Відповіді

• 2005.09.13 | Боровик

  Мєлчаєт отдєл прапаганди КГБ... (-)

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  • 2005.09.13 | Роман ShaRP

    А що ви скажете на англійський варіант, пане Боровик?

    America by the numbers
    No. 1?
    
    by Michael Ventura
    February 23, 2005
    
    No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:
    
    The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
    
    "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
    
    Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
    
    "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
    
    "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
    Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
    
    Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
    
    The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
    
    "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
    Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
    
    "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
    
    Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
    
    The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
    
    Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
    
    The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
    
    "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
    
    "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
    
    "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestle and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
    
    The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
    
    U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
    
    Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
    
    Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
    
    Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
    
    One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
    
    "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
    
    "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).
    
    Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
    
    "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
    
    "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).
    
    No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
    
    The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.
    

    ---

    
    До цього варіанту додається посилання на список інших робіт цього автора.
    
    http://www.citypages.com/authors/summary.asp?PPDID=37
    
    Вам не здається, що обвинувачувати усіх, хто каже щось погане про Америку, у належності до КДБ - дещо застаріла мода? Чи тоді вже давайте зарахуємо до КДБ принаймні трьох з найвідоміших американських письменників, - Майкла Крайтона, Стівена Кінга та Роберта Хайнлайна.
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    • 2005.09.13 | Боровик

      А у Ейнштейна глисти були...

      Нерепрезентативна вибірка. Може я з КГБ і не правий, але все одно то є дешевенький "марксизм" коли під ідею підтягують за вуха факти.
      Я не збираюсь рвати на собі майку за США, але в дописі про Гамерику понабирали несистемної і недостовріної інформації з відповідних джерел і незрозуміло, на який коментар розраховують.
      Невже зараз треба рити мережу і показувати кількість бібліотек, художників, шнобелівських лауреатів і т.д.?
      Після потоку "чугуна і сталі на душу насеєлєнія" може хтось і хаває, нехай їм хавається, такий у піпла смак.
      Чим би не тішились тільки б не вішались...
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      • 2005.09.13 | SpokusXalepniy

        А у мене зовсiм iнши асоцiацiї...

        Я згадав анекдот часiв развиненого соцiлiзму, коли у дитячому садку вихованка розповiдала дiткам де найкраще жити у свiтi i чому: де краще за всiх цуцаються з дiточками, де найкращi у свiтi iграшки, де є таки гарнi садочки, рiчочки, де дорослi так поважають дiтей, та iнше, та iн.
        Висновок, ясна рiч, була одна - в Радянському Союзi.
        
        Але на кiнець цiєї iсторiї одна дiвчина розплакалась. Коли в неї запитали чому, вона вiдповiла крiзь сльози: хочу поїхати в Радянський Союз.

      • 2005.09.14 | Роман ShaRP

        І глистами його теж КДБ заразив?

        Боровик пише:
        > Нерепрезентативна вибірка.
        
        Тому що робив - любитель. Який писав любительску статтю.
        
        > Я не збираюсь рвати на собі майку за США, але в дописі про Гамерику понабирали несистемної і недостовріної інформації з відповідних джерел і незрозуміло, на який коментар розраховують.
        
        Спитайте в автора статті, американця. Особисто я і збираюся так зробити.

• 2005.09.13 | QuasiGiraffe

  Там ще не сказано про область балєта...(-)

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  • 2005.09.13 | Роман ShaRP

    Можу натомість запропонувати про галузь освіти: "Slippage" (/)

    Автор той самий.
    
    http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1265/article13011.asp
    
    Ignorance is.... A) Guaranteed by the Bill Of Rights; B) Evidence that our schools are working; C) Bliss
    Slippage
    
    by Michael Ventura
    March 2, 2005
    
    Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story, the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition. If that sentence seems extreme, consider these facts:
    The United States once ranked first in the world in high school graduation rates. We have slipped to 17th (the New York Times, Feb. 1).
    
    Respect for the free exchange of ideas is dimming among our young. USA Today, Jan. 31: "One in three United States high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more thought the government should approve newspaper stories before people read them." Which means that our Bill of Rights often is taught poorly or not at all--a very dangerous sign for the future of our liberties.
    
    The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    We rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    "Our students, a new report has found, are lagging far behind the pace set by scientific whiz kids in Europe and Asia, and the number of Americans choosing science as a career continues to dwindle" (Los Angeles Times, quoted in The Week, Jan. 14).
    
    Thomas L. Friedman reports "a mounting crisis" (NYT, Dec. 5, 2004). "Because of the steady erosion of science, math, and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our Cold War generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished. We've [been filling] the gap with Indian, Chinese, and other immigrating brain-power. But...many of those foreign engineers are not coming here anymore." He adds that many who had emigrated here have recently chosen to leave, and there aren't enough Americans with sufficient knowledge to replace them.
    
    One-third of our biology teachers support the teaching of creationism or "intelligent design" (NYT, Feb. 1). Creationism is religious dogma, contradicting literally tons of data. "Intelligent design" claims that the universe was created or designed by a higher order of intelligence--a claim that cannot be tested, and therefore is not science and doesn't belong in a science class. When scientists use the word "theory," they don't mean a hunch or supposition; the scientific use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation and experiment... accounting for the known facts." All science is incomplete because "the known facts" are incomplete. (Google a brilliant paper by Jolly Mathen, "On the Inherent Incompleteness of Scientific Theories.") There nevertheless are many known facts, millions of them, that demonstrate the evolution of life from simple to complex organisms over eons of time. Yet one-third of our biology teachers don't accept this--a willful ignorance among educators found nowhere else in the developed world. The result:
    "Only 35 percent of Americans accept Darwin's theory of evolution, while 45 percent prefer the creationist view" (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
    
    "In other industrialized countries...80 percent or more typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure, and very few people reject the idea outright" (NYT, Feb. 1).
    
    Sixty-one percent of Americans "believe the biblical story of creation is literal truth" (ABC, World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, Jan. 18).
    Forty-three states have debated teaching evolution in the last three years (ABC, World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, Jan. 18).
    
    Surveys show that many high school science teachers simply skip lessons on evolution, even when the material is in their textbooks, for fear of controversy. This self-censorship is widespread, especially in the South, Midwest, and West (NYT, Feb. 1). An interesting note: Two popes, Pius XII and John Paul II, have stated that evolution and religion are compatible; the surveys found no dodging of evolution in Catholic schools.
    "Scriptural literalists are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics" (NYT, Feb. 1).
    
    Bill Moyers reports "nearly half the U.S. Congress...231 legislators in total...are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian rights advocacy groups" (AlterNet.org, Dec. 8, 2004). Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, in a statement supporting "intelligent design," stated that evolution is one of the "big social issues of our time," equal to abortion and gay marriage (Newsweek, Feb. 7).
    
    The Christian right's influence in Congress is no doubt the source of headlines like this: "Money to Fix Space Telescope May Be Cut by House" (NYT, Jan. 23). The Hubble is our most successful space project to date. Many of its findings contradict biblical myth. The Hubble "established the age of the universe at 13 billion years.... Every week, [the Hubble transmits] about 120 gigabytes of data...the equivalent of 36,500 feet of books on a shelf. More than 2,600 scientific papers based on these findings have been published so far" (The Week, Jan. 21). The Hubble will fall in 2006 if not repaired. That won't sadden the Christian right.
    
    Hostility to science exists at the highest levels of our government. "With rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed discussion within federal research agencies" (NYT, Oct. 19, 2004).
    
    These stats combine to paint the portrait of a poorly educated people seeking to compensate for their ignorance with beliefs that spread such ignorance further--while the rest of the developed world laughs in pity or contempt, and leaves us behind.
    
    For the record: I am deeply religious. I pray a lot. I believe one cannot claim to be a cultured human being without knowledge of the great religions, their histories, and scriptures. The Bible hit America's shores 300 years before the Constitution and no one unfamiliar with the Bible can claim to understand America (which disqualifies many so-called intellectuals). The great religions should be required study in every high school and college, if only because there is no greater historical force than religious passion. But religion should be taught as religion, not as science. To take the Bible literally, in opposition to confirmed scientific data, is mere superstition.
    
    Hostility to science is spreading, like an infection, to history. The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Thomas Woods Jr., "is being snapped up on college campuses and helped along by plugs on Fox News... [soaring] to No. 8 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list." The book features far-right revisions of the Civil War, the Marshall Plan, Jim Crow, and the New Deal (NYT, Jan. 26). It is "one of a wave of books like this." They include Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment, which claims that the World War II internment of California's Japanese-Americans was justified and benign; also, a booklet used in a North Carolina school called Southern Slavery: As It Was, claiming slavery to have been "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." This isn't history. This is propaganda. (You don't justify old internment camps unless you hope to build new ones.)
    
    The teaching of history is usually slanted one way or another, but not long ago the blatant distortion of science would have been unimaginable. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China excluded or distorted whole branches of science that conflicted with their ideologies; not long ago no thinking person imagined it could happen here. But it is happening. On a massive scale. From the highest levels of government to the littlest rural school. Power-savvy factions are spreading an easy-to-digest but ultimately fatal ignorance. Poorly educated, well-intentioned, fearful people, craving order in a chaotic world, are eating it up. They're no more or less stupid than the well-informed, but they haven't the resources for research and they've no body of knowledge by which to weigh what they're told. The poorly skilled and scantily educated have nothing to judge information by except whether it satisfies their emotions. If it makes them less afraid, it must be right.
    
    Sam Adams, like many of our founders, believed democracy would flourish "as long as education was extended to the masses." An ignorant people cannot remain a free people.
    
    Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle.
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    • 2005.09.13 | Боровик

      Re: Можу натомість запропонувати про галузь освіти: "Slippage" (

      Романе, чесне слово, попри всі недоліки, американська система освіти дає освіту, а більшого від неї і не вимагається.
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      • 2005.09.14 | Роман ShaRP

        Ой лі?

        Боровик пише:
        > Романе, чесне слово, попри всі недоліки, американська система освіти дає освіту, а більшого від неї і не вимагається.
        
        Середньовічна система університетів давала то саме, і більшого від неї теж не вимагалося. Ласкаво просимо до середньовіччя?
        

        ---

        
        А для мене це привід сказати, що в Україні мені такої системи не треба.

    • 2005.09.13 | Englishman

      Re: Можу натомість запропонувати про галузь освіти: "Slippage" (/)

      Є й інша сторона. Вища освіта в Америці все-таки поза конкуренцією. Ось лінк з Економіста на першу статтю з оглядової підбірки:
      
      http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=4339960
      
      а тут- ранжування світових універів згідно британського Таймсу. Знову таки, спостерігається домінування штатівських універів:
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Higher_Education_Supplement
      
      я визнаю, що загальноосвітня програма в Америці далеко не найкраща, і в деяких випадках ця країна може посперечатися хіба що з третім світом. Але при цьому вони інвестують гроші саме у ті сфери, що дозволяють їм зберегати і примножувати свою конкурентноздатність (за рахунок чого- інше питання).

• 2005.09.13 | Горицвіт

  це їхні проблеми

  а в України є свої величезні проблеми. Що корисного може дати цей "перелік" для розуміння наших проблем? Думаю, що нічого.
  
  Краще взяли б корисні речі проаналізували: як в Америці боряться з корупцією, скажімо? А як в Вел. Британії, Німеччині, Нідерландах і в Естонії? Яка з систем краща? Що спільного в їхніх методах?
  
  Те саме про освіту і так далі. А обговорювати ці "переліки" - безглуздо.
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  • 2005.09.14 | Роман ShaRP

    Їхні проблеми можуть стати нашими. Чи гірше.

    Горицвіт пише:
    > а в України є свої величезні проблеми. Що корисного може дати цей "перелік" для розуміння наших проблем? Думаю, що нічого.
    
    Якщо ти не помітив, тут останнім часом ціла купа закликів типу "зробимо як у N.", і серед оцього N. згадуються і Штати. Це - привід так, як у Штатах не робити.
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    • 2005.09.14 | Горицвіт

      Re: Їхні проблеми можуть стати нашими. Чи гірше.

      Роман ShaRP пише:
      > Горицвіт пише:
      > > а в України є свої величезні проблеми. Що корисного може дати цей "перелік" для розуміння наших проблем? Думаю, що нічого.
      >
      > Якщо ти не помітив, тут останнім часом ціла купа закликів типу "зробимо як у N.", і серед оцього N. згадуються і Штати.
      
      
      Де? Хто? Не помітив.
      
      Може, мається на увазі зробити демократію, дотримуватись законів і поважати права людини? І те, що школярі США за останніх 10 років в олімпіадах опустилися з 35 на 55 місце (умовно) - аргумент, що нам не треба будувати демократію?
      
      
      > Це - привід так, як у Штатах не робити.
      
      Це ніякий не аргумент, бо тут не написано, що і як не робити. Це американська стаття, спрямована на те, щоб в американців викликати відчуття (навіть не аналіз), що в них не все добре. Очевидно, це відчуття вона в них викликає. Але ми тут при чому?