American Tax Dollars At Work

Just when you'd begun to imagine that the collective and menacing stupidity of Congress couldn't propagate itself any faster, it is now reported that the cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," a culinary rebuke of France, stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq.

"This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," noted Hee Haw posterboy Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration, stated in such an abstruse and formidable disintegration of rational thought he was left weak-knee'd and lying face-first in pool of cafeteria grease.

Ney, the modern day Plato whose omnipotent committee has authority over the mighty House cafeterias and sends pastry chefs and fry cooks alike trembling with terror and awe, directed the change, after colleague Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, joining in the french fry polemic, circulated a letter suggesting such a move.

In order to put the intellectual capacity of Walter Jones in perspective, note that he was previously honored as a "Friend of the Family" by the Christian Coalition and The "Best and Brightest" recognition for earning consecutive, perfect 100% ratings by the American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest conservative lobbyist union. If anyone is an expert on the danger of something as perilous as the naming of House cafeteria food, it would be Walter Jones.

The saddest aspect of this intransigent act is that these hillbillies don't even know that these dangerous potato things weren't "French" fries until 1918 or so. American soldiers stationed in France gobbled up fried potatoes. They dubbed them "French fries" and liked them so much they wanted to have them at home, too. Of course, at the time, those American soldiers had no idea what kind of traitorous, sniveling backstabbers the French would turn out to be.

Of course, in good food tradition, the French claim to be the inventors of our beloved fries: they originated in Paris on the Pont Neuf (fries are still called like that in the chique French restaurants) somewhere in the middle of the 19th century. As with most "French" inventions, they forgot to note the name of the inventor and they are still searching for proof. As we will see later, even the word "French Fries" has nothing to do with the French.

Pictures and texts proof that fries were all around our country in the second half of the 19th century. The oldest written proof is dated 1862 and mentions a certain Fritz and the widow Descamps as owners of a fry stand on the Liège 'kermis'. In 1891 a picture of both stands was taken.

Jo Gerard, a famous Belgian historian, claims to have proof that fries were invented in the region of the Meuse in 1680. Based on an unpublished document, he writes that the poor inhabitants of this region ate mostly fish. When the river frooze, they cut their potatous in a fish-shape and fried them.

But none of this really matters. The point is, french fries has the word "french" in it and we all know what cowardly, terrorist-loving, bootlickers the French are. We also know that this kind vulgar thinking can only be punishable by the most extreme measures. There is only so much God can do in one day. While he is busy keeping Dubya's enormous intellect occupied, and inventing freedom and democracy for the world, it is honorable men of great acumen and sound reason like Mssrs. Ney and Jones who keep this country safe at night and the good people of North Carolina and Ohio should get our hearty thanks for spawning such honorable patriots.