Oh, my. Do they have three pits?
Ha! Speaking of wars…
I was going to apologize to Shirley Ujest and start a new thread, but since I’m right, this will probably be the last barbecue post.
Besides, Americans owe it to the world to explain barbecue.
In The Barbecue Bible, Steven Raichlen explains the geography of mustard sauce:
…in the Southern part of North Carolina (and in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida), barbecue simply isn’t barbecue unless it’s served with a bright yellow sauce made from mustard, honey, and vinegar.
He continues to espouse a Dijon mustard, which I think is silly. We’re talking barbecue, not Chicken Cordon Bleau.
My personal apostasy is using Ba-Tampte Delicatessen Style Kosher Mustard. It’s made in New York, Brooklyn at that. It will be Our Little Secret. My nice Jewish girl likes the sauce.
Do the local police despise the FBI? On these cop shows, when a FBI agent is trying to help with a case in a small town, there is always friction between them and the local police.
And can I, a foreigner, visit the Statue of Liberty or the white house now? Or are there restrictions?
Is every national park crowded during the summer?
Is Hawaii still seem like an exotic country to most Americans?
The is the KKK still around?
I’m afraid so.
Wisconsin consumes more brandy per capita than any other state.
The State of Kentucky, while not my home, has one of my favorite names for a State Park ever…
Big Bone Lick State Park
You know, I don’t know what they’ve got out back. It’s pretty good, though, although their ketchup kind is too sweet. They have awesome hushpuppies and beans.
Barbeque always turns into a scary hijack, though, kinda like declawing only nicer. To bring it back to fun facts about America, let me add:
The Grand Canyon is both like and unlike any picture you’ve ever seen. You really just have to go there.
While Pennsylvania is known as a place to see Amish people, there are Amish communities in tons of places, even Florida.
One may find ads for Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota on every continent, including Antarctica. Have you dug Wall Drug?
There is Gay Head in Martha’s Vineyard (an Island off Massachusetts).
Sure you can visit the Statue of Liberty. You just have to go through the same security checks or whatever as the Americans. I don’t think anyone can visit the White House (except for standing by the gates looking at it).
No. A handful of the most popular ones can be (depending on how close they are to major population areas), but taken as a whole they’re not.
Not to anyone who was born after it became a state (1959)! I was shocked when I learned that the military still classifies it as an “overseas” assignment (and that my parents didn’t think that was odd!). It’s certainly different for obvious reasons, but seems to me as completely American as any other state.
Barely. It still exists and very occassionally you’ll hear that it is planning a march somewhere or other, but a) half the time they don’t even show up for such marches, and b) the counter-march is always huge. It has essentially no power.
Not really. The law enforcement folks I know (and have taken classes from–bet you wouldn’t expect a guy like me to sign up for a class like that, huh?) say there’s really no friction between the feds and the local cops, mostly because there’s often a clear distinction between which crimes are handled by the local police department and which are handled by the FBI. I’ve heard reports of friction between local cops and state troopers, though, especially here in California where our state-level highway troopers are commonly seen as overzealous and have a history of prosecuting crimes more traditionally left to local cops.
Yep. Most people never go, it seems, and people talk about vacationing there the same way they talk about vacationing in Argentina. (I suspect many of these people have never had to get a passport!) A lot of Americans have no idea that Puerto Rico and Guam (among others) are part of the United States, as well.
Myself and most of the people I spend my time with voluntarily are younger than that, and a lot of people I know think of Hawaii basically like a foreign country. Maybe a little less so, but nobody talks about visiting Hawaii in the same tone as they talk about visiting (for example) New York.
While it’s true that they have no real power, they (and their ilk) are still scarily good at recruiting young white men in certain areas. East County (the part of San Diego County that’s east of the city limits, as you might imagine) is rife with young “bros” who subscribe fully to the white-power movement, particularly the suburbs of Santee (often dubbed Klantee by the locals) and Lakeside and the neighborhood of Rancho San Diego, among others.
More fun VT facts!
The University of Vermont is the oldest, non ivy-league college in the United States.
Vermont makes more maple syrup than any other state.
Vermont was home to a great lake for 18 days.
It was the first state to recognize same sex partnership rights.
One of only two states to not require a permit for a concealed firearm.
Vermont is one of four states to have prohibited all billboards from view of a highway by law.
There are some absolutely amazing national parks that aren’t crowded at all. I just realized it’s been almost ten years since I’ve been to the Badlands in South Dakota, but at least at the time it was amazing - totally alien terrain that you could climb on and everything, and not crowded at all! (Of course, it’s in South Dakota, too, which is kind of a drawback.)
The Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and such, the famous ones, yes, they can be crowded in the summer. There’s a lot of America in America, though, and not all that many Americans, considering, so there’s plenty for everyone if you don’t mind going to the really big ones in the off season. National parks are absolutely everywhere, although they come with various degrees of amenities - the Grand Canyon has luxury resorts, but some of them are lucky to have cement block bathrooms. (Some of them probably don’t have bathrooms at all, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to one of them.) The national parks aren’t just in the West, like some people think. I’ve never been to one that hasn’t taught me something and had at least something about it that was amazingly cool.
Honestly, I was very surprised in the “Foreigners, where would you go in America?” thread that most of the replies were about cities. I mean, you can see a city anywhere. New York? Eh, I mean, it’s nice and all, but it’s no Grand Canyon! Why would you go to LA when you could go to the Petrified Forest, or Denali, or Crater Lake? And I’m no nature girl; my idea of roughing it is a hotel that only serves breakfast! Really, if I’d never seen either of them and wouldn’t see them again, and had to pick between the Grand Canyon and New York City, I’d see the canyon in a heartbeat. There’s nothing you’re going to see in NYC that even comes close.
Er, obviously I meant that some of our national parks are lucky to have cement block bathrooms, not that some of those fancy resorts at the Grand Canyon are lucky to have them. I’m sure they have very nice bathrooms.
Fun facts…Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico is one of the oldest continually inhabited towns in the US.
The Atomic Bomb was developed and first tested in New Mexico. In 1957 a hydrogen bomb was accidentally dropped on Albuquerque but the only casualty was a cow.
http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/
We have plenty of ghost towns out here. Also the graves of famous bad guys Billy the Kid and Black Jack Ketchum.
There are a lot of roadrunners in New Mexico. Coyotes rarely chase them.
Why do I find those two facts distrubing? 
I believe William and Mary is the second-oldest college, after only Harvard. It’s not Ivy League. [According to Wikipedia](University - Wikipedia of Vermont), UVermont’s the oldest non-Ivy League school in New England. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, but I must fight ignorance when the opportunity presents itself.
Similarly, the oldest college west of the Appalachian Mountains is Transylvania University, right here in Lexington, Kentucky, founded way back in 1780.
Mayo
Let us not forget the Bong Recreation Area, home to the most stolen welcome sign in America.
YMMV, but this doesn’t jive with my experience. Hawaii is different of course, for obvious geographical, historical, demographic, and cultural reasons. It’s also a lot harder to get to, so it’s more exciting to go there than to New York, where everyone ends up going to at least once, if only to change planes. But I have never once thought of it in any way as close to a foreign country, and I’d be surprised if many people do. (Again, age may play a factor – I’m mid-20s.) Puerto Rico seems a lot more foreign, and I’ve known (and lived with) a lot more Puerto Ricans than Hawaiians. But, of course, YMMV.
Anyways, fun facts, fun facts… Ah, here’s one: I’ve recently learned that the US actually has more land area than Canada; Canada has more total area, but a lower land area because it has so many lakes.
The US and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world.
Kansas City has more fountains than Rome!
One of the fastest growing religions in the world, Mormonism (er, the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints), is native to the US.
Blues music is native to the Mississippi Delta.
Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, MS. He was not from Nashville! Other notable native-born Mississippians include the following four Pulitzer Prize winners: Shelby Foote (Greenville), Eudora Welty (Jackson), Tennessee Williams (Columbus), and Beth Henley (Jackson).
Mississippi has the highest percentage of black residents in all 50 states, with 36.3% of the population being black.
The town of Kosciusko (pronounced “Koz-ee-esko”) was named after a Polish-born hero of the Revolutionary War.
The word “Mississippi” is derived from an Indian language; the tourism board claims it means something poetic like “father of waters”, but actually it’s closer to “big ol’ water”.
Mississippi has the highest rates of infant mortality and low-birth rate babies in the US.
Captain Isaac Ross freed his slaves in the mid-1830s and transported them to Africa, where they founded the nation of Liberia. I’m sure he didn’t know at the time it would all go to crap like it did.