They get quite nasty about it, too.

Multiculturism, such as it seems to be trying to be, does

homogenize things quite a bit in order to make everyone on the

planet more susceptible to advertising campaigns by consumer

goods companies and politicians and/or criminals (that might

could be the single noun that should be used in this sentence).

It is possible for a "culture" to engage in stupid behavior

and to so lather it with aged tradition that the mental result

is very clogging to the rational mind.

Unfortunately, the curious tourist mind likes odd and colourful things

that don't occur in it's own "culture" so that it can take pictures,

buy souvenirs and return to Duluth or Bournemouth rattling

on to it's neighbors about how "strange" them furriners be.

Never keeping in mind for a second just how far they were

kept from the real local customs and girls.


I grew up (stop that!) reading and looking at a magazine

called National Geographic.

It is famous in America for it's colourful depiction of

the world in all it's misery and glory.

In the days before cable TV and personal computers, it was

how one got a glimpse of a world that one couldn't afford

to visit oneself.

Every place I went, there were stack of old Nat Geos.

Over the years I must have possessed thousands of copies.

I still have a few hundred lurking about the place.

Because of those magazines, I can almost intelligently converse

with people who have actually been to those places.

At least I am not as culturally unaware as a lot of the

folks I am forced to associate with on a daily basis.


And yet, I also find that some of those wonderful people

who have actually been to those marvelous places that

I have only seen in pictures are full of their own

ignorance of other cultures.


I was talking to a girl from Austria (no, not the place with

the "L" in it) at the public library one time and she said

"Why do Americans keep referring to Martin Luther as royalty?"


Ba-dum-chuck!