Or are we the most easily distracted country in the...oh look...squirrel!

It's August and there isn't much going on anywhere. Well there is Egypt but that's a giant mess and picking a winner there is tougher than handicapping next year's Kentucky Derby. So while right-wing radio is blaming the President for: 1) Backing the wrong side in Egypt, 2) not backing the right side in Egypt and, 3) not knowing which side is the right side; the fighting and dying continues.  Of course no one on the right knows which side is "right" either except John McCain who wants to arm and attack all sides. No matter. The conservatives blame the President if it rains on the Fourth of July fireworks so the White House said screw them and headed for Martha's Vineyard. Cue the right-wing outrage about Presidential vacations. 

Still, there are 24 hour news cycles to be fed and nothing fills the gaps between real news stories like America' favorite pastime ...righteous indignation. We may owe our language and heritage to the English but, when it comes to getting our knickers in a knot we are purely French. Everything riles us. Kids who wear their pants around their knees, the ubiquitous use of cell phones, coddled criminals, Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, abuse of police power, the NSA, the IRS, the BSA allowing GAY scout leaders. All this and more seem to set our kettles to boil. Here are a few examples from this week's Washington Post:

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Last week,  a rodeo clown at the Missouri State Fair donned an Obama mask as part of his rodeo clown shtick (whatever that is) much to the delight of Missourians who clearly voted in substantial numbers for the other guy in 2012.  In a state where cow tipping is an Olympic event and the state university offers a course in post hole digging, no one should have been surprised that the current President would be the object of derision in Missouri. Nevertheless, even before  the last cow pie was tossed, cries of racial insensitivity were loose in the kingdom. It goes without saying that whenever the name or visage of Barack Hussein Obama appears in some derisive manner, cries of racism will be sure to follow. This comes with the territory when you are the first person of your race to hold the job. Just wait until Hillary gets elected in 2016.

The clown/perpetrator says it was all in fun and I for one am prepared to take him at his word.Not so the captains of the politically correct police. The Washington Post editorials sounded as if someone had vaulted the fence around the Rose Garden and planted watermelons. They even found some Texas Congressman (shocking!) who invited the rodeo clown, one Mr. Tuffy Gessling to appear in his home district. Importing clowns into Texas? Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle! The clown (the performer not the Congressman) has plenty of defenders in Missouri. A support group, formed on Facebook, has 60,000 "likes". Who knew that Missouri had 60,000 folks on Facebook? Hell, who thought 60,000 Missourians could read?

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Here in the nation's Capital we live in a constant state of indignation. It's more constant than humidity in August. One of our recent pet peeves is the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which stands near the Tidal Basin across from Tom Jefferson. Since its dedication in August, 2011 the statue, or rather its pedestal, has been a sore spot for fans and followers of Dr. King. It seems that one of the quotes on the base of the monument was, for reasons best known to the designer, truncated in such a way as to distort its meaning. Although the mangled quote was decried by many, it took a Post (Washington not New York) reporter, one Rachal Manteuffel to lobby to get the thing changed. So, at a cost of $900,000 the statue will now be both politically and historically correct.

However, buoyed by her success, Ms. Manteuffel has appointed herself the sole arbiter of statuary good taste in the nation's capital. Her column in last Friday's paper attacked no less than six statues/monuments around the city including the Boy Scouts and Mary McLeod Bethune. In one case, a particularly offensive rendering of Abe Lincoln freeing the slaves, she may be on to something. The slave in question is in chains and on all fours in front of the President.This might have passed for symbolic art in 1894 but in today's racial climate...not so much. A minstrel show might have been less inappropriate.

As for the other five cited works, Ms. Mantuffel is a trifle off the mark. She seems to feel that every statue which includes an adult and a child is an ode to pedophiles everywhere. This sort of perverse thinking might cause the dismantling of the Washington Monument. After all, should a giant phallus be the symbol of the Father of our Country? The imagery is even more stark this summer when, closed for repairs, the monument is sheathed in a giant condom. Children, avert your eyes. 

For those who can't get terribly worked up over rodeo clowns and public art, we still have the ever popular (or unpopular) NSA. Sadly, on a subject which should actually engender outrage, the number of Americans who care about who listens to their conversations or reads their email would fit comfortably in the back seat of a Chevy Suburban. Seriously, we think we should deplore this snooping, we certainly want to be outraged but face it, we just don't care. The one thing in the news this summer that should probably cause universal indignation is generating less emotion than the trials of Paula Dean.

Try as we might we just don't see the harm in Big Brother knowing the daily machinations of our lives. "Let 'em listen" the sentiment goes. "I'm not that interesting." The Internet, Facebook, and Twitter have warped our sense of privacy to the point that we really have no privacy left and really...who cares? Aside from the conspiracy crowd who think that government is coming for their guns, no one is alarmed that Uncle Sam knows about your affair with the gardener or how you made par from a trap on the 7th hole at the club.  If you want to get people excited, try closing the local Walmart or cancel  Dancing With The Stars. 

There have been many reasons put forth to explain the fall of the Roman Empire but my own theory is that it started when Romans stopped worrying about what their government was doing and started caring more about the point spread in the Lions vs. Christians event at the coliseum.