Ah, the wee little countries. So cute, so prone to invasion!
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Yes, that’s about right. You have to keep in mind that especially in the countryside people are - and always have been - far less mobile. Of course no part of the country is really remote, but an hour’s drive is plenty to see significant changes in attitude and identity.
That reminds me of that one time we visited a coworker in his small hometown nearby and one of the other locals mistook his Chinese wife for Japanese. When it was explained to him that to a Chinese person that was as bad as it was for him to be mistaken for someone from the Palatinate half an hour away, he apologized profusely.
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The Outback is a term used by deejays here for the area just beyond the suburbs. You would be amazed at how sudden the change can be.
Or maybe not. Think of Austin, Texas and the county surrounding it.
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Weird.
In Oz, the Outback is the bit behind the farmland. From Sydney CBD, a couple of hours driving will get you into “the country”; dairy farming, croplands, etc.
After a couple of days’ solid driving, “the country” gradually fades into “the bush”; scrubland instead of manicured pastures. Beyond that is “the outback”; desert and rocks.
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Yeah, the term is pretty modern, and its usage is both humorous and derogatory (calling those not in Munich city limits hicks) and I think it’s also a fond homage to the many Australian tourists and expats. I’m pretty sure it was Radio Charivari that started the term.
I don’t think that racial homogeneity is necessary to create a “happy and successful liberal society”. But I do think that a shared culture supportive of tolerance, freedom of thought and expression, and the rule of law is necessary.
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I lived in the Netherlands for eight great years. I usually describe the Dutch as tolerant rather than liberal, but possibly under the American definition of ‘liberal’ it may be correct. The Dutch and Germans have liberal political parties, in the classic sense, ie small government, but they don’t get many votes
Because at least in this case the costume needs a touch more work, but at least it’s de-racist-ified.
[quote=“jsroberts, post:137, topic:89630”]It’s also a reason why I don’t think that the size of the gender wage gap necessarily says anything definitive about inequality. Of course some factors are related to sexism, but others are because not everyone sees a high income as something to aim for.
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That doesn’t follow though, accounting for the same hours there’s still a wage gap between women and men (and it gets worse if you add race to the mix. At least in the U.S., The “74 cents a dollar” is only for white women, it gets even worse if you happen to not look/sound/be European)
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The US Census class ‘Hispanic or Latino’ is a cultural group, separate from racial categories.
‘Hispanics’ can be of any race. In the Census, most identify as ‘Hispanic White’, so you will often see “Non-Hispanic White” called out separately. (Most Hispanics who don’t identify as “White” identify as “Other.”)
The numbers from Wolfram Alpha, sourced from the CIA Factbook, seem to include Hispanics in the various racial groups’ totals, as well as breaking them out separately.
Add up *just* the race categories, and it’s very close to 100%
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I see that kind of response from a certain, uh, demographic in the US quite often.
“Sure we should lock up Muslims - we did it to the Japanese!” THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT OK!
“Well, maybe we have a problem with firearms, but Somalia is worse!” YOU REALLY WANT TO COMPARE YOURSELF TO A SHITHOLE WITH NO FUNCTIONAL GOVERNMENT!?
“You say Trump is bad, but look at Pol Pot and Rwanada!” SEE ABOVE!
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Funny. I came across the same thing recently in Georgia (USA) - everything shuts around 9pm. Restaurants, malls, takeaway places, everything. It’s bizarre.
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Everybody does this. It is much easier to downplay your own issues if someone else’s look worse. (It is also much easier to see the warts of others.) We wear our race issues on our sleeve and are always in the international spotlight, so provide an easy distraction for people in other countries.
Once almost 30 years ago I was at a party in northern Norway where I was subjected to a long harangue by someone about how racist the US was. While nothing he said was false, that very day Norway had cut an oil deal with (still-apartheid) South Africa, and everyone else in the room was not only whiter than white, they could all have shared the same DNA.
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And of course, that ideology regarding taxes has been promulgated by and for the ultra-rich, but everyone thinks that they are the victim of gubmint wasting mah tax dollars. They don’t see that for every dollar they claw back from taxation, Herbert J Porky III, owner of Porky Combined Enterprises is saving a thousand.
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I’m talking about when you compare two countries, not men and women. We’re used to hearing the 74% statistic, but this is what Europe looks like:
It’s not a simple truth, it’s actually quite complex. Some aspects of the gender do indicate actual inequality, especially when you consider race. Every country has a problem with inequality. But the 74% statistic is misleading and implies that in a fair society, it would be 100% (even though it definitely should be higher than it is). (Incidentally, men who look different also get paid a lot less, so it makes sense to isolate gender as a factor). A lot points to children, since much of the difference happens in the 30s, and the gap is much lower for women without children. Traditionally, this is the point when men are expected to put in more time and effort at work to support their families, and the data shows men’s wages increasing and women’s decreasing when you add kids as a factor. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the women involved, or a good thing for the men. Some is down to choice of profession. Some is due to negotiation. Some is due to the fact that full time work could mean 35 or 80 hours. Some is an artefact from previously greater inequality, since you have people who started working 40+ years ago.
None of these factors are fixed - even though single men and women without children earn practically the same, it isn’t fair that this is the only condition under which women can be equal, and the cost to a woman’s income when she has kids shouldn’t be accepted wholesale, even if it can be explained. However, when you look at differences in the unadjusted wage gap between European or other countries, I don’t think it necessarily says anything definitive about which has more inequality. Some relates to the life choices people make when they are not forced to make income their overriding concern, and the differences between different countries in this regard.
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I don’t think ‘outback’ is a good translation of ‘Hinterland’ even though it looks like it ought to be. We often just use the German as a loanword.
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It’s not a translation, it’s a word the Münchner borrowed from English. As in “Die Blitzer heute in München und im Outback: an der Peteulring, an Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz, und in Krailling kurz vor der Autobahn”. From there it’s moved into normal conversation. “München ist zu teuer, da kaufen lieber ein Haus im Outback für den Geld”.
In other words, as I used it was local slang. An American equivalent would be “the boonies”.
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But that’s okay, because it’s just the Jews, amiright? /sarcasm. It’s not like the antisemitism there is so bad that insurance companies won’t offer policies for Jewish daycares for children and toddlers because the odds of an attack (and therefore a payout) are seen as too high. EDIT: Wrong country, mea culpa. I currently have too much blood in my caffeine stream.
Saying that a society isn’t racist right before pointing out that one community within that society is at high risk of attack for being different is essentially saying, “They’re not racist, but…”
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Needing police protection for a group is pretty well indicative of a problem.
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Your link is from Belgium, not the Netherlands, and it says that the insurance company considers that kindergarten a high risk because of the attacks by French jihadists, not because the Netherlands (or Belgium) is particularly antisemitic.
The refusal to insure the kindergarten comes less than a year after the terror attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, in which a French jihadist opened fire at the museum entrance, killing four people including an Israeli couple. That attack in May 2014, followed by the January killings at the kosher supermarket in Paris, have prompted insurance companies to regard Jewish institutions as high risk.
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