With all the talk of red states and blue states and regional politics, we live in a time where we often view anything not connected to us as “other.” But, oddly, at least in the Eastern United States, we have been connected across the 40th parallel by a single mountain range—the Appalachians—that has served for eons as a path not just for the hikers we see along Route 7 in the Berkshires, but by the flora and fauna that have travelled this same pathway.
Were we simpler and purer then; were the scandals? Were we more sensitive to over-stepping and wrong-doing, less willing to overlook it and quicker to condemn? Perhaps, but explicit details rouse emotions then and now.
Closer to home we have a Republican governor – with no vision for Massachusetts other than using us as a base to run for president next year – who continues to con regular folks with a smile and a shoe shine while protecting the wealthy from having to pay their fair share in taxes.
