ALABAMA – Eat a dozen raw eggs, thirteen cups of hot bacon grease and two sides of beef and you’ll
have some idea of what it’s like to be from Alabama. Yes, these are a people who have no idea when
enough is enough.
ARKANSAS – The only folks we know from Arkansas are multibillionaire Sam Walton and President
Bill Clinton. Based on these facts, we’d have to say that people from Arkansas have a lot of money
and a huge amount of control over the last surviving world superpower. But we wouldn’t recommend
interning in Arkansas! Hey! Look out! Watch out! Take my wife…
FLORIDA – The largest peninsula in the United States, Floridians love to flaunt their lack of
landlockedness. It’s hard to come away from a trip to the Everglades-and-Lemonades State without
picking up a “My parents went to Florida and all I got was this lousy T-shirt which also happens to
show that Florida has a longer coastline for its square-mileage than any other state in the union”
T-shirt.
GEORGIA – Georgia is home to such varied celebrities as Newt Gingrich and musical acts REM
and the Indigo Girls. This may be the only place in the country where you can get up in the morning
to hear Gingrich lecture on the Economy and then toodle across town to a local music hall to hear
REM play on a double-bill with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. You could also drink a coke while you
were there. Because Coca-Cola is based in Atlanta.
KENTUCKY – In many ways, Kentucky (or K-Tuck as it’s known) is the heart of this great nation.
From their famous fried chicken recipe to their… big… Well, anyway, a lot happens in Kentucky.
Folks from Kentucky have a special quality about them–no, not that smell of fried chicken! It’s
something inside. And no, I’m not talking about a bellyful of fried chicken here, either. They can tell
you a charming story or sing you a song. Sometimes that story will be about how they fried up a
chicken, but sometimes it won’t. Same goes for the song. In the end, the thing that makes a
Kentuckian unique is his love of… oh, you guessed it: turtle bowling.
LOUISIANA – Often called the Mississippi of the South, Louisiana is known for two things:
Crooked cops and Mardi Gras and hookers and a crumbling state government and dirt poor schools
and an inhuman prison system. Once a year Louisiana’s “police” force takes a break from all of its
drug dealing and extortion for a week of drinking and partying in New Orleans. They spend the rest
of the year drinking and partying in their respective precincts.
MISSISSIPPI – As any grade school tot could tell you, Mississippi truly is “the state with four I’s,
four S’s, two P’s and a single M.” The fact is that the most oft spelled state in the nation is also the
most commonly misunderstood. The word Mississippi has become synonymous with slavery, but
that’s just not fair. Nowadays the only thing that these noble citizens are enslaved to is their own
work ethic, which has recently made Mississippi (with five factories and another one on the way) the
industrial capital of the south!
NORTH CAROLINA – North Carolinians live a precarious existence, caught between the sunny,
cotton-fried allure of the Old South and the snooty, car-driving temptations of the Northern states. Is
it hard for people to live without a clear geographical set of stereotypes? You bet! North Carolinians
are often confused as to whether they should be out drinking mint julips and electing Jefferson
Davis president of their own independent nation or whether they should be going to Yale and being
Jewish.
SOUTH CAROLINA – Although there has been a lot of publicity recently concerning the state
government’s refusal to take down the Confederate flag from the top of the state house, this was
just the final in a long string of flag-related incidents that have plagued this troubled state in recent
years. Four years ago the state was bitterly divided by a proposal for a new state flag, which included
a picture of the state house with the confederate flag on the roof prominently displayed. Two years
later there was a mural painted in downtown Charleston showing the state house–with the
confederate flag on the roof–flying the proposed state flag, with the picture of the state house with
the confederate flag on the roof in plain view. Then, six months later more disputes arose over
another proposed state flag, which included a picture of the mural with the state house and the old
flag, with both confederate flags clearly visible. There was also a white man in front of the mural
selling little black children for “dirt cheap.”
TENNESSEE – Much like the football Titans of whom they are so proud, the state of Tennessee was
stopped just short of the goal-line on the final play of the Superbowl of economic development. Still,
for a state who’s economic stability rests primarily on country music and Elvis’ house, life is pretty
good in Tennessee. You might even say that it’s Tennesseensational!
Or Tennesspectacular!
Or Tennesseegreat!
VIRGINIA – Not as rainy as Oregon, not as cold as Vermont, Virginia is, to quote their governor,
“just about right.”
WEST VIRGINIA – Formerly called North Virginia state politicians changed the name in 1946,
asserting that it was “unflattering” and “derivative.” When they could not come to an agreement on
their top two choices New Heaven and Virginia City, they compromised on West Virginia, which
everyone now agrees was “probably a cop out.”
