene, and none at all in the abstract
dune portrait at the end, which is the most minimalist, so to speak, of the three.

 

 

  

 

 

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Today, talk of a divided America has become a cliché, almost too obvious to remark on. The country’s political geography is now reductively mapped as urban versus rural, the meritocrats versus the uneducated, liberals and the far Left at war with conservatives and the far Right. Much of the polarization argument centers on the belief that liberals and conservatives do not share the same values. According to the standard narrative, rural Americans feel rage and hate toward the liberal elite, and we are hurtling toward another civil war.

But what if, for the vast majority of rural Americans, none of this is true?

 

That’s the beginning of the article titled “The Myth of Rural Rage,” with subtitle “Red states and small towns are not, in fact, full of rage.” The author, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, describes herself as a lifelong liberal, but because she grew up in a rural area she has a different take than many who have always lived in heavily populated areas. “In almost 20 years of interviews for my books and academic articles,” she writes, “I have come to learn that it is only when you talk with people for a long time, ask them about their lives, and actually listen that you find who they are and what they want.” You can read the full article.

 

© 2024 Steven Schwartzman