sparrow chat

It’s often not easy being what is colloquially known as an ‘ex-pat’. After seven years in America I’m no nearer being ‘an American’, but neither can I honestly say I’m still totally British. I occasionally joke with my lovely American wife that I belong somewhere round about the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.

‘Twilight’ is another ex-pat Brit. She often comments on Sparrow Chat. Recently she celebrated five years living in the U.S. and wrote about it on her own blog, “Learning Curve On The Elliptic”.^[1]

What she had to say resonated with me and I began to compose a comment. It grew rather long, so I turned it into a post:

You can read on blogs a lot of stuff that resonates, but this post resonated with me more than most; probably because it’s at a very personal level. My seventh anniversary of emulating Columbus ocurred a month before your 5th, on September 18th.

In many ways I believe you’ve adjusted to U.S. life far better than I, even taking the plunge into citizenship – an act that earned my sincere admiration. After all, having been through the trauma of the US Customs and Immigration Dept, I knew exactly the hassles entailed.

I began to hate America very quickly, partly because it stood for so much I despised, but also as a prison from which I knew I could probably never again fully escape.

That hatred has now dissipated. Like you, I’ve grown accustomed to ‘upside-down’ light switches and driving on the passenger side. Dogged British stubbornness still prevents me calling the car boot a ‘trunk’, and a tap a ‘faucet’, though thankfully I stopped telling my schoolkids to ‘stay on the pavement till the bus arrives’, before any of them suffered a nasty accident.

Arriving plum in the middle of the American Heartlands, inside the Bible Belt, and on the edge of Tornado Alley, probably didn’t help me to settle. If the U.S. ever requires an enema I’m convinced it’s in this area they’ll insert the catheter.

Perhaps the circumstance creating my greatest unrest in those early years was the American reaction to 9/11/2001. It was exactly one year and one week after the attacks that I moved here. The plethora of flags, stickers, and vomit-inducing patriotism that greeted my arrival almost caused an about turn while still on the tarmac at O’Hare Airport.

Seven years later, it has subsided to a degree. Even America can’t keep its emotions fully charged indefinitely, despite the best political efforts to do so.

I’ve made five return visits to England. This summer was the first time I didn’t feel the need to go. Of course, I still have aging parents living there, and a daughter and grandson, but the British have never been quite so potty over family ties as their American cousins, and the telephone is a great substitute, given the inevitable upheaval and drama of Chicago’s O’Hare.

I no longer call Britain ‘home’, but something prevents a final surrender to ‘being American’. I still can’t bring myself to fill out the forms for citizenship. I never needed to pledge allegiance to the Union Flag to be British, and I’m damned if I’ll do it to be American. It’s that dogged British stubborness again.

In a comment on Sparrow Chat (October 23rd), you wrote:

“It’s so comforting for me to come here to read, and find that someone else, of similar background, sees things the way I do. We can’t both be wrong – can we?”

No, Twilight, we’re not both wrong. We’re able to see things about the U.S. that Americans are too close to focus on. They can only see the trees, we get a good view of the whole wood.

Finally, let me assure you the comfort is reciprocal. When the going gets especially tough, it’s usually “Learning Curve…” that helps me re-stabilize myself to American life; knowing I’m not the only Brit struggling to adapt to this strange and often disturbing land.

Here’s to the next………however many years?

^{[1] “Remembering A Life Change” Learning Curve On The Elliptic, October 25th 2009}

Filed under: Rolling stones

Posted under Sparrow Chat

I recently underwent a routine medical examination as required by my work. The technician who did the initial tests was a boy about seventeen or eighteen years old. He told me he was studying medicine and doing his “pre-med” at the clinic.

He was a pleasant, intelligent, young man eager to hear about Britain and what had brought me to America so relatively late in life.

Eventually, the subject came around to health care. I asked him his views on the issues presently occupying the media and politicians.

“Oh, I don’t agree with the President,” he responded, quickly, “I think his ideas are too much towards socialism.”

“What’s wrong with socialism?” I asked.

“But, this is a capitalist country,” he responded, somewhat hesitantly, “Here, everyone has the chance to make something of their lives, rather than the government running everything.”

“Not everyone has the opportunity to do well,” I said. “What about the poor people in America who can’t afford private healthcare insurance?”

“But they bring it on themselves,” he replied, “they’d rather sit back and do nothing. It’s their own fault, isn’t it?”

“Capitalism can’t make everyone well off. By it’s nature, it relies on large numbers of consumers to provide an upward flow of money to the relatively few wealthy people at the top. Because money is constantly flowing up the prosperity pyramid, away from those at the bottom, they’re denied the opportunities available to the better off – including the chance to become better off themselves. Doesn’t that make it society’s fault, rather than their own?”

The young man pondered my argument. “I’m not sure. You’ve seen a lot more of life than I. I’m still very young.”

“At least,” I said, “should those in need not have the right to basic medical care when they require it?”

“Well, I’m a Christian, so I suppose I should care about everyone……”

Hmmm…” I said, “I’m not. But since coming to America I’ve been puzzled as to why I do care about everyone, but this nation – that calls itself so Christian – doesn’t.”

At that moment, the doctor appeared who was to continue the examination. I left the young man to his pondering.

Indoctrination is a powerful tool. When utilized on a national scale its effects are impressive, not only on the ill-educated and unintelligent, but across the whole spectrum of population. This boy was well-educated and highly intelligent, but my few simple statements left him perplexed, battling the thought processes injected into his brain from the time he began kindergarten.

When I was his age, I was living in a country still reeling from the effects of Hitler’s military might. The inner cities had been blown apart and no-one was left in any doubt who was to blame for the poverty and degradation that resulted from it.

The government of the day had no option but to invest in vast programs of social and economic rebuilding. Out of it all arose the British National Health Service.

In 1946, no-one could accuse the poverty-stricken and downtrodden British of “sitting back and doing nothing”, “bringing it on themselves”, or, of it being “their fault”. One only had to look around at the devastation, the bomb-sites, the derelict buildings, to realize the fault lay squarely on Mister Hitler’s shoulders.

Is that what it will take to convince Americans that their less well-off neighbors are not necessarily ‘bumming’ off the state; that the million or so who die from lack of healthcare every year do not make that choice of their own free will?

America has never endured a modern war on its soil. Let’s hope it never will. Does human life always have to become intolerable on a vast scale before any good arises from that suffering? It would seem so, for only suffering on such a scale will force us to truly think.

Nursery, grade, high school, university – all supposed seats of American learning, yet in today’s modern society they’re utilized primarily for little more than the political indoctrination of the next generation.

Until we radically alter our education system so it helps our children to think for themselves, instead of systematically ejaculating preconceived ideals into their innocent, virginal, minds we will neither improve the society we live in, nor secure a stable and peaceful future for our species.

Filed under: Brainwashing the kids

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Joyful news! I believe I’ve finally found a church that suits me.

I just love the Amazing Grace Baptist Church of Canton, North Carolina. They have all the best ideas, and the greatest of all is planned to take place this very Halloween. They’re having an enormous bonfire and they’re going to burn – Bibles.

Here’s a quote from their website:

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible………”

Isn’t that brilliant? At last, a church that is prepared to burn the Bible. Now that’s an establishment I can get along with.

And they’re not going to stop there:

We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contempory Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.”

Yes! Thank you, God – let it all go up in flames. Well, perhaps save a bit of jazz, but definitely incinerate that bloody contemporary Christian rubbish. Oh, please!

And there’s more –

We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.”

Oh, please – please, let me throw all the “Left Behind” books on the bonfire, and anything written by the Pope, Dobson, Billy Graham, or any of the other nutters. Just watch those sparks fly!

But…hang on, what’s this? It says here they’ll not be burning the King James Version, or……

……Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.”^[1]

Oh, come on, guys, you may as well include them as well; you know, make a real night of it?

No?

Darn! Just for while there, I thought I’d found a purpose-driven life.

^{[1] “Amazing Grace Baptist Church Book Burning” Grand Halloween Event}

^{NOTE: Owing, no doubt, to a counterattack by evil Papist forces, the above link appears to have been sabotaged. For the purpose of substantiation only, please use THIS ONE.}

Filed under: Saints preserve us!

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Two totally different news stories caught my eye this week. The first illustrates the total lunacy of America’s obsession with guns. Readers will, no doubt, remember the furore created when mother-of-three, Meleanie Hain, from Pennsylvania turned up at her kids’ football game toting a 9mm Glock handgun in a holster strapped to her waist.

Quite what Mrs Hain expected to achieve by this act of egotistical mania one can only imagine, but the chickens came home to roost with a vengeance this week when husband, Scott Hain, shot his wife to death and then turned the gun on himself.^[1]

The irresponsibility of both adults was compounded by the gun battle occurring while all three of the Hain’s children were in the house. Thankfully, they weren’t physically harmed. Needless to say, they are now orphans.

This incident is yet another example, if it were needed, of the crass stupidity and immaturity of America’s National Rifle Association, which has long campaigned for the carrying of firearms to be legalized, under their infamous and grossly inaccurate slogan: ‘Guns Save Lives’.

Perhaps a more appropriate aphorism might be: ‘He Who Lives By The Gun Shall Perish By The Gun’.

The announcement from Norway this week that US President Barack Obama was to receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize came as something of a surprise to many people.

The bewilderment is obvious. This prestigious award is invariably given for achievement, and while many would not question his good intentions, Obama’s efforts towards peace in the world have, as yet, borne little or no fruit. Indeed, if good intention is sufficient to satisfy the wise men of Norway, there are many of us on this planet qualified to wear Alfred Nobel’s gold medal around our necks.

We must, however, have some sympathy for those who have to make these decisions. In today’s violent world it cannot always be easy to find a suitable recipient. If, however, Obama succumbs to the demands of his top Afghanistan adviser, General Stanley McChrystal, and deploys a further 40,000 US troops to that country, then the argument that he is unworthy of the peace prize becomes more tenable.^[2]

To be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize one must be aware that winning wars is not about peace. Peace is only achieved by avoiding them.

Perhaps, after all, it’s time to consign all prestigious awards to the garbage cans of history. Once, they held a certain aura of dignity, but today’s awards are often based more on ‘prizes for the boys’ rather than genuine achievement.

Nowhere was this more obvious than in New York recently when British Prime Minister, and inept politician, Gordon Brown, was awarded the title, ‘Statesman of the Year’, by a little known Jewish organization calling itself the ‘Appeal of Conscience Foundation’.^[3]

The Foundation hails as one its star members, perhaps the greatest US war criminal ever, Henry Alfred Kissinger.

Kissinger was also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1973. An award that caused the well-known musical satirist, Tom Lehrer, to remark:

“Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize.”

^{[1] “Gun-Toting Pa. Soccer Mom, Husband Found Dead” KIROTV.Com, October 7/8th 2009}

^{[2] “Why does McChrystal need more troops for Afghanistan?” CSM, September 21st 2009}

^{[3] “Brown World Statesman of the Year” Channel 4 News, September 23rd 2009}

Filed under: Passing Clouds

Posted under Sparrow Chat

It not easy to find anything worth writing about these days. If the US citizenry are unable to comprehend the dubious caliber of those they vote into office, even when political corruption jumps out in front of them with the violence of an asteroid striking the planet, then there’s little point wasting my time writing about it.

The political media, whether blogs, newspapers, or TV, are abrim with the despicable behavior of political figures performing top-notch impressions of sleazy, back-street, alley cats. Why, then, should I wear my fingers to the bone bashing out more of the same?

American readers possibly will not comprehend the next few paragraphs; culture may get in the way – but a few days ago, wearing the super-glow-right, florescent, plastic over-vest as demanded by my employer, I walked into the break room at work to be accosted by the union representative.

Did I want a super-fashionable, quilted, winter jacket, emblazoned with the company’s name and logo, to replace my old plastic vest, she asked? I could even have my name etched on the pocket, if I so desired.

After some deliberation, for my super-glow-right, florescent, plastic over-vest and I had formed something of a cozy relationship, I decided to accept the proffered jacket, and to hell with commitment.

“That’ll be just fifty dollars, then,” demanded the union rep..

Even after I, and my super-glow-right, florescent, plastic over-vest had disappeared out the door in the direction of my school bus, I could tell that not one of the Americans in the break room had the faintest idea what was causing me to laugh so loud and for so long.

I give the company fifty bucks to walk around advertising for them? My arse!

I recently met up with a friend who works down the local Social Security office. Over a drink or two, he told me a tale of the ‘BeVe button’*. Apparently, a certain button on the SSA’s computer screens, designed to bring up information on particular clients, when pressed will allocate credits to the office stats. In other words, it’ll make that office appear more efficient than it truly is. Of course, the button was never designed for that purpose, but unscrupulous office managers, wishing to ingratiate themselves with their Area Directors, have been known to issue orders to their staff demanding the button be utilized more freely for that purpose.

My friend, not himself given to cheating, was somewhat put out by the receipt of such a managerial order only that afternoon, and was happy to talk about it – once I’d plied him with half a bottle of the best from Napa Valley.

I was in Wal-Mart this morning. Around here there’s really nowhere else to shop. I always buy organic when its available and Wal-Mart had been improving its range of organic produce, until the recession hit. Today, I couldn’t find one item marked ‘organic’ in the store. Even many of the household names had gone, replaced by Wal-Mart’s own ‘Great Value’ brand.

What’s happened to all the organic food suppliers Wal-Mart has dispensed with?

Huge monopolies like Wal-Mart dictate the terms of business to thousands of producers. With one stroke of a pen they can be put out of business. The ‘climate change’ scenario is being manipulated by Wal-Mart.^[1] That company stands to make further enormous profits from global warming, but at what cost to others?

It’s little wonder the average American finds it difficult to differentiate between corruption and fair play. This country is so steeped in corruption it permeates every aspect of life.

Consequently, even when it does jump out in front them with the violence of an asteroid striking the planet, many of them scarcely notice.

Still, a report today says that is less likely to happen. According to Nasa, any chance that an asteroid called, Apophis, will collide with the Earth in 2036 has now been reduced from 45,000:1, to 250,000:1.^[2]

Which is really good news for betting shops and corrupt politicians everywhere.

^{*I believe it stands for ‘Beneficiary verification’ button.}

^{[1] “Walmart Sustainability Index Means Big Business” GreenBiz.com, September 24th 2009}

^{[2] “Asteroid collision ‘less likely’” BBC, October 8th 2009}

Filed under: Kidding the masses

Posted under Sparrow Chat