I grew up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest and farms. Someone down the dirt road even raised emus for awhile. And now a lot of my friends from back home are dead, because while there were no social or economic opportunities—and no parks—there was plenty of heroin. https://twitter.com/kylekashuv/status/1299931048340586499">https://twitter.com/kylekashu...

Rural communities aren’t the god-fearing pastoral idylls that right wingers pretend to worship. They are dying. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1050806">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www...

I wouldn’t change much about the way I grew up, but the good memories of a sun-dappled rural childhood come weighed down with others of funerals and desperation and misery and violence and suspicious prescription bottles in grandma’s bathroom.