An interesting artical on young people leaving North Dakota.

A lot of the article focuses on cultural reasons why young people leave. Yes, that's it! I was in Fargo the other day, so of course I took the opportunity to go to the mall, since ours is worse than the mall in Ithaca. I checked out the bookstore, since we don't have one in the big town near me (unless you count Wal-Mart or the Christian Supply Store, which I don't.) Anyway, Sean Hannity's books were scattered all around the store, while Alan Colmes and Al Franken were nowhere to be seen.

I ordered a salad in the food court from a decent looking cafe. "Is the lettuce baby greens?" I asked. "Yeah, it's green lettuce," was the kids response. Nothing like a nutritous iceberg lettuce salad. "Do you have oil and vinegar dressing?" I asked. "Uh, what? No." Mmm, nothing like dousing that nutritous iceberg lettuce in nutritous ranch dressing.

I'm frustrated at not being able to find freshwater mozzarella or arugula in the grocery store. My parent's insist on cooking with canola oil, when everyone one knows that extra virgin olive oil is the only way to go. My family is extremely carniverous, making it very hard to stick to my regimen of being vegitarian 5 days a week.

The nicest restaurant to eat at in town is Applebee's. Yes, Applebee's, the incredibly proliferate, gaudily decorated chain restaurant monster. The sad thing is that Applebee's represents to people in North Dakota a taste of culture from the East.

What's even sadder is that Wal-Mart is celebrated as the best thing to happen to the town since the trans-continental railroad.

Is it a wonder that North Dakota's youth want to leave? On one hand it's a hat tip to our elders. We've grown up in an environment and received an education that has allowed us to be better better people, build better lives, and dream bigger dreams. On the other hand, would better peope really take issue with the type of cooking oil their parents use?