Tag Archives: America

True urban legends

This American Life recently had a show about urban legends that might be true. The second segment, about things foreigners believe about America, was particularly poignant. It talked about the things that foreigners are told happen in America, that they can’t actually believe are true.

Partly the problem is the media. My experience is that many people in Europe believe that America is the way they see it in movies and TV shows–at least as far as crime and violence are concerned.

Violent crime does happen, of course. In Cambridge MA, there was a shooting at a store not too far from our house one night. We were leaving a restaurant. We didn’t hear or see the crime, but immediately afterwards there was a police presence like a scene from The Blues Brothers: half a dozen squad cars, cops on mountain bikes combing the park, and even a police helicopter with a searchlight.

However, it’s also the case that when my family first visited us there, the neighborhood kids were playing on the street, running in and out of houses whose doors were unlocked. That’s the other side of the story, the white picket fences and little Jimmy playing baseball in the park, and people seem less willing to believe that part.

There were some things I believed were myths. One was cheerleaders. I’d seen the depictions of cheerleaders in everything from “Heathers” to TV sitcoms, and I’d assumed that it was a ridiculous caricature like something out of “Little Britain”. Then on my emigration flight, I found myself sat in the middle of a group of cheerleaders who were returning from a trip to Europe. They were very excited to be going home, noisy throughout the flight, and cheered the plane down to a landing.

Another thing I assumed was artistic exaggeration was steam coming out of manholes in the middle of the street. You’ve seen it in any number of movies: it’s a hot day in the city, people are wiping the sweat off their brows, and the camera cuts to a steaming manhole cover. Well, that happens too–in places like Cambridge, there are old power stations which pump their “waste” steam to nearby businesses to use for heating. When it’s hot and the steam isn’t used, valves blow off the excess through vent holes.

Fourth of July

A friend from New Zealand celebrated her first 4th of July as a new US Citizen by throwing a big "white trash" themed 4th of July barbecue. Having completed 10 years of US residence in January, I’d been considering throwing a red, white and blue stars-and-stripes overkill party, but events had conspired against it. So when the invite to the barbecue arrived, we said "Hell yeah!" Continue reading →

What Century is this?

Washington Post :

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn’t pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

[...]

Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama’s face on Seifert’s T-shirt and said: "He’s a half-breed and he’s a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

Stay classy, America!

Obesity and climate change

BBC news:

Obesity needs to be tackled in the same way as climate change, a top nutritional scientist has said.

In that case, let me get my soapbox…

You know, there is absolutely no proof that people are getting fatter. Sure, there are fat people around, but that’s just part of the long term historical trend towards people being better fed.

The occasional truly fat person is just a statistical blip. You’d expect to see a few around. That doesn’t mean there’s some sort of country-wide fattening.

Remember back in the 1970s and 80s when people were talking about “Live Aid” and the like? Back then, the big danger was getting thinner–and now they want us to forget about that and believe that the big danger is getting fatter! Hah!

There’s no proof that eating Big Macs makes you fat. Scientists are still undecided. There are a lot of possible alternative explanations. There’s no causal link, it might just be that fat people prefer the taste of Big Macs.

There’s a well-funded health industry conspiring to plant stories in the media suggesting that being obese and sedentary is bad for you, so that they can make more money selling diet aids and exercise equipment.

We can’t afford to do anything about obesity. If we did what the lunatic fringe wants, we’d destroy the fast food industry, Hershey’s, the TV and couch industries, and so on. We’d send America into another recession!

…the Aristocrats?

“There was a transvestite whose privates were covered with tape who crouched on all fours in a kiddie pool of glitter and stuck a lit sparkler in his bum while America the Beautiful played. There was an overweight stripper who pretended to eat a bunch of dollar bills, then left nothing to the imagination as to the results of the digestion of such a meal. The next performer came out, picked up the string of bills onstage and waved it under his nose.”

–report on Duke University Sex Workers Art Show

10 years

I have now lived in the USA for 10 years.

Or, another way of putting it is that rothko and I have been together for 10 years, which is statistically far more unusual.

My continuing to live here doesn’t surprise me. When I left the UK, I had in my mind that if things went well, it would be a permanent move. Still, this seems like a time for reflection, so I’m going to try to reflect. Watch this space.

More Ron Paul facts

Ron Paul will make the IRS deductible.

When Ron Paul tables a motion, it stays tabled.

Ron Paul’s farts can defeat any filibuster.

Ron Paul will disband NATO and defend America in hand-to-hand combat.

Ron Paul doesn’t believe in separation of church and state, because god is always asking him for advice.

As a gynecologist, Ron Paul learned how to make aborted fetuses spontaneously gestate in his bare hands.

Staggering hypocrisy from Google

Google press release:

We recognize the impact that our operations have on the Earth’s climate, and are taking steps to ensure that we are carbon neutral by the end of 2007.

Solving climate change won’t be simple, and there won’t be a single solution that addresses the entire problem at once. We all need to act together to meet the challenge – from the largest corporations and governments to individual households.

Meanwhile in the New York Times:

In the annals of perks enjoyed by America’s corporate executives, the founders of Google may have set a new standard: an uncrowded, federally managed runway for their private jet that is only a few minutes’ drive from their offices.

The Google founders, according to one of their own Google maps, will spend just 7 minutes to get from their offices to the NASA airport where their jet is parked. As the crow flies, the airfield is only 1.7 miles away.

For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets used by top Google executives, on Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA that is generally closed to private aircraft.

We all need to act together to meet the challenge, eh?

What’s the betting that Google don’t include Larry and Sergey’s burning 5 tons of jet fuel per hour in their “carbon neutral” calculations?

Iraq^Hn

Text from a memo found in terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s hide-out:

As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance [...]

In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iran or between America and the Shi’a in general.

[...] We have noticed that the best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance [...]

Sometimes you have to wonder whose side the US government is on.