I figured we ought to have a little fun, since we've come to a bit of a slowdown in the queue.
I understand that some people (perhaps not in this session) get self righteous about this sort of stuff. "We shouldn't be naming counties after ourselves!" etc. My argument is; why not? There are plenty of counties, cities (and even a state) named after influential people in real life. Our reality should reflect (and recognize) politicians who were influential at some point in time.
Anywho, I more or less sorted this out by eras. For instance, Bullmoose, AndrewCT, and Mr. Moderate were all people active in the Northeast regional government early on - perhaps 'founding fathers' if you will.
Cinyc, Libertas, Kalwejt, and Han were from the next era. Cinyc served the region as CJO, and was part of our first Northeast Assembly session. Kalwejt was also active in the region for a long time, and I chose Hampden County because Chicopee has a significant Polish population.
The rest of the figures are contemporary enough where most of you are probably familiar with them, but I'll elaborate if need be.
I also absolutely think that the Basset Hound should be named the Northeast Regional Dog. Several states have their own regional flowers, birds, etc, so why shouldn't we have a regional dog?
Basset Hounds are an exceptional breed and have a number of superlative traits. For instance, their sense of smell is
second only to a blood hound. In addition, Basset Hounds sport some of the longest ears of any dog breed.
Basset Hounds have some cultural history here -
one was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine! Not to mention, George Washington, founder of the United States, was
bequeathed two Basset Hounds as a gift. Lastly, the Basset breed originated in France, and the Northeast (even with the exclusion of Quebec) has a strong French population, so I think that adopting this breed as our regional dog would reflect the ethnic composition of our region well.
