[Cincinatus' Wife]

By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 19, 2004 - Is Texas Really a State of Mind? The Professor May Disagree. ***ALPINE, Tex. -- The cowboys, ranchers, retirees, immigrants and artists scattered around this sparse region of West Texas tend to live and let live, drawn more by the immense spaces and dizzying beauty than by one another. Cell phone service is now-you-see-it-now-you-don't, and it's easier to glimpse a roadrunner than another car when you drive through the region's sumptuous desert mountains.

Atomized, loosely knit and fiercely individualistic, citizens here are not much given to consensus. Or they weren't until Larry Sechrest came along and called them all a bunch of morons.

Sechrest, 56, is a jowly, acid-tongued economics professor at Sul Ross State University, an institution best known for producing schoolteachers and rodeo performers. The chain hotel manager has lived in the little town of Alpine for 13 years, more or less without incident. But it is not a gross overstatement to say that if an unpopularity contest were held here these days, he might give Saddam Hussein a run for his money.

In January, Sechrest published a 7,000-word article in Liberty, a tiny libertarian journal, titled "A Strange Little Town in Texas." After dispensing with the things he likes about Alpine -- great climate, clean air, awesome scenery, low crime rate, friendly locals, frontier spirit, robust theater scene -- Sechrest came to his main point.

"The secret problem is that the students at Sul Ross, and more generally the long-term residents of the entire area, are appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual, and, well . . . just plain stupid," he wrote. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And what is the consensus on university professors?

[pax_et_bonum]

Dr Sechrest is one funny dude.

[woofie]

Tell Larry McMurtry how dumb west Texans are.....

[freebilly]

Hey, Perfesser, if you is so smart how come you is living in a town full o' retarts...?

[Tall_Texan]

two of whom have responded with death threats.

Only two? I'd say that's pretty tolerant of them. If I lived in Alpine, I'd gladly make it three.

My advice to the professor is to be packed and out of town by sunset. Go to Berkely or Cambridge where such bilge is swallowed whole by the student populace.

In Texas, it will always be football, beer, sex and church - in one order or another. If he doesn't like that, I'd suggest he hook up with his kindred spirits in Vermont.

[Contra]

I bet this guy is a liberal democrat. Kind of funny that a guy like this and the people he is talking about will both end up voting for John Kerry. Maybe he can use some of his vast knowledge to explain that one.

[Fiddlstix]

Hey Prof!
If ya hate Texans so much....
Well.....
Just Leave
and
Dont' let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya
Bye

[jpsb]

Well, I wonder who the stupid one is now? What a dumb one our professor is.

[NYCVirago]

The diatribe, which appeared in Liberty, an obscure libertarian journal, was apparently inspired by a letter from a student. On reading the words "Thank you for all your patients", an exasperated Dr Sechrest put pen to paper.

It says something about this clown's character that a *thank-you note* got him so irate. Yeah, his student wrote "patients" instead of "patience," but frankly, this student was being generous to his teacher, as it doesn't sound like this professor has much patience for anybody!

[cherry]

the crux of being Libertarian:..do what I say, not what I do ( or think)

its okay to preach about rugged individualism in cigar smoke-filled rooms with leather chairs among your cronies, yet another to accept and appreciate people of differant roles in life, differant dreams, and differant values....

I think most libertarians are as phony as the limosine liberals, but that's just my opinion....

[Flightdeck]

This guy thinks Texans are dumb? I'll spin relativity and M-theory around this guy's oversized head while I run laps around his portly belly. If the intellectual-ellite is going to be arrogant about themselves, they might as well back it up with somthing.

[atomic conspiracy]

..."Thank you for all your patients", an exasperated Dr Sechrest put pen to paper. "Here, one has poor white trash and poor Mexican trash socialising with each other," he wrote. "Here, the lowest common denominators get together to pro-create."

I have met Sechrist. He didn't make much of an impression beyond that of a generic cow-college place-holder. A simple grammatical error appears to have triggered the good professor's torrent of invective. If so, he must count himself among the ranks of retarded trash: "procreate" should not be hyphenated.

Note that the arrogant hypocrite responds with contempt and ridicule to what is apparently a statement of gratitude, yet he faults others for their alleged ignorance and vulgarity. If I ever see this person again, I must remind myself not to thank him for anything, except perhaps to keep his fat arse out of my way.

Is it a cheap shot for me to criticize him personally without naming myself? Given the cheap shot he took at a whole region in an obscure little publication, I don't really think so. Besides, any West Texas professor who reads this will almost certainly know exactly who I am from a quick reading of my profile.

[ApplegateRanch]

"The secret problem here," Dr Sechrest wrote in the introduction, "is that the students and more generally the long-term residents of the entire area are appallingly ignorant, irrational, anti-intellectual and well, just plain stupid."

If the shoe fits, Prof...

[ApplegateRanch]

I can't help wondering if it was a SPELL CHECKER error, to correct a typo in the student's letter? Granted, it should be caught on proof reading, but who hasn't been caught?

This guy is definitely one of the jackasses to which my tag refers.

[melsec]

This sounds like the sort of countryside I would like to live in. Gee I bet these people actually look after each other when there are problems and go to church on Sunday etc. I doesn't take knowlege to get things right only wisdom and I have met more wise yokels in my time than University Professors (and I work at a University)

Mel

[MARTIAL MONK]

There are a lot of places in west Texas where Sechrest would be right but Alpine isn't one of them. The schools seem to be high average, even with a Hispanic majority.

Cowboy culture is a study in understatement. The idea is to think fast and talk slow.

[Flyer]

Ping!

If yer smart enough to know how to read this, that is.

[G.Mason]

I find it interesting that Julian Coman is writing rather trite articles such as this, when in January of 2003 he was writing more serious articles like "Iraq: A Smoking Gun?" ( January 20, 2003)

Squeeze here

"A Smoking Gun" is a pre-war article, and an interesting look at where we were at that time.

Hans Blix is an enemy of the United States

[George W. Bush]

What a hoot. I'm sure we'll hear more of this fascinating tale of The Perfesser And The Rednecks.

It's a classic.

[R. Scott]

Alpine sounds like a nice place to live - except for the professor.