ignoring soccer
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:14 (fifteen years ago) link
creationist theme parks
― tipsy mothra, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:14 (fifteen years ago) link
"tossing the pigskin"
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:15 (fifteen years ago) link
men's league softball
Seems like the suburbian American idea of public and private space is very different from the European one. No wonder suburban kids in the US hang out in malls, if they don't even have sidewalks to loiter on.
― Tuomas, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:16 (fifteen years ago) link
There aren't that many real suburbs in the US ... people just call anything that's not a city "the suburbs". I grew up in the suburbs of NYC and there are sidewalks, trains, buses, etc.
Most places with no sidewalks, etc., are exurban or rural kinda places, and it's not too surprising that they aren't all that well developed.
― burt_stanton, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:16 (fifteen years ago) link
keg parties in cornfields/gravel pits (<---- I just sort of assumed that Euros don't have kegs party and that everyone else is too poor or something)
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Okay, whatever, my point was that she seems to be an influential writer (whether as an novelist or as a philosopher) in the US (and maybe other English-speaking countries) who is virtually unknown in Continental Europe.
but you're just wrong. yes, she has influenced a small number of people who happen to have been important in government, on the right-wing side, but she is a very very tiny element in american culture writ large.
― gabbneb, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:17 (fifteen years ago) link
My mom's never really made much of an impact outside of the U.S.
― G00blar, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:18 (fifteen years ago) link
i mean, seriously, for your average suburban american, the idea of having to walk anywhere is threatening and bizarre.
I realise this is a little hyperbolic but it is pretty freaking sad, as well. Aussies are as lazy as the next bastard and we have some car congestion probs too, but there's as big a movement of ppl getting about on foot, bikes, trams, etc.
The idea that public transport and walking is strictly for poor/scary/homeless people is just... I don't know what to say.
― Trayce, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:18 (fifteen years ago) link
clear pie
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:19 (fifteen years ago) link
freedom
grits
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:19 (fifteen years ago) link
true grit
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
the balls to stand up to a dictator
Hershey's chocolate
― G00blar, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
What the hell are grits, anyway? There are aspects of American culture that have never been imported to other parts of AMerica
― burt_stanton, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
corn mazes
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:21 (fifteen years ago) link
xp that was not an answer to your question
corncob gruel
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:21 (fifteen years ago) link
that was an answer to yr question
minor league baseball
aspen, co
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:22 (fifteen years ago) link
indian reservations
funnel cake
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:23 (fifteen years ago) link
there are many suburban/exurban areas in which you'd have to walk for miles to get to any commercial establishment. people who live in these areas don't think that 'walking is just for poor/homeless people', as there are no poor/homeless people in these areas. however, walking in these areas could be scary in such areas even to a total urbanite, because there are no other people around except for people who are driving by in cars.
― gabbneb, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:23 (fifteen years ago) link
civilian militias (<---this exception i guess is limited to the "first world")
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:24 (fifteen years ago) link
I grew up in the suburbs of NYCboston and there are sidewalks, trains, buses, etc.
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:24 (fifteen years ago) link
honkytonks
the dave matthews band
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:25 (fifteen years ago) link
decent mexican food
-- gbx, Sunday, May 25, 2008 6:13 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
The question that logically follows is WHY?
― RabiesAngentleman, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link
a good thread would be: parts of american culture we would like to apologize for loosing on the rest of the world
1 jam bands
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link
sorta sick of doing all the heavy lifting around here, guys
xp are you british?
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link
these are more urban "inner-ring suburbs"
― gabbneb, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Am I british, or do you mean jho? (gbx)
― RabiesAngentleman, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:28 (fifteen years ago) link
things that some americans are sometimes inclined to think are exclusively---and embarrassingly---american but actually aren't:
* being crazy about guns * tractor pulls * ridiculous affection for motorsports * hunting shit * bad manners abroad * willful ignorance of and a simmering disdain for foreign cultures coupled, paradoxically, with an generosity towards visiting strangers
xp you, rabies. jho i already know everything about
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:29 (fifteen years ago) link
EVERYTHING
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:30 (fifteen years ago) link
i think i was mostly thinking about england and germany in that last one
O M G
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:30 (fifteen years ago) link
!
Do they have the internet outside of the U.S. yet?
― G00blar, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:32 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/nepal/images/swayambhunath-temple-500.jpg
l-r: gbx, jhoshea (not pictured)
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:32 (fifteen years ago) link
WATCHING U
shit, i gotta go to a barbeque <------ L@@K ANOTHER ONE YOU GUYS DON'T HAVE, PS AUSTRALIA DOESN'T COUNT SINCE THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE SAUCES
― gbx, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:33 (fifteen years ago) link
UH O!
― jhøshea, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:33 (fifteen years ago) link
there are many suburban/exurban areas in which you'd have to walk for miles to get to any commercial establishment.
I live in one, more or less.
I actually read Ayn Rand for the first time when I was visiting India at 15. I was bored as hell and saw We the Living on a bookshelf (of my uncle's elderly parents). I don't think she's at all marginal in the US or Canada but I also think of her pretty much totally as a pop culture figure, not as someone 'you should know' if you've studied philosophy and the social sciences.
(A lot of these things exist in Canada but I'm not sure if that's supposed to count or not.)
― Sundar, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:33 (fifteen years ago) link
god i hate freeedom so much
― dell, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:34 (fifteen years ago) link
We've TOTALLY done this thread before. I mentioned calling the bill "the check" on the other thread.
― Sundar, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:35 (fifteen years ago) link
No, I'm American (gbx). Why exactly?
― RabiesAngentleman, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:35 (fifteen years ago) link
Trust me, as a half-English half-Indian guy who knows a fair bit about these things, the Yanks are not at the stage where all those countries they lord it over are beating them at sports they invented = they have failed at imperialism.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:35 (fifteen years ago) link