I like to complain as much as the next guy.  Well okay, I probably like to complain a whole lot more than the next guy.   But in a year with something like three feet of snow on the ground, 44 days with sub-zero temperatures, and six-ish weeks of winter wonderland still on the horizon, even I am searching for silver linings in our ubiquitous cumulonimbuses.

So, as I was out carving a canyon out of the house this morning, I asked myself this question:

“Self, why do you stay in icy Minnesota instead of moving to one of those toasty sunbelt states?”

I suspect I wasn’t the only one asking that question today.

Upon snow blown reflection, I decided that there actually are darn good reasons to stay here, at least if you’re a wacked out liberal like me.

While we have long, hard winters, I am supremely grateful that we don’t have the sunbelt’s  conservative governors leading us on a race to the bottom.  With every scoop of snow I hurled this morning, I spewed out their names to remind myself of my good fortune.   “No Rick Scott here, grunt.   No, Jan Brewer either, groan.  No Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, and Rick Perry, wheez.”

While Minnesota doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of the climate rankings, this is a good time of year to remind ourselves that it does rank in the top 10 for some pretty meaningful things.  Math and reading scores.  Percentage of high school graduates.  Crime .  Home ownership.  Liife expectancy.  Health coverage.  Unemployment.  Poverty rates.  Health.  Reported well-being.

Overall, a composite score of quality-of-life scores put together by Politico ranked Minnesota second best in the nation.  On the same measure, every one of the sunbelt states led by conservative governors ranked in the lower half of the 50 states.

So while I reserve my right to whine about the weather, I’d much rather have an icy winter and warm community values than a warm winter and icy community values.

– Loveland

Note:  This post was republished in Minnpost.