In his piece for The Observer, “Divided We Stand,” Mark Honigsbaum draws attention to the claim that America is more divided than it is united. The problem is, it’s not as simple as blue states against red states, city against country, or north against south. The irony about the election Bush won under the auspices of “family values” is that the division hitting Americans the hardest is the one taking place within their families and within their homes. Honigsbaum pens:

“America has always been polarised along racial and geographic lines. What makes the 2004 presidential election campaign such depressing viewing is that the war of words between Republicans and Democrats is increasingly dividing families along generational and cultural lines. In New York this summer I heard countless stories of children who were no longer on speaking terms with their parents because, while they were holding up placards outside the Republican convention in Madison Square Garden that read ‘Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot,’ their parents were back in Branson, Missouri, running Bush registration drives.”

He illustrates his observation with the variety of perspectives presented by his family members, which contain enough hot air to transform a family vacation into a World War I dogfight. Strangely enough, a substantial number of partisan arguments aren’t about abortion or taxation, he notes:

“[The] arguments are less about the policies than about their perceptions of the candidates. And when it comes to bedrock issues such as taxation, balancing the budget and healthcare, the differences between them rapidly shrink.”

Apparently, enough smoke is in the air that some academics question whether the claims that the United States is divided are false, created with the aim to sell more newspapers.

…‘In the past, it was more clear cut,’ says my father-in-law. ‘The Democrat candidate stood for this and the Republican for that. I think what we’re arguing about here more is what the facts are.’ ”

Sebastian Rotella’s article last week in the Los Angeles Times, “What the French love about America,” reveals some of the complexity of the sentiments we, and others, feel when we think about the United States. Not bad food for thought as we face the remaining hours before we elect our next president.

Rotella’s piece centers around a three-day panel on North American literature, which took place last week in Paris, a city bearing some fame for being a “bastion of anti-Americanism.” Festival America, as the panel is titled, is considered the “biggest of its kind outside the United States,” according to its organizers. Rotella attributes its popularity in France to the centrality of social realism in North American literature, as opposed to the “excessive introspection” many French readers perceive as the primary focus of French authors. In addition, Rotella notes that the range of cultures and types of writing inherent in North American literature fascinate many French readers.

Rotella intimates in his article that it is precisely the diversity of opinion and perspectives coexisting within the United States which is valued by the French, despite their declared disregard for American foreign policy, and enthusiasm for American products, which may seem paradoxical.

“Part of the American dream is about reinventing yourself,” Rotella quotes Danzy Senna, a Boston fiction writer, as saying. “And I think there’s something powerful and alluring about that idea, and something really terrifying about that lack of a fixed identity.”

Rotella’s citation of Sherman Alexie suggests that, despite all that appears to be wrong with the United States, our nation does retain a few saving graces worthy of contemplation:

“I see white American writers on these stages disparaging the country, when everything they have is because of that country. The dream has not died. I am a millionaire because of my imagination. I don’t know if you could find another society that has ever existed where somebody like me could become what he has become.”

The United States is a nation recognized for its diversity and complexity. We’re allowed to hold complex opinions about our identity as American citizens, just as citizens of other cultures and nations may have complex opinions about American culture and the way the United States interacts with the rest of the world. The American Constitution grants us this right.

Sixteen months after principal shooting was wrapped, the cast and crew met Wednesday night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a special screening of the film Ray. There are times when high hopes and expectations can make what you’re waiting for lose its gleam and color. This wasn’t one of them. For all of us in that audience, the wait was worth it.

The film was finished in time for Ray Charles to view it, and what he saw pleased him. Just tell what happened, he is reported to have said to Hackford, don’t sugarcoat it.

Hackford’s labor of love shines as a result. The film honors Ray Charles regardless of whether the characters sharing the screen with actor and chameleon Jamie Foxx love him or hate him. In Ray, Taylor Hackford has created a reverential tribute to Mr. Charles, and he’s done so with an invisible hand, neither hiding his flaws nor pushing his praises. Writer Jimmy White has scripted a story which brings to light the severity of the initial obstacles Ray Charles faced, then leaves them behind as Ray’s extraordinary devotion to music, and his faith in his mother and in himself, lead him to make a mark on the world which has crossed borders of all kinds.

Ray is the story of a man who changed the world by transcending the obstacles, and holding fast to the gifts, that his identity attracted to him like bees to honey.

According to an article by MSNBC’s chief economic correspondent Martin Wolk, the rising price of oil now surpasses terrorism as the primary concern of economic forecasters. That’s ironic, given the frequency of oil spills in general, and the immediate environmental disaster discovered last Thursday in the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound.

Eric Nalder and Phuong Catle’s piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides a partial list of oil spills occurring along the West Coast of the United States over the past 20 years. They report that these mishaps occur at a rate of about once a month. Forensic chemists working to determine the source of these spills face not only the challenge of pinpointing suspects who may be unaware of ship leaks, but must also take into account the possibility that guilty parties may be leading them astray by tampering with evidence. In the article, Jim Bruya, a fingerprinting chemist in Seattle, noted:

“There have been cases where a ship’s crew, knowing it will be asked for a sample, has mixed fuels from two tanks filled at different locations to permanently contaminate evidence.”

In Puget Sound, oil cleanup crews are working 12-hour shifts “until they’re finished,” said Jake McLean, a supervisor for the Seattle-based National Response Corporation. The “Dalco Passage Mystery Spill” was reported on the morning of October 15, but weather conditions prevented cleanup crews from slowing the damage for several hours. “…We don’t know how big it is, where it came from, or where it’s headed,” State Department of Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said late Thursday. As of Monday evening, according to Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose, the list of suspects has been narrowed down from a dozen to two.

Environmental activists are angered by the slow response of government agencies to contain the damage.

“We know quite a lot about currents and tides in Puget Sound. And so even though it’s dark … knowing the approximate location of a spill could alert the agencies to the possibility of oil coming to shore in certain areas,” explained Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound.

Who needs terrorists? Fellow Americans, we can ruin the environment ourselves, by contributing to the latest fad: the philosophy of apathy.

Maybe the time has come for the president to give George Lucas a call. It seems the United States has tried just about everything to increase its military manpower, short of commissioning Industrial Light & Magic to create some more troops using CGI.

An article on www.indybay.org, titled “US Soldiers Forced Into Service By The Military: The Unofficial Draft,” lists several actions our military has taken in hopes of plumping up its forces. The article does not mention the military’s more amusing offers to help recruits get a career in the music industry or pay for their breast implants, but it does note the recent advent of the stop-loss order, Individual Ready Reserve, and the latest claims by currently serving U.S. soldiers that they are being coerced to re-enlist.

According to the Global Security website, we currently have over 100,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq. The Friends Committee on National Legislation states:

“In November 2003, a Congressional Budget Office analysis indicated that ‘the active Army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size [150,000] beyond about March 2004, if it chose not to keep individual units deployed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief — an assumption consistent with the Department of Defense’s (DOD) current planning.’”

The FCNL website indicates the discrepancy between the claims government officials are making about the feasibility of continuing the American occupation of Iraq with a minimal number of troops and the reality that American troops who are preparing to come home will be increasingly difficult to replace.

How, and from where, are the extra soldiers going to come?

The race to poison the ear of Denmark is drawing to a close. A front page article in last Friday’s Los Angeles Times called attention to the “witchcraft of wit” our presidential candidates decided to use during their first debate Thursday night.

“Candidates Call Facts as They See Them,” boomed the caption. “Rivals take turns putting their spin on the data related to war on terror and national security.”

“Some facts were oversimplified, others were exaggerated and still others dropped from sight entirely,” staff writer Paul Richter reported. Topics whose facades were shaded Thursday night ranged from the war in Iraq to homeland security and the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

In an age when great orators have either been booed off stage or become extinct, and at a time when truth is not a priority, what do these debates mean to the American public?

The judgments cited in a related article in the same paper by reporters Lianne Hart and Zeke Minaya make the American public sound like film directors or casting agents.  “With Kerry, I don’t feel any sincerity or conviction,” commented Sharon Toney, an interior decorator. Another Republican, Jack Swickard, remarked, “My biggest fear was that Bush would make a gaffe, and he didn’t.”

What is the magic ingredient that will provoke Americans to go out of their way to vote?

If the television show American Idol succeeds in drawing in twenty million votes a week, doing so without eloquence or truth, maybe the spice of the televised debates will do the same for the presidential election this November.

Today California state Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill which will make the names, photos, and home addresses of “serious” and “high-risk” sex offenders available on the Internet. Supporters of the bill believe it will “enable concerned parents and other citizens to better protect themselves and their children from sex offenders.” Opponents are concerned that hate crimes will be directed toward reformed sex offenders, their families, and their property.

According to Schwarzenegger’s website, www.schwarzenegger.com, Governor Schwarzenegger cited information as “the most valuable tool we can give to parents to protect their children” and compared California with the 44 other states which have already made this information accessible to anyone who knows how to surf the Web. The website concludes the green-light announcement with a warning that “serious and high-risk sex offenders pose a significant danger to society” and “information … is only as effective as its accessibility to the public.”

An article in Contracostatimes.com by Kim Curtis is unique for the amount of space Curtis devotes to opponents of the bill. Curtis reports that the push to publish the information on the Internet was spurred by an AP investigation of the sex offender database, which revealed an embarrassingly high rate of inaccuracies. Executive Director of the New York-based Parents for Megan’s Law, Laura Ahearn, is quoted as stating, “When you don’t have an Internet sex offender registry … the community can’t be the eyes and ears for law enforcement.”

A July 1997 piece in the Sonoma County Independent by Paula Harris describes the darker side of an overactive, involved public. At times, public response to the presence of local sex offenders leads them to seek other places to live. Kelli Evans, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, confronts the paradox of allowing high-visibility public access to personal information like home addresses:

“On the one hand,” says Evans, “we want offenders to reform, but on the other, we make it impossible for them to live in a community and hold down a job … So people are going underground and moving from town to town, which also disrupts any treatment plan they may be undergoing.”

Harris also cites Katherine Sher, legislative advocate with the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice:

“People are becoming the subjects of increased community pressure and harassment. Th[e Markvardsen] case illustrates not only the harm to the offender, who has served his sentence and is trying to get his life back together, but also illustrates problems for the community.”

Evans says that in some communities, Megan’s Law has caused sex offenders to become targets for vigilantes. A 66-year-old mother of a sex offender, who asked to remain unidentified, fears the bill will lead to potential threats toward her son and his family, despite the fact he has never committed another crime:

“‘You know how people act when they find out there’s a sex offender in the neighborhood … Don’t they realize what’s going to happen when they do this?’”

One way or another, the 6th of October will fan the flames of the debate as to how to handle the identity of Muslims in Europe. The release date for the report detailing the extent of Turkey’s compliance with EU membership criteria marks a milestone on the road Turkey hopes will lead to its eventual inclusion as the first Muslim nation in the European Union. EUObserver reporter Lisbeth Kirk notes that the Dutch government will “play a central role” in the handling of negotiations preceding the December decision as to whether accession talks will begin with Ankara. The Dutch government currently holds the presidency of the European Union through the end of this year.

John Vinocur’s article today in the International Herald Tribune criticizes the lack of a “coherent, pan-European debate” regarding the “parameters for Islam’s possible integration” in Europe. At a time when Islam’s growing presence in Europe is viewed by many as a threat to European stability, Turkey’s current position in the spotlight presents a new and immediate opportunity for Europeans to address ways to integrate a culture which has been projected to dominate Europe by the end of the century. According to Princeton professor Bernard Lewis,

“Europe will be a part of the Arab West or Maghreb. Migration and demography indicate this. Europeans marry late and have few or no children. But there’s strong immigration: Turks in Germany, Arabs in France and Pakistanis in England. At the latest, following current trends, Europe will have Muslim majorities in the population by the end of the 21st century.”

In the cover story for the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly for PBS, reporter Saul Gonzalez describes some of the concerns raised by Islam in Holland, a nation noted for its “reputation for tolerance.” The increasing visibility of Muslims in Holland, paired with growing hostilities and misunderstandings between Muslims and non-Muslims, indicates the need to address the presence of Islam with an aim toward integration, though Rotterdam City Councilman Barry Madlener voices a common protest that often, immigrants resist assimilation to their host culture:

“[Many Muslims living in Europe] really reject a western lifestyle and we think that is very strange, because if you don’t want to have a western lifestyle, you shouldn’t come here. So they come here and they want to claim their lifestyle and we are of course a liberal society. But when the children of these people cannot fit into our society, then the problems will grow.”

Social commentator Samira Abbos echoes Madlener’s concern, though she hails from the opposite perspective:

“I don’t want to be tolerated in this country. I have lived here for 32 years. I’m a citizen of Holland. I want to be accepted … What I see here in Holland that is very important is that a generation of Dutch Muslims is coming up. Dutch Muslims who say, ‘I want to be Dutch and Muslim here in Holland. Give us the freedom!’”

Mirjam Dittrich, writer for the European Policy Centre, describes a proposal by Tariq Ramadan for the integration of Muslims into European society by “breaking down the ‘us versus them’ mentality” in favor of a ‘third way’ which allows Muslims to be “at the same time fully Muslim and fully Western.” Essential to this “Euro-Islam” is that Muslims “should view western democracy as ‘a model respecting [their] principles rather than seeing it as anti-Islamic.’”

Is European identity in jeopardy, or will it be responsible for promoting tolerance of a culture which continues to be commonly misunderstood despite its uninterrupted presence in world media? When Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man, spoke in Germany two weeks ago, he urged Europe to “stop being intimidated about using its right to defend its own humanist culture,” stating: “There is a European culture. It’s subscribing to a broader culture of tolerance. It’s not unreasonable for European culture to say, ‘You have to accept this.’”

La dolce vita may be coming to an end. Despite claims that many European workers already work 40-hour work weeks, the myth which leads many Americans to seek a better life on the other side of the Atlantic may be more fiction than fact. And if it’s still fact, it may not be for much longer.

Headlines on Bloomberg.com, DW-World.de, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, and USA Today proclaim the demise of the idyllic minimalist work week as though it marked the end of an era.

Perhaps it does. According to a nifty little chart in an article in USA Today, just about any European country has a better vacation plan than most jobs provide here in the United States. No wonder in Germany there’s been controversy over the concessions labor union heads have made in order to keep companies from moving where labor costs are cheaper than they are in Germany.

But if, as reported by   Noelle Knox in USA Today, workers in the Czech Republic average an extra five hours per week and earn only 40 percent as much as the typical German laborer, what incentive do large companies have to stay?

The frenzy over the state of the European economy is alive and well. Is it greed or is the economy really underperforming? The entry of 10 new European Union members on May 1st has been blamed for “tipping the balance” of an already delicate European Union economy, leading to fears of deflation, a rise in unemployment, and a lower quality of life as a result. Knox alludes to the stereotype that Europeans “work to live” rather than “living to work.”

Apparently the American economy’s overtime norm doesn’t yield the gargantuan advantages in productivity we had expected it would. Knox notes that, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, seven of the most advanced European countries are “just as productive as … the USA” (the countries are France, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium).

She quotes OECD economist Paul Swaim as confirming the commonly held perception that Americans work about a third more than Europeans do:

“[W]e … found that average incomes in Europe were also about one-third lower, because output per hour was essentially the same … Obviously, the next question is: Who has it the best, on balance? Is it better to work less and live with less income?”

Now there’s a question worth answering.

According to a piece in Time magazine by Karen Tumulty entitled, “Jesus and the FDA,” the appointment of Dr. Hager to the FDA board has women’s reproductive health rights activists up in arms.

Journalist Kathryn Jean Lopez, in her article “Your kind not welcome,” isn’t impressed by the ‘hysteria’ being raised over the abortion issue; what really matters in this controversy is not that Dr. Hager “would rather have his patients pray and wait for Divine intervention than medically act to treat disease” and “recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome;” nor that he published a book with his wife, As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now; not even that, as appointed chairman for the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, he would “lead its study of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women” when we’ve already seen him do his best to reverse the FDA’s approval of RU-486 based on his belief that “it has endangered the lives and health of women.”

Lopez feels the problem is not whether a doctor with strong religious views ought to be appointed to the FDA, but that the FDA “does not want to be scrutinized.”

“In recent years, the FDA has been criticized on a host of issues outside of abortion, and not just by pro-lifers. Dr. Stevens warns that this leak is ‘about an FDA that does not want to be scrutinized.’ The committee, for instance, that Hager’s name has been floated for has not met in two years and currently has no members. That’s no way for a government agency to operate, most especially one whose decisions so directly affect issues of life and death.”

Lopez goes even further out on her limb to suggest that Hager’s appointment would be beneficial for the Left, if only because his moral backbone provokes him to question the FDA “when necessary.”

“If Hager never makes it to Washington, it will be more than just another unfair loss to the Left in the name of hysterical abortion politics: a qualified doctor willing to question the FDA when necessary. But, worse still, if secular media and Left folk manage to create what Dr. Stevens calls a ‘false dichotomy’ between medicine and values, or values and policymaking, scuttled potential nominations will not be the worst result.”

So when is it necessary, if not where women’s reproductive health rights are concerned?

The Naral Pro-Choice America website offers an opportunity for women’s reproductive health rights activists to voice their opinions.

The voting machine controversy continues. David Corn, an editor at The Nation, reported yesterday that in addition to the party snacks so thoughtfully provided by their sponsors, those trusted gatekeepers of the Election Center are eating their words.

The Code of Ethics on the group’s web site asserts:

“It is our sacred honor to protect and promote a public trust and confidence by our conduct of accurate and fair elections. As the public’s guardians of freedom within a democratic society, we are responsible for the integrity of the process.”

Corn questions whether their national conference should allow “the leading manufacturers of electronic voting machines [to] be wining and dining state and local officials responsible for conducting elections.”

The conference the Election Center is holding this week in Washington, D.C., provides training for election officials from across the nation.

The program for the conference notes that the welcoming reception on August 26 was sponsored by Diebold Election Systems. Likewise, the “Dinner Cruise on the Potomac and Monuments by Night Tour” to be held tonight will be cosponsored by Sequoia Voting Systems, while the “Graduation Luncheon and Awards Ceremony” to be held on the last day of the conference will be sponsored by Election Systems and Software.

Each of these companies has donated funding to the Election Center, reports Linda K. Harris in an article for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Each of these companies also manufactures electronic voting machines.

Diebold’s Chief Executive, Walden O’Dell, is publicly recognized as an active supporter of the Bush campaign. “To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair,” Ohio GOP Spokesman Jason Mauk is quoted as protesting in Julie Carr Smyth’s piece for The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Corn offers a variety of recent allegations against all three companies which include fraud, voter machine malfunctions, lying, and misconduct. What Corn considers most noteworthy is the fact that none of these companies will supply information about their systems, leaving critics wary of potential security problems. Corn laments:

“By accepting support from Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S, these elections officials do little to encourage confidence in their judgment and impartiality. A cynic would not be unjustified to ask, if they cannot be trusted to make this call, how can they be trusted to count the votes?”

It’s hardly surprising that after last election’s ballot fiasco in Florida, many Americans are wary of the potential for another miscount in the upcoming election, particularly when it’s still easier to get a receipt for anything we purchase than it is a paper trail for electronic voting machines.

The non-partisan People for the American Way web site provides plenty of opportunities to make sure this year’s election is decided by a correct count of votes.

In the past, many expatriate Americans have worn their national identity beneath a chameleon exterior the way most of us wear socks with too many holes in them. As absentee voter registrations continue to soar in the months preceding this year’s presidential elections, evidence is surfacing that Americans abroad may be embracing a new, and visible, cultural identity.

But wasn’t the American identity visible already, when glimpsed outside its national boundaries?

Everyone’s seen the ugly American: the stereotype abounds. We’re too loud, we’re pushy, and we only eat McDonald’s. We don’t try to blend in; we refuse to embrace the cultures we visit. That provocative blend of rude, ignorant, and arrogant, good-hearted and harmless so astutely pegged by The Oregonian’s Susan Nielsen as the unfortunate reputation won by Americans everywhere has been overtaken by something new.

In an op-ed piece entitled “Enter the new kind of ugly American,” Nielsen argues that the new American image “reflects the worst parts of the United States” as did the previous version, except “…we’re no longer just big tourists with happy fistfuls of souvenirs. We’re prison guards with a mean streak.”

Jennifer Joan Lee’s article in the International Herald Tribune, “Online campaigns gather steam to get Americans to vote”, suggests that Americans living abroad are embracing a more positive image as the 2004 elections appear on the horizon.

She offers up several web sites promoting absentee voter registrations, the majority of which are democratic. Woven throughout the piece is the landmark role played by the Internet, which Lee credits with increasing absentee voter participation at an unprecedented rate:  

“‘The Internet has fundamentally changed the ability of U.S. citizens abroad to participate in U.S. politics,’” [says Bob Neer, founder of USAbroad.org]. “‘Before the Internet, it was difficult and expensive for people to participate. Now, millions and millions of people have a really new opportunity to organize.’”

Lee attributes the high numbers of registrations for absentee ballots to the fact that just over 500 votes made the difference in the election of our current President. Numbering somewhere between six and seven million in population, American expatriates wield a significant amount of voter power, “enough … to make up a 51st state” according to reporter Simon Payn.

The Internet has managed to serve as a means of including the world in the decision Americans will make in the upcoming election. The web site, www.tellanamericantovote.com, founded by Claire Taylor, an American living in Amsterdam, “allows non-U.S. citizens to encourage their expatriate American friends to register and to vote,” in addition to “giv[ing] Americans access to step-by-step absentee voting instructions.” Taylor explains,

“The bold opinion of our Dutch friends and neighbours inspired us. The U.S. President affects the whole world and we want to give the world a chance to have their say … After the election, a lot of people were saying, why does everyone in America want the war, why did they support Bush? … But you forget that half the U.S. didn’t vote for Bush. That’s always a discussion — I am having to defend the U.S. policies when I don’t necessarily support them myself.”

American expatriate and Paris resident Laurie Chamberlain broke a 25-year silence to reclaim her American identity as a political activist:

“While I was protesting against the war last spring, I could have just blended in with the French peace movement, but I love my country, and what it stands for … It breaks my heart to see what is happening to it these days. That’s why I carried a sign saying, ‘I am an American.’”

At long last, Americans seem to have been given the green light to take action on an issue which will affect the world over the next four years.

By voting, we can elect the next American President.