FBO: 'Discovers/Questions the North Dakota Quarter'

THERE GOES THE SUN
North Dakota's state quarter came out three years ago. Is it any coincidence that we didn't stumble upon one until early 2009, a few weeks after the FBO's first ever 'North Dakota week'?

Prompted by gut whim, I checked the failed entries for the state quarter and found a curious pattern that NO OTHER STATE had shown: spearing prong-like sun 'rays' that resembles the Japanese Imperial Navy flag during WWII.







The link couldn't be intentional, right? North Dakota isn't tributing the imperial Japanese armed forces, who took millions of lives during WWII?

Shiply speaking, the original USS North Dakota never made it to Japan and stayed way out of harm's way during WWI -- mostly making care-package trips around the Caribbean, then was disassembled before WWII. (A new submarine called the USS North Dakota is currently in construction.) However, the USS South Dakota -- named for the north's mocking rival to the south -- was badly damaged by Japan's Imperial Navy in 1942. That seems bad taste.

Maybe Telephoning Will Help
The Japanese flag -- known as the Rising Sun Flag -- has 16 rays. North Dakota's versions have seven, eight and nine. But a bigger question is whether or not North Dakota's suns depict sunrises or sunsets? The farm shot shows no chimney smoke or stirring creatures to hint at a time, while goose -- it should be noted -- fly at sunrise and sunset. So, no clues. Perhaps the key is the buffalo -- alert, jolly and feasting as the sun dips or rises behind them. Do buffalo wake up at 6am?

So I phoned the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the southwestern corner of the state, a lovely area with two units of badlands and plenty of wildlife. The operator said 'Mike' would be able to help and transferred me.

I asked Mike if he knew when bison wake up. 'Bison are a daytime animal, unlike deer for example. Most of their activities go on during the day,' he said seriously. 'But that said I'll drive by a group of 200 during the day -- maybe 100 are eating, another 100 laying around, some with eyes shut. They eat and sleep throughout the day.' So they eat dawn to dusk? 'Yup' -- he really said 'yup' -- 'Remember that grass is a low quality food, and they have a big stomach to keep full.'

I mentioned the quarter, and here Mike got particularly interested. 'Let's see, if we had any defining features of the formation behind them, we could figure this out...' He paused. 'We'd probably need to talk with the artist though... Do you know the artist?' I said I didn't. 'You know, if I had to guess -- purely guess -- I'd say it's evening. Very few people out here get up that early.'

If it's good enough for Mike (who was enduring a blizzard at the time), it's good enough for us. The FBO claims that North Dakota's quarter depicts not a 'rising sun' but a falling one, thus isn't tributing the imperial Japanese military. And to be honest, when I visited the Roosevelt Park's North Unit in late spring 2001, the two-lane load reaches it from the east. And that's where most of the bison are. In fact, I had about 60 or 70 immediately surrounding my rental car. An artist heading up there would get the same vantage point of the badlands -- looking west.

-->Perhaps it would have been less confusing if North Dakota went with the Roger Maris quarter, remembering the homerun hero from Fargo.



FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn

FBO: 'North Dakota Week (Hidden Track)'

NORTH DAKOTA'S GRADE FOR USA TODAY: 'F!'
North Dakota is used to false reports and misconceptions and an unfair shake of things. It's the least-visited state, and most who stop to consider it at all think of it as the coldest (it's not) or by the actors portraying Minnesotans in the film Fargo. Last week, USA Today one-upped the ante, with an article, following up on the Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich story, that slams the 'Peace Garden State' as the nation's most corrupt.

That'd be fine if it were at all true. It's not. And North Dakota is rightly furious about it.

The editorial pages of the Grand Forks Herald called it a 'laughable claim,' and the state Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem called it 'patently ridiculous.' The Bismarck Tribune added if the claim is true, then 'there are legions of elected and appointed officials from other states who can walk on water.'

There's some facts on their side, apparently. Some half of the 'guilty officials' sited as corrupt of the state's 600,000 residents, were local, not state, officials, including many officials from a Chippewa reservation (which operates outside the state jurisdiction). The Grand Forks Herald claims the last North Dakota state official to be found guilty of corruption was in 1954. In a New York Times article on the controversy, the Herald editor said he could only recall a state legislator being charged for shoplifting some peanuts, back in 1981.

North Dakota Attorney General: 'These groups that grade states should be graded themselves. This group deserves an F.' (Referring to Corporate Crime Reporter, who -- in 2004 -- called North Dakota the second-most corrupt state (after Mississippi).

The FBO sees many comparisons between failed bands, lack of awareness of failed bands, and frequent dissent over failed bands' collectives such as the FBO -- and with the barrage of disrespect given to North Dakota over the years.

We side with our adopted state on this issue, and ban USA Today from linking to our site for eight full weeks.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'North Dakota Week: NAM's Center'

RUGBY FLASHBACK
I went well out of my way, on May 10, 2001, to reach Rugby, the geographical center of the North American continent. A little on a Great Plains map can mean hours -- and I didn't question my decision for a second.

Here's my journal entry from that day:

The Rugby visitors center is why you travel.

Located across the road from the cute stacked-stone geographical center of North America marker, the worker here -- dressed in a 'Rugby - Geographical Center of North America' jacket -- is a serious, bald, 35-year-old local who sells Mexico and Canada flags along with US ones to keep the North American focus. He takes that seriously. He pulled out travel planners he's painstakingly collected from all 50 US states and much of Canada -- to have onhand, as a defacto representative of North American travel, here in a sad wind-swept town far from an interstate.

'It's something,' he said in an eager monotone, with a trace of a Fargo accent. 'You really learn which states have the highest tourism budgets and which don't.' Which have the least? 'Oh Virginia, definitely. They sent us just one guide. Said if we wanted more we'd have to pay postage,' he added without a trace of resentment. 'But New Jersey, they sent us cartons of magazines and brochures. They sent us 1000 New Jersey maps.' I laughed at this, but he clearly saw no humor in it.

Rugby wants to create a new visitors center, but ran out of money. He showed me three separate artists' renderings of a new proposed center. I left to check out the North American stone marker across the street, first asking if it really was the real geographical center.

'Oh no,' he said. 'The actual spot is 16 miles south -- in the middle of a swamp.'

The FBO is considering a failed bands show in Rugby.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'North Dakota Week T-Shirt'

NORTH DAKOTA WEEK CONTINUES... WITH MERCH
FBO fans ask for an official North Dakota t-shirt. And one is delivered. It can be ordered here.

Careful observers will note a Dakota swap in the clip art. (Only South D was available.)


More North Dakota-related posts will resume tomorrow.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Launches North Dakota Week'

FBO ADOPTS NORTH DAKOTA
The USA's least-visited state -- sometimes misinterpreted as the coldest of the contiguous 48 (Maine is colder, for instance), and made fun of by a movie that takes place in next-door Minnesota (Fargo) -- is getting the last laugh on the rest of us, it appears. According to a New York Times article a few days ago, North Dakota is, more or less, taking a bypass around the recession. It enjoys a $1.2 million budget surplus, the nation's lowest unemployment rate and a recent rise in real-estate values. Good for them.

The FBO has particularly been a fan of the state's punk-rock threats of renaming its state -- from 'North Dakota' to simply 'Dakota,' which pops up in its state legislature every couple years. Predictably South Dakota -- the more famous twin -- gets furious over the notion, but the FBO thinks more states should remain fluid with its nomenclature. Some examples:

*New Jersey --> York. The only thing that could possibly make New Jersey cool is upsetting New York (the Boss certainly hasn't done it). Another option would be simply Manhattan.
*West Virginia --> Authentic Virginia. No one will know which came first after 80 years.
*Oklahoma Panhandle --> Actual Massachusetts

We visited North Dakota in the tender days of early 2001, arriving in Fargo's proud, just-opened tourist information center -- fashioned from a giant grain elevator, and excited to launch a full tourism campaign for a state everyone skips -- the same day USA Today slammed the city as the 'country's ugliest city.' That's just mean.

The FBO adopts North Dakota. And bans the USA Today editorial board for three weeks.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY