Editor’s Letter

10th Oct. 2009

 I have never been pretentious enough to write a Editor’s Letter before but as I’m in the midst of changing the direction of the blog for a few months at least, it’s probably necessary. I’ve recently decided to start writing a series of planned features on modern culture in America. I want to capture the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre that make this country into the virtual paella it has become, and experience it as I go. I want to meet the citizens of New Orleans as they struggle every day to rebuild the houses destroyed literally years ago and the volunteers that work tirelessly to help the entire country’s poor and hungry. I want to be chased down streets by the KKK, Black Panthers, Scientologists and even Amish. I want to be on the first American tank into a foreign land, and beside the first man or woman who shoulders a sign and marches in response to that tank. In short, I want to know what it feels like to be American, whatever that may mean and to dispel or clarify some of the very clear stereotypes much of the world seem to have about the U.S of A.

As those who have lived/visited the U.S should know, Americans are a people who seem to wilfully play of their stereotypes, for better or for worse. Often, unfortunately it seems that this tendency is negative and I find myself almost constantly amazed by such sights as shops that sell copious amounts of flannel shirts and Miller Highlife baseball caps or people that really do seem to eat fast food for every meal and wilfully defend the idea that this practice is sensible. After seeing confederate flags daubed onto the cabs of rusty pick-up trucks, and condemned-looking inner city slums that looked like they were straight out of televisions The Wire, I found that I was in desperate need of something positive that would even the scales and remind me more of the America I have grown to love rather than the one I find myself often times loathing. The election of President Obama helped greatly with this and I could see the point in Michelle Obama’s controversial remark about being proud to be an American for the first time.

            Still, the new president aside, I needed something American that I could latch onto culturally. I needed to be appeased, to have an experience in the U.S that was vivid and happy enough that I would keep my American Passport in full view when buying beers, and even join in singing the Star Spangled Banner whilst wearing a Redsox baseball cap if ever that was required. I needed to be Positively Americanized. To accomplish this I took the opportunity of a few hours in the day where I was bored and unoccupied, and trawled the Internet looking for interesting opportunities that I could document.

With the above in mind, most of the articles that you will find on the Blog in the near future will focus on general United States awesomeness, from an experience bat-hunting in the woods, to time spent watching the New Hampshire Highland Games, and the Big-E festival. Hopefully they will be joined by an interview with the owner of the world’s most powerful trebuchet, an experience at the largest display of lit-pumpkins, several sports events and more. There will be an occasional more negative entry on law enforcement, poverty or the drug trade to give some sense of comparison, and my only hope is that you the reader will find both sides interesting, informative and entertaining to read.

Thanks, Tom