The Global village

We live in a Global village. I am sitting here in north London, at the comfort of my home and I can see an oil pipe gushing into the Gulf of Mexico in real time [I hear they capped it but I don't believe them, they just changed the video feed]. Moreover, I can actually be there in less than 24 hours if I choose to and I wouldn't even need to mortgage my house to afford it. And, most importantly, I am not unique. More than a billion people can view the pipe on the Internet and about 1/2 a billion can afford the trip to Miami. So, as I said, we live in a Global village. But do we? Really?

MGF M&D were over for lunch today. D works for a major news network. One of the big American ones. He works in the London office which is now known as the International office and as of tomorrow the office is going from 24/7 to 9-5. You see, the network's viewers are mostly American. It appears that they are leaving in droves, which means advertising revenues are down and the network cannot afford such luxuries as reporting about things happening outside the US.

Now you may be thinking [not that you ever will but, to be honest, I may be thinking]: "Off course. These Americans are narrow-minded arrogant bastards who cannot see beyond the end of their noses!" And I would say, you [or in this case I] are absolutely right. I would however suggest that the same is true for most of us.

Now, you may call me a snob [not that you ever will] but I consider myself in the top 50% of broad-minded people. And still, the only reason I know the name of the Governor of California - one of the world's 20 biggest economies - is that he was the Terminator. The Japanese Prime Minister? I have no idea. I Googled it and it names Naoto Kan, but I am not sure if there were elections since that Guardian article. How much do I know about the US in the last decade? Bush, 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, Obama, the Great Recession. That's about it. No wonder that the only thing most Americans know about the UK in recent history is that Princess Di died in a car crash.

So, even though, in theory, we live in a Global village, although we can all find information just about anything, anywhere, the reality is we just cannot be bothered.

PS 720km down. 280km to go.