13 Jan 2007 pphaneuf   » (Journeyer)

The American Lifestyle

The American lifestyle frankly sucks. The media is generally shit. The food stinks. We spend too much time in traffic and too much time taking care of a badly built McHouse that has the ergonomics of a coach seat on a discount airline. Add to that the lack of health care (just listened to a Stanford lecture about the American Couple that cited a study that determined that the single biggest predictor of long-term marital happiness is whether both partners have health care), the enormous wealth-gap between the rich and poor, blisteringly expensive tertiary education, an infant mortality rate that's straight out of Victorian England, and a national security apparat that shoves its fist up my asshole every time I get on an airplane, and I don't think that this country is much of a paragon of quality living.

America has lots going for it -- innovation, the Bill of Rights, a willingness to let its language mutate in exciting and interesting ways, but the standard of living is not America's signal virtue. — Cory Doctorow
That said, most of Canada has health care, much cheaper education, I didn't get too much fisting (to [info] azrhey 's dismay, it would seem), the media isn't good, but not nearly as bad, and decent food can be found in the bigger cities... And from what I can see around France, being stuck in traffic is hardly exclusive to the Americans.

Syndicated 2007-01-13 20:43:13 (Updated 2007-01-13 20:45:26) from Pierre Phaneuf

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