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

Hi Charlotte,

the British take? I hope I'm speaking for the majority of my fellow Brits when I say I'm in disbelief and very very saddened.

I went through to the conversations on "Yank Bashing" from your page.
We do tend to take the "Michael" out of Americans (and I'm as guilty as most) - most of it is harmless. Although some of those conversations were getting a bit heated.

When something like this happens though you realise that all that is meaningless. We are all just people.

I suddenly feel closer to people in the US. We do share a common language after all, and basically the same culture.
To be honest, if the British have a "best friend", who else is it but the USA? Nobody else likes us much.

I hope the USA can recover from this tragedy, and that all of us start putting aside our prejudices - because isn't that how this happened in the first place?

Didjimaster,

Thanks so much for your kind note. I've always felt rather kindly towards the UK. And Italy, which I think is one of my favorite countries ever. Poor Italians though, I speak the language terribly in spite of trying to drill it into my head for years.

My professor in a study abroad program was a British woman and I greatly appreciated her wry sense of humor intelligence.

I feel confident that we as a country, and as a global community will get through this, though in all honesty I do waffle back and forth between thinking that the violence must just stop, and wanting the most vicious kind of vengance for those dead people.

We can only hope that the sanest possible heads prevail.

Charlotte

I've just been looking at some of the conversations on the American tragedy.
I'm quite new to chat rooms so perhaps I'm naive but I can't get over the extremist tone in some people's postings.

I know what you mean, the thought "just nuke Afghanistan" has crossed my mind - but then I regain some sanity.
There is no easy answer to any of this.
My parents are Catholics from Northern Ireland, and I'm sure you're familiar with the problems over there. Violence just seems to perpetuate violence.
I'm not suggesting that the perpetrators of this crime should go unpunished. The west should take action to eliminate these extremist groups but it is unlikely that they will realistically.
Most European countries have become familiar with living with the threat of terrorism e.g. IRA in the UK, Basque separatists in Spain, etc etc.
America is unfortunately going to have to do the same, and tighten up on security.

Hang in there Americans. The sun will shine again one day.

We shall indeed. I think one problem that we have here in the US is that we are so *big*. For many Europeans a vacation option is to jaunt on over the border to another country where there is another language/culture/currency and really see differences in day to day life.

In the US vacation options, even cross country options, are being with people who use the same culture, currency, and language (except Texans, god know how one could explain Texas. My sincerest apologies on behalf of all America for George W. Bush.). We have very little *real* exposure to other cultures, in spite of being a "melting pot". For many Americans diversity means trying a new kind of food. Our northern neighbors are very much like us, and most of our country doesn't really interact with our southern neighbors in Mexico. Americans are isolated by geography and it tends to make us rather blind to the fact that there is an entire world out there that is different.

It is something that we desperately need to learn because it is the only way that we, as a nation, will truly come to understand that we have a greater responsibility to just ourselves.

"it is the only way that we, as a nation, will truly come to understand that we have a greater responsibility to just ourselves.
"

THAN, a greater responsibility THAN to just ourselves.

Wish they'd put edit buttons on this thing.