It seems that every city and state wants its own slogan, and they're usually something stupid. I remember a few years ago my state was pushing "Scenic New Hampshire."
(Note: I'm talking about slogans, not mottoes. If some moron tries to take "Live Free Or Die" off MY license plate, it'll be the last thing he sees when I run him down.)
The latest slogan from Taxachusetts, my lovely neighbor to the south, came about after they hired some consultants to come up with it. After about a quarter of a million dollars, as I recall, they came up with "Make It In Massachusetts."
Lovely. All that money for a cheap innuendo.
But slogans, if not carefully crafted, have a tendency to be taken by others and re-crafted into things that bite you on your ass. And this one was no exception.
At least three or four times a day, I hear an ad on the radio that advises listeners to "make it in Massachusetts, but spend it in tax-free New Hampshire."
Massachusetts' current governor, Mitt Romney, is a rather straight-laced Mormon. Between the innuendo and the little twist my fellow Cow Hampshirites are putting on it, I strongly suspect that particular slogan will soon find itself, as they say, "on the ash-heap of history."
And none too soon.
J.
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Comments (12)
Maybe there should be a pub... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Rich | March 4, 2005 6:21 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Maybe there should be a public seat shocker button. Whenever money and resources are used on some dumbass idea...the public can shock the genuis responsible back to reality.
"Hmmm...change the state slogan"
:: BZZZZZZ!!!!::
"Okay...put the quarter million into bettering the schools and after school projects for kids"
1. Posted by Rich | March 4, 2005 6:21 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 18:21
2. Posted by Timmer | March 4, 2005 7:18 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Got you beat...out here in the Midwest, Omaha to be exact, we've got, and I kid you not, O!
Omaha and Overstock dot com. Playing off the big O.
2. Posted by Timmer | March 4, 2005 7:18 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 19:18
3. Posted by Ken | March 4, 2005 7:49 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Things like this motto are always just a way to slip money to friends.
Corporations could ask employees and get good suggestions for free. Then pay 5 staffers to spend a day picking the best. Cost about $5000. Instead they hire some firm and pay them a million. Guess who the boss plays golf with?
Governments do the same thing. Except much of the money comes back as bribes.
So you see the difference between executives and politicans. Executives help their friends, politicans help themselves.
3. Posted by Ken | March 4, 2005 7:49 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 19:49
4. Posted by Geoff Matthews | March 4, 2005 7:54 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I grew up in Medicine Hat, Alberta. It has enormous reserves of natural gas, so large that Rudyard Kipling referred to it as 'hell for a basement.' The denisens liked it so much they wanted to rename the city after Kipling.
However, in my time there, the city had adopted the following slogan:
Medicine Hat, The City With Gas.
My wife still teases me about that.
(Incidentally, it has been changed to "The City of Gas", but really, that isn't much better)
4. Posted by Geoff Matthews | March 4, 2005 7:54 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 19:54
5. Posted by Dave | March 4, 2005 9:54 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
They took "Heart of Dixie" off my license plate in Alabama cause it might upset someone of color.
It had been on our tags for over 50yrs. Pissed me off.
Not like we havent named every main street and freeway in the south for MLK and Im not bein racist just stating a fact.
Heritage is a too way street not just for nonwhites.
5. Posted by Dave | March 4, 2005 9:54 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 21:54
6. Posted by Dave | March 4, 2005 9:56 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
LOL that would be "two way street".
6. Posted by Dave | March 4, 2005 9:56 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 21:56
7. Posted by jmaster | March 4, 2005 10:41 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
“Live Free or Die” has to be the absolute best motto of all time. That about sums it up. I truly hope your state strives for all that implies.
I’ve thought about how that phrase might be updated a bit, and made more appropriate for today’s culture. “Live Free or Die, Mutha Fukka” might work, but I’m not sure that would make it on a license plate.
7. Posted by jmaster | March 4, 2005 10:41 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 4, 2005 22:41
8. Posted by McGehee | March 5, 2005 12:18 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Just use another "MF" combination, such as what I use to complete the line from which the name of my blog is taken:
Yippee-ki-yay, Millard Fillmore!
Y'all are welcome to use it similarly, though I hope the descendants of our 13th President won't take offense...
8. Posted by McGehee | March 5, 2005 12:18 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 5, 2005 00:18
9. Posted by Red | March 5, 2005 12:38 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Although this is not Maine's official slogan, it should be:
Come to Maine where they will tax your dreams too.
9. Posted by Red | March 5, 2005 12:38 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 5, 2005 00:38
10. Posted by Mark C N Sullivan | March 5, 2005 8:34 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I suggest my home state adopt a new slogan that combines its reputations for seafood, tax-gouging, and marital innovation:
Get scrod in Massachusetts.
10. Posted by Mark C N Sullivan | March 5, 2005 8:34 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 5, 2005 08:34
11. Posted by Uncle Mikey | March 5, 2005 10:23 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
My favorite story of this kind is when the University of Texas spent a load of money (can't remember the exact amount, but low six figures comes to mind) on their new motto, "We're Texas." Now that's ingenuity.
11. Posted by Uncle Mikey | March 5, 2005 10:23 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 5, 2005 10:23
12. Posted by wilmo | March 5, 2005 12:48 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I thought Massachusetts was going to use the one most representative of their state: MASSACHUSETTS, WHERE THE TAXUS GROW HIGH.
12. Posted by wilmo | March 5, 2005 12:48 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 5, 2005 12:48