by Howie Carr Friday, October 18, 2002
Budget crisis? What state budget crisis?
Now the commonwealth spends $300,000 on an advertising firm that comes up with a state slogan which isn't half as good as any of the joke slogans that we all came up with two months ago, and on top of that, it's half-plagiarized from an old slogan.
The new slogan: ``Massachusetts . . . Make It Yours.''
The old slogan: ``Make It in Massachusetts.''
I'm telling you, Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose got into trouble for much less obvious lifting of other people's work than that.
When the ``Make It Yours'' slogan came in, the chairman of the Regional Tourism Councils, Sheila Martines Pina, should have thrown it into a car trunk, locked it up and forgotten about it, if you know what I mean.
If you're going to go with a slogan as lame as ``Make It Yours,'' at least someone at the agency could have added a distinctive Bay State flavor, a tip o' the hat, you might say, to our larcenous past, not to mention present.
Massachusetts . . . Make It Yours. Nobody's Looking.
Massachusetts . . . Make It Yours. The Surveillance Camera's Broken.
Ted Kennedy's suggestion: Massachusetts - Make It a Double.
Shannon O'Brien offered a couple of new mottos too, the first of which was Lobbyists Make Better Lovers.
Two other O'Brien favorites: Massachusetts - Land of the Missing Scratch Tickets; Massachusetts - The Adam and Steve State.
As for our outgoing governor, Jane Swift, she too wanted a personal slogan for the state license plate: Ask Me About Our Pardons.
Befitting Swifty's status, how about The Lame Duck State? A few more slogans to commemorate Jane Swift's very ethical administration:
Massachusetts - The Cash 'n' Carry State.
Massachusetts - Lost Our Lease. Everything Must Go. We Will Not Be Undersold.
Have chopper, will travel.
If the commonwealth really feels obligated to retain ``Make It'' in the slogan, how about using it in a bow to our famously rude population, always willing to lend a helping hand.
Massachusetts - Make It Quick.
Massachusetts - Make Like a Tree and Leave.
Really, though, this proposed new slogan is embarrassingly feeble. It's so easy to come up with something that's, well, less bad.
Massachusetts - Sodom and Begorrah. Death Pits 'R' Us. The Welfare State. Land o' Geoghan and Shanley.
Massachusetts - One Million Illegal Aliens Can't Be Wrong.
Just a couple of months ago, we came up with dozens of better suggestions. Here are just a few that I remember from the summer, mixed in with some new ones:
Minnesota used to call itself the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Massachusetts - Land of 10,000 Tolls, or Land of Enchanted Tollbooths.
If You Have a Friend in Pennsylvania, then You Have a Comrade in Massachusetts.
Virginia is for Lovers, Massachusetts is for Tax Lovers. California is the Golden State, we are the Goldbrick State. Louisiana is Sportsman's Paradise, we are Pervert Priests' Paradise.
So many topics to pack into a handful of syllables. The highest cigarette tax in the nation. The Big Dig boondoggle. Corrupt FBI agents. Day-care centers at high schools. Ted Kennedy. Joe Kennedy. Joan Kennedy. Max Kennedy . . . where do you begin?
Massachusetts - Press 2 for English.
Massachusetts - If You Lived Here, You'd be Homeless.
Massachusetts - Your Buck Stops Here.
The Bay State - Come Pay with Us.
Best to stick with very current events, so how about a commemoration of last week's vote by our congressional delegation on the Iraqi resolution?
Massachusetts - The Surrender State.
Logan Airport. If It's Good Enough for Mohammed Atta, It's Good Enough for You.
What a place. Massachusetts - Go Ahead, Make My Day.
Kennedy, Kerry, Frank, Olver and the rest are elected year after year... WHY!!?
My take is that the state has millions of people who benifit from state/union contracts and millions more on the dole.
Throw in the gub'ment hacks, gays and “alts” and the dems win all the time. Pure lunacy.