Patriotism Is An Olympic Event

Welcome to the Satire Hotel, a place where the unpatriotic are in jail, suspected terrorists have been shipped to an island off the coast or bombed back to the stone age, and patriotism is an Olympic event.

Yes, ever since that fateful day in September, we gals at the Satire Hotel have been trying to figure out how to best express our patriotism, no matter what. After watching the opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, we knew what we had to do: we had to lobby for patriotism as an Olympic event. How could we do this? By holding our own Patriotic Olympics for the Gals at Hotel Satire.

By the way, if you missed the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, let me recap. They began with shots of New York City—the Statue of Liberty, the missing twin towers of the World Trade Center, grounds zero, a moving voiceover. I know you're asking what that has to do with the Olympics, which are supposed to be above politics, and the answer is who knows, who cares, this is America, we're hurting as no other country has, so shut up. Of course, if Japan had begun their Winter Olympics with shots of the atomic bomb exploding in Hiroshima, that would have been blatant politicking and a gross violation of the Olympic spirit.

There were some wonderful effects and skating around and so on, but the real highlight was the Five Nations of American Indians coming together, drumming their support for America, with not a single whine about how we slaughtered them to the point of extinction, then relocated/imprisoned them on barren reservations, giving them the right to own casinos but little else. To mention genocide at a time like this would have been unpatriotic and worthy of imprisonment.

Then, after the Indians (Native Americans to you radicals) had finished, pioneer wagons came skating across the stadium, square dancing joyfully, having made a home for themselves in the West. The announcers talked about the hardships, with no mention of the wiping out of the Indians, thank goodness. What can be more patriotic than turning genocide into a happy hoedown. God bless.

Throughout the performances, we were treated to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, where they seem to have TV's on the battlefield, watching the Olympics and chanting, “U-S-A, U-S-A! Of course, if the Vietnamese ever hosted the Olympics and showed the Vietnamese civilians, who had been permanently maimed by U.S. cluster bombs during the Vietnam War, watching the Olympics on TV, chanting V-i-e-t- n-a-m, that would be a gross violation of the Olympic spirit.

The crowning moment was when President Bush opened the games, sitting amidst the U.S. athletes, talking on a cell phone with one of the athlete's family. Nothing expresses the coming together of athletes from all over the globe to break down national barriers like an American president sitting with American athletes, waving American flags, after an American policeman/rescue worker has just sung God Bless America to a stadium filled with Americans.

Inspired by the events in Salt Lake City, the gals at Hotel Satire Patriotic Gal competition held at the Hotel Satire Figure Skating stadium. Thousands participated and the finals were held just last week before a panel of judges from various Fortune 500 corporations, including AOL Time Warner, Enron, AT&T, Yahoo.com, Exxon, Lockheed, SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, and many others.

As an aside, while I didn't compete, I did design the Patriotic Olympic outfits pictured here. What says athleticism and patriotism for gals more than a furry hat and a dress resembling a night gown?

The first finalist was Betsy who skated out carrying the American flag, looking the picture of health, and pushing a cart full of prescription drugs. Betsy was heavily favored for this event as her husband was the CEO of Exxon, not to mention she was a WASP and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution—understood to be required elements for any patriotic competition. She performed a triple flip jump to expose her crotch three times, while making a phone call to her doctor to ask him about a number of drugs she'd seen advertised on TV!!

The crowd response was weak and a bit confused, until she pointed out that, (a) between 1996 and 2000, the amount of TV advertising money for drug ads had increased from $220 million to $1.6 billion (Boston Globe, February 14, 2002); (b) the total amount spent on drug promotion to the public had grown by 70 percent; (c) she didn't need these drugs, she was just taking them for the hell of it—a patriotic act if there ever was one. Not only that, she added, she was going to be in constant contact with her doctor—who would be standing by, as all doctors are. Then she popped in a Paxil, recommended for those suffering from something called General Anxiety Disorder, i.e., uncontrollable worry, anxiety, fatigue, etc. Paxil works to “correct the chemical imbalance that can cause this disorder.” Side effects include fatigue and tremors, so Betsy patriotically popped in something else to offset that. Plus, it's nice to know that anxiety has nothing to do with a failing economy or anything else; that it's just a chemical imbalance.