| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Ilse |
Posted - February 09 2003 : 2:45:59 PM
This is a very good article on the current difficulties in US-European relations. It is very long, so I will just post a link here:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16059 |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lainey |
Posted - February 11 2003 : 09:18:03 AM
quote:
Hi Lainey.
I think the colony was Nieuw Netherlands. Nieuw Amsterdam was just the big city. At least they avoided the N.Y., N.Y. thing!
BTW, rumor has it I'm a Longshanks descendent also, and am sitting on the evidence somewhere. Don't like to admit it in public--it tends to rile the kilted folk. McGoohan did steal the movie, though.
McGoohan ... didn't he?!!!! :)
I just knew we had something in common, Scott.
(Of course, Nieuw Netherlands. Must stop these incoherent midnight runs ...) |
| Scott Bubar |
Posted - February 11 2003 : 07:16:03 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Lainey
... The Netherlands ... okay, they named 3/4's of the state of New York (the former Nieuw Amsterdaam)...
Hi Lainey.
I think the colony was Nieuw Netherlands. Nieuw Amsterdam was just the big city. At least they avoided the N.Y., N.Y. thing!
BTW, rumor has it I'm a Longshanks descendent also, and am sitting on the evidence somewhere. Don't like to admit it in public--it tends to rile the kilted folk. McGoohan did steal the movie, though. |
| Ilse |
Posted - February 11 2003 : 04:38:08 AM
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| Lainey |
Posted - February 11 2003 : 04:08:39 AM
Alrighty then ... isn't this all very true?
Don't get me wrong, I love the people & the country/countries.
The Atlantic Ocean does seem to be widening. There's a heightened level of disgust, impatience, frustration, mistrust, disdain, & resentment on both sides of the pond. Once presumed allies are now perceived as treacherous agitators, & clear & present dangers are no longer mutually identifiable. Where? When? How?
The author of this piece has got it all right (except for the bit about a Europeanesque Clinton ... no need to degrade Europe with such low level insult). His examination & conclusions regarding the causes of transatlantic hissy fits and mommy dearest diplomacy are keenly perceptive & delightfully direct.
What's at play? America grew up & stopped envying Europe? Europe grew unified & stopped tolerating America? Pax Americana has supplanted Franco-Anglo imperialism & the world's not really happy about it? The change of attitude probably goes back to WW II, but for France ...
Here's what Timothy Ash forgot to mention in his article;
France has a problem with image & reality. She imagines herself to still be a great nation while everyone else knows she hasn't really been that since Napoleon. (But don't tell her. She's prone to holding her breath in protest. And don't mention Napoleon's last name either.) Her demise began with that wretched 18th century revolution & ... well, she's having trouble dealing with her issues. No longer a world power, no longer a trend setter, no longer an obstacle to British world domination (drats!), she's just another pretty face-coastal resort with a touch of Muslim majority. And to think the Franco Kings Pepin & Charlemagne did all that work for nothing. Au revoir, grand dame!
America ... not all it's cracked up to be. For starters, this beacon of plurality & political diversity has only one true liberal. Count them ... One! And this one we had to borrow from the English. (The right honorable Christopher Hitchins.) We think we invented democracy, charters, freedom, apple pie (uh-uh ... the Germans did), football, the internet, soft-porn, hard taffy (or is it the other way around?), & beer (uh-uh ... the Germans did). We've mastered the art of war nearly as well as the art of lawsuits.
And to top it off, we just looove playing defender of the universe, which is totally okay except we're always going on & on about it & reprimanding snotty little nations who seem ungrateful. "We saved your ass ..." is under consideration as a national theme park & damned foreigners will have to pay homa ... I mean, a toll.
Great Britian ... ah! The home of fig puddings, meat pasties, Common Law, Irish-Scots persecution, afternoon tea, debtor's prison, colonialism, Magna Carta, Norman Conquest & Saxon dogs, (it's neither pig nor pork), crickets, fox hunts, great literature, dark drawing rooms, a fashion queen Queen, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, work houses, upstairs-downstairs society, Edward the Longshanks (my rellie!), JRR Tolkien, & Masterpiece Theatre. And you know, the English aren't rally European after all, they're simply English. Let's shove on ... this noble race gave the world proper form & croquette (a Norman thing), Shakespeare & high etiquette. When the world got boring, the Brits went warring. True ... they lost an entire continent to those upstart dastardly rebels in the colonies, but they rezoned half the world & they sure beat the heck out of the Spanish Armada! And they've even loaned their Prime Minister to the US State Department! Jolly good friends!!
The Netherlands ... okay, they named 3/4's of the state of New York (the former Nieuw Amsterdaam), gave us front stoops, economic savvy, the Hague, better judicial wigs than other European nations, an alternative meaning to 'red light,' Erasmus, windmills, Ilse, Peter Stuyvestant, sleep-overs for religious dissidents, a stable currency, |
| Scott Bubar |
Posted - February 09 2003 : 7:00:31 PM
I will never regard our English cousins as European, even if they have degenerated to the point of quaffing their ale by the 0.5 litre. |
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