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- Newsgroups: alt.irc
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic!aun.uninett.no!alf.uib.no!buboo
- From: buboo@alf.uib.no (Ove Ruben R Olsen)
- Subject: Re: All this nonsense... *sigh*
- Message-ID: <1992Jul23.200427.23529@alf.uib.no>
- Organization: University of Bergen, Norway
- References: <1992Jul23.180555.7089@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 20:04:27 GMT
- Lines: 116
-
-
- USENET DISCLAIMER: This is *_N O T_* a flame. It is some comments to a
- article written on July 23.
- If you take this as a flame, you are either to proud,
- have a low level of understanding, or are just a asshole
- in general.
-
- LittleOne writes:
-
- [... stuff deleted due to the d} syndrome ...]
-
- >IF most of you have been paying attention and actually using IRC
- >as a learning tool, you would know that no one country is perfect.
-
- Sounds great... I did it back in the old days... discussion that actualy
- took place back in the numeric days:
-
- Me> Please tell me about if Charles Bukowski writes the truth about
- your country ?
- Other> Who is Charles Bukowski ?
- Me> One of the most famous cotemporary American writers. Translated into
- perhaps 35 languages... sold over 40.000.000 copies worldwide.
- Other> Never heard of him, and remeber my major is American literature.
- What does he write about ?
- Me> The "backside" of your country. Not skid row, but the level above.
- Well... some skidrow too :-)
- Other> Hmm... there is no skid row here !
- Me> Heard about the movie "Barfly" ?
- Other> Yes, I saw that one. Disgusting !
- ...
- ...
-
- And so we went on... I just wanted to check out some facts.
- That much for wanting to learn about the Great contry :-)
- Most american has not even heard of CB... Sad IMO.
- I think it all comes down to education, basic education. I belive that
- USA is so big that they have enuff to learn about their own country. But
- a small country like norway... well... we are small, so we need to learn
- about the outside world. To communicate with the world... We are too small
- to have any influence at all in the world commuity. Since we are small
- a lot of people out there (even in Europe :-) considder us undeveloped,
- stupid and babaric, even in the 90'.
-
- And during the Gulf War:
-
- Me> Hmmm ... to me it seems that the US is just going after the oil. The
- rest are just words for the people...
- Other> What ! You motherfucker ! We don't care about the oil. We care about
- the freedom of the poor people. We can get oil from whoever we want.
-
- Yepp... he called me that... :-)
-
- I had some very stereotypic views about USA, they all got smashed with
- the help of IRC. Problem is that after a while I began to see a pattern
- on how Average Joe American behaved, felt and though about a lot of things.
- (I would guess that on IRC there are a lot of AJA's around (and a lot of
- Ola Normann too for that matter)).
-
- >How many of you out there 'bashing' (or otherwise noting the not
- >so nice characterists of) another country have even been outside
- >your own country?
-
- It is easier for an European to visit another country. A real different
- culture... And most has been outside their own country.
- For instance, sweden is quite different from norway, not to speak about
- the countries down south :-)
- You can find some similarities thruout Europe, but there are a lot of
- differencies.
- All the people I know goes abroad on their holidays. Mostly to the south, which
- is quite far away from the cold north :-)
-
- [... stuff deleted due to the d} syndrome ...]
-
- >IF you haven't experienced a culture first hand, how could you
- >possibly understand it?
-
- [... stuff deleted due to the d2} syndrome ...]
-
- You can't. But you will speak out of your knowlegde. The knowlegde I
- gained with IRC is the knowlgede I will use in real life. The knowlegde
- I gained over the univ-books I'll use in my work... and so on...
- I will take what I learn to be the truth until someone tell me otherwise,
- or I experience otherwise.
-
- >I'm not out to bash my own country, I am what I would call an embarassed
- >but proud American. I do like my country and would not rather be in
- >another, but for pete's sake stop and LISTEN to what is being said rather
- >than the words or the emotion behind it. No other country is perfect
- >either, did I mention that Finland has horrible taxes?
-
- Horrible taxes, but they have (as most scandinavian countries) free
- education, even on the university level, free healt care a social security
- that is fairly good.
- I'm proud to pay my taxes (about 35% - 40% of my total income).
-
- >Did we mention
- >that Germany played a part in two major wars we'd all like to forget about?
-
- To forget a war is not a good thing, it will only start a new one.
-
- >Did we mention that Japan's people work so hard that they have little time
- >for play (as defined by american standards)?
-
- >Look, they're not perfect,
- >nor are we, so get off your high horses and quit bashing!
-
- They are perfect in their eyes... Sweden is perfect for a swede, Norway is
- perfect for a norwegian, USA is perfect for a American...
-
- \Ruben.
-
- PS:
- If you want to flame, flame the whole article, not just parts.
- :DS
-
-
- --
- Ove Ruben R Olsen, Professional VI user. EMAIL: Ove.R.Olsen@ubb.uib.no
- Maintaining the Largest VI/EX-STUFF Archive in the WORLD (alf.uib.no) and
- the Comp.Editors FAQ file. If you have information about editing, new editors,
- please get in touch with me. This does not apply to EMACS type of editors.
-