Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/03/31
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I remember attending a program in San Francisco in the mid eighties when another participant, an American, in all seriousness, asked me whether I commuted on elephant back! What really shocked me, however, was how few people on the west coast knew that a bank called Citibank (my employer at that time) even existed - granted Glass-Steagall was still in force, it required the combined efforts of Clinton, Rubin and Summers to repeal much later, and unleash doom on the world - but Citi was the biggest bank in the world at that point in time! Cheers Jayanand On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com> wrote: > Is this all that new? > My first visit to the USA was in 1970 when I did a summer exchange with a > US student, with me working at the Milwaukee factory of Falke Gear > Corporation and he at David Brown Gear Industries, the company with which I > was doing my apprenticeship. > I was warmly welcomed and the people I met were extremely hospitable and > polite. My big shock, however, was how little the people I got to know knew > about World affairs, politics and geography in general. I knew more about > US geography than anybody I met. Schools taught nothing about the World at > all, as far as could tell from the friends I made of my age. > There was no locally available newspaper that I found with more than > perfunctory and very US-centric articles on anything which was not local > and these were lurking on one non-prominent page like an afterthought. > The general knowledge of what was happening elsewhere in the World was > absent (in fact most people seemed to assume the USA was the world?) even > though American boys were being brutalised daily in Viet Nam at that time. > For me the newspapers and tv news were parochial. Anything worthwhile was > only in magazines like Time. > It is something which massively shocked me at the time and that I have > never forgotten. > Frank D. > > > > On 30 Mar, 2015, at 09:04, Peter Klein <boulanger.croissant at gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > The answer is that the media do not think that their American readership > is > > interested in anything international except if it directly affects the > > U.S., or if it somehow confirms or (occasionally) refutes a dominant > > American attitude. Or if it is horriffic, or has something to do with > sex, > > and the more outrageous the better. > > > > Compare the U.S. vs. International editions of major American > publications. > > You'll get a rude shock. Also, compare a 1950s or 60s edition of Time or > > Newsweek with a recent one. You'll find less content, less depth, and a > > much lower grade-level of writing. None of this is accidental. The > > publications life blood is the delivery of eyeballs to advertisers. They > > know that today's American eyeballs, on average, will not stay on the > page > > of intelligent, in-depth articles long enough to see the ads. > > > > --Peter > > > > On Sunday, March 29, 2015, Jim Nichols <jhnichols at lighttube.net> > > wrote: > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information