A Good Day For America

Carl Rove resigns. And it turns out that Cheney said it all along: occupying Iraq will turn into a quagmire.

Summer Hit (2002)

I always liked watching CMT and GAC for their broad range of earnest blue collar emotions wrapped in pedal steel driven softrock. In any given ten minute segment there's always plenty of sorrow and anger, loss and despair, an unusual class conciousness and that fervent sense of patriotism walking the fine line between rabid nationalism ( Toby Keith , Clint Black , Darryl Worley) and rebellious salt-of-the-earth-nostalgia ( Gretchen Wilson , Sammy Kershaw , and of course Montgomery Gentry's "My Town" above). White hinterland America always seems like a strangely sad, but proud place in those videos.

I always missed this kind of blue collar pride over here. Especially in Munich of course, since there's not much of a blue collar population in Beamer town, where teenagers go golfing and senior citizens drive Porsches. But I got a taste of local patriotism, when I made the mistake of writing the town of Augsburg up as a "Kleinstadt", which means smalltown. Haven't had hate mail rain on me that much in a while. Well, when I looked up the stats, they got 263.477 inhabitants, which doesn't really make it a city. But then I was lectured that anything above a population of 100 K is considered a big city around here. Which is actually based on definitions set by the International Conference of Statistics in the year 1887. Well you know what Augsburg? A few things changed since then. Women are allowed to vote now, vehicles powered by combustion engine are the preferred mode of transportation and the Germans lost the war. Twice. These days a big city is anything above a million. And you should have some urban features like variations in cultural and demographic makeup or at least a skyline. So Munich may not apply either.

New York Nostalgia (4th of July Edition)

I always liked 4th of July with all it's pathos and sentimentality, the barbeques and fireworks and the radio playing cheesy Irving Berlin songs. After having lived in a city thriving on a passionate and infectious local patriotism, it's kind of strange to live in a place where people don't really feel at home in their own country. So to celebrate 4th of July in this land of denial and self hatred here's one of the greatest songs about aforementioned local patriotism. Full of pathos and sentimentality. Only topped by the man who still manages to bring tears to the eyes of grown firemen.