Let's Get This Off the Front Page - Thank You Mr. Santorum

"It's not about you," he told about 300 suburban Columbus Tea Party members. "It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your job. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."
- Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum February, 18 2012

Front Page of Australians Abroad

I wasn't happy with the lead photo of my last blog posting. It was a bit spooky as you can see from the clip of the left.

I usually post a link to my latest Letter from New York on my website, Australians Abroad website. Oops, this current graphic IS going to look at little odd - if I choose it as the front page lead ...

I've wanted to replace that old spooky one, but I haven't been blogging much lately.

To use a bit of Australian vernacular, I've been a bit butcher's, or as the English would say, I have been "feeling poorly." How do Americans say it? "Feeling sick". I should know, as believe it or not, I am American. I won't say "and proud of it" because I didn't do anything special to become one. Well, I did, but that's another story. I don't say I am proud to be Australia" either, because I didn't do anything to deserve being Australian (and I'm still an Australian citizen) because I was born there, an event that I can hardly proclaim as being proactive on my part.

When I was at school, the forbidding forboding headmistress Miss Barrett at Mac Robertson Girls' High, used to tick us off if we said we were sick. She told us that "sick" meant "vomit".

So in the interests of being trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific and tran-century I will merely say, I have been unwell.

Ideas for "Letters" have been few, and the energy to actually write them, rarer still. I was beginning to think that there'd be no more "Letters".

Peak District, UK - Now That's What I Call Secular!

Then along came good ol' Rick. For the non-US readers, Rick Santorum is I believe, the Tea-Party preferred candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for President of the United States.

Now that I am an American I can really understand the way Americans talk, as if the rest of the world should know all about us. It is just easier, and when it comes to people like the Tea Party people, less embarrassing.

If I'd just said "good ol' Rick" and gone on without explaining, most non-Americans would assume that Rick was just some loon I'd maybe met in a bar in the Mid West. But I AM a bit of a pedant and like to make myself clear so, I admit it, one of the front-runners for the position of the next president of America really did suggest that our President, PRESIDENT Obama, is molding America according to some non-Christian theology. Oh the shame of it. The Tea Party should be hidden away so that we could hold our heads up high. But I can't blame the press for shrieking Santorum et al's idiocisms to the world. It's just too bizarre to ignore. Even the ober-conservative Murdoch press will have a field day with this one!

Yes, Mr. Santorum really did say, "It's not about you,it's not about your quality of life. It's not about your job. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

Now I know that most of us rational people would see this as a positive - the non-Christian bit that is - but "theology"??? Was Mr Santorum implying that our democratically elected president is a non-Christian. Of course he was.

"Home of the Brave", Babylon, NY

He's trying to wheedle his way out of it now, claiming that the other boy made him do it, that he was talking about something else - like oil, or that by "theology" he meant "secular".

Whatever.

He got me out of my sick bed, and for that I thank him.

And thank you too, all my Australian friends who have been telling me to "enjoy being President" tomorrow - yes it's a holiday here, "Presidents' Day". Yes I intend to enjoy it. And no, we don't all dress up and pretend to be our choice of president. ASIF!

But looking beyonf Presidents' Day 2012, there is a possibility, albeit slight - that our next President will be able to heal the sick!

Yikes! I am beginning to have an inkling of what "President Santorum's" health-care package would be based upon ...

Stay tuned.