When I was in England, my relatives were constantly correcting my and my mother's English. It was really annoying; it's not like these people are speaking the Queen's English, they're just regular folk with their own accents and mispronunciations. Finally I said to my cousin, "Isn't it weird? It's almost like we're from another country!" I mean, get over it. You speak your English and we speak ours. I know in theory there has to be a "right way" that we all aspire to but American English is a recognized language.
Eventually, I figured we were in their country and we can make an effort to say things the way they do. We didn't ask anyone where the restroom or the bathroom but every one of my relatives brought it up anyway. "RESTroom?" they'd say, "who's doing any RESTING in there?" "BATHroom? How ridiculous, there's no BATH in there!" Yes, we'd say, shaking our heads in agreement at how stupid our language (and presumably, our country) is, "I know." Forget trying to explain that for whatever reason, in America we don't like to talk about the toilet because we consider it to be dirty and disgusting and it's much more polite, say at dinner, to ask the waiter where the restroom is. Come to think of it, it used to be called a washroom which might be more accurate. The difference, of course, is that in England, the toilets in the old houses were in their own room (hence, the water closet or WC) and the sink is in the same room as the shower. But I digress.
I was ready to forgive them for making me feel like I don't have the right to my own language when, while at my hair salon, I had a similar interaction with a Brit here in San Francisco. While I was paying, a guy came in. My hairdresser, looking at the appointment book, asked him how to pronounce his name.
"Paul," he replied.
"Oh, it says B-A-U-L in the book!" she said and we both laughed.
I remembered a good friend of mine named Paul who once complained about having such a common name and I lightly remarked, "I bet that's never happened before!"
"Actually," he said, "only about four times per day."
Huh? You see, British Paul refuses to pronounce his name is a way that any American would understand.
"Oh," I said, because you say "Paul" (pronouncing his name in my best British accent).
"Paul" he replied, correcting me.
"That's what I said."
"No," he said without a shred of humor, "it isn't."
Unbelievable! This guy would rather walk around his life in San Francisco with a stick up his ass about his name, correcting all of us stupid and ignorant Americans who can't speak, than just have a friendly interaction with a couple of nice and (actually) interesting women. I thought it about it all the way home. My name is French but I've never insisted that people pronounce it so. I don't particularly want it truncated but that's a different story. When I go to Italy, I introduce myself as "An-JEL-ica." To Spanish speakers, even in the U.S., I'm happy to be called "An-HELL-ica." Some Europeans pronounce it the French way and I love that. I see nothing wrong with people changing it to suit their language, especially in their own country.
Would Paul chastise people in Italy if they called him Paolo? Or in Spain for calling him Pablo? Or is it just because we speak English here that he thinks we should pronounce it HIS way, the ENGLISH way, the CORRECT way? I find it hard to believe that even in England, everyone would say it to his satisfaction. And what about in Australia? Same story or is it just us Americans that they are so disgusted with? According to a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph in May, 35% of the British think the United States is a "force for evil." I suppose because of our president's bad speech, they assume the two go hand in hand. I wonder how they'll feel in 2020 when, according to Wired, only 15% of English speakers will be native to the language. The Chinese are quickly eclipsing the rest of the world in English speakers and are inventing their own version of it as we speak. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when Paul gets his English corrected by a Chinese non-native speaker!
Showing posts with label Americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Americans. Show all posts
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Uncivilized States of America
Between the ages of 12 and 19, I went to Europe three times with my family. We mainly went to visit my relatives in England but also managed to see Paris, stay in rural France, drive through southern Germany, tour Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria and tour through Wales staying in farmhouse B&B’s. My English cousins, only a few years younger than me, thought America was so cool and always talked about someday wanting to live here. It was the eighties; no one in Europe thinks that way about America anymore. Even at that young age, I advised them that America was not all they thought it was. It was in those years that I formulated the opinion that the U.S. treated its citizens as stupid ill-behaved children that can’t be trusted with responsibility. A sentiment echoed decades later in President Bush’s statement that it didn’t matter if we didn’t support the war in Iraq because he knew what was best for the country.
Why is it, I asked, that at 16 I can pay taxes but I can’t vote? That I can drive but can’t go to a club to see a concert with my friends? That I can go to college but can’t borrow money to pay for it? In Europe, college is free and parents are allowed to determine when and how their kids can drink alcohol. At monuments in Britain, there were no ropes or signs restricting where you can go or telling you how to behave. Their government trusts its citizens to be adults and behave accordingly. If you fall and get hurt, it’s your fault and responsibility. You wouldn’t sue for your mistake. But then, you wouldn’t have to because your medical treatment is free regardless of how it happened or who is to blame.
For twenty years, I have wanted to live in Europe. As a teenager, I made “mood boards” of European villages, small farms and old towns that I wanted to visit. I haven’t managed to spend much more than four weeks in Italy as an adult, four of the best weeks of my life. Lately though, I‘ve been feeling so down on America, so tired of the lies and hypocrisy that seem to be everywhere. Why do we spend more than ten times more on military “defense” than any other country in the world? Are we really ten times safer? Or in ten times as much danger? Our president says it to keep our country safe and yet we are being polluted by industry, poisoned by our food and killed by a lack of health care and campaign of misinformation about what is “food.” Why are we told and why do people believe that this is the greatest nation on earth? Because we have democracy? We have the lowest voter turnout of any democracy on the planet, so that can’t be the reason.
I just watched Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko. All these years I’ve been arguing with people who didn’t believe me when I said that Europeans were better off than us. My cousins all own their own homes, have new cars, little to no debt and have traveled all over the world on their holidays. They aren’t better educated than me and I probably make the same amount of money, minus the five weeks paid mandatory vacation. They’re politically informed and engaged and never have had a problem finding work. And they’re healthy.
Sicko, while focused on the sham that is our “health care industry,” also asks the bigger question of “what’s wrong with us”? Why are we the only civilized nation in the world that denies basic rights and services – health care, time off and education – to its citizens? It’s no wonder Europeans don’t respect us, we put up with the most disgusting abuse and corruption but then wave our flags and tell everyone to be like us. It’s unfortunate that more Americans haven’t spent time overseas to see how other people live. Moore makes a good point about how we’ve been brainwashed to believe that national health care would be socialist and socialism is a bad, scary thing. Well it is to rich people but for the rest of us, it’s the purpose of government and society. As Jared Diamond describes in Guns, Germs and Steel, in a kleptocracy it’s what we get in exchange for those in charge taking the largest portion of goods. This article references the best quote in the film from a Labor Party member of Parliament, a portion of which is that “an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.” Keep us frightened and demoralized and we won’t protest our condition. Bingo!
Look at these happy people, they just had a baby for free:
Moore takes a crew of sick Americans, including 9/11 rescue workers denied treatment, to Guatanamo Bay where the terrorists being held and receiving better medical attention than most Americans. They end up in a hospital, in Cuba of all places, where they get first class treatment in a segment that rendered me in tears much like one of those makeover reality shows. This country is being run into the ground by greedy and corrupt politicians and corporations, who are getting rich of us, and it’s happening right before our eyes. Someday, when people start trying to leave this country and live elsewhere, we’ll be asked why we didn’t do anything to stop it.
A while back someone sent me a video explaining the writer's strike in Hollywood on YouTube. It was a very simple and factual explanation, nothing emotional, just this is what we have, this is what we're asking for and this is why. Underneath the video, there were hundreds of comments. Almost all of them were hateful vitriolic statements about the writers being lazy and untalented. People said I hope you starve. They said, why should you get compensated when the rest of us are screwed by business? They accused writers of being greedy. I couldn't believe it. A friend of mine said she thought they were planted there by studios but I don't think so. I've seen too many examples of Americans slinging hate at each other to know that we're an angry bunch of people who hate to see other people get something they deserve, unless it's punishment. But the anger is misdirected. We should be angry, we should be very angry but not at each other. Moore says at the end of the movie that nothing will change until we starting thinking of "we" instead of "me."
Why is it, I asked, that at 16 I can pay taxes but I can’t vote? That I can drive but can’t go to a club to see a concert with my friends? That I can go to college but can’t borrow money to pay for it? In Europe, college is free and parents are allowed to determine when and how their kids can drink alcohol. At monuments in Britain, there were no ropes or signs restricting where you can go or telling you how to behave. Their government trusts its citizens to be adults and behave accordingly. If you fall and get hurt, it’s your fault and responsibility. You wouldn’t sue for your mistake. But then, you wouldn’t have to because your medical treatment is free regardless of how it happened or who is to blame.
For twenty years, I have wanted to live in Europe. As a teenager, I made “mood boards” of European villages, small farms and old towns that I wanted to visit. I haven’t managed to spend much more than four weeks in Italy as an adult, four of the best weeks of my life. Lately though, I‘ve been feeling so down on America, so tired of the lies and hypocrisy that seem to be everywhere. Why do we spend more than ten times more on military “defense” than any other country in the world? Are we really ten times safer? Or in ten times as much danger? Our president says it to keep our country safe and yet we are being polluted by industry, poisoned by our food and killed by a lack of health care and campaign of misinformation about what is “food.” Why are we told and why do people believe that this is the greatest nation on earth? Because we have democracy? We have the lowest voter turnout of any democracy on the planet, so that can’t be the reason.
I just watched Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko. All these years I’ve been arguing with people who didn’t believe me when I said that Europeans were better off than us. My cousins all own their own homes, have new cars, little to no debt and have traveled all over the world on their holidays. They aren’t better educated than me and I probably make the same amount of money, minus the five weeks paid mandatory vacation. They’re politically informed and engaged and never have had a problem finding work. And they’re healthy.
Sicko, while focused on the sham that is our “health care industry,” also asks the bigger question of “what’s wrong with us”? Why are we the only civilized nation in the world that denies basic rights and services – health care, time off and education – to its citizens? It’s no wonder Europeans don’t respect us, we put up with the most disgusting abuse and corruption but then wave our flags and tell everyone to be like us. It’s unfortunate that more Americans haven’t spent time overseas to see how other people live. Moore makes a good point about how we’ve been brainwashed to believe that national health care would be socialist and socialism is a bad, scary thing. Well it is to rich people but for the rest of us, it’s the purpose of government and society. As Jared Diamond describes in Guns, Germs and Steel, in a kleptocracy it’s what we get in exchange for those in charge taking the largest portion of goods. This article references the best quote in the film from a Labor Party member of Parliament, a portion of which is that “an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.” Keep us frightened and demoralized and we won’t protest our condition. Bingo!
Look at these happy people, they just had a baby for free:
Moore takes a crew of sick Americans, including 9/11 rescue workers denied treatment, to Guatanamo Bay where the terrorists being held and receiving better medical attention than most Americans. They end up in a hospital, in Cuba of all places, where they get first class treatment in a segment that rendered me in tears much like one of those makeover reality shows. This country is being run into the ground by greedy and corrupt politicians and corporations, who are getting rich of us, and it’s happening right before our eyes. Someday, when people start trying to leave this country and live elsewhere, we’ll be asked why we didn’t do anything to stop it.
A while back someone sent me a video explaining the writer's strike in Hollywood on YouTube. It was a very simple and factual explanation, nothing emotional, just this is what we have, this is what we're asking for and this is why. Underneath the video, there were hundreds of comments. Almost all of them were hateful vitriolic statements about the writers being lazy and untalented. People said I hope you starve. They said, why should you get compensated when the rest of us are screwed by business? They accused writers of being greedy. I couldn't believe it. A friend of mine said she thought they were planted there by studios but I don't think so. I've seen too many examples of Americans slinging hate at each other to know that we're an angry bunch of people who hate to see other people get something they deserve, unless it's punishment. But the anger is misdirected. We should be angry, we should be very angry but not at each other. Moore says at the end of the movie that nothing will change until we starting thinking of "we" instead of "me."
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Dying to get here
I’m still reading Eat, Pray, Love and I think Indonesia is my favorite country in this book. Her experience with Ketut the medicine man is so fantastic. This little man with no teeth has been sitting on his porch for decades, helping people who need his help even though he wanted to be an artist, because that’s what God asked him to do. He’s never been anywhere and a cup of coffee with sugar is the biggest luxury he can afford. The author answers all of his questions about the world and the West and takes him on journeys far beyond his porch, which is why he loves having her around. She describes one experience where she photocopied his handwritten medical journals because they were falling apart and irreplaceable. One by one she takes them to town and brings them back brand new in plastic folders. This is how she wins over his surly protective wife who had for weeks been giving her the evil eye. The wife makes her a cup of coffee one day, just for her, and limps out of the house with her bad hip to deliver it. I read this part of the book and started to weep.
What went through my mind is how amazingly easy it is, in most of the world, to make a significant difference in a person’s life. A little bit of coffee, a few stories, a dose of technology, and you can rock someone’s world. It made me think of something I’ve been trying to articulate for a week now. My dad sent me this cheesy PowerPoint presentation about the demographics of the world, represented by an island of 100 people against the backdrop of PowerPoint’s stock photos. I’ve seen this kind of thing, almost exactly, so many times over the years and yet something was different this time. It might be me or it might be the fact that my dad sent it to me.
I know it sounds strange but you don’t understand how stoic my dad is, how totally rational he is, unsentimental and not generally affected by other people’s suffering. The fact that he would forward this to me is kind of astounding. He has changed a bit since he started dating a woman from Peru. She has thirteen brothers and sisters, grew up in abject poverty and was kept in a basement when she came to the U.S. as a nanny and eventually escaped her captors. At first, skeptical of my dad doing anything for someone else, I believed that she fed his hero fantasies. They go to Peru and he’s the tall (at 5’9”) white man who brings money and clothes, and makes it possible for their sister to go to school in the U.S. without working in a factory all night.
The presentation says, in a nutshell, that 6 out of the 100 people on this “island” would have 59% of the wealth and they would all be Americans; the majority of the rest would be poor, illiterate and/or malnourished. We, Americans, aren't threatened by war, can worship as we please, and most of us have homes, jobs and food, which makes us wealthier than more than 75% of the world population. What are we supposed to take away from these statistics? What can we do? What should we do? I think everyone deserves to have what we have, and no one would argue with that. Everyone wants what we have so it’s okay to want it and have it. The next thought is that we should appreciate it or enjoy it more but that is almost impossible. We can’t appreciate what we have without understanding, not just from statistics, what other people don’t have. Travel and time spent with those less privileged is the only way to really appreciate what we have, and it has to be done regularly.
I guess the fundamental question is what will make humankind happiest: The pursuit of improving our own lives incrementally or the pursuit of improving the lives of all of humanity? In other words, is it more valuable to improve life for those at the bottom, maybe in expense of our own improvement, or do we at the top keep forging the way to an even better life? I suppose without democracy, without a constitution and a government that basically works, there would be nothing for people in countries with corrupt governments to aspire to. They would think that corruption is all there is. In fact, the countries where people are most excited about democracy are in Africa. Places where the people have literally, nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Then there are adventures like space travel. Years ago, I had a conversation with an old friend about NASA. He was complaining about how much we spend on the Space Shuttle and how much could be done with that money to help the poor. The number one cause of child mortality on this planet is malnutrition, something that can be cured with food. I defended space exploration as a necessary inspiration for humanity. Frankly, the money we spend on space exploration is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on war, but that’s another conversation. The point is, a decade later, I see that he was right. How is humanity lifted by us landing on the moon? Does that achievement really trickle down into some kind of improvement for everyone the way that drugs for HIV or the Internet have transformed our world? No. Then again we don’t know what’s going to improve our lives. Some things developed to help us end up hurting people, and vice versa. We should continue to innovate, that I believe.
What does this mean for me, as an individual, to know that I am more privileged that almost everyone else on earth? Guilt will get me nowhere. Donating everything I have to someone else might make me feel good for a short while but then how will I live? I’m tempted to travel, like the author of this book, and stay in villages with people like Ketut and just make their lives a little bit better by bringing the world to them. When I was traveling in India, I met a man who was Christian; they are a very small minority there, less than 5% of the population. He, with all seriousness, asked me to take one of his children back to the U.S. with me. There was nothing that could be done for him, he said, but maybe one of his children could have a better life. He was desperately unhappy, and was the only person I met there that I thought that about. He told me that Hindus, because they believe in the caste system, are generally happy because they make do with what they are given. They don’t entertain the idea of having more because that isn’t possible. You see lepers with missing body parts, begging for food on the street, who are overjoyed when you hand them a ripe piece of fruit every morning. It’s the desire for more, and the knowledge that more is possible that makes us unhappy.
That encapsulates the American malaise right there. We aren’t spoiled and selfish because we’re rich. Most of us don’t perceive ourselves as being rich. Most of us know we could do better and have more and that makes us feel like failures. Our advertising has capitalized on that reaction for years, make us feel like failures and then convince us that buying whatever product is being sold will make us happy. (But that’s another conversation too!) It reminds me of the Netflix contest. Netflix is offering a million dollars to any person or team who can improve their recommendation system by 10%. The challenge has proved to be very difficult. Almost immediately, a few teams were able to improve it by 7% and eventually by 8% by building off of each other’s work, but the 10% remains elusive and may even be impossible.
See, we’re already at the top and we’re already living life at such a high capacity that improving it by 10% is almost impossible. We suffer and struggle and fight against that remaining 2% and the failure to attain it makes us miserable. We take drugs and see doctors and write self-help books and watch sad movies about people who make each other unhappy. Meanwhile, there are children in Africa afflicted with a disease that eats their face, right down to the bone, and there are millions of people all over the world living in refugee camps on borders of countries for decades, unable to leave. There are these struggles in our own country, however, and these are the struggles that we can do something about.
Another story in the book is about a musician that the author met. He worked on a cruise ship, cleaning 12 hours a day with one day off a month, living in the bowels of the ship, to save money and get to America. When he finally got to New York, he thought it was the place on earth where the most love was. He got a job and played music and eventually met and fell in love with an American woman. They got married and everything was going swimmingly. He had improved his life 500% almost overnight, just by coming to the U.S. After 9/11, however, he was arrested, detained and then deported, back to Indonesia, never to return. His marriage is likely over as are his hopes for a musical career.
It’s one thing to accept the bounty of our country gracefully, and do what we can to improve it that 2%, but it’s another to deprive others of having it at all. Our President would have us believe that what we have is possible for everyone, if only they had a democratic government. Maybe that’s true but to deny people access to what already exists and ask them to build it on their own is like telling kids in the inner cities that they can’t go to a better school but that they have to build their own better school in their neighborhood with no knowledge, tools or resources. The answer may not be to invite them all to attend the better schools, clearly they would be overwhelmed and no longer better schools, which is the argument against opening up our borders to everyone. People are already literally dying to get here.
But what if we, the privileged, gave our time, our knowledge, and our money, to help those kids, those schools, and those countries? We can make a huge and immediate impact. There was an article about an engineer who went to South America and was amazed at how little infrastructure they had and with his bachelor’s degree and fifteen years work experience, something most of us take for granted in this country, was able to transform a village and educate the villagers, vastly improving everyone’s lives there. He founded an engineering corps and brought more engineers from colleges in the U.S. to help other villages and gave these young people a reward they may never again experience in their lives.
This is the challenge I offer myself and everyone else in the top 75%: What can you do to radically transform someone else’s life? Now do it.
What went through my mind is how amazingly easy it is, in most of the world, to make a significant difference in a person’s life. A little bit of coffee, a few stories, a dose of technology, and you can rock someone’s world. It made me think of something I’ve been trying to articulate for a week now. My dad sent me this cheesy PowerPoint presentation about the demographics of the world, represented by an island of 100 people against the backdrop of PowerPoint’s stock photos. I’ve seen this kind of thing, almost exactly, so many times over the years and yet something was different this time. It might be me or it might be the fact that my dad sent it to me.
I know it sounds strange but you don’t understand how stoic my dad is, how totally rational he is, unsentimental and not generally affected by other people’s suffering. The fact that he would forward this to me is kind of astounding. He has changed a bit since he started dating a woman from Peru. She has thirteen brothers and sisters, grew up in abject poverty and was kept in a basement when she came to the U.S. as a nanny and eventually escaped her captors. At first, skeptical of my dad doing anything for someone else, I believed that she fed his hero fantasies. They go to Peru and he’s the tall (at 5’9”) white man who brings money and clothes, and makes it possible for their sister to go to school in the U.S. without working in a factory all night.
The presentation says, in a nutshell, that 6 out of the 100 people on this “island” would have 59% of the wealth and they would all be Americans; the majority of the rest would be poor, illiterate and/or malnourished. We, Americans, aren't threatened by war, can worship as we please, and most of us have homes, jobs and food, which makes us wealthier than more than 75% of the world population. What are we supposed to take away from these statistics? What can we do? What should we do? I think everyone deserves to have what we have, and no one would argue with that. Everyone wants what we have so it’s okay to want it and have it. The next thought is that we should appreciate it or enjoy it more but that is almost impossible. We can’t appreciate what we have without understanding, not just from statistics, what other people don’t have. Travel and time spent with those less privileged is the only way to really appreciate what we have, and it has to be done regularly.
I guess the fundamental question is what will make humankind happiest: The pursuit of improving our own lives incrementally or the pursuit of improving the lives of all of humanity? In other words, is it more valuable to improve life for those at the bottom, maybe in expense of our own improvement, or do we at the top keep forging the way to an even better life? I suppose without democracy, without a constitution and a government that basically works, there would be nothing for people in countries with corrupt governments to aspire to. They would think that corruption is all there is. In fact, the countries where people are most excited about democracy are in Africa. Places where the people have literally, nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Then there are adventures like space travel. Years ago, I had a conversation with an old friend about NASA. He was complaining about how much we spend on the Space Shuttle and how much could be done with that money to help the poor. The number one cause of child mortality on this planet is malnutrition, something that can be cured with food. I defended space exploration as a necessary inspiration for humanity. Frankly, the money we spend on space exploration is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on war, but that’s another conversation. The point is, a decade later, I see that he was right. How is humanity lifted by us landing on the moon? Does that achievement really trickle down into some kind of improvement for everyone the way that drugs for HIV or the Internet have transformed our world? No. Then again we don’t know what’s going to improve our lives. Some things developed to help us end up hurting people, and vice versa. We should continue to innovate, that I believe.
What does this mean for me, as an individual, to know that I am more privileged that almost everyone else on earth? Guilt will get me nowhere. Donating everything I have to someone else might make me feel good for a short while but then how will I live? I’m tempted to travel, like the author of this book, and stay in villages with people like Ketut and just make their lives a little bit better by bringing the world to them. When I was traveling in India, I met a man who was Christian; they are a very small minority there, less than 5% of the population. He, with all seriousness, asked me to take one of his children back to the U.S. with me. There was nothing that could be done for him, he said, but maybe one of his children could have a better life. He was desperately unhappy, and was the only person I met there that I thought that about. He told me that Hindus, because they believe in the caste system, are generally happy because they make do with what they are given. They don’t entertain the idea of having more because that isn’t possible. You see lepers with missing body parts, begging for food on the street, who are overjoyed when you hand them a ripe piece of fruit every morning. It’s the desire for more, and the knowledge that more is possible that makes us unhappy.
That encapsulates the American malaise right there. We aren’t spoiled and selfish because we’re rich. Most of us don’t perceive ourselves as being rich. Most of us know we could do better and have more and that makes us feel like failures. Our advertising has capitalized on that reaction for years, make us feel like failures and then convince us that buying whatever product is being sold will make us happy. (But that’s another conversation too!) It reminds me of the Netflix contest. Netflix is offering a million dollars to any person or team who can improve their recommendation system by 10%. The challenge has proved to be very difficult. Almost immediately, a few teams were able to improve it by 7% and eventually by 8% by building off of each other’s work, but the 10% remains elusive and may even be impossible.
See, we’re already at the top and we’re already living life at such a high capacity that improving it by 10% is almost impossible. We suffer and struggle and fight against that remaining 2% and the failure to attain it makes us miserable. We take drugs and see doctors and write self-help books and watch sad movies about people who make each other unhappy. Meanwhile, there are children in Africa afflicted with a disease that eats their face, right down to the bone, and there are millions of people all over the world living in refugee camps on borders of countries for decades, unable to leave. There are these struggles in our own country, however, and these are the struggles that we can do something about.
Another story in the book is about a musician that the author met. He worked on a cruise ship, cleaning 12 hours a day with one day off a month, living in the bowels of the ship, to save money and get to America. When he finally got to New York, he thought it was the place on earth where the most love was. He got a job and played music and eventually met and fell in love with an American woman. They got married and everything was going swimmingly. He had improved his life 500% almost overnight, just by coming to the U.S. After 9/11, however, he was arrested, detained and then deported, back to Indonesia, never to return. His marriage is likely over as are his hopes for a musical career.
It’s one thing to accept the bounty of our country gracefully, and do what we can to improve it that 2%, but it’s another to deprive others of having it at all. Our President would have us believe that what we have is possible for everyone, if only they had a democratic government. Maybe that’s true but to deny people access to what already exists and ask them to build it on their own is like telling kids in the inner cities that they can’t go to a better school but that they have to build their own better school in their neighborhood with no knowledge, tools or resources. The answer may not be to invite them all to attend the better schools, clearly they would be overwhelmed and no longer better schools, which is the argument against opening up our borders to everyone. People are already literally dying to get here.
But what if we, the privileged, gave our time, our knowledge, and our money, to help those kids, those schools, and those countries? We can make a huge and immediate impact. There was an article about an engineer who went to South America and was amazed at how little infrastructure they had and with his bachelor’s degree and fifteen years work experience, something most of us take for granted in this country, was able to transform a village and educate the villagers, vastly improving everyone’s lives there. He founded an engineering corps and brought more engineers from colleges in the U.S. to help other villages and gave these young people a reward they may never again experience in their lives.
This is the challenge I offer myself and everyone else in the top 75%: What can you do to radically transform someone else’s life? Now do it.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Look over there, it's a sex scandal!
I've been reading a book, recommended by a friend, called "Astrology for the Soul." I'm not a devout believer of astrology but I find pretty much any "what's it all about, what am I all about" questioning to be helpful and enjoyable. This book is about the North Node, which dictates what this life is all about for us, based on our past life! As the story goes, in my past life, I was a queen or some kind of royalty and I came into this life bossing people around, wanting to get my way, including my parents. Which is pretty much true. While it's natural for me to pursue the spotlight, it says, I will not be happy there and should instead devote myself to a humanitarian cause. Have I not been fumbling towards that same conclusion for months now? The description of my love life is shockingly true and too embarrassing to disclose here.
But I think the most interesting point is that it says Aquarius North Node people are here to bring in the New Age. We pick up messages from the future, as we have a way of seeing what is coming, and communicate those messages back to everyone else. If I follow a selfless path, I will have angels and support beyond my wildest dreams. I once went to a party with a good friend and a deaf comedienne with a knack for seeing auras and such, told me that she saw me coming up the drive surrounded by beautiful spirits. I can't help but think that this might be the point of my blog, to show people the future and rally for change.
So in the face of a brand new sex scandal - thank goodness, the Bush administration was a little dry in that area - I want to point out three stories from the paper that we should actually be concerned about. (By the way, I predict this girl will get a TV show from all the publicity.)
1) We're about to hit a major traffic jam in the Internet. Of course there are people who say that isn't likely, that we're improving the technology at the same rate that we're increasing demand for it, but it's not just about technology. Access requires physical and finite things like server space, power and a robust network to connect. Every day more people start using the Internet regularly and watch their first video or upload their first photo. Entire countries of people are still not on the Internet and young people are expecting in the near future to have access to all of their friends online, on video, all the time. We can bemoan the possibility of "missed opportunities" that are predicted but far more serious consequences await us as this network has become something our entire world depends on.
2) Small farmers in the United States are about to disappear forever. This is a critical issue. Mass-produced food is laden with chemicals, poisoning the animals, the earth, and us. It's devoid of nutrition, is tasteless and nearly half of it is not eaten but used as fuel so we can keep driving cars. The small farmer can't compete with the commercial farms and are selling out to developers. We're building houses and roads and gobbling all the islands of open space that dot the country. Birds that migrate thousands of miles need to stop somewhere to rest. If the islands disappear, they won't be able to rest and they'll die. Other animals will lose their habitats, migratory paths and will die or be killed trying to live in a human world. You must watch this great video about two endangered Whooping Cranes that landed on a farm in Tennessee. We apparently spent $11 million to hatch a group of them and teach them fly (most of them died but these two survived) but we can't stop developers from using up all the open space? I don't understand the logic of this!
3) 1 in every 100 adult Americans is in prison. This is the highest incarceration rate of any country at any time in history. The numbers are frightening for certain ethnicities, 1 in 35 black men is in prison. In the 1990's we passed mandatory sentencing and increased penalties for drug offenses. We had more money then and prisons were a booming business. Now they're overcrowded, crime has not gone down in response and the "drug war" is a joke. Housewives in the Midwest are getting hooked on meth cooked up in a house down the street using legal ingredients. Non-violent drunk driving offenders are mixed in the with murderers and rapists and very few people are receiving any kind of treatment. At the same time, our president is defending our right to torture to keep our country safe.
There are positive changes happening the in the world too, but even these are overshadowed by the sex scandal of a guy who stood on a soapbox for morality. Why hasn't everyone figured out yet that the people who preach morality are almost always the ones committing the offenses they so vehemently reproach?
But I think the most interesting point is that it says Aquarius North Node people are here to bring in the New Age. We pick up messages from the future, as we have a way of seeing what is coming, and communicate those messages back to everyone else. If I follow a selfless path, I will have angels and support beyond my wildest dreams. I once went to a party with a good friend and a deaf comedienne with a knack for seeing auras and such, told me that she saw me coming up the drive surrounded by beautiful spirits. I can't help but think that this might be the point of my blog, to show people the future and rally for change.
So in the face of a brand new sex scandal - thank goodness, the Bush administration was a little dry in that area - I want to point out three stories from the paper that we should actually be concerned about. (By the way, I predict this girl will get a TV show from all the publicity.)
1) We're about to hit a major traffic jam in the Internet. Of course there are people who say that isn't likely, that we're improving the technology at the same rate that we're increasing demand for it, but it's not just about technology. Access requires physical and finite things like server space, power and a robust network to connect. Every day more people start using the Internet regularly and watch their first video or upload their first photo. Entire countries of people are still not on the Internet and young people are expecting in the near future to have access to all of their friends online, on video, all the time. We can bemoan the possibility of "missed opportunities" that are predicted but far more serious consequences await us as this network has become something our entire world depends on.
2) Small farmers in the United States are about to disappear forever. This is a critical issue. Mass-produced food is laden with chemicals, poisoning the animals, the earth, and us. It's devoid of nutrition, is tasteless and nearly half of it is not eaten but used as fuel so we can keep driving cars. The small farmer can't compete with the commercial farms and are selling out to developers. We're building houses and roads and gobbling all the islands of open space that dot the country. Birds that migrate thousands of miles need to stop somewhere to rest. If the islands disappear, they won't be able to rest and they'll die. Other animals will lose their habitats, migratory paths and will die or be killed trying to live in a human world. You must watch this great video about two endangered Whooping Cranes that landed on a farm in Tennessee. We apparently spent $11 million to hatch a group of them and teach them fly (most of them died but these two survived) but we can't stop developers from using up all the open space? I don't understand the logic of this!
3) 1 in every 100 adult Americans is in prison. This is the highest incarceration rate of any country at any time in history. The numbers are frightening for certain ethnicities, 1 in 35 black men is in prison. In the 1990's we passed mandatory sentencing and increased penalties for drug offenses. We had more money then and prisons were a booming business. Now they're overcrowded, crime has not gone down in response and the "drug war" is a joke. Housewives in the Midwest are getting hooked on meth cooked up in a house down the street using legal ingredients. Non-violent drunk driving offenders are mixed in the with murderers and rapists and very few people are receiving any kind of treatment. At the same time, our president is defending our right to torture to keep our country safe.
There are positive changes happening the in the world too, but even these are overshadowed by the sex scandal of a guy who stood on a soapbox for morality. Why hasn't everyone figured out yet that the people who preach morality are almost always the ones committing the offenses they so vehemently reproach?
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Why Americans don't travel
Last week I went on a date with an Israeli and since we'd both spent time in India we talked about traveling. He made a reference to "his country" and I remarked that I had noticed when foreigners in the U.S. refer to their homeland, they always say "my country." When I've traveled I say, of my homeland, "in the United States." I theorized that it was a way to distance myself the United States: instead of claiming it as "my country," I just refer to it by name. I told him that many Americans are happy to be mistaken for some other nationality. My date asked our waiter where he was from, thinking he was foreign-born, and he replied "Pennsylvania." His response to being mistaken as foreign was "thank you, I'll take that as a compliment."
At some point in the conversation, my date commented that "Americans don't travel" and to my surprise, I delivered a swift and thorough argument in our defense. I don't like being lumped into a category and I don't like whole nations being summed up in simple statements, but that isn't what got me going. What bothers me is the implication that Americans are ignorant and unsophisticated because we don't travel.
I actually happen to agree that we suffer from not seeing outside of our country more often. We are an insulated, nationalist country that spends too much time working and not enough time traveling. We don't talk about politics enough and are constantly told that this country is better than all others. In fact, according to a comment posted by a reader on my blog we should work harder, complain less and appreciate what we have more.
Yet Europeans, who by many accounts have it WAY better than we do, with their mandatory six-eight weeks vacation, cheap to free schooling, unionized wages, better health care, looser regulations on medicine and stricter laws on guns, never stop complaining! They talk and argue and debate issues over bottles of wine into the wee hours of the night and no one would ever think to tell them to shut up and sit down.
There are three VERY GOOD reasons why Americans don't travel more: Time, money and distance. But first, let's clarify that this statement refers to international travel, more specifically, travel ABROAD. Americans travel quite a bit within our own country and travel to Mexico and Canada requires only a driver's license. The statement should be "Americans don't travel to as many countries and with the same frequency as other industrialized nations."
The reality is, Americans only get a fraction of the vacation time other industrialized nations receive and a third of us, don't even take it. A regular salaried job gets me two weeks vacation in the first year, and usually doesn't increase for at least three years after that. If I stay in a job long enough (and I haven't yet), I may get more than two weeks but it will be a long time before I have six weeks.
This year, instead of saving my two weeks, I'm using it throughout the year to visit my good friend three time zones away in New York, another friend in North Carolina who's getting married, my brother and nephews in Oregon. It's not uncommon for Americans to go years without seeing some of their closest friends and relatives because of the distance, time and cost between us. Each of my trips will cost me $350-$500 in airfare and including gifts, expenses and a hotel, will run me about $1,000 each. The east coast trips will take me 5-9 hours flying time, each way, depending on the layover.
In order for me to spend more than two weeks out of the country, I have to quit my job and save quite a bit of money. My vacation will be without pay but I'll still have to pay rent on my apartment and all of my other bills. I met a German guy while traveling around India who thought it was hysterical that I had saved for a whole year and quit my job to take the trip. He boasted that the German government was paying him to take his six weeks vacation even though he was collecting unemployment.
His flight to India took eight hours, mine took thirty-one hours and included an eight-hour layover in the Seoul airport. There and back, with time changes, I'm traveling almost a week before I spend any time in my destination. From the west coast, I can be in Europe in 12-14 hours but everything in the UK costs me twice as much as it does here. By comparison, Europeans can fly anywhere in Europe in a couple of hours and for $50-100 one way.
Yes, we are isolated and there is a certain amount of inertia to overcome, although I'm sure it's quite common for people who live in the country to travel less than city-dwellers, and not just because of the inertia. In this country, people not living in Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York, are likely to earn half as much for the same work. Lower cost of living, lower wages. Which is fine if you stay put, but try traveling abroad with a family and a yearly income of $35,000 or $40,000 when the Euro is 1.3 to the dollar. Still, thirteen million Americans visited Europe last year and not just London and Paris but Dubrovnik and Budapest!
Not that it should matter WHERE we've traveled. I don't believe for a minute that the majority of Europeans are visiting other countries for the cultural experience. They go for the mountains and the beaches: skiing, surfing, scuba diving and shopping that they can't do in their own countries. In the United States, we already have some of the best spots in the world for vacation activities and some of the most beautiful natural sites on earth. If we're trying to get the best value for our time and money, why not stay in the States? We must have SOMETHING worth coming for because fifty-one million people traveled to the U.S. from other countries last year.
When I've met foreigners who've traveled to the U.S., they always name three things that surprised them:
1) How beautiful the United States is. It's not all strip malls and Air Force bases.
2) How truly vast the nation is. You can't comprehend the size and richness of the State of California, for example, without driving the 18+ hours along the coast before realizing there's a completely different adventure running parallel, five hours away, along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
3) How friendly and helpful Americans are.
We aren't as xenophobic as people think. Close friends and family of mine have spent time in China, Japan and throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe. An ex-boyfriend, after traveling all over the world, moved to Bangkok where he opened two yoga studios. Other friends of mine have lived in Scotland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Germany, Japan and Ecuador. I've been abroad five times and although I've only visited eight countries (not including Mexico and Canada), I've vacationed to over half of the states in the U.S.
When I was in India, making my way around the country staying in small villages, the people there were so excited to spend time with travelers. They asked questions, practicing their English if they didn't know it well (although many do), chatted excitedly about their lives and invited us to their homes. Because most of them will never have the opportunity to leave their country, spending time with foreigners IS their form of travel. Similarly, in the States, we all have friends from other countries to learn from and experience the world through. Of my mom's close friends (in the suburbs), half are born in other countries including Hungary, Scotland, Wales and Czechoslovakia.
When I was in high school, my family hosted exchange students from Germany, Sweden and Japan and throughout school many of my best friends were exchange students, au pair, or immigrants from Poland, Iceland, Spain and Thailand. Growing up, American kids aren't encouraged to learn other languages, our schools teach primarily American history and very little, if any, history of other countries and yes, we are brainwashed to love our country unconditionally. We're told it's dangerous for Americans to travel (we might get kidnapped!) and people don't like Americans (freedom-haters!) and despite all that, we still venture out into the world. I suppose the real reason the statement upsets me is because I wish it were easier for Americans to experience life outside the bubble.
[A few snaps from my trip up the CA coast two summers ago. To really get a sense of what we have to offer, these are the most gorgeous photos of California I've ever seen.]
At some point in the conversation, my date commented that "Americans don't travel" and to my surprise, I delivered a swift and thorough argument in our defense. I don't like being lumped into a category and I don't like whole nations being summed up in simple statements, but that isn't what got me going. What bothers me is the implication that Americans are ignorant and unsophisticated because we don't travel.
I actually happen to agree that we suffer from not seeing outside of our country more often. We are an insulated, nationalist country that spends too much time working and not enough time traveling. We don't talk about politics enough and are constantly told that this country is better than all others. In fact, according to a comment posted by a reader on my blog we should work harder, complain less and appreciate what we have more.
Yet Europeans, who by many accounts have it WAY better than we do, with their mandatory six-eight weeks vacation, cheap to free schooling, unionized wages, better health care, looser regulations on medicine and stricter laws on guns, never stop complaining! They talk and argue and debate issues over bottles of wine into the wee hours of the night and no one would ever think to tell them to shut up and sit down.
There are three VERY GOOD reasons why Americans don't travel more: Time, money and distance. But first, let's clarify that this statement refers to international travel, more specifically, travel ABROAD. Americans travel quite a bit within our own country and travel to Mexico and Canada requires only a driver's license. The statement should be "Americans don't travel to as many countries and with the same frequency as other industrialized nations."
The reality is, Americans only get a fraction of the vacation time other industrialized nations receive and a third of us, don't even take it. A regular salaried job gets me two weeks vacation in the first year, and usually doesn't increase for at least three years after that. If I stay in a job long enough (and I haven't yet), I may get more than two weeks but it will be a long time before I have six weeks.
This year, instead of saving my two weeks, I'm using it throughout the year to visit my good friend three time zones away in New York, another friend in North Carolina who's getting married, my brother and nephews in Oregon. It's not uncommon for Americans to go years without seeing some of their closest friends and relatives because of the distance, time and cost between us. Each of my trips will cost me $350-$500 in airfare and including gifts, expenses and a hotel, will run me about $1,000 each. The east coast trips will take me 5-9 hours flying time, each way, depending on the layover.
In order for me to spend more than two weeks out of the country, I have to quit my job and save quite a bit of money. My vacation will be without pay but I'll still have to pay rent on my apartment and all of my other bills. I met a German guy while traveling around India who thought it was hysterical that I had saved for a whole year and quit my job to take the trip. He boasted that the German government was paying him to take his six weeks vacation even though he was collecting unemployment.
His flight to India took eight hours, mine took thirty-one hours and included an eight-hour layover in the Seoul airport. There and back, with time changes, I'm traveling almost a week before I spend any time in my destination. From the west coast, I can be in Europe in 12-14 hours but everything in the UK costs me twice as much as it does here. By comparison, Europeans can fly anywhere in Europe in a couple of hours and for $50-100 one way.
Yes, we are isolated and there is a certain amount of inertia to overcome, although I'm sure it's quite common for people who live in the country to travel less than city-dwellers, and not just because of the inertia. In this country, people not living in Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York, are likely to earn half as much for the same work. Lower cost of living, lower wages. Which is fine if you stay put, but try traveling abroad with a family and a yearly income of $35,000 or $40,000 when the Euro is 1.3 to the dollar. Still, thirteen million Americans visited Europe last year and not just London and Paris but Dubrovnik and Budapest!
Not that it should matter WHERE we've traveled. I don't believe for a minute that the majority of Europeans are visiting other countries for the cultural experience. They go for the mountains and the beaches: skiing, surfing, scuba diving and shopping that they can't do in their own countries. In the United States, we already have some of the best spots in the world for vacation activities and some of the most beautiful natural sites on earth. If we're trying to get the best value for our time and money, why not stay in the States? We must have SOMETHING worth coming for because fifty-one million people traveled to the U.S. from other countries last year.
When I've met foreigners who've traveled to the U.S., they always name three things that surprised them:
1) How beautiful the United States is. It's not all strip malls and Air Force bases.
2) How truly vast the nation is. You can't comprehend the size and richness of the State of California, for example, without driving the 18+ hours along the coast before realizing there's a completely different adventure running parallel, five hours away, along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
3) How friendly and helpful Americans are.
We aren't as xenophobic as people think. Close friends and family of mine have spent time in China, Japan and throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe. An ex-boyfriend, after traveling all over the world, moved to Bangkok where he opened two yoga studios. Other friends of mine have lived in Scotland, Sweden, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Germany, Japan and Ecuador. I've been abroad five times and although I've only visited eight countries (not including Mexico and Canada), I've vacationed to over half of the states in the U.S.
When I was in India, making my way around the country staying in small villages, the people there were so excited to spend time with travelers. They asked questions, practicing their English if they didn't know it well (although many do), chatted excitedly about their lives and invited us to their homes. Because most of them will never have the opportunity to leave their country, spending time with foreigners IS their form of travel. Similarly, in the States, we all have friends from other countries to learn from and experience the world through. Of my mom's close friends (in the suburbs), half are born in other countries including Hungary, Scotland, Wales and Czechoslovakia.
When I was in high school, my family hosted exchange students from Germany, Sweden and Japan and throughout school many of my best friends were exchange students, au pair, or immigrants from Poland, Iceland, Spain and Thailand. Growing up, American kids aren't encouraged to learn other languages, our schools teach primarily American history and very little, if any, history of other countries and yes, we are brainwashed to love our country unconditionally. We're told it's dangerous for Americans to travel (we might get kidnapped!) and people don't like Americans (freedom-haters!) and despite all that, we still venture out into the world. I suppose the real reason the statement upsets me is because I wish it were easier for Americans to experience life outside the bubble.
[A few snaps from my trip up the CA coast two summers ago. To really get a sense of what we have to offer, these are the most gorgeous photos of California I've ever seen.]
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