The land of the mildly repressed and the home of the drunk expatriots
Happy Independence Day all!
And I'm beating you to it by a few hours. You all get a day off while my self gets to go to the archive. Whoo hoo!
I almost forgot it was the 4th of July, except for 3 things:
1. Mikey's birthday was on Saturday and being on the 2nd of July it always comes 2 days before the 4th. Happy birthday dear brother of mine.
2. My mother reminded me of it on the phone on Saturday
3. On my way home from dinner at a friends (where we neglected to mark the occasion) I was riding the escalator up at Barrikadnaia and behind me was a group of drunk Americans singing a very poor rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner".
And as I walked home past the American Embassy, it was dark and closed and I recalled the several conversations John and I had about the fact that no where, NO where at the embassy can one see an American flag. It does have a sign by the door "Embassy of the United States of America" but unlike every other embassy in Mosocw, there is no flag. There used to be a flag, but for security reasons[?] perhaps, they've stopped flying it. Now I'm not the most patriotic of people, but that's not cool. But then again as those American frat boys were singing at the top of their lungs, I certainly a) didn't join them and b) slightly cringed, because I try to blend in here as much as possible. Not out of safety concerns per se, but just in an effort to do as the Romans do, just a little.
It always makes me uncomfortable speaking English on the metro, I don't like to talk on my cell phone in English in public. Many people, when I meet them tell me that I don't "look like an American." I finally asked a friend what that means, and it apparently means that I can speak Russian well enough to communicate effectively, and the very fact that Russian comes out of my mouth automatically changes the way that people perceive me here. But then again, if they ask, I always tell them that I am from America.
Which leads me to other thoughts as my friends and I spend some time this evening talking politics, as per the retirement of Justice O'Conner and the sad state of the Democratic Party over yonder. Maybe Bush is taking lessons from Putin. Maybe the Democrats should.
I see growing similarities between Russia and America in the way that politics is handled. Sometimes Russia's political life even seems more active than ours, although on the frightening side of the spectrum. But the space of acceptable political debate (I will refrain from using the term "discourse") has become so narrow and so defined that any effort to talk about things outside of the framework set by those in power (be they Republicans, Democrats, or scary right-wing "God-loving" people who seem to hate everyone else - and yes, I just typed that out-loud)) that it seems - from my side of the ocean - that its become so difficult to talk about the issues any more, or to even designate something as "an issue". Either I'm being partisan or the other guy is and that's bad.
Well I think we should be partisan dammit. Since when is making think about the choices they make a bad thing? I could go on and on, but then I think that I'll start sounding less coherent than I already do, because its past 1:00 am here. I hope I didn't offend anybody, but then again, I also hope I did.
Its the 4th of July - the day Americans decided to disagree with the Brits on a whole lot of things. Go out there and have a political discussion with someone. Hell, argue about it. But don't take it personally, and don't think the other person is crazy, just because you disagree. And if you do take it personally, go dump some tea in the river and start a revolution, "because a little revolution now and then is a good thing" - i.e. do something about it if it matters that much to you.
That's all. Goodnight.
