| Wednesday, October 25, 2006 |
01:19 - "...And that's why your country is going down the tubes"
http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009523.html
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This is one of the most entertaining posts and comment threads—particularly the latter—ever. Tales of how American culture is perceived by citizens of other countries, particularly Britain and Europe.
My own contribution to the anecdote thread would be the British friend I have who every few weeks pops up in an IM window to express some new form of dismay at some boneheaded things we Americans do. Among which:
• We don't know the word "résumé" because Bush banned French words.
• By all rights we should all be dead because of our terrifying diabolical invention, the four-way traffic stop.
• Once, when his parents were visiting Las Vegas, they were accosted by a "big hulking oil worker" who grabbed them by the forearms and thanked them profusely for England's support of the Iraq war, at which they were too terrified to clarify that they personally didn't support it. (It's anybody's guess how they knew he was an "oil worker", or whether perhaps that was a form of projection that said any big burly grease-monkey type must be an "oil worker" who stands to profit from stealing Iraq's oil.)
Now, I'm under no illusions that I am any less ignorant about life in, say, Oxfordshire. But hey, at least I'll say so, rather than accosting someone who lives there to tell him how insane his country is.
Granted, I'm a bit of a geography/history/world-cultures junkie (a co-worker from Beirut who was watching over my shoulder as I played with Google Earth asked me to zoom in on his hometown, and he was floored when instead of floundering around or asking for directions, I found my way there with a couple of quick mouse drags from the other side of the planet); but even then I know I know nothing about a place unless I've actually lived there, no matter how high-res the satellite photography is.
Via InstaPundit.
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Brian Tiemann
