WTF America: The Squeaky Red Cog (Chapter 31)
The squeaky red cog It’s labor day in America. The day of discount mattresses. There are huge sales happening today, and I have become a man that now works these sales. Each day I’m toiling in the retail mines, loading dust covered merchandise into the carts...
WTF America: Ronald Reagan (Chapter 30)
History is not full of great men making the big decisions, it’s full of other humans doing a bunch of shit to try and make it through to tomorrow. Statistically, you never met Ronald Reagan, just like most of the supporters and lambasters of Reagan didn’t. So he morphs into this icon, this defender of our beliefs, this archetype that we can reference. He’s a common cultural landmark that we share. And that’s what presidents are – largely ineffectual figureheads.
WTF America: Coffee (Chapter 29)
Each coffee drinking American grabs their cup of joe in the morning, and pours liquid power into their veins. They’ve got shit to do son, so get the fuck out of my way, pour some of that thunderwasser into my mocha and lets get this shit done at breakneck pace.
WTF America: Hardly an ending at all (Chapter 28)
The support I’ve received for it makes me believe that this cobbled together mass of nonsense might have a shot. But we need more book before we can do that. This one’s too short, and there’s so much more America to experience. I couldn’t possible stop here, I’d be doing the country and myself a disservice.
WTF America: A Relentless Abundance of Pie (Chapter 27)
I think thanksgiving is a great idea. There’s no demand of gifts, it’s a secular holiday, and from what I’ve seen of it so far it inspires people to bring fun and generosity to the table, and to the party. I’m sure I sound a little gushy, but I don’t care – I’m amazed that the Americans I have met have been so welcoming.
WTF America: Personal Censorship (Chapter 26)
A verbal diarrhea of bumper stickers will flood its way across the table and it will begin to drip down the far side onto your brand new shoes. Their irises dilate, they grip the table with both hands, and the torrent continues unabated, filling the restaurant floor ankle deep with opinions, factoids, half baked theories, talking points, and blather blather blather. Their arms stiffen, their back arches, and they begin to turn inside out, pushing every single opinion they have out of that hole in their face.
WTF America: Fundamentally misunderstanding the problem (Chapter 25)
I’ve discussed this in the confidence chapter, the religion chapter, the working chapter. Because underneath it all, most people actually have the same problem. And that problem is fundamentally misunderstanding the problem in the first place.
WTF America: Healthcare (Chapter 24)
I feel like I’m the sort of poster child for someone that doesn’t need insurance. I don’t work in a dangerous job, I’m pretty careful, I’ve got all my fingers and toes. I’ve fallen over a few times, but I’m fairly steady on my feet. Aside from the flu, I’ve got all my shots. I’m housebroken. I’m the full package, ladies.
WTF America: Religionish (Chapter 23)
I’m not talking about the personal experience of religion by the way – you can find a way to your own personal Yahweh all the live long day, but when the institution trumps individual thinking, you’ve given up your free will, which I believe is one of the greatest things a human possesses. Free will makes you stand up and say “Hey… we’re getting fucked here, and I for one am at least a little miffed, I don’t know about you guys.”
WTF America: Another planet (Chapter 22)
o they look humanoid, but you come to the conclusion at some point that this species evolved independently from yours. It’s like when you hear about life on other planets, and there are creatures that somehow figured out how to live on sulfur instead of air, or something. It’s not quite the same. It’s like a mirror world.
WTF America: Is Arizona Insane? (Chapter 21)
By the by; the Pacific ocean doesn’t smell right to me. It smells faintly of boiled cabbage, instead of the frigid salty nature of the Atlantic in the fall. It’s odd to enjoy an entire ocean at once, but had I to pick a favourite, it would be the one that surrounded the rock.
WTF America: The warm fuzzy blanket (Chapter 20)
Maybe this is one of the main mindset difference between the Irish and the Americans. Irish people have a legacy of emigration. I have it in every living generation of my family, and a couple before that too. My ancestors went to Europe, to England, to America, to Canada. They came to Ireland from Scotland in the first place. I come from a long line of migrators. But people don’t often expatriate from America