It’s quiet this morning. I wondered if a game was on, but apparently it’s not football season. Perhaps people are at church and we’re just up earlier than usual?
I have no idea when churches normally finish Sunday service in the USA. I’m told it depends on the church. This seems wrong. If there’s a British Standard for making a cup of tea, there ought to be an ANSI standard for going to church.
"We did it because of Barack Obama. He said all those people in the Midwest, you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns."
–Mark Muller, car salesman, quoted by BBC News
If you’re traveling to the US from Europe, you can enter without a prearranged visa via the Visa Waiver Program.
However, if you plan to do so, then it’s worth noting that US authorities reserve the right to put you in shackles and throw you in a jail for 10 days, based on nothing more than a "hunch".
This is not a theoretical right, it’s one they’ve happily made use of.
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.
Independent Institute article:
Newly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “…the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…”
So the US knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor. Another conspiracy theory proven thanks to the FOIA. Am I the only person who missed this news?
According to the New York Times, I can no longer think of myself as in any way middle class.
Interestingly, the US has worse social mobility than several European countries—but not worse than the UK.
I remember back in the John Major days, hearing a lot of talk about the “classless society”. A lot of people seemed to believe the US was one.
I’ve decided that it’s really time I learned US history and passed the Citizenship Test. Most intelligent Americans seem to view the test as some kind of joke, but my attitude is the same as my approach to the driving test: I don’t just want to be good enough to pass, I actually think I have a duty to go beyond that and really learn properly.
The same can’t really be said of the average American. In January of this year, Synovate conducted a random telephone survey of 1,000 US adults, with a resulting margin of error of 3%. They found that fewer than 1% of respondents could identify the rights protected by the First Amendment. On the other hand, 17% of them said it mentioned the right to drive a car, and 38% of them thought it gave you the right to “take the fifth”. Also, 21% of people thought the Constitution mentioned the right to own pets.
On the other hand, 20% of respondents could name all the members of the immediate Simpson family, which reminds me of a UK comedy sketch of years ago in which the US immigration quiz was revised to include questions that tested knowledge people actually need to know in order to fit in in the USA—like “Please sing the first verse of the Mickey Mouse Club song” and “Name three items from the McDonalds value menu”.
I have a copy of The Cartoon History of America. ‘m wondering what book to go with after that; suggestions are welcome. I’m also open to CD-ROMs, audio books, web sites, whatever. I’ve been thinking about Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C Davis as an audiobook; it seems to get slammed as “leftist” “liberal rubbish“, so it probably doesn’t just cover the politically correct history the US wants to believe.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population — the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit’s streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 (£2.95) an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush’s trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.
[...]
Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life. It also runs counter to the strong anti-government current in modern American politics.
c.f. The Onion, which makes the same point rather more briefly.
Anyone see this story in the US media?
Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq.
Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela.
No, didn’t think so.
Quote of the week:
“If you don’t violate someone’s human rights some of the time, you probably aren’t doing your job.”
—A nameless US official, explaining why it’s OK that the US has turned to torture as a method of extracting information from prisoners.
I just sent money to Amnesty International.