A clue: the haves and have-nots.

There is a store in Japan called Zoff that has inexpensive but cute eye wear and I decided that I should buy a pair or two while I'm here because glasses, like belts, are a useful tool but shouldn't be relegated to simple utilitarianism. Why use a piece of rope when you have your snazzy Western belt buckle, right? So, I bought a pair a while back. I hadn't really worn them much, though, because they are a little bit more delicate than my hunk o' plastic frames that can take a lickin and keep on tickin. But last night, I was going out to dinner with a former student and I decided I should wear the new ones. So I put them on and to my extreme surprise, I realized they are vaguely reminiscent of Sarah Palin's glasses. Well, what can you do? It's not as though I bought them because of that plus it seems unlikely in terms of fashion no-no's that her eye wear choices will go the way of the Hitler mustache. So I put them on and went downstairs.

My mom was there to see me out and complimented my new glasses. "Thanks," I told her. "I just realized, though, that they kind of look like Sarah Palin's glasses."
"Who's that?" she asked me.
Even given who was asking this question, I was shocked: we live in the internet age; even my mom gets her daily headlines emailed to her from the New York Times; we watch the international broadcasts of CNN and the BBC World News.
"Are you serious! You don't know who that is," I replied.
"No. And should I?"
"It's McCain's vice presidential running mate!"
"Oh, that," she said with some exasperation. "I thought you meant someone I knew."

She was never allowed to Rock the Vote, not even once

I just received my sample ballot in the mail for the November elections. My mother, who was never naturalized, had never seen a ballot in all her 37 or 8 years in the US and so was curious to see what they looked like. I assured her they were nothing interesting, but she pressed, so I showed it to her. She was nonplussed in general and remarked that she hadn't realized it wasn't just a presidential election, that there were other things on the ballot. "Of course," I told her. "But this time around I'm registered to vote in Los Angeles, so there's a lot on the ballot I don't know anything about. I'm going to have to...," but before I could finish my thought about needing to do some research before the end of October, she conveniently filled in my words for me.
"...fill them in randomly?"

NO! NO! Thank God she's never voted! Argh!

My civic self had a total hissy fit, then my actual self dissolved into hysterics. Plus, it reminded me of a story about my mom's Japanese colleague who gave a talk in the US in the 70s or something about how progressive Japan was becoming and made the fatal L/R pronunciation error and told a bunch of people at a lecture: In Japan, even women can now have erections.
Ah, but that seems more civically responsible than filling in a ballot like your SATs when you've run out of time.