Harper's Index (TM)

Harper's Magazine is a deliciously pretentious periodical written by intellectual snobs for intellectual snobs and is full of the overwrought, the droll, and the peculiarly insightful. Naturally, I have a subscription.

A pearl of brilliance that graces the pages of the magazine is the Harper's Index, a collection of particularly pointed facts and figures that form a narrative all their own. Like many too clever for their britches, the folks behind the Index do their best to use completely non-contextualized data to make a series of points and impressions on their readers, throwing in the healthy non sequitur mostly for amusement, but occasionally for poignancy and likely mostly to take advantage of a readership who likely takes itself far too seriously (i.e. - me).

In the March issue of the magazine, after taking jabs at popular things like Citizens United and the BP Oil Spill, the feature contains the following line:

"Amount of Homeland Security funds spent in Michigan last year on Sno-Cone machines: $6,279"

The cynic in me immediately realizes that there is obviously a reasonable - read: boring - explanation for this tasty tidbit, but the child in me wants it to be so much more. I can see our intrepid Homeland Security forces now, in the glorious wilderness of the mitten-shaped state of Michigan, infiltrating a backwoods terrorist ring masquerading as purveyors of that tasty frozen treat: the sno-cone. After months of deep cover and tireless work, American society as we know it was once again saved by deeply invested government employees with only a minimum of cherry or blueberry syrup was spilled in the process.

A quick search of the interwebs (Google shopping) shows us that items purporting to be sno-cone machines can be had for as little as $10 and as much as $2,124.99. This leads me to believe that this could have been anything from a massive operation involving hundreds of agents in scores of communities or it could have been a Fast/Furious, my-sno-cone-machine-is-really-amazing-you-should-let-me-into-your-secret-clubhouse kind of deal. In either case, there has to be a long story of betrayal, love, gratuitous sex/nudity, and of course, flavored syrup on shaved ice.

Then again, maybe the government is just wasting our money on stupid shit.