This is the first letter to you the inhabitants, if any, of Europa, the moon orbiting Jupiter at 671,000 kilometers. My aim is to introduce you to the quirky ways of planet Earth, especially the country known as the United States of America, in case we ever meet face to face. I'm sure you have your own eccentricities and maybe eventually, you'll write back. For the time being, however, this is a one-way correspondence.
I should add that although I live in these United States, I didn't grow up here so my comments can't be guaranteed to be representative of things you might hear or read from a true American. Indeed, I live in a place called Boston, which in its own way likes to do things a little differently from the rest of America too. Try not to be confused.
Earth is quite large compared with your little world and quite a bit closer to the Sun. There are more than six billion (6,000,000,000) humans on this planet. We walk upright on two legs and consider all the other animals we share our planet with as inferiors. So, when I talk about "we", I will not be referring to any other types of ape, primate, mammal, etc. As far as you're concerned, you won't go far wrong if you just assume these other creatures simply don't exist. That's what most of us try to do. Occasionally, a suicidal raccoon or something like that will jump out in front of our car and try to make off with our front license plate, but that's a story for another time.
Once every four years (a year is the time it takes our planet to orbit the sun), most of the inhabitants (remember, just the humans) on our planet are obsessed by a sporting event known as the World Cup. The game they play is called Football, because you kick the ball with your foot, and definitely not to be confused with American Football played in this country where it is extremely rare for anyone on the team, with two exceptions, to kick the ball. Football has just 11 people on each side (two teams playing each other is called a match). As well as kicking the ball, it's permissible to head the ball or let it touch one's torso. With one exception, it is not permissible to touch the ball with a hand. The exception is if you're on the team from Argentina. No, sorry, that was a joke. You may touch the ball if you are the designated "goal keeper" and you are in your area and the ball was last played by one of the other side.
The idea of the game is to put the ball in the opponents' goal. This is harder than it sounds. First, because the opposing team tries its best to stop you and second, because the officials feel that disallowing obvious goals adds to the charm and intrigue of the game. Why, you ask, don't they just look at the TV replay? Well, that would be a little too simple and also, I'm afraid, seem like they're trying to copy the Americans who have to run just about every decision through the replay booth.
There are several other curious unwritten rules about the World Cup. The most important being that England, the country I come from and which invented the darn game, is never allowed to win. A huge error occurred back in 1966 when an Azerbaijani referee heard "The Germans must win" as "The Germans shan't win", but since then the rule has been followed quite assiduously. These days, the USA seems to have joined the list of proscribed teams. As the competition continues, I'll keep you posted about how it's going.
Now, here's another aspect of earthly life that you might find interesting. Back in the day (let's say before about 1400), in order to have your way over an adversary, you needed either to be bigger and stronger or to be able to shoot an arrow through them. Arrows weren't always 100% accurate and required prodigious strength to bend the bow. They also took a little time to operate and at close range you could actually be overcome before letting loose.
So, we invented the gun. Guns are marvels of engineering which can fire a lethal projectile into your enemy at close range or, using a different type of gun called a rifle, at longer range (more than a kilometer). They take no time to fire, and are small enough that you can actually put one in your pocket. Ownership, in this country, is optional, but it is the law that our rights to own and use guns is absolute. The second amendment (of the U.S. constitution) reads thus:
The latest brouhaha in my state, Massachusetts, is over whether it's OK to buy a new gun every month. The gun lobby (I'll have to explain this concept later) is adamant that it would be a serious infringement of our rights if we couldn't legally buy a new piece every four weeks or so. A month, by the way, is the time it takes for our moon (about the size of your world) to rotate around the earth. And lest you conclude that we humans must have hundreds of hands to hold these guns, I can assure you that we have only two. Most of us can't fire a gun with our feet, so despite living on average through about 800 new moons, we can only handle two guns at once. Draw your own conclusions whether it's essential for us to be able to buy a new one each month. If you conclude that the surplus guns acquired after the first two months are destined to be sold illegally to people who, perhaps due to their youth or criminal record, aren't allowed to buy a gun, then you're getting the hang of life down here quite well.
From a crazy world,
Phasmid
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