Larry Barnes pondered...
> How did this topic ever get twisted around to public education?  Did I hit
the
> delete button one-two many times?

Well, here's the short version...

In response to a query about where the next Silicon Valley would pop-up, I
wrote a nice little expose on the virtues of Kansas.  I concluded with the
words...

> We take our politics, like most of our religious life, on a conservative
> scale.  The state has been overwhelmingly Republican since being founded
in
> the mid-1830's.  Remember Carry Nation?  Well, she was a native-Kansas...

To which Wirt quickly replied...

> Unfortunately, it's these last four sentences that pretty much guarantee
that
> Kansas won't be a future center of high-tech innovation, at least not in
the
> near-term.
>
> If you look at where all of the Silicon Valleys are, they're smack in the
> middle of the most liberal, most highly educated populations in the United
> States.

And we were off and running...

I appreciate the attempts by Mark and Larry to get things back on track to
the original post.  However, at the same time I seriously think that the
time has come for much of corporate America to wake up to what the heartland
has to offer.  Beside a lower cost of living, less congestion, lower levels
of pollution, adequate (if not abundant) sporting and recreation
opportunities, quality schools and sufficient utilities and infrastructure,
the heartland of America has a proven record of being an innovative,
requiste part of American business and industry.  The helicopter and most
major aviation advances have come from Kansas and Oklahoma.  Much of
America's domestic oil and natural gas resereves are found in the Texas to
Nebraska region.  The basic food supplies are predominantly from this part
of the country (from wheat, corn and soybeans to beef, pork and chicken).
Advances in storm warning systems (predominantly for thunderstorm and
tornadic activity) depend highly on mid-continental testing.  Many of the
chieftans of the auto industry (including Walter P. Chrysler) hale from this
area.  NASA would be incomplete without the participation of the astronauts
who once called America's heartland home.

The point that I am trying to make is that we do, indeed, have a lot to
offer here in middle America - both historically and for the future.  Maybe
it's time that American business revisit the heartland.

And, oh-by-the-way, for those companies that are strapped for space and
concerned with skyrocketing rates... consider the possibility of
telecommuters calling middle America home...

Glenn