h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

oh ok
wonder if the police chief is getting a talking to today?

()

Well, our power went out again for about 2 hours in what they are call "rolling outages". Either it is simply that there are surges putting strain on the system as they are trying to get things back to normal, or they are trying to make sure that some people have some power for at least part of the day.

Vince Bevin, the Ottawa police chief was just on the news talking about the looting last night. Apparently, there were some break-ins at the beginning of the evening but once those were stopped, it was a fairly peaceful night. I guess the press caught him in the middle of the initial wave and that is what hit the papers.

Typically, it was an LCBO store that was broken into.

LCBO, for those of you not familiar with it, is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the government owned liquor stores. In Ontario we do not have stores which sell liquor or beer, only the LCBO and "The Beer Store", also government owned. "The Beer Store used to be called "Brewer's Retail" but since most people simply said "I'm going to the beer store." or "I work at the beer store.", they simply changed the name to "The Beer Store".

http://www.lcbo.com/

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/

Apparently, the death in a fire was that of a physically handicapped boy who was left home alone on an upper floor of a house. The fire broke out and he died. It would be interesting to know just what happened there.....

The memorial service for Ardeth Wood who went missing and then was found, apparently murdered, here in Ottawa had to be postponed, as they are still telling people not to be out unless for an emergency. The point may be moot, as most people I know are low on gas and the pumps here are either not working, or have huge lines, and are rationing.

My mother, who doesn't like anyone telling her what to do, went out today to go to her Chiropractor and used half our gas and then tried to fill up..... I could throttle her, really....

well the good thing about lines at gas pumps...well at least for people in detriot...mabye they will think again about cars that are better on gas


()

Mine is a Toyota Corolla...

see a carola has much better gas mileage then all those suv's and such that roll out of detriot


()

Yep... mind you, we got it brand-new in May and my mother has put 17000+ km on it already.... It would be nice, since we own it together, if I got a chance to drive it once in a while....

Well, this is a topic I enter gingerly but with great interest, if we can return to the original "what is wrong with Americans" title. I can't say what is wrong with Canadians, never having been to Canada, although I do have close rellies living there whom I hope to visit sometime....

What is wrong with Americans? What is wrong with human beings? There are lots of annoying things about Americans, but they speak more to what is wrong with us as a species than anything else. Wealth and power change people, and nations, and not usually for the better. They also change the way other nations behave towards them.

America is one of the richest and most powerful countries of the world - and therein lies part of the problem. People do not cope well with wealth and power individually, and neither do nations.

The first thing most people seem to notice is the arrogant nature of many Americans. This is more noticeable abroad where Americans do not seem, in general, to understand that it is not good etiquette to go into someone's home and start criticising the furnishings. Many Americans may feel that these criticisms are acceptable as the country they are visiting is not as "advanced" in some ways as their own. However, different standards and different tastes do not always, or even mostly, mean lesser or inadequate standards and tastes. For example - not having air conditioning in Britain is quite acceptable as it is so rarely needed. Not having 24 hour shopping or room service is just a cultural difference and having such may not necessarily be an improvement. Different foods are to be expected when abroad and everybody, not just Americans, should make the effort to broaden their palate by trying local dishes rather than sticking to burgers and fries or tea and sandwiches. So what if you have a gippy belly afterwards? That's half the fun of travelling. Basically, if you do not think you can be polite about somebody's home, just don't visit them at all.

Saying that, it does seem to be the brave American who travels much at all except from sea to shining sea.

Unfortunately, America has followed the imperialistic paths of its predecessors Great Britain and the Roman Empire in the sense of apparently believing that their own language should take precedence. In fact America seems to have gone one step further by attempting to ban even accents which are not obviously American. I give you the fact that during my sojourn in the USA I was dismayed to note that even the Teletubbies had been tinkered with: although the actual tubbies had their own voices, the voice-over had changed from an English woman to an American man and the segments which had British children and their parents had been cut completely to show American children and their parents. This was by no means the only childrens' show which was altered. The message I got from this was a resolute fear of anything not American, and a refusal to allow their children to enjoy other cultures lest they have to think outside the square.

I also saw many instances where British shows would have subtitles, in particular if the participants had Scottish or strong English accents - despite the fact that there were just as many American accents which were every bit as hard to understand, even by other Americans.

You do not find this sort of censorship of American shows in other Western countries - at least not to my knowledge.

This sort of fear of other cultures is also obvious in the way that books are often "Americanised" before they are sold there, so as not to tax the inhabitants with words which are not totally familiar to them - never mind the learning experience we all go through when reading a book written in a foreign country, apparently many Americans (or those in power who decide these things at least) would rather their countrymen were not challenged at all.

Another thing most people find irritating about Americans is their lack of geographic knowledge, to a ridiculous extent. The fact that the "World Series" is called such speaks volumes - after all only Americans take part, so how can it be the World Series?

I don't say that all Americans are geographically challenged, as I have good friends who are not, but let me tell you of an actual instance which happened in So Cal a few years back. A cashier asked my husband where he was from. He replied "Australia" and she said "I just love those European accents". This actually happened. Now, my geography was always pretty poor, though it has improved through travel, but I can honestly say I would never have thought Australia was in Europe. What was even worse, we had been bludgeoned so thoroughly by such similar ignorance during our stay in the USA that we did not even attempt to correct her. We were numbed to the "dumbing down of America" having lived with it for years at that point.

Why are Americans deliberately enfeebling themselves in a worldwide sense? I don't know. It can only be the imperialistic attitude, infecting those in the higher echelons trying to ensure that the "natives" (i.e. the rest of the planet) remember their place. Unfortunately it only serves to make America a more ignorant, less educated country than it deserves to be.

Finally, other countries have some role in the way Americans are regarded. When we hear the word "American" and get that snotty look upon our faces, is it any wonder they put on airs and graces to try to piss us off?

Sadly, I don't think America is any worse than most of us would be, in similar circumstances. Not that that makes it any more palatable.

Regards

Albaus, you are so correct about the general lack of knowledge of Americans about the rest of the world!
We're in NZ, and our local TV stations and radio stations are American owned (or half of them are.) The result is that the news comes from ABC - and so many things are subtitled that needn't be - interviews with Indians, for instance, - now as Seinfeld would say - "What's *that* about?"
Then there're the apparent belief that kiwifruit are the eggs of the kiwi bird! (From a story in our local paper about confusion in a supermarket.) It is a though.

It sounds like something I hear a lot.

Person a: why do they...[fill in blank]?

Person b: *shrugs* because they're american.

Which explains a lot!

We (Canadians) get both versions of Teletubbies. American PBS sends us the American version (in which I can't understand half of what the kids say). The Canadian children's network, Treehouse, gives us the British version. It can be fun to compare.

Something else we've noticed in rehashing Scrapheap Challenge/Junkyard Wars (both of which we receive from TLC) on lunchbreaks at work (as we pick the welding gunk out of our nostrils) is that the British Challenges, even when they are superficially the same, are, in fact, usually much harder than the American challenges. I think particularly of the railroad locomotive from scratch challenge: The American version simply asked the teams to build a machine to pull a load down a track -- fastest time won; the British challenge was to build a machine that could drive on a road to the track, switch over to rail riding without help from others than the team, drive a measured track without a load, turn around, and drive the same track with a load. Despite the fact that one of the hosts of the American version is Canadian , I find myself very uninterested in anything but the British version. (it should also, perhaps be noted, that the final of Full Metal Challenge, the bulked up spin-off of Scrapheap Challenge, was between the British and the Canadians)








(okay, the British won.)

That sounds like a fun programme to watch

It is. But the British version is very much better. And I really don't think I'm being predjudiced on the basis of source nationality in this case. I'm just comparing the actual difficulty of the challenges, based on consultation with a number of individuals who have seriously considered joining me on a team to enter the challenge. We all preferred the idea of going to the British production because of the greater challenge.

I would agree, anhaga.
BTW - Anna Paquin is a New Zealander! (Okay, exactly as much as she is Canadian. One parent from each place...)

but there are so many NZers who would be Canadian if their ancestors haden't decided it was too cold

Us included!

The worl Series does involve teams that are for now based in Canada two in fact and some of the games are played in Japan....I know it's not enough for you but look when the two independent baseball leagues got together and decided to have a championship game the were probably just for the next step up...lets see we have the National league and the American League...lets see what can we call the championship game concidering (at that time) we are pretty much the only contry playing the game so it really is the only leagues in the world and world is at least higher then the name of one contry lets call it the world series when was the first world series like 1903 or something?



()

oh my della I almost forgot there are US troops in Libera...now if I remeber correctly you said you world rethink your oil and US military presence theory


()

there are a small amount in Liberia. Like everything else where the UN is involved, the US presence is greatly out numbered. In this case by other african peacekeepers.