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Jewish World Review April 20, 2001 / 27 Nissan, 5761

Bob Greene

Bob Greene
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Consumer Reports


Our highways just became a little duller


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WANDER the highways of this sprawling and complicated nation of ours, and you will be delighted not just by the distinctive scenery of the different states -- the mountains of Colorado, the plains of Nebraska, the farmlands of Ohio, the ocean views of California -- but also by something else that has always been a quiet source of entertainment:

The license plates -- and the words that are on them.

Each state has the option to put whatever words it wants on its license plates -- words that sum up, in a quick phrase, what it is about the state that separates it from the rest.

The United States has, with some justification, been accused of becoming increasingly bland, homogenized. A land of identical malls and chain fast-food restaurants, where it's sometimes difficult to discern whether you're in Missouri or Vermont or North Dakota.

But the license plates. . . .

The license plates have maintained their personalities -- and, more to the point, they have maintained the personalities of their states.

Thus, in Alabama, the license plates tell you that you're in the "Heart of Dixie." In Louisiana, the plates tell you, you have arrived in "Sportsman's Paradise." Montana is the "Big Sky" state; Missouri, its plates tell you, is, now and always, the "Show Me State"; Idaho has "Famous Potatoes"; Delaware is "The First State"; Alaska is the "Gold Rush" state; Wisconsin is "America's Dairyland"; South Carolina is blessed by "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places." . . .

You get the picture. Each state tells the rest of the world: We're unique. We're unlike anywhere else. And the places where the states do the telling is on their license plates.

Which brings us to a fellow by the name of Mark Barry, who was driving along the other day, and pulled up behind a car with Pennsylvania plates. And on the bottom of the Pennsylvania license plate was this stirring phrase:

"www.state.pa.us"

Yep.

That's the slogan that is now on the license plates of Pennsylvania motorists: the state's Web site address.

"We have done this because it is part of Gov. Tom Ridge's technology initiative," said Joan Zlogar of Pennsylvania's Bureau of Driver and Motor Vehicles Safety Administration, when we asked what was going on here. "The governor wants to showcase Pennsylvania as a leader in technology."

Thus, out with the old -- what Pennsylvania plates used to say was "Keystone State" -- and in with the new: the lyrical, poetic "www.state.pa.us."

"The governor sees a license plate as a moving billboard," Zlogar said. "A free advertisement for the state."

The idea is that, if people click on to the state's official Web site, a vast storehouse of information will be made available about tourism, history, commerce, sightseeing. . . .

"People can take note of the Web address on Pennsylvania license plates, then go to their computers and see our state," Zlogar said.

Of course, the argument can be made that the ideal way to see a state is not by going to one's computer, but by going to the state. That's what has always been so enchanting about the old-style license plates: They tell you a particular state is like no other. They make you want to go take a look. Connecticut, its license plates tell you, is the "Constitution State," Massachusetts is "The Spirit of America," Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln," Kentucky is the "Bluegrass State," New Hampshire is where you "Live Free Or Die." . . .

Pennsylvania boasts that its license plate is the first in the world to use a Web site as a state slogan.

But it probably won't be the last. Which is the problem here. There is nothing special about the idea of a Web address; a Web address, even one that features snappy words (which state Web addresses don't), is, in the end, dreary. A Web address is static, unemotional, ultimately dry. It's everything you don't want on a license plate.

And when other states begin to follow Pennsylvania -- when the colorful and quirky slogans on the license plates go away, to be replaced by the Web addresses, begging for hits. . . .

Well, how will you really know where you are? You can always look out the window, of course. But you can't look out the window when you are looking at Windows.



JWR contributor Bob Greene is a novelist and columnist. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

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