I recently watched part of a puppet show on YouTube that was purportedly made by ISIS (or ISIL, or simply The Islamic State) where they decapitated the head of a puppet named Steve. I guess Steve was supposed to represent America (or Israel, or NATO or the Shiites or the Trilateral Commission or maybe some guy named Steve).
Anyway, they cut this guy's head off - I mean this puppet's head off - and after much fanfare and singing and chanting about how great god was they threw the poor puppet in a small bonfire and started grilling a bunch of kebabs over the flames. I sat there in front of my computer thinking "who the hell watches this stuff" when it dawned on me that I was watching this stuff. I looked at the stats and I saw that not only was I watching this nonsense but so were 1,234,002 other idiots.
My daughter Lucy recently became involved in something called The Enterprise Selfhood Training Team or TEST (or TESTT or T Enterprise or simply "the team"). She travels around the country attending seminars and workshops that typically take place in large anodyne conference rooms with perfectly balanced florescent lights and straight back plastic chairs. Whereas in the past she was an engaging young woman with interesting friends and unconventional ideas now she talks only of her hopes for an "exceptional personal transformation." I know it's none of my business but when I see an accomplished, attractive, impeccably educated adult begin to lose herself to the mind-marinating bromides of a multimillion dollar snake oil scam I begin to fidget.
Lucy's convinced that if so many (2.2 million) seemingly sophisticated and successful people swear by this program ("94% of TEST seminar graduates say their lives have improved for the better!") it couldn't possibly be a form of cultish manipulation.
Look, I never claimed to be the sharpest ax in the shed but I think I can tell when I'm being jacked. There are seven billion people roaming God's earth and if a couple of million decide they need to whine about their parents, hold hands and sing kumbaya I don't think that exactly constitutes a significant critical mass.
But then again, how could 3 million devoted followers of the late reverend Sun Myung Moon possibly be wrong?
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