Some Americans Abroad

Though idiots like the academic assortment of Richard Nelson's Some Americans Abroad, his 1989 satire of Yankee cultural self-loathing, may be high on Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord High Executioner's little list of those whose loss would be a distinct gain to society at large, this verbose crew would undoubtedly escape the axman's blade. After all, they have tenure. And just like, as one character argues, a life sentence with no chance of execution gives a convict the freedom to kill a prison guard without fear of harsher punishment, tenure is the desired life sentence that defends these plastic-souled elitists against the consequences of their own ignorance.