…is fat, lazy, unhealthy, and stupid.

This was the headline on Yahoo last week!

States in New England top a new set of rankings, while the South still lags. 

Frankly, I’m a little tired of it.  And I think all those Yankees they asked in the polls were just plain lyin’, bless their hearts!

Apparently, Vermont is the healtiest state in the US. 

Well, did they ask all eight people living there? 

Could they find them all? 

Did they tell the truth? 

Probably not.

This study, and its rankings are conducted and issued by the United Health Foundation a “not-for-profit” funded soley by the United Health Group, an Insurance Company.  

Sweet!

Vermont, along with five other New England states, is in the top ten.  Well, first of all, it’s cold up there 10 months a year, so they are probably well preserved.  There are fewer fat people up there;  they make more money, so they can afford better food.  And none of them know how to cook like we do down South.  You know, Paula Dean style, with butter and real cream and whole milk and all that!

Of the bottom ten, eight are in the South.  The fat asses over in Mississippi came in dead last for the umpmteenth year in a row.  They have a very high death rate from heart disease and infant mortality. 

I’m sure it’s all the Mississippi Mud Pie they eat, and not the dirt.

Really, what is it with everyone up North thinking Southerners eat dirt?  I’ve never met a one who did, except my sister, and she stopped that after Mother tanned her hide a few times.  But yet, the myth remains.

We’re not ALL inbred, I may be my own fourth cousin and have a special page on Ancestry.com called the family palm, but not everyone in Georgia is in it.

We have more sun year round, so we burn more…skin cancer.   We raise tobacco, more people in the South smoke, more cancer.  We eat fatter foods, more heart disease.  We have NASCAR, more speeding and more traffic deaths.  We have stills, more liver disease.

But think about it, without all that stuff, who wants to live all that long anyway?

And we’re not lazy either.  Really, would some one in New York have bombed a federal fort back in 1861?  I don’t think so. 

And as to the stupid, well, lets just put it this way.  Jefferson, Madison, Clinton, to name a few.

And then there’s Faulkner, Styron, Berendt, Capote, Harper Lee, I could go on.

Then there’s NASA, The CDC, Emory, Duke, and again, on and on and on.

Where would the world be without us?

So, Yahoo, and all the other folks who love to dish our accents, foods, fun, and frolic…

you can just kiss my grits!