View Full Version : Counting blessings of living in the US
OK, there are enough threads about the challenges and problems in the US. I think that it is a unique and wonderful country but sometimes one needs to count the blessings of living there so this is for the 'positives' that need to be voiced and promoted.
I love the wonderful freedom of thought and the open expression of it.
I love the wide open diversity of space, geography, complex history and response.
OK people over to you.
~freedom in all it's different interpretations
~some of the best art museums in the world
~National Parks, especially the Adirondacks
~free public libraries
~we provide aid after disasters in other countries (we could do better with that within our own country)
~the folks standing up for net neutrality
I just woke up, I'll think of more
I just woke up, I'll think of more
It's been my impression that the US has been a world leader in innovation that other countries only hope to equal or copy. The green revolution and the digital age and personal computers are a part of the conveniences and necessities enjoyed by the world. It's my impression that we have historically been the main innovators and leaders in these fields. And we are at least near the top in genetic research and engineering that could have huge implications for human health in the future (possibly discounting GMOs). And while we are routinely copied, it's been my impression that the basic innovations in green energy, things like solar panels and wind generation started here. That's all up for dissection and discussion, but it's my impression.
When there are global natural or man made disasters it seems like we are the first to step forward with aid. We also have significant amounts in our federal budget for other foreign aid. And it seems like we are leaders in global peace keeping organizations like NATO and the UN, although some could poke holes in those.
And I'm especially thankful for our public lands,managed by the forest service, the BLM and National Parks. I don't think any other modern country can match us for large tracts of natural beauty and preservation of wilderness that is accessible by the public for free or for small fees.
The Bill of Rights
Major League Baseball
An open, sometimes combative culture that has little use for the passive-aggressive self-righteousness you often see in other cultures.
A wonderful, greed-fueled willingness to take risks and innovate.
Maker's Mark Bourbon
Numerous private institutions in many fields to oppose a dreary statist monoculture.
Built-in safeguards restraining the arbitrary use of power.
People used to blame the gods for all their problems and shortcomings. Now they blame America. I kind of like that.
A society that generally laughs at the idea of "class", and cheerfully rejects the programs proposed by self-styled elites who ask why they won't act "in their own best interests".
A thousand different brands of beef jerky.
The world's most lethal military.
Ultralight
3-1-16, 10:43am
Kurt Vonnegut
George Carlin
Saul Alinsky
Eugene V. Debs
Mark Twain
A relatively intact First Amendment
Roe v. Wade
Universal gay marriage
Pretty good crappie fishing
Liberal college professors
A wide variety of ethnic restaurants
Planned Parenthood (while it lasts...)
Williamsmith
3-1-16, 12:19pm
The Bill of Rights
Major League Baseball
An open, sometimes combative culture that has little use for the passive-aggressive self-righteousness you often see in other cultures.
A wonderful, greed-fueled willingness to take risks and innovate.
Maker's Mark Bourbon
Numerous private institutions in many fields to oppose a dreary statist monoculture.
Built-in safeguards restraining the arbitrary use of power.
People used to blame the gods for all their problems and shortcomings. Now they blame America. I kind of like that.
A society that generally laughs at the idea of "class", and cheerfully rejects the programs proposed by self-styled elites who ask why they won't act "in their own best interests".
A thousand different brands of beef jerky.
The world's most lethal military.
Maker's Mark is indeed a good all purpose nicely priced bourbon but before I quit drinking......I was partial to Booker's small batch 130.1 proof bourbon. Actually, I'm not sure if I quit or just took a break.
Maker's Mark Bourbon
Maker's Mark is indeed a good all purpose nicely priced bourbon ....
Agreed! I go direct to the source in Loretto KY and dip my own.
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/v/t1.0-9/33902_1461368620323_4303166_n.jpg?oh=adb5036ff9db8 2bb35b4ad9472d11158&oe=57993B2F
Agreed! I go direct to the source in Loretto KY and dip my own.
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/v/t1.0-9/33902_1461368620323_4303166_n.jpg?oh=adb5036ff9db8 2bb35b4ad9472d11158&oe=57993B2F
I'm normally more of a Scotch guy (single malt, but I'm not a fanatic about it), but I do like Maker's Mark on a warm evening. I think they make it from winter wheat instead of rye.
The landscape is beautiful, varied, and vast. We have room for all the people who live here, and more.
If indeed children are the future, it gives me hope that kids with all kinds of surnames will contribute--are already contributing--to excellence in science. If there is such a thing as American exceptionalism, it lies in the diversity of our citizens:
Intel Talent Search winners 2014
Arshavsky, Alec Vadim
East Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, NC
Automatic Characterization of Donor Tissue for Corneal Transplantation Surgery
Camenzind, Kathy
California High School, San Ramon, CA
Quantifying Trapping Forces in a Simplified Optical Tweezers Setup
Chen, Eric S.
Canyon Crest Academy, San Diego, CA
Computer-aided Discovery of Novel Influenza Endonuclease Inhibitors to Combat Flu Pandemic
Chen, Steven
Westwood High School, Austin, TX
On the Surface Tension of Entropic Droplets in Dynamically Metastable Liquids
Clarke, John Anthony
Regis High School, New York, NY
High-Energy X-ray Emission in the Jovian Magnetosphere: A Feasibility Study for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)
Coraor, Aron
Huntington High School, Huntington, NY
Pressure Dependent Azeotropic Melting Relations in the Mg2SiO4-Fe2SiO4-NaAlSi3O8-CaAl2Si2O8 System: a Critical Role in Lunar Highlands Formation?
Daga, Soham
Stuyvesant High School, New York, NY
Using Google Trends to Enhance Predictive Models of Mortgage Delinquency to Mitigate Risk in the Loan Lending Process
Datta, Shaun
Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD
Saturated Nuclear Matter in the Large Nc and Heavy Quark Limits of Quantum Chromodynamics
Davey, Neil
Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD
Early Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Through the Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells Using Drop-Based Microfluidics
Freed, Benjamin
Governor Thomas Johnson High School, Frederick, MD
Identification of Novel Regulatory Mechanisms of the K-Ras Oncoprotein
Guha, Anubhav
Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY
Discovery of Rare Earth Oxide Nanoparticles as Agents for Prolonging Fluorescence Imaging in Biological and Other Systems: Fluorescence Studies from Single Molecules and Dispersions
Homma, Yushi
Carmel High School, Carmel, IN
Asymptotics of Two-Point Correlation Functions for the Zeros of Random Polynomials
Kang, Joyce Blossom
Brentwood High School, Brentwood, TN
Development of a High-performance Hybrid Supercapacitor on CF Cloth Using 3D Nano-Architectured Electrodes Comprised of Aligned CNTs Coated with Pseudocapacitive MnO2 Nanoparticles
Kong, Angela Xiangyue
Lynbrook High School, San Jose, CA
The Transcription Factor Bcl11b Regulates Mammary Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Quiescence Partially Through Cell Cycle Progression Inhibitor CDKN1a/p21
Kuszmaul, William Henry
Lexington High School, Lexington, MA
A New Approach to Enumerating Statistics Modulo n
Lee, Kevin
University High School, Irvine, CA
Strongly Coupled Electromechanical Modeling of the Heart in Moving Domains Using the Phase-Field Method
Liu, Charles Xin
Henry M. Gunn High School, Palo Alto, CA
Integrated Meta-analysis of 64 Diseases Identifies Novel Relationship Between Systemic Sclerosis and Systemic Lupus erythematosus
Maiti, Esha
California High School, San Ramon, CA
Stochastic Monte Carlo Simulations to Determine Breast Cancer Metastasis Rates and Tumor Distribution from Patient Survival Data
Mehta, Rahul Siddharth
The University of Chicago Laboratory High School, Chicago, IL
A New Max-Flow Algorithm for Sparse Networks
Meier, Joshua Abraham
Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Hackensack, NJ
Control of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Aging by Modulation of Mitochondrial DNA Deletions
Merrill, Anne
Greenwich High School, Greenwich, CT
Comparative Suppression of Soil-Borne Pathogens via Earthworm Bioturbation of Natural and Man-Made Biochars
Michaels, Lisa P.
Plano West Senior High School, Plano, TX
Pan-Neuronal Over-Expression of the GCLc Gene to Mitigate Redox Stress and Mitochondrial ETC Complex Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease
Misra, Sreyas
The Harker School, San Jose, CA
Design and Characterization of a Novel Single-headed and Hand-held PET Camera Using 511 keV Photon Collimation via Compton Scatter
Mocz, Viola
Mililani High School, Mililani, HI
The Mass Ratio of Elementary Particles from Helicotoroidal Topology
Ng, Natalie
Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, CA
Advancing Precision Medicine: MicroRNA Prognostic Signatures and Prediction Models for Distant Metastasis Free Survival in Breast Cancer
Pang, Emily
Dougherty Valley High School, San Ramon, CA
The Opposing Roles of Tumor Suppressive cC1qR and Oncoprotein gC1qR as Mechanisms for Inhibiting Cancer Pathogenesis
Park, Jiho
University High School, Irvine, CA
Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Aromatase: Implications for Novel Drug Design
Paskov, Ivan Spassimirov
Edgemont High School, Scarsdale, NY
Predicting Cancer Drug Response Using Nuclear Norm Multi-Task Learning
Pereira, Brianna
Academy for Medical Science Technology, Hackensack, NJ
CXCR4/SDF-1α Signaling as a Target of Microenvironmental Regulation of Metastasis in NSCLC
Pulak, Thabit
Richardson High School, Richardson, TX
Affordable Home-based Bio-sand Arsenic Water Filter and Rapid Arsenic Water Test Using Nanotechnology
Rahman, Zarin Ibnat
Brookings High School, Brookings, SD
The At-Risk Maturing Brain: Effects of Stress Paradigms on Mood, Memory and Cognition in Adolescents and the Role of the Prefrontal Cortex
Saini, Ajay
Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, Acton, MA
Predictive Modeling of Opinion and Connectivity Dynamics in Social Networks
Sakowitz, Sara
The Brearley School, New York, NY
A Novel Approach for Metastatic Breast Cancer Therapy: Pharmacological Inhibition of EZH2 Histone Methyl Transferase Activity Suppresses Cancer Stem Cells and Induces Epithelial Phenotype
Seong, David
Lexington High School, Lexington, MA
Novel Use of Mutant Huntingtin Haplotype 3'UTR Sequence to Discover miRNAs Targeting Mutant Huntingtin Gene Causing Huntington's Disease
Shankar, Vishnu
Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, CA
The 3D Structure of Human DP Prostaglandin G-protein Coupled Receptor Bound to Selective Antagonists from GEnSeMBLE Predictions
Shi, Jessica
Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD
The Speeds of Families of Intersection Graphs
Shin, Kaitlyn
Jericho Senior High School, Jericho, NY
Photon and Positron Emission from Primordial Black Hole Clusters
Srinivasan, Anand
Roswell High School, Roswell, GA
RNNScan: Eukaryotic Gene Prediction via Recurrent Neural Networks Utilizing Local-Feature Extraction
Thakker, Parth
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, NC
Design, Assembly, and Optimization of Novel ZnxSeAgy Biocompatible Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells
A spirit of adventure. Wonderful urban architecture. Beautiful national parks. (I won't say the beauty of the landscape -- that's not something the country created -- but protecting chunks of it was a fabulous choice.) So much energy. A sense that anything is possible. Terrific diversity. Astonishing museums. (I still haven't recovered from touching a dinosaur bone in the Museum of Natural History.) Central Park. So many musicians that I love, whose work largely comments on the national scene... Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Dar Williams, I could type on and on.
Don't know how much impact any of these things have on living in your country, but they stir admiration in your neighbour.
iris lilies
3-1-16, 3:41pm
Jane, while I agree with you wholeheartedly, I guarantee that the Desi/Asian names on that list would not be considered "diverse" in my hood. That's the terrible conundrum of our world where we with our white privilege dont get to define "diverse." But hell yeah, I think its a great list illustrative of recent immigration policies and how that constant stream of new blood keeps us strong.
Jane, while I agree with you wholeheartedly, I guarantee that the Desi/Asian names on that list would not be considered "diverse" in my hood. That's the terrible conundrum of our world where we with our white privilege dont get to define "diverse." But hell yeah, I think its a great list illustrative of recent immigration policies and how that constant stream of new blood keeps us strong.
I've seen similar lists of talented youngsters that were even more representative of diversity, in the loose sense of the word. Brilliant kids, a small percentage of the population, will likely be our salvation. If we get one.
Woody, Pete and Arlo are few of my heroes.
The Marginal Way in Ogunquit, ME
The Four Freedoms, especially Freedom of Speech "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
A society in which you are judged more by your own accomplishments and personality than by the family you came from;
and the ability to re-invent yourself and start all over.
A national character of optimism, enthusiasm, a sense of humor, and individualism
Women's rights, and a culture in which girl children are valued as much as boys
Music: ragtime, jazz, rock and roll, country, Big Band swing
Free public education for every child, free libraries with computers
I think the US is great, even though I live in Canada.
Williamsmith
3-1-16, 11:31pm
I grew up in the 1960s and the 1970s. There was a little spat going on in Vietnam during that time and a lot of unrest at home. When that got resolved in a sort of unsatisfactory way, there were some my age looking to our fathers to make sense of it all. Of course later came the Watergate fiasco and the impeachment of a President. It was hard to hold onto the positive feelings a person is supposed to feel about his country.
I remember an immense package arriving at the door. It was addressed to my dad from some government agency. Inside a transcript of Nixons Oval Office conversations with the Watergate conspirators. My dad read and read and read I think the entire thing and then I read it too. And I saw what happened to a bad President. He got kicked out of the Whitehouse and it made me proud that the system worked. And then his replacement pardoned him outright. It kinda made me mad.
There were two things that primarily restored my faith and love of my country. I read a book called "Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins. The other was a song by Woody Guthrie that made sense to me. The best way I've heard it sung was by Bruce Springstein in 1985. That is except for my dad. He used to sing it I suppose after he got tired of reading transcripts. It's a pretty decent substitute for words I really don't have to express what ai feel my country is always striving to be.
http://youtu.be/1yuc4BI5NWU
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.