I would like to look at it as smarmy or rhetorical, but it wasn't passive aggressive. To answer your question, yea, I suppose I was saying just that.
Not exactly... I was just saying I do not correlate all the information being passed around as "noise". There certainly can be middle grounds to anything, right? I just don't look at it as noise, but more of a boat load of details being passed around and one can opt to listen, not listen, pick and choose, etc.
yes, and that was what I was addressing, but by clarifying that what he/she calls noise, I call something different. Having been away from the US, but still obviously connected to the country, I feed on that information, that is just me.
This is probably a case of definition... first though, the presumption is USA in regards to America I believe...
The US is very popular around the world in many respects, and of course, there are not many places one can go on the planet without knowing about the US...
and then there are the people who know things about the US that make it not so popular, like what George Jr. was really up to with his Dick, Cheney. during their run of the country (sorry for the digression), etc.
This is why there should be more definition around popular. If you speak to most immigrants in the US, who got a green card, and living the "American Dream" there isn't a better place on the planet. Me... I could not wait to leave and I hope and pray I never have to live there again.
Did you know that the news of Osama Bin Laden's being murdered spread around the world first on Twitter, even before it hit the news wires, with an estimated 50,000 tweets a second on the subject globally?
Twitter was also primarily responsible for the uprisings in the middle east and more that we have witnessed over the past 1-2 years.
It is ok to not get it or understand it's value, but it is a very powerful instant dissemination vehicle of information global.
blah blah blah. americans are loud blah blah blah. honestly it's been said before and i can't stand the generalizations that exist. granted the country is huge and to even say that healthcare is better one place or another is untrue. it all depends on your situation.
for me healthcare was MUCH better in the u.s. but that was for me, not everyone. i don't know anyone who i choose to spend time with in the u.s who thinks fox news is anything other than a joke and i have met some really loud and opinionated people here as often as there.
if you live for a second in a place where people are literally risking their life to get to the u.s, you can realize most of the complaints about the u.s are a bit petty and can be applied to any country- where do you know of that politics don't equal corruption, stupidity or rely on ignorance or other silliness?
and for the noise of the media- that's choice. yes it's all over- even in a cab ride recently the tv was on and blaring fox news, but i shut it off and listened to the community supported radio station that the cab driver (and most cab drivers ) listen to, you won't find those around here so much. listening to and paying attention to the noise is a choice.
and if you want to say americans are loud, ok- maybe more so than others- but my swiss friends were loud enough to get us in trouble with the regie the other night and i (the american- worse- new yorker) was the one shhhing everyone!
Beyond the more recent political and war attitudes of the US, one has to be very naive not to think that american culture is not popular world wide. Unless you're living under a rock, american actors, movies, music, trends, technology even news and events are well known and appreciated throughout the world.
... and I don't mean this condescendingly... but, please give some examples. me, I think just the opposite. I feel like I have won the lottery every day that I am here.
Guess I would like to live on both sides of the Atlantic....I'm surprised that everybody is talking about the US as an harmonized region. It is 50times larger than Switzerland. There are as many local differences as in Switzerland. Thus it realy depends where you're living and where your experiences come from. I lived in New Jersey and I'm in Basel for now. Neighborhood on the block in NJ was so great, much better than here. But the restaurants in N.J. have been so noisy one had to speak real loud.
Ski in the Rocky Mountains, surf on Lago di Garda, stay on the beach in Turkey, pay no taxes in Monaco, dinner in Paris, opera in Verona is still the plan for my future years
True, wheelchair accessability is far from optimal, but the main problem about healthcare in Switzerland are the costs. So that everything depends on private enterprise realising that wheelchair-users ARE a market. But this is similar elsewhere
I however do not believe that there are many countries where retail stores generally provide electric wheelchairs to customers, or "assisted shopping"
"no crime" sounds indeed a bit like wishful thinking Things may be better than in Napoli or in Medellin, but hardly far above Central and West European average
I can well remember how popular the USA was in the 1950ies and most of all in 1961 and 62
and in spite of the War in Vietnam into the 70ies. Things dropped in the Reagan years, recovered in the times of President Clinton but then plunged to all-time-low in the GWB-years. Mr Obama has succeeded to restore some respect and some sympathy for the USA again, but not as much as JFK and Bill Clinton.
Quite many new public buildings are constructed outside the old centres. And in the case of many of the old buildings, it is quite remarkable to see what is achieved in this respect. To build lifts and ramps does NOT need structural changes but only adaptations. Interestingly it usually is not the spacious old stuff of until "Fin-de-Siècle" but the narrow modernist crap of the 1950ies and 60ies which gives REAL problems.
- no elevator to the 2nd story underground ?
- no emergency escape paths ?
Sounds like quite normal traditional planning mistakes. Reminds of what I heard from a chap who worked for a Swiss hotel company who built a hotel in Jeddah. The opening ceremony to be the next day, everything splendid and well organised, everybody pleased and proud, until a young cook of Indian origin had the courage to ask those strange "Westerners" about "and where is the kitchen ?" They had to hire some party service companies and then built the kitchen within a week Never was there as my only KSA stay was 2 hours on board of an EgyptAir Boeing 707 in-transit at the old Jeddah Airport enroute to Khartoum.
-
Internet shopping in most of Europe is comparable to Switzerland, as it will NEVER reach the position it has in the USA. As people, also young people, love the downtown-shopping and the personal shopping in shopping-centres. And distances are very close, compared to North America. And in the Mediterranean part of Europe and the Arab World, whenever people already have started to do internet-shopping, personal shopping is part of the lifestyle. Not least as many people of that area of the world are strongly in favour of a talkative lifestyle
The downside is that the US never got the memo that they were supposed to care that the mercurial EU "what have you done for me today" might have changed its tune. To be blunt the US doesn't give a damn and no amount of euro-bleating will change that. It's like watching a 5yo ask 50 times a day who has the better bedroom even after you explain countless times that a bedroom only matters to its inhabitant, I.e. I don't care so much.
Until the EU can do more than bitch about the US, it's all a waste of time... but you already know that...
Ha ha. You're American, aren't you? With the larger and different font, you made your own text very loud. I guess it' an inbred thing.
I've managed to turn down my own loudness unless I've had three cups of coffee (with or without Schnapps). Then my American comes through loud and clear.