Washington Post To Offended Minnesotans: Get Thicker Skin
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The Washington Post has a message for Minnesotans upset that the newspaper called one of its counties the nation's ugliest: Get thicker skin.
Earlier in the week, the paper ranked out counties based on their natural beauty, isolating key factors such as weather, access to lakes and rivers and sun exposure.
According to their rankings, Red Lake County in northwestern Minnesota is the ugliest in the country. They said its "flat plains" topography and cold winters were to blame, along with the fact that it's the only landlocked county in the nation that's surrounded by just two neighboring counties.
Many Minnesotans took exception with the rankings, which spurred a response editorial by Christopher Ingraham.
He said that, while most of the counties that ranked poorly were in the vicinity, including many in Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Illinois, "I didn't hear a single word of protest from folks in these states. ... Only Minnesotans have taken a public stand to defend their state's honor."
The conclusion he reached was that, borrowing from one Twitter account's reasoning, Minnesotans wear thick coats but have thin skin, and are more apt to be defensive about the state's worthiness than neighbors.
