I listen to American local radio stations and this morning there was an ad for a charity. They state that one in eight families in the state of Michigan struggle to put food on the table. I am guessing that those families won’t be over concerned with geography or travel needing passports.
Unfortunately that statistic could apply to many countries. Just been listening to a poor lady on Womans hour. I didn’t realise but if a landlord asks you to leave a property the council insist that you stay until you are evicted otherwise you are considered to have intentionally become homeless.
Therefore this woman had to put her furniture in storage. She is living in a hostel with 2 children and the council will not give her a home until she pays her storage bill and she only has the storage bill because of the council!
Sometimes I despair of the human race.
I love the country and would like to spend more time there if my OH would let me but I’m acutely aware that it’s got so many problems such as increasing poverty and access to basic healthcare for millions.
If you speak to people they really don’t know much about anywhere outside the US because what happens in the rest of the world rarely affects their day to day lives.
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Most of my friends go to Disney world or -land with the kids and then later in life to Las Vegas, year after year. Very convenient and whatnot. Maybe an effect of having only a one week/10 days vacation per year.
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Yes. Americans have surprisingly short holiday entitlements. Even at Christmas I think they just have 2 days.
Us Europeans are lucky, although perhaps the UK might get a shock if we align ourselves more to the US.
Like much in the 'states work-life balance is available only to the rich.
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You don’t need a passport to invade somewhere. 
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
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If you think american people are all fat, obese, dumb, stupid, arrogant and ignorant, you are not really clever and you are being stupid. And it is just a matter of time before you meet an american who will give you a lesson. I am a french man and have been to travel many times abroad particularly in the USA. To understand the main differences between our two countries and cultures, you have to keep in mind the USA are a big big big country compared to France. Texas is twice the size of France for example. And this is really important to notify because it has a huge impact on the average american citizen. News, infos and medias tend to be focused on what’s going on locally and inside the state. A new yorker won’t have the same news than a texan, a midwestern guy or washingtonian. So in a certain way, americans could appear ignorant, but not because they are stupid, because their medias don’t really give them access to what is really going on abroad. In one day I can cross France from north to south, in one day I can also cross Utah from north to south. When you live in Denver if you drive 500kms, you will still be in Colorado, in France you can land in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.
Having travelled in the USA, I really think you now have two sides. liberal coasterners and people living between the coasts who are more conservative and blue collar. As one said, it is a big country with big problems. The social model is completely different from France. We want a welfare state, whereas americans don’t like when the state is too much present in their lives. We have two really different models of society. And I think one is not better than another, it is just different.
Now on the americans themselves. They have a beautiful country and I sincerely do consider they are a beautiful nation and population. Yes they are not perfect, they have good sides and bad sides, exactly like France…UK, Germany, Sweden…I mean no country is perfect. Yes some americans can be arrogant, uneducated and annoying, but hey…your citizenship is not a ticket for a travel to intelligence. There are stupid people everywhere. I have been lucky enough to travel trough rural usa. That’s what I loved, meeting real americans who live the real american life. And they were beautiful people. I have been over there, I know how it is, I talked with them and I know that I have to throw away many things sprayed by the medias on them. It’s important to make your opinion by yourself.
Considering history, especially between our two nations, I will always defend them and confront people who are bashing them waiting real arguments. And I will do the same for the brits. And if I had more money, here are the places I would like to visit in the States : Tucson, Sedona, Truckee, Ely, Bend, Issaquah (Tiger Mountain), Bellingham (Chuckanut and Galbraith), Brevard - Mills River and all the Pisgah mountains, Grand Junction, Park City, Ogden, Missoula, Killington.
This one is for my american friends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_WBKFEMI5o
Now to all the americans passing by here, why do guys love to hate us so much ?
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-French-are-cowards
https://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/international/article/glenn-beck-et-sa-haine-des-13697
During WW1 France lost 1.4 million of persons which represents 5% of its population back in time. The USA joined into the war and sent their AEF (American Expeditionary Forces) which means the USA had no army because they were isolationist and protectionnist. So the french army, trained, instructed and gave stuff (guns, rigles, ammunitions, etc…) to help creating the US Army https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/how-the-u-s-military-learned-to-learn-in-world-war-i-lessons-from-the-american-expeditionary-forces/
France won the World War 1 after a hard four years hard fight. If you think french were cowards, document yourself on the french captain America : Albert Severin Roche who was said the be the first soldier of France.
Now about WW2, And sorry for the original poster because it is going to appear off topic, but as I do read lots of bad comments about us online, I would like to state that the german army was really the best of the world in 1939. This is why they conquered the whole Europe and submitted every european country. But people only remember that only the french surrendered. If we follow that point of view, every european country who lost at least one war is a nation of cowards. They conquered Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Yougoslavia, Poland, Denmark and Norway but everybody is blaming the french. You don’t surrender because you are weak, you surrender because there is no other solution to save the lives of your population. Russia never surrendered, they lost 24 millions of their inhabitants which is 25% of their population because they did not care about their citizens, and in a certain way thanks to this, they liberated Europe from the nazis because they destroyed 80% of the battle frontlines with Germany in Europe. Some videos explaining how the french were not cowards in WW2 :
France in 1944 : Occupation, Collaboration, Resistance, Liberation ENGLISH SUBTITLES (full documentary) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0bd_1452492157
The French Airforce during the Battle of France – 1940 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPOvYrvDv0Q
The Battle of Bir Hakeim - The failure of Rommel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_M-j67PJdM
The Free French Victory over Rommel : Bir Hakeim, 1942 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNTJRm46ee4
Normandie-Niemen - French fighters in Russia during WW2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnM_Mtyp0uY
Kieffer, the French Commandos who landed first on Sword Beach - D
DAY 1944 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwvJLZyVMk0
D-Day : Free French Commando Kieffer captured Ouistreham : http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=310_1365076684
“Is Paris Burning?” ending scene + “Echoes of France” by Django Reinhardt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1H3zPZBl0Q
1945 French Army defend Strasbourg against German offensive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca3TZQIS0bo
WW2 - French-American liberation of Alsace, January 1945 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeUaHaYAB70
WW2 - French invasion of Germany and Austria in 1945 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwqxavujqMo
The French in WW2 - The 2nd Armored Division https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caaWcVP482c
Dunkirk 1940 - How the French Army saved GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6C5P-AYGdY
The First Bombing of Berlin - WW2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5YGrO_HC0o
This is an american perspective about an american soldier who has been working with the french army in Afghanistan and wanted to throw away all the cliches :
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As you say there are variations in intelligence in every country. In the UK Irish people are often depicted as stupid but I’ve never met an Irish person who filled this stereotype. Our US friends are both engineers and my nephew is married to an American girl who has been to university and works in law.
Here in France our neighbours are retired and seem both intelligent and practical.
As for WW1 and 2 i think every country involved suffered in many ways, were brave in many ways and we should always learn from these conflicts. My fathers work colleague was a 10 year old in ww2. He had a French mother and English father. Whilst his father returned to the uk to fight he and his mum remained in France. The resistance killed some german soldiers, the next day all men and boys from about Eric’s age were lined up in the village and 1 person was shot randomly for every german killed. I can’t imagine what horror that boy went through.
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Well, Maxime, you excelled yourself with that praise-song of America and brief panoramic history of WW2. Don’t fret, I am not being sarky or ironic, I really appreciate your effort to inform and enlighten.
Will try to do justice to your references, a labour of love and passion on your part.
PS as a newbie to French can you spell out the bit of French dinner-party idiom for me, seemed to link a second party having another drink with (not) putting on one’s pants? I think I get the general thrust of the saying, which is perhaps that thrusting doesn’t feature if…
Slightly off topic but currently in the US a huge row is brewing in Virginia where both the Governor and Attorney General have admitted to ‘black facing’ when they were younger, odd thing is they’re Democrats.
Can you imagine any UK MP doing this, even a Tory?
what about the old childhood game … cowboys and indians… I think I heard somewhere that this is no longer PC…
A bit like playing “war”
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I used to creep about in the woods when I was 6/7/8 playing japs and commandos, very unpc.
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Me too, but no one wanted to be the “germans” cos they always lost. No one ever considered “PCness” in those days, hadn’t even been invented.
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Almost similar to MP’s / royalty going to fancy dress as nazis ?
I had a cowgirl outfit complete with cap gun for Christmas.
PC was alive and throbbing in 1952. I was a very callow 14 year-old arriving home from school with my satchel on my shoulder when my mother told me she had heard on the Home Service that King George VI had died.
I said loftily, “So what? Should I lower my trousers to half-mast?”. My mother (no shrinking violet herself) was totally thunder-struck. It wasn’t PC to say something so revolutionary.
I had a cow girl outfit as well I didn’t have a gun though