Over the Fourth of July, a friend of mine was having a rough go of it for various reasons and just wanted to be cheered up with some good things about America. What started out as a friend helping a friend gave birth to what you’re about to read, some fun facts about America. Feel free to share this with your family, friends, coworkers, clergy members, and so on.
– America is the only country in the world with both bacon and Chuck Norris.
– Every Super Bowl winner has been American.
– America is the only place that has had both a fiction and real Steve Austin in existence.
– Our stick-mounted fried food culinary technology is unmatched.
– Who came up with the idea of putting laser light shows to the songs of Pink Floyd? America!
– The Big Gulp? Totally American! Ditto with slushie technology!
– Americans developed soft serve ice cream because the rest of the world wasn’t America enough.
– Who has competitive eating contests on the regular? It sure ain’t France, baby! It’s America!
– The vast majority of World Series winners? American! In fact, we’re the only country in the world with two leagues that play the same sport and are named with synonyms for each other!
– There have been exactly zero incidents of dingoes stealing our babies in America.
– The two American Disney parks have been more successful than any other Disney park in other parts of the world.
– We insist on calling our football (a game where feet aren’t typically used on offense to move the ball down the field) football and soccer (a game where feet are the primary method of of moving the ball down the field offensively) soccer instead of football.
– Name another country where you can take college courses on Taylor Swift and Beyonce and get academic credit for them. You can’t. That’s America!
– We are a melting pot of cultures, races, genders, and ideas. Where else can you find a gay communist furry revolutionary and have him/her/zim/zer be taken seriously?
– America is still the land of opportunity, whether it be entertainment, pop culture, or just starting a mom-and-pop store in the middle of nowhere. If you can dream it, America has a place for it, if only briefly.
– The American military makes significant advances in breaking other people’s stuff on a regular basis.
– Do you like to be rewarded for buying stuff? Thank America for coming up with that idea!
– Want to get married and get an annulment in the same weekend? Go to Las Vegas, USA, baby!
– Who had the cajones to drop not one, but two atomic bombs to end a war? America had the red, white, and blue balls to do it. (Okay, so I might need to work on the phrasing of that last one…)
– America had nothing to do with Wham’s “Last Christmas.”
– The majority of criminals featured on true crime shows and podcasts? American!
– America has multiple songs that could be considered national anthems from “The Star Spangled Banner” to “America F Yeah!”
That’s all I have for now. Don’t be surprised if I come out with another edition someday!
Tag: america
America the Pretty Nifty, Revisited
Many years ago before I became a part-time blogger and a full-time pain in the ass, I wrote a piece called “America the Pretty Nifty” where I extolled the virtues of this great country of ours. Times and opinions change, so on our nation’s “birthday,” I figured I’d take another look at the topic and see where it takes us.
In spite of all its faults, I still think America is one of the greatest countries in the world, if not the greatest. And I don’t say that because I’m a geopolitical homer. When I look at what we have to be proud of, I’m hard-pressed to find a better country anywhere else. Here are a few examples of what I mean.
The races tend to get along. – If you look at media coverage (and, at this point with their blatant and frequent dishonesty, why would you), you would think we’re on the verge of a race war. In truth, we’re nowhere near that point. As with any relationship, there are areas to work on, but overall our melting pot is pretty, well, melty.
America is still a land of innovation. – If you have a dream and the means to follow it, you can make it. After all, it was an American who decided to create a machine that cuts hair using the suction power of a vacuum cleaner. Take that, China! If you want/need a more recent example, just look to Elon Musk. He started out as a South African kid with a weird name and a dream and created a successful electric car company, a company trying to make space travel more accessible, and a way to trigger Leftists on Twitter merely by existing. If that’s not great, I don’t know what is.
We can still have robust intellectual discussions on most topics. – Although I haven’t found a space yet where this is happening, the law of averages says it has to exist somewhere. If you happen to find where it is, please let me know.
We survived a pandemic. – Whether it’s because or in spite of our medical science and political leadership, we came out of the COVID-19 outbreak better than we thought we might. (Observation may not be applicable to the elderly in New York State.) While we still quibble over the effectiveness of mask mandates, the “Fauci Ouchie,” and mandated lockdowns, the fact we have as many Americans as we do able to quibble is a testament to Americans. And speaking of the pandemic…
The pandemic helped people get creative. – When you can’t go outside, you have to figure out how to pass the time. To put it more mildly than salsa in Utah, the pandemic lead to a creative explosion that we are still seeing the ripples of today. Thanks to sites like Etsy and RedBubble, people with the creative bug not only showed off their wares, but were able to make decent money catering to the forced shut-in crowd. There’s even pandemic porn on the Internet (and I’m not talking about the kind pushed by the Fauci-ites, kids).
America is still the shining city on the hill. – Ronald Reagan popularized this image of America as a land of opportunity for people from around the world, and it still holds true today. There are millions upon millions of people who want to come here and start a new life. Granted, we don’t know for sure if it’s because we have opportunities or because Leftists have extended the largess of our tax dollars to make it difficult to resist, but the point is the same. People still want to be Americans.
We have a wealth of global entertainment options. – Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Broadway, Nashville, and many other American cities and locations are hotbeds of entertainment of all kinds. Art, music, theater, books, television, movies, podcasts, internet porn, it doesn’t matter. If you want it, America has it or can direct you to where you can get it. We have such a surplus of entertainment options, producers and directors are trying to recycle ideas that worked in the past, thus guaranteeing work for C-list and below actors if the “Sharknado” series has taught us anything.
Women are still free here. – Contrary to Leftist caterwauling about the recent Supreme Court decision that “overturned” Roe v Wade, women enjoy far more freedom here than their sisters globally. We might have been dragged kicking and screaming towards this point, but we got here and we continue to make strides to keep moving forward. Just remember, for a brief time, a piece of shit named Amber Heard was one of the most talked-about people in the world. Thanks, America!
The really bad/incompetent players haven’t fucked up everything yet. – Over the past few decades, we’ve had some real losers winning elections and getting political power. After all, the most powerful woman in the world not named Oprah or Lady Gaga got as many delegates in the 2020 Presidential race as I did and I didn’t even run. Yet, in spite of the Peter Principle being the rule of thumb in Washington, DC, nobody has done anything so devastating that it can’t be undone later. There have been a few close calls, I grant you, but even then America’s still standing.
We still value freedom. – The fact we fight like the Hatfields and McCoys on a PCP binge whenever there’s a debate over personal freedom is an indication of just how much we love freedom, even after all this time. Some of this is self-serving or done for political/ideological ends, but the passion is still there. Deep down inside, I think most Americans want everyone to be free to live their lives on their own terms, not the terms of others.
I still see America as a fix-er-upper, but one that is worth keeping working at to restore its past beauty and glory. And as long as there are people willing to put on their tool belts and put in the work, America will remain pretty nifty.