U.S.A.
Man, do we ever miss listening to the C.B.C. Those are comforting, balanced and informed voices. The commercial radio stations in the USA give only a brief glimpse of current affairs - they can sum up a massacre in two sentences. This news is sandwiched between seemingly endless tracks of 70’s music (today we heard the same Peter Frampton song each of the four times we changed stations as we drove up the coast).
We’ve tried Public Radio. When you can find it, PBS offers a service very similar to CBC, but they have to conduct pledge drives. They need to raise money from “listeners like you,” and if you phone in with a pledge of a hundred dollars they will send you a woolly ski hat. The begging goes on and on.
When we find talk radio, the show’s hosts certainly don’t leave you wondering what they think. This description of Dick Chaney (Bush’s Vice President) made we polite Canadians blush - they called him a “fat, pork-chop sucking, war criminal.” Imus, the Radio personality who used those words, hated George W, but seemed particularly against Dick. “You can tell he’s lying because his lips are moving.” When he continued on to describe of one of his co-hosts as a “scrotum faced bigot” we stopped listening.
Election time is approaching quickly and we are told daily that the polls are showing the candidates are in a dead heat. The republican supporters of G.W. Bush may be around but they aren’t that vocal in the areas we are. The Democrats seem frantic that they must not loose the election again. For every one Bush bumper sticker we see (we saw one on the back of a Porsche convertible) – we see ten for the Democrats
“More trees - less Bush.”
“Yee-Ha is not a foreign policy.”
It’s become a pastime of ours looking at the back of cars. Most American cars have some kind of ribbon sticker applied to them. This began with the simple yellow ribbon ‘support our troops’ and expanded. One car we saw had three ribbons. Their black ribbon signified the death or injury of a soldier.
I wandered into a feminist bookstore in Provincetown – the eclectic community at the tip of Cape Cod. Outside the store there was a punching bag printed with George Bush’s face – and an invitation to use it.
“We can live without W in this world, don’t you think?” a tall man wearing a stylish tweed dress and suede pumps was chatting to the manager of the store. “t,u,v,x,y,z. - sounds perfectly fine to me.”
I wonder what JFK would think. He is for sure Cape Cod’s most famous resident. We drove past the Kennedy compound and got a glimpse through the hedge of a huge lawn and a large white home. Just down the road is the Kennedy Memorial. There is also a Kennedy museum in town. When we toured there, JFK’s voice was in every room as his speeches were continually replayed. One speech was very familiar - the “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” I expected it to end there – however – there is a second part:
“Citizens of the world, ask not what America can do for you; Ask how we may work together to make the world a better place.” (I apologise this isn’t a word perfect quote …)
Speaking of Museums we have visited a couple of them lately. We have taken particular note of their displays on the war of 1812 – Britain (Canada) vs. USA. We studied the display at Bunker Hill in Boston.
“I am looking at this, but I don’t get it.” I said to Jim. “Didn’t Canada win the battle at Bunker Hill – didn’t they win the war?”
“That’s what they taught me at school,” he replied.
For trivia buffs – why is the White House white? During the war of 1812, Canadians came down to Washington and burnt their seat of government. After the torching, the Americans white washed the building to hide the fire damage – hence the name the ’White House’.
Perhaps the burning of the White House prompted this quote from a US Senator at the time:
“Considering her (Briton/Canada’s) deadly and implacable enmity and her continued hostility, I shall never die contented until I see her expulsion from North America and her territories incorporated with the United States.”
The USA didn’t manage to take over Canada, though at times it still looks intent on it. Canada and the US manage to keep somewhat distinct. Look at the messages on licence plates. In Canada we have ‘Friendly Manitoba’. In New Hampshire they have ‘Live Free or Die”.
Financially, things in the US also seem a lot different than in Canada.
“The further south we go, it seems the more money that the rich people have,” Jim noted. The furthest south we went was Newport Rhode Island. There we took a tour of one of the Vanderbilt’s summer ‘Cottages’. This ocean-side mansion had large grounds and gardens, polished marble columns, gold inlay on the furniture and the walls, frescos on the ceilings – we continually shook our heads at the excesses of it all.
So, now we are back in Canada – the land of CBC and expensive wine. We move into our new place on November 1.
posted by Michelle & Jim Wiebe at 2:04 p.m.
