Tag American

Sing With Med

Michael 6 Comments
I was all set to write a light hearted, much about nothing, give serious the week off type of post when it happened again. I read the headlines. I’ve got to stay away from headlines. They invite animosity and foment divisiveness! What was the headline that’s about to set me on my latest rant? “Are Air Fryers Healthy!”
 
Ignoring the fact that I like my air fryer and for 50 of my 60-some years I considered the four food groups to be french fries, corn dogs, deep fried Snickers bars, and beer (you have to stay hydrated), the air fryer may be one of the healthiest appliances in your kitchen. Why? Because it’s an oven! Duh
 
America has to be the only country where we call things anything but what they are and honestly believe that just because we say so, it is so. Just as for instance, the entire world (the entire English speaking world) (and some parts that aren’t) calls the last letter of the English alphabet “zed.” Americans say “zee.” And do you know why? Well, come down memory lane with me.
 
Back in 1780-somethjng Wolfie Mozart penned a ditty to accompany the words to a French nursery rhyme, “Shall I Tell You Mother?” Of course it sounds better in French. Anyway, unless you are French you probably don’t know the nursery rhyme but you most certainly know the music. It’s the same tune as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and the same tune the Charles Bradlee, American, used as the music for “The Alphabet Song,” a most American phenomenon that taught little Americans their alphabet since 1835. If you’ve never heard it, the words are quite simple, they are basically the alphabet. Unfortunately the alphabet has only 28 syllables (w, remember) and the music had 14 notes remaining. Bradley filled them up with “Now I said my A B Cs, Next time won’t you sing with me.” Perhaps more unfortunately “me” does not rhyme with “zed.” No problem, he just changed the letter to “zee,” copyrighted his new work and Sesame Street had serious competition 76 years before it came to be. And you thought American arrogance was a modern phenomenon.
 
Now about that air fryer. Yes it and sir frying are healthy, or at least as healthy as baking or roasting. In other words, it, like a fryer, depends on what you put in it.
 
Tune in next week when we’ll discuss why the Department of the Interior is in charge of everything outdoors.
 
FrenchFries
 
 
 

Happy American Day

Michael Leave a comment
Happy Fourth of July! I say that as opposed to Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans because although I am certain that today is July 4 I’m not sure if we weren’t supposed to celebrate our independence yesterday, thus insuring the federal employees their well deserved three day weekend, because what good is getting a holiday off if it is a scheduled day off anyway. And as everybody knows even though Congress decided to send King George our intent to be so on this day in 1776, we really didn’t become independent from the Crown until October 19, 1781.
 
So…Happy Something! Happy Saturday if nothing else. I don’t normally post on Saturdays, in fact I think it was more than 8 years ago that I last did this but these are not normal times. This is a particularly not normal American Independence Day weekend with so many Americans taking their freedom to task as opposed to taking it for granted which would make this a particularly normal American Independence Day weekend.
 
continentalflagI can’t say with certainty so somebody please correct me if I misspeak but I feel certain that America is the only nation that qualifies its citizens. We claim we want to be equal. We protest for equality. We write letters and poorly articulated social mode posts demanding equality. And then we differentiate. We have African Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Americans, Mexican Americans. Other ethnic groups celebrate being German, Irish, or Polish American. Yet it’s only a small portion of Americans who ever lived anywhere other than America. I guess they would be American Americans. A friend of mine emigrated from Vietnam to Canada before immigrating to the U.S.. Does that make her Asian American or Canadian American? Was she an Asian Canadian before. Are there African Canadians or Scandinavian Canadians? What goes on in the rest of the world? As the son of Italian Americans here, if I relocate to my homeland in the mountains facing the Adriatic would I be an American Italian there?
 
I have a hunch the labels are mostly assigned by those outside the ethnicities to track how well they (the assigners) do something in their mind “special” for one of the assigned. Not ever having been assigned (European American is not an option) I can’t say if they (the assigned) really care much. Maybe it’s more important to be treated respectfully than being called by the “proper” term and still treated like an object to be used for effect.
 
There have been a multitude of posts on social media declaring “This Fourth of July act like an American!” It’s not a horrible idea you know. For all its faults and flaws America, actually Americans do a credible job living up to the standards envisioned 250 years ago. (Yeah, yeah, it’s only been 244. Actually its only been 239 (1781, remember) but it took a few years even back then to get up to speed.) When nobody is watching we typically do the right things. We mostly honor our families, we support the local businesses, we get out to help our neighbors who might have trouble shopping or cleaning or are just lonely. And most of us mostly do that for most anybody without checking IDs or birth certificates. Acting like an American is pretty much like acting human, like the rest of the world. So I too will say, this Fourth of July act like an American! But might I humbly suggest we act that way the other days of the year too.
 
Happy First Saturday of July!
 
 
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Acquaintancegiving

Michael 2 Comments
Sing along with me… It’s the most confusing time of the year! 
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The week before Thanksgiving – ugh. (Non-American residents please hang in there, next week we’ll be back to more universal topics.) This week the food related sites and emails are torn between last minute meal prep tips, what to do with leftover turkey tips, and Christmas cookie freezing tips. Home decor posts are split between the Thanksgiving tablescape to die for and how to make this year’s Christmas wreath out of empty aluminum soft drink cans (the new skinny 8oz. models). And editorial writers aren’t sure if they should sharpen their quills for the annual “1001 Things to Be Thankful For” column or “It’s Time to Apologize to Displaced Native Americans” missive. The only ones who seem to have a handle on the week are the merchants who will be switching headers on the sales catalogs from “Black Friday Sale!” to “Holiday Sale Spectacular!!!” (Same ad, just a different name.) 
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A new confusion, one even I missed the early signs of, are what we call this upcoming holiday. Although there had been “Days of Thanksgiving” in what would become these United States since the early 1600s, it was by a proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that the holiday we celebrate today was established. For years thereafter the President would proclaim one of the last Thursdays in November to be a “Day of Thanksgiving.” In 1941, Congress finally got around to formalizing the holiday with a resolution permanently stamping the fourth Thursday in November on future calendars as Thanksgiving Day. 
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And so it was for going on 80 years that about this time each year, people would greet one another with a jaunty “Happy Thanksgiving!” Sometime in my life, which admittedly spans more than 3/4 of those 80 years but a far smaller portion of the 300+ years since the Pilgrims made up the silent majority, people began to augment Happy Thanksgiving with phrases like Happy Turkey Day or Good Harvesting. Then in 2007 Friendsgiving reared its ugly head.
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“Thanksgiving is for families,” the argument went. “I want to celebrate my gratitude for my closest friends with my friends.” Sometimes people would actually verbalize that they liked their friends better than their families anyway. Now I am not against friends and friendship nor do I feel friends should be excluded from our celebrations, our gratitude, or our celebrations of our gratitude. In my world when we wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends we invited those friends to Thanksgiving dinner. The house was more crowded, table was a lot fuller, and not all the plates matched but we all squeezed in, gave our thanks, and proceeded to devour many pounds of food apiece. A couple of years we even tried a buffet style dinner and one particularly warm year we extended the festivities onto the back yard deck. What was important was that we all shared the wish for family and friends with the same expression of gratitude.
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By a totally unscientific review, this year that great marker of contemporary social acceptance, the Television Sitcom Holiday Special, featured more Friendsgiving celebrations than family Thanksgiving meals. I know next month the airways will be full of “Happy Holidays!” taking the place of yesteryear’s “Merry Christmas” and I’ve learned to accept that. I suffer through the growing number of Indigenous Persons Day recognitions where Columbus Day used to be and I am willing to concede Presidents Day actually exists even without ever having been recognized by any governing body outside of Madison Avenue. Valentine’s Day is for more than lovers and St. Patrick’s Day really is a test of who can drink the most green beer in a single seating. Can’t we leave just one holiday alone?
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If you’ll excuse me now, I have to make room in the refrigerator for some turkey hash, sweet potato pancakes, and green bean casserole soup. I want to be able to properly give thanks well into next week too!
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Turkey

Save for the Children

Michael Leave a comment

Way back on our first post we warned everybody that we would not be politically correct.  It takes much too much effort to worry about which word du’jour one is using to describe which group du’week.  If we’re speaking to a friend we already know what he or she wants to be called.  Usually, it’s friend.  Otherwise, we call ‘em as we see ‘em.  But, we aren’t mean, we aren’t cruel, and we don’t attack.  We’re now a bit concerned that we aren’t the only ones who find all this searching for just the proper noun tedious.  We’re not so certain we’re ready to give up solo possession of our serendipitous stance.

We recently saw on TV a promo spot for an upcoming premiere one of what cable networks pass off as reality shows.   This show is the one about the two little people who were recently married and have been struggling to have children.  Rather than give up a lucrative television career, they decide to adopt.  We might be a little bit off with that synopsis but it should be good enough so that you don’t confuse this little people couple with the other little people couple who already have a whole family of all size peoples.  We don’t think they’re on TV any more except for perhaps afternoon reruns.  But we digress. In the promo the announcer announces that these little people are ready to embark on their next life-changing voyage as they prepare to adopt a Chinese baby.  What happened to Asian?  We thought we weren’t supposed to call any of those people by whatever country from which they hail but to wrap them up into the all-encompassing “Asian” sobriquet.

But here is where we get somewhat serendipitous.  Rather than us sitting on our respective couches and having a time at what to call people, we instead became concerned for all the children who were now not going to get to be television stars.  Those are all the babies in this country who could use an adoptive home.  Could we not find room on a reality show for the reality of who knows how many children living in the same country as the little couple who also need parents?  Or has it now become politically correct to prejudicially prefer foreign orphans.

These two are probably going to make pretty good parents.  They are both well educated, well spoken, well raised individuals with good jobs and an extra gift of gab sufficient for getting themselves a TV show that follows them through their normal days.  Some unfortunate American (Asian American, African America, Austrailian American, European American, or Native American) child could do worse.  But we’ll never know since their plane has already landed on the other side of the world.

We don’t know how many children are waiting for adoption, here or there.  In researching for this post we weren’t able to uncover a consistent number.  We found many adoption services and they are all ready to talk about adopting children with special needs, about lesbians and gays adoption assistance, about the rights of foster parents after adoption, and about barriers to and remedies for minority and transracial adoption.  We found little about the children.

So while these pseudo-celebrities follow the footsteps of bona fide celebrities into the adoption arena, those close to home continue to be shuffled among foster homes, are forced to trade school appearances for court appearances, and grow up secure in the knowledge that not even little people want them. Sorry, that might not have been politically correct.

You can always tell a union member by his or her car.  It’s the one with the bumper sticker that says, “Buy American.”  Perhaps that should go for the kids also.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?