I would like to propose a mild brain teaser for all the semi-awake, loyal readers out there who are waiting with baited breath to flip to the personals section of this newspaper. Our nation, which has tried time and time again to legislate human morality, is amoral. Believe it: Sex, drugs and violence are still “”the American Way.””
The Reverend Jesse Jackson — Rainbow Coalition posterboy and spiritual advisor to former President Clinton — has a 20-month-old illegitimate child, and meanwhile, Texas’ electric chair is regularly being filled with flesh to deep-fry unpopular members of our own species.
Floridians still think their votes were fairly counted, and we all still have a 50-50 chance of divorcing. Forget the fact that I’m not being inaugurated into anything; this is my inaugural address.
The rampant zipper problem plaguing public officeholders of the male genre has many Americans embittered. Those who know me will also know that I too have been a sucker for a man in power, and thus I offer the following advice to the Monicas of this nation: Run to the media, ladies — we will embrace your stories of size and style whether you’ve been sleeping with congressmen, reverends or first ladies. By spilling it all, you may gain a little of the power that was handed to those men just because they were born with penises. My advice comes with one reservation, however — just don’t go to Larry Flynt.
As for the death penalty, I point to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangered Species Protection Program, which obliges the government to protect species from pesticides. The poison-filled needles that our government has so subtly and endearingly nicknamed “”lethal injections”” certainly qualify as pesticides meant for the pestlike members of the human species. Any analytical thinker can see that through the electric chair, we’re letting the D.C. boys break the very laws they’ve made regarding preservation of species.
Not to mention the fact that, somehow, women and whites are mysteriously avoiding death row in comparison to the number of black men, who are the favorite contestants for execution, that are on death row. I support affirmative action — does that mean I’m a proponent of opening up a few spots for the women and white men who keep getting excluded from death row while African American men occupy all the slots? Not exactly. I’m not arguing for a diversification of death row; I’m arguing for an elimination of the whole idea in general. I don’t care if people want to strap each other down with leather belts as long as it isn’t about death.
If all that doesn’t convince you, consider this: Government-endorsed and government-enforced murder doesn’t seem like a good idea when we’ve got people like Dubya calling the shots. Wouldn’t you be a bit miffed if that moron, who recently told Barbara Walters that he is unsure if Russia is a friend or a threat, ordained your execution? I guess the cocaine and booze must have caused him to miss more of the ’80s than we originally thought — the guy still doesn’t realize that the Cold War ended.
Another problem plaguing “”the union”” is sketchy voting procedures. The fact that Florida is filled with nothing but prune juice consumers and people who earn their income by parading around Fantasy Land as mice, chipmunks and princesses should have caught our attention a long time ago. No wonder the butterfly ballot confused them — they either work at “”The Happiest Place on Earth”” or they haven’t had contact with anyone but the Rite Aid pharmacist in over 30 years. Obviously, they’re a bit removed from the rest of the country.
Perhaps equally frightening is the trouble I encountered upon trying to vote in Del Mar. Instead of being handed a ballot and a ballot-punching machine in which to insert my ballot, I was given a ballot-punching machine that already had a ballot inserted into it. Excited about voting and late for class, I didn’t give the situation much thought, nor did I check the ballot before I began punching away for the leftists.
What I realized once CNN began attacking the Florida situation was that the Gucci-clad, tanning booth-veteran poll worker who grimaced upon seeing my UCSD sweatshirt easily could have punched a few holes through my ballot before sticking it into the machine and handing the contraption to me — which would have immediately disqualified my ballot. It seems like I’d fit in in Florida more than I would like to think.
The true indicator of our nation’s status, however, is the popularity of Fox’s “”Temptation Island.”” We already know that we only have a 50-50 chance of establishing a lifelong marriage.
We also know that about 40 percent of people cheat on their significant other. Yet FOX seems to think we might not comprehend these facts even after all those “”Jerry Springer”” reruns we’ve watched, so the network has decided to use “”Temptation Island”” to reiterate that sometimes love really isn’t enough, and humans probably are just lustful fiends like every other animal on this planet.
Bonobo female chimpanzees, which constitute our closest relatives by sharing 98 percent of our genetic material, are known to detach male chimps’ penises and scrotums if the mood is right. I swear I saw the same thing going on between a human couple on a 1 a.m. “”Jerry Springer”” episode last week, and I would do the same thing if my boyfriend fell victim to a “”Temptation Island”” cutie.
“”Temptation Island”” also proves that Americans’ voyeuristic tendencies can no longer be denied — more couch potatoes watched the opening episode of “”Temptation Island”” than any other FOX series in history … but to see what? Stable relationships crumbling away as primal attraction triumphs over emotional commitment, and men and women admitting to themselves that love will not necessarily find a way is apparently now entertainment.
Meanwhile, here comes President Bush to force Christian concepts of family down our throats (i.e. male-female lifelong marriages). I think I prefer Clinton and Jackson with their zipper problems — at least their lifestyles reflect pop culture.
