Tulsa or Somalia?

I might be a little off on politics and geography, but how does one compare Somalia to Tulsa and say Tulsa is worse? I was rummaging through another board on a game I play (Nation States to be specific) and a question was asked 'Why is the US so afraid?' Most of the post was typical anti-US and anti-European stabs at each other and therefore had less reason and more emotion. Further into the thread, someone makes this post:

True story: Conversation I overheard on a Boston subway train among two American college students and a student from Somalia. That's Somalia, people. The Somalian guy was telling them about a cultural studies trip across the US that his exchange class from Somalia had taken.

Somalian Guy: So we ended up in Tulsa [OK].

Americans: TULSA! What the hell were you doing there?

Somalian Guy: I don't know, but I will never go back there. There was nothing in that place. And the country around it, it was so poor. We were driving on a road made of dirt, and it went nowhere.

One American: What did you learn about the US in Somalia? Did you think we didn't have rural areas, that it was all urban and built-up?

Somalian Guy: No, we knew there were rural areas, but we had no idea it was that bad.

Yep, that's the view from Somalia, folks.

Since this is my blog, I can be a little more critical: What?! Look, Oklahoma may be seen as backward at times by the rest of the nation (and especially us Texans), but nothing in Oklahoma compares to Somalia... anyway, what follows is my response to this lunacy and my response to the American fraidy-cat image:

Are we talking the same Somalia that was nearly starved to death in the early '90's? Also the same country that was so completely ravaged by civil war that the UN and the US had to intervene? (at times poorly I might add, but hamstrung by rules of engagement).

I doubt Somalia and Mogadishu have anything on Tulsa... seriously. I may laugh at my Oklahoma neighbors for being a little rustic at times, but nowhere in Oklahoma do I have to worry about fighting a local warlord for a scrap of bread. And yes, the GDP in OK is lower than say, Texas, but higher than every nation in Africa by a fair margin. Clearly, the Somalian was embellishing a bit.

As far as the main point, we live in a perpetual state of fear propagated by a media that is bent on creating more viewership by turning the smallest issue into a full blown end of the world crisis. Now, trans fats are being attacked as bad for you. Outside of nutritionists, who knew what a trans fat was 10-15 years ago? The media latches on to one thing, what sells. We have no national outlet for news therefore the competing interests and sometimes 'good facts' as opposed to 'true facts' of the media, meaning taking a partial truth or partial lie and spinning it as completely true. The fear is created by laziness as most of us do not have the will or want to catch up on real news, and what then is real news? Bias creeps into everything that is said and done, and we are all affected by it. If I were to say I was unbiased on an issue, I would be lying. I may not care, but that in itself is a bias toward ignorance. Apathy is as dangerous as ignorance, and history, most of the time, has borne that out.

C.