American thinking of moving to Australia. some questions.

Yes.

Bert Newton.

 

Actually, Bert Newton's toupe.

 

Who asked about blacks and whites?

 

I wonder how Bert house trained that furry little thing?

But then he probably had a lot of practice on Patty.

 

The man who invented the piano.

 

I have to wonder why that guy is still on TV. He's frightening.

 

Bert Newton is frightening - but he fully admits to it. He is one of Australia's most loved icons, and is one of the most talented comedians we've ever produced.

Don't be hating on Bert - he's a legend, even if he looks as scary as an old guy with a moon face, roadkill toupe and a perpetual showbiz grin.

 

He seems to have a problem with smiling. Everytime he smiles he sticks his tongue out. God I hate that.

I don't think he is much of a comedian as I don't find him funny, but icon, yes I guess so. He has been around for many years and is still as popular as ever.

 

See? It's that thing with his tongue when he smiles!!! He can never keep it in his mouth!!!

 

Wink Martindale+Chris Farley

 

Go back in the thread.

 

Did I ask about blacks and whites?

 

You poutin' or spoutin'?

Really, it wasn't a response to your post(s), it was a general observation.

 

My mistake. It looked to me like you were responding to one of my posts.

 

I love Sir Leshttp://sirlespatterson.com/

 

Funny, funny, FUNNY man.

As is his other incarnation - Dame Edna Everage.

 

I don't agree with you on this one. The fact is that racial relations depends on the area in which you live. In typically larger cities like NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, and so on, racial relations are much better. That isn't to say that there are not problems, slums, and crime. But for example- I live in San Francisco. I dated women who were black, Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern. Nobody cared, nor did I. Interracial marriage is quite common here. Racism is for the most part frowned upon.

On the other hand, I grew up in rural Tennessee. While things have improved there by a large margin, races stay pretty much segregated. Additionally, the majority of those who live there are Skotch-Irish descendants who've lived there for 200+ years. They have far less exposure or experience with other races, and that leads to racism and intolerance to some degree, as well as a dislike of anything different or new. But... even so, racism was frowned upon in my family. The majority of people there think racial profiling is a bad thing. Then again there are some bad eggs too who like calling black people ugly names. These types of people, even within my rural community are judged as uneducated and stupid.

I have had friends from Europe, Asia, and other places visit me in California. They are almost always impressed with the racial diversity since more often than not, where they came from there is usually only one race with hardly any diversification ( Like Germany or Sweden for example).

I'd say that the US still offers a considerable advantage for ethnic groups. I can't say that we're a liberal country. Quite the opposite in fact. We're a very conservative country. It took a man like Obama with the best-run campaign in US history, running against the worst-run campaign helmed by the dumbest people ( Mccain and Palin) along with the WORST economic disaster in 70 years to convince people to vote for Obama. That there are that many people here who still think that the last 8 years were fine and dandy is again scary to me and indicates that our country lacks good education. I'm saying this assuming Obama wins. I think he has. But if not...

 

Because the US decided that non-institutional care (community based care) for the mentally ill was better and then failed to fund the services necessary to make that work, we have a large population of mentally ill people who are unable to maintain a home on their own who do indeed become homeless over and over. I'm not sure 'choose to be homeless' is how i would characterize these people -- it is more a case of 'cannot maintain a place to live without considerable help that isn't available'.

 

We also see the opposite of that phenomenon in ex convicts. Unable to function in society, they repeatedly go back into prison's highly structured environment.
The chronically homeless (for lack of a better term) are unable to function in a restrictive environment of a home (apartment),pay bills, clean, etc.so they leave it behind for the less restrictive environment in the street.
I guess it boils down to living where you feel more comfortable.

zi

 

Well...
Looks like I don't have to move to Australia after all. Obama won the election. I apologize to the Australians here if this sounds disgustingly patriotic, but today is the first time in many years that I feel very proud to be an American. I believe that today we proved that we're a place where even if you have a funny name and are a different color- you can succeed. I still want to visit AU someday, so perhaps I will come later and ask travel questions.

 

Perfectly understandable bob - glad it worked out for you.

 

This is when you say "We didn't want you here, anyway."

 

Oh we did want him here, but not for who he is but for what we could make out of him, a rationale human being, because Lord knows Americans lack them

 

Nah, I'm not xenophobic, I wasn't born here, I got naturalised after I went native