By which I mean, the other entity embarrassing the State of North Carolina on the national stage.
What’s this all about? Barbecue. An otherwise interesting Washington Post piece on the perennial battle between Eastern and Western NC ‘cue contains this nugget of news to shame Tar Heels:
A state representative thought he would quietly ease a bill through declaring the barbecue festival in the western-style capital of Lexington, N.C. — a city that claims to have the world’s highest per capita concentration of barbecue consumption, with 17 restaurants for 20,000 residents — to be the state’s official barbecue festival. …
That anyone would care about such silliness as designating an official state barbecue festival says a lot about North Carolina.
No, it says a lot about the North Carolina legislature. It is, after all, the same body that thought it worthwhile to institute such important state symbols as determining the Official State Boat (shad), the Official State Carniverous Plant (Venus flytrap), the Official State Christmas Tree (Fraser fir), the Official State Dances (shagging and clogging, yet another East/West dichotomy), the Offical State Dog (the Plott [the what?] hound), the Official State Seashell (the Scotch [Scotch?] bonnet), ad nauseam.
