Re: [Leica] Re: calling on the LUG to do a good deed: leica scholarship

["Joseph Codispoti" <joecodi@clearsightusa.com>]

From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>


> I'm going to be rude here - I know, some of you won't be able to stand the
> shock! - but how could anyone intelligent enough to deal with a computer
and
> email - to say nothing of a Leica - be so stupid as to believe that the
> image of a country, a car, a loaf of bread, that they see on t.v. is
> accurate? Tell me, is Australia entirely peopled by happy smiling blonds
and
> aborigines, awash in kangaroos and those fuzzy bear-like things whose name
> escapes me for the moment? Or do you have a few racial, social,
immigration,
> and poverty issues over there? If I was to judge by what I see on t.v.,
I'd
> believe the former and would be shocked by the latter...But then I don't
> believe what I see on t.v.
>


Very simple B.D.

The same way that some Americans believe that there are no homes in Poland,
that there are no automobiles or beer in Italy. The same way that most
Americans believe that the world is against them.



You have to understand that Hollywood is an extremely powerful export tool.
The US does not need smart bombs to conquer the world. It has already
captured half of it with  portrayals of  a fantasy world, Coca Cola and
Starbuck.

I was 18  when I came to this country (in 1957) and yes, I expected to see
cowboys and Indians and, of course, gold running in the gutters. Why?
Hollywood!

And what a shock it was, instead of the polished, opulent and well groomed
stage sets portrayed by the movies, I saw the garbage and filth in NY City
on my first day.

Of course, I did see Central Park, Rockefeller Center etc., but my first
impression of the country was what I saw during the ride from the port to
central Manhattan.



Years ago, in talking to a Fullbright scholar from Ghana, I asked him how he
responds to the stupid questions that ignorant people ask of foreigners.
This is what he told me: "I am being asked frequently if there are roads in
Ghana. I tell them no, every morning on the way to the university, I cut a
new path trough the jungle".

I wonder how many of the those who asked understood the sarcasm.



And as for the cars and beer in Italy (and countless others) I was asked
those questions myself along with the obligatory "you are not a communist
are you?"



Joseph Codispoti
San Luis Obispo, CA




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