Get Out the Huge Foam Finger

Well, At Least It's Something!

Sometimes, I get really, really tired of people around the world bashing the good ol' U.S. of A. It seems that this country takes hits from everybody about everything that's wrong with the world (O.K. I will admit we DID send Jersey Shore to Italy). Every year, the academic ratings of countries around the world come out, and we always fare abysmally. At last count, 15-yr.-olds in America ranked 19th in science knowledge and 24th in math knowledge among first and second world nations reporting in. It's no secret that we lag behind the heavy-handed, strict approach to education that is featured in many places around the world. We always seem to rank right up there in the category of self-confidence, though, and that should count for something.
We have world champions in football and baseball (though sometimes not in basketball or hockey), and we dominate in track and field, even though it's not generally thought of as a big-money career for aspiring athletes.
I will also admit that we have become something of an embarrassment in political and financial circles as we have developed a political system that will NEVER compromise but instead snipe at the opposition no matter what the position; we also have an economic system that is so skewed (and broke) that in the near future, there will be no such thing as a middle class: the class that made America a world leader. Instead, we'll have the haves and the have-nots...I wonder if anyone has read A Tale of Two Cities lately.
But all of that notwithstanding, we remain world leaders in one category, according to Badooo.com...and that is "cool." The social networking analysts surveyed 30,000 from 15 foreign countries to find out which country these individuals thought to be the most cool. Overwhelmingly, the respondents chose America.
Just so we're clear, "cool" can be defined as "...an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment and style."
That's us, alright...and I would not be surprised if Snooki had something to do with the vote.