Some patriotic ramblings for 4th of July

If I hear another Russian make fun of current American culture, I am going to roll my eyes. Maybe throw in some sarcastic remark as well to emphasize my point that Russians are really not much better nowadays.

I am sure you’ve heard comments from a variety of foreigners who made snide comments about American stupidity and lack of culture. Usually, Russians go on about their Dostoyevsky and wonders of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Not that those are not great, in fact, St. Petersburg is a nice town, as much as I remember from my brief visit in 1996. Even Moscow seemed nice in the freezing cold February of 2004.

US has places full of culture – we got those Rocky stairs in Philly with the Freedom Bell or whatever that cracked bell is called, there is CBGBs in NYC, I hear there are a bunch of nice places on the West Coast as well. Maybe even in the Midwest, too, I am sure my pals from Midwest can add something on this topic.

And of course, there are the negative aspects as well, such as women who are a little too heavy to wear belly shirts, folds of underwear that flow over hiphuggers, and our crappy ass reality show laden TV programming. Not counting Amazing Race, of course, that’s brilliant reality TV.

But in Russia, TV is even worse! Now, I am sure you are wondering how worse can it possibly be? Well, for a segment of the evening news, reporters go on a police chase-type reality show where they show victims of car accidents. And on top of all that, they interview victims of the car accidents and then people who caused accidents. Being in Russia, people who cause car accidents are usually trashed out of their minds, slobbering and unkempt looking men. How this qualifies as evening news is beyond me.

Another TV show winner is a rather perplexing talk show where the host picks out “hot” stories from a newspaper entitled “Life,” I think, and invites guests who are subjects of the story and current pop icons for in-depth discussions. A couple of days ago, the topic centered about a couple whose dog mauled their 9 year old daughter. Laima Vaikule, a rather outdated yet still popular in Russia Latvian singer, was on the show to talk about how her dog bit her mother. Most of the show’s discussion was about whether the dog should be killed or not. A few weeks ago, they were discussing whether it is fair to Russian men when Russian women marry foreign men. Men tried to argue that all Russian women who married foreign men did it out of money rather than love. I won’t deny that a man’s socio-economic position has some level of attraction for a lot of women but such a vague statement is a little ridiculous.

So next time, when a Russian makes fun of American news, just tell them about car accident causing slobbering drunks who are shown on evening news. And, by the way, happy Fourth of July!