America's Soft Underbelly

If anyone had the slightest doubt that America is already well down the downhill slope that all good nations in recorded history seem to slip onto after shining for a while--just take a look around at today's media frenzy.

The post-teenie bopper Britney Spears and her drug-induced antics that delight and draw out the worst in the mass media. Simultaneously, there's Vicky Smith aka Anna Nicole Smith, a two-bit, airhead Hollywood slut, recently croaked on drugs (whether self-administered or otherwise) and not to forget her 20-year old fatherless son who succumbed to the same "disease" just a few months before. As if to put several exclamation points after these appalling events, a true circus maximus was created by the widely televised court proceedings detailing the grubbiness of an endless number of caricatures fighting for control of the corpse of this indiscreet, shameless harlot. As if that wasn't enough, the circus was presided over by a goof ball, ex-Bronx cabbie-turned-probate-judge, who is seeking his own "Judge Judy" TV show to coincide with his imminent retirement. This nitwit needlessly stretched a two-hour hearing into a week-long spectacle, finally announcing a non-persuasive decision while blubbering for the courtroom TV camera--this because he wanted to "preserve the spirit of the beautiful Anna Nicole." God forbid that I ever must face American justice if this character is representative of its guardians. These events and their personalities, presently being canonized as important American lore--if you measure them by the obsessive, salacious voyeurism we have accorded them--put America on record as where our real national values lie. Never mind that there are grave and substantive problems threatening our survival that should concern us--we gladly leave all that to others to worry about.

Does not our reaction to these events make an outrageous lie of the adage beloved by patronizing politicians who tell us that Americans are collectively a wise body? Doesn't it belie the validity of the polls that ask our opinion on a range of subjects from global warming to America's vital national interests?

Is it any wonder the Muslim World (and much of the rest of it) hates America? Maybe it's time to consider the many advantages of becoming an expatriate on a beach in some third-world country, where the main concern is whether it should increase or decrease its coffee export quota.