"America's Real 'Zoo': An Innocent Trip to the San Diego Zoo Unexpectedly Reveals the Fate of the Nation"
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 01 June 2011 04:21
- Written by Nick Taxia
THE BEASTS roared with fearsome bellows... The animals seethed with fury; their hair smelly and matted; yellow teeth snarling; eyes glazed with primordial inertial... But enough about the tourists at the San Diego Zoo.
Correct. While on a relaxing vacation to San Diego last month I was lucky enough to visit its world-famous zoo. The animals were amazing, the exhibits were breathtaking, the zoo itself is very
We Do Not Deserve to Win: Feeling Guilty for Celebrating bin Laden’s Death Is For a People Who Deserve to Lose
- Details
- Created on Thursday, 12 May 2011 00:49
- Written by Nick Taxia, DP Producer
What do you call a society that cannot celebrate the death of its mass-murdering archenemy? What do you call a nation that feels too sorry to react with glee at the death of a man who murdered thousands of its people?
Obviously America did not respond this way (generally) to the death of Osama bin Laded. Nothing was abnormal or repugnant in the way we behaved. In fact, we should still be dancing in the streets this minute... But no sooner had bin Laden's body turned cold than another scant, yet loud chorus of sorrow-seekers began filtering through the jubilation.
From the morbid minds of Michael Moore and the Huffington Post to the terminally guilt-soaked New York Times, to NPR (no adjective needed), to CNN, the evangelical Christianity Today, Washington D.C.'s Express, to the moldy Birkenstock sandals of the Smirking Chimp writers, a predictably depressing thread of nabobs began chiding us for our joy in the death of a fellow human being (in theory). We are a bloodthirsty people, don't you know? Why else would we react to the death of the founder and leader of a religious cult that bathes itself in blood? My God, how insensitive!
“Noble Futility: Actor Richard Dreyfuss and the Gallant New Struggle for ‘Civility’”
- Details
- Created on Friday, 28 January 2011 14:49
- Written by Nick Taxia
A brief history of warfare; lamenting the proliferation of nuclear weapons; genuinely warm comments on the splendor and uniqueness of America; decrying our current tempo in political rhetoric and warnings of how unwise it is to remain so “heated” while possessing nuclear weapons, followed by bashing Ivy League elites…
Such were the moments of actor Richard Dreyfuss’ conference on civics and education at the National
TRUE OP-ED: ''No Need for Bombs, Terrorists... Just More Black Fridays''
- Details
- Created on Monday, 24 January 2011 15:06
- Written by Michael Madshack
Decadence, disrespect, self-humiliation: an American tradition when it comes to holiday shopping, and particularly Black Friday. Increasingly challenging is the stamina it takes to wait in the lines, sometimes overnight, and then hustle and bustle your way through the spectacle of November’s fourth Friday. But equally challenging is how to describe the increasingly hellish tradition of mayhem, vulgarity, discourtesy, violence and debauchery disguised as just a natural subset of American consumerism and holiday festivities.
However the depressing spectacle that is our contemporary Black Friday should not be viewed as a natural part of consumerism or capitalism. Women drawing guns on each other in toy stores; customers stabbing and trampling each other at the doors of Walmarts are in no way just peculiar expressions of any economic system. The closest to that would be food riots in nations under communism. But no, the closest thing to those truly warranted stampedes we have are our infamous Black Fridays –fat, infantile Americans clamoring and crushing each other for gadgets that will be replaced, sales that will be repeated, and shelves that will be restocked.
There is no logical reason for why Black Friday has devolved into the embarrassment it is, seemingly worsening each year, that basically amounts to a new and strange form of pornography –consumer pornography (and in the rare cases where a shopper is actually crushed to death at a Walmart, I guess it becomes snuff –holiday consumer snuff porn. Ahhh, God Bless America!).
