Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 08:52:47 -0800 WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? Aristotle: To actualize its potential. Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained. Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas. Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD! Noam Chomsky: The chicken didn't exactly cross the road. As of 1994, something like 99.8% of all US chickens reaching maturity that year, had spent 82% of their lives in confinement. The living conditions in most chicken coops break every international law ever written, and some, particularly the ones for chickens bound for slaughter, border on inhumane. My point is, they had no chance to cross the road (unless you count the ride to the supermarket). Even if one or two have crossed roads for whatever reason, most never get a chance. Of course, this is not what we are told. Instead, we see chickens happily dancing around on Sesame Street and Foster Farms commercials where chickens are not only crossing roads, but driving trucks (incidentally, Foster Farms is owned by the same people who own the Foster Freeze chain, a subsidiary of the dairy industry). Anyway, ... (Chomsky continues for 32 pages. For the full text of his answer, contact Odonian Press) Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out. Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take. Douglas Adams: Forty-two. Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you. Oliver North: National Security was at stake. B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will. Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being. Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road," and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence. Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. Aristotle: To actualize its potential. Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature. Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence. Salvador Dali: The Fish. Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees. Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death. Epicurus: For fun. Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it. Johann Friedrich von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it. Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain. Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast. David Hume: Out of custom and habit. Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. Jack Nicholson: 'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason. Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road? Ronald Reagan: I forget. John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity. The Sphinx: You tell me. Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life. Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Katherine McKinnon: Because, in this patriarchial state, for the last four centuries, men have applied their principles of justice in determining how chickens should be cared for, their language has demeaned the identity of the chicken, their technonogy and trucks have decided how and where chickens will be distributed, their science has become the basis for what chickens eat, their sense of humor has provided the framework for this joke, their art and film have given us our perception of chicken life, their lust for flesh has has made the chicken the most consumned animal in the US, and their legal system has left the chicken with no other recourse. Stephen Jay Gould: It is possible that there is a sociobiological explanation for it, but we have been deluged in recent years with sociobiological stories despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about the genetics of behavior, and we do not know how to obtain it for the specific behaviors that figure most prominently in sociobiological speculation. Joseph Stalin: I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omlette. Malcom X: It was coming home to roost. > >Dr. Seuss: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a > toad? > Yes the chicken crossed the road, but why it cross it, > I've not been told! > >O.J.: It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time. > >Freud: The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the > road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity. > >Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be >free to > cross roads without having their motives called > into question. > >Grandpa: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the > road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the > road, and that was good enough for us. > >Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will > both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, though when > it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999. > >Albert Camus: It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning > except to him. > >The Bible: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the > chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken > crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing. > >Colonel Sanders: I missed one? > >Fox Mulder: It was a government conspiracy. > >Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken >nature. > >Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally > selected in such a way that they are now genetically > dispositioned to cross roads. > >Darwin #2: It was the logical next step after coming down from the > trees. > >Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't > anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken > doing walking around all over the place anyway?" > >The Pope: That is only for God to know. > >Richard M. Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the > chicken did not cross the road. > >Oliver Stone: The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the > road?" but is rather "Who was crossing the road at > the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to > observe the chicken crossing?" > >John Locke: Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty. > >Louis Farrakhan: The road, you will see, represents the black man. > The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample > him and keep him down. > >George Orwell: Because the government had fooled him into Thinking > that he was crossing the road of his own free will, > when he was really only serving their interests. > >Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we > were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.