This is one of those awful "Greetings from <your town here>" postcards that bear only the slightest passing resemblance to the locale from which the greeting is extended.

It's a great business plan. Pick a couple of generic pictures that can serve as the ubiquitous representatives of the state. The state bird or flower or tree is always a safe bet, as is a "Welcome to" sign. Make sure you leave space for each locale to stamp its name, off-center and out of kilter with the rest of the text. Maybe even leave room for the addition of an extra snappy little phrase, to give the card some real local flavor.

Of course, the product that results from this business plan is crap.

The roadrunner is okay. But the "Welcome to New Mexico" sign is from a part of New Mexico that looks nothing like Artesia. In fact, get rid of the "Welcome to New Mexico" sign (and, I suppose, the "Bear Crossing" sign) and you could pass this photo off as the sandhills of North Carolina. If you're going to greet me from Artesia, give me something that looks like Artesia.

For the snappy local color phrase we get "Abo Underground School." Unless the postcard recipient has been a visitor to Artesia, it's unlikely that this phrase will register in any meaningful way.

"World's Largest Ball of Twine." People understand that.

"Abo Underground School." What the hell is that? Is the Abo Underground School an institute that trains political resistance fighters? Is it a vocational learning center that supplies the nearby potash mines with capable workers? What could it be? We may never know.

And then there's the caption on the back of this post card:

NEW MEXICO
LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
The state which delights or charms the heart and senses. She "bewitches" us with her beauty, the majesty of her mountain peaks, deep canyons, her aspen groves and pine clad slopes, mesas, plains, and fertile valleys, her singing streams and high blue lakes. She "Delights" us with her blue, blue skies and her mild climate. She "Fascinates" us with stories of her vivid past, with her variety of scenes and people. She "Charms" us with warm days, and cool nights in which the brightest stars in all the world seem closer than they seem in other places. Come— be Enchanted.

A little over the top, if you ask me. And clunky, too, with all that Capitals and "Quotes" stuff. How about that first sentence? New Mexico will either delight or charm, but not both, so take your pick. And it gets squirmy in the middle. Everything from "her mountain peaks" to "fertile valleys" seems a little too, well, something.

But there is a way to improve this paragraph immensely, and without changing a single word– just the way it you read it. Read the whole thing again, but this time, read it as Ricardo Montalban would read it for a Chrysler Cordoba commercial, giving special Ricardo Montalban emphasis to the Capitals and "Quotes".

Isn't that better?