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	January 7, 2004

ODDS & ENDS Why Americans Can't Laugh at American Culture Just about everyone in the world laughs at themselves, their own cultural stereotypes. Canadians are famous for it (Great White North, Due South etc.) and European literature is full of self-parody (Don Quixote, Monty Python). By contrast, American comedy is always at the expense of minorities or fools (or, toxically, the two combined in one, the essense of racist humour). Asia Times author Spengler provides further examples, and then goes on to note more seriously the implications of this humourlessness on American international relations and cultural insensitivity: America cannot understand the culture of other nations, because it has no culture of its own. In my November 25 essay I stated the same idea in a different way, namely, that the American tragedy is the incapacity of Americans to understand the tragedy of other peoples. Is America condemned forever to win the war and lose the peace? Will the force of American arms always roll the stone uphill like Sisyphus, while the weakness of American diplomacy always sends it crashing down again? Is there some link between this tragic pattern of American history, and the way Americans see (or fail to see) the world - that is, American culture? Berkeley Breathed Saves Cats & Dogs The new book by Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County, Outland), called Flawed Dogs, helps support shelter animals, and asks you to help too. Our rescue dog Chelsea agrees. But where is the new promised weekly Breathed cartoon, Opus? Immigrating to Ontario This is an example of a great public sector site. A collaboration of several social service organizations with government funding, this is a great, advertising and hype-free list of everything the new immigrant to Ontario needs to know. Imagine if this had been privatized (big yellow ads for sleazy immigration lawyers, fly-by-night moving companies etc). Just funny, from David Chess via Wood's Lot "In the future, everyone will be married to Britney Spears for fifteen minutes." What Business Leaders Think of You Dave Johnson's Seeing the Forest has become one of my must-reads. He has a knack for succinctly summarizing some very long and profound articles in a few words, and his reading breadth is enormous. The link above quoting business leaders as calling for employee sacrifices (longer hours, fewer benefits, lower wages) and for an end to the 'sense of entitlement' to a salary, may be astonishing to some, but doesn't surprise me in the least. There's a follow-up by guest blogger John Emerson about how the Republicans are conning Americans into believing they are better off than they really are by giving them a little personal cash instead of a lot of public services. Bush in 30 Seconds Watch the 15 finalists for the Bush in 30 Seconds moveon.org ad contest. Be patient waiting for them to download -- it's worth the wait. They'll send a chill down your spine. At least a half dozen deserve to get aired. 11:45:23 AM  trackback []  comment []

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