STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND ?

Lately, with the likes of Rick Santorum collecting the majority of Oklahomans' votes in the Republican presidential primary, Senator James Inhofe publishing his book on "the hoax" that is global warming; the half-assed Affordable Health Care Act, which even as flawed as it is could not gain enough approval to stay out of the cluches of the Supreme Court - I feel more than ever a stranger in a strange land.

Some days, when feeling mellow, I tell myself that, had I emigrated to a country in, for instance, the Far East or Africa, I'd have found there a vastly different culture from that I'd experienced for most of my life. I wouldn't have found it surprising, I wouldn't have felt the urge to complain about what I might have considered the peculiar, illogical, unfair or unjust aspects of it. I'd have simply told myself, "this is what it is, put on your big girl panties and deal with it!" But coming to the USA, where they use the same language (well - almost), and roughly similar customs, it's difficult to accept the different cultural mindset I find here in Oklahoma, and in neighbour state Texas.

Maybe it's not the USA or even Oklahoma at fault - maybe it's me. Maybe it's my Aquarius Sun, or my Aries Moon in conflict with Oklahoma's Scorpio statehood sign, or the USA's strong Cancerian links. I do have Cancer rising though.....

Don't know....

Stranger in a Strange Land? Someone wrote the book.

Stranger in a Strange Land, a science fiction novel by a master of that genre, Robert Heinlein. Overview of plot from Spark Notes

Humankind sends its first human expedition to Mars. The spaceship's crew arrives on the planet and are never heard from again. Twenty-five years later, another mission is sent, and the child of two of the first ship's crew-members, who has been born on Mars and raised by the peculiar Martian race, is discovered and brought back to Earth. Because of various legal precedents, Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars, is the inheritor to a vast fortune, and because of another precedent Mike has a claim to legal ownership of the planet Mars. Therefore he has the potential to be massively influential in matters of Earth politics... Mike slowly teaches his body to adapt to the Earth's atmosphere and he begins learning Earth culture and language, which differ enormously from Martian ways of thought.

Some quotes from Stranger in a Strange Land - from a list at Goodreads.com

"The country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degrees---its religious revivals were often hysterical in a fashion almost Dionysian."

"Come Judgment Day, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along."

"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."

"God made alcohol and he made feet - and he made 'em so you could put 'em together and be happy!"

So....I'll laugh, drink up and ......erm put my feet together?