jingoism – radical druid

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de Toqueville on Poetry and Democracy
Here is a little food for thought (bold and italics, mine): Democratic poets will always appear trivial and frigid if they seek to invest gods, …
The spheres of thought that tangents bring
The spheres of thought that tangents bring in touch with mine are lessening, perhaps in spite of my attempts to cross each bridge, and burn …
The hands that write these words tell lies
The hands that write these words tell lies; their range of symbols does not jibe with the instructions they receive and must translate from eye …

That once upon a time that never comes:
a world still yet to come that stays unborn,
its waking breath caught up in too young lungs,
not more than just a sigh of sad could be’s.

What would you have the world do unto you,
to pique your interest and keep you engaged?
Is not a chance to breathe the air enough?
Is there still more you think that you deserve?

If words could become wishes, after all,
what good if they are never spoken out?
And further, how much can they really change
a world that grows more deafened by the day?

That once upon a time we think is past:
what if it is some once and future time,
just waiting for us all to rise and shine
and simply take initiative, for once?

What would you want the world to give you next?
It’s not like you’ve exhausted every choice
or followed every starting point to ground.
it may be that the fault is in our stars.

If you believe a thing is true, it is;
at least, until some proof shows otherwise.
But how much more convincing do you need?
You’ve been awake for hours now today.

07 APR 2026

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My pet peeve of the day:

What does Alabama, or Lynryd Skynyrd for that matter, have to do with fried chicken? In particular, what does “Sweet Home Alabama” have to do with Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Perhaps my geography is a little bit rusty, but Kentucky is nestled between Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia (ok, some other states too), but is NOWHERE near Alabama. Colonel Harlan Sanders was a hillbilly who DRESSED like a southern cracker, and more closely resembled Burl Ives than anyone else. Seems to me that most of the chicken in the United States is not produced in Alabama, either. Most likely the chicken is from Arkansas — which to my recollection doesn’t border Alabama OR Kentucky (but that’s another issue).

So why does the KFC campaign for Chicken Capital USA (which I can only assume is bluegrass country and not swamp rock country, being somewhere south of Cincinnati and north of Nashville) have as its theme song Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”? Is it because nobody gets all goofy-eyed and thinks of fried chicken when they hear musicians from Kentucky — like Bill Monroe, Merle Travis, John Prine, the Everly Brothers, Dwight Yoakum? Hell, Johnny Depp would be a better fit. The Kentucky Headhunters’ “Walk Softly On This Heart of Mine” would be far more appropriate.

Is it because in this country the intellectual capability of the average American is, as they say, going South?

Or is it because those folks who now own KFC (the same people that own Pepsi and Taco Bell, I think) couldn’t think of a better representation of fly-over country than Skynyrd?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Lynryd Skynyrd. And I think all of ’em that are still alive deserve all the royalties they can get. But I’ve got relatives in Kentucky, I’ve got relatives from Kentucky that work for KFC and knew the Colonel while he was alive, and I’ve even EATEN KFC in Kentucky — where, I might add, it is better than anywhere else in the country. “Sweet Home Alabama” as the theme song for something that is in NO WAY associated with, or from, Alabama is a little insulting to me. It’s just wrong.

And by the way, considering the number of Puerto Ricans, Gautemalans, Costa Ricans, Mexicans and Latinos and Hispanics of almost every variety living in New York City, how is it that they know so much less there about salsa than folks in San Antonio?

Tag: jingoism

Once Upon a Time

Incongruities in Advertising