PDP #15: One of These Things -- Not Like the Others

National exceptionalism is a common thing. In any group there's always the temptation to think that you, as a whole, are better than your competitors when it comes to governance, cuisine, manifest destiny, or the like, or that the rules that apply to them don't shackle you. States, particularly powerful states, are where that exceptionalism tends to wear its starkest masks.

This photo was taken at a rest stop along the northbound I-75 in Ohio, somewhere north of Cincinnati and south of Michigan, on February 27, 2005. I don't read Japanese, but even so, I get the weird feeling that the English text doesn't quite agree with the rest of the languages.


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