paul bunyan was a former norwegian prime minister known for both his imperialistic ruling and also for his larger than life personality. he also had a pet dog named bluebell whom he was known (particularly by his staff) to seem to care about more than his constituents. whenever bunyan made a decision that the citizens of norway disagreed with, it was said that he was "baking with ol' blue again," meaning that he was making important political decisions without anyone else's input--everyone jokingly assumed the only other person he talked to was his dog.

one of his most controversial moves was when he suddenly ordered that a huge population of trees be cut down along one of norway's most famous fjords in order to make room for urban development (that's what the cut down trees on the shirt represent). one famous protester to this move was quoted as saying, "no one can trust bunyan--not even bluebell. he'd sooner cut down trees and cook his dog than listen to us." hence the blue steak on the shirt (the only reason it's a steak is that a steak is more recognizable than a piece of dog *shudder*).

hope that cleared up your confusion.

tracerbullet nailed it on the head.

Wow, what a great story.

well, my family is norwegian, so i know the history pretty well.

wow. wow. i didnt think id get a serious response haha. can i keep you in my pocket for when i need to say smart things? that was not only interesting but educational. thanks!

Does someone want to tell him?

I don't get it either.

I spose it's on wikipedia.

hey, the more you know!

wikipedia is full of lies. how can you trust a website that anyone can edit?

HAHAHAHA best story, ever.

well, he was a pretty crazy ruler. truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.

"wikipedia is full of lies. how can you trust a website that anyone can edit?

Yeah, much better to believe tracerbullet. At least his version of the truth is more entertaining.

Brian, you are going to hell. I am so sorry that tracerbullet is being misleading, Tsymun.

It's really sad that he feels he still has to slander my family's good name. This "famous protester" is one of his own relations, who lost the election fair and square and never got over it. It was not cousin Paul's fault that your folks wouldn't come to the table! Something could have been worked out...and it's not as though no land was set aside for the national park system. That urban development you sneer at brought great prosperity to an area in economic crisis and you know it!

13strong, I appreciate that he spins a fine yarn (emphasis on SPIN) but I do hope that you have an appreciation for everything that is going on here.

Beth, bringing our familial strife into this blog is really inappropriate. You can believe what you want, but the history books don't lie. There was no economic crisis in the fjordal area until Bunyan caused economic crisis by outlawing the growing of crops that he deemed "unsafe for consumption."

Unsafe for consumption? REALLY?! They were f***ing potatoes, for crying out loud! Just because he had an allergy didn't give him the right to deny everyone else produce!

Well, Brian you're story isn't 100% true. Being mostly Norsk myself, I know that Bunyan only outlawed those crops that he didn't like to eat. He really was ruthless.

he was a terrible man. he nearly ruined my grandfather's business back in the day.

lol @ I'm so old that when all this was happening I was still in grade school.

We learned about it in Social Studies.

I'm pretty sure he's the reason my family moved over to the US and changed from Neilsen to Nelson.

This blog is very informative.

i never understood those political cartoons that portrayed his dog as an ox

Brian I am once again disappointed in your inability to acknowledge your own clannish biases or Paul Bunyan's forward-thinking agricultural disaster management policies. "oh potatoes won't hurt anyone," you say. well of course not. but an area that relies as heavily on the potato crop as that one did, that is showing early signs of a virulent strain of type B (cold-resistant) "late blight," is doomed to catastrophe if drastic action is not taken. P. infestans is insidious!

The fact that he had a publicly famous dislike of root vegetables and made a few unfortunate remarks about the farmers of the Rogaland area had nothing to do with the tough decisions he was faced with making.

Very USSR like with the statues over there.

Torakamikaze on Aug 14 '08 at 11:05am
i never understood those political cartoons that portrayed his dog as an ox

From what I understand, the common people felt like his dog was an overbearing influence on his owner's decision making process that usually ended in a mess. The Norwegian version of the "bull in a china shop" if you will.

Walt Disney's Paul Bunyan FTW!!! = FAIL!!!!

cartoon is from 1958

part 2

Beth, it's been well documented that P. infestans was nothing more than a common cold marketed by the fear-mongering government that was bent on keeping the average farmer man down. Clannish biases aside, Bunyan had no right to dismiss the Rogaland area farmers as "common filth...who are dirtier than even Bluebell." What kind of example does that set when your own prime minister refuses to acknowledge the serious plight that's happening all around?

If you would even bother to read a copy of A Brief History of Norwegian Economic Disasters--which, had you gone to a remotely respectable educational institution, would have been a required text--you would know that the 1937 Vest-Agder Depression was caused by, "Bunyan's tenacity to consistently deny Vest-Agder farmers their government-given right to grow any crop deemed economically profitable, including but not confined to: root vegetables, vine fruits, and a variety of herbs both culinarily and medicinally prudent" (134).

Ever wonder why there's no Norwegian restaurants?

Because with the limited availability of ingredients, they have fuck-all for recipes.

That's why.

Brian, and you do what for a living?

oddly enough, beth and i both work in the proposals development areas of our respective companies. however, we do different things since they're different companies.

You're underutilized.

aw, that's sweet

haha... wow to all of this...

Brian, do not you give me that steaming pile of Vest-Agder malarkey. Everyone knows that while the unfortunate agribusiness aspects of the moment did nothing to help the problems of that county, the root of their troubles began when Edward VIII abdicated in late 1936, throwing their expectations of a royal vacation visit to our ancestral homeland's "Costa del Sol" into complete disarray. If they hadn't invested so heavily in their high-end tourism machine and had put a little more into basic infrastructure, they might have not been in such a spot when it all happened. I mean, geez, global economic downturn and high military tensions aside.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have been a little wiser about how he handled himself in public, regardless of his personal feelings towards his constituents. But to dismiss the serious danger of late blight as a mere control point for governmental meddling is patently ridiculous. What next, Brian? You about to suggest that the mind-control chemicals in jet contrails are making me say these things?

No, Beth, I'm suggesting that your complete lack of knowledge regarding Norwegian history is worse than your lack of knowledge regarding Madagascarian history! Remember all that tripe you tried to make people believe about how Madagascar's stainless steel trading industry was just a front so that their military could sneak into Finland and start The Great Steel Massacre? Everyone knows that it was Finland who struck first out of jealousy over Madagascar's reluctance to export lemur furs.

That aside, had Bunyan simply listened to someone other than himself and not turned the damn country on its head over some ridiculous arbitrary bias against certain crops, the Norwegians wouldn't be in their current state of antitranssubstantiationism and could get back to a better way of life!

This is my favourite blog EVER, by like a hundred miles.

education is a fabulous thing

I'm in love

This blog and everyone in makes me happy in the pants.

In Narnia, they're called trousers.

I can't tell if this is a serious blog...

Brian is too convincing at writing... my head was hurting thinking my childhood was brought up with lies of a gigantic lumberjack and his blue ox

I just wanna hear the story of Johnny Appleseed now.

hahahahaha...

but seriously this blog has pointed out that we need a Norwegian party, where we will feast until we pop and then fight to the death

. . . . . Wow.

I am in love with you, Brian.

I'd break every rule in my book to be with you. Fortunately, there are only two rules in my book:

1) Don't date anyone you meet on the internet, at a state fair, at a club, bar, or self-defense class.

2) Don't be gay.


Come to me, my wiry stallion.

Don't forget to give noodlezoop some credit. That all went over my head. I feel like a big dummy.

Thank you all for the kind words. Beth truly added to the epic win-ness of this blog.