Americans are funny folk. Do you know what I mean? They act all happy and that but when things don't go their way they get upset as fit and then you're asking if you can help them sort things out. I mean, can't they do their homework like we do? I know how the rest of the world feels about them.
But then you see them stoop to drop money into a charity cup or take an interest in some poor bloke who is down on his fortune and you wonder if they don't have poor people over there. Am I blind to all that? Am I the one who is too arrogant? Are we living too close to the problems we have at home to see them as clearly as the Americans do?
There was an old song I remember an American family singing one day. It was something about dancing with cheese. Or maybe the streets are made in cheese. It was a silly song but they seemed to love it. The little boy kept saying over and over again "the streets with cheese! the streets with cheese!"
America bills itself as the land of opportunity. If all the opportunity is there then what are the rest of us living with? Are we missing out on something? Don't believe me? I know it sounds a bit on the shy side of a full round but how is it that they co-opted the opportunity from the rest of the world?
History is a funny thing. If you have an army large enough you can conquer a few thousands square km and tell everyone that you have liberated them. But then you move in with your own people and put the liberated people onto special reserves. It's a bit like a game park. Is that dehumanizing? It is.
They did that in America you know. They moved all the natives to reserves just like game parks and then they said they were the land of opportunity. I know Americans don't see their world the same way we do but I wish they could. It would do us all some good to be able to see ourselves as the world perceives us.
Americans are wonderful folk in a pinch. I know that. They send aid all over the world and they spend money when they travel. But they can be so confounding sometimes I just want to shake my head and say, "Glad I'm from here not there."
