Letter From America: Fourth Of July
In a firecracker flow of words, Ronnie Bray tells of what gave him cause to celebrate on America's Independence Day - then he writes of a modern-day Wyatt Earp, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who forces convicts to wear pink underwear and detains them in Pink Tent City.
Last Monday, the Fourth of July, was American Independence Day.
Funnily enough, I had reason to celebrate it. Not because I am American, nor the reason that I understand what happened in the Revolutionary War exactly as they do, but because Monday was the first day in many years that I did not receive one single piece of unsolicited commercial electronic mail - alias 'Spam' - in my inbox.
I do not, I hasten to add, refer to the rich and universally revered authentic American comestible of the same name whose fame and presence were spread universally, along with chewing gum and nylon
stockings, during World War II. Consequently, I feel to holler
"Whoopdeedoo," as Americans say to express triumph.
Saying 'Whoopdeedoo' reminds me that having lived in the USA for five years I have unconsciously adopted some terms and manners of the Americans without letting go of my Englishness. I have eaten the lotus flower, but I didn't inhale.
Some terms that I use to smooth my way through the American multicultural maze include, 'Gas' instead of 'Petrol,' 'Hi' for 'Hello,' and 'Whassup' to mean 'How the heck are you?'
Talking to young Americans of all ethnic backgrounds is particularly
satisfying because that plague upon the English language that is reflexively used to terminate otherwise standard sentences amongst English children of all backgrounds, "Init?" has not crossed the Atlantic, and I am doing nothing to inculcate it or foster its adoption in the nation with the best teeth in the world.
Before my exile, I once asked one of my charming neighbour's children what "init" meant. She said she didn't know. I advised her never to use words of whose meanings she was ignorant.
"Init," an attenuated version of "Isn't it," which is an appeal for
agreement, has become a cultural tag that identifies the untutored and careless from the cultured and caring. On the other hand, especially among schoolchildren, it has become a badge of identity with the group, even though the group is, as is often the case, wrong.
Back to Spam. Spam is one of the greatest nuisances of our time, clogging inboxes as desperate people try to earn commission by spamming millions with their identity skilfully hidden in the header code so that the company that gets the business knows to whom to pay commission.
Sometimes when I am checking out the Spam on my e-mail accounts, I become aggravated. I have no need to be aggravated these days because my Internet Service Provider filters out Spam, identifies it as such, and my e-mail programme settings delete the Spam after forwarding copies of it to my ISP and to the Federal Trades Commission.
As this is done automatically, there is no reason for me to fuss and fume, but that doesn't always stop me, especially if I am in one of my Grumpy-Old-Men moods. I can look at the deleted messages to ensure that they really are Spam before consigning them to the dark side of the Forbidden Planet. Well they have to go somewhere. They cannot simply disappear and be no more because that would contradict the incontrovertible Law of Conservation.
Wouldn't you know it? On Monday morning NASA manoeuvred a three hundred pound copper ingot into the path of Comet Tempel 1, making it collide and vaporise. The official story is that it is intended to reveal mysteries of the formation of our universe, but I believe that it is the White House's intention to see if Comet Tempel 1 will house an internment camp away from the gaze of an inquiring press and other interested and critical parties!
One interested party is Madam Marina Bai, a Russian horoscopologist who is suing NASA for the collision on the grounds that it has distorted her horoscope. She has claimed that the impact violated her "life and spiritual values." I understand her action completely, because if she had not sued, then I was seriously thinking about doing so.
The Russian courts have rejected her lawsuit. She should move to the USA where the courts will hear almost anything, and if they don't she can take it on Judge Judy's show, besides which someone will almost certainly ghost write a best seller about it, followed by a cult film about it starring the transatlantic talents of David Icke and Shirley Maclaine. Either way Marina wins, and that's the American way.
This morning while leaving the dog park with my friends it occurred to me that I could contribute to the Fourth of July celebrations by dressing up as a Redcoat, taking a position overlooking the procession, and shooting smoky blanks while shouting, "It ain't over yet!"
However, I considered the upshot of that conduct would be along the lines of being arrested by one or more of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's boys, being hauled off to Pink Tent City to wear pink underwear for the duration of my sentence and then be deported back to the Colonial headquarters.
As a lawman, Joe Arpaio is as famous as Wyatt Earp and Judge Roy Bean. He started the nation's largest Tent City for convicted inmates. More than two hundred convicts of both sexes serve their sentences in a canvas compound.
He re-instituted chain gangs that work six days a week contributing
thousands of dollars of free labour to the community. He has a male chain gang and also the world's first ever female chain gang who clean streets, paint over graffiti, and bury the poor in paupers' graves.
Arpaio doesn't pamper criminals, saying that gaols are not country clubs. Smoking, coffee, raunchy magazines, pornographic movies, and unrestricted television are forbidden in all Maricopa County jails. The average inmate's meal costs less than 20 cents.
Arpaio also instituted rehabilitation programs such as "Hard Knocks High School," which is the only accredited high school in an American jail. His ALPHA programme, one of his proudest accomplishments, helps inmates get off drugs. A high percentage of ALPHA graduates leave his jail drug-free, and sober, and rarely return re-offend.
Arpaio, known familiarly and somewhat affectionately as "Sheriff Joe," has the nation's largest volunteer posse of 3200 men and women, as adjuncts for his expanded pool of deputies. With that kind of manpower, a Redcoat's career is bound to be brief and unpromising.
I stayed at home on the Fourth of July and washed the car. As far as I can tell, that avoided the risk of being arrested, breaching Homeland Security, being condemned to wear pink lingerie in a pink tent, or being transported to freeze to death on Gulag Tempel 1.
God bless America, init?
Copyright © Ronnie Bray 2005
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
