State colors, state quarters.

Here are the winners of a Crayola contest, with a color name for each state. You can buy the State Colors Collection of crayons here. Maybe a good Christmas present for someone who thinks the state quarters are cool.

Since they were producing a set of crayons, these are not the 50 best names they got. They needed names to cover a proper array of colors. In case you're wondering, black is "Abe Lincoln's Hat," the state color for Illinois. White is "Space Needle," the Washington crayon. Here's a local news story about the woman -- hey, it wasn't a contest for kids? -- who won the Wisconsin section of the contest. And, of course, yeah, it's cheese-related.

Speaking of cheese-related and the state quarters, the Wisconsin quarter came out recently, and, man, is it bad. Possibly the worst state quarter yet. I understand why something dairy-related was desired, but why a cow head and a block of cheese? And then why throw in an ear of corn? The corn farmers are jealous of the dairy farmers getting all the attention? And a block of cheese is not an interesting image. They should have used just the cow -- and the full cow, not the severed head of a cow. Look at the Kentucky quarter, which uses just a horse and it's the entire horse. I suppose Kentucky figured out that a horse's head, shorn of the horse's body, would have led to "Godfather" jokes.

Why haven't the states later in line learned from the mistakes of previous state quarters? The best state quarters show just one thing. The more items you throw together the worse it gets. And keep the words to a minimum! Wisconsin puts its motto on the quarter, on a dumb banner swirling from cow head to cheese block. It's true the motto is only one word, but what does that word say about Wisconsin?

Wisconsin adopted the State motto, "Forward," in 1851, reflecting Wisconsin's continuous drive to be a national leader.

So basically, we're admitting that we're backward and we need to catch up.

Chris peeks over at what I've just written and says: "You should note that the dairy product does not come out of the cow's head. The important aspect of the cow is not its head."

A cow's udder -- and nothing more! -- now, that would be a fabulous state quarter. If we had the guts to do that, why, then, we wouldn't be backward any more!