More Biscuits and Gravy

I need to build up my strength, so here's a second helping.

If America is 'a nation divided,' what the heck does that make Canada?

A nation divided. That was the tag line the CBC used in its run-up to Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. Even now that the election was won with a real majority by U.S. President George W. Bush after John Kerry conceded defeat following a tight race, commentator after commentator and interviewee after interviewee keeps saying Bush's majority is so slim he doesn't really have a strong mandate.

Compared to Canada, though, Bush does indeed have a majority -- a real one -- something Canadians have not seen since 1984, when Brian Mulroney won the first one in Canada since 1958.

Newsday seems to be specializing in liberal angst. First there was yesterday's laugher and now the endlessly amusing Sheryl McCarthy provides Many NYers discover it's not easy being blue.

It was the image of the election night map - with a tiny cluster of blue states on the East Coast, a small cluster on the West Coast, a handful in the middle and all the rest a yawning sea of red - that stuck in the mind.

And it caused quite a few New Yorkers to wake up in a state of shock yesterday, aware that there's a huge gulf between the way we think and the way the rest of the country thinks.
...
In New York, where about 60 percent of the voters went for Kerry, his supporters were feeling a highly emotional sense of loss. The hope and optimism they felt about the prospect of the country's taking a new direction with Kerry and Edwards in the White House has suddenly vanished.

"I'm totally depressed," said Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, a longtime Democrat and a Kerry supporter. "I'm hearing that from other people too."

Sheesh, in our little rural county we had 65% for the President although the bigger county next door showed us up with 68%. Of course, that's nothing compared to Madison County, Idaho which went 92% for the President. Think how badly us benighted folks would have felt if the Lurchster had won, Sheryl!

And don't forget Hollyweird! Stephanie Mansfield enlightens with Producing a Hollywood flop:

Long decried as out of touch with "the real America," Hollywood woke up to its worst nightmare on Main Street.
...
One can only imagine the despair of the Hollywood stars over the specter of glittery state dinners and policy lunches that could have been: Barbra and Moby, Uma Thurman and Viggo Mortensen, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, Bette Midler and George Clooney. Directed, perhaps, by Rob Reiner and Steven Spielberg.

Who knew "moral values" voters could triumph over production values?

Not to mention Euro Angst! I'll need a whole post for the Guardian later.