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Friday, February 19, 2010

City / Nerd Re: Mike McGinn: America's First Tanooki Mayor?

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 2:25 PM

You know the best thing about a tanuki (mayoral or otherwise), Lindy West?

Its "humorously large testicles, typically hanging down to the floor or ground... Tanuki may be shown with their testicles flung over their backs like travellers' packs, or using them as drums."

(Or, per this painting linked by Slog commenter Zach M in Lindy's post, weapons.)

Deez nutz.

Also, they carry bottles of sake and promissory notes. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but if you'd run against a tanuki, I would've gone with your big-ball-havin', sake-bottle-and-promissory-note-carryin' opponent. (Even if he worked at T-Mobile.)

Comments (7) RSS

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That graphic isn't working. You want this link - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co…

Posted by apres_moi on February 19, 2010 at 2:51 PM

The Japanese are, how shall I say this, not like us, are they?

Sadly, McGinn appears to be the ball-less Super Mario version.

Posted by Fnarf

on February 19, 2010 at 3:05 PM

Wait...so are you and Lindy implying that McGinn has giant testicles? What sort of investigative journalistic research did you do to determine the size of his balls? Was a town hall involved?

Posted by michaelp on February 19, 2010 at 3:19 PM

Reminds me of an AC/DC song ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on February 19, 2010 at 4:08 PM

Isao Takahata directed a marvelous film for Japan's Studio Ghibli (the film company that makes all of Hayao Miyazaki's films) called "Pom Poko," in which the tanuki battle against suburban sprawl. I highly recommend it. My ten-year old was especially impressed by the the tanuki's "magical sacs," which they transform into trucks, bridges, parachutes, fire balls...almost everything...and use as weapons against the evil human developers and construction crews.

Posted by Matthew Stadler on February 19, 2010 at 5:19 PM

@5- My 6yr old daughter assumed they were using their tails for all that. The dubbed version refers to the scrotum as "raccoon sack" which is kinda vague. I didn't contradict her. She was having enough trouble with the poor little guys getting hit by cars and stuff.

Posted by dwight moody on February 19, 2010 at 5:48 PM