« Lowell seeing red | Main | Skating on thin ice in Pelham »

August 24, 2006

Snakes on a Statehouse

The House of Representatives this week voted to make the garter snake the official state reptile. Did Matt Amorello get any votes? How about Billy Bulger or his brother Whitey? Can you be on the lam and still be voted the state reptile? In Massachusetts probably, and they’ll even give you a state car to flee.
Frankly, I wish the Legislature would find better things to do with its time than approve nonsense legislation. Oh, come on, you say, it only took a few minutes during an informal session of the House, and two third-graders from Kingston came up with the idea. Isn’t this a nice way for them to see the legislative process up close?
Call me a curmudgeon, but these kids would get a more realistic look at how things work under the golden dome if they let the bill die in committee, or pass it only after adding an amendment that would temporarily hike tolls on the Mass. Pike “until such time as the Legislature finds it no longer necessary� (i.e., never). Then these kids would understand how Beacon Hill really operates.
Should the garter-snake bill slither through the Senate and wriggle onto Romney’s desk, it would bring the number of such “official� designations to 51, according to The Boston Globe.
Here’s a list:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/gl-2-toc.htm
Earlier this month, the governor signed legislation making basketball the official sport of the commonwealth. The excuse for this sorry exercise is that basketball was invented in Springfield in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian. If you asked most Bay State residents what the state’s official sport should be, basketball might — might — rank third, after football and baseball. And hockey could actually nudge out basketball for third. I base my highly unscientific opinion on the results of a recent question posed to visitors to http://www.lowellsun.com: “What sport are you most likely to watch on TV?� Here’s how the 372 votes were divided:
Football — 33 percent
Baseball — 30 percent
NASCAR — 30 percent
Golf — 3 percent
Hockey — 3 percent
Basketball — 2 percent
I’m sorry, but this state has too many problems for the pros on Beacon Hill to spend time with anything else. It really bugs me. Actually, it ladybugs me. That’s the state’s official insect.
— Guest host Charles St. Amand, Sun managing editor

Posted by Admin at August 24, 2006 9:51 AM