Monday, November 28, 2011

THE ACTUAL JERSEY SHORE

     I was happy. You'd be happy too if you had totally by accident stumbled upon what you had been looking for most of your life. Thrilled? Exalted? Lifted in my spirits? Put it this way: I once found a fifty dollar bill in the bottom of a bag of Lay's potato chips. Until I discovered what I'm about to mention, that had been the highlight of my life.
    The Channel Islands float between the southern coast of England and the Normandy coast of France.The inhabited islands of the Channel Islands are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou and Lihou, all except Jersey in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. There are also uninhabited islets: the Minquiers, Écréhous, Les Dirouilles, Les Pierres de Lecq, and Burhou and the Casquets. 


    But it is of Jersey that today we speak, if only because it represents my own little piece of paradise on this here madly spinning orb. Jersey and the other Channel Islands are the last of the medieval Dukedom of Normandy that existed in both France and England. These islands were the only British soil occupied by German troops in World War II, an unfortunate mistake but one which I have been assured neither the British nor the Germans shall not repeat. Jersey is a British crown dependency, yet is not part of the UK or of the European Union. However, the UK Government is constitutionally responsible for its defense and international representation. You see, I like the idea that some much larger institution is responsible for things I myself do not care to trouble over, things such as national defense. Also, being a tiny island, we won't likely call any major war powers down on us in response to our own imperialist tendencies, because we won't have any. For that matter, the whole country or bailiwick is only 116 square kilometers or 72 square miles. By comparison, Phoenix, Arizona, where I toil and live, is 1339 square km, or 832 square miles. The people of Phoenix are called Phoenicians. The people who live in Jersey are called Channel Islanders. Which would you rather be? After all, the fact of people calling you an islander suggests you live on an island, which in more cases than not is surrounded by water, almost as if by definition, which would be convenient for swimming, fishing, or staring at from afar. 
    The population of Phoenix is 3.8 million. The population of Jersey is 94,000. 


    In Phoenix we are governed by a bully boy who has terrorized the county of Maricopa for nearly twenty years. The state governors are required to be criminally insane so as to not object to the horrible treatment of the citizenry. In Jersey, the government is a parliamentary democracy. 
    In the U.S. we have eight to twelve national holidays, none of which are celebrated with any particular sense of enthusiasm, other than the Fourth of July, and that's only because people with lots of beer in their bellies get off on watching bombs explode overhead. In Jersey they celebrate one national holiday which they call Liberation Day: May 9, 1945, the day Germany surrendered to the Allies. People there have no trouble remembering that day or its significance.
    As in the United States, there are only two major political parties in Jersey. The fact is that in the 2008 elections, 100% of all elected senators and deputies were independents.


    The symbol for the United States is the bald eagle. The symbol for Jersey is the Jersey cow. 
    Our national anthem glorifies wars. Their national anthem, "Isle de Siez Nous" ("Our Island Home") glorifies peace. 
    Jersey's economy is based on international financial services, agriculture, and tourism. In 2005 the finance sector accounted for about 50% of the island's output. Potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, and especially flowers are important export crops, shipped mostly to the UK. The Jersey breed of dairy cattle is known worldwide and represents an important export income earner. Milk products go to the UK and other EU countries. Tourism accounts for one-quarter of GDP. In recent years, the government has encouraged light industry to locate in Jersey with the result that an electronics industry has developed, displacing more traditional industries. All raw material and energy requirements are imported as well as a large share of Jersey's food needs. Light taxes and death duties make the island a popular tax haven. Living standards come close to those of the UK.
    The Gross Domestic Product per capita--in other words, the spending power of the average humanoid--in Jersey is $57,000. In the U.S. it is $47,200. 
    In 2010 the unemployment rate in Jersey was 2.2%. In the U.S. it was 9.6%.
    What do people do for a living in Jersey? The main industries are tourism, financial services, and agriculture. In Arizona, tourism and business services now account for nearly 77 percent of the area's total employment. By "tourism" we mean working in a hotel. By "business services," we mean working in a motel. 
    Perhaps the keenest contrast is in the area of what the Central Intelligence Agency refers to as transnational disputes. Here is what the CIA says about the United States in this regard: The US has intensified domestic security measures and is collaborating closely with its neighbors, Canada and Mexico, to monitor and control legal and illegal personnel, transport, and commodities across the international borders; abundant rainfall in recent years along much of the Mexico-US border region has ameliorated periodically strained water-sharing arrangements; 1990 Maritime Boundary Agreement in the Bering Sea still awaits Russian Duma ratification; Canada and the United States dispute how to divide the Beaufort Sea and the status of the Northwest Passage but continue to work cooperatively to survey the Arctic continental shelf; The Bahamas and US have not been able to agree on a maritime boundary; US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased from Cuba and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease; Haiti claims US-administered Navassa Island; US has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other states; Marshall Islands claims Wake Island; Tokelau included American Samoa's Swains Island among the islands listed in its 2006 draft constitution. 
    Here is what the same agency says about transnational disputes in Jersey: None. 

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