7/5/02
Stateside: Fourth of July Special
"As the
pamphlet 'Common Sense' was to the American Revolution, so 'Fixing Elections'
could be to the movement for alternative voting systems in our day.... It
deserves the widest readership possible." So says Richard Winger, editor …
7/15/02
Stateside: There Was An Old Lady In London
As you can tell from
this column's title, I started writing it in Limerick. The medieval western
Ireland city, that is, with its 1197 charter even older than London's. Limerick
was the pot of gold at the end of my trip - even magically creating the perfect
soundtrack …
7/22/02
Stateside: Aunt Minnie and the Mow-Ped
The United States
Postal Service is conducting a trial use of that damned stupid epitome of
everything that's wrong about research and development in this country - the
Segway.
7/27/02
Stateside: "I'd like to give you a disease."
As opening lines go,
I've heard better but the tall dark handsome stranger with the big rig and the
twinkle in his eye looked worth the gamble. "OK," I said. "Let's
see what fate has in store for you then," said my Doctor Without …
7/29/02
Stateside: 11 September 1: 27 July Nil
I cried when I
watched Laila Harre's concession speech, and I'm not entirely sure why. I guess
it's because she's one of the people I would have given an all-round Minnie
Award to for her integrity, her hard work, her quick grasp of the business .
8/5/02
Stateside: Where have all the students gone?
That plastic comb I
call a brain has attracted all manner of tissue-paper scraps this week. Iran,
it seems, is about to host a celebration of its 7,000 years of history - in
Cuba.
8/12/02
Stateside with
Rosalea
: Watermelon man
Forget the
presidential pretzel; I nearly choked on a cheerio watching a football game
last Monday morning. To be truthful, it was just a newsclip of the back of
Andrew Mehrten's knees as he waited to take a penalty kick while two blokes -
"buck …
8/18/02
Stateside: 37 Cents Can Buy You Love!
Ever had one of
those moments when you wish the Red Sea would open up and swallow you? Charlton
Heston apparently hasn't or he wouldn't have done that cringingly egotistical
video this week about how he's got symptoms consistent with the early stages of
Alzheimer's. …
8/26/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: North To The Future
Well, beat me with a
Klondike Bar if those independent-minded mainlanders up north don't make
history this Tuesday, August 27. Alaska - the word means 'mainland' - is
holding its primary elections that day and also on the ballot paper is an
initiative …
9/2/02
Stateside with
Rosalea
: Just browsing
Cue sound f/x: audio
of Klondike Bar hitting flesh. Woman's voice: "Ouch! Oooch! No! Don't
stop! This chocolate and ice cream is delicious!" So. Alaska nixed Measure
1 for alternative voting by a margin of 2 to 1 last week, and I'm bravely …
9/9/02
Stateside: Two Movies And A Lecture
"I can't slip
you the tomahawk 20 minutes of the day, but I can give you a wonderful life the
other 23:40," says Sy to the woman he loves but has just told he is
"two-spirited" (gay). They are both students at a university in
Seattle, …
9/16/02
Stateside with
Rosalea
: The TV Duel
Midweek, a
Yugoslavian work colleague went out of his way to tell me what a great team the
Tall Blacks are, thus saving me from the conspiracy theory that had been
forming in my mind since the previous weekend. Who can blame me for thinking
that …
9/23/02
Stateside with
Rosalea
: Middle-politics
Halfway through each
President's 4-year term, the entire US House of Representatives and one-third
of the US Senate is elected, thus mid-term elections are seen as a way of
measuring how effective the President has been in building support for the …
9/25/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: Civility
Ooops! I said I'd
provide a Wednesday-lite column and then forgot that I'd have to write it on
Monday night, my time. Blame it on the Civil War. Or at least on the epic
documentary called 'The Civil War', which first aired in 1990 and has now been
…
9/30/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: Who votes and what for
I'm somewhat
discombobulated this Sunday morning from having just seen a US Democrat
visiting Iraq say that Presidents are capable of lying and that the current one
is. His comment came during an interview on 'This Week', and the comment and
its fallout …
10/2/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: I Long To Hear You
Google searches take
you to strange places. I was looking for stories about 'American Candidate' -
the FX cable TV program to choose a presidential candidate for 2004 - and the
search tickled me with an american candidate for sainthood. Her name is …
10/4/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: Pollies on Parade
On the last Sunday
of September each year, Berkeley holds a street parade called "How
Berkeley Can You Be?". It's a great opportunity for the locals to poke fun
at their own reputation for outrageous ideas, and in election years it comes at
just …
10/7/02
The wheres and what-withs of voting
In this third
background piece on the California elections, the topic is polling places and
equipment. On Monday, October 7, California's Secretary of State is coming to
Alameda County to declare absentee voting open. In California, the Secretary of
…
10/9/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Quiet, please!
The monarch is here.
She flew in from Canada to be at a garden party last Sunday at the Museum of
California in Oakland, which is where I saw her. No, I don't mean Betty
Windsor! I mean the monarch butterfly. Thousands of them have arrived, as they
…
10/14/02
Slimin' Simon and His Gray Eminence
I wasn't going to
write about the California Governor's race so soon, having heard from a
pollster that it won't get interesting till two weeks before the election, but
really! the events of this week beggar even disbelief.
10/16/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: Not a pretty story
Monday night I'm
standing in the JetBlue terminal at New York's JFK airport looking at the rack
of travel mags and the words on one cover leap out at me - "Bali" it
says in fluorescent orange, "still paradise?"
10/21/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Here come da judges
On October 17,
President George W. Bush gave an address via satellite to the United States
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which was meeting in New Smyrna, Florida to
honour Hispanic businesswomen. After congratulating the women on their
achievements …
10/23/02
Cheap 'n' Cheerful East Coast Quickie
Stateside With Rosalea - October is the height of the fall
foliage on the East Coast, so
10/29/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Battered voter syndrome
The Democrats really
are too tragic. To hear them begging voters not to desert them for third party
or independent candidates this election is like hearing an abusive partner in a
relationship begging to be forgiven for past misdemeanours - just so ...
10/30/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- New York, New York
Columbus Day this
year was observed on October 14. As usual, it wasn't observed by everyone,
including my employer, so I had to take a day's leave in order to have a long
weekend. But it was a holiday for most schools and federal and state employees,
…
11/4/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Is everybody happy?
The Republicans
really are too comic. (Should there be an 'al' in there somewhere?) The sight
of the Prez and his Vice lickety-splitting it up and down the country trying to
get out the Republican vote is as much fun as watching a couple of chickens
dancing …
11/6/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Horse sense
After this year's
dramatic - or should I say, theatrical - market slide, the media puzzle only
deepens. Was what happened on 14/11 or 15/11 any more significant than what
happened on 9/11?
11/7/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- One in twenty
Poor George. The
golden apple slipped from his grasp, after all. Ironically, the Republicans'
success in the South, on the East Coast and in the Midwest was probably the
cause of their loss here in the California Governor's race. By the time the
polling …
11/13/02
Are YOU buying into WWIII.com?
Monday, being the
11th of November, was Veterans Day, which is observed as a holiday by
sufficient people for there to be 'holiday sales' at many stores, but it's not
a holiday for the NY stock exchange. Well, why should it be - war is and always
has …
11/20/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- A House is not a home
Featuring on the
Chron's front page last Friday was a photo of San Francisco politician Nancy
Pelosi resplendent in red, celebrating her historic win as "1st woman
chosen House minority leader". Well, to paraphrase an old saw, you can
paint a donkey lipstick-red …
11/27/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- We can be heroes
One balmy summer
evening in 2000, as newly endorsed VP candidate Dick Cheney innocently aided
and abetted terrorists by giving an audience of millions a monument-by-monument
description of the flightpath to take for a landing at the Pentagon, my home
was …
12/4/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Hale and hearty
Last Thursday was
the fourth Thursday in November, so it was the national holiday known as
Thanksgiving Day. According to my trusty Readers Digest 'America A to Z', the
original celebration at Plymouth in the autumn of 1621 was a three-day
celebration …
12/11/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
: Off with her head!
December 8 marked
the third anniversary of me and my luggage spilling on to the footpath outside
one of the most expensive hotels in San Francisco. The Amtrak bus, which had
come across the Bay from the Coast Starlight LA-Oakland train, was supposed to
…
12/18/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
- Mickey vs Mouse
I really do wonder
what I used to do to amuse myself before the Internet. Last week, curious about
an icon with a large E inside a square, I clicked through to find myself
squarely back in the eighteenth century. Article 1 Section 8 of the US
Consititution, …
12/24/02
Stateside With
Rosalea
The Seven Barbies of Kwanzaa
Clearly I watch too
many PBS documentaries, like the one on the 'Mystery of the Three Kings' that
aired this week. But the weather's been badder'n a blister on a postie's foot
at Christmas, so what's a girl to do but venture gingerly back into TV-land …
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