I think I've Had Enough of America Already

Discussion Open Forum
41

TC,

No apology needed man. I just shoot from the hip sometimes, and I too may come across as harsh.

Sometimes it’s just tough love, baby. Sometimes it’s the fact that it’s hard to convey tone through online chat, as it’s hard to convey humour, sarcasm, questioning, wondering. It’s all just words on a screen without a face or a context as we don’t know most people we respond to. In so we don’t know their life experience.

Othertimes it’s just posting what I feel before I think. Sometimes that’s the best though, perhaps, as it’s the raw, uncensored view of what one truly feels; be it ‘good’ or ‘bad’; or ‘objectionable’ or ‘wise’ or ‘harsh’ or ‘whatever’.

I know only what I have lived through, and I know what I have ‘observed’ others living through. So I only really know me and my life experience.

I think we’re all in this together. It’s one strange world we’ve set up for ourselves as a whole, but how we live it on our own is how we define ourselves.

I just hope it’s all a happy world someday. That’s what my world boils down to after simmering for awhile…live life, and be happy. I’m a simple person, and that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it, uh huh, uh huh.

JM

42

[quote=“redandy”]That’s a bit broad.

I agree that a lot of times discouragement of apartments, lack of public transportation, lot size requirements, and other rules were (are) designed to keep out poor people (especially minorities). There’s no glossing that over.

However, that’s not everything. The driving force behind the overall zoning schemes generally were to address the concerns Gao brought up a few posts back, about separating residential from business and such. When the Euclidian zoning models were thought up, there was this kind of idealistic view of city planning, where people had these ideas about perfect little cookie cutter communities that supposedly would promote good lifestyles and prosperity and such. They caught on and pretty much became the model for what people expected, and for the better part of the 20th century worked pretty well. Now that people are getting married later and having fewer children, and what with problems of traffic and urban sprawl and pollution and such, I expect we’ll see a sustained decline in those type of schemes.
[/quote]

I don’t think the figured out that smart zoning thing either. I read in the NYTimes the other day about a planned villiage community that was bursting at the seems because too many families wanted to move there because they could walk to market and shopping, while have a good school disctrict. They planned themselves into a ghetto.

OMG now the rich white people gotta live in communities with rich minorities, instead of their ne’er-do-well kids. So instead of a race base society the USA will become a class base society. The horror. A true metrocrity with no entitlement for anyone.

43

Well, if we don’t find an answer soon, the grandchildren may be too busy trying to survive to worry much about it.

44

Well, I just posted that article because the guy is an old friend of mine and I thought it was a good read.

45

Wow, in America? I’m impressed. Didn’t they get called nasty names like “commies”, “socialists” or that ultimate obscenity “Europeans”?

Oh so many people fall into this trap. You hear it a lot in England too. Listen folks they’ve all got their faults and virtues. “The greatest country in the world” is where you feel most comfortable and if that happens to be the one you were born into well, bully for you.

In Ireland we don’t tell each other we’re living in the best country in the world. We whinge and whine and I’m convinced it’s partly contributed to the improvement we’ve seen in the last few years (still a long way to go, though) I don’t tell my students they’ve come to “the greatest country in the world”. When they feel homesick and alone I try to give them names and addresses that’ll help and mention the parks and museums it costs nothing to walk in. Eventually they come through it and no, they don’t tell me it’s “the greatest country” but at least they feel a whole lot better about it, warts and all.

Not just Americans guy, I don’t know how many people are doing the same thing all over the world. I’ll fess up and acknowledge I got a grant to help me through my university years in the late seventies. But I then had to (not whinging ,just giving you the facts) get through the Thatcher years when you were lucky to get a job flipping hamburgers and, in my case, trying to cope with increasingly tough asthma attacks until the new medicines came through in the late eighties. No offense to you or any one else but initiative and determination are not confined to one nationality and I for one am getting a little tired of the implication that they are.

I also dislike the implication that people on the dole are all hopeless dependency cases. (You may not have been implying that but it often goes hand-in-hand with this kind of story). I’m no fan of the “Harry Potter” books but the author’s story of how she pulled through as a one-parent family in Scotland is pretty inspiring.

Well, I know the cities can be a bit grim (though they are improving) but in defence of Taiwan I think I need only say Yangmingshan, Yushan and all the other mountains, the East Coast, that place south-east of Kaohsing whose name I forget and the islands. At the moment anyway, Taiwan can give you both (and the parks are also improving, aren’t they?

I remember living in Hsinchu. Yes built-up and full of cutting-edge companies (at the time, don’t know now) but you were only half an hour from reasonable countryside, temples and little villages.

46

namma, you are complaining about the average dumb american. but average dumb people seeking escape from their everyday lives are found everywhere. the cost of living is way up in the us in terms of food, gas, heating, electricity. we are having a cold spring in nj.

i know people (neighbors, families of the friends of my children) who don’t have money for incidentals, yet spend it anyway. they think they should not be denied what everyone else seems to be enjoying. a family across the street who filed for bankruptcy when it was easier to has cable tv, the internet, and buys a lot of take-out food. another woman had 5 children by 28 and is now preganant with her 6th. her kids brag about going to the store and buying candy with foodstamps. i don’t know if they’re lying or not.

there are lots of reasons why people do well or not. my brothers wouldn’t be doing half as well as they are without the help of my parents. one brother was deep in debt and my father told my mother to let him struggle. my mom saw his pain and helped him rent out his house while he lived with his two young sons in her house. that way they paid off a huge mortgage and after a few years sold the house for a profit. he’s doing well now. otherwise good people who don’t have the advantage of having good, smart people advising them, guiding them, can easily mess up their lives. some people had no one to guide them and yet are still successful. and some people have all the advantages: brains, good parents, good advice, and because of some bad decisions / faulty thinking, screw up.

47

I don’t think any particular zoning scheme is ghetto proof. Projects and apartments obviously kind of have a reputation for being more prone to crime etc, but I think that’s mostly just a function of location and pricing. You see plenty of single family housing areas that have gotten just as dilapidated as the apartments out there. For example, when my parents bought their first house 30 somthing years ago it was in a nice, low crime, 3 bedroom houses, cookie cutter, white bread neighborhood. That same neighborhood is now the single most run down, crime ridden part of a city that is known for it’s high crime rates.

[quote]I don’t think the figured out that smart zoning thing either. I read in the NYTimes the other day about a planned villiage community that was bursting at the seems because too many families wanted to move there because they could walk to market and shopping, while have a good school disctrict. They planned themselves into a ghetto.
[/quote]

48

You’re assuming a lot here. I came from a middle class family…my dad made a good salary until he lost his job and we lost the house. I moved up to the Chicago area with him and took a job running shaffers (no clue how to spell this word) out to the buffet line…at 16 years old. They were hot and heavy and the job paid beans. I worked similarly dreary jobs my last two years of high school, and worked a nightshift hotel job to save up for college. My dad had a job again and yeah he helped me, but I tutored English at nights and on the weekend throughout college.

All of this is pretty typical. Most college students have to work part-time and I’d wager at least half of them worked part-time in high school and/or between high school and college.

But what’s this got to do with living in the suburbs? Just because I went to college and am no longer running buckets of greasy food to buffet lines doesn’t mean I can’t still bitch every now and then. Just now instead of complaining about my burnt, throbbing hands (“sorry kid, gloves aren’t part of the uniform so just deal with it”), I’m complaining about developers lobbying the county government to rezone all the farmland into residential and god forbid industrial.

49

Are non-Americans allowed to bitch about life in the USA in this thread too? Or will I get into trouble?

50

If I’m allowed to equally criticize your country without getting into trouble I guess have no problem with it.

51

On the issue of sheltered lives I think its hard to really determine that. In some ways I think I led a pretty sheltered life- my college was paid for, parents have decent local government jobs with benefits. But at the same time, when my parents divorced I ended up living in a apartment complex next door to the ghetto, therefor I went to school with them. (When I say ghetto, I mean the city was trying to vote to kick them out of the city and/or have the buildings there demolished and evict everyone.) There were times I was eating food with bugs in it because thats all we had, and getting in fights at school over racial stuff.

The other thing is that I didn’t know until recently that I had money set aside for me so I went through college working my part time job like everyone else. Basically my family wanted me to live the average life at least until I got out of college.

Now I am working as a temp with the county government- its a good job. I can see how people might judge me now thinking I had never had to deal with anything outside this but It’s not really true. I just lucked out int he end.

52

Naw I’m complaining about the one’s who know better but still wanna walk around acting like they don’t. :noway:

Here’s something now that has my goat…Chicago just won the Olympic bid for 2016. And the decision won’t be made until 2009. But all this time, most of the money that has to go into this extravagant 2 week program :fume: :unamused: has to be raised from private sources. So, good ole Daley, has scurried around faster than a roach caught in the kitchen, getting all these backers.

Meanwhile, we’ve got kids who still can’t read and (this one really burns me up) the county government of Chicago making MASSIVE public health and security cutbacks. :fume: :fume: :fume:

Oooh Wee, it all makes me wanna holla…

53

[quote=“ran the man”]my sister,
you need to live OFF THE GRID. find a way to not have to depend on “the system”. i’d rather see you go get a vendor’s licnese and run your own hotdog stand than work at Target or one of those places. you’ve got to find a way to be independent from the whole thing because electricity and water and telephone companies will bankrupt you.

some ways:
home phone: don’t need it. buy a cell at walmarts with a card in it. better, use Skype.

water: if you live in the suburbs and you have rainfall, you’re wasting God’s precious resource if YOU DON’T COLLECT IT! i’ve seen 100 to 500 gallon palstic containers. drop a water stabilizer in it. make sure it’s higher than your faucets and you have (literally) running water.

electricity: make use of natural lighting. buy a solor panel for your computer. i’ve seen one that’s supposed to be really good.

hotwater: ever seen a camp shower? it’s a black bag with a nozzle. it absorbs heat from direct sunlight. better: do a japanese style bath. heat up some water in a coffee pot , pour that in some cool water, use a ladle to wash with.

eating : NEVER eat out. one dish meals like pasta with veggies sirred in.

screw the system. ran can live without ever hooking up the electricity.

america could care less about people earning less than 30,000Us a year. it’s not hard to go from 30,000 a year to 40 or 50,000 a year, but to go from 15,000 to 30,000 , you have to move heaven and earth. america WANTS an underclass.
so you can’t let them beat you. kick ass and fight back by REFUSING to buy into the system of dependence (the light, gas, water, telephone companies).[/quote]

If I ever come back from Taiwan, I will be doing exactly this, the only problem is that damn internet connection. You have to rely on Satellite for internet, which puts you under someones thumb. Of course there is always the library but then that cuts into my personal hobby times (coughs) no need to get picked up for indecent exposure. Off -grid and living with more time for the important things, or just a crazy hermit, or the next uni-bomber. Oh well, better than slaving for the system. Damn the MAN.

54

[quote]eating : NEVER eat out. one dish meals like pasta with veggies sirred in.
[/quote]

So you’re growing all your own veggies as well as the grain that you use to make the pasta by hand? Right…

55

[quote]To steal LLary’s thunder…

long story, usual reason…

I think I could stay in America if the following could happen:

–Gas prices went down
–A job with decent benefits
–A FCC ban on reality shows and Oprah
–People shutting up about their results from reading “The Secret”
–Chinese food actually tasted like Chinese food
–Bus ran on time, were cleaned every day, and a ‘no pissing law’ on the trains
–No more nightly news stories about wives gone missing because their husbands don’t know how to file for divorce
–Cheaper cigarettes
–more 7-11’s in my neighborhood.

Culture shock is looking fun right about now…[/quote]

Just remember namahottie, it’s all about the ant and the grasshopper. We can stay in Taiwan banging our hot girlfriend (or boyfriend) making 15-20 USD/hour at an easy job, getting wasted every weekend, but one day we will be 45 with no legitimate work experience, no 401k, and no future.

OR we can stay in America, tough it out, work two jobs or do whatever is necessaryto save money for graduate school, get a real job with real experience, and eventually return to Taiwan to lord it over all the poor english teachers we left behind :smiley:

56

[quote=“beautifulspam”]

OR we can stay in America, tough it out, work two jobs or do whatever is necessaryto save money for graduate school, get a real job with real experience, and eventually return to Taiwan to lord it over all the poor english teachers we left behind :smiley:[/quote]

Yes, but if you return to Taiwan, then you better make the BIG bucks, else you’ve worked your arse off in the States just to put yourself back in the same situation if you ever want to go home again. Eventually, you HAVE to make a choice. You simply cannot live one life in two places.

57

Never mind all that, is there any way I can have my wicked way with Namahottie’s avatar? It’s keeping me up at night. (Okay, what’s keeping me up is my own failure to empty the fridge of beers, but there’s only two left.)

58

Lord Lucan wrote: [quote] what’s keeping me up is my own failure to empty the fridge of beers, but there’s only two left.)[/quote]

Good God man,
Don’t you realise the damage you are doing perpetuating the myth that the Irish are fond of a drink.

Anyway, I’m like you. I drink like an Abo, i.e. can’t go to sleep if there is any alcohol in my house.

59

Good God man,
Don’t you realise the damage you are doing perpetuating the myth that the Irish are fond of a drink.

Anyway, I’m like you. I drink like an Abo, i.e. can’t go to sleep if there is any alcohol in my house.[/quote]

You will go to hell for that remark! Damned if I’m going though unless there’s drink laid on. And I’m not stupid you know. There’s a bottle of rum somewhere. I know there is. Unless the Ayi drank it (unlikely I admit).

60

[quote=“beautifulspam”]
Just remember namahottie, it’s all about the ant and the grasshopper. We can stay in Taiwan banging our hot girlfriend (or boyfriend) making 15-20 USD/hour at an easy job, getting wasted every weekend, but one day we will be 45 with no legitimate work experience, no 401k, and no future.[/quote] Ah :bow: yes sensei, that would be lovely. In fact if I had had the tendecy to bang hot chicks, I’d still be there…:smiling_imp:

[quote]
OR we can stay in America, tough it out, work two jobs or do whatever is necessaryto save money for graduate school, get a real job with real experience, and eventually return to Taiwan to lord it over all the poor english teachers we left behind :smiley:[/quote] Well, I think housecat made the arguement for me. I’m still coming back, when and exactly how :idunno: But I’ll be back :sunglasses:

[quote]Never mind all that, is there any way I can have my wicked way with Namahottie’s avatar?[/quote] ctrl + P Lord Lucan…