I scream... You scream...

It’s amazing just how much snack foods in this country amuse me. Although, I suppose that it’s more so the advertising campaigns that crack me. Anyway, the latest one to catch my eye is a billboard I drive by most days advertising "F-16 Ice Cream." It’s a product of Igloo Ice Cream, Pakistan and I presume that it is a patriotic, mouth-watering means of celebrating Pakistan’s purchase of old American F-16’s a few months back. That was more or less a win/win situation for the States, since they can sell off old fighter jets to jubilant Pakistanis who feel they’re buying a new line of defense against India, and then they can sell more old fighter jets to India to balance everyone out.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe ice cream shaped into long-range war machines is perfectly normal, regular practice. But since I’m presuming the "target" market is children, it makes me shake my head to see such flames fanned so early. Things with India have been looking up lately, mostly due, I suppose, to General Musharraf’s uncanny ability to contort himself and walk more tightropes than Cirque du Soleil. But a defense minded culture dies hard, and this one is rooted deeper than a sequoia. I work in the Education sector and it’s disheartening to look at such a broken system, one of the most illiterate countries in the world, and see the defense budget stand beside the education budget like a watermelon beside a grape. Of course, this is hardly a local problem, it happens the world over. The American education system is sliding by the hour, although I hear that no child is being left behind.

Of course, things over here are a whole different story. A drive to the airport will take you past the air force block where the wall facing the road declares in large, black letters: "Prepare any strength you can to muster against them." Besides the fact that I think that they could have worded that a bit better, I find the pure desperation of sentiment quite unnerving. Against who? Against THEM. Oh right… Them. I wonder if this force they’re looking to muster will include kids with F-16 Ice Cream on sticks.

Whoa, I got a little beyond ice cream there. Anyway, to sum up, there is a billboard, it has jet-fighter shaped ice-cream zooming around, and it’s funny… and frightening… and sad.