I'd rather live in Atlanta than New York any day. At least they have real people down there instead of a bunch of social climbers, emotionally retarded hipsters, hack journalists and thieving bankers. In short, go to hell, you Yankee snob.

And say, when was the last time y'all hosted the Olympics?

more recently than y'all read a book...

My, Southerners certainly are ignorant! Man that is pretty damn weak. Why don't you just make some incest jokes and call it a day?

Haha, I appreciate DanielMee's thoughts on this. I too was surprised to see the author rip Atlanta as a backwater of a town. The city of Delta, Coke and many other international companies? Really? The city with over four professional sports teams, over a half dozen universities, and millions of people? Unless the author meant the dozen or so Olympic events (kayaking, horseback riding, etc) actually held in small towns across the state of GA...

Listen, I live in Atlanta, but also love NYC (I was just there last week). I have to say, I find it incredibly ironic that in a piece supposedly pleading for tolerance and understanding for these unfairly maligned mascots, Stevenson unleashes a completely unprovoked string of bile and vindictiveness of his own. Why should I take your anti-hater argument seriously when you prove perfectly willing to sling unjustified hate at my hometown? AOC organizers were no more responsible for the actions of Eric Rudolph than the Port Authority was for the actions of the 9/11 hijackers. You can put in place all the safeguards you like, but crazy people are going to do crazy things. Everything else appears to be just your personal ignorance about our fair city and I suspect a bit of jealousy. Sad.

I live in metro Atlanta. I would never compare it to a "backwater town", and I personally find that a very offensive statement. It may be true that the mascott was ugly, but that alone does not make it justifiable to say such things. Frankly that was a bad move on the writers part. Even if I did agree that the mascotts were cute, that statement about my home turned me off from the article all together.

Atlanta has much to offer that New York, and even Bejing, does not.

Do not for one moment think that just because we live in the south we are uneduciated. Saying things like "more than ya'll read a book." It makes you sound like a third grader trying to defend yourself from the playground bullies.

Might I add that the person who made this post is no better. I don't see where this writer says he is from the North at all. Eather way, it is irelivent. Might I remind you that Atlanta has it's share of "social climbers, emotionally retarded hipsters, hack journalists and thieving bankers," just as any major city in the United States.

>>Might I add that the person who made this post is no better.

Fair enough, the difference being that my comment was on a message board, not inside a news article.

>> I don't see where this writer says he is from the North at all.

He writes for New York magazine. I made an educated guess. You're right, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that he understands what it feels like to have his town trashed for no reason.

Har har.

Dude, Suferners are like totaly stupid LOL

Should I go down the list? Twain, Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, Williams...

You really are a mindless, cliche-spouting knob, aren't you?

I think the point was to compare the size of Atlanta to the size of the many large Chinese cities that because they haven't been the setting of iconic American pop culture are ignored.

It's humbling to walk onto a college campus that has 30,000 people. To be in a Beijing, a city of 13 million people and know you are one of 70,000 foreigners in the city at any given time. To walk in a neighborhood that was built before America was even discovered. Compared to the size and richness of that culture, Atlanta is a backwater. (This comes from Kansas Citian and native Charlestonian, two cities even smaller than Atlanta.)

Look, by that criteria, the entire US is a backwater, simply because it hasn't been around long enough. Large population doesn't necessarily make something more or less sophisticated. Having a large concentration of foreigners doesn't mean a whole lot either, though I'd be willing to bet Atlanta's non-native population is pretty large as well. And as for a university of 30,000, last time I checked, the University of Georgia has right around 30,000 students itself.

History is not the only thing that makes something non-backwater-ish. And I won't even begin to touch the comparison of Chinese to American culture. For the other things you mention, I'm pretty sure Atlanta is right up there, except for raw population numbers. The real point is that the author slammed a perfectly nice city for no apparent reason, which ad hominem attack makes me take his journalism and his opinion less seriously.

I also have to ask does Slate have any editors?? Shouldn't someone reading this piece before publication have said to themselves, hmm, completely out of nowhere verbal attack on an American city, not supportive of the thesis of the piece- maybe that should be cut? Make the point that the Atlanta mascot was stupid and move on, would have been the note the editor should have given.

Way to go, Mr. Stevenson and Slate editors. You managed to insult a chunk of readers, make yourselves look foolish, and lower your journalistic credibility, all NOT in service of your point, which was about Olympic mascots.

Slate's editors seem to favor the Jon Stewart approach of being insulting at all times and when called on it to merely claim "Oh, we were just being hip and ironic!" People tend not to notice the insults until they touch too close to home.

Seth, you need to channel the Fuwa! Overpower the haters with love, instead of letting your @$$ flag fly.

The really odd part is that from reading the article, the lion share of the critics of these mascots seem to be in China itself. The entire story seemed pointless, except to allow little Seth to inform us that he has been to China, and that he has a girlfriend.

Judging from the quality of his article, those two things are probably his biggest accomplishments in life.