Declaring Independence to Cure the Post-Election Depression
Written by Cameron Mays
The best lesson I learned in Boy Scouts was sleep equals trust. It is precisely this lesson for why I will never sleep in Columbus. I never want to grow comfortable with that city. I would not say I despise Columbus, but it regularly tests my moral compass. Tests such as, is it okay to steal bread for a starving family if that family is from Columbus? Would a plague of locusts be permissible if its swarm is centralized in Central Ohio? Those sorts of moral quandaries fill my head when I visit Arch City.
At first, I thought Columbus was the botox-infused duckling in the brood of ugly ducklings. The buildings are too sterile, corn is grown too close to major metropolitan centers and there are too few factories producing abstract concepts. It is a city where table salt blandness is the modus operandi. It is Dallas without the cowboy hats, San Diego without the yachts, Jacksonville without the large reptiles, and Indianapolis without the polis. In the 1970s, Cleveland entered financial default, while Columbus entered cultural default.
I have come to learn that it is not Columbus that is the lost sheep of weird Ohio but Cleveland that is the weird sheep of Ohio
I have come to learn that it is not Columbus that is the lost sheep of weird Ohio but Cleveland that is the weird sheep of Ohio. In Cleveland, monolithic corn statues are not art but a waste of concrete. The Cleveland college experience is not spent following doomed athletic pursuits, it is spent cultivating a lifelong love affair with alcohol and nicotine. In Columbus, a car is requisite for public discourse. In Cleveland, a car is used to drive to a Park-n-Ride parking lot.
Every day we spend conjoined to Columbus is another day suburban standards erode our trust in industrial decay and bygone era. The same city that determines the national trends in fast food also determines the draconian laws that disproportionately impact the underrepresented. The people that decided the Chicken McGriddle is an appropriate breakfast should have no power in deciding the House Districts or accessibility to reproductive healthcare in northern Ohio. It is time we consider breaking free from Columbus. We must fill our ears with wax to stop the siren’s song of a consistently good football team and sail onward! Where shall we chart our course? Watch my video to find out!