The Onion (America’s Finest News Source) has a great article on how most Americans are missing the point entirely on a fairly wide array of issues that they consider important:
“From the overweight housewife who eats bag after bag of reduced-fat Ruffles, to the school board that bans Huckleberry Finn for using the word ‘nigger,’ to the Manhattan stockbroker who uses recycled-paper checks to pay for gas for his behemoth SUV, the tendency of Americans to really just not get it transcends all boundaries of class, color, religion, sexual orientation, and political persuasion,” said Dr. Ronald Shaw of Georgetown’s Center For American Studies.
See full article.
If you haven’t really been reading The Onion, you should. It is amazing. The best coverage of the 9/11 bombings and the ensuing American reaction was in The Onion. Almost every article in that issue was spot on – from “Hijackers surprised to find selves in hell” (they were expecting 72 virgins) to “US vows to defeat whoever it is we are at war with” (be it Osama, or Saddam, or Taliban, or whoever). I have been a fan of the Onion for over 15 years. This was when it was just a small, local, print newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin (where I spent 8 years), before the web really existed, and before the Onion hit the big time with a #1 bestseller.