WTF Series, #1 - North is Not Midwest

The North is Not the ‘Midwest!’

The media coverage of the polar vortex jet stream pushed south by warmer weather in the Arctic makes one consistent error.  It identifies the ‘midwest’ or the ‘upper midwest’ of the U.S. as the area most affected by the far below-zero temperatures and wind-chills.  This is common across all media – NPR, the Weather Channel, the mainstream TV news stations, the print press and internet sites. 

This idea seems to be based on the notion that anything west of the Appalachian Mountains is the ‘West’ - an idea rooted in the 1600s and 1700s when Europeans sought to colonize native American land in Ohio, west of the eastern coast.  In the modern world, this idea is flat out wrong geographically.  Look at a map.

Tell The Directionless Media About It

The Mississippi is a far more likely candidate for the real natural divider between ‘east’ and ‘west.’  The actual geographic ‘center’ of the country is near Lebanon, Kansas in the northern part of that state.  Lebanon is several hundred miles west of the Mississippi.  Rugby, North Dakota is the geographic center of North America, also100s of miles west of the Mississippi.  On this map, even the rise in elevation from the 'green' corn and soybean fields to the higher plains cow grazing areas near the Rockies is just west of the Lebanon line. “Midwest” means ‘middle of the west’ in the English language.  So by the logic of the English language, and both the natural and the geographic center of the US, the ‘midwest’ or ‘upper midwest’ is NOT Minnesota or Iowa or the Dakotas or Nebraska or Wisconsin or Michigan or Illinois or all the other stupid locations they can find. 

The ‘midwest’ is actually around Colorado, Wyoming or Utah.  The ‘upper midwest’ is more like Montana and Idaho. And this area is still in the NORTH.  And Canada?  Really, really north.

So why do they call an area that is clearly in the NORTH, the ‘midwest’?  It is clear something has been omitted and the west moved east.  I have an idea.  You bet I do…

Back in the good ol’ days of the un-Civil War the area above the SOUTH was called the NORTH.  Remember?  Not anymore.  Now you might hear about the ‘Northeast’ around Vermont or Maine, but more likely it’ll be ‘New England.’  You might hear about the ‘Northwest’ – being Washington and Oregon, which weren’t even in the Union in 1860.  But the NORTH has been rechristened the ‘Midwest’, the ‘upper Midwest,’ the ‘Great Lakes Region’ – anything but the NORTH.  Rarely are they even called the ‘north central states,’ though you sometimes hear ‘northern plains’ which means Montana or the Dakotas where there are plains.  Again, disappearing a whole chunk of the NORTH.  

Why have they disappeared the NORTH?  On the flip side of the coin, no one hesitates in calling Arizona and New Mexico the Southwest; Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama the South; Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia, the South or the Southeast.  The latter 2 groups get called simply ‘the South’ a lot.  A lot! 

Now I know the Neo-Confederacy has messed up on scientific issues like climate change, vaccinations, the efficiency of chastity, the 'truth' of different human races, the dangers of marijuana, the virtues of home schooling and so many other factual issues it is hard to count.  Facts don’t matter, you see.

We can add one more – the disappearance of the NORTH as a place.  For instance, the Weather Channel is headquartered in Atlanta and seems to only briefly cover weather news outside of the South and ‘East.’ They are too busy parochially yapping about the Stupid Bowl in Atlanta to care. 

The terminology is political, not geographical.  This misuse of geography is not unique of course. The Neo-Confederates have convinced everyone else in the U.S. – except a few ‘bold northerners’ of Minnesota and 1 weather station - that geography is just an opinion.  And that the north does not exist anymore.

It does. 

The Cranky Yankee

Athens, Georgia

February 1, 2019