Live Strong, Die Hard

It started last summer with those yellow rubber Live Strong bracelets. Lance Armstrong dating Sheryl Crow. Dateline specials on the death of Katie Couric's husband. Within a month, every idiot on the street had bought their token of testicular approval. Obviously, they had all united behind the health of balls. No, this was not a fashion statement. This was definitely not a fashion statement.

I found myself wondering how long it took for each Live Strong bracelet to biodegrade. I imagined millions of Live Strong bracelets filling a dump the size of a football field. I imagined the fumes of millions of Live Strong bracelets as they burned. The question became, at the end of the day, do the proceeds benefiting testicular cancer from the sales of the Live Strong bracelets outweigh the cost to the environment?

A year later, Live Strong, and testicular cancer, have become, well, so last year. We have moved on, and past, the Kabala string bracelet (arguably more environmentally friendly). The pink Breast Cancer bracelet (which never quite caught on, making me wonder if people prefer yellow over pink, or balls over tits).

And just when I thought nothing could top the Live Strong craze, I began to see them. The plastic ribbon troop support car decals. We have passed a charitable line, I fear, where we support our own egos and fragile sense of morality more than any cause.

From a high point somewhere, Derrida views a junk yard of immortal rubber symbols, howling with laughter to the lull of "Live Strong: Die Hard, Live Strong: Die Hard."