Dear America,

I hope this finds you well, but from the sound of things reaching my ears this is not the case. The noise is relentless, it seems: cabinet members and loyal bushies resigning like there was a bonus in store for them (or maybe a private sector job with 6 times the salary), international blunders from foreign policy to economics to French cuisine when president Sarkozy visited Main only to get a hot dog or a hamburger, his choice.

Everywhere I go, people seem to hate you. And it’s not a mild dislike either — they really hate you.

I met a man in Paris on the metro recently. He was nice enough, willing to speak English though my guess is that his first language was something else, like Arabic or Farsi or something. He had a strange hat made of a long piece of cloth and he wouldn’t take it off, and he wore a vest, sort of like the one my father does when we go on vacation except that this guy’s vest was covered in string what what looked like red silly putty and candles. Weird. You should’ve seen his beard!

Anyway, he said he was going to the airport to do…something to the Americans there (the bus went over a bump just then and I didn’t catch what he said). I wonder if he meant that he was going to help people get cabs since he speaks a similar language to taxi drivers, but I doubt it. He said he was going to go meet someone named Ala. I don’t know if he found his friend…the airport there is crowded with Americans and that could make finding someone very difficult. I guess his friend would probably be wearing the same strange hat and would probably not look like most of the Americans there.

In any case, you should’ve heard this guy go off – he was really pissed-off at a lot of things about you. He kept going on about Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and a few other countries I don’t think you’ve heard of. I remember you had said that you don’t read or watch the news because it’s so unpleasant so you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but you might want to pay attention to this round. Just change the channel next time 24 is on and watch anything else. I think you’ll get a sense of what I’m talking about.

He said you had been there, in this country he was talking about, or perhaps that you were there now. I can’t remember. Now, I know that doesn’t make sense since you’re still cushed up between Mexico and the scummier part of Canada, where you’ve always been. I must’ve misunderstood him over his friends who were chanting something I didn’t grasp. One of them was filming it though, so I might have made it onto a home video somewhere – in which case, hi Mom!

Ok, for now. You probably stopped reading many paragraphs ago. There’s more though, and you should look into it. Tell captain cuckoo bananas over there to wisen up and pay attention to the world, for your sake. You’ve been a good friend and I’d hate to see you worse than you are. Look around to Russia, to India, China, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Look to your friends also, and don’t try to screw them over because of some oil in some very harsh and terrible places. Or because of things like French fires. I mean, really. Listen and work with them. Grow up.

Most importantly, look in yourself and see what needs fixing, what needs replacing and what needs a good spring cleaning. Pay attention.

Foolishly hoping for the best, I remain,

Disillusioned Few

_PS. You know that home video I mentioned earlier? They put it on TV! I didn’t catch the news segment it was on but I’m told it was on a network called Al-something. I was on TV! I’m famous!

_