WY couldn't get any more square here.
November 18, 2009 6:25 PM   Subscribe

Senators' STATEments: As part of Geography Awareness Week, National Geographic asked United States Senators to draw and label their home states with at least three important places.
posted by NikitaNikita (40 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Al Franken responds by saying "Come on just the State?
posted by wheelieman at 6:34 PM on November 18, 2009 [8 favorites]


The Alaskan senator is quite the minimalist.
posted by crapmatic at 6:36 PM on November 18, 2009


Why am I unsurprised that Al Franken and the Senator from Wyoming accepted the challenge?
posted by horsewithnoname at 6:38 PM on November 18, 2009


They should have saved time by having Franken draw all of the states.
posted by brundlefly at 6:38 PM on November 18, 2009 [3 favorites]


The Illinois one is pretty awesome:

1) Chicago (Home of Pres. Obama and the Bears)
2) Springfield (Home of Lincoln and the senator)
3) Metropolis (Home of Superman)
posted by jeffkramer at 6:40 PM on November 18, 2009 [8 favorites]


... I would like to apologize, on behalf of GA. Sorry, those suck.
posted by strixus at 6:41 PM on November 18, 2009


I'm with strixus. I mean, come on, Saxby.

But if you've never vacationed in the Rectangular Mountains of North Georgia, you're really missing something special.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:43 PM on November 18, 2009 [2 favorites]


That reminds me of the Demitri Martin joke:

"I've learned something on the road, traveling around: state shapes. The easier it is to draw the shape of the state, the harder it is to live in that state. So, if you live in a regular polygon, get the hell outta there. You gotta move to a squiggly area. Culture's attracted to squiggles
posted by qvantamon at 6:45 PM on November 18, 2009 [13 favorites]


Where's CA? DiFi? Where are you? Draw something!
posted by cccorlew at 6:50 PM on November 18, 2009


Saxby's drawing isn't even especially Georgia-shaped. Boo. I hope more Senators will participate!
posted by naoko at 6:51 PM on November 18, 2009


I like Franken's drawing because aside his hometown and home state, it also shows their Lebensraum.
posted by qvantamon at 6:55 PM on November 18, 2009 [10 favorites]


Wow, Collins got the Maine coast down pretty solid. Kind of like she has a prosthetic hand in the shape of the state that she stenciled around.

Impressive either way.
posted by setanor at 6:58 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]


Nothing from my Kansas senators so far. Maybe they don't believe in geography. It's too close to science for comfort.
posted by amyms at 7:03 PM on November 18, 2009 [4 favorites]


Ohio is pretty bad. What a pompous ass.
posted by marxchivist at 7:11 PM on November 18, 2009


Saxby Nero Chambliss has demonstrated a lack of understanding of his state before, so possibly this is just an extension of that.
posted by neewom at 7:11 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]


Senator Enzi (WY R)'s view of the Devil's Tower is so beautifully not-to-scale... reminds me of the View from 9th Avenue.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:12 PM on November 18, 2009


Byron Dorgan's rendering of North Dakota made me want to visit North Dakota tomorrow. No small feat.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 7:16 PM on November 18, 2009


Quite impressed with Franken and Collins. Nice to see Durbin give Metropolis some love (here's the president in front of the Metropolis Superman statue, if you haven't seen it before). And, yeah, Saxby Chambliss has no idea what Georgia looks like. He seems to be under the impression that he represents Mississippi in the Senate. Weird.
posted by EarBucket at 7:17 PM on November 18, 2009


James Risch (R) Idaho is probably the best.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:17 PM on November 18, 2009


What a pompous ass.

Aww. Did Sherrod Brown let you down?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:18 PM on November 18, 2009


'a land of mountains and plains and few people'

then why the f%^k do you need a senator?
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:24 PM on November 18, 2009


Oh, according to Wikipedia Sherrod Brown supports same-sex marriage and opposed the Iraq War. I wish at least one of my senators held those views. I didn't know anything about his politics when I made that comment, I just didn't like how all the important places in Ohio had to do with him.

There's a buttload of presidents from Ohio and it is home to Cedar Point, he could have pointed some of that out.
posted by marxchivist at 7:25 PM on November 18, 2009


Oh, yeah. I wasn't sure if you were making a dig at his politics, because he's great. The "Sherrod Brown Let Us Down" thing was a campaign slogan against him.

If the prompt was just "mark important places" I can see him thinking it meant personally important. I don't think he did it out of some some sense of arrogance.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:32 PM on November 18, 2009


Yeah, I wish I could vote for him.
posted by marxchivist at 7:35 PM on November 18, 2009


Wow, Claire let me down on Missouri's shape. I mean, yeah, the western edge of the state was an unbroken vertical line before, what, 1834? I did a better Missouri, drunk, on an Etch-a-Sketch!
posted by notsnot at 7:38 PM on November 18, 2009


Did Enzi just draw a perfect square in MSPaint? It looks like Enzi just drew a perfect square in MSPaint. Which is funny, because Wyoming is so a rectangle.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:43 PM on November 18, 2009


McCaskill also screwed up the direction of the bootheel and the bump just north of St. Louis. For inaccuracy I'd say it's a toss up between her and Chambliss, though Isakson's Georgia isn't much better than Chambliss's.

Also, was the dude from Idaho gunning for extra credit or something?
posted by jedicus at 7:46 PM on November 18, 2009


Awww, no Sherrod Brown insults allowed. I have such a crush on that guy. I totally watch C-SPAN just in case he'll be on, talking in that weird gravelly voice of his.
posted by naoko at 8:20 PM on November 18, 2009 [2 favorites]


Byron Dorgan's rendering of North Dakota made me want to visit North Dakota tomorrow. No small feat.

Having grown up in Manitoba, I can confirm that the Pembina River valley is quite nice.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:43 PM on November 18, 2009


I was really hoping these would be much worse so that I could break down into a "HURF DURF CONGRESSCRITTERS SURE IS DUMB!" rant.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:47 PM on November 18, 2009


buttload of presidents

Is that what we call a group of them now?
posted by armage at 10:07 PM on November 18, 2009


Did Enzi just draw a perfect square in MSPaint?

He probably just used the border of the sheet of paper given (?) to him as the border of Wyoming, and went from there.

And yes, the map of North Dakota makes me want to visit. Especially to see what that "beautiful secret" is.
posted by armage at 10:09 PM on November 18, 2009


James Risch (R) Idaho is probably the best.

Agreed. I didn't even think Idaho had that many places.
posted by Rangeboy at 11:21 PM on November 18, 2009


buttload of presidents
Is that what we call a group of them now?


Only the repressed Republican ones.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:05 AM on November 19, 2009


buttload of presidents

Is that what we call a group of them now?


Or if one of the group includes William Howard Taft (born in Ohio!)
posted by marxchivist at 4:36 AM on November 19, 2009 [1 favorite]


Heh, Risch. What an overachiever. He majored in Forestry as an undergrad - seems fitting, given the detail of his Idaho drawing.

It looks like he started out filling in places and then realized that he didn't have enough room for everything he wanted to mention so he just started squeezing in everything he could. "Darn, I know so much more about Idaho's geography. Oh well. I guess I'll represent All of Central Idaho Wilderness with this one dot and a giant arrow. Sigh."
posted by cobwebberies at 10:48 AM on November 19, 2009


You know, I was all ready to laugh at their crummy drawings or whatever, but I don't know that I, or the average voter, could do much better. And the places of importance--Sherrod Brown's family stuff (though, to be fair, Columbus is also the state capitol and largest city), the Wyoming Republican mentioning women's suffrage, the exhaustive, something-to-prove-ness of the nineteen Idaho points of interest--well, I think it's all pretty neat. And that these folks took a few minutes out of their day to do something nice for... what, geography? kids? National Geographic? I don't think there's any money or votes in it. And I think that's pretty neat too, especially when so many of their colleagues couldn't be bothered. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age.
posted by box at 10:53 AM on November 19, 2009


Aw, I like 'em as well. Even the one featuring Georgia's rectangular mountains, which at least shows that Chambliss was aware of mountains in his state and felt like pointing them out as something of interest. I'm actually quite disappointed at how few of the senators took up the challenge. For the ones who did, however, that is really neat, seeing people care a little about the places they represent as more than just political territory or whatever. When Collins of Maine mentioned that Bath is the "home of the finest shipbuilders," I took it as a little note of pride in what some of her constituents do, which is pretty sweet. And, of course, I love Risch's apparently inexhaustible font of knowledge about Idaho.
posted by cobwebberies at 11:16 AM on November 19, 2009


Bravo for Senator Franken. I'm disappointed so few senators took up the challenge. Colorado? Wyoming? New Mexico? C'mon.
posted by brozek at 2:04 PM on November 19, 2009


This is obviously the result of someone watching Franken and saying, "I'd like to see some of the other senators try that..."
posted by straight at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2009


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