Since I hope one day to be able to cross the border into the United States without undergoing a body cavity search, I’d just like to make my position perfectly clear: I am not ashamed George W. Bush is from Texas.
Natalie Maines, the vertically-challenged lead singer of country music group Dixie Chicks, has earned the wrath of good ol’ boys and girls from sea to shining sea by telling a London audience – they listen to country music in London? There’s a picture you don’t want to dwell on for too long. – she and the other Chicks were "ashamed" the prez was from their home state, Texas. Seems Natalie wasn’t too happy with Bush Lite’s warmongering. Or was it his summary dismissal of any country who disagreed with his first-strike doctrine, unilateral neutering of the United Nations, or upholding the quaint Republican tradition of driving the country’s finances into the toilet? Hell, maybe she was just tired of hearing him say nuculer instead of nuclear.
Doesn’t matter. Country music fans being, shall we say, conservative – reference Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee – reacted pretty much as you might expect. Radio stations dropped the Dixie Chicks from rotation, organized Ditch the Chicks garbage bins where outraged listeners could trash their once-cherished CDs, and one station in Louisiana (Motto: No son, you cain’t marry yer sister ‘til yer father’s done with her.) hired a tractor to roll over and crush Chicks paraphernalia. To paraphrase another country singer, "Freedom’s just another word for knowin’ when to keep your mouth shut."
Such is the mood in the home and native land of my birth.
But I’m not ashamed the unelected president of the US is from Texas. Having grown up – figuratively speaking – in New Mexico, you have to understand one thing: New Mexicans aren’t very fond of Texans nor things Texas.
Texas is what you might call a have-not state in the magnificent natural beauty category. Where New Mexico has splendid mountains, Texas has swamps… and badlands… and sprawling cities… and a total dearth of anything you’d want to go out of your way to see. As a result, the string of ski hills in New Mexico are seasonally invaded by Texans. When I was growing up, one of the most popular bumper stickers on cars bearing New Mexico licence plates said, Ski Texas! Completely failing to understand what any right-thinking person might have against Texas, the Texans didn’t get it.
But all that doesn’t matter. By the time Pique publishes this on Friday, war will be raging in Iraq. For all I know, by the time I finish writing this, war will be raging. Governor Bush gave Saddam 48 hours to git outta Dodge. That means he has to count and remember Mickey’s little hand going around four full times. Things could happen earlier than we expect.
Unfortunately, the first victim of the US-Iraq was has already been claimed. French fries.
US lawmakers – and I use the term loosely – have banished french fries from the Congressional cafeteria menu. Many greasy spoons around the country have also purged anything vaguely French from their bills-o’-fare. The French, weak-wristed, poncy peaceniks that they are, haven’t jumped on the war bandwagon and have shown the temerity to actually threaten to veto a war resolution in the United Nations Security Council, of which they are a charter member.
Don Rumsfeld, who now that war is imminent is smiling more than we’ve ever seen him smile, declared, "Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." Senators and Congressmen have called France irrelevant, ungrateful wimps. Their grasp of history is firm enough to remember – and take great pleasure in pointing out – that France would be a historical footnote and Frenchmen would be speaking German but for the United States’ efforts in World War II.
Of course, their grasp of history is too flimsy to remember there might not even be a United States of America had the French not helped us kick English butts during the Revolutionary War and they might all be referring to a two-week period as a fortnight, whatever the hell that is.
No matter, french fries are the first casualty of the war and I, for one, am deeply saddened by their demise. French fries were one of my favourite, if not my absolute favourite, childhood foods, childhood having extended well into my sixth decade.
And just as it’s pointless to argue the US has utterly failed to prove its case for going to war with Iraq – unless, of course, you accept the twin justifications of oil and avenging your daddy’s failure as valid reasons to go to war – it’s equally fruitless to bring up the FACT that french fries have nothing whatsoever to do with France! The Belgian’s claim to inventing this most perfect of foods predates French efforts to claim it as theirs by almost 200 years.
In culinary terms, to "french" means to cut something into lengthwise pieces. Except in the US for the foreseeable future. At least when it comes to potatoes, cutting them lengthwise is now known as "freedoming?" them. The Congressional cafeteria – not wanting to get rid of deep-fried potatoes completely – offer the enlightened "Freedom Fries." That moniker may ultimately wean me off the damn things.
I’m scared to death this may only be the thin edge of the wedge. In a tsunami of patriotism what’s next to fall. Will high schools across America make French kissing adequate grounds – along with carrying fingernail clippers – for expulsion from school? Will girls with French braids be bullied and driven to cut off their tresses lest some Neanderthal redneck hound them for being unpatriotic? Has the last slice of French toast been served in America?
And when right-thinking Americans fully expunge all things French from their culture, will they turn their ire on the other members of the coalition of the unwilling? Are the days of Canadian bacon numbered south of the border? Will Chicanos be rounded up, sent off to internment camps and eventually – after the harvest is in, of course – sent back to Mexico along with their tacos, enchiladas, chimichangas and salsa? Give me ketchup or give me death!
Will there be hand-wringing in the baseball parks of America this summer when someone inevitably points out the All-American hot dog is actually a, gasp!, Frankfurter? A sausage of German ancestry. And pity the poor, unthinking sap who slathers his dog with sauerkraut. Traitor! Turncoat! Go back where you came from, Fritz.
Yes friends, I fear we’re heading into a culinary Dark Ages where the only thing safe to eat will be a joint of mad cow and Yorkshire pudding, Texas barbeque and…. Ohmigod. Isn’t apple pie French?
