Bat belfries and froot loops

The supermarket tabloid has changed the mind of America.  Whereas once the fare of non-journalistic nonsense seemed to appeal only to the refugees from sanity, it seems that the general populace accepts the delirious as news with equanimity.  There has always been an element that would take to heavy breathing and slurping of tongue at Charlie Sheen  going daft in public, at Lindsay Lohan screwing around with substances and diamond necklaces, at John Galliano, Christian Dior's creative director, proclaiming his love of Hitler.  That particular audience found its comfort and gained a sense of equality when famous people were caught being as stupid as they were.  The great majority of people, however, did not need to justify their own stupidity; they expended their efforts at trying to avoid  being stupid.

One can no longer avoid dipshit dementia by not reading tabloids.  It pervades the media.  Now people who contend for  serious office put on displays of ignorance and mental insufficiency with strutting pride.  Sarah Palin, who is prime snicker fare,  toys with running for president.  It was bad enough when John McCain chose her to run for vice president, but we excused him on the grounds that he shrewdly knew the magnitude of the stupid vote or that, in his service as an American hero when he underwent brain-washing at the hands of the North Vietnamese, he did not survive the rinse cycle intact.  And then we have Michelle Bachman, Jim DeMint, and all those that find Rush Limbaugh stimulating. Rather than snicker these wretches into oblivion, an astounding number of  people take them seriously and hang on their every word.

The community where I once lived had a huge state mental hospital on a sprawling campus, and yearly it held an open house on a Sunday afternoon.  Good citizens would attend to get their jollies  from watching the dingbats ding. Finally a superintendent ended the custom and was asked by a reporter why taxpayers would no longer have opportunity to come and observe a tax-paid institution.  The superintendent said he did not think it appropriate for a tax-supported institution to make spectacles of disabled patients by providing them as entertainment or sponsor occasions at which a bunch of imbeciles could be entertained or made to feel superior by watching the antics of a bunch of idiots.  The superintendent drew the ire and disapproval of many people for his snarkiness, but most people applauded the end of a degrading ritual. So, now we get to do essentially the same thing by watching cable news or reading the new media. Or reading or watching any account of the South Dakota Legislature. 

However, rather than despair at the froot loopiness of the general public, we have one saving grace to celebrate: