Flatlander #1

I just re-read the Federalist Papers, so the title of this post is a play on Publius. Basically, in this post, I'm going to set the stage for things to come.

First, I need to mention that this blog uses pseudonyms only. This is an open-blog, so in an effort to protect the present and future job-security of all contributors or people mentioned, we use noms de guerre (not unlike Madison and Hamilton did). Please respect this rule #1 and follow the pseudonyms in any comments or contributions you may make.

I need to thank a few very important people for their help pushing me to finally creating this blog.

• First, my friend Puget, who works like a maniac and still has time to do yoga and go for runs started a blog a month or so ago. Her blog is great, and I realized today that I will come out of the chains of GREs, Stats, and Thesis that have been holding me back since June and start doing the stuff I want to do! Thanks Puget - you are an inspiration! Yoga (might) be next for me.

• My other friend Luigi has a highly successful blog that I have been contributing to for the past year or so. I almost quit contributing when he implied that some digs I got on digg.com for an article I wrote for him were created by me (instead of other people enjoying the post). Recently, he failed to post a post-election Palin piece I did b/c it was "outdated." Rather than get mad, it pushed me to finally make the solo move. Luigi is a great person and a talented writer and we've been friends for so long he can get away with stuff like this. I still might contribute to his blog under the condition that he actually post what I write. Thanks for letting me in the door, Luigi Bradlee .

• My husband Kilgor who has been telling me everyday that I should just stop worrying so much about school/work stuff and start a blog. He is the best husband for many reasons, including the fact that he actually thinks Flatlander Follies will be the next Huffington Post.

• All the family members out there!!! My family is probably responsible for 75 percent of what's in my head at any given moment.
  

• Extra special thanks to my sister Fuffa. Thanks to her, I am pretty much a Sarah Palin expert. She is also responsible for the blog name. She's great with Hamlet, alliteration, and many other things as we will see as this blog develops. She is the FF blog expert.
  

• My movie knowledge is only sophisticated because of my other sister Buffy. Who else was allowed to watch the Crying Game or all those China Beach episodes at the age of 7? And my mom and dad, Claire and Jamie, saved me the painful fate of growing up to be anything other than a Dutiful Democrat. !

So what the hell will this blog be about? Well, as the name implies, it will be about the follies of flatlanders. A flatlander is the negative slang for a non-native Vermonter or visitor. They are known for all sorts of follies, like driving half the speed limit on Route 4 and stopping at every gift shop on the way to clog the ski slopes. The name of the blog is really a play on words for discussing follies of all kinds, the annoying and the foolish in addition to the fanciful.

• Political Science. One thing I really want to tackle, is the popular question I get, "What the hell is Political Science and what the hell do you want to do with that?" Before you think this is a yawn, here's a teaser: throughout residency interviews last year, Kilgor consistently got the question, "So, she wants to be President or something?" And that was from a lot of really smart people, so I think it's a question worth clearing up

• Politics of course!! One thing that Political Science actually tends not to be about is Current Events, and this is a big love of all contributors to Flatlander Follies.

• MOVIES!!! Us FFs tend to have a broad cinematic palate ranging from Shrek 2 to Reds (these are shout outs to Fuffa and Buffy, respectively).

• Television, not the reality kind, which I admit I enjoy, but the good TV (e.g. Madmen, Buffy (the fictional one on television), Angel, and other shows that inevitably get canceled prematurely.)

• Books - admittedly this is not something that I do enough of with my leisure time b/c of required reading, but other FFs can fill in here

• Music - my sister Buffy and I went to an amazing concert this fall - more to come on that one.

• Medicine -- the two FF Doctors have really good stories worth sharing with the readership

• Baseball of course - the real and the fantasy kind

• East Coast vs. West Coast (for Puget and Hulu)

• Feminism

• The Media - I am a huge fan of Maureen Dowd, Huffington, and Rachel Maddow

• Food (duh)

• Maybe exercise (see part about yoga above)

So, I hope you'll come back for more! I'm really excited about future blogs! Please make comments and send contributions to lorelai.granger@gmail.com.