FRANK: When I heard you were engaged, I sat down and did some hard thinking. And there, printed right on the paper was the answer: lawn mowers.
MARGARET: You lost me, Frank.
FRANK: Lawn mowers, Margaret. That's what this war is all about. The smell of fresh-cut grass on a hot summer's day; girls with straight, white teeth; freckle-faced kids in striped T-shirts.
MARGARET: Oh, Frank, when you talk like that, l-I could . . .
FRANK: May I give the bride a peck on the beak?
MARGARET: I don't think it would weaken the war effort.
Here’s the opening, in case you don’t want to click on the link:
“The U.S. is riven by politics and race and religion and foreign policy and the economy. But one constant unites nearly all warring demographics: fast food, America’s highly imperfect, deep-fried North Star.”
Frank Burns could probably come up with some ludicrous reasons why it’s lawn mowers and straight-teethed girls the Korean War was fought for. Just as Chandler can see a nation “riven” by so many slashes and arrows being bound together by chicken nuggets.
But yanno, I think he’s looking at the world through a cracked and crooked lens.
Yes, there are problems in this nation.
And yet there are many examples where politics, race, religion, foreign policy, the economy – and probably even lawnmowers – are uniting forces.
I look at Troop 1010 as one example. We’ve got six girls of different backgrounds and faiths working together. They may not necessarily see eye to eye on anything ranging from religion to lawnmowers, but they are moving toward a common goal.
I see many quiet acts being done by people of different faiths, of different religions, working together to make things better. And those efforts may well indeed involve chicken nuggets, but it’s not the grease in the deep fryer that unites them.
Anyhoo, this isn’t a deep dive into anything that would get me into The Atlantic. I just thought the juxtaposition of chicken nuggets and lawn mowers was funny.
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