Aubade
In a State
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
¶ William Yardley writes about the closing of the Washington State tourism office, and explains that the state’s name has been a problem ever since 1853, when lawmakers were concerned that Columbia would cause confusion with the federal capital. You can’t make this stuff up! ¶ Michael Powell writes about politics in New Jersey, which we already knew to be screwed up, but still. He uses the term “purely medieval“ in a sense different from the one in which we apply it to American politics; we see the Middle Ages as a time of weak central power and the corresponding proliferation of small but obstinate jurisdictions; to Mr Powell, it means — well, we think that the word that he wants is “Renaissance.”