So I've had several conversations with people in a variety of different countries about how fucked up things are in the US, and I've come to a couple of conclusions about how the world's super-power is really an isolated mess of a country with no relation to the rest of the world (other than seeing it as a increasingly hostile mass against US interests).

As I mentioned before, I had this strange (for me) conversation with my handsome Turkish couple about the impending invasion of Turkey by US forces due to Turkey's amount of valuable natural resources. Even though I wanted to tell them that they were out of their minds, becasue of the insanity of US foreign policy these days, I honestly couldn't.

The other night, I had a very interesting conversation with a Brit who lived in the states for a number of years and really just had this to say about the US, "You Yanks really do Hate well." What can you say to that? No you've got it wrong, we're really just a bunch of loving people? He finally fled the US, completely dissillusioned with his experience of living in a rascist, homophobic, classist culture.

So a number of conversations have gotten me thinking about why the US is such a mess, especially in its relation to the rest of the world. I mean, we are number one, but we're really not part of the world community. One thing that I love about traveling to other countries is this immediate sense of belonging to a global community. Sure its subtle in some places but for the most part, the news is covered with headlines about things happening in other places. You get the balance of how the world really acts.

Anyways, here's my theory of why we are so isolated. It comes down to one thing: soccer. If US citizens were ignited by soccer as they were to football, basketball and baseball, our world realtions would be solved. Our sports sections would have a global perspective and that would beging to clue people into the US that there are other people out there that care about the same thing they do: having their favorite team win. Its just a theory realy.