Our Dumb World

So it turns out cheering yourself up by listening to people call each other names on the Internet works, but only for a while. I got sad again last night but then did I get lucky! Around 10:00 I got a ladder out and began checking out the top shelf of my bedroom closet - I smelled dead mouse, I know I did - and instead found a copy of an "atlas" called Our Dumb World written by those merry online jokesters at The Onion. I'd bought it to give to one of our kids, then lost it, then forgot about it, hey HEY! here it was now, right next to this cute little sparkly nightlight still in the package.

The book has two pages for every one of the world’s countries, one with funny comments and one with a map - like their map for Greenland, which shows all kinds of key areas. (My favorites: “Mt. Enormous," “God-It’s-Cold,” and a large area up by the northwest coast labeled “Shitload of Fiords”

Pretty funny stuff for a tame country like Greenland, right? But the stuff they have about France is even better. At the top of France’s page it says, in boldface, “One Nation Above God” and then launches in: “Located directly in the heart of the universe around which everything else revolves, the nation of France is the sole beacon of life in an otherwise black and empty void… The French have produced every great achievement in every field of endeavor in the history of mankind including the sculptures of Michelangelo, the symphonies of Beethoven and the writings of William Shakespeare …The people of France are extremely proud of their cultural achievements and offer no apologies for giving the world such things as self-indulgent cinema, the awkward ménage à trios or the Frenchman.” Then the map shows places like “Toplèsse,” "Whine Country” and “Sole Acre of Country That Has Never Been Surrendered to a Foreign Power.”

Egad! And I thought seeing people make fun of individuals on the internet was amusing! I know the world will never improve if we start mocking whole countries; but I used to be a high school teacher and it seems to me the writers at The Onion are like that witty kid in the back of the back of the room: you were grateful for his energy, even if you did sometimes have to send him to the principal's office.