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Towards a Pan-European Society | 57 comments (57 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: The Economist agrees with you (none / 1)
Also, I'd take issue with the Economist's analysis of culture.

Sure, the US dominates TV and movie output, but that is in part an artifact of language and economic circumstance. However, in the end, US programs are a certain kind of escapism. They represent fundamentally different things abroad than they do in the US.

(There is a diary hiding in this concept, but perhaps kcurie or someone is better qualified to write it than I?)

I really think the Economist is in danger of losing it's identity as an international magazine. It begins to sound more like a US magazine every day.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Mon Feb 6th, 2006 at 05:15:51 PM EST
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Re: The Economist agrees with you (none / 0)
Exactly. Their whole "don't talk about culture now that you watch Bruce Willis movies and eat at McDonalds" shtick is getting tiresome.

Action movies are not "culture", they are "entertainment".
McDonalds is not culture, it's energy supply management (the unsustainable kind, of course).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Feb 6th, 2006 at 05:38:04 PM EST
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Re: The Economist agrees with you (none / 0)
McDonalds is not culture, it's energy supply management (the unsustainable kind, of course).

About the only time I eat at a McDonald's is while travelling - desperate need for food, any food and little choice or desperate need for a bathroom and figuring I might as well eat something while I'm at it. As a result, most of my McDo spending comes in Europe and I believe I have never eaten at one in NYC (pizza and falafel shops serve the first requirement, Starbucks and other cafes the second one).

by MarekNYC on Mon Feb 6th, 2006 at 05:46:18 PM EST
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At the risk of going off-topic... (none / 0)
...but last week I finally managed to watch "Supersize Me", quite an entertaining watch. If you every had any doubts about what visits to MacDonalds do to you, they are all confirmed. After it, I swore an expensive oath on the blood of my forebears to never set foot again in a Mac - to be exempted only for extreme life-and-death necessities.

Not that I'm a junkfood-junkie anyway. After a youth of seeing a visit to MacDonalds or equivalent as something rare and special (probably the best way to start off), I've been phasing out, maximally visiting once a year, just to re-discover that teenage experience when the Mac was a shiny, exciting something. But when that shine wears off and you start tasting the food... MacDonalds can be a phase. I think Europeans have an advantage in this: they've a history with demanding high quality food.

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Mon Feb 6th, 2006 at 07:30:26 PM EST
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Re: At the risk of going off-topic... (none / 0)
Yeah, similar experience here. Check my earlier comment in an older thread.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Feb 7th, 2006 at 04:16:06 AM EST
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Re: At the risk of going off-topic... (none / 1)
The awareness of responding to eating Mac-food (sweaty, bloated feeling) was the crucial thing. I endured the same reactions you described and that already placed me on the edge to stay out of the Mac. Supersize Me just tipped me over. And yes, good to know I'm not the only one.
by Nomad (Bjinse) on Tue Feb 7th, 2006 at 08:09:01 AM EST
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McDonald's (none / 0)
Beware! If you ever come to Lyon, you will be searched, and if any fast-food receipt is found, you will be sent back!


"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
by Melanchthon on Sat Feb 11th, 2006 at 12:03:14 PM EST
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Towards a Pan-European Society | 57 comments (57 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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