Rita reflects on 2015's biggest issue in American discourse Does a bullet cause more mayhem to the body, more pain to the victim, if the shooter is labeled a “terrorist” rather than “mentally ill” or a “thug”? If the shooter is a police officer, or the neighborhood drug dealer, or a toddler ... Read More...
America
Rita gives Christmas in America both barrels... Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land Fear and loathing were stalking, “Merry Christmas” was banned By those secular fiends the Politically Correct, They hate America, what do you expect? Assault weapons were stowed by the chimney with care Stockings stuffed with ammunition to spare, The children ... Read More...
Misti Traya pays tribute to some of America's finest wits - or alternatively, as Dorothy Parker once said, just 'a bunch of loudmouths showing off'... In 1919, a group of writers lunched at the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan. The purpose of their gathering was to roast their friend, ... Read More...
Rita provides a liberal's guide to surviving this year's family Thanksgiving get-togethers... Thanksgiving is almost here, and Americans everywhere are dreading the highjacking of dinner table conversation by the grumpy uncles and drunken cousins who think we all want to hear their political rants and favorite conspiracy theories. Remember the year ... Read More...
A stay in hospital forces Rita to wonder where America would be without immigrant workers... This American summer's favorite sport of immigrant bashing is still going strong well into the fall season. Temperatures may have cooled weather wise, but out on the campaign trail the heat still sizzles. Hot air blows ... Read More...
An encounter with an amateur Icelandic historian leaves Rita pondering the counterfactuals... Sometimes you have to travel far away to learn the history of your own neighborhood. In Iceland this summer we had a chance encounter with a loquacious bus driver who told us a fascinating story from World War II, ... Read More...
How should one best approach the gates of heaven? Frank receives a top tip from a US military man... Without wishing to be morbid, I have been wondering from time to time how I might conduct myself at the pearly gates of heaven when – far into the future, I hope ... Read More...
Seventy years ago today the age of the atom bomb began with the Trinity Test and a gigantic mushroom cloud in the New Mexico desert. The man who led the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves, was an 'abrasive and sarcastic S.O.B'. But, writes Seamus Sweeney, he also produced what may be one of the best guides ... Read More...
Rita reckons that in the southern states of the US, history is written by the losers... That winners write the history books is conventional wisdom, but it is turned on its head here in America. The losers of the Civil War seized control of the popular history narrative almost as soon ... Read More...
In her latest letter from America, ex-pat Rita discovers a place where all the country's problems seem very far away... When I heard the bells I knew. After so many years in the New World I had finally found it: America’s Shangri-La. At first I thought it was the bell chimes ... Read More...