Holiday Travel: The good, and the (really) bad

Best part about a trip to D.C. this weekend: Frontier Airlines, which rocked my world. Brand new planes, actually friendly crew, DirecTV (albeit for $5) in the TV mounted to the back of every seat, and fairly comfy accommodations. I can't say enough for Frontier--they did a great job, and this is spoken by someone who HATES to fly. The downside is that you have to fly through Denver for every flight, but if you are making a cross country trip, you should check them out.

The worst part wasn't a "I got in a traffic jam and arrived late for my flight" kind of worst, but rather a "I saw something that spoke volumes to me about the almost literal fall and decline of the United States, so long as we continue to allow moronic cretins the opportunity to inflict their astounding bad taste and dreadful stupidity on the rest of us" kind of worst. It was a t-shirt worn by a woman in the Denver airport, who, I might add, was in the process of screaming at her five kids as they stood in line at McDonald's. And that shirt said "Jesus God 'Er Done." Exactly. I stood their, mouth open, staring at this shirt--it was that horrifying. Not even the lovely Filet-O-Fish sandwich in my hand was enough to calm my nerves. (Although the gin and tonic I inhaled on the next leg of my flight did actually help.)

Question: why is it that the people who feel the need to broadcast their religious affiliation are always the last people who ought to be doing so? There are plenty of peaceful, compassionate religious types out there, so why do I never round the corner at the airport and bump into some kindly Quaker wearing a "I believe in peace and sustainable living" shirt? (The answer to that question, incidentally, is not "because that's a lame shirt and nobody would buy it.") No, it's always some jackass idiot wearing a barely-thought-out rip-off of a slogan from some hick comedian. Do other cultures have this? Are there people in the, say, Islamic world who would contemplate wearing some absurd mis-quotation of the Koran--or, to remain consistent, some Islamic version of a rip-off of the trademark line from some bad comedian in, like, Yemen?-- to make a hilarious point about the strength of their own faith? I doubt it. So we do we? Worst. Superpower. Ever.