In typical xenophobic fashion, thousands of Americans who routinely peruse The Spoof site, scratched their collective heads today over dozens of stories dedicated to a certain Shilpa Shetty.
Allowing for a limited curiosity about things outside of U.S. borders, Yankee readers quickly moved on to topics that captured their attention. Catchwords such as "spork", "diapers", "Anna Nicole", or "Bible" riveted able American readers, but the effort involved in googling Shilpa Shetty to discern who she/he/it might be presented an extraordinary impediment.
Relying rather on the traditional American method of acquiring knowledge, U.S. readers made inferences based on pictures and title words. The name Shilpa Shetty has been paired recently with pictures of Tony Blair, an ape, boxing gloves, a camera, and an English bobby.
Apt American readers have concluded that Shetty must be:
1. the Paris Hilton of the U.K.
2. a Nobel prize winning scientist
3. not associated in any way with Anna Nicole Smith
4. a member of the Bush Cabinet, possibly Secretary of the Treasury or maybe Defense because something happened to that Rumsfeld guy.
Copyright 2007, K. Napolitano
