The Scariest Town Names in America

With Halloween approaching, our thoughts turn to horrible, scary things. I mean, other than the Trump presidency. We fall back on our age-old fears of darkness and the evil things that move in it, seeking to do us harm. We cower in the corners, turn on the lights, and whistle past the graveyards.

For some reason, we have decided to give some of our towns names that evoke fear and terror, and this article from HouseBeautiful.com lists 31* of the scariest town names in the country. I won't list all 31; you can read them for yourself at the linked article, but these few are the ones that most made me wonder what the person who named the town was thinking ...

Gnaw Bone, Indiana. Hungry? Somebody must have been.

Hell, Michigan. Everybody knows this one ... at least once each winter there's a news story about low temperatures here with the headline "Hell Freezes Over."

Dead Woman's Crossing, Oklahoma. I really don't want to know.

Frankenstein, Missouri. Do you suppose that the local high school pep rallies have the students bearing torches and pitchforks?

Slaughter Beach, Delaware. Umm ... I think I'll just keep going to Chincoteague.

Satan's Kingdom, Massachusetts (also one in Connecticut). One wonders why there's a town with a name like this at a time when lots of people are incensed over an imaginary "War on Christmas" ... you'd think they'd have mounted a campaign to rename it something like "Holier Than Thou."

and,

Screamer, Alabama. Contrary to what you may have heard, it was not named for the reaction of many people to the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore.

Any frightening town names near where you live? Leave a comment and help the rest of us get ready for Halloween, bwa-ha-HAAAAA!

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for the latest collection of Great Moments in Editing and Signage. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Why 31? Why not 13, which seems like a more appropriate number? Discuss.

A Two-State Solution?

In the unhappy Middle East, one of the abiding beliefs is that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse lies in the "Two-State Solution," under which Israel coexists in peace with an independent Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip*.

Official support for the Two-State Solution has been the official US policy for many years, although there's some indication that the Trump administration may be willing to jettison it in favor of full support of Israel.

But if the Two-State Solution doesn't work for the Middle East, perhaps it will work here at home as a way of separating Republicans and Democrats. Consider the electoral college results for the 2016 Election, represented as a map showing red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) states ...

The discontinuous areas of the West Bank under Palestinian control and surrounded by annexed or controlled by Israel are analogous to the situation of the blue states in the American heartland, surrounded by seas of red. Perhaps we are moving toward our own Two-State Solution, in which angry, bitter Conservatives live together in their own walled-in, law-and-order nation bordering a sister nation of angry, bitter Liberals**.

Have a good day here in the Disunited States of America. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* There are precedents for a geographically-divided nation ...  following the partition of India into Hindu and Muslim nations in 1948, the Muslim portion consisted of "East Pakistan" and "West Pakistan." "East Pakistan" later broke away to become what we now know as "Bangladesh." Another precedent can be seen in the one-time "United Arab Republic," a short-lived union between Egypt and Syria that existed from 1958 to 1961. History appears to show that such geographically-divided nations don't work in the long run.

** There's also a precedent for a geographically divided political entity in this country ... look at Michigan.