MyBloPoMo: "...I think I'm going to move to Australia"

I promise this is not a politics post.  It is, in fact, a book post.  It really is.

In the twitterstorm between the close of the polls and the call of the US Presidential election last night, at least 37 people (according to Buzzfeed) declared that if Obama won they were moving to Australia.

Some of them (like Kristen Neel) were really bizarrely confused.  But for others... I honestly think it was less about actually wanting to move to Australia (with our socialised health care, anti-gun laws, female athiest Prime Minister, and awesomesauce lesbian Finance Minister whose partner just had their new baby) and more about a classic American picture book:



I loved this book as a kid.  I still love it now.  My mom just bought herself railroad pyjamas in honor of this book.  The point about this book is that when one is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, one wants to "move to Australia." As an American kid growing up in Australia, I always found it fascinating.  And slightly bemusing.  And yet, as a lover of this book, sometimes when I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I would say so, and finish with "and I think I'm going to move to New Zealand."  Because clearly, I was already in Australia.

To hear a reading of the book - with the pictures - watch the video below.  I would have posted a reading from the brilliant and classic US TV show Reading Rainbow if I'd found one, but even so, something about Michael Jeffress' accent in this reading just works for me.

My point is.

Yes, those 37 American Republican tweeters on buzzfeed may be dumb.  But some of them may just be fans of this wonderful book.  And if they do decide to move here, boy will they get a shock!