A sound article by one of the BBC's best, Justin Webb. It highlights the growing divide between America and Europe, and the way in which America is happy to have the nastiness of reality airbrushed away, while Europe confronts the reality of the world. If walking into Borders, America would be found in the fiction section, and Europe in non-fiction. (Here is a post about this seemingly random classification.)
A number of the points made ring true. I love the fact that in the BBC article, Webb doesn't feel the need to explain the Heathrow/Windsor Castle example further. (Note to self: must try this one out.) The point about censorship is a good one, and the furore caused by Janet Jackson's right breast last February is another great example of this. As I wrote some time back, the US coverage of the tsunami seemed to miss the point. (Not sure at what point tsunami earned itself a capital T, btw.)
I was on a train a few weeks back, which wended its way through small-town New Jersey. As we pulled into the station of one such small town, I counted twelve tank-esque vehicles in a row on the parallel thoroughfare, all stationary, queuing to get into the town. This wasn't a highway - this was a small road linking houses with the town. I wasn't close enough to spot whether each SUV was carrying one or more uniform-clad children.
The non-signing of the Kyoto agreement is perhaps the saddest example of America's unwillingness to confront reality. I remember Clarkson's (Jeremy, not Kelly) laughter at the lunacy of the fact that he could get the Hummer he was testing to give a 1 mpg read-out on the dashboard. America has more cars than people, and given the size of the people, the cars are necessarily big (and inefficient). Meanwhile, people seem to have no qualms at buildings spewing forth smoke of an unsightly colour.
If none of the above convinces you to read the article, it contains the word smite, which is reason in itself. Through lack of thinking more than anything, I have always failed to notice the connection between smite and smitten, such is the rarity with which the former is used.
Monday marks Presidents' Day. As is the norm with US holidays, every store in the land will be holding a sale in commemoration. However, this surprisingly grammar-aware nation seems to be in disagreement as to how many presidents we are remembering. Some are having a President's Day sale, while others a Presidents' Day sale. I prefer the latter, as there is a risk with the former of thinking of George W. Either way, I will be working.
