From: tjdavis@kurango.cit.gu.edu.au (Tim Davis)
Subject: Re: How many US navy men does it take to change a light bulb ?
Organization: Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 01:47:55 GMT

s305072@parasol.cs.uq.oz.au (Mark Anderson) writes:

>Race , Shmace  . The impportant point i believe is that the Americans have
>got to be the most dangerous country around due to the fact that there people
>are so ignorant of the surrounding world . To take for example the news show
>'The American World News' , this program contained half an hour of news in the
>US or directly relating to the US , like Americans in the Gulf or Americans in
>Yugoslavia .  Their country has more ignorance in it than in Australia , for
>example only 1 in 10 americans could point to the Middle East on a world map
>before the gulf war and now 8 in 10 can . NOW remember this is the country
>who has become the self declared world police force . When visiting the US
>2 years ago some of the locals remarked how well i could speak english , i then
>proceded to ask them why they thought so , and they responded that they thought
>we spoke FRENCH . 

	How interesting and informative!  However, without trying to appear 
	too cynical or critical of the individual making these comments, I 
	would like to point out the following:

		There are some rather significant generalizations made in
		the comments without any evidence of substantive research
		to back up the claims.  Having read the comments, I might
		come to the conclusion that the author has a limited
		understanding of the English language based on spelling
		errors and inappropriate use of proper nouns.  However,
		it would be incorrect for me to do so having the under-
		standing that authoring such comments is usually done in
		hast with little or no thought.

		The author did say that the news show he referenced was
		titled 'The American World News'.  I'm a little confused
		about the point.  Should we be shocked by the reporting
		of news about Americans in a news show such as this?  To
		me, that would be like criticising an Australian news
		show for reporting on Australian issues.

		The author goes on to state that Australians are obviously
		less ignorant than Americans on the basis of one example.
		(I noted that no such survey report was conducted or 
		reported by the author on Australians)  Would one be
		correct in reversing the claim of ignorance based on the
		fact that my children are being taught by Australian
		educated educators that there are 51 or 52 states in the
		US when there are actually only 50?

		The author makes the claim that 'this is a country who
		has become the self declared world police force'.  I am
		most interested in supporting evidence of this being a
		'self declared' status.  What about countries that 
		officially (ie, Australia and the ANZUS Treaty) and 
		unofficially look to the US for this type of role?

>JOKE: The problem with the shuttle disaster was it only killed seven americans!

	Having a sense of humour such as this makes me wonder if you also
	think that using humans for target practice is also funny; an
	accepted practice in Australia not so many years ago.  Oh, let
	me appologise.  I used the phrase 'humans for target practice'
	having forgot that 'Australians' did not consider these targets
	as humans at the time.

When reading generalized criticisms such as those of this author, I am
reminded of the phrase used here in Australia when remembering those who
have given their lives for their country.  'Lest we forget'.  It says a
lot.


-- 

=============================================================
Timothy J Davis                 Email:  tjdavis@cit.gu.edu.au
Lecturer
Newsgroups: aus.jokes.d,aus.wanted