I still wonder how generalizing over 300 million people by the actions of one tourist makes sense. There are a lot of things that would be easier to point at, like the Christian extremists and the alt-right (although from my experience many of them don’t actually leave the country very often). Still, sweeping generalizations like this cause much more harm than good.
Americans tend to be pushy and, well, stupid in foreign lands.
Unpleasant people stand out, so they’re the ones we notice. They make an impression, so they’re the ones we remember. This is true of tourists from all over the world, from America to China.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that most are respectful, but end up either unnoticed or forgotten.
I’m sorry man, but from what I’ve heard in the tourism industry yanks run third place of worst tourists. Second? Germans. First? The English. It’s always the goddamn English.
Maybe, but Americans aren’t all “pushy” and “stupid”. Noting a trend is one thing, making a generalized statement is another. The person in the article is Jewish-American. Try replacing “Americans” with “Jews” in your original comment and see how that reads.
The common part in the loud and obnoxious is the American not Jewish though. Also (non-native-)Americans haven’t suffered several attempts of genociding them over the centuries so the generalization is nowhere as dangerous.
Police identified the suspect as a radical 40-year-old Jewish American tourist and said initial questioning suggested he smashed the statues because he considered them “to be idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.”
I can tell you the common part of this is not the “American” in them. Similarly, it wouldn’t be fair to call this common to Jewish people either, the vast majority are decent human beings with some level of respect from my experience.
As for loud and obnoxious, having visited many countries, the “loud and obnoxious foreigners” vary from country to country. I’ve seen it used to describe British, French, Chinese, Australians, and in some countries anybody who isn’t from that country.
he smashed the statues because he considered them “to be idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.”
followed by
The man’s lawyer, Nick Kaufman, denied that he had acted out of religious fanaticism.
If you say so! Its horrible that someone who isnt even from an area thinks they have the right to destroy another place’s cultural heritage and history because they feel it goes against their religion.
This is a scare tactic and it’s a stupid one. If there were any advantage whatsoever to a nuclear powered cruise missile, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would have already cranked out thousands of them instead of conventional rockets.
We could just rewrite the headline as:
Putin says, “Booga Booga!!! Have nuclear shit!! Am scary asshole!!”
Iirc the USA did investigate making them during the cold war but concluded that the (very real) benefits - such as the ability to recall a missile after launching - weren’t worth cooking US citizens and allies with radiation from an unshielded nuclear reactor flying at mach 3 just above the surface; they planned to fly as low as 150m!
Their initial plans basically were to build a nuclear-ramjet “missile” that could fly for several days straight carrying dozens of nuclear warheads, autonomously dropping them on “enemies”. The big problem was that it’d have to fly over the USA and/or western Europe in order to reach the USSR.
*Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow. He is the author of “Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World” (Penguin Random House, 2022). *
Imagine if they also masked… and kept doing it even after COVID is “gone” (aka: killing fewer people).
Earlier this week, I had to catch a bus and go to a clinic to get my blood work done. Plenty of coughing and sneezing people in both places, and other than the office workers, I was the only one wearing a mask.
While it really does feel like it, as a person working in healthcare, I do see some change after the whole shitstorm from recent years.
There are people who actually wear a mask, few, but they are around.
A lot more people seem to be conscious of spreading their illness to other people be it a cold or COVID.
People definitely wash their hands more often. I know we do.
Some people started getting their annual shots when they didn’t intend to before.
Local businesses open their windows and doors a lot more than they used to.
But also I also see some negative tendencies:
Interest in flu shots has waned. That might have something to do with the govt introducing a free flu shot programme from your GP if you’re above 65 or with specific conditions (which is a great thing) But I definitely see a lot more vaxx-scepticism and fear of combining both shots (infant vaccination plans are a lot more intense and the vast majority are fine).
People politicising a disease.
This is country specific but food supplement companies aggressively promoting “immune system stimulants” to the point where in the beginning of The Plague™ they somehow managed to include them in hospital treatment plans.
This came out longer than intended but there were some things that I needed to get out of my system.
I’m glad there are positive changes, and obviously those are most effective in healthcare situations.
However, from my personal experience as a university student in Canada, everything is the same if not worse than before. Hand sanitizer stations have been removed or simply not refilled, people straight up refuse to wear masks even when they’re sick. A week or two ago in class, I saw many people literally sneeze into their hands and then wipe the snot on their chairs (and these are supposed to be engineering students!). There is still no ventilation or even filtration in any of our classrooms.
Not only is personal protective equipment not used by almost anyone, its use is actively stigmatized by many, including professors at school. To me this is completely ridiculous, but unfortunately reality.
The title is really burying the lede, considering one of the Chinese athletes got disqualified, then was allowed to race, and then disqualified again afterwards for her false start. Think that’s kind of weird…
Taxis in NYC have medallions, that are significantly more than $100k, and that makes the scarcity of taxis just enough that they are in demand but rarely unused.
Taxis in NYC have medallions, that are significantly more than $100k, and that makes the scarcity of taxis just enough that they are in demand but rarely unused.
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