it’s an election with no Democrats, in one of the whitest states in the union, where rich candidates pay $35 for your votes. Or, as Republicans call it, their vision for the future.
@ jimbo12345
It's a fair comment.
I am saddened by the lack of awareness many in the USA have when it comes to the world at large. This isn't to say that we are the only ones that suffer such ignorance or that only Americans make bad ambassadors for their country.
Tourists from all over the world leave bad impressions of their country. Americans have excelled in having the reputation precede them.
As a generalisation, we are arrogant, greedy, and selfish. But we have a generous and unselfish side also. ( I won't argue the arrogant bit)
Bad reputations and stereotypes are not always justified. The british do visit the dentist, do bathe and don't all think if they talk loudly and slowly enough the spanish storekeeper will understand them.
So it saddens me that comments as benign as the one ms. paltrow supposedly said could cause such outrage....it re-enforces a stereotype
Last edited by vidcc; 12-07-2006 at 04:28 PM.
it’s an election with no Democrats, in one of the whitest states in the union, where rich candidates pay $35 for your votes. Or, as Republicans call it, their vision for the future.
Quite right.
I really don't understand why anyone would take exception with anyone else who expresses an offish opinion over her remarks.
Again, another instance of the most basic misapprehension of what is meant by freedom-of-speech...so many sincerely believe it guarantees the speaker the right to voice any thing at all without counter; that such statements should (especially if uttered by a celebrity!) stand alone, so that their profundity might be properly appreciated.![]()
"Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."
-Mark Twain
Last edited by vidcc; 12-08-2006 at 01:04 AM.
it’s an election with no Democrats, in one of the whitest states in the union, where rich candidates pay $35 for your votes. Or, as Republicans call it, their vision for the future.
This, for those who feel compelled to grant her the benefit of the doubt over "what she really meant"...
In January of this year, a statement to the British newspaper, the Guardian:
"I love the English way, which is not as capitalistic as it is in America. People don't talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner parties. I like living here because I don't tap into the bad side of American psychology, which is 'I'm not achieving enough, I'm not making enough, I'm not at the top of the pile.'"
Back at it again in February (for some, criticizing the U.S. is a full-time job), to Britain's Star magazine:
"Brits are far more intelligent and civilised than Americans. I love the fact that you can hail a taxi and just pick up your pram and put it in the back of the cab without having to collapse it. I love the parks and places I go for dinner and my friends."
In 2005, she said this, to The New York Post:
"I've always been drawn to Europe. America is such a young country, with an adolescent swagger about it. But I feel that I have a more European sensibility, a greater respect for the multicultural nature of the globe."
She was also quoted that year explaining her decision to move to London to the New York Daily News:
"I just had a baby and thought, 'I don't want to live there.'"
In 2004, to Britain's Glamour magazine:
"At the moment there's a weird, over-patriotic atmosphere over there, like, 'We're number one and the rest of the world doesn't matter.'"
She has my personal indictment, based on all this.![]()
"Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations, we shall soon know nothing at all about it."
-Mark Twain
Bookmarks