l'ombellico del mondo

you know those youtube clips where american citizens find it perfectly ok to be asked the question "which country should the u.s. attack next?" without asking themselves why the u.s. should attack anyone? and they randomly name a country, from afghanistan, to any of the koreas, china and even france? and then, when asked to point out on the map, they indicate australia as north korea and new zealand as south korea?

well... until recently, while i was convinced that such people exist, and it saddened me that should there ever be a referendum in the u.s. on whether they should attack anyone (not a chance for that, they are too much of a totalitarian regime for that, that's right, you read me correctly), these people would be voters, i thought that they were a minority, that they have been picked out to be mocked and laughed at and put on youtube; that certainly you can't equal them to the average american citizen, who may be proud, nationalist, but not a complete self-centered, americano-centrist moron.

well... apparently americans are just like that. average americans, at least. i still retain hope and faith that there are some who think differently, though they seem a somewhat obscure elite now. let me tell you why.

i work for a multinational company with headquarters in several continents. my job is at the welcome center which works 24/7. yesterday i received a phonecall at 11:15 pm EET (that's eastern european time, for you american folks; with europe being that small continent on the other side of the atlantic ocean - the one on your east coast - just north - as in "above" africa - that big piece of land in the rough shape of a triangle. by the way, a triangles is that form with three sides). that's GMT +2.

it was from a lady from the headquarters in the u.s. she shouldn't have phoned my in the first place, as she was looking for someone from another department, but skip that. anyways, she insisted to look for that someone and to be put through immediately. i thought it might be an equipment failure emergency and i asked just how urgent the matter was. to my surprise, i found out that it was no such trouble and the lady merely wanted to communicate the person here a password for an application.

"errrr.... ok, so this can wait until tomorrow morning, right? you know, there are time zone differences, and it is past 11 PM here. i wouldn't want to look up and call someone on their personal mobile phone at this time, as it's... a bit late". silence. and then. 'oh, yeaaaaah, yeah, sure, it can wait." she was having a revelation, i could hear it in her voice. like doooooooooooh! when you make a phone call on the other side of the planet, don't you give a moment's consideration to that? i do it even when speaking to someone one or two timezones away... hello, the earth isn't quite as flat as your brain, you know? geesh!