US Elections

City to city, state to state

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

14 May 2012

Hi guys! The blog is back after a couple days break^[1] — I haven't been slacking, I've been out of the office. In Melbourne, to be precise, illustrated above in all its drizzly glory. A couple of minor notes from my trip:

1. Although Australians are known to talk about Melbourne as being more European than other cities in the country, I noticed a certain Americanness to the city. The wide streets, the flat landscape, the grid layout — even the valuable downtown real estate occupied by massive parking lots — reminded me much more of certain American cities than Sydney does. Although Melbourne is much smaller, I was reminded at times of Chicago.
2. For one reason or another, most of the domestic air travel I've experienced has been within the United States. Catching a flight in Australia made me realise how preposterously overblown the US's Transport Security Administration regulations are. Flying in America has made me associate aiports with long lines, intrusive pat downs, extensive undressing to pass through security, and grimly vigilant staff at every turn. It was a pleasant surprise to discover air travel could take place without any of these intrusions. I understand that the US has had experience with air-based terror in a way that Australia has not, but I don't see any reason to suppose Australia is being lax in its security. Flying doesn't need to involve what my colleague James Fallows calls "security theatre."

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Excuse the absence

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

1 May 2012

Apologies, guys. I've had a shockingly busy day and have had no time to attend to the blog. I promise I'll talk some politics tomorrow, but, for now, I'll make up for my absence with this news: The Gaslight Anthem, a.k.a. The Best Rock Band In America Today, has just released to radio the first single from their new album. It's called "45" and it sounds pretty excellent. Listen now and check back tomorrow for some actually substantive posting.

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Introducing Electionwatch

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

20 January 2012

A quick announcement: the US Studies Centre has this week launched Election Watch '12, our website specially devoted to coverage of all the ins and outs of the 2012 electoral contest. We'll continue talking about the election here on the blog, of course — as well as anything else pertaining to American politics, life, and culture, but Election Watch will be devoted especially to the primaries, the general, and everything else surrounding them. The site looks fantastic, has tons of information about the process and commentary from our experts here at the Centre, and it's definitely one to bookmark.

I also hear that the Centre will be running an Election Watch competition, and I understand that the prize is fabulous. Something else to keep an eye out for.

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The most popular USSC blog posts from 2011

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

30 December 2011

I'll steal an idea from Kevin Drum and Wonkblog and share with you guys the blogs most popular posts from the past year. Here's our ten biggest hitters:

1. Brad Wing, Australian hero: A kicker from Melbourne becomes a college football star.
2. Why DC rap mattters, even if you don't care about rap: Hip hop tells the story of how the other half of Washington lives.
3. On Anthony Weiner: Just how sleazy was the disgraced congressman?
4. One last Get Out Of Jail Free card to play on the debt ceiling? Could the US government sidestep its statutory borrowing limit with a novel idea?
5. Top ten fictional spin offs from #OccupyWallStreet: Cookie Monster as part of the one per cent?
6. Tossing around the political football on climate change: Australian PM Julia Gillard's visit to Washington shows the need for American leadership on a global problem.
7. No, seriously, who is John Galt? Ayn Rand's influential novel and the movie it inspired are a curiously American phenomenon.
8. Born in the U.S.A.: Barack Obama releases his birth certificate to the world, proving he is indeed a natural born citizen.
9. DSK and black women in reconstruction-era America: Though the charges against the former French politician were dropped, but hospitality work has always involved particular dangers for women. 
10. FDR and ALL: The Tea Party has much in common with a group that opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s

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American Review updates

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

21 September 2011

I assume everyone reading this blog has been keeping up with the great content we've been putting up over at the USSC's magazine, American Review, right? You have? Good.

I've mentioned before that you can subscribe to the magazine's iPad app [iTunes link], but there's a couple more American Review outposts around the web of which you may not be aware. The magazine's Twitter feed is @American_Review, for instance, and here is its Facebook page. We've also recently introduced an RSS feed for the daily updated Blogbook section. You should follow, like, and subscribe to each respectively!

(I assume you already subscribe to this blog's RSS feed. Of course you do.)

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State of the blog

By Jonathan Bradley in Newcastle, Australia

16 August 2011

As you may or may not know, until recently, this blog appeared both here at the USSC and at the website for the USSC's magazine American Review. This weekend, the American Review website launched a rather gorgeous looking re-design (check it out!), and so the shape of the blog will change a little. I'll be introducing a few new writers over the coming week or so — you can see the first of these, ABC journalist John Barron, discussing Rick Perry's potential here. Check over at the American Review site over the coming few days for some more new faces. 

We've also launched American Review as an iPad app, which you can — and should — download here [Link goes to iTunes store].

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State of the Blog: Going live from DC

By Jonathan Bradley in Washington DC

29 December 2009

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Christmas period; it's certainly been an exciting time for us here at the USSC blog. Exciting and filled with upheaval, actually: We've shifted the entire blog, that is, we've shifted Erin Riley and myself over here to Washington D.C. Erin and I will be spending the next couple of months interning at Capitol Hill, under a program arranged through the USSC called the Uni-Capitol Washington Internship Programme. We're both going to be working for American Congressman, Erin with Democrat of California Sam Farr and me with the House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina. It's going to be hugely exciting, and now we're both settled into our digs here in Arlington, Virginia, we're gearing up to get the blog ready for a new American 2010. Don't look for secrets from inside the Capitol - that would be highly unprofessional of us, I'm afraid - but we will be taking a look around the idiosyncrasies of this glorious mess called the United States of America and telling you guys all about what's happening here and what we make of it. 

Other than a cold day trudging up and down the wintery Washington mall, snapping photos of the Washington Monument , the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and, indeed, nearly everything else we came across in this incredible city, our lives to date have consisted mostly of acclimatising to those strange American practices that I forget until I'm back in the country. Like: their light switches are upside down! What's the deal with tipping? Do people really want the prescription drugs they advertise with laundry lists of terrifying side-effects? Is there any finer creation than the Denny's innovation of serving breakfast 24 hours a day? And hang on, was that really the 2008 AFL Grand Final we saw while flicking through our cable channels? (It was.)

So playing tourists for a week, the USSC blog will be up in New York City for the remainder of 2009. But come 2010, we're going to back better than ever, with our totally unvarnished view of the USA, as directly experienced by the two of us. And a bit of the same old content you devoured this year, like, um, me talking about Maine. Hope you'll enjoy!

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