Sticks and stones

Dissing Rhode Island has long been an American pastime, dating back to Colonial days, when Massachusetts Puritans derisively referred to the colony of eccentrics, mystics, misfits and religious exiles as Rogue's Island. Then, as now, our neighbors in the Bay and Nutmeg states did most of the slagging. Massachusetts Bay Colony Calvinist Cotton Mather was the Shakespeare of the Rhody put-down, producing at least two classic insults, calling Rhode Island "the fag end of the universe" and "the cesspool of New England." As recently as 2000, in the pages of Smithsonian magazine, a Connecticut writer called for the abolition of Rhode Island as a state. Of course, the jealousies of our border states may be prompted by missing out on better beaches, better kitsch and a better sense of humor.