My eyebrows went up when I saw this in Foreign Affairs:
In March, a U.S. Army convoy rolled 1,100 miles across six countries in Europe. The convoy, which included over 500 U.S. military personnel and 120 vehicles making their way through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic and back to their base in Germany, was the longest that Europe had seen since the Battle of the Bulge, in 1944.
This operation, Dragoon Ride, was a compelling bit of showmanship for a world rocked by the crisis in Ukraine. But the operation also demonstrates the strengths and pitfalls of American commitments to European security, and offers a glimpse into how the conflict in Ukraine has forced NATO to reexamine its purpose and future….
So… if that happened, why aren’t folks in the Baltics going nuts, obsessing over a U.S. military takeover?
I’ll tell you why: Because none a them li’l no ‘count countries can hold a candle to Texas when it comes to being crazy paranoid. Not to pick on Texas. It’s a huge phenomenon in much of the rest of the country as well. No… actually, Texas may take the prize…
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Yeah, Texas has really been bringing the crazy lately. Makes us look quite sane. Was it Warren Bolton who noted how advanced SC actually has been in racial matters, integrating schools and universities without incident, dealing with cop shootings appropriately?
Yes, he did — in one of his last columns.
But, with notable exceptions, that’s fairly typical of SC. We were the original bringers of crazy, what with seceding first and all. But in terms of dismantling Jim Crow, things were mostly fairly peaceful here. There was the Orangeburg Massacre, but on the whole we escaped much of the horror seen in Alabama and Mississippi…
We are not so bringers of crazy as independent-minded—but well-mannered….which is why Nikki Haley’s taunts and jibes offend me especially. Harpootlian, too.
not so much
Right. It’s not very South Carolina.
Nikki’s approach grates particularly because it’s so immature. Like a middle-schooler scribbling in a slam book.
Whereas Harpootlian is like a shock jock. He wants to get a rise out of you.
One could excuse them by saying that, since their heritages are Indian and Armenian, SC politeness isn’t in their blood. But then one would be kind of racist, eh?
Just as one of my favorite fictional characters, Jack Aubrey, tries to make excuses for someone by saying, “one forgets, after all, that he is only a foreigner…”
Well, one could say that politeness is not inherent in my Yankee lineage, either, although Germans are quite polite (as M. Prince, with his/her extensive German knowledge, or Herb Brasher could attest) Hoffentlich ist wie deutlich!
I don’t think it’s “racist” to say that certain people who happen to be of a certian background are not polite–it’s racist to note their heritage and racist if one says “all X are rude.”
My Indian acquaintances are exceptionally polite, fwiw. I think Nikki just has figured out what resonates. My Armenian experience is largely colored by the Kardashians, but then Kris is not Armenian, is she?
Wikipedia says her parents were born Houghton and Campbell. So, English and Scots.
and we know about those Campbells and their treachery. At least the headmaster at Tammy’s school does.
But Indian politeness has a different flavor from SC politeness.
Which reminds me of a post I’ve been meaning to do on Thai etiquette. It’s fascinating. A very mannered culture, in ways that appeal deeply to a civility-minded traditionalist such as myself — the wai, giving up one’s seat on the Skytrain to monks, and (as a farang) having to avoid talking about the king at all, lest someone misunderstand me and take the remark as being critical (when, I assure you, I would mean no disrespect to His Majesty).
On the other hand, there are things Thais will do and say that would be way out of line in this country. There is the unself-conscious cultural chauvinism, for instance (which I actually found charming, but others may object), or the way they think nothing of calling someone fat, or dumb, and it doesn’t violate anyone’s sense of propriety.
I wish I could have spent a LOT more time getting to understand all of it…