* to demonstrate that celebrating the 4^th of July and eco-ethics aren’t mutually exclusive, the article below includes recycled parts from one and a half Yoga for Cynics posts—Yoga for Real Americans and Old Roads Rapidly Fading. Perceptive readers will no doubt figure out quickly that the jokes date back to the fall of 2008…but, alas, here in the Tea Party era, they still seem relevant*

It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.
Sarah Palin

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich Schiller

I don’t know about you, but I’ve about had it with these stuck-up elitist “yoga teachers” goin’ on about how they spent all these years “practicing yoga” and “reading books” about it.

I’ll learn yoga from a regular American like myself, not some fancy pants “intellectual,” thank you, and you betcha it won’t be somebody who says all these weird foreign words. This is America. Talk English or go do your cobra pose in Cuba or Iran or somewhere.

Lemme ask you this: when they start sayin’ all that foreign crap like surya namaskar and eka pada rajakapotasana how do you know they’re not talkin’ about terrorism?

Answer: you don’t.

You know when people started doin’ yoga here in the U.S.? The 60’s, that’s when. The hippies got into it to get all limber to take LSD, burn draft cards and act like preverts.

How do you know Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright weren’t doin’ downward facing dog while they were makin’ bombs and plottin’ how to kill decent Americans?

Answer: you don’t.

Hell, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if those folks over there in India with their weird gods and crap didn’t come up with all this stuff just to keep us busy tying ourselves into pretzels while they steal our jobs.

That’s why now I’m workin’ with my buddy Joe to come up with some real American yoga poses like:

sittinonthecouchdrinkinbeernwatchingnascarasana

getdrunknkillsomethinasana

as well as the restorative passedoutdrunkonthefloorasana.

Anybody knows any others, you be sure to let everybody know about ’em down there in the comments section.

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Note:  the above is a parody…it employs irony. Readers who don’t understand these concepts are asked to please use the links provided here before leaving a shocked and horrified comment below.

Yoga, itself one of those strange foreign words, means union. Real American yoga, then, would actually have to include all races, all genders, all sexual orientations, all cultures, all ideologies and beliefs to be found within the nation, ultimately transcending America itself to embrace all the people of the world in a deep understanding that, ultimately, there are no differences between us that are more than superficial.

Namaste, America, and have a happy and safe 4th.