100 Great Things About America

I thought the slam dunk was pre-NBA, as in Jackie Moon and the Flint Tropics?  Or was that the alley-oop?

And there's Coney Island sauce, apple pie, and refrigeration. I was going to list roller coasters, but apparently Russia beat yas to it by a few centuries. Disney World and Cedar Point theme parks take some beating though. Beered with some Yanquis state side last night. Good people. Happy Independence Day, Sven.

I've seen Kingda Ka in my dreams. I realize now it's my destiny to make the Meccan voyage to New Jersey one day and ride the Ka.

Happy Fourth, sven!

It's a beautiful day in the Commonwealth of Virginia and I'm grilling up some sausages and drinking Sam Adams.

add:

1. The struggle for the 8 hour working day, honoured, in perpetuity, by the (rest of the) world on May 1;

2. The first public National Park in world history (yes, they "mentioned" Yellowstone but not its importance!) ;

3. The other musical form (besides Jazz) invented by AFRICAN AMERICANS, i.e., the Blues;

4. Benjamin Franklin;

5. Edgar Allan Poe;

6. Herman Melville;

7. Ralph Waldo Emerson;

8. Henry David Thoreau;

9. Walt Whitman;

10. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address;

11. Emily Dickinson;

and so on, to the present ...

and, most of all,

it's proximity to Canada, of course.

ETA: that last should probably read something like, "that the Americas includes (a sovereign) Canada" ...

Happy July 4!

Not things, but people:

bell hooks

Noam Chomsky

Tim Wise

Angela Davis

Margaret Cho

Queen Latifah

I don't think it's much of a challenge to find things wrong with the states.

To me one of the things that makes it a great country is the fact it has been a crucible for dynamic change, fusion and renewal. The Americans certainly aren't the only ones on the cutting edge, but there are countless artistic, political, philosophical  and social ideas that have come from there. I think it's an amazing paradox that the U.S. has been a scourge to other nations, to the world's resources, and to its own people, and yet  has also been the conduit (if not the source) of so much revolutionary positive change in the world.

I expect our culture could also learn a lesson from them in optimism and self-assurance, just as they could learn a lesson from us in humility and thinking for the common good. I would still never want to live there though.

The exeption being, that Canadians outside of the GTA would say "she's from fucking Toronto".

And the great thing is, we couldn't care less what anyone outside Toronto thinks, so it's a win win.

Welllll....BC is 'Supernatural' so there ;P

They mean buffalo as in bison, not Buffalo as in the city not far from the Golden Horseshoe.

Actually Buffalo, while in deep and sad decline, perhaps for that reason has some beautiful architectural districts.

But the main problem is ... America ... when they mean the USA, not all the other American nations to its north and south.

The greatest thing about America, I mean the United States of America, is its great working class that produced the wealthiest society in world history. It's a real shame about the distribution of that wealth but that has more to do with the primitive capitalistic sort of society they've got. Can't blame the regular Joes and Janes for that.

Some would say, "good old American know-how" but that is, well, what with the export of so much know-how, kinda embarrassing now. You can't talk about knowing how to make the best steel in the world, or the most of it, or something like that, when you don't make hardly ANY steel anymore. Sad. Same with cars, almost all the motorcycles in the world (except Harley Davidson), high tech gadgets, etc., etc.

America's productive people. That's it. Plenty of 'em are dumb as a post, racist as George Wallace, and insular as all hell. But somebody produced all this wealth that they're not sharing in as much as they deserve. The farmers and workers of the good old USA. They're the greatest thing about America ... and always will be. Amen.

Newman is often interesting but not this time.

Productivity and the use of averages in income to make social generalizations? ha ha.

The USA is also becoming a more polarized, socially, sort of society. AS in, the class differences are BIGGER in the USA than in (gulp) the UK and some other European countries. (See the Monthly Review Zine or MRZINE and do a google search for the data and article with links) So the super rich and the rich may be getting very, very much richer. Not so true with the Joes and Janes. That's the problem with averages, like average income. They're not all that useful.

Productivity. What's missing from Newman's remarks is that while the US data indicates that their productivity has risen, rather a great deal, the social share of wealth that ought to go to those with the increasing productivity isnt going to them.

People are producing more wealth, more effectively, but theyre not seeing the result of that. Again, the rich and the super rich are getting, well, filthy rich.

I still like Newman. He's a clever guy. But if I ever meet him in person, or on TV, and I get half a chance to prepare, I WILL kick his ass and have a good time doing it.

Thanks for the link anyway. I like a workout.

I would merely say about the NB'er that he was from Down Home.  As for people outside the GTA not liking Toronto I think you should be happy that people from Scarborough can't complain about Toronto any more like they used to.

I love the Americans for their predictability.  Guaranteed every new generation has a war to fight. 

Timebandit, I think you'd like the Bay area and some parts of Northern California as well, where they have such an ideal climate for local, organic agriculture (including vino!)

Al Q, Chicago is actually closer to where you live, despite it being a bit farther south than Tranna. Think the east-west distance is much larger.