Rita finds that the vicious polarisation of American politics infects even the season of goodwill... Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, sated with turkey and family togetherness, Americans abandon their homes to participate in an ancient ritual known as Black Friday. It is a bit like Pamplona’s running of the ... Read More...
About Author Profile: Rita Byrne Tull
In today's dispatch, British-born Rita Byrne Tull explains why she became an American citizen... It was politics - and the persuasive powers of President Clinton and my daughter, a formidable combination - that finally prevailed upon me to become an American citizen after 26 years of determined resistance. I was perfectly happy ... Read More...
Rita compares the American and British approaches to celebrating in November... One of the oddest questions I’ve been asked since moving to the U.S. is “Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in England?” I resisted the temptation to answer “Yes, we celebrate that the Puritans left and took their repressive ban on dancing ... Read More...
Rita Byrne Tull explains her test for revealing the cultural divide between America and Britain... First I must make it clear that I am not now nor have I ever been an imbiber of Coca Cola. So no statements made herein should be taken as either an endorsement or a critique ... Read More...
The Dabbler's ex-pat American correspondent discovers a corner of the USA that is forever Elizabethan England... When I spotted the couple across the room in a crowded Washington D.C. cocktail party I had the weird sensation of stepping back in time. They were arranged in a pose typical of classic portrait ... Read More...
Rita Byrne Tull continues her series of Dabbler letters from America with a look at the thorny issue of Church and State... I could not have chosen a more eventful time for my first visit to America than the summer of 1969. Americans were still reeling from the assassination of Robert ... Read More...
Rita Byrne Tull continues her series of Dabbler letters from America... When I flew across the Atlantic so many years ago I didn’t realize that I was also traveling on a high-speed escalator up the social classes. The notion that America is a classless society is, of course, a myth. Just ... Read More...
Rita Byrne Tull continues her series of Dispatches from the Former New World... The white, gleaming monuments to America’s greatness are falling into disrepair and ruin. Rotting from within, structures once even as piano keys fall gapped and tumbled as Stonehenge. The once lavishly sculpted, shining surfaces now blackened and scarred. ... Read More...
Launching a new occasional series for the Dabbler, Rita Byrne Tull brings us our very own version of 'Letter from America'... Two score and one years ago I boarded a student charter flight and crossed the ocean to the New World. I had just $200 in my pocket and a backpack ... Read More...
