Ya Get a Coke With That?

"Florida--The Rules are Different Here"
--State promotional campaign, 1986

Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!
--Marcus Tullius Cicero

Here's a story from yesterday's Orlando Sentinel about the experience of a Turkish-American couple visiting the land of Mickey Mouse illustrating one of our country's big problems, which is that we are inured to our own brainwashing.

It is in the end of the article where you realize the root of the problem, which is its ubiquitous nature ("Tour-bus driver fired for Muslim jokes"):

"At SeaWorld's Shamu stadium, she (Hilal Isler) said, flying eagles and the American flag flashed on the jumbo screen. Audience members were shouting, 'We support our troops' and 'Go America,' Isler said."

The scene bothered her. "'We are not at a military rally,' she said."

Isler, a professor at Skidmore College and on her third trip to Orlando with her husband, said, "Maybe they don't want us here."

What does a trip to an amusement park have to do with war? The whole idea is to relax and get away from reality.

Maybe the reality we are creating is so inseparable from our pervasive gung-ho media depictions, and therefore palatable, that we think this rah-rah interjection appropriate as part of an amusement tableaux. But an amusement park experience should be a non-political event. And war should not be consumed nor fed as mass entertainment, for that is exploitation.

If SeaWorld supports the troops, do they get in for free? How about a discount? Perhaps a free Coke is offered to them at a concession stand? Somehow, I doubt it.