Air Force Academy
 

a friend of mine at the academy shares my views that America is slowly but surely getting closer to melting down the statue of liberty to make a costume for lady gaga, and a loudspeaker for charlie sheen. his deadline to committing to years of service in defense of the country is coming up quick. morally, i'm with him: if you dont believe in what you're fighting for, dont fight for it. he's kind of dumb though when it comes to looking down the line at where to live, where to work, how to complete college (which is pretty much a basic requirement now). if i were him i would stay. WWTFPD?

Depends....can he gain a marketable skill in the AF? A buddy of mine graduated from AFA....poised to make millions with the skills he's learned from the Air Force.

If he's well-suited to the organization, I say go for it. It would be a shame for someone to walk away from a good opportunity based on how he feels about American pop culture.

Here's the way to look at it: despite what you see happening around you, the right thing to do is be sincere.

Lada Gaga has sold some 13 million albums and over 51 million singles worldwide. Sheen's Two and a Half Men ended at 14 million viewers. The 2011 Oscars garnered 37.6 million viewers.

The population of the U.S. is pushing 309 million.

Keep things in perspective. Pop culture gets a lot of noise, but not everyone is listening.

America isn't all Gaga Sheen.

America produces a lot of things worth defending. For example, David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel The Pale King is being published this year, just three years after his death. Beyond that, you're looking at various medical, scientific, and technological innovations and discoveries. For example, I'm sure the members of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography are doing wonderful work. Beyond that, you have things that go unnoticed underneath the glam, glitz, and noise of the things in America that tend to represent the country disproportionately.