Princess Diana

A strange title for a blog post right? Well whilst I was on the subject of driving, I thought I would share with you something I came across on my travels.

Sat in traffic, I looked at the car in front of me, and noticed an interesting sight; a personalized number plate, which read- LADY DI. Now I know she was a great woman, but I couldn't help feeling this was a little over the top. Why would you choose that as a license plate, unless of course you, or your wife, was called that. Which I think was unlikely. In my journeys across the states, I have found a lot of sympathy for Princess Diana, a lot more than you come across in England. She was well and truly loved here. People have come up to us and told us how they felt our loss. For me, I have to restrain myself- "what loss?" Don't get me wrong, I think she was very admirable woman, who did an awful lot for charity. But I never felt some sort of personal attachment to her,  especially because of my age.

People here also seem shocked I haven't met the Queen, or any member of the Royal Family. Well, they don't get out much, and Britain is still a fairly large place. Have you met Obama?

I also get asked about my opinions on the monarchy a lot too, and I find it hard to explain my views. Well I acknowledge that its anachronistic, and does guzzle a little too much of the taxpayers money, I think Britain would be a worse off place without our royals. They are an icon of the UK, an image, a symbol of our country. They make us who we are, and they serve a purpose. They facilitate lots of public events and openings, freeing up time for our prime minister and other important national figures to do legislative work. We don't have a presidential figurehead, the closest we come is with our Liz. Furthermore, the monarchy is a big tourist factor for the UK, attracting a large number of visits to the country because of Buckingham Palace and other such homes. In fact, with people willing to immortalise the royals on license plates, maybe the UK government should look at expanding monarchy tourism abroad?

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

Not only did this past week mark my first foray into electioneering, it also became the first week I drove properly in the US. By properly I mean, on roads, highways, and in a car by myself.

And it was pretty easy. Well, I didn't crash lets put it that way. And I managed to stay on the right hand side of the road too, which actually just seemed like the natural thing to do, what with the steering wheel on the "wrong" side of the car. There is no right and wrong, just right and left. I find it so strange why the UK and a handful of other countries drives on the left, while the majority of countries drive on the right. I mean, how did it come to evolve like that? If any two countries would be the same, one would assume it would be the US and UK, seeing as how Englishmen emigrated to the first colonies in North America. Did they decide to be rebellious and drive their horses and cart on the opposite side of the road. Surely that must have caused some confusion, along with some broken bones, in the first place.

On the whole, I found driving in Wisconsin to be quite a pleasurable experience. Without a clutch and gear stick to worry about (how I would've handled that with my right hand I do not know), the 'gas' and brake were easy to use, once I adjusted to the power of the car. It was a little weird at first, taking your foot off the brake and finding the car moving on its own before I had even touched the accelerator, but I soon got used to it. It was also a little strange turning my head to the right to look out of the rear view mirror instead of the left, but again, it was easy to adapt.

The hardest thing for me, was getting used to the size of the car. I have only ever driven small cars, a mini and a punto (and a quick stint in an Avensis,  Ferrari and Landrover). The car I was driving, a Chrysler 300 series, was bigger than all of these, in terms of length, and possibly even breadth. Thankfully though, in the home of the 'large', the lanes are wider, as are parking spaces. So apart from maybe driving a little too close to parked cars- though coming from England, we know how to handle narrow spaces- and parking too far away from the kerb (curb), I managed to do pretty well at driving. I drove by myself to pick us up lunch one day, and drove us all the way home from Kenosha to Madison. Not bad for my second day of driving.

Some caveats.

What is with American kerbs (curbs)? No wonder you see so many monster hummers and 4x4s on the road; anything smaller or lower down and you have to deal with those blasted kerbs. Who on earth decided to make the kerbs so high. The kerbs here are probably double the height they are in England, so when you are parked next to a house on the road, and you open the passenger door, it scrapes along the grass, and you find you're practically sat parallel with the sidewalk, so you have to do a kind of roll to get out of the car. There was one time when the kerb was so high that I actually got the car door stuck into the mud and grass, and had give it a real shove (and dig up some dirt) in order to get it unstuck. And that was nothing compared to the time where it was all just sidewalk, and I opened the door and immediately scraped my boss' car door along the ground. Ouch. I would certainly like to meet the person who designed these kerbs.

Secondly, I find stop signs are way overused, and in the most part are very frustrating. In a nation where you can turn right at a red light, to save time and speed up traffic, why must I come to a complete stop at an intersection where I can see for miles in all directions, and know that there is not a single car in sight. Yet stop I must, completely, otherwise I may just get a ticket. Wouldn't a give way- or yield sign as they say here-suffice? I can see why at times it is necessary to stop, but I can stop at a give way if I have to. If I can see it's clear, why can't I go? I never thought I'd say this, but how about some roundabouts-turncircles- instead? That way, instead of a four way stop sign, we can all go if its clear, reducing the likelihood of a pile up of traffic.

Oh, and electronic signs on the freeway, US, you need some of those too.

Free Healthcare?

This morning we made a trip to University Health Services here in Madison- Nicole had cut her finger whilst slicing a bagel, and instead of stopping when she felt skin.. she kept sawing. Don't worry though.. it's all ok, she's didn't cut her little finger (pinky) off, just a cut.

But it was really bruised and hurting, so she called the health centre here on campus. After a brief description of the problem the nurse said "Ok better get it checked out, how about an appointment at 10am?" At this point, we both turned to look at the clock.. 9.50am. Great. Off we went. A brisk walk later, we were checking in with the receptionist. After verifying Nicole was who she said she was- I.D number, DOB etc.- we perched down in the seats in what was really quite a nice waiting room; lots of chairs, bright and open, welcoming even. Not at all like your typical NHS centre. Our bums had barely touched the chair, when the nurse came out and called Nicole in. 15 minutes later she was back, having had all her vitals checked (just in case) and her wound looked at, disinfected, and a fresh plaster (or bandaid if you want to use the American generic term, which is actually a brandname) put on it.

Now I waited for the killer... "Do you have insurance, this is going to cost x amount of $". Wrong. Nicole asked how much she owed..nothing. With or without insurance, this excellent service was free. Wonderful, I thought; no need to worry about how much it would cost me for a simple doctors visit. Alas, again I was wrong. This service is just for students, and that's why its free. But it isn't actually free. It's paid for by tuition fees, which are at least $20,000 a year, but can total more than $34,000 if you live out-of-state. I thought things in at UW-Madison were amazing when I first came here... free bus passes, free gym membership, free music and films at the union, free healthcare.

But it isn't. It's paid for with extremely high tuition fees, which I successfully avoided paying being an exchange student from Warwick. Maybe it's true, maybe nothing in life is free.

Meanwhile, I get to go back to figuring out which doctors and hospitals are cheapest for me to go to- they have to be "in-network".... NHS anyone?

Easter Photos

New photos up on Facebook.. from Easter time, so not that new! Slowly going to get up to date.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=226593&id=511178313&l=f7839719a8

Getting Out The Vote

That's how I've spent my time the past few days; encouraging people to vote Democrat. Has it worked? Well I guess we won't really know that until November 2nd, but we secured victories in the primary elections, in the sense that only one incumbant was defeated. More on that later.

We kicked things off right away when I arrived Monday afternoon, helping a candidate already in the legislature see off a rival. We walked streets in a nice little neighbourhood just outside of Milwaukee, dropping off flyers proclaiming how excellent our candidate was, and why re-election was a good thing. It was great exercise, running up and down the street, negotiating gates and pathways to get up to the house. Now lots of houses in the US have mailboxes at the end of their drive, so you would think it'd make things a lot easier when out distributing literature. Not so; though as a home owner you have to buy your own mailbox, they actually remain property of the state, belonging to the US postal service. Therefore, it is illegal to drop election propaganda into them. And so, we get to play the fun game of finding a place to put the leaflet where it won't fly away- in the screen door, in the door handle, or behind the numbers on the house, being some of my favourite places. Maybe my flyering skills worked- this candidate won 83% of the vote.

After a quick home-cooked Italian meal, we hit the road again, helping another candidate facing a challenge. Instead of walking the streets, this time we trekked around complexes- good places to target the senior population. At this thought, I had images of us heading to old folks style homes, with lots of different rooms in one building... oh how wrong I was. Instead I found myself wandering around dozens of condos, some linked together, others not. And these condos were huge! I wouldn't mind retiring there. Some of these complexes took 3 of us 45 minutes to hit every door.

The flyers for this candidate talked about "an independent track record." Under challenge from the left, this candidate was forced to defend their voting record in the capitol, and show voters in the democratic party that s/he didn't do what s/he was told. As I said earlier, incumbants do not have a given right to stand for election again. In the UK of course, there are no such thing as primaries. Candidates for election are simply chosen by party leaders. Here however, grassroots members choose, and they are not afraid to stand up and run themselves if they don't like what's going on. Democracy in action. At times however, this simply creates a divide in the party, generating animosity between people who supposedly share the same views. This is the case with the Tea Party; tired of Obama's change, and feeling established Republicans aren't doing enough, they have created a right wing faction of candidates to challenge traditional Republicans... and have been successful in some cases. Of course this simply amuses me, for while moderate Republicans may stand a good chance of winning the votes of independents and some disgruntled Democrats, Tea Party candidates are likely to be too extreme for many voters, thus ensuring a Democratic victory. I hope. While Republicans may be shooting themselves in the feet, one could argue that purity of ideology over power is a good thing.

On with the story. Election day dawned clear and bright. With barely a cloud in the sky, this looked promising for voter turnout. Sadly, this was not the case. Because of a closely contested gubernatorial race, lots of challenges to incumbants and various other local factors, turnout was predicted to be record breaking. In actuality, turnout was disappointing, at around 20%. Why was this the case? I think the current political climate is in large part to blame, which I will talk about in another post. But in the area I was campaigning in, I felt that education was a major factor. As I sat outside a really cool diner, built around an old trailer (the kind where you see Obama behind the counter, with a line of avid fans sat on stools stretching out before him), I was talking to a very nice man who was just waiting patiently to shake hands with the candidates. He seemed interested in politics, a lifelong Democrat, who was keen to put up yard signs; he just couldn't afford them. And yet he was unaware that today was the primary, unaware who is Representative was, unaware of the looming elections in November. I found the same was true later in the afternoon, when we were out delivering more flyers and talking to potential voters in a minority neighbourhood. It's easy to argue that these people were simply disinterested in politics, and couldn't be bothered to vote, but when I spoke to them, I found so many to be genuinely interested in what I had to say. When I explained why we were voting, and what we were voting for, most wanted to be involved. It seems to me that more education about the voting system would benefit everyone. Perhaps compulsory voting is the way to go... at least a system like that forces more awareness.

After the diner, where my boss was meeting with the Democratic candidate for Governor, me and the governor's staff followed the two of them as they drove to the next vote grabbing location. Barrett, candidate for governor, was heading on a whirlwind one day tour of the state, so it was a fast stop. So fast in fact, that my boss pulled up outside the cafe, jumped out, and shouted to me to park the car. At least now I know what it's like to be a Valet.

As election day continued, we drove north to help out yet another candidate. This time our service was needed to get a voter to the polls. Off we drove to her house, picked her up, and chauffeured her to and from the polling station. A nice touch by political campaigns to get as many votes as they can. After that, it was back to the streets for one last time, this time hitting up specific houses to ensure that those who said they would vote, had voted. Every vote counts after all. With the deadline approaching, we walked up to front doors, asking people whether they had voted, and who they voted for, if they would tell us. We weren't trying to disturb everyone, we were just trying to encourage you to vote. We'd had a long day, just as you had. So next time an election rolls around, and you have volunteers knocking on your door trying to sway your vote, spare a thought for us. We do it for free, we care about our cause. Be nice, have a chat with us, don't shoo us away.

8pm arrived, polls closed. The waiting begins. We drove to one election party, but they were too busy with organising volunteers and finding out poll numbers to make it like a party. We were waiting for results too, so we heading off to another campaign. Though this promised to be entertaining, the candidate having hired out a yacht club, this wasn't to be the case. This incumbant was defeated by another Democrat, so the mood was rather sombre. Onwards we continued to a final party. This one might have been good, taking place in a bar which had a bucking bull right in the centre, but by the time we arrived, the results had long since rolled in, and the celebrations passed. We ended the night watching more results come in, and discussing the implications, again reminding me of the closing scene of a West Wing episode. Deeper analysis would come tomorrow.

All this excitement and intensity for the primaries... roll on the mid-terms!

Sorry for the epically long post!