Stardate 20030219.0750

(On Screen): A restaurant in North Carolina has changed its menu. Long thin pieces of potato cooked in a deep fat frier will now be called "Freedom Fries".

Sorry, folks, but this kind of gesture is stupid. For one thing, "french fries" are called that because the process of cutting up potatoes in that way is known as "frenching". (Which is why they're "french fries", not "French fries".) But for another, that kind of symbolic gesture is useless and pointless.

I'm not a big one for pointless displays of solidarity. I don't display little ribbon icons on this web site, and its background doesn't turn black for a day. I don't drive with my headlights on for the day they say I'm supposed to. (Actually, on my car they can't be turned off, but that's beside the point.) I didn't buy a patriotic bumper sticker in October of 2001. These kinds of things are examples of how we've become addicted to the idea that doing something simple and easy and painless can solve a problem. As an engineer I know better: really tough problems almost always cost a lot to fix. The only real point to these kinds of simple gestures is that they give the people involved a warm feeling of having somehow participated. But it's a cop out; it's a way of salving your own conscience for not really making a sacrifice when one is needed.

The government of France isn't going to change its policy towards the US because one restaurant in North Carolina changed the name of its deep-fat-fried potato sticks on its menu. It wouldn't change its policy if a hundred thousand restaurants did the same thing. Let's get a grip here.

I'm afraid my generation is largely responsible for foisting this on America. The ultimate manifestation of this idiocy is "Imagine world peace", the idea that if enough people just think hard enough about something then it will magically appear without anyone actually having to do anything serious about it (like, say, fighting any wars along the way). Maybe so, but only if the tooth fairy can find time in her busy schedule to deliver it.