If I Were Governor of Alabama
By: Mark
5-29-07

I love the state of Alabama. I was born, raised and educated here and it’s a wonderful place. The state has been good to me and I plan on living here for a long time. However, Alabama is still ranked near* last in almost every national category and it’s pretty embarrassing since I know we’re capable of better. I don’t want to do it, but it looks like we have no choice but to elect me as governor of the state.

The first thing I’ll do as governor is to trim the fat. Let’s be honest, most of western Alabama is pretty worthless so I’m giving most of it away to Mississippi. One night, we’ll just move the state signs back and I’ll inform the Mississippi governor about it with a carefully worded e-mail. I’ll try to make it seem like a ‘gift’.

Dear Governor Barbour,

Thanks for Jason Campbell. Please accept this chunk of land as a token of our appreciation.

Gubernatorially yours,
Governor Mark

PS: No givey-backsies

Frankly, I don’t see anything of any of use west of I-65, but I’ll keep parts of it as a challenge. UAB will become recognized as The University of Alabama. Since the governor of Alabama is automatically on Auburn’s board of trustees, I’ll make sure UAB becomes Auburn’s new Iron Bowl opponent and that we’ll still play The School Formally Known as Bama just for kicks. Auburn trustees do get to make those kinds of football scheduling decisions, right?

Secretary Groves doesn't take gump from Florida.

While looking at the state map, I wonder how Florida got so much coastline. How did Louisiana and Florida get first dibs on coastline? Why did Alabama and Mississippi get such a tiny portion to fight over? How can one state have two time zones anyways? Screw that. As governor, I’m taking our beach property back from Florida. They’ll probably take issue but I’ll direct any complaints to the newly appointed Secretary of Not Taking Crap from Florida, Quentin Groves.

So after everything’s said and done, here’s the new map of Alabama;

The new coast will be an automatic boost to the economy due to tourism and shipping. When I was in 4th grade, my class went on a fieldtrip to Montgomery. Our teacher told us that the governor’s mansion had a swimming pool that was in the shape of Alabama. I was pretty excited to see it. When we arrived, it looked like a regular rectangle pool with a tiny extra square added to one end to represent that extra blob of land in the lower left hand corner.

I’ll make sure that the pool is redesigned to be an exact model of the new state lines. I don’t care how many millions it will cost the taxpayers. You guys deserve it!

Alabama’s most unappreciated asset has got to be The Vulcan in Birmingham. This thing is awesome. It’s the second largest statue in all of America next to the Statue of Liberty. But, it’s the largest cast iron statue (anything else shouldn’t be considered a statue) and it’s the largest statue made in the USA. That’s something to be proud about. I have no idea why this state doesn’t brag about the thing more. I assume it’s because we don’t want the ACLU realizing we have a government sponsored statue of a roman god, but that’s a risk I’m going to take as governor.

I’ll do more than launch a PR campaign though. When I’m done, the Vulcan will be far larger than the Statue of Liberty, and it’ll also shoot laser beams from it’s eyes. I’ll try to get the federal government to pay for it by saying it’ll be used for counter terrorism purposes, and I guess it could be, but I’ll mostly use the lasers for personal entertainment.

Because I’ll be such a fantastic governor, my subjects will demand for the Vulcan’s face to be remolded to resemble their leader. However, being a humble servant of the people, I will refuse the honor while privately letting my advisors know that they will all be fired if the Vulcan is NOT recast in my image.

The preceding things should be a good start. At some point during me reign I’ll have to figure out how to deal with the states major poverty, education and health issues, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out by time the multibillion dollar lasers are installed.

*Alabama Motto: “Thank God we’re not Mississippi”

email Mark at mark@theauburner.com