Some thoughts from the land of permanent contrast...

The confusion starts already in Canada, in the terminal of the Toronto Pearson International Airport, where the signs announce in no confusing terms "welcome to the Unites States of America". And just as if to allay the suspicions of any patriot Canadians who may be saying, and not so unreasonably, "wait a minute, I am still in Canada", the Statute of Liberty posted nearby proudly holds its torch. This is not a mistake, and the confrontation with a United States "border patrol" officer Whelmy definitively suspends any illusions. His name makes me want to giggle like a five year old, but then he authoritatively commands as if I was a Guantanamo prisoner "Right four fingers, right thumb, left four fingers, left thumb" and now his name is even more hilarious. He is supposed to "well me" or "mean well" or whatever his parents dreamed up as a name when smoking ganja in the rebellious seventies. He is no such thing. Maybe he'd served in Guantanamo before, but now that they are trying to dismantle it, he got reallocated. Old habits die hard.

I can't help but see the contrast between the country of civil liberties enshrined in the constitution, and where individual negative rights are safeguarded more vigorously that the Mona Lisa, and the fact that, right there, at the very entry to this country with such great civil liberties, a human being is like a feather in the wind. One day you exist, the next day you have been blown away, "sorry about that, Ma'am". Or maybe not even sorry. According to the small text in the entry forms we vigilantly complete, we have forfeited all the rights and that silly Whelmy over there can decide whether I get or not into the country, whether he detains me, and by the way, as the form kindly notifies me, I have hereto thereby therefore altogether forfeited a fundamentally protected right to legal counsel. Back to Guantanamo.

After I deal with Whelmy and he's content and satisfied - not that he would give it away in any way - I am proudly marching on to that dreaded Continental flight to New York where I am expecting to relieve the wonders great American civilisation: get lost in its gigantic museums, hit a jazz club like they don't exist elsewhere, take a stroll in the midst of those great towers and churches and synagogues and columns built by immigrants, media magnates, and just ordinary Joe-the-Construction-Guy types who would sacrifice any museum or jazz club for a medium burger, fries on the side pleeease. And on the corner of 78th and Maddison, where out taxi drops us off, and were we start our adventure at a place called Lady M Cake Boutique (if you don't believe that "cake" and "boutique" can be combined in a single name, here is the evidence http://www.ladymconfections.com), I feel almost proud that Whelmy has admitted me to a place so chic, where I almost feel like an imposture with all the immaculately pedicured toes and powdered noses around.

With my Alice in Wonderland t-shirt, I am really in Wonderland, though Wonderland makes me realise of the urgency of getting to a nearby spa or risk looking like a peasant in the company of Lady M ladies. I am salivating in the expectation of the great pedicured New York with perfect Lady M ladies running around in Central Park, sipping champaigne in jazz clubs and shopping at Barney's side by side with me.

My dreams lives on while I stroll around the upper east side, then crashes and dies as soon as I step outside of the well defined perimeter. And here, I start to understand why the New Yorkers prefer their peculiar street numbering system: to delineate the haves and the have nots, those with the polished guardians standing at the building entrances and those climbing the fifth floor without the elevator, those Lady M ladies whose pedicure wanted to make my toes curl up in total embarrassment and other ladies for whom the word pedicure is simply not part of the vocabulary. That in itself may be banal, for every big city, including our little "socialist Paris" and the almost equally "socialist Toronto", as they appear to most Americans, has its privileged.

What is different here is the enormity of the contrast, the brutalness of it all. After all, many of those people living outside of the "perimeter of happiness" are still without social security and healthcare, while the debate ranges on. Hilary's prior losses on the same front are not encouraging, neither are the ongoing debates. In the "socialist France" for example, a doctor does not have right to refuse a patient on financial grounds. But that's clearly not the argument to bring up in the United States of America. Unless you are Michael Moore.

Contrasts surround me wherever I look in the United States of America, I mean after the Canadian border. The universities with the most recognised scholars in the world and the state of surprising illiteracy. This is not just a loud statement. The latest OECD study of education systems showed that despite above average spending, America has some of the industrial world's worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and general poverty. No wonder education performance is stagnating. No wonder that in my daily interactions with the "general public", I get the impression sometimes I am not speaking English. "What's that honey?" is a question that I hear on several occasions. I doubt they have read anything beyond Cosmopolitan or something of the like, and perhaps it's not their fault. Working without vacation, commuting, and having to pay dearly for everything over high school is not a recipe for well read, well informed population. Not that they could ever be informed with Fox news all around.

I could go on about the Land of Contrasts, otherwise known as the USA. And I suppose that some contrast, some non-conformity, some bumps along the otherwise boring road can be distracting, mesmerising, exciting, diverse, and even creative. The contrast between the walkway of the meatpacking district and the not-yet-reconstructed warehouses surrounding it. The contrast between the artistic world of MOMA amidst the center of the commercial district. The contrast between the chatter of the Greenwich village, the hum of Brooklyn, the silence of Jersey, the dignified calm of the Upper East side. Others are clearly less flattering. Securitised yet least secure. Educated yet clueless about anything non-American. Rich, yet so disadvantaged. Financial center, yet financially ruined. Global superpower, yet globally disliked.

And yet what's puzzling is that they are proud of it all, proud to be Americans, to have an opportunity to climb from one side of the spectrum to the other, just like Britney crossing the stage. They are proud of their shared values and surprisingly, these values are somewhat shared whether you are in New York, Oklahoma, Houston or Los Angeles. Welcome in the melting pot, as long as you are polite and smile at regular three second intervals you can share the same values. Just be proud, just do it. Don't ask of what, no time to think about it today, or tomorrow, or the day after. And yet, walking up and down streets of American cities, I could not help but wonder who exactly is melting in this pot? It seems that whatever is cooking in this pot is certainly not a soup of common values, but a melange of different ingredients which don't necessarily compliment each other, but are already stuck in the pot, and just like a rat, caught in a mousetrap, pray for the days of unlimited cheese, otherwise known as the American dream.

Who wants to be a millionaire?