Originally Posted by fatbrit (Post 7476179)

"Americans are far from alone in the world, but from the perspective of many young Americans, we might as well be. Most young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 demonstrate a limited understanding of the world beyond their country’s borders, and they place insufficient importance
on the basic geographic skills that might enhance their knowledge."

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ro...gLitsurvey.pdf

Originally Posted by CitySimon (Post 7476312)

While I don't necessarily agree with it, I can understand why a lot of people in the US have a limited understanding of world geography... The US is so huge that most people will not be able to see everything in the country in their lifetime, so why bother with what's outside of the country?

I know people (adults even) who have never even found cause to leave their home state let alone travel outside of the country.

One other suggestion may be that the US is very isolated geographically with regards to the rest of the world (You can position a globe with the only land mass on one entire side being the Americas)... Counter that with the fact that Britain is right on the edge of Europe and has a strong tie to a lot of countries around the world (mainly due to the European expansionism of the 18th and 19th century).

It may be suggested that British people have a higher than normal understanding of world geography due to the history of the country, where as the USA, which also spent a lot of its early history politically isolated from the rest of the world, does not have that background.

Originally Posted by cindyabs (Post 7476256)

it's all this twittering and whittering and texting and socialism.

Originally Posted by Leslie66 (Post 7476398)

What bothers me about the American attitude toward geography (and foreign cultures for that matter) is not so much the ignorance ... we are all ignorant until we learn. What irritates me (about some Americans) is the overwhelming need to yap on WITH AUTHORITY about something that they obviously have no working knowledge of whatsoever. :frown:

Originally Posted by fatbrit (Post 7476453)

Well we have that as well....but it's mainly confined to retired coppers.

Originally Posted by fatbrit (Post 7476449)

In other words its a valid academic study but puts America in a bad light. ;)

Originally Posted by BrightontoBoston (Post 7476989)

I was talking to one of my employees today about the desire of moving back to Oregon (from New York), his answer was 'at least it's closer to the UK.....'
:eek:
:frown:
:rofl:

.....yeah if you ignore the Pacific, Asia, Russia and the rest of Europe!

Originally Posted by BrightontoBoston (Post 7476989)

I was talking to one of my employees today about the desire of moving back to Oregon (from New York), his answer was 'at least it's closer to the UK.....'
:eek:
:frown:
:rofl:

.....yeah if you ignore the Pacific, Asia, Russia and the rest of Europe!

Originally Posted by BrightontoBoston (Post 7476989)

I was talking to one of my employees today about the desire of moving back to Oregon (from New York), his answer was 'at least it's closer to the UK.....'
:eek:
:frown:
:rofl:

.....yeah if you ignore the Pacific, Asia, Russia and the rest of Europe!

Originally Posted by paddingtongreen (Post 7477109)

I don't know the answer to this, but is the flight over the pole, shorter than the "round the landfalls" flight across the Atlantic.

Originally Posted by meauxna (Post 7477118)

I shouldn't have laughed.. my first trip over to Greece was last minute & the 'best' flight I found was PDX-->LAX-->London, talk about all around and about!
LA to London was 13 hours direct. I wasn't pleased to see we were practically retracing PDX-->LAX just to get started.

Originally Posted by BrightontoBoston (Post 7476989)

I was talking to one of my employees today about the desire of moving back to Oregon (from New York), his answer was 'at least it's closer to the UK.....'

Originally Posted by snowbunny (Post 7477135)

weatherwise, possibly?