"When you look out at this, does it look like home?" Rachel asked a few weeks ago as the long dark blue First Great Western train sped across the rolling fields of Somerset toward London."What, England?" I asked."Britain," she said. "Does it look like home to you? It does to me. I look at it and I just get that excited feeling that I am home.""Yeah, I guess it looks like home. It doesn't not look like home, " I said, looking out the window and remembering a scene in Geraint V. Jones' Zen, when the main character is being driven through southwestern Wales and he wonders to himself that he has never in his life seen anything like it. But the character is from England and had served in Northern Ireland -- bullshit he hadn't seen anything like it. I suppose it's possible to live in Britain...
Exhaustion is the predominant feeling. There is the physical exhaustion of not really having slept for two days. I was up well into Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and then up at 6 a.m. on Wednesday to take part in its "American Breakfast" -- an hour and a half of drinking tea with a fellow American and a Welsh historian, occasionally breaking to tell Garry Owen that this is pretty awesome.But there is also the emotional exhaustion of having had my head swimming in this and fretting in this for too long. And the emotional exhaustion of knowing that this is actually the easy part. The United States needs root change; Obama and the Democrats will have limited time to enact that change and will need to work outside party lines to achieve it.I pointed out on radio today that the last time the...
As I write this, polling stations in the United States' east coast are opening and millions of people are queuing to take part in what feels to be the most important election of my lifetime.There is the historical element, of course. If the polls are right, the United States will elect its first black leader and we can say once again that the American dream is fulfilled. Few histories are more tragic and painful than that of blacks in America. As a white middle-class kid from the suburbs I won't be so condescending as to pretend to be able to fully comprehend that history or how it feels to carry it around. I also won't suggest that the election of a skinny mixed-race fella from Illinois ties it all up in a neat bow.I can remember from my own childhood seeing the "whites only" water...
"Black Rain" by Ben Harper I apologise that I have become more and more brazen in breaking my loosely-adhered-to rule of remaining apolitical -- the latest evidence being the Barack Obama badge over there on the right.If you are one of those people who occasionally stumbles upon my posts several months after the fact -- reading this subsequent to the 2008 election -- you'll see that I have since removed the badge, so here it is in the body of the post just for you:There is something about a presidential election that causes my behaviour to become more and more erratic. I fail to heed the advice of Public Enemy and I believe the hype. I start to think that this really may be our last chance (a) and I get sick in worrying that we'll blow it.Since the beginning, the rhetoric of the Obama...
All U Can Eat - Ben Folds The other day I was talking to Rachel about a girl we both know who is, for all intents and purposes, a self-serving, out of touch, ignorant, morally ambiguous bitch. But see, she's pretty. And I have this terrible habit of wanting to be an apologist for pretty girls' unacceptable behaviour because, you know, they're pretty.So I stumbled upon something that I referred to as pretty girl syndrome, which is the wavering internal compass that guides this particular pretty girl, as well as several others I know. For those pretty girls reading, I'm not saying that every pretty girl is like this, just that it is a behaviour endemic of your kind (a).As a pretty girl said female has spent her life encountering (and gravitating toward) weak-willed souls such as myself who...
Apparently using the well-established metaphor (a) of "lipstick on a pig" is a direct attack on Sarah Palin, who we all know is the only woman in America who wears lipstick. So, I've been trying to think of other clichés, metaphors and similes that should be avoided.That dog won't huntFamously one of Bill Clinton's favourites, this is clearly an assault on Sarah Palin, who we all know is an avid hunter. Nevermind that Spally Six Guns compared herself to a pitbull, how dare we cal her a dog! And of course we all know what a female dog is called.A stitch in time saves nineSexist! By referring to an activity that is so often associated with women, Obama would be suggesting that Spally has no place in the upper echelons of American power. Clearly it's a suggestion that Spally's place is in...
Interesting video piece from The Guardian that talks to a U.S. Medevac crew member in Afghanistan.Most poignant moment comes at 2:05 when he makes a verbal mistake which probably gives away more about the challenges he faces than anything else he says. The other things he says are pretty poignant as well. Something else I noticed is that patter style of speech: he's not fully talking to the camera, he's allowing the images in his head to spill out at their own rhythm -- trying to expel...
Andrew Sullivan’s mad collapse continues. Today, he writes:
Here’s a fascinating glimpse into how the rest of the world is reacting to the Sarah Palin selection. It’s from a classic and peerless British weekly radio panel discussion show, called “Any Questions.”
Bea Campbell:
Let’s imagine that governor Palin was indeed a man. He wouldn’t be interesting. He’d be [...]...
Where if you support Israel you are called anti-Semitic, where promoting sharia law means you support cultural diversity, where you attack a successful working mother and a pregnant teenage mother and you call yourself a feminist and where you degrade an infant with special needs and are convinced this means you care.
Ghost of a Flea, [...]...
“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”
“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy. The other kills her own food.”...
Let’s put aside for the moment Sullivan’s recent hurricane of innuendo. Let’s look just at his weirdness today:
[John] Edwards was a national figure …Palin has been several time zones away in the Alaskan wilderness
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, A New Paradigm?
Is Andy really trying to insinuate Palin’s unreadiness because of geography? Such an early adopter...
John McCain's Mr. Sniffles Strategy appears to be functioning perfectly. About two months ago, The Daily Show's John Oliver suggested that McCain's main campaigning tactic was to garner pity. And I have to say it's working. I genuinely feel bad for the man. The wheels haven't just come off, the engine has caught on fire and the whole thing has been pushed off the side of a mountain. And then attacked by wolves.Spally Six-Guns is pretty much everything that a Democrat could hope for in a Republican vice presidential candidate. Crazy? Check. Questionable? Check. Duplicitous? Check. It's kind of sad. If John McCain had simply run as John McCain he would be a serious threat to Obama. Barack's message of change could be countered by McCain's maverick image. Many of those people who pushed...
"(Michelle Obama) must prove she loves America, as opposed to Republicans, who everyone knows love America -- they just hate half the people living in it." -- Jon Stewart (The Daily Show: August 26,...
Via Justin Webb, there's a mildly interesting survey on Britons' attitudes toward Americans. The survey was commissioned by what appears to be a nutjob pro-USA website. The question I have is why it matters what Britons think.I mean, sure, on a person-to-person level it matters. I don't really enjoy it when someone looks me in the face and tells me that they hate Americans, but is it really necessary to commission a survey to prove them wrong? And it's not like the average American's perceptions of the rest of the world are any more informed. The other night, the child bride spent several minutes on the phone trying to explain to her father that we in Britain are not watching NBC's coverage of the Olympics.But there you are. The thing I found mildly interesting was the perception that...
One of the things that is always missed in talking about the Hurricane Katrina debacle is the fact that for many of the people who live in hurricane-prone areas, these storms are, in fact, lots of fun. Take a look at this video of preparations for Hurricane Dolly near where most of my extended family lives and you'll see that people from the Gulf Coast of Texas respond to deadly storms by jumping into the ocean. I have never felt so much regional pride (a). My cousin, Josh, is in their midst. You can see him in his shirtless glory at 00:45 in the video. Is he panicking? Is he fleeing? No, he's surfing."Intense," he says. "That's the one word I got for it. You're out there, it's like a washing machine."On a side note, I hate Josh. Look at him. Strapping young fella. Bastard. Why didn't I...
As we’re off to Denver shortly for a tour of the … what do you call the area … the Southwestern States? The Mountain States? Well, anyway, we’re probably going to be taking in bits of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
A couple of years ago two black bears ran right past us...
On my first evening in California, I was stopped by a police car - or highway patrol car, or whatever - for shooting a stop sign. But as John Staddon observes in The Atlantic Monthly,
Consider the stop sign. It seems innocuous enough; we do need to stop from time to time. But think about...
Is there another country that plays with its national anthem as much as the United States? I was thinking about this on Wednesday night as I watched Kelly Rowland meander and "ooh, ooh, woo" her way through the Star-Spangled Banner before the England v. USA friendly. It is apparently musically sinful for American artists to perform the anthem straight. I realise that the United States prides itself on being a creatively ambitious country, but all that "huh, whuh, whoa" stuff makes it difficult for people to sing along, which is kind of what you'd like to do before an international match. But it did manage to make Wembley feel more like an American sporting event, complete with random booing. As soon as England fans were able to determine that it was indeed the U.S. national anthem that...
British people are often fond of levelling completely unfounded accusations against other peoples (a). One that I've heard from time to time is that Americans are too soft on their political figures, refusing to satire them in anything more than a loving way. Here's a clip that goes against that: (a) They also claim that we are incapable of irony -- such as the irony of someone from the United States criticising an entire island of people for their perceived-by-him tendency to criticise large groups of...
"Like much of America these days, the airline industry feels tired, worn down, and old. That is surprising in a country that often likes to think of itself as the best. Arguably, it once was, but the airline industry - like the health system, like schools, roads - you name it, feels like it is just creaking along and leaving its passengers ever more...
A young girl expresses the sentiment of many to GW...
Hooray, the U.S. economy is going to shit and taking the world down with it. It's about damn time we had a good 'ol fashioned global recession. Ideally, on this end of the water they'll elect a Conservative to office and he'll destroy... uhm... I'm not sure what's left to destroy. Perhaps he could somehow make the trains in Wales be older.And moustaches would come back. Me and Mr. Phin are...
Here's a strange but generally true fact about Americans: We don't like it when you ask us who we're voting for."That can't possibly be true," you're saying. Americans post signs in their front yards, they slap bumper stickers on their cars, they wear T-shirts and badges and hats with the name of their chosen candidate gaudily emblazoned on them. They spend hour after hour after hour consuming incessant political coverage and writing MISPELED ALL CAPZ RANTING on internet message boards.But, see, no one's asking them to do that.Despite all evidence to the contrary, Americans like to think that we are somehow above the political fray. So it is traditionally bad form to ask an American point blank who he or she will vote for. You are asking him or her to pick sides. You are asking him or her...
Found on the BBC's Have Your Say forum:"Bush + Clinton + Bush + Clinton =...
A few weeks ago, I came up with the brilliant money-making scheme of trying to set myself up as a Welsh-language pundit for the upcoming U.S. election. At first I thought to pitch the idea to Barn, but I already write for them, so I know they haven't got any money. Then I thought I might take back the mean things I've said about Y Byd's total and embarrassing incompetence, and try to work myself into their good graces in time for their March launch date. But then they "revised" their launch date again -- because they are totally and embarrassingly incompetent. (a)The BBC might throw me on the radio in a pinch, I thought, but my strange fanatical devotion to the Beeb means I would want to actually prepare. I don't have the time or energy to be a legitimate pundit. Especially considering...
Huw's recent story of arriving in the United States reminded me of one of my favourite immigration experiences, from the happy pre-9/11 days when Americans didn't fear having to come into their own country.It used to be the case that a driver's license was all a U.S. citizen needed to get into or out of either Mexico or Canada. Crossing the border was a simple act of walking through a maze of scary barbed-wire fences, self-consciously fixing your hair when you saw the sign that said "YOU ARE BEING FILMED," and then showing your driver's license to a member of the always helpful U.S. Border Patrol. The officers were more nightclub bouncers than anything else, sitting on little stools and half-heartedly analyzing people's licences to check that they weren't fakes.In the San Ysidro...
The other day I was watching Samantha Bee's "Daily Show" report on whether America is ready for a female president, and the thing that struck me was the fact that all the news orginizations were asking the same question in pretty much the same way, and how stupid this was.Bee did a good job of pointing out the stupidity of the question by responding to it with stupidity (the best part in her report is when the feminist talking head breaks in mid-sentence to help Bee choose a blouse), but when you think about it, even the phrasing of the question is stupid.By asking, "Is America ready for a woman president?" the question suggests that a woman president is a bad thing. Almost always when the phrase "Is America ready for..." is used, it is followed by something bad: "Is America ready for...
When I worked in local television news one of the things I hated most were health reports. More often than not, they were shockingly uninformative and the only reason the newscast carried them is because they were sponsored. In America's free press, the sponsor is king.This video might not make any sense to international viewers, or indeed anyone who hasn't spent several years working (read: "suffering") in American local media, but Adam and my dad will get it, and blogging is all about targeting a narrow audience.Were it real, of course, this report would be twice as long and even more useless. And because it would be sponsored we would drop actual news to ensure that it aired: "Oops. The show's running heavy, I'm going to axe this stuff about the crumbling American economy to make...
Twelve points down and only five minutes left -- why did we take a penalty kick over kicking for touch and attempting a try? My only guess is that the USA knew it was going to lose and decided that a nine-point loss was better than a 12-point loss.As it happens, we only lost by four. The 25-21 final score is respectable but not what I think the USA was capable of. They didn't seem to start playing rugby until the second half. As usual, we suffered from a lack of experienced players and intelligent strategy (why did Ngwenya not get the ball more?). The USA seems to split between playing a game designed for two types of team -- a power team and an endurance team. It is neither at the moment. It's frustrating because our next and final match is against South Africa and only the most deluded...
I am presently watching the USA lose to Samoa and I am in a rage. Why do we even show up to this fucking thing? I've been thinking about this a lot over the World Cup. There are so many minnow teams who have to break their backs and their bank accounts just to attend a World Cup, only to get thrashed by a bunch of pro teams. I realise that there is a certain poetic justice to the USA getting slammed around in international competition, but you have to wonder: what's the...
