My friend Randy called me

My friend Randy called me about it this morning, twice. Twice because I didn’t answer the first time he called. Chris linked to it. Just what is it? It is a secret nestled in the American South. It’s not just a secret, but a meta-secret for many other secrets are nestled inside of it. It is home to the brain power behind every US rocket that has launched astronauts into outer space. It is Huntsville, Alabama and CNN has an article about it.

For every uninformed, insulated, never left the big city yokel who is happy to mock Alabama, Huntsville stands as a testament to their own provincial buffoonery. While it’s hills and valleys pale in comparison to some it presents a moderately good compromise of high-tech living with lush, green climes. What I don’t understand is the extremes that Huntsville cultivates. Some of the smartest people in the world live there, but they happily turn off their minds and let religion and mass-media feed them pap. When I was there this past Christmas I thought I’d need an ipecac to purge the trendy, manicured, perfectly coiffed, SUV for trips to the grocery, plastic automatons that had taken over. There is that contrast again though because of fucked up people I’ve known, Huntsville by far takes the cake. It frustrates me to see so much potential squandered away.