Sunday, December 10, 2006

Today I ventured beyond the confines of my study, crowded though it is with the textual endowments of Western culture, and drove in search of a meal. Not just any meal, of course, but a meal that stirred my primordial emotions and stripped away the thin veneer of civilization, exposing the true, raw and bloody vigor of life. The sort of meal I wanted was, of course, the sort of thing that today's postmodern, urban gentry are unable to savor as they pull from the dry, groaning breast of political correctness. No, our cultural elites are unable to stoop to enjoy the ordinary pleasures of life. The warm, soft weight of a half-pound cheesy bean and rice burrito, for example, available as part of Taco Bell's new Big Bell Value Menu, or a crispy, chewy Chalupa shell filled with ground beef, sour cream, shredded lettuce, and a blend of three cheeses -- cheddar, pepperjack, and mozzarella, and diced ripe tomatoes. At Taco Bell, we find the simple elegance of true cultural diversity. Beans and cheese, I hardly need remind my readers, who probably tire of my repetition, but we may as well admit it -- beans and cheese, elements of the earth and its domesticated livestock, thrown together by Mexican, Filipino, Chinese, Black and Punjabi workers, striving for the freedoms available only here in our land, with its traditions of virtue. Anywhere else in the world, they'd be slitting each other's throats. Here, they ladle the beans and cheese. Is it any wonder that we defeated fascism in the 1940s? Why are we unable to tap this reservoir of determination today?