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Journal of An American Expatriate

Saturday, April 3

There are three of us in this American family: husband, wife and teenage son. Presently we live in Manama, Bahrain. Granted, these days the Middle East is not a major destination for most Western expatriates.

What are we doing in a tiny island kingdom 15 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia? We are here because our life in Oklahoma was a setting that offered nothing but a future of dead armadillos on country roads.

My wife and I are teachers who finally tired of the degrading salary-level in Oklahoma, a place where educators have little value and some of the best professionals end up walking around like docile maniacs nibbling at the empty bait.

We decided to go international; our assignment: Bahrain, a setting as far removed from the middle-class of the American Midwest as Earth to Jupiter.

Most friends and family think we are non compos mentis for living here. Yet the political situation seems safer than New York City or Washington, D.C.

The ongoing Formula 1 Grand Prix is big news this week. Otherwise, life in Bahrain is somewhat ordinary.

Unofficially, March is National Riot Month. Many students enjoy the camaraderie of demonstrating in tear gas tinged air at the U.S. Embassy, before leaving Bahrain to attend American colleges.

Some Shiites here were upset last week just because the Israeli government fired three rocket missiles at wheel chair bound Sheikh Yassin, the 67-year-old quadriplegic leader of the Palestine terrorist group Hamas.

Some descendants of the Holocaust victims learned a few vile habits from the German Nazi legacy.

Shooting coyotes from a helicopter is considered unsportsmanlike conduct in Montana, but firing one, let alone three missiles at a quadriplegic emerging from a mosque… well, that is rough play.

Perhaps American baseball legend Ty Cobb, who jumped into the stands during a game against New York and stomped a cripple, would give thumbs up to Ariel Sharon.

The only difference between people like Sharon and Yassin, and Bush and bin Laden is the legitimacy of law. These men are all fine examples of terrorists.

Our Supreme Court-appointed president still acts like a 16-year-old on an Egg McMuffin high. Every time he speaks, his discourse stinks of conman - the kind of suckworthy conman who flogs magic tea to old people in nursing homes. Moreover, his vice-president sidekick looks more and more like a plump, gay Bart Simpson.

Events leading up to the White House auction on November 7 are disgraceful. The media should be honest and educate the American public about the empty civics gesture of voting for a replacement member of the ruling oligarchy. Then there would be the loss of all that easy advertising revenue. The idea of white-collar delegates at either political party convention does not seem all that far removed from a blue-collar crowd at a WWF Smack Down.
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