There's a tear in my double-tall soy latte...

I was born in a red state, but live in a blue state - and I have often defended my fellow New Yorkers against charges that they are all effete latte-swilling liberal snobs (ELS2's) who are irredeemably out of touch with the American mainstream.

I am reminded of Woody Allen's great line from Annie Hall:

Don't you see? The rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way, sometimes, and I live here.

My efforts in defense of my fellow Manhattanites, however, get a lot tougher when the New York Times runs a story like this. Here's an excerpt:

"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country - the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country - in the heartland."

"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.

His friend, Ms. Cohn, a native of Wisconsin who deals in art, contended that New Yorkers were not as fooled by Mr. Bush's statements as other Americans might be. "New Yorkers are savvy," she said. "We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say."

"They're very 1950's," she said of Midwesterners. "When I go back there, I feel I'm in a time warp."

Dr. Joseph acknowledged that such attitudes could feed into the perception that New Yorkers are cultural elitists, but he didn't apologize for it.

"People who are more competitive and proficient at what they do tend to gravitate toward cities," he said.

Ahem.

You know, I feel pretty strongly that Dr. Joseph and his art-dealing friend have a point here.

Clearly, we are living in an era of intolerant, ignorant, self-important parochialism.

Only, um, not quite in the way they seem to think...