Many years ago, the Kansas City Star’s community “Preview” section included a calendar item on the events of a forthcoming “National Clown Week.” The layout editor was looking for a nice image to anchor the text, and, looking through file photos found a wonderful shot of a clown that they thought was the perfect image. The calendar ran with that image, and no one thought anything of it until some astute readers took a closer look and realized that the image used to punctuate the frivolity of National Clown Week was an image of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Hilariously, the photo caption read: “It’s a rule. You MUST celebrate Clown Week.” *Gulp!* Whatever you say, scary clown!

Why are we bringing this up? Well, this weekend, more than a few of us at DCist were sent word that Arlington County’s problem with iffy logos has continued into the 2005 calendar year. As our oldest readers may recall, back in September 2004, DCist wrote about how the new design for the Arlington County seal was getting poor reviews from residents. The seal, a stylized depiction of the Arlington House, domicile of the Custis-Lee family, replaced a more standard, neo-Classic looking design of the same. One critic proclaimed that the Arlington House “looked drunk.”

Of course, the problem with that logo was simply that people didn’t care for it. It’s not that the image itself was seedy. But, keeping in that vein, we present to you the logo for the Arlington Pediatric Center, pictured here, deemed by the Fark forums to be the “most inappropriate company logo”, perhaps ever. Take a good look. All we can say is, from out of the drunk Arlington House has emerged Uncle Bad Touch, and somewhere, he’s — well … let’s say “cuddling improperly” with the infirm children of Arlington County. We don’t think we’re out of line by gently suggesting to the Arlington Pediatric Center that they may want to rethink that design. And who knew there was an Arlington Optimist Club?