C'mon Dancing Bear, Shake It!

It was a bad century in Mother Russia or Schenectady and the circus was the only public fun the people could enjoy because the stocks and the pillory and the dunking stool had been taken away. (Well, okay, Russia never had these things, they only had ritual horse draggings but its the same deal.) Anyway as I say, it was a bad century and the villagers, the noble rustics needed all the diversions they could get. That’s why when the circus came to town no one stayed home. Not even the crippled people were kept away. They were wheeled in or, in some instances they were carried aloft like lumber but in any event all were given seats.   

Is good the people get dancing bear, is good they see brutish creature perform ballet. It makes even the most besotted think about their lot.

God bless Smolensk or Schenectady.

Yes it was a bad century especially for the bears.

Compare and contrast this vulgar circus with the declining hours of your own small town newspapers.

Today’s online version of the dying local press allows the noble rustics to throw dung and horse chestnuts at their neighbors who of course are guilty of public intoxication or shop lifting.

The villagers write blog responses to these things. Their contempt knows no bounds.

The dancing bear was pulled over for DUI and his picture is under the headline.

“Whoa!”  writes the first blogger. “Dancing bear looks just like all the other village idiots. Thank god we now have our own village idiot here in Lone Tree or Horseheads  or Dumas which is NOT pronounced “dumb ass”.”

This is just the beginning. Vulgarity Fair is just getting started.

“Dancing bear looks like my neighbor except for the shrunken head.”

“Dancing bear is soooo obviously un-American. He was drinking foreign beer!”

“He looks almost as bad as he smells.”

“Did he have pants on when they pulled him over?”

“Dancing bears don’t wear pants in this country you moron.”

“I told you the dancing bear was French.”

 

Meanwhile, out behind the local high school there’s a toxic dump left over from the late 19th century when there was a boot blacking factory that later became a battery acid factory and now as they dig a fiber optic cable trench the pcbs are leaching into the drinking water but the Picayune isn’t following that story for indeed as the dying newspaper’s editors well know, you’ll never find a dancing bear among pcbs. No one reads that stuff.

 

S.K.