West Virginia

When babies died many years ago, and perhaps today, despite the best efforts of the parents, doctors often attributed it to "failure to thrive." Sometimes our aging parents die the same way, refusing their meds and believing highly trained healthcare providers don't know what's best. Watching my home state of West Virginia from afar, I get the eerie feeling that political entities can do the same thing. Sane people can be so outnumbered by the impaired that death from "failure to thrive" is always imminent.

Maryland

I love my adopted state of Maryland. It is tolerant, progressive, and has many natural and geographic advantages. And it has the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the world and a real treasure. It has many beautiful rural areas, yet is a very densely populated state. It’s population is larger than Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and others. It also has a larger population than Denmark, Finland, Slovakia, Norway, Lebanon, Ireland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Mongolia, and many others. When people see it on a map it looks like a small state. It has a big heart, and it is an economic powerhouse. Just wanted to get this out there.