Updates
January 28, 2013: this is way cool! I posted the story below (ND struggles with its prosperity) yesterday, and today it's at the top of the page on the Drudge Report. No link because "Drudge" is dynamic and the link there will be gone in a few days.
January 27, 2013: I guess I will use this page for linking "whining" stories. Here's another one, this time from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: North Dakota struggles with its prosperity. Starting wages at Wal-Mart: $17/hour. Starting. As in beginning. No experience necessary. No high school degree.
Really? This is a news story? North Dakota struggles with "its prosperity"? If I recall, the agriculture industry is still bigger in North Dakota than the oil industry. If anything, four counties in North Dakota, or thereabouts, face many challenges with huge growth opportunities. And, oh by the way, the men and women in these counties seem to be doing an incredibly good job.
Only one thing caught my attention, the lede: "... life there can be frustrating and lonely..."
It almost sounds as if the reporter, or at least the headline writer, would like to see the prosperity for his/her state without having to put with the work or the struggle. I think if I were the editor, this would have been my response to the reporter: "That was the best you could do? That's a "dog bites man" story. Certainly there were more interesting stories coming out of the oil patch than workers are frustrated and lonely. In fact, you almost had it, but you let it go. This could have been the story: men and women using their ingenuity to solve difficult problems under harsh conditions. My hunch is roughnecks like to be known for their skills and hard work, not for being whiners about long hours and loneliness."
The reporter needs to read Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag to get an idea of "frustrating" and "lonely." Or he can read Tim O'Brien's novels on the Vietnam War, for example, The Things They Carried. That might put his lede into perspective.
I have all the respect in the world for the roughnecks in the oil patch, and I have nothing but good things to say about them, but for a reporter to say that North Dakota is struggling with its prosperity .... well, I guess folks know my feelings about some of these stories.
If anyone working in the oil patch in North Dakota feels frustrated or lonely, he can think about the American soldier, male and female, in Afghanistan tonight, earning a whole lot less, on duty 24/7, except when out of the combat zone, and with a whole lot more to lose. As the US ambassador to Libya found out last year; the first US ambassador to be killed in the line of duty in 35 years.
Original Post
This post, I can already tell, is not necessary. Probably not even "appropriate" for lack of a better word.
My thoughts keep coming back to the two stories about concurrent events a world apart. One headline: "All Hostages Dead." Another headline: "An Oil Town Where Men Are Many, and Women Are Hounded."
Both stories sit in my temporal lobe separated by a neuron or two. I didn't read past the first few paragraphs of the latter story, and I've read almost nothing of the former story. I know enough about the "all hostages are dead" to know that it was in Algeria, involved an oil/gas facility, and wasn't operated by any American company. (And I could be wrong on all that.)
And with regard to the latter story, having read so little of the New York Times about hounded women, it's very possible I'm taking the story out of context.
But what little I read, suggests the reporter is surprised what a "boom town" is all about. I would be surprised if men weren't many, and women weren't hounded in a boom town. What surprises me is this: that was about all he/she (I don't know who or what wrote the story) could find to write about: that men were many, and women were hounded.
No drugs. Or at least not much. I haven't seen one article in the regional newspapers out of Dickinson or Fargo suggesting that drugs are out of control in Williston. Or homicides. There have been one or two unfortunate killings, early on, and crossmyfingersitwon'thappenagain but I haven't seen one article in the regional newspapers out of Dickinson or Fargo suggesting shootings are out of control in Williston. And guns are easily available (and with idiots for reporters from the East Coast, perhaps highly advisable).
About the only thing the reporter could find to write about: teenage voyeurism. Apparently not even a wardrobe malfunction. Women offered huge amounts of money to take their clothes off. Shocked, I'm shocked. Hugh was very successful at that a long time ago, starting back in 1951 with MM, if I recall correctly: offering women huge amounts of money to take their clothes off, and finding any number of women who would do that. One can see it in Hollywood movies that get PG ratings. What is surprising is this: the women make more money in Williston than what they could make taking their clothes off for some reporter. In fact, it sounds like the women putting tattoos on oil workers are making more money in a month than New York Times reporters make in a year, assuming these reporters still have a job when they get back home (with all the layoffs at the Times). [The reporter should check out Hollywood and Vine where transvestites are many, LGBT are hounded, and East Coast reporters are still idiots.]
Where men are many. You have got to be kidding me. That's the nature of a boom town. The '49er's gold rush. The Klondike.
Where men are many. You have got to be kidding me. Has the reporter ever read anything about the US Navy? I assume he/she has never been on an American aircraft carrier where men are many. I assume he/she has never been on an American US Navy submarine where men are many, and until recently where submariners were only men. It is a credit to the US military that the military woman is not hounded (at least not enough to catch the attention of the New York Times).
Some time ago I listed the reasons why working in the Bakken was so much better than working in Saudi Arabia. It might have been a comment; regardless, I can't find it. But that's what took me to the headline "All Hostages Dead."
That's something oil workers in North Dakota don't have to worry about. Terrorists. Or 125-degree heat in the summer. Or sand so fine it would gum up the sophisticated machinery. Or 24-hour flights back to the states if / when they got time off. The women oil workers in North Dakota can go to work without wearing hoodies in the summer. The women oil workers in North Dakota can go to work driving their own Cadillac Escalades, and then when they get to the pad, they can operate heavy machinery on their own. Or they can sit in a warmedinthewinter/cooledinthesummer office managing men. Managing men in an industry where men are many.
And, you know, 10-to-1, the men offering the woman $7,000 to take off her clothes or whatever it was (that's as far as I read) were probably bantering in a teen-age fashion that is considered hostile by some, immature by others. But I can guarantee that any woman working in North Dakota, or raised in Williston, can handle anyone that hounds them. My hunch is that the women in North Dakota have more fortitude and self-reliance and self-esteem than the reporter who wrote the story.
I have nothing but respect for the roughnecks working in a very tough environment in North Dakota, where men are many and women are hounded. But 10-to-1, it beats Algeria, especially when the terrorists are storming the compound.
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P.S. Within minutes after posting the above, I got a nice comment reminding me this has been said before, but much better:Lake Wobegon is characterized as "the little town that time forgot, and the decades cannot improve," and as the town "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."And that's why Garrison is rich and famous, and I'm not.
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One day later: normally I post updates at the top, but I want to hide this. I don't want to divert readers' attention from the more serious subjects of the Bakken. But the NY Times article still hounds me. I thought it was because the NY Times was unable to find the story he really wanted to report on in the Bakken. But I don't think so. Then I thought the story hounded me because stories about the challenges of drilling in North Dakota paled in comparison to drilling in the Middle East and other overseas oil fields. That is probably part of the reason.
But the more I thought about are article, the more irritated I got. I came across (and bought) a most interesting book at Harvard Book Store earlier today: the 2008 biography by Joanne Passet. While paging through that biography it dawned on me why I was so appalled by the NY Times article. It was yet another article suggesting women are the "weaker" sex, unable to take care of themselves. I alluded to this in my original post:
My hunch is that the women in North Dakota have more fortitude and self-reliance and self-esteem than the reporter who wrote the story.I detest men who treat women poorly and shabbily. But I don't view women as the "weaker" sex, unable to take care of themselves. I am intrigued by women who can give it as good as they can take it. I am intrigued by women who go into the oil patch, knowing the challenges before they go, and yet willing to face those challenges straight on. The women succeeding in the Bakken are incredibly wonderful role models for my granddaughters. I wish these women all the success in the world. It appears to me they are handling the challenges just fine, thank you.
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