perfidy

As an Ohioan, I have a deep and abiding hatred for the state of Michigan. All right thinking people will of course share this view. However, in the interest of fainess and impartiality, I have tried not to single out this one state for abuse that I would not be willing to visit on other states. Happily, I just piled on Massachusetts so I pretty much have a free hand here.

• Screw Blue

• Gateway to nowhere
• Stunted Pine Forests and Urban Wastelands. What's not to love?
• You gotta a love a state whose most notable holiday is Hell Night
• We’re Peninsular!
• Come back to Detroit... We missed you the first time.
• Get a letter, get shot; it’s all the same to our postal workers
• Birthplace of the Mighty Corn Flake
• Our greatest cultural achievement: Kid Rock and Eminem
• We’ve got Zombies!
• The wolverine is a vicious, bloodthirsty and ill tempered beast. So are we.
• We made Fat Ass Michael Moore a Star!
• Windsor has better strippers, but get your crack in Detroit
• Come for the depressing post industrial landscapes, stay for the arson and random shootings
• Go Postal!
• I hate Michigan

• Clearance Sale
• Birthplace of substandard, lackadaisical, industrial manufacturing
• Talk to the hand
• The State, not the Stupid Lake
• Auto strikes, disgruntled postal workers, and a surplus of Canadians, oh my!
• Motorheads
• Ambitious Michiganders move to New Jersey for the fresh air and economic opportunity
• The New Jersey of the Upper Midwest
• Next stop, Canada!
• First Line of Defense from Marauding Canadians
• The state that looks like a hand. Okay, a mitten anyway
• It's not just cold. It's ass-biting cold.
• Hey, at least we don’t have Toledo
• Home of the wigger
• Land of the free, home of the Buick
• What’s good for the goose is good for the Michigander. In this case, strangling.
• Proud home of interweb superstar Murdoc
• Everyone’s dead

Some more fun Michigan images:

[wik] (Patton) Never one to miss a chance to pile on, as an Ohio State alum, I'm forced to add this item from the archives:

The other night I finished up a game of Axis and Allies on the old computer. This I do more for relaxation and nostalgia than for any sort of challenge, because the PC version of A&A is rather pathetic. The AI opponent couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper sack with a chainsaw. Once, I started with just the Eastern United States, two armor, two infantry and a fighter. I conquered the whole world.

But anyway, this was the final order of battle as I attacked the last stronghold of my tenacious, canny and ultraviolent opponent:

I won, in case you were curious

As I was driving home today I, as I often do, whiled away the time by reading the license plates of the other commuters. Virginia has a wide array of specialty plates for different colleges, universities, fraternal orders, veterans and special interest groups. One of the last is for people who dig horses. It occurred to me that this would be a particularly bad plate to get:

That personalized plate, by the way, is available to any Virginia resident who'd like it. Since I was on the DMV's design a plate website, I figured, hey, let's have some fun.

This is a plate that I've always wanted to get, but which is sadly already taken:

Going through the list of Special Interest groups, the possibilities seemed endless. For example, you could get an NRA plate, and confirm all the fears of the liberal pantywaists:

Or, alternatively, freak out the NRA people:

Along the same lines, become a firefighter:

Show that you're really, really tech-savvy:

When I saw that the duck hunters had their own plate, this immediately popped to mind:

But further down the list, I found an even better target:

Finally, I will offer fifty bucks to anyone who gets this license plate, and provides proof. I tried to get Minister Johno to do it, but he had a girlfriend (now Mrs. Johno) and demurred.

That is one very proud, yet uniquely vulnerable, mammal.

I suppose it was necessary.

[wik] The best line accompanies a pic of Sally Struthers, "All your snakes are belong in my belly."

[alsø wik] It's alsø good to see that Cobra Commander's still doing well. I miss that guy.

[alsø alsø wik] It's amazing, really, how infinitely mutable this retarded joke is. It remains eternally stale, yet somehow never completely rots away into nothingness.

You don't step on Superman's cape.

You don't spit into the wind.

You don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger.

And you don't pop unaimed mortar rounds on howitzer batteries.

Stars and Stripes discusses life for a Paladin gun crew in Ramadi here. Great primer for how the crews operate, how seriously they take their counterbattery role, and their relief that they can quit operating as the Queen of Battle and get back to being the Kings. Good stuff.

This edition of Forgotten Punchline Thursday is brought to you in part by Krill. Krill: Food for Everything Else.

Further support furnished by a grant from the Newport Trust for Social Preservation, maintaining class divisions and historic mansions you can never possibly own -ever- and thereby making you feel like a failure, since 1933.

Today's Forgotten Punchline:

"Because of Goehring, I'm going back to my old profession."

At the risk of disrupting Minister Buckethead's ongoing feature enlightening us on state mottoes, I'm forced to drop in a note about a story in this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription possibly required), entitled "Naming a State Dirt Just Doesn't Wash with New Jerseyites".

All due respect to residents of the Garden State, but I'd expect that the only problem with naming a state dirt would be the confusion caused on the part of people like me, who think they should simply rename the entire state "Dirt". (excepting some of the nicer, western portions of the state, which should simply be given to Pennsylvania)

The protagonist in this Quixotic endeavor, David Friedman, runs the Ocean County soil-conservation district, and appears to be, in his own way, a deep-thinking poet, of some kind:

"What's beneath our feet," Mr. Friedman continued, "is a whole other world of earth and worms and...help me out, Chris."

"And roots and organisms," said Chris Miller, a specialist with the U.S. Agriculture Department who was on an inspection tour; he was riding in the back seat.

Truly a man of words, that.

"They all serve," Mr. Friedman said. "If we manage what's below our feet, it's going to benefit mankind."

Apparently, the Journal decided not to print the quote from the guy who responded "Hey! Don't bogart that joint, Spanky!" But they did present some balance, with this:

By unanimous vote, the Assembly passed the bill in May, prompting local resident Jay Lomberk to write to the Asbury Park Press: "State dirt? Are you kidding?" And another local, Jackie Daly, to write: "If it weren't so pathetic, it would be funny."

Douglas Fisher, a legislator in NJ "is sure the mockery explains why" the bill to name a state dirt failed in the state Senate. No! Ya think? He was shocked, it seems. But then, he's also the guy who tried to nominate the tomato as New Jersey's official vegetable. Never mind that a tomato is a fruit, notwithstanding some obscure US Supreme Court decision from 1893 that Fisher cited.

We learn, as the article continues, several related facts:

• Various state legislatures have "ordained official fossils, odes, dogs, and doughnuts"
• There's a site, netstate.com, that actually tracks this crap
• South Carolina's official snack food is boiled peanuts
• An outfit (United Square Dancers) has "lobbied Congress to make the square dance a national symbol, alongside the flag, the rose, and the bald eagle"
• In an example of one thing that's good about war, they claim that "What with the war, we were not able to pass it"
• In an example that proves we probably need more wars, they were somehow able to convince 31 state legislatures that "they need an official folk dance, and that the square dance is it"
• America's biggest crop? Lawn. Who knew?

"Lawns," said Mr. Miller from the back seat as Mr. Friedman drove west toward Lakehurst. "Personally, I don't know what the draw is."

And there's the problem. Dirt matters, of course. But the cluelessness that underlies an assumption that dirt matters and grass doesn't might explain why they're chasing this particular parked car.

Either that, or I'm just a hardened cynic.

In the continual search for newer, better, and more satisfying employment- more satisfying than, say, removing the sharp stick lodged 3" into your left quadricep with a long, satisfied sigh- I came across this opening:

Vice President of Education and Public Programs
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is currently considering applicants for the position of Vice President of Education and Public Programs. The Vice President of Education and Public Programs reports to the President and CEO and is responsible for establishing and directing all educational activities and programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

A suit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! At first blush it seemed so wrong- but after a few seconds of thought, it makes total sense. Most rock musicians can't manage their own personal affairs; dare we trust them with the cultural heritage that the form has become? Suits run their money and their careers; might as well run their legacy, too. The ad goes on:

Creates educational programs and materials relating to the unique content of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, focusing both on the permanent collection and temporary exhibits. Develops curriculum and learning materials to teach the widest possible audience, from toddlers to adults, about rock and roll culture and its social and historical significance.

Not only just another suit, then- a nerd, too! What an improbably cool position for a museum-trained historian or, failing that, a record-store clerk; often the same thing, I can attest. And is there any other person more insufferably arrogant about music than humanities majors? If we were comparing fingerprints here, we'd be talking about a 9-point match. Designing programs, displays, and other instructional media at the Hall of Fame sure beats the hell out of doing public history work in a musuem no one goes to, designing displays no one gives a shit about like "Whither Butter?"; or "The Evolution of the Overall" (in Kansas, "The Creation of the Overall"); and certainly better than that musty archive your friend who majored in history worked in, the one where he contracted that nasty eye socket infection.

So say you're the new guy, just hired for this position. What would be some programs or exhibits you might pitch?

My first thought? "It Doesn't Mean That Much To Me To Mean That Much To You", a whole series about rock 'n roll suicide. You get everyone who's offed himself, plus the David Bowie and Neil Young tie-ins for the soundtrack. Logo would be a Strat with a noose around it, or a gun to its head(stock), and would appear on all associated merch. Pretty good, huh? And that was just off the top of my head!

What would you do?