It's not a criticism, it's an observation.
Ancient remedies vs American stuff
Mike Cox

Have you seen the ad for Kinoki? This thing looks like a Stay Free mini pad and claims to be an ancient oriental miracle medicine that sucks toxins from your body through the soles of your feet while you sleep.

The TV commercial shows a pad the first morning looking like the user had been eating dirt. Day by day the pad gets cleaner and cleaner until one morning it is spotless. The user no longer has dangerous toxins trapped in his body and is free to run marathons and seduce young women once again.

As proof, the spot features a graph of all the toxins being removed from the body. In the small print at the bottom of the page were the words "results not typical."

Why do we turn into dimwits when a culture other than ours is involved? Ancient oriental cures for everything from arthritis to impotence and Swedish massages to relax us are million dollar industries. Pure African hoodia will help one lose weight when exercise fails. If that miracle doesn't materialize, buy sturdy Amish furniture to support your gigantic backside. Mention any product from a foreign location, and people assume it is better than anything made here and worth the extra money the shysters charge for it.

I realize the U.S. is a melting pot and aside from the indigenous folks we stole the land from, we have no American culture or ancient beliefs. Everything comes from somewhere else. But still.

Before No Child Left Behind, we were the most innovative nation on Earth, had the largest collection of geniuses, and were most likely to develop new products that would benefit mankind. But you give the average citizen of this country a choice between a shot of some medical miracle or the latest ancient herb, the weed wins hands down.

Ancient Chinese remedies are more popular than proven medicines, and copper and magnetic bracelets are embraced by folks who would never try the latest approved arthritis drug.

I think this all started with the Beatles. The Maharishi guided their lives during tumultuous times. He provided the Fab Four with spiritual guidance, really good drugs, and introduced the sitar to their music. All we got were some crappy songs.

The Maharishi died recently; long forgotten by the hippie devotees who made him a household name. No one under 30 knew who he was. Of course no one under 30 knows who the Chief Justice is.

This is a good time to rethink this philosophy and grasp our own identity. We need to make American stuff important again. France may be famous for food, but we invented the cheeseburger. Austria gave us classical music, but the Blues came from the Southern U.S.

Consider the following: Goody's Headache Powders, barbeque, the transistor, Microsoft, baseball, Disneyland, and the electric guitar. How about these people; Cindy Crawford, Abe Lincoln, George Carlin, Henry Ford, Ernest Hemingway, Evel Knievel, John Lee Hooker, and Paul William Bryant. All- Americans indeed.

Keep your Kinoki foot pads. I'll take some ribs, Travis McGee, and Otis Rush. If that combination doesn't rid me of toxins, I'm terminal.