This Sunday edition of “Prickly City" by Scott Stantis (24 Feb 08) features our canine hero, the scraggly yellow mutt, Winslow. The first panel shows Winslow airborne, holding onto the handlebars of a red, flame-spewing jug on his back. “Jet Packs!” a disembodied voice exclaims. The second frame has Winslow shoveling a large spoonful of ice cream and syrup from a large goopy concoction into his greedy mouth. “Must eat dessert first!” exclaims the bodiless voice. Next, three humans are dancing next to a disco ball: “Disco Mondays!” Then we see a black and white photo of a young blond female, framed in an oval of green labeled “Britney”: “Celebrities on our money!” Now a row of surly cats is standing upright behind a barbed-wire fence: “Cats in Gitmo!”
Wide-eyed, dazed and expectant faces belonging to reporters are gazing up. The disembodied voice to the side says, “Hey, you asked …”. And finally, the voice is given a body: Winslow’s eyes are visible over the top of a podium on the front of which is a presidential-campaign-style placard reading WINSLOW ’08 – HE HAS A DREAM. Winslow: “THAT’S my dream for America.”
The American Dream is perhaps the essence of what people agree is good about the United States. But its contents must be regularly examined, culled and added to. Winslow’s dream of what he wants for America is perhaps somewhat narrow, petty, and self-serving. As might be many of our notions of The American Dream. It might serve our canine well to examine the contents of his dream from a broader perspective, rather than just from the myopia of his own personal interests, and revise them. Similarly, it might serve us all to look at what we really think the American Dream consists of. While we all might like to suck up gallons of ice cream and revel in junk culture, perhaps this is rather a flimsy national ideal. We need to constantly re-think our notions of the American Dream, to have it be broader in space, time and content. Our ideals must be grand and encompassing, rather than doggish tiny, selfish and of a nature that excludes and restricts others. The American Dream, like all dreams, must be continuously tested against reality, to ensure that one person's dream does not become another person's nightmare.