July 3, 1997
Well, folks, this is coming to you early because I have a long weekend coming. Yes, the 4th of July, the American Independence Day, not to be confused with the 4th of February, which is the Sri Lankan Independence Day. As with most holidays, we Americans will take this time to consume massive quantities of things we normally deny ourselves. This is because of our national pastime, dieting, which has led to an obsession with less fat, low fat, and fat free products. I see more and more products taking the reduced fat path, including products which never had fat in them to begin with. Pretzels, chewing gum, and aluminum foil are just a few items I’ve seen with "Fat Free" on them. So, if you’re trying not to indulge this weekend, let me provide a quick guide to some other fat free items:
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water
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sugar
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flour
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baking soda
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shampoo
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the glue you used to eat in primary school
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asbestos
Please enjoy this week’s low-fat offerings.
Top 10 Best-Loved Archway Cookie Flavors
10. Crunchy Nuggets O’ Tungsten N’ Beryl
9. Old Fashioned Weasel-Hair Zesties
8. The one where they just take Girl Scout cookies & add a glistening drop of Retsin.
7. Tainted Clam Newtons
6. Crunchy Toffee N’ Crack
5. Ed Asner Armpit Butter-Cookies
4. Dried Patties of Crest Toothpaste Minties
3. Anatomically Correct Animal Crackers
2. Soft N’ Chewwy Chocolate Molded to Look Like Walaby Poop
1. Mickey Maca-Rooneys
WORLD IDEOLOGIES EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE TO COWS
FEUDALISM You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
SOCIALISM You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.
FASCISM You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
PERESTROIKA You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
DICTATORSHIP You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
BUREAUCRACY You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
CAPITALISM You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.
PURE ANARCHY You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
ANARCHO-CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
OLYMPICS-ISM You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state of the art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears about it. McDonald’s buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.
AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPITALISM Both cows are bloated with toxic steroids. They are set out to graze on privatized public parks, release massive amounts of flatulence that destroys the ozone layer, die from excess ultraviolet light, and are processed into meat-like products that look great as a result of clever and unprincipled marketing strategies. When you mortgage your artificially devalued farm at high interest rates in order to buy meat, you consume the poisoned material and develop terminal illnesses because there is no health care plan to treat you. The corporate management uses your purchase price to acquire THEIR meat from cows raised "naturally" on tree-free rain forest land outside of the country where labor and resources are cheap.
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