Well, the government is back. Yay.
It seems fitting that its reopening coincides with the anniversary of one of my favorite stories of government doing government things:
Fifty-five years ago this week, the state of Oregon faced a stinky situation.
A forty-five-foot whale had washed ashore on the coast. It was massive, decomposing, and, according to the local news, “beginning to smell up everything.”
So the government stepped in to help.
Their brilliant plan? Blow it up.
Officials reasoned that a half-ton of dynamite would neatly disintegrate the carcass and send the remains out to sea. They even invited reporters to film the “controlled explosion.”
When the blast went off, it didn’t just scatter the whale—it launched it. Chunks the size of boulders rained down over a quarter mile, crushing a car and coating onlookers in rancid blubber.
The crowd ran for cover, the reporters ditched their cameras and notepads to join them, and somewhere, a bureaucrat probably said, “Well… we did our best.”
It was one of the most spectacular government “success stories” ever caught on camera.
Honestly, not much has changed since then.
Every few years, some new whale washes up—a crisis, a problem, a thing that “must be handled,” and the people in charge grab the dynamite.
That’s exactly the kind of lesson we love sharing through The Tuttle Twins books.
They help kids spot the same kind of well-intentioned disasters hiding behind big government promises.
In The Tuttle Twins and the Messed-Up Market, kids learn what happens when politicians “fix” the economy.
In The Tuttle Twins and the Leviathan Crisis, they see how fear can blow up freedom faster than dynamite.
And in The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom, they discover that every government promise of safety comes with an explosion of control.
If your family doesn’t have these books yet, now is the perfect time to add them to your library. In fact, our Family Starter Pack includes all of our kids books, parent guides, and activity workbooks—and today is the final day to grab it at a Veterans Day discount.
👉 Get your Family Starter Pack before the sale ends tonight
The government isn’t going to stop doing "government" things. So we’d better be raising a generation of people who know better than to blindly follow those in power.
Because if history has shown us anything, it’s that when the government shows up with a plan, it’s usually best to take cover.
— Connor
