Searching through my news feed to see what is going on in the world of Pizza and I am increasingly disgusted that the ‘Pizza Rat’ is still showing up from time to time in the news feed. When the video of the pizza rat first came out last year I simply shook my head, assuming that it must have been a slow news day. It was a video of a New York City rat carrying a slice of pizza. Okay, maybe this was a desperate attempt at internet fame from someone that has far too much time on their hands and who gets excited about the mundane. But then, the story kept showing up, again and again in the news feed.  Why? Why did anyone on the planet care about a rat carrying a slice of pizza? Then came Halloween and low and behold there were pizza rat costumes.  Seriously, who in their right mind would spend money on a costume of a pizza-carrying rat? It seemed Americans really were somehow entertained by this mindless video.  Since then there have been other equally lame ‘internet fads’ which have surfaced, claiming to be the next pizza rat…there was the pizza squirrel, a squirrel sitting on a tree branch eating pizza, and now I see in my feed today, “Snow rat unseats pizza rat as the coolest rodent in NYC” It is a video of a rat walking through the snow and climbing into the wheel well of a tire. Yes, that is all. And it made the news. I nearly shouted at my computer screen “You stupid idiots!” Why is this in the news?? I can’t be the only one questioning the stupidity of this. Then it occurs to me that folks out there really must give a damn. The same folks who walk through life with blindfolds on, eating their processed foods, drinking their mountain dews and sitting in their lazy-boys watching sports. Yes, it must be these Americans, who truly don’t question the news-worthiness of a rodent walking through snow. They are mindless sheep who have exchanged the pursuit of knowledge with the pursuit of entertainment. What has America come to?

Let’s go back fifty years. Americans worked hard. They took pride in what they did. They carried themselves respectfully. Never would a New York City rat make the news. Never.  The dumbing down of America has reached an all-time low. The sad thing is I am sure it will get worse.