At 09:34 12/17/2001 -0700, Nikolay O. Malyarov wrote: >Dear Wizard: > >Well, I have abstained from responding to this long enough, I think. To >start off, I am not an American. I live in the U.S., yet not until very >recently did I decide to become an American citizen (and primarily for >the reason to ease travel around the world). But that is beyond the >point. This email is to let you know what I have felt when I was >reading your posts over the last several months. > Nikolay et al:
This was a well-written message. It is nice to see postings written in good English, properly punctuated, and well constructed--as well as thoughtful. Some posted here do not meet such a standard. Careful composition is as worthwhile in e-mail as in traditional written messages, in my opinion. On the merits, there are a lot of good aspects to the American character, and a bunch of rather poor ones as well. There was an editorial in the Sacramento, CA, paper Sunday about the lack of language skills of Americans in particular, and the resulting effect on awareness of other cultures. This is a big country, with many, many millions of people, and turning it around is not like changing the direction of a small sailboat. On a nice note, I was at a ski resort Saturday where many of the staff had been recruited from Australia. In a conversation with a young woman re the heat wave in Queensland, we discussed how unpleasant temps in the 38-40 degree range were, coupled with humidity. A pleasant experience. I also gave her the first U.S. $1 coin she had ever seen. HARRY WYETH
