LUDIC LOG

It's time again for another exciting installment of WHAT AMERICA PRETENDS! Yes, once a month, we take a look at what particular beliefs America is hopelessly clinging to, all evidence to the contrary. Because if not us, who?

10. That there is nothing disastrously horrible, or even particularly unusual, in the fact that there are two huge, incredibly influential, multi-billion-dollar industries advertising everywhere you look, 24 hours a day, with two conflicting messages: one, that we are very busy people who don't have time to eat decent food, and since eating less is unthinkable, we should eat as much unhealthful, crappy, badly prepared junk food as possible; and two, that we are too fat, and we should follw their particular scheme in order to be not fat anymore, because being fat is a terrible thing.

9. That the purpose of an education is to train people for their careers -- that is to say, for making money -- and that subsequently, the matter of an education should deal with practical matters which prepare students to produce and consume. That therefore, schools should be run like businesses. That (and this goes without saying) education should certainly not be free.

8. That health care should also not be free, but that states should be able to regulate and tax particular vices that are found to have an insalubrious effect on public health, just as if the government paid for everyone's medical needs.

7. That certain industries, such as the manufacture and sale of firearms and the growing and marketing of alcohol and tobacco products, should remain legal (so as not to interfere with the wise hand of the market) but should be officially condemned and should have a significant portion of their profits confiscated via state-sponsored lawsuits and channelled into public service schemes about the unsavory nature of these industries. That this is somehow a better use of public funds than simply making the things illegal in the first place.

6. That the war overseas is going great guns, and, even if it has failed to prodce even a single living person who could be unambiguously shown to have been a terrorist, that it must continue to be fought, regardless of the murkiness of our goals in the war. That the state of perpetual warfare to which it has apparently given birth (according to our color-happy "Director of Homeland Security") is really nothing with which to be overly concerned.

5. That it is not necessary to have launched a huge and bloody assault on an entire continent, nor to have masterminded a devastating sneak attack on an American base, nor indeed to have particularly have done anything at all, in order to be considered an "axis of evil".

4. That the current financial shenanigans being exposed in Houston, New York, Chicago, Washington and other major seats of power in the wake of the collapse of one of the "New Economy"'s most high-profile companies are anomalous, rather than emblematic, of the day-to-day workings of market populism.

3. That the most interesting thing about celebrities is which gender they have sex with, not how they got to be incredibly wealthy and famous despite have no discernable talent.

2. That a definition of sanity that consists entirely of answering "yes" to the question "did you know it was wrong to commit a crime?" is not only perfectly acceptable, but worth killing someone over if the definition is met; and that in any case, sane or insane, guilty or not-guilty-by-reason-of-whatever-fancy-lawyer-trick, the aspect of a criminal case that is the most important is the punishment phase.

1. That we have a president who is not only the envy of the world for his toughness, his hard-edged, businesslike leadership skills and his canny, just-do-it attitude, but is in fact -- despite not really having done anything tangible since taking office other that write a lot of Americans a check for three hundred dollars, for some reason -- one of the greatest presidents our nation has ever had.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to check in again next month for another installment of WHAT AMERICA PRETENDS!