Thoughts
I've been really, really sick. The same stuff that's been going around. But I'm feeling better finally. Sleeping extra has seemed to help me fight it, actually.
A post on a discussion group today made me think back to my trip to Rome. I wrote about it so I thought I put it here on my blog.
I had an interesting, i.e. infuriating, conversation with a Pakistani gentleman when I was in Rome. He ran the Internet Cafe at the bottom of the hill below our hotel. After several days of enacting civil commerce, the last day we were there, his Internet connection went down. We were frustrated and sat patiently while he called frantically to try to get it restored. Once he had made his calls and while we all were waiting patiently for the service to come back up, he asked me in broken English why all Americans are so fat. I made a few simple excuses about lack of exercise, differences in cultures, but he persisted... wanted to know why it is so common for Americans to be overweight. Finally, after 8 inquiries, I told him that America is so rich that we all live like kings. There is so much food for so cheap and so easy to get that we all live in luxury and eat all we want and do very little physical work. All the Americans chuckled (Rosie, myself and another tourist we didn't know.) The Pakistani gentleman just looked perplexed.
Then he asked me why I wanted to invade Iraq. I told him "I" didn't want any such thing. He then asked me why I would favor killing innocent people when they had not asked me to intervene. I again tried to clarify that "I" had very different opinions about the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and that I was not a great representative of which to ask such questions. He persisted and was pretty obnoxious about it. I tried several times to tell him that as citizens of a democracy that we have the privilege of voicing our opinions but also the responsibility to support the decisions even if we don't like them. I told him that I very much did NOT like the decision to invade Iraq and that I was fairly vocal against it all along, but that as an American I have to support the decision and hope that we can make the best of an ugly situation.
Long story short, I don't think he understood any of what I said. I think he was just venting on me because his Internet service was not serving Internet and he was pissed. And I think that is what it all boils down to... unhappy people bitch about other people. Unhappy people in every country around the world get "mad" at other countries. It happens and it's because they are unhappy, not necessarily because it's right or productive. The same thing happens in every situation in our lives and should not be taken too seriously... it happens in every office, in every school, in every church and club and community. Stupid, ineffective and unhappy people try to make themselves feel better by bitching loudly about things that they cannot fix and actually don't want to fix because then they wouldn't have anything to bitch about.
Oh, and he charged the full amount for the whole time we were there even though 1/2 the time the Internet was down. I gladly paid it, and a generous tip because I'm an ugly American and the whole bill came to an amount that represents the salary I make in the morning while I'm waiting for my computer to boot up.
A post on a discussion group today made me think back to my trip to Rome. I wrote about it so I thought I put it here on my blog.
I had an interesting, i.e. infuriating, conversation with a Pakistani gentleman when I was in Rome. He ran the Internet Cafe at the bottom of the hill below our hotel. After several days of enacting civil commerce, the last day we were there, his Internet connection went down. We were frustrated and sat patiently while he called frantically to try to get it restored. Once he had made his calls and while we all were waiting patiently for the service to come back up, he asked me in broken English why all Americans are so fat. I made a few simple excuses about lack of exercise, differences in cultures, but he persisted... wanted to know why it is so common for Americans to be overweight. Finally, after 8 inquiries, I told him that America is so rich that we all live like kings. There is so much food for so cheap and so easy to get that we all live in luxury and eat all we want and do very little physical work. All the Americans chuckled (Rosie, myself and another tourist we didn't know.) The Pakistani gentleman just looked perplexed.
Then he asked me why I wanted to invade Iraq. I told him "I" didn't want any such thing. He then asked me why I would favor killing innocent people when they had not asked me to intervene. I again tried to clarify that "I" had very different opinions about the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and that I was not a great representative of which to ask such questions. He persisted and was pretty obnoxious about it. I tried several times to tell him that as citizens of a democracy that we have the privilege of voicing our opinions but also the responsibility to support the decisions even if we don't like them. I told him that I very much did NOT like the decision to invade Iraq and that I was fairly vocal against it all along, but that as an American I have to support the decision and hope that we can make the best of an ugly situation.
Long story short, I don't think he understood any of what I said. I think he was just venting on me because his Internet service was not serving Internet and he was pissed. And I think that is what it all boils down to... unhappy people bitch about other people. Unhappy people in every country around the world get "mad" at other countries. It happens and it's because they are unhappy, not necessarily because it's right or productive. The same thing happens in every situation in our lives and should not be taken too seriously... it happens in every office, in every school, in every church and club and community. Stupid, ineffective and unhappy people try to make themselves feel better by bitching loudly about things that they cannot fix and actually don't want to fix because then they wouldn't have anything to bitch about.
Oh, and he charged the full amount for the whole time we were there even though 1/2 the time the Internet was down. I gladly paid it, and a generous tip because I'm an ugly American and the whole bill came to an amount that represents the salary I make in the morning while I'm waiting for my computer to boot up.