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Laramie Learns Ignorance
Web serendipity: Via a link on Scripting News to a cool photo of Arizona lightning, I just stumbled upon Learn Ignorance, a photoblog featuring daily shots of Laramie, Wyoming and environs. Nice!
Yeah, I'm probably biased about how nice this is. I did a lot of my growing up in Laramie, and got my undergrad degree there, plus it's just fairly rare to stumble upon anything from Wyoming—online or off. Last I checked, it was the least populated state in the nation (more cattle than people, I believe), spent more per capita on education than any other state, and its sole university is the highest (elevation-wise) in the nation at around 7,230 feet. Wyoming is a special place in many ways, one that very few people seem to know much about (it's somewhere near the heart of flyover country), so it's great to see such a neat site coming from there. I'm not sure about the name; are we supposed to learn about what we're ignorant of, or is it really encouraging us to be more ignorant?
For more than you ever wanted to know about Wyoming, check out its FedStats Page. Fun facts about Wyoming as compared to D.C. and U.S. averages:
- Percent of population claiming to be "white": 92.1% WY; 30.8% D.C.; 75.1% U.S.
- Median home value: $96,600 WY; $157,200 D.C.; $119,600 U.S.
- Average commute time (minutes): 17.8 WY, 29.7 D.C., 25.5 U.S.
- Median income: $37,892 WY; $40,127 D.C.; $41,194 U.S. Think about that. A good number of people in this country make $60-80k/year, others make over $100k, and still others make millions each year. If $40k is the average, then that means a lot of people are making much less than that.
- Percent of persons below the poverty line: 11.4% WY, 20.2% D.C., 12.4% U.S.
- Persons per square mile: 5.1 WY, 9,316.4 D.C., 79.6 U.S.
Posted July 21, 2004 06:28 AM | life generally
Median just means that the same number of people make less than $41k as make more than that number.
It's still a low-seeming number, but not as low as it would seem if it were a mean (average), as you're right -- the millionaires would drag an average upward heavily.
Posted by: todd. at July 21, 2004 11:00 AM
I grew up in Colorado (born in Ft. Collins) and my grandparents lived in WY. So, I've spent a lot of time there; I always liked it (hey, I learned to ride there). Laramie, now, brings images of Matthew Shepard to mind. :(
Posted by: Denise at July 21, 2004 05:08 PM
Yeah, I was long gone by the time Matthew Shepard was killed, but I was all too familiar with many of the locations involved in that tragedy. That's part of the problem with so much space -- people have plenty of room to grow their prejudices and ignorance. When I first heard about it, I wasn't at all surprised, but I think (and hope) that the people of Wyoming learned a lot from the widespread condemnation of their contradictory tolerance of intolerance. I've spent almost no time there in the past eight years or so; from the little I know I wouldn't claim Wyoming has become a great place be gay, lesbian, transexual, or anything other than vanilla hetero, but I think it's a better place than it was before Matthew Shepard was killed. That's not saying much, of course. Sad...
Posted by: ambimb at July 21, 2004 08:02 PM
Oh, and thanks, Todd, for correcting my dismal knowledge of what a median is. Oops.
Posted by: ambimb at July 21, 2004 09:39 PM
No problem. I actually had to look it up; I never bothered to remember the difference between median and mode, just that neither is exactly mean.
Posted by: todd. at July 21, 2004 10:40 PM
FedStats! My old boss at the DOJ was OBSESSED with Fed Stats!
Posted by: em at July 22, 2004 10:09 AM
Hey - That's my bud Andy's blog! Cool ain't it?
Posted by: Chris at July 23, 2004 03:36 AM
