State pride

I'm a native of Pennsylvania and have lived there nearly all my life. The survey shows we're really not happy about having much pride about our state. I won't quarrel with that. The political strategist James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in the middle. He's right. I avoid straying west of the Schuylkill River. Just in case.

For me there was a surprise or two in the survey. I thought New Mexico would do better. I've heard it has lovely scenery, a decent economy and bright people. Instead it's on a par with the usually godawful Mississippi and Louisiana. Perhaps that's because the Albuquerque Police Department is fond of shooting its own residents at the drop of a dime. That tends to get one depressed.

Also underrated were Massachusetts and Delaware. I used to vacation in Massachusetts each year and found the people to be welcoming and pleasant. Delaware was even nicer. I lived there for a year. Everyone knows each other. If you had a beef about something, you could call the governor at his home to let him or her know. How good could that be? Maybe something happened since I left. I haven't been there in a couple of decades.

The states with the greatest sense of pride are Montana and Alaska, which incidentally are the among the most frigid in the union. The worst is Rhode Island, which is a pleasant place were it not for a tradition of political corruption in Providence and its larger cities.

The most grossly overrated state is Texas, where 68 percent think living there is just ducky. Texas has oil spills, explosions in its petrochemical facilities and pipelines, one of the worst health-care records in the Union, poverty along the Rio Grande Valley, vicious anti-abortion policies and a virtual one-party state. I guess they like it that way. I visited Dallas once. It was awful.

So what do you think? Is the survey on target for your state? Please leave a note in the "Comment" section.