AMERICANS THINK THEY ARE NO LONGER #1

This is a posting where, before I get into any potentially controversial detail, I must say that I (generally) love "America" and Americans. So many good things have come out of, and because of, the good ol' U.S.A. (I can't give credit to them for developing basketball, since I have to pass blame to my own country of Canada. "Thanks, Canada!")

Today's Washington Post features an article titled, "We’re No. 1? Americans increasingly don’t think so"...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/03/the-u-s-soccer-team-is-not-no-1-and-neither-is-the-united-states-according-to-americans/


The story goes on to reveal survey data from a new Pew Research Center poll. One observation made by Post writers Aaron Blake and Jaime Fuller...

A strong majority of Americans (58 percent) say the U.S. is merely "one of the greatest countries."

I've never understood extreme patriotism. You know the kind: "We are the greatest country in the world!" (I admit I would love to hear "Davros" say that; although, in his case, "country" would be bumped by "galaxy", and "universe" would replace "world".)

Admittedly I can be just as bad. As a friend of mine says, "Americans think they're the best... we Canadians know we're the best..."

The article does have one funny bit: The writers suggest that America's youth "are in need of a healthy dose of patriotism" and, in facilitation, include a video file of Whitney Houston singing "The Star Spangled Banner". That song is absolutely gruesome; I think young Americans know they deserve a better national anthem. I wonder if they know about the beautiful "America the Beautiful"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful

Now we're singing!....