Reasons to be Cheerful

Richard Stipl - The Sleep of Reason (2002)

• Elephants painted red in protest of poverty
• The price of petrol to propel our machines past the next election
• The colour of democracy red or blue
• The smell of your money in a virtual bank
• That steak hacked from the back of a mechanical cow, sacred no longer
• Battery hens that light up your meal
• e-coli; salmonella; flesh-eating burger
• The twinkling eye of your neighbourhood dealer
• GlaxoSmithKlineWelcomePfizerViagra
• Aborting the foetus of rapist paternity
• Racist legislation parading as virtue
• Cannon-fodder ghettos for the war on terra
• Sniffing the glue that holds us together
• DNA codes on the edge of whatever
• Drinking the juice from forbidden fruit
• Chastising children for stepping on cracks
• Pontificating Pontiff falling in line
• Hollywood activist saving the world
• The second (and healthier) coming of Ronald MacDonald
• The morality of Christian capitalism
• The morality Judeo expansionism
• The mobilisation of religious armies
• The yellow peril
• The poverty of culture in the face of the dollar
• The face on the dollar
• 24 things on television tonight
• Propaganda parading as entertainment (you know what I’m talking about Jack Bouer)
• Soap operas teaching our children to live
• Coronation Street corner preachers care in the community
• The small print on contracts with the devil
• The bar code on your soul
• The bar room philosopher who always knows better
• The armchair philosopher with a head full of butter
• The future
• The past
• The state of the nation
• You and me
• Alienation