{"id":4118,"date":"2003-02-03T13:47:57","date_gmt":"2003-02-03T18:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4118"},"modified":"2003-02-03T13:47:57","modified_gmt":"2003-02-03T18:47:57","slug":"motes_and_beams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/03\/motes_and_beams.html","title":{"rendered":"Motes and beams"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting observation on European attitudes<\/a>, in at least one area:<\/p>\n

Last week I went to lunch at the Hotel Schweizerhof in Davos, Switzerland, and discovered why America and Europe are at odds. At the bottom of the lunch menu was a list of the countries that the lamb, beef and chicken came from. But next to the meat imported from the U.S. was a tiny asterisk, which warned that it might contain genetically modified organisms — G.M.O.’s.
\nMy initial patriotic instinct was to order the U.S. beef and ask for it “tartare,” just for spite. But then I and my lunch guest just looked at each other and had a good laugh. How quaint! we said. Europeans, out of some romantic rebellion against America and high technology, were shunning U.S.-grown food containing G.M.O.’s — even though there is no scientific evidence that these are harmful. But practically everywhere we went in Davos, Europeans were smoking cigarettes — with their meals, coffee or conversation — even though there is indisputable scientific evidence that smoking can kill you. In fact, I got enough secondhand smoke just dining in Europe last week to make me want to have a chest X-ray.<\/p>\n

The author, Thomas Friedman, says it’s more of a reaction to relative powerlessness, than principle, and offers some other examples (the stance on Iraq) as further proof, as well as this interesting thought:<\/p>\n

“Power corrupts, but so does weakness,” said Josef Joffe, editor of Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper. “And absolute weakness corrupts absolutely. We are now living through the most critical watershed of the postwar period, with enormous moral and strategic issues at stake, and the only answer many Europeans offer is to constrain and contain American power. So by default they end up on the side of Saddam, in an intellectually corrupt position.”<\/p>\n

(via InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting observation on European attitudes, in at least one area: Last week I went to lunch at the Hotel Schweizerhof in Davos, Switzerland, and discovered why America and Europe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":27024,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/10\/pope-presses-u-s-bishops-to-be-less-popular.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":0},"title":"Pope Presses U.S. Bishops to be Less Popular","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Mar-12 10:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'know, if it were just a message of teaching, that would be one thing. Engaging with people like Christ did would be helpful. Making it an Us vs. Them creates more conflict than it resolves. And advocating and campaigning for laws that force social compliance to said teaching ... is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31544,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/29\/tweets-from-2012-11-29.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":1},"title":"Tweets from 2012-11-29","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 29-Nov-12 9:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"RT @StephenAtHome: I may have lost the Powerball Lotto, but I won my village's Lottery! I wonder why everybody else is holding rocks... # RT @YourInAmerica: It's \"you're.\" #annoyed RT @RaquelHohn: To the Chinese people sitting behind me SPEAK ENGLISH your in America for Chr ... # RT @StephenAtHome: The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7381,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/17\/corned_beef_and.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":2},"title":"Corned Beef and Cabbage","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Mar-05 8:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"Margie usually ends up making this for some church ed class dinner around this time of year (e.g., this week), and everyone loves it. Of course, its actual connection with...","rel":"","context":"In "Food & Drink"","block_context":{"text":"Food & Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25351,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/12\/is-it-okay-if-they-watch-the-5-oclock-news.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":3},"title":"Is it okay if they watch the 5 o'clock news?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Jan-12 5:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, so I'm not a big fan of Our Surveillance Society ... but reading through this article, I'm really trying to see where the beef is.So DHS \"watches Twitter\" and Facebook and MySpace. And also some news sites.Um ... so do I. Except the MySpace.DHS says they are doing it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41444,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/17\/mmmmm-corned-beef-and-cabbage.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":4},"title":"Mmmmm! Corned beef and cabbage…","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Mar-14 6:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Mmmmm! Corned beef and cabbage a la @MargieKleerup ! Yum!","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49710,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/26\/margies-kitchen-individual-beef-wellington.html","url_meta":{"origin":4118,"position":5},"title":"Margie’s Kitchen: Individual Beef Wellington","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Feb-15 5:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"Margie's Kitchen: Individual Beef Wellington http:\/\/bit.ly\/1FYxZze #recipe View on Twitter","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}