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Diamonds to Wilkes Barre city for the brilliant move of dropping the hyphen to save money. The amount of ink unused in the thousands, even millions of letterheads, business cards, business licenses, bills and other epic paperwork produced by a city of this size will surely reduce printing costs enough to substantially move the city out of the financial death spiral spelled out by an outside consultant this week. True, everyone with those “Best hyphenated city in the world” T-shirts and mugs will have to buy new gear, but consider it a two-fer: Not only does the city save money by not printing the hyphen, it stimulates the economy as the new, hyphen-free image gets spread around.
Coal to Forty-Fort for picking up the hyphen WB tossed. Yes, there may be a small sales boom when the municipality markets itself as “The best hyphenated borough in the world,” but residents do not need the burdensome cost of adding a hyphen. It was, after all, 40 Connecticut settlers in a fort that sparked the Yankee-Pennamite Wars. To be blunt, “Forty-Fort” just looks like a numeric typo.
Diamonds to Edwardsville for quickly concocting the edibles-in-a-bread-bowl festival in response to Plymouth’s new food-on-a-stick event. Coupled with the pierogi festival hosted by the former and the kielbasi festival by the latter, this is the kind of out-of-the-cake-box thinking that can really put Luzerne County on the culinary map. Both boroughs can duel for innovative servings. Yes, the well-constructed bread bowl can hold soup, but so can a stick if you freeze the broth. Think pea soup pops or Mulligan stew-cicles. And there’s nothing to stop someone from putting a bread bowl on a stick and entering both festivals. Wait, merge them all: Kielbasi-filled pierogi soup in a bread bowl on a stick!
Coal to the “Grubs grub” festival. The municipality that floated the idea shall remain nameless here. Suffice it to say the notion simply seems to take the food festival fad to an extreme few will willingly visit. You can stir fry, deep fry, bread, bake, chocolate coat, air pop, broil, boil, soupify and even ice cream churn them, but, c’mon — they’re still grubs.
Diamonds to Luzerne County for nabbing Local Share Account (legalized gambling) grant money for installation of the innovative Hoover Snow Removal system throughout the Wyoming Valley. This brilliant notion works like a central vacuum in a modern house: Drive the Hoover snow remover to the street in need of plowing, hook one end to the sewer and suck up the snow like so many dust bunnies. It disappears underground and flows to the river, and no one is the wiser.
Coal to the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing arts for selling naming rights to the art deco icon. Seriously, does anyone really want to go see a show at the F.M. Kirby Vacuum System center?
Oh, and happy April Fool’s Day.