So, that’s what he meant.

Kikuchiyo’s site would be worth blogrolling for the translations alone. Here’s a sample from his take on a David Brooks article on suburbs (which was, truth be told, just the tiniest bit pretentious):

BROOKS: These criticisms don’t get suburbia right. They don’t get America right. The criticisms tend to come enshrouded in predictions of decline or cultural catastrophe. Yet somehow imperial decline never comes, and the social catastrophe never materializes. American standards of living surpassed those in Europe around 1740. For more than 260 years, in other words, Americans have been rich, money-mad, vulgar, materialistic and complacent people. And yet somehow America became and continues to be the most powerful nation on earth and the most productive. Religion flourishes. Universities flourish. Crime rates drop, teen pregnancy declines, teen-suicide rates fall, along with divorce rates. Despite all the problems that plague this country, social healing takes place. If we’re so great, can we really be that shallow?

KIKUCHIYO: Whhooo Hoo! Boo-ya! Take that, you European sissy ninny little snivel-nosed welfare state suckers! I’ve got three words for ya, baby: standards of fu****g living. Go ahead and sit there feeling superior in your Godless, stagnant societies, fretting about how you’ll manage to keep your society together when despondency and the decay of the social fabric have left generations of people unwilling to breed to propagate your pathetic species! Yes! We’ll be over here having a big gulp and some burgers while the rights-deprived workers you import to pay for your lavish social schemes slowly plunge your society into crime, teen pregnancy, divorce, and suicide. Ha! We’re not shallow, we’re just smart. We realized this: no matter what your professor tells you, if you want to be rich and happy, you elect Republicans. Damn straight. Hell, we’ll even let you guys have George Bush once we’re done with him, just to give you a chance.

BROOKS: Americans — seemingly bland, ordinary Americans — often have a remarkably tenuous grip on reality. Under the seeming superficiality of suburban American life, there is an imaginative fire that animates Americans and propels us to work so hard, move so much and leap so wantonly.

KIKUCHIYO: Oh, I forgot something back there: you’ll also have to be delusional. And you’ll need this fish in your ear.

Of course, I have a somewhat quirky sense of humor – but I can’t read these translations at work, lest I start laughing like a loon. Well worth checking out.