In the last several weeks I've learned that I am no longer an American.

Given the taxes that I have paid, who would have known?

First, I could not connect with the inauguration of our new president.

I didn't cry or even shout, "Amen!"

On the front of USA Today was the screaming headline, "Americans go gaga over first lady's inaugural gown." I didn't even know she had an inaugural gown. Then, and this is the tricky part, it turns out, according to rumor, that she hadn't actually picked out the gown she would wear; it was still before noon on the day of the inaugural.

Evidently, I would be gaga later, but the USA Today was so sure that I, as an American, would be gaga that the headline could be written in advance.

I'm awe-struck by these guys; they are not only unbelievably smart, they are so prescient.

I've always throught that more prayer was better than less, but evidently even here I am no longer a proper American. In the same paper I learned that "Gay Episcopal bishop to pray today 'before' Rick Warren." I suppose the good Pastor Warren's prayer would not suffice; evidently he hold to a hateful and un-American view of the BIble that has been incorrectly interpreted for 2,000 years as being somewhat unfriendly to homosexual behavior.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction corrected all this nicely. He asked God to take notice of those who are black, brown and red, and asked God to have whites do what's right. But again, I seem to have been left out of the appropriate American mix. I'm not black, brown or white. I am sort of red, but I'm actually either sunburned or rather pink, and I'm not sure that is what the good reverend meant by "red."

The day after the inauguration, the USA Today headline read, "Emotions reach heightened pitch across USA." I must be living in Canada; at least it is cold enough to be Canada. I worked all that day, leaving my office well after 10 p.m. My emotions were pretty stable, they weren't even "heightened," let alone pitched.

Sometimes outsiders can see the forest only when we can see the trees, so I was interested in a headline from The Times of India. It read, "Libya's Kadhafi says Obama means a 'new America.'"

I wonder what the old Ameica was. Was it the America against which Kadhafi conducted terrorist attacks, or was it the one during the Bush presidency when Kadhafi behaved himself?

And the headlines just keep coming: "Renamed schools, streets mark early tributes to Obama." Since Obama has less executive experience than Sarah Palin, maybe we should wait to see if he actually does anything first.

What am I saying? He is just about ready to turn the lead of the "worst economy" in human history into the fine gold of a redeemed society, and I'm carping about experience. As Doonesbury would have his politically correct friends say, "My bad."

Later in the week I found that Obama's $825 billion was being headlined as "Stimulus bill 'on target.'" Since the government is already running a deficit larger than anything ever before even imagined, what's the "target?"

It is hard to tell with the "worst economy" since Noah, but federal income tax revenues should be about $1 trillion this year. Why then doesn't Obama just propose reducing taxes by 83 percent for all income taz payers?

But that would mean that the government would lose a good share of its revenue. How could it survive without that $800 billion? Oh…in the new America, money can be made out of nothing, sort of like turning water into wine. Besides, in this new country, the government must be seen as the giver rather than the taker. Things are taken from adults, but givers rock the cradle.

Then there are the issues of class envy, control and father knows best.

No, in the NEW America, they take it away from you, and then hand some of it back so you can rush out and buy things you don't need to stimulate the economy that will create rich capitalists that can be used as devils to win another election … or something like that.

It's tough being an expatriate in your own country, but where could I go .. France?