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Monday: February 11, 2008

Two Truths in One

Filed under: — site admin @ 11:55 PM GMT-0500

Today’s Yahoo news story titled “Record cold for northern Minn.: 40 below” begins with this paragraph:

It lived up to its name: The temperature in International Falls fell to 40 below zero Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the “Icebox of the Nation.”

Of course, that’s not living up to its name, its living up to its nickname or subtitle or trademark. But International Falls did live up to its actual name, even if Yahoo didn’t notice. As the name implies, the town is right on the Canadian border, and -40o is the only temperature that is the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius, so for one day Americans in International Falls and Canadians across the river in Fort Frances could agree on the temperature. If only Global Warming could somehow stretch out those cheap foreign miles (so-called ‘kilometers’) and make them as long as American miles . . . .