Over the weekend, I was talking by Internet phone (meaning it cuts off every 15 minutes and makes weird echoes in the conversation when it is working) to Jesse, whose blog can be found here. Jesse is a teacher, husband and about-to-be-dad (like, this week) in the cloud forest of Costa Rica, so there's a lot of weird mutant jungle biology on his blog, along with his creative writing and observations about his unique experiences living in the developing world.
We were discussing what American news had filtered into Costa Rica over the weekend, and I thought I would pass this along because it's a marvelous gift of perspective. Jesse was telling me that pretty much all Costa Ricans had heard about America was stuff about our election and the World Series. The World Series coverage is apparently hilarious, because not only are CR sports commentators unfamiliar with the principals, ("The PHY-Lees?") but they lack a basic understanding of the game of baseball, which leads to a lot of dead air punctuated by statements of the completely obvious. "The player hits the ball, and now he runs." I can only imagine what their reaction was to postponing a game because of what they probably regard as "a little bit of rain."
In terms of our election, were they hearing stump speeches, promises, allegations, revelations or talking points? Nope. They got the one highlighted story about the Sarah Palin Stripper Look-A-Like contest out in Vegas. So that's what they think about us, folks. Democracy is afoot, but strippers and baseball grab the headlines. That might be for the best, really. The economy's for shit, but that naked chick who sort of kind of resembles Sarah Palin clone got ten grand.
So yeah - perspective.