Regarding your portrayal by the media. You should note that we actually get
our impression not just from our own media, but from the US media too.

Our country's cable news channels carry programs such as "60 minutes" and
similar, and CNN is as inescapable as a cold virus in winter. I think every
European country carries a 24-7 CNN channel on cable.

Time for you, the US citizens to sort out your own media, or at least get
them to export something that portrays your country (and especially its
officialdom) as a little less xenophobic and a little less violent.

--
Alec Wood M1BNK
Teesside UK

Interested in Ham Radio....have a look at www.ukradioamateur.org

"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
...
"John Dyson" wrote:

The US has pockets of problems (mostly in cities
that are managed by our left wing -- which isn't
really directly related to party per-se), but the
vast majority of America is quite tame. (snip)


I don't know if I can agree with that, especially when looking at this
from a foreigner's perspective. While it is certainly true crime is far
lower outside the larger cities, the rest of America is hardly tame. For
example, I live in a small town (population about 15,000). There have been
41 murders in the last ten years, which is more than ten times the number
of
murders in Heidelberg Germany during that same period - Heidelberg is a
town
about ten times larger than this town.

I couldn't find a European town that even came close to matching the
number of murders in this town during that period (Heidelberg was picked
as
an example above simply because I once lived there). Sadly, I found plenty
of small towns across America that far exceeded the crime numbers of
similar
size towns in Europe.

With that in mind, while we may look tame compared to those living in
some
very violent countries in the Middle East, Africa, and so on, America
probably looks totally out of control to those from much more tame
countries
(and that includes America's smaller towns).

However, I do agree with your overall comments about the media's role in
hyping the problems here.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/