"America: a land with a mythology so pure and brilliant that it can never interfere with real life."
--John Ralston Saul

OMIGOD! A nipple has come to destroy us all! RUN!!!

I swear the hysteria of the United States is ridiculously retarded sometimes. This is a culture that is so fanatically obsessed with how loud and boisterous it can be that it has literally made the glorification of the mundane, trivial and ordinary a living artform. Freedom and constitutional rights are a distant second to the abject worship of stupid bullshit. Whether it be a black baseball player breaking the colour barrier, or a lesbian coming out on a TV sitcom, or two girls kissing on an awards show, America can't seem to get over the idea that other people do things, and that those things are shocking, edgy and daring. And, moreover: offensive.

The latest meaningless stunt that America quite simply won't live down: Janet Jackson exposing her right breast during the Superbowl. Now, ignore for a moment the fact that it might have been an accident. He could be acting, but if he was why would Justin Timberlake even want to give off the impression that he had just done something wrong, especially after singing the words "gonna get you nekkid by the end of this song." Isn't that what he wanted to do? Janet's reaction is not really conducive to his advances. She's supposed to be swooned by him, not covering up like he just violated her squigglyspooch. Ignore also the fact that Janet, Justin, MTV, CBS, NFL, FBI, WTF, BBQ and practically everyone else categorically disowned the incident afterward. It's just not important whether it was a mistake, or a publicity stunt, or a well-calculated but ill-received move by shrewd marketing types too gutless to accept the responsibility in the aftermath due to the tsunami of pressure from cheesecake eating housewives, AKA the Al Quaeda of religious morality. No, wait. That last part is important. Why are they so ashamed about this? What's there to be ashamed of?

We are offended that America is so offended by this.

To that I say: America, get a fucking grip. Smarten up. Settle down. Give your heads a shake. You're acting as if nipples did not exist until Janet invented them. This reminds me of the 1950s, when people had no genitals. What the hell is wrong with you people? Who actually thinks nipples are immoral? Just who are you protecting here? This is the age of the Internet, for god's sake. The age where every child has the entire swearing dictionary of human intestinal functions memorized by age six. Who the hell is genuinely surprised and mortified by what was underneath that leather top? Just what are you trying to protect us from by not showing that? The evils of human epidermis sightings?

And these are the same people telling the Afganistani women to remove their burqas.

This is such a non-issue, such a non-event, a non-thing--except to Americans. Denmark has full frontal nudity on its daytime television. America freaks out when someone wears their pants too low. Time and time again the people of this misadjusted country want to care the right way for the wrong reasons. It's like that scene in Airplane where the stewardess explains that the pilots are dead and the plane is headed for certain disaster, and everyone takes it with casual aplomb. But when she announces that they've run out of coffee, everyone freaks out. That is America right there: breads and circuses to distract the peasantry from the real problems and issues. They have the freedom (and the constitutional right) to kill one another, but they'll be damned if they're allowed to set eyes on a pair of breasts. There are nearly 300 million people in this country. Not everyone is going to conform to your sheltered, inane sensitivities. Last time I checked, The Right not to be offended was not a Constitutional Amendment. So you're going to have to come to grips with the sinister fact that underneath their clothing, people are naked.

Sexual repression is ingrained in American society. Founded by Puritans, Quakers, Amish, Legalists and other religious extremists who didn't leave old Europe insomuch as they were deliberately kicked out for being such anal-retentive anti-fun asshats, America has had a love-hate relationship with the things man unignorably covets, such as sex and nudity. It is, in the eyes of most Americans, the new Prohibition: something everyone does but won't admit to, because it's against the law. The President can invade other countries for no particular reason whatsoever, Mr. and Mrs. American says "Well that's just dandy by me." But it's not permitted to acknowledge the existence of sex. That's cause for another Civil War.

So if you are one of those insufferable uptights who likes to watch men in tight clothing with names like the "Packers" and the "Browns" (and, formerly, the "Oilers") pat each other on the ass and then go showering together after the game, and you got offended by a risqué halftime show, I got two pieces of advice:

1. Get a gun


2. In the inexplicable event that you somehow managed to miss your own head from three inches away like some upper-class twit of the year, here's what you do: grow the fuck up. As horrible as it may sound, every living human being does and has done each of the following, sometimes on a daily basis, and sometimes even simultaneously: shit, piss, fart, masturbate, fuck, spit, sweat, bleed, stink, and ultimately, die. Its called life. Shut the hell up and live it already.