Forbes put together its annual list of most miserable American cities, based on a number of measures, and this year, Cleveland pulled the #1 spot. I just want to note that "30 Rock" dissents from this opinion.
On a serious note, it seems that the only cultural aspect of a city that Forbes was willing to take seriously were the performance of sports teams---not even the loyalty of the fans, which always struck me as more important than the mere performance. Thus, I'm skeptical overall of their measurements. It also seems they put more emphasis on high taxes and less on actual services, which is why cool cities like Chicago managed to get on to the list. New York was also on the list. (!) This is because they took commute times into account, but didn't put any qualifiers on how you commute. In my experience, 30-40 minutes walking or riding the subway is a lot less stressful than driving, so that seems dodgy, and a way for a conservative publication to bag on places where the citizenry has a suspiciously liberal willingness to get along well with other people, even if they're different from you.
Since Ohio has more entries than any other state, I thought I'd start the Genius Ten the most famous song about the state, covered by one of the most famous of their bands. Leave yours in comments.
Original song: "Ohio" by Devo (cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/DAp_02ertnE&hl=en_US&fs=1& expand=1]
1) "Take Me To The River"---The Talking Heads
2) "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!"---Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
3) "Private Idaho"---The B-52s
4) "Bohemian Like You"---The Dandy Warhols
5) "Steady As She Goes"---The Raconteurs
6) "Going Under"---Devo
7) "Paper Planes"---M.I.A.
8) "Shelter From the Storm"---Bob Dylan
9) "Pictures Of You"---The Cure
10) "I Think I'm In Love"---Beck
Videos and cat pics under the fold.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/HBAYr73mlTk&hl=en_US&fs=1& expand=1]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/ewRjZoRtu0Y&hl=en_US&fs=1& expand=1]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/Gjq0v5Wy95E&hl=en_US&fs=1& expand=1]
The theme of today's cat pictures is hedonistic pleasure in being alive, which is one of the great lessons cats can teach us. Molly, for instance, turns to the bliss that is the sunbeam.
And Dusty gets her bliss from having Molly lick her back.
If you have cats that do this, you know what happened next. Dusty rolled over to nibble Molly and the fight was on. Molly arose victorious, with her trophy being that she could snuggle my feet by herself for at least 5 minutes before Dusty came back.
