They’re pikers compared to the looting and destruction that Americans and their cohorts have visited on Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I’m so sick of the “radical Islamist” bullshit that permeates the air when war have our own equally radical and extremist elements in governing positions, right here in the USA, limiting our liberty and pursuit of happiness.

What if *you* were one of the folks I’d written about so snottily? Would you be all whiny and “defensive”, too?

I am. And I’m not.

Let’s transpose the thesis of that steaming pile of article into other, more…unpopular’ subjects, and see what happens, shall we? What if I, or some other random guy with no particular credentials besides the fact I have access to a keyboard, trots out ‘articles’ like….

* “10 unflattering things that most people don’t know about black people.”
* “10 unflattering things most people don’t know about gays.”
* 10 unflattering things most people don’t know about moslems.”
* or “Jews”. Or “Feminists”. Or “corrupt African Banana Republics.”
etc etc etc.

As for my documentation for this, I’d simply use ‘stories I’d heard from my friends’. ‘Something I saw once while I was out.’. ‘Complaints from one member of the minority/ethnic group I was denigrating’. And then write as if each of those weak-ass, unsupported, unprovable, quite-possibly-fictional “experiences” were magically Universal and True. What you understand that “defensiveness” then? What if *you* were one of the folks I’d written about so snottily? Would you be all whiny and “defensive”, too?

The sneering reactions smack of “my country, right or wrong” which unfortunately is a global sentiment, a first principle of dumb nationalism. What makes the US special is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not its wealth, weapons or any superior qualities of its citizenry.

TO someone from rural America, however, like myself, this friendliness was just par for the course. I’ve done things like this for people for no benefit of my own throughout my whole life because that’s how us ignorant hillbillies out here in flyover country roll.

My most favorite story of this was when I saw a father and son fishing ineffectually from a dock on the river where i knew that they wouldn’t catch any fish, so i drive my boat over, told them to hop on board, and took them fishing for the day. Caught the kid his first steelhead. That was ten years ago, but I’ll bet he still talks about it to this day.

We could all learn a thing or two from the ignorant flyover hillbillies of the world, i guess is my point.

He’s the one that needs an artcile about making assumptions.

Reading the Reason article on Dharun Ravi, I noticed a discrepancy: Reason dealt at length with the issue of invasion of privacy, but did not address what I considered the chief aggravating accusation: Ravi supposedly shared the existence of his tap into the shared room with a wide audience. If someone spied on me, I might get upset. If they posted the information they gained, or even the fact of their spying, that would make me considerably more upset.

Isn’t there some blog etiquette about never deleting posts? Update them, apologize if necessary, etc. but just deleting a post that had like 30 comments? Weird stuff today on the Agitator!

French, Germans, Japanese, Argentinians, …. or, say, New Yorkers, Parisians, Academics.

The writer sounds like the stereotype embodied by the blogger/published author of “What White People Like”…and reading some of the comments made me start rolling my eyes at the childish back and forth of the commenters.

My favorite are the ones that one up each other on the countries they have visited, claim they aren’t “real tourists,” and do these “working/volunteer-cations” as if these things make their statements more real.

I disagree with one person’s experiences extrapolating into a quantitative trend. A FEMALE friend of mine traveling alone in Italy was robbed on the subway by gypsy children and had to go to the embassy to get a new passport. Does that mean that all women are going to be robbed in Italy by gypsies if they travel alone? No. It is her experience.

While going on and on about the great parts of these countries, you can’t leave out the slums if you are going to use the good parts to compare to the entire US. Either compare them all, or don’t compare and just say, “hey, this isn’t what I expected.”

Tell me why I need wifi in a taxi if I have internet 4G on my phone?

As for food and diets around the world, the book Hungry Planet provides a much more realistic perspective of the world than this article. I recommend it. And I would imagine the authors of the book are Liberal, so it isn’t like you can paint it as conservative propaganda.

#16 & #20 – Thanks, guys! I’m trying to keep up his traditions as best I can, and he is helping via Twitter; I’ve noticed most things he “tweets” usually end up in later link posts, so that’s providing me with some good stuff. Still, I reckon he’s probably glad I had to take the spanking for that clam video rather than him! ;-)

#16 UvalDuvalCuckoo

Maggie, you’re doing a superb job of holding it down for Radley.

I second this sentiment.

#17 Andrew Roth

Dave,

Personally, I prefer to call it assholiness. It’s like holiness, but from the wrong hole.

Thank you, sir. That is much better. With luck, I’ll remember to use that next time I want to convey that descriptor.

Quote the Supreme Court of Georgia: “the conduct of [Ms. Grace] in this case demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness, and is inexcusable.”

She’d been called out before by the Georgia Supreme Court, and the 11th Circuit called her out stating that she “failed to fulfill her responsibilities” another time.

Sincere she may be — she’s still a disgusting, unethical, cut-throat prosecuting attorney (to use your phrase). Personally, my own belief is that she’s a sociopath — she certainly seems to have no sense compassion, concern, empathy, or humility for *anyone* besides herself.

Personally, I prefer to call it assholiness. It’s like holiness, but from the wrong hole.