Innocents abroad
Virginia Postrel points to an expansive article by Bruce Bawer, which gives side-by-side reviews of a half-dozen books written by American and European authors about the US and its role in the world. It starts to be a bit of a slog toward the end, but it’s great stuff, all of it. The first book he filets is by one Mark Hertsgaard, whose excerpts read like Amritas’s Kevin Kusoyama, only more cartoonishly leftist. Here’s Bawer’s response to a spiel I’ve heard more times than Carter’s has pills (the first sentence is his summary of Hertsgaard’s argument, not his own opinion):
America, in short, is a mess
I’ve just finished lunch at McDonalds, and will go to Temple next week. These very acts piss off the Europeans, who can never understand the freedom we have in the USA. I enjoy these acts and gain pleasure from pissing off the anit-Americans. And we have our brave armed forces, and the second amendment to safeguard these freedoms.
Well, what’s funny is that people in countries with anti-American elites like McDonald’s, too. In fact, you can hardly see any better example of an American export that adapts to local preferences. Atsushi and I were in Malaysia during Ramadan two years ago, and all the fast food chains had break-the-fast specials and dishes that used local ingredients and things.
I’m not sure whether the temple you’re talking about is the Jewish kind or the university in north Philadelphia. Either way, good for you.