It's remarkable that, every four years, the eyes of this nation are transfixed upon Iowa and New Hampshire, states that get roundly ignored every other year in America. Like many of you, The Common Man knows little about either state and would, as a service to you, list of four things that he's at least pretty sure are true about each of the nation's most disproportionately influential states.
IOWA
1) Is Minnesota's Mexico. Look, a quick comparison
Minnesota..............................................Iowa
beautiful lakes and rivers...........................corn
major league sports...................................watching corn grow
a culturally relevant metropolitan area......Des Moines
Prince.......................................................Tom Harkin
attractive, relatively affluent people............no
You tell The Common Man where you'd rather live. Frankly, Minnesota should build a border fence.
2) Grows a lot of corn. According to the Iowa Department of Agriculture, Iowa grew corn on almost 13 million acres last year, nearly 16 percent of our national crop. That's a lot.
3) Has most famous non-major league baseball field. Somewhere in Iowa, there is a field. A field of dreams. It is the baseball diamond, cut out of a field of corn for the schlocky, hokey, but ultimately entertaining film (wait for it) Field of Dreams, in which we're lied to and made to feel bad about Shoeless Joe Jackson's level of involvement in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Recent research has demonstrated that Jackson's play was, indeed, highly suspicious, and that he likely was the reason the fix was successful (indeed, if Jackson (a team leader and its best player) hadn't gone along with the plot, the other players may have reconsidered their involvement). Still, The Common Man would like visit, especially since the owners of the field (it sat across the property line of two farms) have resolved their differences.
4) Iowans are liars. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, Iowans are likely to tell any lie, half-truth or exaggeration to get you visit their state. Why should this country respect the opinions and caucus results of a bunch of lying liars? Are they making up the results? Maybe they manipulate the final tallies to make the races interesting so that citizens are obliged to tune in every four years to a state that otherwise doesn't matter.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
1) Apparently named after an old Hampshire. What happened to the old Hampshire, New Hampshire? Did you just leave it to die somewhere, hoping your past wouldn't catch up to you? Well, it did, New Hampshire. You were named after the county of Hampshire. And where is that, New Hampshire? That's right, it's in England. First of all, if it was so great back in old Hampshire, that you named your colony (then state) after it, why did you leave in the first place. Second, naming your state after a British county? Doesn't sound very American to The Common Man.
2) No state income tax nor sales tax. This, of course, makes The Common Man wonder how the state of New Hampshire pays for anything. No wonder the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. God, spend a buck or two, it's only the only thing people visited your state to see. (Note to Common Self, when driving to or from Maine, always stop at New Hampshire state liquor store at exit 1.)
3) Gave us Sarah Silverman. This is perhaps the greatest contribution to American culture in the state's history. It almost makes up for #4.
4) State motto, Live Free or Die, used as title of aging Bruce Willis fiasco, Live Free or Die Hard. Look, The Common Man is the first one to admit how awesome the first Die Hard was. As an action movie, it blended comedy, fighting, shooting, and realism perfectly with unmatched precision. That doesn't change the fact, however, that the second and fourth installments of Die Hard sucked hard. Sucked out loud. Sucked in stereo. Indeed, the fourth film completely eschews the realism and grittiness that made Die Hard so noteworthy among action films in the first place, instead turning Willis' John McClain into a kind of white, middle-aged, bald superhero, capable of taking down a helicopter with a motorcycle. Though to be fair, the third movie redeems the Die Hard franchise significantly, but mostly because of Samuel L. Jackson and a terrific turn by Jeremy Irons as the villain who puts Willis through a series of amusing and dangerous obstacles. Isn't that just like the British, funny and evil at the same time. Sounds like a bad group of people to name a state after, New Hampshire.
Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2008
Thursday, May 17, 2007
You Get What You Pay For
Well, The Common Man is in Minnesota now, watching The Uncommon Wife eat breakfast and The Boy play on the ground with Grandma. Despite the inability of the Minnesota Twins to actually hit a baseball, the trip has been incredibly relaxing thus far. It's nice to get away from the political pressure cooker that is State College.
You see, in their infinite wisdom, over the past year the State College School Board has proposed and begun the process of rebuilding State College Area High School, turning it into an architectural and technological wonderland. The proposed bill for the reconstruction effort was in excess of $100 million, and was initially approved with little input from the community at large.
Understandably, members of the State College community were concerned about a $100 million construction project in their town that they would be on the hook for. After several contentious and marathon-length school board meetings (more than 200 community members spoke at one meeting), the board decided to continue with its plans. In response, a large coalition of community members banded together to back a new slate of candidates for the board, resulting in a relatively massive media campaign that included major radio air time.
Anyway, to make a long story short (and overly simple), the school board was voted out on Tuesday, but will remain in office until December. The bids that have been submitted for their construction project total $17 million more than the board has budgeted. The current board (the one that got voted out) still can continue down this path, can revise their proposal, or can table the matter until the fall. Meanwhile, there is not a viable plan in place to replace the outdated and inadequate high school that exists right now. Pipe dreams of magical classrooms and cynical politics of not wanting to pay up for school construction have gotten in the way of meaningful school reform for students again, and the refusal of the two sides to come to any kind of consensus means that State College's high school students will still be working in crumbling schools for years to come. Given the relative wealth and educational background of the State College community at large, this is unacceptable.
You see, in their infinite wisdom, over the past year the State College School Board has proposed and begun the process of rebuilding State College Area High School, turning it into an architectural and technological wonderland. The proposed bill for the reconstruction effort was in excess of $100 million, and was initially approved with little input from the community at large.
Understandably, members of the State College community were concerned about a $100 million construction project in their town that they would be on the hook for. After several contentious and marathon-length school board meetings (more than 200 community members spoke at one meeting), the board decided to continue with its plans. In response, a large coalition of community members banded together to back a new slate of candidates for the board, resulting in a relatively massive media campaign that included major radio air time.
Anyway, to make a long story short (and overly simple), the school board was voted out on Tuesday, but will remain in office until December. The bids that have been submitted for their construction project total $17 million more than the board has budgeted. The current board (the one that got voted out) still can continue down this path, can revise their proposal, or can table the matter until the fall. Meanwhile, there is not a viable plan in place to replace the outdated and inadequate high school that exists right now. Pipe dreams of magical classrooms and cynical politics of not wanting to pay up for school construction have gotten in the way of meaningful school reform for students again, and the refusal of the two sides to come to any kind of consensus means that State College's high school students will still be working in crumbling schools for years to come. Given the relative wealth and educational background of the State College community at large, this is unacceptable.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh....They Could Be Watching
A quick programming note: The Common Man, The Uncommon Wife, and The Boy are winging home to Heaven-on-Earth, aka Minnesota, until the end of the week. Expect light blogging between now and then, by which The Common Man means two or three short posts. Sorry, but The Boy needs to meet his great-grandmother.
Last week, The Common Man hinted at "The Atkins Conspiracy," and in the interest of getting himself sued for libel, he thinks it is important to relay it here. It is important to note that The Common Man has no evidence for his beliefs, and nothing aside from his own sparkling reputation to back it up. Nor does he really know if he believes in this conspiracy, or whether it's just fun to talk about and speculate over.
This story begins a little more than four years ago, in Maine, where The Common Man was more like The Common Fatass (not that The Common Man is The Common Skinnyass now). Recognizing that fat, drunk, and stupid was no way to go through life, The Common Man searched for a way to lose the weight while not giving up his carnivorous tendencies. At that time, Dr. Atkins and his diet were all the rage, and The Common Man and the then Uncommon Girlfriend decided to give it a shot. To The Common Man's surprise, he dropped almost 25 pounds in two months, it was a revelation. Ultimately, the diet was not sustainable (in part because The Common Man already has high colesterol and didn't want to know what he was doing to his poor poor arteries (which he swears he could hear screaming in the night)).
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Robert Atkins, the inventor of the Atkins diet, apparently slipped on some ice outside of his apartment, bumped his head, slipped into a coma, and never woke up. Before his death, Atkins had built up a personal fortune in excess of $600 million dollars based on his controversial, counter-intuitive diet plan. Here is where things get interesting.
Sure, the Atkins family tells the public that the good doctor "slipped on some ice," but let The Common Man ask you a question: What would have happened if Dr. Atkins had not slipped and fallen on the ice that day? A very real possibility is that the already elderly Atkins (73 years old) could have (eventually) died from one of many coronary or renal related causes (the two most common complaints about his diet). And how would that have looked, eh? The inventor of the world's most famous diet, dying from the effects of his own diet, a cash cow.
That's why The Common Man wonders whether Dr. Atkins was murdered by someone who feared the financial ruin that would accompany such an unfortunate and ironic demise. Indeed, given the timing of his death, the inheritors of the Atkins empire could reasonably have expected to go on making money for years.
Meanwhile, that bastion of responsible journalism, The New York Post has spent recent days covering the saga of Atkins' widow, apparently the sole beneficiary of the doctor's will. Allegedly, she is "living in fear," with her new husband (who has a reputation for marrying rich women and getting divorced), of the trustees she hired to manage her husband's estate. Apparently, when the trustees refused to release $100 million of the money to her (she's only supposed to get $1.2 million per month), she stopped paying them. In response, the three trustees have brought suit for their back wages ($1.2 million per year, each) and taken out a $15 million insurance policy on her life.
So, given the (thoroughly shaky) motive and cast of weasily characters, there is just enough to give The Common Man's Atkins conspiracy theory just the slightest whiff of plausibility. This is, of course, all that a conspiracy theory really needs to find legs. And now that so many 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists have been disappointed to learn that, indeed, steel can melt. The Common Man recommends The Atkins Conspiracy as the new theory-du-jour to give those idiots something to talk about.
Last week, The Common Man hinted at "The Atkins Conspiracy," and in the interest of getting himself sued for libel, he thinks it is important to relay it here. It is important to note that The Common Man has no evidence for his beliefs, and nothing aside from his own sparkling reputation to back it up. Nor does he really know if he believes in this conspiracy, or whether it's just fun to talk about and speculate over.
This story begins a little more than four years ago, in Maine, where The Common Man was more like The Common Fatass (not that The Common Man is The Common Skinnyass now). Recognizing that fat, drunk, and stupid was no way to go through life, The Common Man searched for a way to lose the weight while not giving up his carnivorous tendencies. At that time, Dr. Atkins and his diet were all the rage, and The Common Man and the then Uncommon Girlfriend decided to give it a shot. To The Common Man's surprise, he dropped almost 25 pounds in two months, it was a revelation. Ultimately, the diet was not sustainable (in part because The Common Man already has high colesterol and didn't want to know what he was doing to his poor poor arteries (which he swears he could hear screaming in the night)).
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Robert Atkins, the inventor of the Atkins diet, apparently slipped on some ice outside of his apartment, bumped his head, slipped into a coma, and never woke up. Before his death, Atkins had built up a personal fortune in excess of $600 million dollars based on his controversial, counter-intuitive diet plan. Here is where things get interesting.
Sure, the Atkins family tells the public that the good doctor "slipped on some ice," but let The Common Man ask you a question: What would have happened if Dr. Atkins had not slipped and fallen on the ice that day? A very real possibility is that the already elderly Atkins (73 years old) could have (eventually) died from one of many coronary or renal related causes (the two most common complaints about his diet). And how would that have looked, eh? The inventor of the world's most famous diet, dying from the effects of his own diet, a cash cow.
That's why The Common Man wonders whether Dr. Atkins was murdered by someone who feared the financial ruin that would accompany such an unfortunate and ironic demise. Indeed, given the timing of his death, the inheritors of the Atkins empire could reasonably have expected to go on making money for years.
Meanwhile, that bastion of responsible journalism, The New York Post has spent recent days covering the saga of Atkins' widow, apparently the sole beneficiary of the doctor's will. Allegedly, she is "living in fear," with her new husband (who has a reputation for marrying rich women and getting divorced), of the trustees she hired to manage her husband's estate. Apparently, when the trustees refused to release $100 million of the money to her (she's only supposed to get $1.2 million per month), she stopped paying them. In response, the three trustees have brought suit for their back wages ($1.2 million per year, each) and taken out a $15 million insurance policy on her life.
So, given the (thoroughly shaky) motive and cast of weasily characters, there is just enough to give The Common Man's Atkins conspiracy theory just the slightest whiff of plausibility. This is, of course, all that a conspiracy theory really needs to find legs. And now that so many 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists have been disappointed to learn that, indeed, steel can melt. The Common Man recommends The Atkins Conspiracy as the new theory-du-jour to give those idiots something to talk about.
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