they don't call us the 51st state for nothing!

[leelastarsky]

Australia is having a National election on Saturday. Hubby and I were discussing our options for voting (he has to work on Sat) in the car this morning, on the way to dropping off our two youngest at school, when master 8 pipes up from the back seat - "Who are you voting for, Dad? Bush or the other guy?"
Ah, they don't call us the 51st state for nothing!
So after much spluttering and chuckling and explaining that we could not in fact vote for the US President, we asked him to name Australia's Prime Minister.
His response... "Um... George Washington?"
More cackles and cries of outrage from the front seat, whereupon master 8 hastily corrects himself - "Jay Leno!"
Needless to say, we knew by then that the case was hopeless.
"I'll give you a hint," says hubby. "He's a little man with glasses and his first name is John-"
"John Lennon!" pipes up master 8 enthusiastically.
"John Howard!" his sister butts in (9) triumphantly, thereby killing the chance of any more gems of wisdom from master 8.
Oh well, at least he knows the name of our PM now. :~P

Comments

[netbyrd.livejournal.com]

I have lived through that in small scale. I grew up in a little town surrounded on two sides by Chicago. I could never name anybody in charge of my town, but I sure knew the mayor of chicago and half the aldermen's names.
That is very interesting that your children know more about the US than most of the highschoolers here. I guess if its not on a video game or in a mall, its not important here.

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

Up until the last 20yrs, Australians were brought up on a diet of overseas content. Our TV programs used to be pretty much all UK or US. Quite simply because it was cheaper for the networks to buy the stuff from overseas than make it here.
That has changed somewhat - there are now rulings about the media having to contain a certain percent of local content.
Nevertheless, the kids' (mine particularly) favourite shows are still the Simpsons or South Park, both of which are very US culture-rich.
My husband often comments that he learned most of what he knows about American culture (which is a heck of a lot, I can tell you!) from comics!

[netbyrd.livejournal.com]

a good comedian will actually have quite good insight on politics or the nation. It always astounds me. I learned more about 1980's world politics from the tape of Robin William's show at the Met than I did in school.

[leelastarsky.livejournal.com]

Very true! My hubby just read this actually and said he learned the most about American politics from MAD magazine!

[netbyrd.livejournal.com]

Who knew that Alfred E. Newman could be so insightful?