House of mirrors

When Guambat was only little, he quite amused himself in the House of Mirrors at the local fun park. Guambat isn't sure they have those anymore - fun parks or houses of mirrors. But is was funny looking into those mirrors that tended to reflect light in a different way than simply front-on and see how "distorted" a Guambat can look from the various angles. Same Guambat, just different perceptions.

Watching America is something like that. It's a news aggragater that (probably unscientifically and with a bias of one kind or other -- who cares) captures news items from around the world that perceive America in ways Americans probably do not perceive themselves.

It can be embarrassingly accurate, like looking over your shoulder at yourself in the mirror and seeing toilet paper trailing out of your knickers, or wonderfully flattering, like the one that makes you taller and thinner, or amusingly wide of the mark.

From the last category, take a moment to watch this video clip from the Middle East Media Reseach Institute, which discusses the huge excess balance of females over males in America (??) and suggests what America needs is a dose of polygamy: "Indian Imam Dr. Zakir Naik: Polygamy Is the Solution to Homosexuals and the Surplus of Women in New York and around the World".

It's all very useful and instructive as we try to make ourselves understood in the world, and find our place in the global social network. Globablization is, after all, more than a simple marketing exercise by big merchants and bankers, and we cannot let them hijack the stage. It is more importantly a socializing event that results from building roads to the encircling villages.