5 Feet of Fury

‘Two Americas’ — or just Too Many American Journalists? Liberal columnist mocks crazy right wingers, gets a surprise

Journalists — your moral and intellectual superiors — are so enlightened, observant and insightful.

You can TOTALLY trust their analysis of American culture and politics.

After all, they are SO deeply connected to other human beings, so… representative of the local community…

Do you listen to right-wing talk radio? I do. Michael Savage’s loopy ravings about Chinese food in San Francisco’s North Beach are as diverting as any Red Sox game, and I have a soft spot for Laura Ingraham. I know, I shouldn’t admit it. But she was a Supreme Court clerk, for heaven’s sakes. Doesn’t that count for something?

I was listening to Ingraham, and I heard an advertisement for food insurance. Huh? These are the people who are always crusading against health insurance, and now they are trying to sell me food insurance? What the heck is that? (…)

I make fun of these people, but consider this:

Not so long ago, I was at a dinner party with four other families from my “leafy suburb,’’ as Newsweek once called it. They had respectable jobs, they were living the bourgeois life — and everyone at the table had emergency rations stashed in their basements. One family had hundreds of gallons of water. Another had a generator and Costco-like quantities of canned food. Except me, of course. I couldn’t believe my ears.