being american

i love the television show ‘the west wing’. i don’t have cable but through aluminum foil technology i’m able to get ‘the big four’ channels. the optimist in me wants to believe that this is how the white house really is. (although i think sheen is a much better job as president than GW.) everybody is personable and quick-witted, always walking and talking with brilliant aaron sorkin style. everyone being human and caring about the real issues both big small. i wish my white house was really like that. i know it’s not.

with the recent u.s./china relations being tested, we just don’t look good. (in case some americans don’t understand this yet, get to know china, get to know india, get to know that whole side of the planet because they’re going to be important in the future. just those two countries combined outnumber us 10 to 1) people in general should smart enough to know that they aren’t always right. in fact, sometimes, they can be very wrong. ‘so what is the deal with your president?’ my foreign friends ask. ‘i have no idea’ i say, ‘i’m sorry’. we (the u.s.) do look silly sometimes both domestically and internationally. american tourists usually don’t help the image. my friend was at the american embassy in the philippines and during his wait, this guy walked in, cut the line and just started yelling and demanding attention. the local staff was courteous and was trying to address his problem. the staff was speaking to him in english but there is a heavy accent, so this guy was getting up set and said ‘i’m an american! i want to talk to somebody that speaks american!!’. what?!! what the hell is speaking ‘american’? don’t you speak ‘english’? because that’s what everybody else at the embassy is speaking. is ‘american’ a dialect that idiots speak?

ugh. i tell people i’m canadian when i travel, i even have canadian tags on my luggage and bags.

so yesterday, i got to watch the new ‘pearl harbor’ trailer in the theater, my heart skipped a beat. i bought into it hook, line and sinker. the music, the speech all sychronised to michael bay imagery made me actually say to myself ‘i am so proud to be an american’, then i immediately thought ‘this is gonna make a helluva lot of money.’.