Third Avenue

With friends like these...

Is the American right wing imploding? In a word, no. But it's in a very sorry state at the moment. It's looking ever more likely that the Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives this November, and may even lose their hold on the Senate. And the knives, it seems, are already out. It's the season for what one conservative called 'pre-criminations'.

Just a taste. Here is what Dick Armey, former Republican leader of the House said recently about James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, one of the US's leading conservative groups:

Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There is a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools... These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic.

Ouch.

Beware ignoring Yahoo

This one is doing the rounds of cinemas here. And I rather like it.

Financial District, Manhattan, 19 October

Devotion to the grave and beyond

Being passionate about sports has never been my thing. And being in a country where the sports are all alien makes my disconnect even greater.

But some people really do take their sports with deadly seriousness. Take this item from the Aberdeen News in South Dakota:

Many crazed baseball fans have said they would die for a championship. But are they willing to take that devotion to the grave? Major League Baseball and a company that makes funeral products will soon find out just how many fans want to be decked out for all eternity in tribute to their team.

Starting next season, fans of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will be able to have their ashes put in an urn or head six feet under in a casket emblazoned with their team colors and insignia.

The article goes on:

Eternal Image, based in Farmington Hills, Mich., also makes a line of Vatican-themed products. Chief executive Clint Mytych said the company "wanted to break into a sports venue of some kind," and baseball is "the all-American sport."

He said he has received at least 1,000 inquiries since June.

Susan Goodenow, an MLB spokeswoman, said the league and clubs have received requests for several years for urns and caskets with team logos.

How long before it's Wayne Rooney at a crematorium near you?

Understanding Britain

On the whole, I'm not a fan of pundits who take one story (usually a bad one), and from this extrapolate to say 'this is Britain'. It's lazy and patronising.

But not being wholly devoid of lazy and patronising tendencies, I'll indulge in a bit of generalising myself. Yesterday saw the handing-in at 10 Downing Street of the UK's biggest ever petition. That it was about keeping open post offices in rural areas speaks volume about Britain and the British.

Minnewaska State Park, New York, 15 October

Republicans, Democrats, and the 'tide'

You can't listen to more than a few minutes of the US news media these days without hearing speculation about whether the 'tide' will appear this November. No, not some strange meteorological phenomenon, but a voter tide to sweep away over a decade of Republican Congressional dominance in Washington. Recent polls put the Democrats anything up to an astonishing 21 points ahead.

In just over three weeks, Americans elect their entire House of Representatives, as well as a third of seats to the Senate. The Democrats start with an inbuilt disadvantage, both in terms of money, and in terms of what is quaintly called here 'redistricting', or what the more cynical/honest might name gerrymandering. So even if they win the popular vote handsomely, they could still fail to regain Congress. And the Republicans could well see a last minute surge. But it seems beyond doubt that the American public have fallen seriously out of love with the current party of power.

Where has it gone wrong for Republicans? Probably the singe main reason is Iraq, which continues to dominate the news here much more than it does back in Britain. But there are other issues that form a troubling background for the Grand Old Party as it is known, issues that have chimed with the American public and on which the Republicans found themselves on the wrong side of the argument. There is a sense that the Republican party has lost the knack of understanding the American public.

For me, as an outside observer living in the States, the first sign of this shift was the 2005 case in Florida of Terri Schiavo, the woman in a persistent vegetative state in whose case Congress tried, and failed, to intervene. This story was almost uniformly misreported in the UK - where it was seen, wrongly, as a debate about euthanasia. In reality, it was a debate about the role of families, individuals, and the government. Congress sought to deprive families of their right to take the most intimate and personal decisions and instead put these decisions in the hands of agents of the state. Not surprisingly, Americans rejected such a proposal overwhelmingly.

In the Schiavo case, Republicans showed themselves to have misunderstood their own people - a damning indictment for any party. They have never really regained their poise since. This November just might see the people land a knock-out punch.

Sheep Meadow, Manhattan, 13 October

Who decides UK policy?

There is much talk in the UK and here in the States about today's Daily Mail interview with General Sir Richard Dannatt, in which he said that the British military presence in Iraq is making things worse (although he rather qualified these comments this morning on the Today programme).

In the melee surrounding this story, I came across this truly astonishing statement from No 10 Downing Street. Asked about the general's statements, the Prime Minister's spokesman said that the UK:

did not want to be in Iraq any more than we had to be, but the people who decided that in the end was the Iraqi Government [my emphasis]

Can this be right? Has the UK government now delegated its own military deployment policy totally and utterly to a foreign government? Do parliament, ministers, the Prime Minister, the British public now have zero say in whether British soldiers continue to fight on foreign soil? If true, this statement seems to me an astounding admission.

Homesickness

It is a well know fact that the British are suckers for tradition. And being away from home for long periods, I begin to really miss those little familiar ebbs and flows of British life that mark the changing seasons. Those things that give life continuity, certainty, and a feeling of rootedness.

So it is now that, as the leaves begin to fall in Central Park, I miss some classic British autumnal traditions. One of the main one is being able to moan about how early the Christmas decorations are put up in shops. The joy of being able to complain to one's loved ones that 'Boots is even earlier this year' is only truly appreciated by those who miss it. Here in the States, tradition dictates that, for the most part, the shops put their decorations up after Thanksgiving, ie, in late November. Where's the fun in that?

Of course, the British cannot keep this moan up for more than a week or two, when this tradition is superseded by another, just as delicious. This is that great British habit of complaining that Christmas is about to be banned. Words like 'Winterval' become common currency, and PC councils up and down the land are chastised for seeking to outlaw the nation's greatest fun-fest. Again, the States cannot really compete: Americans have long abandoned the use of Christmas in favour of the anodyne 'holidays'. Civilisation has not collapsed. Well, not completely anyway.

Given that the British have been bemoaning the ever earlier arrival of Christmas decorations and the imminent prohibition of the same festival for as long as I can remember (which is quite a long time), one would think that by now the decorations would be up in February and that mention of the nativity would be punishable by at least 20 years' hard labour. That neither event has come to pass does not stop the Brits from honouring the great tradition of moaning that such evantualities are inevitable.

Good for them. Britain is, after all, the home of irony.