Common Stereotypes - Defending and Embracing Working Roots

On vacation, at the Mediterranean.

When we went out for beer at the beach with a couple of my wife's cousins (people who were at our wedding here in southern France 26 years ago), I found myself trying to simplify my thoughts so that my French vocabulary would be less of a struggle.  My French isn't too bad "for an American truck driver".  But I admit I don't try as hard as I used to.  My wife and kids speak exclusively in French, but most of my vocabulary is now about reminding teenagers to clean up a mess in the kitchen.  It's not very philosophical stuff.

Anyway, when you're my age and you come to visit inlaws in France once a year, you wind up retelling and re-asking and re-recounting a lot of the same stuff anyway.  And one of the "small talk" topics is always whether I fit a stereotype of "American" based on the French news.

Chick Fil A: Divorce Scripture Analogy

Much less important than Russia's arrest of Pussy Riot is the USA's chicken sandwich controversy.

This article from a New Orleans paper makes the case that the southern support of Chick-Fil-A is as much about perceived northern condescension than it is about opposition to gays.  I can certainly sync.

What I feel about gay marriage is about as important as what I feel about divorce.   I remember, growing up in the south, that we were taught a hard line about divorce - as hard a line as about abortion or gay marriage today.  The red letter scripture (Jesus own words) said that he who divorceth his wife commits adultery.

A decade later, several aunts and uncle marriages ended in divorce.  I know that it was difficult for my born again grandfather.  They were forced to accept the divorce, because it was a done deal.   If divorce had "not been recognized" by the USA Christian Government, I think they understood that would not have helped things.

Today divorce is commonplace.  I'm very devoutly married, and consider myself happy and lucky. I hope my kids grow up and find happy, lifelong marriages. But other peoples divorces don't shake my faith, even if I can see sad consequences of society's growing acceptance of divorce (especially compared to what I was led to believe as a child, that almost no one ever got divorced, it was unnatural).  Divorce happened in places like New York City and Hollywood, far away from our families.  Now it's common everywhere.

Is divorce contagious?  Probably more so than homosexuality.

The Competition for Used TV Supply

In the Peru blogs, I described how used TVs from China were found in the markets where I used to sell used USA CRT televisions.

The people who used to buy USA used repairable / working TVs now buy Chinese repairable / working TVs.

Is the solution a ban on exports of used TVs from China to South America?  Or does that just mean that South America will have neither USA nor Chinese used (affordable) TVS?

First we ban USA "e-waste" exports, then we convince China to be afraid of brown children who receive ewaste...?

thanks to Adam Minter at Shanghaiscrap.com  for the link to the photo above, from an article at Southern China Weekly.