What happened to the America I know and love?

I was just reading an article about climate change. I know, I know: paint me lefty, liberal, alarmist, tree-hugging wackjob, right? Before you do that, though take a look at this. Climate change, my friends. (Mr. McCain, I will send your royalty check in the mail.)

And in that article I was reading about the myth of climate change, I saw a little nugget of information stating that China has overtaken the United States as the biggest polluter in the world. Is this the kind of country that you and I want to live in? Aren't we supposed to be #1 in all that we do? We're America, dammit! We're Number One! We're Number One! It's Not We're Number Two! There's a great responsibility that comes with being Number One in the world, and we have to live up to that responsibility. Burn some car tires; burn some styrofoam packaging; cover your trees, your children, your pets, your award-winning pumpkins in Aquanet. We need to get to #1 again.



It's bad enough that we're not the top polluter anymore, but it's even worse knowing that we're the #7 country in the world for executions! That's six countries that kill more of their own people than we do. We can do better, US government. It's high time that the citizens of this country started holding their politicians and their policies accountable. We can be number one at EVERYTHING and we should be. It's Yes We Can, people, not Maybe We Shouldn't.

We're the country of the Manhattan Project, Christmas Morning in Cambodia, and Rocky IV: The Final Chapter in The Search for Electric Spock Boogaloo . The people who accomplished those things had can-do attitudes. We need that again.

And once we get back on top of the executions and pollutions list, then we can set our aims high. Don't think you have abject poverty cornered, Zimbabwe and Haiti. We're coming on strong.

Quote of the day

"It is a dismal commentary on our failures to note that in [other countries] many of the leaders who were (and are) most vehemently anti-American, are those who were educated in the United States."

-William J. Lederer, from A Nation of Sheep (1961)

What's in a Name, really?

I am learning French. Very slowly, and very poorly from my own self-jaded outlook. I didn't embarrass myself on my recent vacation to Paris however. Primarily because, The Girl was serving as my translator: her French is tres bien. (See what I did there? I showed that I know some French! See, see? I'm sneaky like that.)

Yesterday we moved on to the lesson of countries, and how most countries have a definite article in front of them, all countries have a gender:
France is La France (Feminine) (No feminizing anti-French jokes, please)
Spain is La Espagne (Feminine)
Japan is El Japon (Masculine)
United States is Les Etats-Unis (Masculine plural)
Mexico is El Mexique (Masculine: an exception to the rule that countries ending in 'e' are feminine)

This led to a conversation this morning about how odd it was that many countries call other respective countries by an entirely different name, than what we call it ourselves, and why there wasn't a universal word for each country: each country calling each other by the same name.

Take the United States for instance.
Here, we are known as the United States.
In Spain and most Latin American countries, we are known as Los Estados Unidos.
In France, we are known as Les Etats-Units.
In Iran, we are known as The Great Satan.

I wonder what those countries call 'snow'.