I love America and Americans

I have just spent five days in upstate New York and I am, as always, baffled by the reputation America and Americans hold the world over. Conversations over the long weekend ranged from how new technology can be used to airlift us out of the mire of political complacency, corporate corruption and  ideological brainwashing ... through increasing our commitment to and presence in Darfur ...and needless to say, because I was in Syracuse on Thursday the 2nd, there were animated discussions about how Sarah Palin may well be a maverick - but  even with the combined intellectual brain power of professors from all over the country, no one was able to understand what she meant. 

I know, I know, I know ... I am one of the privileged few who never went to high school here, and who don't have to hide when their fellow country folk are being "unAmerican" out there in the world at large. And I know only too well that there is a whole swathe of this country that I never meet ... the ones who will vote for that man, what's his name... I can't bear him?  But, as an outsider who has always been  embraced, inspired and challenged on these shores,  I do feel that at least on this side of the country, there are interesting, brilliant Americans who care deeply about the state of the union and its role in the world out there. If only they were the majority ....