That'd be like saying do I get mad when people think I'm from Massachuesettes and not Maine...

[QUOTE="nick3333"]

I have been to the United States five times(visiting friends and relatives for the most part), on stays lasting anywhere from a week to a month. Of all the places I have been to, none has struck me to be quite as soulless and culturally devoid. From Florida to California to West Virginia to Pennsylvania, the impression hit me like a brick wall every time -- hanging thick in the air, it is perfectly palpable and yet difficult to explain.
Let's just say that one of the things I felt most strongly was a desperate and frenzied sense of consumerism. Underneath that I also felt what seemed like a great deal of melancholy and aimlessness.

(I have lived in London, Moscow (communist and post-communist), Paris and Geneva.
I have travelled to Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, the Réunion, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece, Austria and Japan.)

I do not proffer some sort of absolute truth about 'the moral and cultural decay of what some view as the beacon of modern Western civilization' or anything -- I'm not making any political statements, either. I'm just offering my utterly subjective perspective. It comes from the gut and I don't know what to make of it.

Anyone have a similar feeling or experience?

As a footnote, the only place in the US that hasn't given me this feeling quite so strongly is Manhattan. At this point I have to add that you'll have to forgive any sweeping generalizations that I seem to make about a country as vast, rich and diverse as the USA. The US is far from homogeneous and I do not mean to imply the contrary.

Dreams-Visions

Maybe your friends just suck. You should have went to:

1.) A Jazz club

2.) A house party

3.) A few American plays

4.) Disney World

5.) Hooters

6.) Vegas

7.) Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles

8.) BBQ Rib Shack in Seattle

9.) South Side of Chicago.

10.) Mardi Gras

11.) African American History Museum in Detroit

12.) Someone's mega-Church (just to experience it)

13.) A Country & Western party (preferably in Texas)

come back when you've had these experiences...go with fun people...and tell me you didn't have a good time.

I think you missed the point there..

I took from this that he feels a sense of a purely consumerist population in the U.S. That there's no cultural foundation and people just sort of...float around and have no deep ties to history or a sense of community. Going to parties and things of this nature are kind of what he's talking about. At least that's what I took from it. People aren't concerned with the sort of spiritual side of the nation as much as the here and now and there electronics and so on. There's no sense of community/family/warmth.

sig/avy?

At first I said yes, but then I thought about the fact that it could be someone's parent, or child, etc. I wouldn't be able to sleep if I knew I had brought that much sadness into a family's life.

Well uh...no one is saying thank god for the soldiers during the civil, or revolutionary, or mexican-american wars. Obviously he wants to give more morale to men and women that are serving today. What about Vietnam too?

I've seen both Hangovers and I didn't find either one incredibly funny. They were both decent but nothing amazing. The humor seems stupid to me, and very predictable.

I like how people hate Miami because Lebron went there. He was the most loved sports figure, then left the worst sporst town in the country after 7 years of nothing. He goes to Miami, where Dwyane underrated Wade and Bosh already decided to go and suddenly everyone hates Miami. The decision raised a few million dollars and built a brand new Boys and Girls Club in Cleveland and they had the big rally to gain support from the hometown seeing as how Miami is not at all a sports city.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Celtics big three came together and everyone said OMG so good they're unbeatable. They did it too late, and now they're too old. They only won one ring.

Wade and Lebron have been best friends and wanted to play on a good team after years of horrible supporting casts and failed attempts in deep playoff runs.

If you hate Miami for the fact that they came together then you're just a hater, get over it. More importantly, its sports...wishing physical detriment to another person because they play a game is ridiculous and immature, makes you seem like an idiot. (not directed at anyone in particular, just a generalization.)

Oh, by the way, I'm not a bandwagon fan, I started watching Basketball about the same time that D-Wade was in the Final four with Marquette and when he got drafted by Miami I started following them extensively.

15 second joke = disgraceful

killing 1,000,000 people over the idiotic domino theory = not disgraceful

yeah.... you may want to reexamine your priorities here

Riverwolf007

^

[QUOTE="ImBananas"]

[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"]
"Thou Shalt Not Kill."

I'm pretty sure the Bible defines life starting at conception. But then again, I'm not a Christian theologian, so I don't know.

HoolaHoopMan

There is no reason to say life begins at conception, neither science nor the Bible say this. The only people that do are the Pro-Life groups that blindly follow the words of others without doing any actual research.

I choose not to go see the newest Pirates movie because of the awful reviews. I absolutely loved the first three, although the first two moreso than the third. I really wish they could get the original director and some good writers because the premise is great and a character like Jack Sparrow comes along once in a lifetime.