Even though I am currently an infinitely charming urbanite in one of America's largest cities, my origins are far less cultured and exciting. I spent the wastes of my youth in Ohio, the state that is perhaps the most descriptive of what is truly average in the United States. It has good schools but not great schools, the cost of living is more reasonable than the coasts but not as ridiculously antiquated as the plains states and its cultural attractions are just enough to whet a young man's appetite without ever coming close to satisfying it. Ohio also does various kinds of outright insanity with a rare sense of moderation. You have to go outside the state's larger towns to find giant billboards about the pending apocalypse and plenty of tiny restaurants that believe a large hamburger qualifies as a steak. You'll also find weird bits of public art like a 62-foot tall statue of Jesus coming out of the ground in the middle of an otherwise empty stretch of Interstate Highway 75. Or at least you could until Monday June 14th. A recent series of thunderstorms tearing through Ohio claimed the statue with lightning-induced fire late in the night, burning the whole thing to cinders.

I feel a bit conflicted about the loss of the Solid Rock Church's statue. On the one hand, I despise shameless public art, especially when it's the result of an overbearing philosophy, be it religious, political or otherwise. I recognize that if I were Christian, I would be embarrassed to see incredible wastes of money and space like Solid Rock's $250,000 fiberglass monstrosity representing my faith to the world. There's just no dignity in it. On the other hand, I get a sour kick out of ludicrous displays like Touchdown Jesus, so named because the statue was of that most popular savior from the chest up raising his arms into the air much like an NFL referee signaling a touchdown. Art like that is so absurd, so oblivious to its own silliness that it can't help but be hilarious. I don't like having opinions forced on me, but I also don't want to live in a world that doesn't harbor such outright insanity as giant, football-loving statues of revered religious figures.

What's doubly tragic is that there are other works of awful public art in Ohio that are far more deserving of a death by plasma beams from the sky. Take, for instance, the infamous Field of Corn installation in Dublin, Ohio, a disconcertingly affluent suburb of capitol city Columbus. Just a couple blocks from a series of strip malls, banks and a middle school is a field of giant stalks of concrete corn, sticking out of the ground like a series of grotesque agrarian gargoyles in a Tim Burton movie. The Field of Corn has never been anything but a public eyesore and an indication of just how clueless the entire city of Columbus is about art and culture. Its only worthwhile moment was just prior to its unveiling when each individual stalk was covered by a tarp, making the installation look like the world's biggest safe sex ad. Locals even started calling it The Field of Condoms.

So, consider this, all you over-funded, non-denominational Christian churches: The Lord God, whom you love and serve above all others, brought a mighty storm into the state of Ohio and used it to destroy your gaudy idol of Jesus when He could have obliterated an unholy mockery of both art and nature like the Field of Corn. If that's not a clear message from on high, then I don't know what is.