not wanting to sound disrespectful on today of all days (i've been
watching CNN all day and most of last night; i've seen the slow-motion videos
from all angles and probably know the names of most of the new york fire
department), but, being canadian, i know gordon sinclair -
> I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the
> erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane.
i'm assuming this tribute is fairly old: what erosion of the almighty dollar
these days?
Does any
> other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the
> Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them?
the airbus? also flown by quite a number of american airlines...
the DC-10 also had an unenviable record for crashing -
> We seem to be blamed for everything, and don't get a thank you for the
> things we do.
i think the problem is more one of a perception that the USA tries to take
credit for everything, and to have everything its own way - and europeans for
one don't want to be told what to do, and want to be able to do things their way
-
if the french want to have 35 hour work weeks, lots of paid medical and
vacation time, and watch their own movies (instead of dubbed imports), why
shouldn't they?
over here no one understands executions, lack of socialised medicine,
why so many americans should feel the need to carry guns, the combination of
church and state (despite constitutional "guarantees" of the contrary), the
puritanical mix of prudery and licentiousness, etc. -
a lot of material for doctoral theses, there: different peoples'
perceptions of the USA and their causes -
>
> Makes you proud to live here doesn't it??
coming from canada, and after living in europe for 12 years, i'm actually kind
of scared at the prospect -
but we'll see if/how my opinions change after 4 years, won't we?
a lot of the commentators have been expressing variations on the theme that "the
world has changed" in the past 36 or so hours - the german chancellor said these
were attacks on the civilised world - this just seems to be an escalation of
violence which suggests no end in sight - what next? and what does this bode for
the future: constant fear that some lunatic is going to decide to do something
even more radical than the last, because otherwise his/her cause will be
all-too-soon (probably justifiably) forgotten? what amazed me wasn't the fact
that we can watch both planes hit the WTC on various bits of video tape, but
that they just don't look real somehow - even the reality seems fake, and maybe
i just don't want to believe this could happen and so try and deny it somehow -
kind of like looking the holocaust in the face, i don't want to believe people
could do this - get on a plane and force passengers to phone their families and
tell them they've been hijacked and are about to die...
geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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