quote:Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent adolescent boy, Canada is like an intelligent thirty-five-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.
From "Riding the Rays" in The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.
I love this quote. Anyone have suggestions for descriptions of other countries?
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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You're the second person that has quoted that book today on this board!! Explain the book to me and the author. If you all are reading this guy's stuff, I want to read it too!
Oh, and my suggestion for England would be a stodgy old woman, similar to the Queen Mother herself! (no offense intended from this immature American.)
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Ha, someone else quoted Adams today? What thread?
The Salmon of Doubt is a miscellaneous collections of Douglas Adams's writings that was published after his death. Essays, interviews, and an unfinished novel. It's a bit uneven, but has some very nice bits.
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Here is where Anne Kate referred to that same book earlier today. And when I did the search, it came up in three other threads on earlier dates. How have I missed this???
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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It's been said that first world countries act like gangsters, and third world countries act like whores.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I keep bursting out with loud laughter when reading this book.
In Predicting the Future:
quote:Oddly, the industry that is the primary engine of this incredible pace of change -- the computer industry -- turns out to be rather bad at predicting the future itself. There are two things in particular that it failed to foresee: one was the coming of the Internet, which, in an astonishingly short time, has become what the computer industry is now all about; the other was the fact that the century would end.
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Do you know that I am a 24 year old sci fi fan that has never read Douglas Adams? I plan to get around to it one of these days. I finally got around to acutally watching Star Wars and Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail after the age of 17.
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It hasn't. I remember not particularily liking Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Now, if you don't like Terry Pratchett...then I would say you have a stunted fantasy/humor gland or something.
Posts: 3658 | Registered: Jan 2002
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The Hitchhiker series is not just a book series, and many of you probably know. It is a radio series, it was first a radio series and, in my opinion, it is best as a radio series.
The books are slightly different from the radio play in some cases, and way different in others.
If you can, get your hands on the radio series before the books.
Because.., "I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side." ...Is funnier when read with the right tone of voice.
Actually, I can't say that I could agree with his likening of America to a juvenile delinquent ("belligerant teenaged boy").
America is over two centuries old, and is arguably the most stable and mature democracy on earth. (England still has a monarch and a form of parliamentary democracy by coalition that results in way too many "votes of confidence" to be counted as being really stable.)
If America were so belligerant, then considering the fact that it is now earth's only superpower, how is it that the rest of the planet is not an obliterated wasteland? Isn't self-restraint a mark of maturity?
America bailed Europe out of two of its tribal "world wars," saved Europe from certain conquest by the fascist Nazis, rebuilt western Europe after the devastion of of WWII, and fended off and finally defeated the communist tyranny that held eastern Europe in bondage and threatened western Europe for almost three generations.
More recently America has resolutely defended the right of Israel to exist, and has stood up to Arab and fundamentalist Islamic extremism, while still maintaining friendly relations with the major Arab and Islamic states, and has had the courage and resolve to take decisive action against blatant evil while still pursuing the goals of promoting the good of the countries against which it waged war. What other nation on earth would even try to be kind and respectful to its enemies in this manner?
How does America deserve to be characterized as a belligerant teenaged boy? I believe that among earth's nations, America is the only adult.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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...and I am inclined to disagree, based on that and other general knowledge. America has done many good things, and it is a good and well-meaning country. But stable it is not. Impulsive, quickly making decisions, indecisive and inclined to do what it wants? Yes.
Being a "belligerent teenage boy" isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is an accurate description of America.
...although no country can ever really be boiled down to a three word description of a person
EDIT: Please read my next post (two posts down) before you chop me up about mentioning "Bowling For Columbine"...
If your assessment of America is based on "Bowling for Columbine", it behooves you to do a little more research.
Posts: 2112 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I realise that my "research" is a little narrow. But that was just an example, and a stunning one, at that. I am not a Michael Moorite, he makes good and legitimate points, but that is a sign of a good documentary, as well as it being relatively true-to-life.
I, personally would not call America "the only stable adult", because I do not believe it is a country that embodies "stable adult"-like characteristics.
If my old country is a "stodgy old woman", surely a "bellligerent teenage boy" is a compliment...??
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Actually, I always pictured Canada as a weak, hand-wringing, whithered man named Percival.
France is like your old uncle who long ago retired from the family business. He is completely ignorant about the way things are run today, but he keeps coming back and yelling at "these kids" because we're doing it wrong. Then he goes to our customers and talks bad about us behind our back. Yep. France.
[ August 20, 2003, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Sweet William ]
Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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The U.S handles itself fairly well internationally. I can't disagree with Ron Lambert (except then there was Vietnam, which looks like a total U.S screwup in retrospect).
But once you start looking at the country on the inside, however much good you do see, there's still PLENTY of room for improvement. Bowling For Columbine definately shows at least some of that. The U.S starts looking like a "belligerant teenaged boy"...
Still though, there's plenty of worse places to live than in the U.S, and not many places are better.
Funny how this weak little country not only stuck to its guns and didn't take part in a war we didn't believe in, we also did it without working against the US and keeping everyone in the UN happy with us.
One might call that intelligence. Maybe even the intelligence of a 35-year old woman...
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I agree with Teshi re: the original radio series being the best... I've been looking for a copy, and while amazon.com doesn't offer it, amazon.co.uk does have it...
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I have the books on tape as read by the author and they are funnier by far than the radio series, even!
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Canada has a self-esteem problem, and stays in an abusive relationship with the belligerent adolescent boy because she is convinced she can't do any better. For the most part, she agrees with him even against her better judgement, afraid that he will lose his temper.
Posts: 1769 | Registered: Feb 2000
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plaid--thank you so much for posting this! I've been thinking of that quote for two weeks now, trying to figure out who said it. I could remember the belligerent teenage boy thing and...oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.
And I've been combing through all Neil Gaiman's books thinking it was him who said that.
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What, are the links going to be other T-shirts?
Ooooo, you mean a shirt that says Bowling for Columbine is pure, unadultered bull poop. Not the actualy website you linked. That makes more sense Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Maybe "www.moorelies.com" on the front, and "Bowling for Columbine Sucks!" on the back... I'd need to be able to wear it to work, after all. Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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How about a "Michael Moore sucks, but Macs are still great!" shirt?
Gah, now I can't stop re-reading the page I posted. He's added new examples of the many lies... maybe I could print it out and hand copies to everyone leaving a screening at our local cinema...
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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When discussing Michael Moore it is important to remember that his films are not, I repeat, are not documentaries. They're sort of like Christopher Guest's films, except with a completely different style of humor. Or maybe you could call them "Alternate Documentaries" in the same way that some novelists write alternate histories.
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So are they mockumentaries, Godric? I guess so. Moore certainly doesn't strive for balance or objectivity. Roger and me is his only film I've seen, so I cannot comment too much on Bowling. Ayelar's link certainly gave me pause. [edit in response to Teshi: If you were referring to me, I wasn't trying to insult Godric or anybody else. I'd never thought of Moore as making mockumentaries, but you could make a case for it. In which case he would be immune from those critics who assume he's making regular documentaries, a good point.]
What I can say is that one scene in Roger and me was sheer brilliance: the one in which an animitronic puppet GM worker and a puppet robot worker sang a duet about (if memory serves) how getting laid off and replaced by robots wasn't all that bad! And the mechanical puppets were in a GM museum! Certainly sums up big businesses' attitude toward their help in a quick and hilarious scene.
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Teshi got eaten for mentioning BfC. Or she didn't really, but she came pretty close.
*sigh*
It's interesting to see how many people dislike that "mockumentary", I didn't realise the dislike ran so deep.
It's also interesting (and upsetting) to see that now everyone is attempting to mildly insult one another.
Let's go back to Douglas Adams and being concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, shall we?
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(no offense intended from this immature American.)
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But that was just an example, and a stunning one, at that. I am not a Michael Moorite, he makes good and legitimate points, but that is a sign of a good documentary, as well as it being relatively true-to-life. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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And I've been combing through all Neil Gaiman's books thinking it was him who said that.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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