American Definitions

Long time followers of this space will be aware that we occasionally update our book of definitions to reflect the real meaning of words and phrases in current usage. Sometimes our definitions are different from the conventional meanings as per the English language dictionaries but be assured that we capture the true essence of all we define.

Hockey Mums: Good looking, white American women who do not read newspapers, and who think Africa is a country. They may run for high national office without once discussing economic issues, foreign, defence or national security or indeed anything of substance.

Cultural Conservatives: Racists. People who are deeply suspicious of any one or any ideas that reflects a background or viewpoint different from theirs.

Socialist: George W Bush! He has nationalised banks, he’s spending unprecedented sums on economic stimulus packages and bail-out packages for failed businesses.

Fiscal Conservatives: Republicans, until they get into the White House! After entering the White House, they reduce taxes for the rich, expend the national budget fighting wars and helping the military-industrial complex, pile up huge fiscal deficits and increase the national debt to unprecedented levels.

Trickle-Down Economics: A principle crafted by Ronald Reagan and faithfully practiced by George W Bush that says that if you make the rich richer, the poor will get inspired to stop being lazy and work harder to get themselves out of their self-imposed poverty.

Primaries: The system by which political parties in the US choose their candidates for general elections. It is a transparent mechanism that allows any interested party member to indicate interest in any office and persuade fellow members to choose him as the party’s candidate. If he succeeds in persuading them, be becomes the candidate and can go on to win (or lose) the election. (Note-the word has a different meaning in Nigeria, where it means a process whereby a few party chieftains select the candidate and impose him or her on the helpless party members. If the members are stubborn, they may simply cancel the primaries and announce the candidate of their choice, who may not even have been a candidate in the primaries.)

Undecided Voters: People who knew they should vote for Obama, but were looking for a reason (other than his race) not to do so. Fortunately Obama gave them no alibi, so they voted for him.

Swing States: The few states that decide who wins the elections in America. Also means states with a lot of undecided voters.

Sarah Palin: A pitbull who wears lipstick and can see Russia from her home in Alaska.

Maverick: One maverick is good, but two? Another word for erratic, tactical and unpredictable. The older you get, the more “mavericky” you become. (Note-if you are a hockey mum, pitbull or Alaskan, it is also a word you can use to explain away any question you don’t understand-just say mavericky, mavericky, mackericky….ad infinitum, until the interviewer gets tired)

George W Bush: The lame-duck Vice-President of the US. He acts as President when Dick Cheney is undergoing another heart by-pass surgery. He was elected to office as a Republican, but before and during the last elections, he became an independent! Notice that John McCain criticised him and the Republicans avoided him like a plague. Having being silently expelled from the Republican Party, he was not allowed to attend a single campaign event for the McCain-Palin ticket.

Cindy McCain: The rich, glass-eyed, ice cold lady who lost to Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama: She went to Princeton and Harvard, and is now very proud of the United States of America. Who wouldn’t be!

Hillary Clinton: The person who democrats would have nominated for Presidency if they were rational and sensible. But being Democrats, as usual they acted irrationally and chose a single-term, Kenyan-born, black American Senator from Illinois with a strange name, a middle name of Hussein and a very thin CV to Republican glee. Fortunately after eight years of George W Bush, Americans would have voted for even Hosni Mubarak if he was the alternative to the Republican Party! And God sent the ten plagues-stock market collapses, sub-prime mortgage crisis, bank failures, credit crunch, automakers potential bankruptcy, global energy crisis, global food crisis, rising unemployment figures, mortgage foreclosures and global warming to convince Americans to let his people become President.

Barack Obama: President-elect of the United States!!! The historical product of the dalliance between a Kenyan intellectual (who later returned to Kenya and as you might expect died of depression and alcoholism) and a white American idealist. Against all odds, he went to Columbia and Harvard and has now proven to all that if you have a child with an American passport, better leave him or her in America! Worst case the child will become Tiger Woods, or Shaquille O’Neal. Thank God they did not take him back to Kenya-he may have been shot during a students’ demonstration at University of Nairobi, by a policeman asking for bribe or during the post-election violence involving his Luo tribe. Alternatively he may have died of malaria, AIDS or tuberculosis. Or hunger. If all fails, the witches and wizards who killed his father would have turned their attention to him.