Ramen Noodles for Every Hot Plate!

Last Friday I happened across Michael Moore on Jay Leno, and though I immediately wanted to change the channel, I held back just long enough to hear him promote his "Slacker Uprising Tour" on college campuses.

That's right. It's called the Slacker Uprising tour.

Take a few moments of quiet contemplation to meditate on that. Put on some new age music if it helps.

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Back? Did you smile? I did.

So is anyone really concerned about slackers suddenly rising up? Is anyone preparing for the coming slacker revolution? There's a reason they're called slackers, Mike. You're not exactly reaching out to a demographic known for its initiative.

Here's what Michael Moore has to say about these events:

I tell these slackers that I understand and respect why they think politicians are not worth the bother. I tell them that I may have been the original slacker, and that I do not want them to change their slacker ways. Keep sleeping 'til noon! Keep drinking beer! Stay on the sofa and watch as much TV as possible! But, please, just for me, on 11/2, I want you to leave the house and give voting a try -- just this once. The stakes this time are just too high.

If they promise me that they'll do this, I give the guys a 3-pack of new Fruit of the Loom underwear, and the women get a day's supply of Ramen noodles, the sustenance of slackers everywhere.

I then close by having them repeat the 2004 Slacker Oath: "Pick nose! Pick butt! Pick Kerry."

Even though he wears their uniform and has adopted their unshaven and generally unkempt appearance, Michael Moore doesn't really want to inspire them to become involved in the political process.To the Michael Moore Democrats, college students are just another demographic that will hopefully stuff the ballot boxes with an X for Kerry. They're just more people to be used and tossed aside afterward. "Keep sleeping til noon! Keep drinking beer! We don't want to inspire you, we just want your vote!" It's a very cynical ploy: stir up students just enough to get 'em to the local polling place, and then hope that on November 3rd they go back to being ineffective cattle, ready to be herded in the proper direction. (Leftward, we must assume.)

There's part of me that thinks slackers should be offended by the "ramen noodles and clean underwear" gimmick and the oath. ("Pick nose! Pick butt! Pick Kerry"? It's parallelism! In each case you end up with something rather disgusting!) This is what Michael Moore thinks of college students: you eat poorly and you need to change your underwear.

Slacker uprising?

C'mon, they're slackers! They're not going to rise up and stage a takeover. And so what if they do? My friend Luiz is fond of saying "So what if the meek inherit the earth? They're just a bunch of meeks! We'll take it right back." I think that applies to slackers, too.