The Great Seal Of McHenry County Not Great Enough
We Are Ready to Board The Heck of a Guy McHenry County Seal Posting - Again
I hijacked my own post of 19 September 2007, Sealed With A Dis, before it could lock onto the coordinates of the main course to its intended destination: the proposed redesign of the McHenry County Seal.
The folks in the control tower have recalculated the navigational charts and checked the weather reports, the crew has had a full night of sleep, and we’re currently preboarding our first class and premier Heck of a Guy readers as well as those who need extra assistance. We are, in short, ready to give it another shot.
The McHenry County Seal Deal and DrHGuy’s Credentials
To recapitulate, there is a movement, as reported by Cal Skinner in the McHenry County Blog, to replace the McHenry County Seal.
The cumulative evidence from my extensive, albeit idiosyncratic and, some might say, whimsical, Internet peregrinations (that will nonetheless be expensed as “research”), indicates that the design - and especially the redesign - of county seals is typically a matter of superficial graphics generated in the service of local chauvinism and contorted by political and personal agendas.1
As it turns out, DrHGuy is all about superficial graphics (see below), narcissistic self-promotion (again, see below), and hidden agendas (trust me on this one).
One Heck Of A Guy Official Seal
It’s a match made, if not in Heaven, then in northern Illinois, not far from the Wisconsin line.
McHenry County Board Bored With Seal
Tina Hill, Chairman of the McHenry County Board’s Management Services Committee succinctly summarizes the discontent with the current McHenry County Seal in this quote captured by The Daily Herald: It’s boring.
Ms Hill goes on to explain
The McHenry County Board subsequently passed a “RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE EXPLORATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW COUNTY SEAL FOR THE COUNTY OF McHENRY,” which not only officially sanctions a consideration of the redesign project but also formally limns the Board’s perspective on the flaws of the current seal and their corresponding expectations of and aspirations for its replacement as well as the corrective action to be taken:
WHEREAS, many counties throughout the United States of America have adopted County Seals that are uniquely their own and readily identifiable; and
WHEREAS, McHenry County has adopted a copy of the Seal of the State of Illinois as the official seal for the County; and
WHEREAS, by copying the Seal of the State of Illinois, McHenry County is using a Seal that is neither unique to McHenry County nor readily identifiable; and
WHEREAS, the Management Services Committee has determined that McHenry County should consider the development of its own unique County Seal and is recommending that the full County Board authorize the exploration of a new County Seal for the County of McHenry.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by this County Board of McHenry County, Illinois, authorizes the exploration of a new County Seal for the County of McHenry, with options and potential costs of conversion presented to the County Board at a later date; …
Because the resolution is published in the bureaucratic text and format mandated by the Style Manual Of The Municipal Declarations Obfuscation and Ambiguity Enhancement Association, Midwestern Quasi-Legalese Edition and is consequently characterized by an epidemic of all caps, a gaggle of WHEREAS’s, a herewith here, and a thereafter there, all arranged according to the unwritten but uncompromisingly awkward and stilted grammar traditionally employed in the production of governmental publications, some may experience difficulty deciphering its meaning. For those individuals, the Heck of a Guy Theater In The Blog, anticipating this possibility, has prepared the following script of an explanatory vignette:
Stage instructions: Imagine the county as your adolescent son or daughter. Little McHenry (or McHenrietta), your pride and joy, approaches and begins pleading with you.
McHenry/McHenrietta: It isn’t fair. All the other counties have brand new, way cool logos on their seals. All I’ve got is this crappy hand-me-down State of Illinois thing. It’s so boring. I have to have something different so I can be like everyone else. Please let me take your credit card to the mall so I can buy one of those new designs, something that says “I’m McHenry (or McHenrietta).” Even Dekalb County got a hot new seal, and we’re lots better off than they are. Please, please, please.
Stage instructions: The preceding soliloquy corresponds to the initial portion of the resolution from its beginning to the section that begins “NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED.” The portion of the resolution extending forward from “NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED” is portrayed in the ensuing parental response-capitulation.
Parent: OK, Sweetie. Just be careful about the design. Remember how much trouble Los Angeles County got into about that cross.
Stage instructions: McHenry/McHenrietta rolls eyes and extends an open palm for the credit card.
McHenry/McHenrietta: D’oh.
Curtain
The Great Seal Of McHenry County Victimized By Identity Theft
At almost the exact moment I understood (or, as I was to shortly discover, I thought I understood) the current seal’s problems as described by the Board - i.e., the current McHenry County Seal is “neither unique to McHenry County nor readily identifiable” - an elegantly simple and efficient solution revealed itself to me.
What could be a more straightforward means of making a seal unique to McHenry County and readily identifiable than imprinting the words, “Seal Of The County Of McHenry Illinois” in large letters around the border of the embossment?
In any case, I determined that the best way to demonstrate this corrective measure was to add the identifying element I had envisioned to a sample imprint of the seal now used for county business.
On examining that seal (see figure on right), however, I was surprised and confused to discover that my “new” methodology had already been implemented.
As one can readily discern, the exact legend I had planned to promote, “Seal Of The County Of McHenry Illinois,” is already writ large in easy to read type around the circumference of the seal.
In fact, as far as I can determine, the McHenry County Seal has always included the name of the county and the state - which makes sense if one thinks about it.
There could be no progress on a new design for the seal until I solved this perplexing riddle:
Because of the recent Carpentersville non-binding declaration of English as the official language of that village,2, I wondered if the McHenry Board’s complaints about the seal could be a masked attack on those unable to read English but soon realized if that were the case, the Resolution would have proposed changing the wording of the to include something along the lines of “If you can’t read this, then you should go back where you came from - once someone who speaks English reads this to you.”
Then, I considered the possibility of mistaken identity - that the seal of another County with the same or identical name was being confused with the local McHenry County. I cannot find, however, evidence that the “Other McHenry County,” AKA McHenry County, North Dakota, even has a county seal. Further, upon thinking it over, the probability that they would erroneously engrave “Illinois” instead of “North Dakota” on that hypothetical seal seems low. Now, if we were McHenry County, South Dakota, …
Finally, I realized that the only creditable explanation was that some unsavory ne’er-do-well, fraudulently purporting to represent McHenry County Illinois, has been running amuck, duplicitously and deceitfully authenticating school attendance records, embellishing non-binding resolutions, labeling county-owned vehicles, decorating courtroom walls, and performing other certifications by affixing a counterfeit seal that dishonorably declares itself the “Seal Of The County Of McHenry Illinois.”
I am chagrined to admit that it never before occurred to me that bogus sealers (local scalawags and rapscallions? the Russian mob? international terrorists?) would use the good name of McHenry County Illinois to rake in the big bucks for which the county seal business is notorious.
Recognizing Counterfeit McHenry County Seals
To illustrate how illegitimate McHenry County Seals could be mistaken for the authentic seal, I’ve prepared a mock-up for use in training McHenry County citizens to recognize fakes.
Those dishonestly using the authority rightfully invested in the County Seal depend upon ones natural tendency to rely on the words appearing on the seal - in this case, “Seal Of The County Of McHenry Illinois” - for verification that the seal is genuine. These words are, however, easily duplicated, as is obvious in the graphic below. Note that all three of the seals display the same words printed in similar styles, yet only one is authentic and the other two are impostors. While at first it may seem impossible to make the distinction between real and fake seals if the words are identical, a careful and thorough analysis of all the elements of a seal reveals useful clues.
Identifying Counterfeit County Seals
For example, a conscientious examination of the center portion of the seal on the left identifies the image as that of Vin Diesel, the muscular movie star, rather than an eagle, the national symbol. Those mistaking this seal as the authentic McHenry County Seal appear to confuse sightings of popular actors in general with sightings of eagles, an understandable if embarrassing error given the relative rarity of both movie stars and eagles in McHenry County.
A simple but helpful rule of thumb holds that few county seals have a single item in their central showcase. The true McHenry County Seal (the middle seal in the graphic), for example, has an eagle as its central image but also includes a federal shield, a banner, and what seal fanciers preferentially refer to as “some other stuff.” The point is that actual county seals usually have more details than is seen in the Vin Diesel seal.
On the other hand, applying this so-called “Real Seals Don’t Need Blank Space” county seal verification rule3 to the seal on the right might lead one to conclude that it is authentic. Yet, it too is no more than a clever counterfeit, and one, moreover, constructed almost entirely from foreign-made parts.
Close inspection reveals that the stylized poultry rampant on a field of Scottish Covington Gilly Plaid is not the eagle representing America but is instead the Quetzal, a trogon that serves as the national symbol of Guatemala, which is not even a state but is apparently a real country in Central America. The figure to the viewer’s left is Pope John Paul II, the Polish born prelate who ruled from Vatican City. Just right of the Quetzal is an Uzi, which was developed and manufactured in Israel.
The axiom that is useful in identifying this seal as a fake is the generalization that modern, efficient tools are typically considered inappropriate for county seals. This doesn’t mean counties are wimps about weapons. There are seals aplenty that feature arrows (occasionally with bows), knives, and (especially) swords, but your automatic and easily modified semi-automatic weapons are not often found on seals.4 To clarify, the issue is not weaponry but modern efficiency. If the act of agricultural harvesting is shown, for instance, a scythe wielded by hand is far more likely to be pictured than a John Deere 9870 STS combine with fine-cut straw chopper, the 440 horsepower engine, and 300 bushel grain tanks.
There are many other standards and axioms to assist in the recognition of fake county seals. While an exhaustive list is beyond the scope of this post, an introduction to a few other concepts may prevent a reader from accepting a fraudulent county seal:
- No county seal in current use includes a recognizable image of the following individuals, either alone or in combination: Whoopi Goldberg, Paris Hilton, any starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, Lord of Leisure, the guy who played “Lumpy” on “Leave It To Beaver,” Leonard Cohen, Cal Skinner, or Mamie Eisenhower.
- No valid county seal has yet endorsed bestiality.
- County seals that advertise means by which male genitalia can be instantly and massively enlarged, proffer the companionship of hot, busty, and lusty babes, or congratulate one for winning the Yahoo! email sweepstakes should be considered fraudulent until proved otherwise.
- If a county seal fluoresces when exposed to black light, displays the word “Groovy” or the phrase, “Far Out,” depicts a mushroom, a cannabis plant, or Timothy Leary as its central image, or shows anyone not serving in the navy wearing bell bottoms, one must rule out the possibility of a 1960s flashback before further evaluating the seal or operating heavy equipment.
- No County Seal has featured a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle.
The Tina Hill Edition of the New 2007 McHenry County Seal
Although there is no easy long term answer to the problem of county seal identity theft, a re-design would at least force those using counterfeit seals to replace them and allow authorities to implant more sophisticated engraving methodologies that would be difficult to duplicate.
Consequently, I have created a prototype inspired by and respondent to Tina Hill’s original recommendation that McHenry County adopt a new seal. I submit that this proposed seal precisely and efficaciously fulfills Ms Hill’s desire for something that’s unique, that says, “We’re McHenry County.”5
We Are McHenry County Seal
This version would also be an ideal template for the first-ever implementation of a sound chip in a county seal. Those seals destined for use on documents would receive the auditory implants,6 which would be configured such that every time the document was opened, the following message, announced in a voice resonant with dignity and a quiet self-confidence, would be broadcast: “We are McHenry County.” I’m undecided about adding a musical fanfare, but admit to being tempted by the Theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Would that be cool or what?
This Just In
As this post went to press, I received information from usually reliable sources that the words, “unique” and “identifiable,” as set forth in the Board’s Resolution, were almost certainly not used in their standard definitions. Instead, they were apparently intended to denote “something else.”
Well, never mind then.
Once I process this new data, I’ll get back to you about McHenry County Seal redesign.
Footnotes
- This characterization also holds true for city and state seals, flags, and other governmental symbols. In fact, this principle, modestly generalized, also explains much about wedding ceremonies, advertisements, and the customs and rituals of any institution, business, social group, or civilization. ~back~
- See Carpentersville Outlaws Joie de Vivre - English Now Lingua Franca and The Non-Binding Resolution Bindery ~back~
- AKA the “Too Much Crap Jammed Into Too Small A Space” rule ~back~
- Caveat: counties with large military installations tend to place more modern weaponry, especially jet fighters, on seals. ~back~
- I suppose nitpickers could point out that the suggested seal does not precisely reflect Ms Hill’s wish as she voiced it since I have taken the liberty of changing “We’re,” the contraction she used, to the more formal “We Are.” Obviously, it would be a simple matter to use “We’re McHenry County” on the seal but doing so renders the meter less satisfactory ~back~
- The sound chips could prove disadvantageous if used in, say, a seal that was part of a courtroom display ~back~
By Charles Keeshan | Daily Herald Staff
“It’s boring,” said Tina Hill, chairman of the McHenry County Board’s management services committee. “We want something that’s unique, that says, ‘We’re McHenry County.’”
The idea for a change was prompted by discussions of signage outside the county’s new animal control facility in Crystal Lake. Officials hope to have the new seal designed and ready for a rollout when the facility opens early next year.
Comment by ben — September 24, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
Thanks for helping me get through the weekend trip to New York City to a niece’s wedding.
Comment by Cal Skinner — September 24, 2007 @ 9:00 pm