Slate is starting a new "If It Happened There" feature, where American news will be described using the "tropes and tone" that the U.S. media usually uses to report foreign affairs. Nice.
How Would We Report on the Government Shutdown if It Were Happening in Another Country? (Slate Magazine)
WASHINGTON, United States—The typical signs of state failure aren’t evident on the streets of this sleepy capital city. Beret-wearing colonels have not yet taken to the airwaves to declare martial law. Money-changers are not yet buying stacks of useless greenbacks on the street.
But the pleasant autumn weather disguises a government teetering on the brink. Because, at midnight Monday night, the government of this intensely proud and nationalistic people will shut down, a drastic sign of political dysfunction in this moribund republic.