[expletive] you, indeed

So today as I was waiting for my turn to be radiated I took notes on a topic I have been thinking about for a while.

As I was sitting there writing, through the wall I could hear the muffled sounds of the doctor speaking in labored Spanish to another patient. And, later, I could hear his voice in English, getting help from an interpreter on speaker phone.

In Santa Clara County 64 percent speak another language than English at home. And, according to one of my students today, in Santa Clara County 2 out of 3 is either an immigrant, or the child of immigrants.

Which brings us to the point: Lately Sarah Palin has been making distinctions between "pro-America" parts of the US, and the rest of the country.

"We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she said.

To which Jon Stewart, of New York, responded:

"She said that small towns, that's the part of the country she really likes going to because that's the pro-America part of the country. You know, I just want to say to her, just very quickly: [expletive] you."

It's interesting that someone would actually come straight out and define 'real America' in an exclusive way.

Because it follows, then, that there are parts of America that, according to Ms. Palin, are not pro-America, and are not "the best of America."

Where are those places? The big towns? The big cities? You'd have to think that was what Jon Stewart was thinking.

Any definition of America needs be in-clusive. Any definition of America needs to include a big-city immigrant Irish cancer doctor speaking bare bones Spanish to his immigrant patients. And it needs to include those patients, and their young relatives who drive them to the hospital every afternoon.

If that's not the best of America, and the real America, I don't know what is.