Here You Go, Europe

[abaris]

Some of the things in the article are right, some a wrong and some miss the mark by a thousand miles.

First, TV shows. Yes, it's bizarre that you can show heads blowing up or post mortems in all their gory glory, but not a single nipple. But outside of HBO or some other pay TV stations I'm not to keen on American shows anyway. Some, like Navy CIS, look as if Goebbels himself commissioned them.

Hugs, I don't know. I'm not from Southern Europe and we're not big on hugs anyway. For me it's rather the other way round. Too much superficial intimacy, such as being on a first name basis with the cars salesman or some business acquaintance. In Europe it usually has some deeper meaning if you call someone by first name.

Politics? Well, that's where batshit crazy kicks in with a vengeance. What's called conservative in America is called rightwing extremism in Europe. What's called left in America would be called conservative by European standards. And it goes deeper than that. This enforced admiration for everyone making some bucks is rather disgusting. If you present figures like Andrew Carnegie as role models, who hired Pinkerton thugs to shoot up striking workers, it really gets bizarre. So why not go all the way and admire Al Capone or Lepke Buchalter? They were at least honest in their approach.