My supervisor was crafty. She could sew—and not just with a machine, she’d sew frontier style. In fact, one of her weekend hobbies was “rendezvousing”. Alright, I don’t actually know the verb for it. She’d go to mass get-togethers where participants camped without modern technology. It was like a Renaissance Faire, but without the dorky falderal. Or survivalists, without the spooky lust for automatic weapons.

I asked the illustrator what he would do if one morning he woke up and robots could do his job. His reply was, “I guess I’d fight robots.” After some more thought he decided that a life of tending to tomatoes was more his speed; he would be a gardener “after the blast”. He was a good enough illustrator (and a mite skeptical of them new fangled computers) that he probably could have made a fine hunk of money drawing wanted signs or whatever else we’ll need in the future.

This left the senior web designer and me scratching our heads. With no marketable skills that did not involve an internet connection, let alone electricity, we’d be stuck doing dishes we figured. I can play drums, but my office said that musicians would probably be even more worthless in the future than now. If only I believed in any one religion, I think I’d be a fine preacher—and heaven knows that the future needs those.

Seeing “Children of Men” again last weekend made me realize that I have nothing to fear. Post-apocalypses hardly ever happen in the U.S. “Children of Men” = England. “V for Vendetta” = England. “1984″ = England. “Mad Max” = Australia. “Tank Girl” = Australia. The only two post-apocalypse movie franchises that take place here are “The Postman” (not the one that won an Oscar) and the “Escape from New York” series (skipping the novelization and going straight for the pizza chain). Okay, technically “Planet of the Apes” took place here… but it also had humankind enslaved to apes. Not a good resource for “after the blast” career paths.

Leaving the theater and using the high-tech urinals that sense when you’re finished and automatically flush themselves, I realized that we’re pretty much doomed if we lose power now. We couldn’t even flush our urinals. Perhaps I can find work as a garcon de pisse.

I’m off to South by Southwest next week, to frolic amongst the other interactive designers/bloggers/coders/etc. I’ll ask them what their “after the blast” plans are.

Growing up, I was always taught that America was named accidentally by mapmaker Amerigo Vespucci, who sloppily signed his name in the middle of the continent. In actuality, Amerigo was an explorer (though also a mapmaker) who visited South America as early as 1499. He was the first to propose that explorers of his day had discovered not a new route to Asia but an entirely new continent. It was this somewhat contentious assertion that led a different mapmaker, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, to name the new continent after him (Waldseemüller later changed his mind, but by then Gerardus Mercator had already popularized the name).

Fast forward 400 or so years to Indianapolis, IN. My father and I are looking at his new house and he says, “you’re creative, tell me how to make my house pretty.” I’m a web designer—though I did date an architecture student back in college—and don’t really know what to say. Unfortunately, my father did help finance my BFA so I can’t let him down. I bravely suggest checking out MocoLoco, full of Modern Contemporary madness. “Actually,” my father notes with fatherly confidence, “the style of my home is ‘Usonian‘.”

Those of you reading carefully will notice that I just mentioned “Usonian”, the word for which this post is written. Yes, we’re getting close to a point.

When I do a little more research on “Usonian” architecture, I discover that its origins begin with famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The term was coined out to describe simply designed, inexpensive homes built of locally available eco-friendly materials. Large common areas and small bedrooms encouraged socialization. Unlike the monarchist Victorian or retro Neoclassical, this would be an architecture style unique to the powerful nation of the United States! And so it will be named… Usonian!

“Why Usonian, and not American?”, you may ask. And that’s probably because you, yourself, are Usonian. As mentioned a few paragraphs back, the entire new continent (two of them, actually) named back in 1499 is referred to as “America”. So “American” equally describes Canadians, Mexicans, Cubans, Bolivians, and Uruguayans as well as citizens of the United States. We (being Usonians) like to shorten “Citizens of the United States” to “Americans”, but in doing so disregard our neighbors to the north and south. Imagine if “New Yorker” only applied to Manhattanites, and you lived in Brooklyn. You’d get a little pissed, right? Maybe want to teach the uppity Estados Unidos a thing or two, eh? Well, luckily we have the CIA to keep an eye on your kind. Still, “Citizens of the United States” is so annoyingly long and we’re kind of in a hurry—being the U.S. and all.

Enter “Usonian”, short for United States of North America (USONiA). It is the skeleton key that opens those doors to humility previously locked for want of a proper lexicon. It is the word missing from countless conversations between otherwise well-meaning folks trying not to be oppressive. It is my Word for 2007 and it is my mission is to spread it far and wide, all over Usonia.

As for my father, I advised him to plant vines, keeping with the Usonian style of melding organically with the natural landscape. Then I stumbled across this quote:

“A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright

Maybe I’ll just make him a website.

I realize that this post really could be condensed to a single sentence, but it wouldn’t carry the same sense of mystery and reward that following my journey of discovery would, right?

My mother, a thoroughly good-natured person whom I often use to gauge the pulse of America (to which I am somewhat deafened by living in San Francisco), has recently put forth the criteria for her next car purchase. It must be:

1. A hybrid.
2. Not an SUV.
3. American.

It doesn’t seem to be a terribly tall order, yet at this time there are zero models that obey those three simple rules. In short, US automakers can argue that there’s no demand for whatever the West Coast Enviro-crazies are clamoring for, but they’re simply not making the car that my mother—the elementary school librarian in Indiana—actually wants.

Being a good son, I tried to help her find the car she was looking for, even though I knew that the first available model to meet her criteria was the Chevy Malibu, estimated to hit markets late 2007. I pressed a bit more about why it was important to her to buy American and got more information. My great grandfather worked his whole life for GM on the assembly line and a family devotion to support his work had been passed on from generation to generation. This complicates the situation a little bit.

The Ford Model-T, which still gets twice the MPG as an Explorer.

The auto industry is fast on its way to a collection of platform companies where the products aren’t even manufactured by the branded corporation, or at least not in the same country. For instance, while Ford closes its US factories, it’s opening up factories in Mexico that employ half a million people. On the other hand, Toyota has factories in California, Kentucky, West Virginia, Texas, and even Indiana. In fact, Toyota and Subaru share a factory in my birthplace of Lafayette, IN.

The story gets even more complicated if you want your car produced not just by American labor, but unionized American labor. For that, you pretty much have to grab your car’s VIN and use this reference on the UAW site. Though it really should be noted that “American labor” technically includes Canada, Mexico, and a bunch of other countries as they are part of North or South America after all.

If, like me, you just go by pithy statements to determine your allegiances, you might consider the classic Cal Coolidge aphorism: “The business of America is business!” In which case, it might behoove you to note that Toyota is outselling both Ford and Daimler-Chrysler now, making it the #2 largest retailer in North America and, consequently, more American than either Ford or Daimler-Chrysler. Considering that Ford thinks that being American means talking bold without backing it up, I can’t say I’m surprised.

It reminds me of how Bush has lived up to his promise of being “a United and not a Divider” by doing more for global democracy than any previous president, namely uniting the world against him. In fact, despite hiding behind the flag (or in front of it, in the case of photo ops), Bush’s seeming contempt for America has ignited in me a patriotism that I thought long extinguished.

Here are just a few things that I love about this country that Bush seems to hate:

1. Three different branches of government that provide checks and balances that hold one another accountable. An incredibly good idea for so many reasons, yet he’s constantly undermining the authority of other branches—or at least whining and calling them names when they dare do their job.
2. Democracy. Yes, as in “the will of the people”. As in “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” With a job approval rating of around 30%, the consent of the governed probably has little impact on any decisions in this White House. In fact, I’d bet they think “the governed” have no idea what’s best for this country—and many would agree with them in that belief. It is, however, un-American.
3. Our country is a safe place that treats people with dignity and fairness. The statue of justice is blind, remember? That’s a symbol that the law treats you equally whomever you may be, not a symbol that the law looks the other way while you’re wrongfully abducted and sent to a secret prison or are stuck in Guantanemo Bay for months without ever being charged for a crime.

There needs to be a word for the emotion of simultaneous hilarity and horror, a sort of personal schadenfreude, that could capture the terrific irony of the NeoConservatives being thought of as the party of American Values (much less the Party of Jesus). America is merely a delivery vehicle for power to them.

I recently had a conversation about all of this with my (more conservative than I) step-brother, who is currently teaching English in South Korea. He lives only 50 miles away from North Korea. Still, our last chat went something like this:

“Hey Stan, what’s up in the States. I never hear about anything other than new movies coming out,” he asks.

“I’m kinda bummed about this torture debate.” I say.

“Ha ha…” he laughs.

“No really,” I say.

“What do you mean? Who could possibly be for torture?” he asks.

It was a stunning example of how far we’ve slid in the four years he’s spent overseas. I’m going to have a chance to see him this Thanksgiving, when a bunch of American’s in Asia will be descending on his house (or tiny, tiny apartment rather) for the holidays. We have plenty to be thankful for, like the America we grew up in—and may have again one day.