Ricky Martin posters are stapled to the telephone poles. Leonardo DeCaprio smiles from bus kiosks. Americans have built up some resistance to advertising, but the Poles have no antibodies for our culture of consumption. Parents and teenagers get into terrible arguments. Adolescent girls suffer eating disorders.
Cities have problems with gangs and teenage alcoholics.
Increasingly, the whole world has come to resemble an American strip mall. The world is flooded with our products. Along the coast of Scotland in the remote highlands near Morah, I saw a little girl picking blueberries with her grandmother. She walked near a peat bog and an ancient loch, but she wore Barbie doll boots and hummed the Power Rangers song. When I traveled to Southeast Asia, I saw Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets beside the noodle bowl and banana roti stands.