… replaced this week by “Downsize This!” — by Michael Moore! “Stupid White Men” sits at number two. This according to the Kleine Zeitung. Both books are in German.
Saturday headlines:
Die Presse: P.1: “‘Black Thursday’ in the USA: Vulnerability Shocks the Superpower.” P.2: “Blackout in New York: Chaos, but no Panic.” Also P.2: “Electricity collapse: The power stations failed through the domino effect, but the morale of the people remained intact.”
Today’s Kurier’s front page editorial blurb makes it a point to mention — in an editorial ostensibly conerning the power blackout in the U.S. — the American love of SUVs “whose tires have never touched anything other than the city streets.”
One reader, Tim, wrote to me and pointed out, among other things, that many Americans hate George W. Bush. I realized I had never said that before in these pages. Nor have I made it clear that I do not pretend to represent the opinion of the majority of Americans. So to be sure…
Last night I was at a birthday party for an Austrian friend. I was very reluctant to go — though she is a good friend and almost family — because I know that the topic on everybody’s mind is the coming war with Iraq. She is in her twenties, and I knew that so too would everybody else be, besides my wife and I (33 and 34, respectively). It is completely natural for a group of 20-something Europeans to want to discuss the major topic of the day. The question was, how could I stay out of it? Once I start, it’s hard to stop, and, given the audience, there would be a high likelihood for bad feelings on what was supposed to be a happy birthday night.
At a Friday after-work protest at Stephansplatz in Vienna I had a short “discussion” with a few protesters. Two (at different times) asked me outright if I am American, and I happily said “yes” to both, though, of course, I knew their feelings about such a nationality.
I saw a captioned photo of a plaque that is on a building somewhere here in Vienna, remembering or commemorating or celebrating or whatever the fact that Josef Stalin lived in the building in 1913.
In a review in the 3 March 2003 issue of Austria’s profil magazine, Sibylle Hamann previews and critiques what looks to be another astonishingly simplistic attack on the United States — from a member of Austria’s national parliament, no less.
I just heard a CNN anchor indicate that an upcoming segment would be about the “overwhelming international pressure” to disarm that Saddam Hussein faces.
Funny!
This article at the USA Today website is about the recent experiences of some Americans overseas. To put it plainly, it’s about the mindless anti-American sentiment that they experienced first-hand.