The Fury of North Dakotans Scorned

About an hour after finishing my weekly radio interview on KHND 1470 in Harvey, ND, I saw this item mentioned at Buzz.mn:

North Dakota's governor, not to mention scores of the state's 600,000 citizens, are fuming about an article published this month in one of the world's most prestigious magazines.

Under the headline "The Emptied Prairie," National Geographic shows images of ramshackle farm houses and talks about North Dakota's "irreversible decline ... and a sense of things ebbing, churches being abandoned, schools shutting down and towns becoming ruins."

All of that has prompted a vociferous "Whoa!" from North Dakota's political brass, current residents and others across the country with state connections. They're e-mailing the venerable 120-year-old magazine and venting their anger on North Dakota newspaper websites.

"They could have done the same thing in Minnesota. Pick any state, find an abandoned building or house or a car sitting in a field, take a picture and say that represents the state -- come on," Gov. John Hoeven said.

He made the comments in an interview Monday, after firing off a letter to the magazine's editor-in-chief in Washington.

"It's as if someone came into my back yard and took a picture of my broken lawn mower and then wrote a story trying to portray that as how my family lives," added North Dakota Commerce Commissioner Shane Goettle, whose family still ranches in the state's northwest corner.

The honchos point to North Dakota's low crime, job growth, improved farm exports and status as the continent's third-largest pasta producer. Even writer Charles Bowden acknowledges that the state population has stabilized and that "oil is booming, wheat prices are at record highs."

He calls North Dakota "one of the loveliest and most moving" states in the union.

I have not had the pleasure of visiting the folks in Harvey, ND that I talk to each week, but maybe someday I will. Hopefully that will occur in the Spring or Summer when it's not 100 below zero or whatever it gets to this time of year. I'm sure it's a lovely place...when it's not freezing.

I've been in the middle of New York City, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and I've been in the middle of the vast open spaces in the middle of our country. There's a lot to be said for empty prairie.

James Lileks, a Fargo native, offers more thoughts here.