Xenophobia

I almost never watch the news, because...well, partially because I almost never control the remote, and partially because my attention span is really short. Tonight was an exception, and two of the stories during the half hour broadcast were about people freaking about about the dilution of their culture by immigration and tourism. One story focused on Switzerland and one on Tibet. In both cases, the representative xenophobes waxed on, in English, about how all the foreigners were marginalizing their culture (which, if I am not mistaken, does not include English primarily in its purest form in either case), and worrying that their way of life would be lost forever.

It seems to me that a static culture is doomed as surely as a static language - if you don't want your country to be the national equivalent of Latin, you may want to start embracing change. What is the obsession with preserving the status quo? Is this time and place so complete and perfect that keeping it immutable is of more value than honoring the rights of others? Literacy seems to be the answer here - if you love the here and now, preserve its memory in writing and pictures, but don't try to fix it in time.

When I do watch the news, I frequently find myself saying what I all too often resort to saying the boys - "don't be a jerk." How many of the world's problems would be resolved if people could just pull the sticks from their asses and mind their own business?