MUKSALAKA, Okla. — Linguist and fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy Noam Chomsky was spotted singing the national anthem at a rodeo in the Oklahoma panhandle, according to witnesses.
Barrelman Kurt Sanderson said he was standing in the arena when he saw the 82-year-old MIT professor in the third row with his right hand over his heart.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sanderson said. “I figured someone with Noam Chomsky’s stature would have other things to do on a Saturday afternoon, like get interviewed on Democracy Now or be a featured speaker at an anti-globalization summit, but there he was belting out ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”
Chomsky confessed to a local reporter that in spite of his discomfort with rural America, he’s been a huge fan of bull riding ever since he saw the movie “8 Seconds” at a Cambridge, Massachusetts alternative cinema 20 years ago.
“Bull riding epitomizes individualism and courage, and man those guys must get a lot of tail,” he said. “I’ve often daydreamed that I’m a cocksure rodeo champion with a belt buckle the size of a turkey platter and a girl at every stock show.”
“I do tend to see myself as a sort of bull rider,” he said. “But a bull rider of ideas, a swaggering academic with two big lobes in his cranium who is willing to take on the 2000-pound corporate and political beasts.”
“God bless America,” he added.
Chomsky was later observed eating a corn dog, a bowl of chili and a funnel cake drenched in powdered sugar. He was also seen buying a t-shirt that reads “Looking for Stable Gal,” which he insisted was for an anarcho-syndicalist friend who teaches at NYU and is having little success in the dating scene.