Democracy and Debauchery

Posted on December 6, 2007

party

Oh, we Americans are a wild and crazy bunch: toiling hard and productively, spreading democracy by day…partying hard by night. Or is it partying day and night? According to a new report on travel trends, we Yanks are binge drinking, G-string snapping “debaucherists,” longing for the eternal spring break.

This report, put out by the UK research firm Euromonitor International, says the hot trend among the British is traveling with pets. Western Europe likes Slow Travel (an analogy to Slow Food) and South America “End of the World Tourism”inspired by “March of the Penguins.” For the Middle East it is Halal or Islam-safe travel. But we North Americans are cut from a different cloth. We pine for the lifestyles of the rich and vacuous, of Britney
and Kevin and the rest for whom life is one endless DUI. I’ll admit that I share the helpless anguish of millions of Americans about the state of our Union and have entertained the notion that finding a pal in Yukon Jack until Bush lets go of the football might be less toxic than watching cable news, but is this a for-real trend or a fashionable whack at US culture drawn from the backside of The Queen?