I seriously think we are seeing the beginning of America seperating into two or three countries.

[SheilaT]

244. I left Kansas four years ago.

The specific impetus to move was my divorce. I was actually in the place of being able to move anywhere I wanted, and so I took a good hard look at several different, widely dispersed places.

I moved to Santa Fe, NM and for the most part I really like it here. Generally speaking the politics and social ways are liberal. However, because Governor Richardson ended his term highly unpopular, collectively the voters elected a Republican, Susanna Martinez, as his replacement. She's not too terrible, just somewhat incompetent for the job.

What bothers me a lot about this state, and the main reason I will eventually move somewhere else, is that there's an amazing level of corruption at all levels. Local police chief gets caught selling police property (including both used and new bullet-proof vests) on Ebay. A local government has a sweetheart deal with a paving company. I was told shortly after I moved here not to even bother to try to get a job with the state government because many of them are held by specific families, and obviously I'm not one of those families. The public schools are not very good at all.

But at least here I can be very openly liberal and progressive. I love the climate. There's still a lot of parts of the state to see and explore that I haven't gotten around to.

My main point is that no one state is perfect. And no one state has no redeeming features at all.