Border battle: Badgering Wisconsin

There's a lot to be said for Wisconsin. Some of it is even good.

Our neighbors to the east occasionally make some pretty tasty cheese, for starters. And decent beer. And ... uhhh ... well, my mother taught me early and often that if you can't say something nice about someone or someplace, don't say anything at all.

Sorry, Mom. We're talking Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, states separated by a lot more than a river or two. Especially now that we've absconded with a certain Hall of Fame quarterback, by way of New Jersey (he had to go there to clean up).

So just this once, we can give our manners a day off and haul out the slings and arrows, especially with the Badgers and Packers and their Cheesehead fans headed here this weekend. We enlisted the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Kathy Flanigan to defend her fair (to middling) state. And in the spirit of Minnesota Nice, we'll let her start and finish the discussion. Our comments are in boldface.

Let's start with politics. Our governor ended up being secretary of Health and Human Services. Yours was a professional wrestler.

Actually, I always kind of wanted to see Tommy Thompson with a feather boa. And, hey, Jesse Ventura's now a professor at Harvard. Speaking of higher education, we had the highest composite ACT scores in the nation. You guys were what, 33rd?

We had the third-highest ACT scores, which you would know if you counted the number of Wisconsin license plates on the University of Minnesota campus.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and David and Jerry Zucker of "Airplane" fame hail from Shorewood, which is a Milwaukee suburb. But if you want to play hardball, two words, one name: Orson Welles. Which would you rather be known for: the classic Rosebud or a wood chipper and an accent that's easy to mock?

Well, Orson certainly cut as large a figure as all our guys put together. They actually chose to grow creatively rather than physically, not vice versa.

Did you see our Bronze Fonzie statue in the video when "American Idol" finalist Danny Gokey visited his hometown? Everyone knows Fonzie, even in bronze, is cooler than your bronze Mary Tyler Moore statue.

Schlemiel, schlimazel. It turns out that the MTM abomination was the work of a Wisconsin sculptor, Gwendolyn Gillen. Sounds like sabotage to me.

Interesting that a state of more than 5 million people had to outsource an artist. You do get points for Bob Dylan, but even he owes a debt to our own Les Paul. You have Prince, whose fashion style owes a debt to, well, Liberace. He's from here, too, you know.

Ah, but we have the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum, with its wings that open like a graceful bird. You have a giant spoon and a cherry.

That museum of yours is pretty cool. And tall. Speaking of which, our skyline is more than one building. Actually, both of our skylines are.

I see your two skylines and raise you a rooftop view of glistening Lake Michigan.

I call your view and raise you a hilltop vista of Lake Superior from Duluth. We're proud to have the better half of the Twin Ports, even if insecurity compels you to call your part of it Superior.

We are superior givers from way back. When Congress was drawing state borders, they took land from Wisconsin so Minnesota could have an outlet on the Great Lakes. And you guys think you're the nice ones.

All those lakes, and lutefisk is the best you can do? Technically, we have more lakes than you. We just choose not to brag.

Well, you do have a lot to be modest about, as the home of Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Arthur Bremer, etc. And the state where George Carlin was arrested for saying those naughty words. Oh, and the state that gave us Joe McCarthy slandering everybody in sight, while our "Happy Warrior," Hubert H. Humphrey, was actually trying to, like, steer the nation in a better direction.

And since then has leadership eluded you? Because the Vikings couldn't claim the same. Last I checked, we have three Super Bowl trophies and you're, what, 0 for 4?

At least our city has its own team. You guys gotta adopt one from some Podunk town up the lake.

We're just sharing the wealth. We already have the Brewers, the Bucks, the Admirals and the Wave in Milwaukee. And the Brewers play in a retractable dome, not something inflatable. ... I guess we'll see how the rivalry plays out on the football field this weekend. But I think we can agree that we do have one thing in common: People on either coast get our states and cities confused all the time.