Listening to the Republicans attacking each other in their debates, I beg to offer a different question to get this election on the right track. What are their positions on the great soup controversy?
According to David Feldman in his book “Do Elephants Jump?” Campbell’s Alphabet Soup is sold only in North America, meaning only the English alphabet is represented. I suggest each candidate pledge to investigate the possibility of internationalizing the alphabet – having the soup in Chinese, Swahili, Turkish, etc.
By devouring the alphabet of other lands, kids can increase their cultural awareness. This promise would be tied in to the candidates’ educational strategies. In an era where censorship of books in the school curriculum is on the rise, wouldn’t it be nice to introduce an international soup? And don’t forget the help it would do for adults. It’s a fallacy that only kids eat alphabet soup. I’m 62 and devour it every chance I get, which aren’t many, but if the alphabet soup is produced in other languages I pledge to eat it more often. And if too many kids are allergic to wheat, couldn’t the alphabet be made from a soybean product?
Hal Sirowitz halsirowitz@yahoo.com
Hal, wonderful poem. Very ironic and great social commentary. please do send some poems for my journal. love, maria
Leah, “the NEW medium [i.e., the Internet] is the bad mesasge” is at the heart of this article, whereas offhand pretended familiarity with political figures such as heard in the Iglesias lyrics which disturb you is a very old rhetorical device of jesters. The last American standup comedy satirist who handled his political complaints with something approaching respect for the person & office of the President was Mort Sahl in the 1950’s vis-a-vis Dwight Eisenhower. Then came Vaughn Meader, a JFK mimicker who vanished from the public eye the instant his target was assassinated, and things became pretty savage after that, e.g., nobody blinked at Vietnam War protesters’ signs saying, “Pull Out, Dick!” when Richard Nixon was in office. On the other side of things, news about the sleazy side of the greats has always trickled into contemporary extant media, too, all the way from Jefferson’s bastard offspring, Jackson’s cohort of drunken louts and Buchanan’s likely closet gay life to philandering by FDR, Eisenhower, JFK and Clinton (so far as we are permitted to know so far, only the husband). Look up “jingoism” and you’ll find that the electorate of yore was often as lame-brained as today’s Netnoodniks. What scares & disappoints me is not how offhand and low the Internet medium has brought us, but how facile our civilization has become about accepting the seeds of its own destruction as the mesasge of higher truth; e.g., that divorce is a problem solver rather than a problem causer, that homosexuality is a fine alternative to the not-so-special heterosexual basis of the family, and that pauperizing future generations with staggering debt is a fine alternative to reining in hyperspending to avoid the momentary bankruptcy of a corrupt banking system. I wish the the media furor over Wikileaks’ blowing confidential or secret government cables were matched one tenth as much by complaints about the impenetrable veil of secrecy about who got what & why during the multi-trillion dollar “bailout”.
Good idea and well said, hal’
Yes, a very good piece indeed. The photo is not nerlisacsey representative of today’s 70-year-old (I know because I’m over 70 myself), but her facial expres…
I really couldn’t ask for more from this article.
Didn’t know the forum rules allowed such brilliant posts.
It’s great to read something that’s both enjoyable and provides pragmatisdc solutions.
That’s really thinking of the highest order