All these other nations have no problem constructing all these wonders; and to top it off they always seem to come in on budget and on time. In this country the standard has become massive cost overruns, way behind schedule and most important the shody work. The Boston tunnel is a prime example as problems began with day one.

Xman you hit it right on the head with the “chosen people” attitude. It seems that every time we are hit with a catastrophe, people run around acting like how dare it happen here. It’s supposed to happen to others in far away countries.

Joe, I think you have a major point. I get the comment that we (USA) has a superior attitude, all the time. I get asked why we always say we are the first to do this or that and then they show an example that seems to contradict our propaganda. I get comments asking why we say we are the best democracy, when we ban certain images or discussion that their country allows.

I have to agree that it would make for an uneasy relationship for one family in the neighborhood to always be claiming he was the best, first, biggest, brightest…and going around injecting itself into other families business and sometimes deciding to attack someone else in the neighborhood even when everyone didn’t agree…etc. etc. etc.

Until we get rid of our “chosen people” attitude, things won’t get better. OR…they could get better without us.

In my mind, we’ve sort of run out of imagination. Look at the skyline of Dubai, or the modern marvels being built in other countries. How much progress have we made on the replacement World Trade Center tower? We’re bogged down in bureaucracy, and in the name of catching up to the rest of the world in math and science, seem to have attacked the problem at the expense of art and culture. But, that’s just the perception I get…I haven’t really looked at the facts. We may be behind the rest of the world in a lot of ways, but I’m guessing today’s generation of Americans are still smarter and live longer than previous generations. Maybe it’s just that the rest of the world has caught up to us, which is a good thing…that’s what we hoped for in the past, right? Bring all the other countries out of the wilderness? We can’t be good at everything…like an older adult, I think we’ve matured, and now, instead of still going out and trying to outrun some of the young whipper-snapper countries emerging into their prime, we should admire them and learn from them…like in health care…it’s time we learn from the systems of other countries. And like older adults, we still have a lot of wisdom to offer, if we would just admit the world doesn’t revolve around us and, you know, grow up and embrace the new kids.

But, that’s just off the top of my head…probably deserves some googling and a few in-depth posts. I was thinking on writing a post on The American Dream — what the heck is it? It’s different to different people, and it’s been different in different time periods. Worth a look.

P.S. The SPAM bots must have figured out the math comment blocker, so I’m trying a new one. I think THAT’s part of America’s image problem, too…we are still very smart and work hard…but we apply our smarts to inventing annoying things, like spam bots!!! :-)

P.P.S. Just added Gravatar images to the comments…if you want your picture to show up, add your image over at http://www.gravatar.com.

P.P.P.S. Hope these nested comments work…

Joe we should get into a serious discussion of why we have gone from a nation that was looked up to and sent men to the moon; to a nation that is looking up at others and being passed up in everything from A to Z. We may look at your comment above and laugh, but it seems that is what we have become.

Just one question, are you trying to keep me off this site by making this code stuff harder?