Maybe it’s time to cut Alaska a little slack.

Jim Albrecht over at Slate describes the neighborhood where he grew up in Alaska. He confirms that yes, Alaskans are nutty as fruitcakes, but that they have something to teach the rest of us about getting along with people who are different from you:

http://www.slate.com/id/2200404/pagenum/all/#page_start

Because Alaska is both geographically remote and sparsely populated, it’s considered hip to sneer at the state without fear of condemnation. In fact, Americans have been sneering at Alaska ever since the Lincoln Administration, when Secretary of State Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for what was at the time a very large sum. “Seward’s Folly”, as the Alaska Territory was known in the newspapers, subsequently turned out to have oil and gas deposits that were worth many times over the price of its purchase. 150 years later, it seems that the chattering classes still haven’t learned the danger of underestimating Alaska and its people.