President of the board

This presidential election has been an eye opener for me. This is my 1st US Presidential election in the US, previously I have only seen them from afar and with a Eurocentric viewpoint (Wellsy you may have an MSc but I can use big words like the best of them). What is has caught my attention is how the term socialism is banded around here.

John McCain is very fond of claiming that Obama is a closet socialist. The reason for this is that apparently Obama wants to “spread the wealth”. McCain by the way does the air quotes around spread the wealth, which always reminds me of a Billy Connolly piece but more about that at a later date. The way that McCain spits out the word you would think he was saying pig f**ker instead of socialism.

Socialism has a bad rap in the US, and if someone is a socialist then they are akin to a communist, are not to be trusted and are somehow anti-American. Now I know that socialism is not always the most popular way of governing in Europe and that The Labour Party are no longer really a socialist party, but I think most people would agree that it is a viable option of government. They may have personal problems with it, but it is not anti-British to be a socialist. With all this said and with McCain’s increasing desperate attacks on Obama’s perceived socialism it is interesting that the US government has just gone against everything it stands for (free-trade, non-government intervention) to bail out the banks in this current economic crisis. John McCain supported this, but he refuses to accept that it is socialism, but the reality is that the US has nationalized the banks.

A similar issue came about when some of McCain’s supporters claimed that Obama was a Muslim. McCain had the decency to tell them they were plain wrong, but the intriguing part is what does it matter if he is a Muslim? America prides itself on being free of a state religion but in actuality you need to be a Christian to become President.

The good news from all of this is the election is next Tuesday.

It All Depends

In the last 2 days I have been tripped up by the language difference between the US and the UK. The 1st wasn’t technically a language difference but a product name in a joke. The joke went like this, “John McCain was asked whether he wears boxers or briefs, and he replied ‘Depends’.” I had to get Jen to explain the joke to me. Depends are a type of rubber pants for adults who have incontinence. Once I had the joke explained I understood it and gave a little chuckle.

The 2nd instance was a colleague of mine offering to give me a ride. A ride here is perfectly acceptable terminology for giving someone a lift. So whilst in the UK I would offer to give someone a lift to Sainsbury’s (I was going to say the gym but I wanted this to be a realistic example), here I would offer to give them a ride to Safeway. Ride does not have the same sexual connotation as it does in the UK.

Picture of Emma

So I forgot to post a picture of Emma, so here she is - quite the young lady now.

I want to be elected

Election fever has kicked up a few notches here. The TV is full of ads for every conceivable elected position, the post is full of fliers and pamphlets for the candidates and the evening news is full of claims and counter claims.

The presidential debates are over, with the consensus seeming to be that neither candidate delivered a killer blow. What did strike me during those debates was that lying seems to be a legitimate tactic. At various times it seemed that John McCain was just making things up and when challenged he would smile that smug look of his and then just make the claim again 10 minutes later. Obama was at least a bit more subtle about it, but he did it on a couple of occasions.

The election is just over a week away, and things are looking close. Obama seems to have a healthy lead in the opinion polls, but the polls here are not a great indication of the voter’s intentions. There is also the question of racism and how important it will be when someone is in the quiet of the booth. After all no-one will know how an individual voted. And finally there is the quirk of the US electoral system to judge. In 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote, but failed to carry the Electoral College vote. The projections I have seen have both candidates very close on Electoral College votes and the election being decided by a few key states.

The strangest thing of all though is that the election gets “called” by TV Networks. There is a rush to try and be the 1st one to call each state, and often the states are called even before the polls have closed, or immediately after. The votes have not even been counted and one of the networks will call the vote for one or the other of the candidates. In 2000 the networks called Florida for Gore and then had to change that call as the votes were counted. This year with such a close race it will be interesting to see what happens.

And one of the whole family (minus Emma)

A fun day in the park.

Picture

So I have been putting a lot of pictures up on Facebook - but if Facebook isn't your thing (or you have 200 friends - Monge you popular bastard) here are some pictures of my charming girls to marvel at.

Back in Black

It’s been a while. Ok it’s been a long long time. 3 kids is tough. Work has been busy and I am just plain lazy. I am not going to make any promises about daily or even weekly updates (although I could make some weak updates!), but I will try and keep the blog more up to date.

So where to start, well my parents and brother came to visit. Sammy is 6 months old. Emma is in 1st grade and learning to read and Ellie is entering the terrible 2’s. At work I have been the supervisor of our intern and a high-school student, which has been interesting to say the least. And we are closing in on the US Presidential elections.

Oh and I turn 33 next week – eek!

More of substance in the next few weeks.