> On 24 Jun 2014, at 9:13 am, "'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> From: Kim Jones <[email protected]>
> To: Everything List <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 4:02 PM
> Subject: American Intelligence
>
> Last week I decided to do a bit of research on the Internet because I wanted
> to find out the uses of a vegetable called Kohl Rabi which has just appeared
> in the shops here in Oz. Kind of a cousin of the turnip.
>
> So I found a YouTube video on how to cook this thing. It was by the
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Cooking so I figured it would
> be pretty good.
>
> The video was 22 minutes long which seemed a bit excessive but just the same
> I was interested. The chef was going to do fried Kohl Rabi and onions, nice
> and simple.
>
> For the first eight minutes of the video the chef instructed his audience in
> how to peel and slice onions the correct way. For the next four minutes he
> instructed how to heat a frypan the correct way and how to caremelise the
> fucking onions in the butter and oil. He then proceeded to tell all these
> anecdotes about how different styles of heating range had given him
> differering results in caremelising onions throughout his career, say for
> about three minutes. For the next five minutes he told us how to grow the
> fucking Kohl Rabi. For the final two minutes of the clip, he quickly chopped
> it up and threw it into the pan with the onions and said "all you have to do
> is quickly soften it - he presto!"
>
> 22 minutes.
>
> Okay... but why disparage the intellect of the people living across an entire
> continent for the over long loquaciousness of one single online cook? :)
> Chris
>
>
Why does the dog lick its balls? Because it can. Australians love to take the
piss out of Americans for a range of things, because Americans are in general a
bunch of burly loudmouths the world over. It must be that the average American
presenter takes for granted that there are lots of stupid people in his
audience so the need is to take them by the hand and show them everything. This
must be how kids are taught at school, in fact I know it is, in general - not
everywhere - how kids are taught at school in the USA. A game of "Simon says."
Just do what the teacher does and says and success is guaranteed. There is no
assumption on the part of the presenter that those listening have an
intelligence. It seems like the worst mistake you can ever commit with an
American is to be cryptic or ambiguous. There is the danger that they may
misunderstand you. If they misunderstand you, they are liable to become
offended and will then seek to litigate against you, or if they cannot be
bothered with that they may just pull out their gun and shoot you.
There are of course a good many wonderful things about Americans. I cannot
imagine a world without Americans and their personal style. Clear, intelligent
and succinct presentation of information however, does not appear to be an
oft-met export commodity with them. Subtlety and ambiguity are characteristics
of creative thinking. I have often found throughout my life, in conversing
with, working with and befriending Americans, that these are the things they
hold in very high suspicion.
Kim
We are talking here about intelligence these days. What it is, what it does,
and how you can fabricate it. What we do on this list is present information to
each other and discuss it. There is a need to know how to present information
clearly, succinctly and without losing the plot.
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