Weather panic attacks

[laira314]

There's some fairly heavy snowfall and Illinois is freaking out. Apparently, society ceases to function when it snows more than an inch at a time, and it's best to barricade yourself in a nuclear bunker with a year's worth of canned food.

It snows every year here. Every year.Since this is so traumatic (every year), here's what will make society

Comments

[laira314]

...yeah... makes me wonder how that happens. I've seen small towns, notably the one we lived in in Sweden and to some extent Hefei, have governments that do a lot of stupid things, but St. Louis is big enough to avoid many of the causes for it I've seen. For example, in the town we lived in in Sweden, Ludvika, the dynamics are shaped mainly by three things: inevitable social democratic rule, meaning that there is no real opposition to shake things up; small-town politicians wanting to pretend they're playing with the big boys; and the logical tendency of anyone with real political ambitions (or any other kind of ambitions) to leave, because the town is too small to provide opportunities. This leads to some stupid investments and plans, like building a traffic circle (roundabout? I forget which one's British English and which one's American English) in the middle of a forest in supposed anticipation of a boom of hip IT companies relocating there which never happens. The people with ego problems remain and aren't challenged, because anyone who would want to leaves. In Hefei, the local politicians built an "European City" close to our apartment that they had to go to Europe (of course) to study. (Instead of sending, say, the architechts.) The supposed purpose is to inspire progress, modernization and globalization.... in a semi-backwater town of only a million. The really good cadres of the Party always go to Beijing. (Duh.) But St. Louis is a place you could start a political career... you have any ideas for how a situation like this could result?