“Was western meadowlark the official state bird of the entire Louisiana Purchase…”

“…and they just kept it after becoming states?”

You need to read this, after the week you’ve had.  God knows I did.  Ladies and gentlemen, the problem that is our piss-poor collective decision-making process with regard to official state birds:

I drove over a bridge from Maryland into Virginia today and on the big “Welcome to Virginia” sign was an image of the state bird, the northern cardinal—with a yellow bill. I should have scoffed, but it hardly registered. Everyone knows that state birds are a big joke. There are a million cardinals, a scattering of robins, and just a general lack of thought put into the whole thing.

States should have to put more thought into their state bird than I put into picking my socks in the morning.

…and it just goes from there.  There’s something nice about seeing somebody get a really good rant going, on a subject that you can easily understand, but have never really wanted to. And… yeah, I will admit that there does seem to be a lot of phoning it in when it comes to official state birds.  Happy, Nicholas Lund?

Moe Lane

PS: The official state bird for NJ should be the seagull.  There.  I said it.