Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
So I went and bought me one of them Double Down sandwiches from KFC -- because, as Stuart Mackenzie says below, you can't resist the colonel -- and it wasn't bad. Not great, but not as terrible as this New York Times food critic said it was. And though it definitely panders to our worst instincts, it's not the evil cultural portent some have made it out to be either. It's a gimmick, and it'll be forgotten soon enough. It may not even be on KFC's menu two years from now.
But this low-carb, meat-heavy creation reminded me of a thought I had while reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which spells out the ecological cost of America's meat-eating habits, about the unsustainability of the Atkins diet. America already eats far too much meat, in terms of our health and the amount of energy it takes to produce and pollution it creates. Imagine if everyone in America adopted the Atkins diet and began eating eggs and bacon for breakfast and steak for lunch and dinner. The planet would implode from the shocks to the food-supply chain. Luckily, it seems the Atkins craze is winding down, because regardless of its purpoted weight-loss benefits, it's Koyaanisqatsi, baby. It's life out of balance.
