1,000 Miles to Louisiana (Warning: This Post is NOT Appropriate for Young Children)

I left Williamsburg at 7:00 AM yesterday. More than 1,000 miles and three bathroom stops later, I went to sleep in an overpriced Days Inn in Hammond, LA. It's the bathroom stops that I want to talk about. The first: a BP station somewhere in North Carolina, just off the freeway. After pumping gas, I walked into the station. A couple guys were loitering by the door. One, with shorts on, had no calves. His legs just went straight down from his knees to his ankles. On one ankle was a little tattoo. They were talking about "truucks" and holding cigarrette butts. I strolled by and went into the men's restroom. I noticed first that it was tiny--about six by six feet or less. I noticed second that it was insecure--the door would not lock. I noticed third that it was dirty--the floor was grimy with who-knows-what, the open garbage can was filled with dirty toilet paper and unwrapped stinky diapers, there was an empty box of flourescent condoms on the floor and an exotic condom dispenser on the wall above the urinal. The toilet stall was worse--in order to get into the stall, I had to push the door inward, past the toilet. But the door was so wide and the stall so small that I had to squeeze between the door and the toilet, scraping my legs along the dirty toilet rim. Finally I got in. The toilet was disgusting, but after wiping the pee from the seat and trying to disregard the brown stains I started doing my business. When I looked to my left where the toilet paper is, I noticed the following poem scratched into the stall:

I came in here
Brokenhearted,
Had to shit,
But only farted.

I got out as soon as I could, again scraping past the toilet. Luckily they had soap... I strolled past the loiterers again--this time they were talking about "gettin' off work the third u' July".

The second: a Chevron station outside Atlanta, GA (on I-75, not I-85, because I got a little lost in the rain and had to turn around). As I opened the door, I noticed that there was no urinal, that the walls were supposed to be white, and that it smelled worse than anything I had whiffed since the Elko sewage treatment plant broke down fifteen years ago. I didn't notice that 1) there was no soap; 2) the sink and water knobs looked like long-neglected Petri dishes from a high school experiment gone wrong; 3) the only method of hand-drying, the air dryer, had been dismantled. So I went number one as fast as I could, flushed the toilet, and went to wash my hands. Instead, I just opened the black-and-brown-stained white door and left, hoping that the millions of bacteria that had just found a new home on my body would play nice.

The third: an Exxon station outside Mobile, AL. I thought I might never smell something so foul as the Chevron station. I was mistaken. Since there was a Subway restaurant in this station, I figured the bathroom would be sanitary. Mistaken again. After waiting in line, I finally got my chance. Locking the door, I turned around and took a breath--that is, I tried to breath. The stench of urine was thick and sticky, a smell so potent that my lungs are still moist with it. I quickly went to the urinal, hoping to survive the ordeal. The floor was wet. I mean, it was really wet. A quarter-inch deep puddle about 25 square feet in size--all pee. It was jaw-dropping, but I resisted the urge to actually drop my jaw at the risk of tasting the air. When I was done with the urinal (again with an exotic condom machine at eye level), I went to wash my hands. The soap dispenser on the wall was broken. I spotted a big bottle with yellowish liquid in the bottom. When I made sure that it too was not urine (it was too viscous) I tried to get some soap out. The push-spout on the top was gone, so a stem came out from the top but there was no way to get the soap out. The top wouldn't screw off. Finally, I turned it over and squeezed. The plastic bottle was so decrepit that cracks opened up at the corners when I squeezed and soap came dripping out onto my hand and arm. Even better: the air dryer worked.

Supply and demand has a funny way of slapping you in the face sometimes. Prices give consumers information. When I see a low price for gasoline, I want to get gas there. But in order to keep the prices low, some gas stations find it necessary to leave their restrooms unattended. Now when I see a low price I will remember that there is more information being conveyed that just a few pennies' savings: lower price could be the death of me.

Culture War?

O'Reilly, Hillary, Cheney, Boxer, and the list goes on. These are the people shaping our political sphere these days, presenting increasingly extreme "purist" forms of liberalism and conservatism. As they present extreme choices for voters, the majority, who are actually in the middle and not tagging along the extremities, are alienated. Even worse, politicians imposing their extremism on the electorate (given that the electorate only has two viable choices in any given major election--both of which are extreme--politicians can claim that the electorate is following the candidates) can create the facade of a "culture war", which they attempt to use to their advantage. Thus, the majority of Americans are in the middle, understanding both sides of arguments and sympathizing with both or neither candidate while being forced to choose a) between two extremes or b) to not vote or participate at all. 

In the end, there is a culture war, but it is not between the "polarized electorate" but between polarized factions--bits of extremism who are fanatical enough to run for office, to donate money to like-minded organizations, to become infotainers, to stage rallies and get recognized. Meanwhile, America's main doesn't diverge too much on issues like abortion, homosexuality, immigration, or even national security. The talking heads leading both parties from the extremes make it look like that, but they are actually representing small and intense minorities from each side. The culture war is not a battle between the religious and the non-religious or the traditionally moral and the progressive. It's between black-and-white purists who focus on one or two issues without compromise and are crazy enough to constantly advocate their positions in public. 

I admit that I'm leaning toward that direction on a few issues, namely abortion and immigration, though I have yet to run for office or even affiliate myself with a party. I have a long way to go before I can call myself a soldier in this tiny but media-grabbing and therefore deceiving culture war.

The President for whom I Voted: Destroying our Unusualness?

In his 1999 book "America the Unusual" John Kingdon states that no American party has successfully advocated for socialist principles, and he specifically mentions the Democratic Party as not being socialist. Particularly, he says, "no viable American party has advocated state ownership and control of economic production, close state regulation of the economy, or a really thoroughgoing welfare state that is financed, owned, and operated by the government" (p.72).

In reading this book, I have become convinced that in comparison with other Western countries, America is unusual in her political culture (largely individualistic and demanding of equal opportunity) and political institutions (strong separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism). In a nutshell, the main of America is far to the RIGHT of the main of otherwise similar Western nations. When I arrived at the above-quoted passage, I realized that things might have changed a great deal since Kingdon typed those words on Microsoft Word 98: state ownership and control of economic production is now no shock to hear about on the news, close state regulation of the economy seems like all we ever talk about anymore, and our welfare state (of which I partake) is becoming more thoroughgoing all the time. 

I'm not necessarily saying that these things are evil, bad, or wrong. However, it seems apparent to me that America is losing some of her unusualness. If we can assume together that our unusualness is a good thing, then it is being eroded to our detriment. Unusual? Unique? Well, at least we used to be.