Why bash America?

For reasons I do not understand, too many of the letter writers these days are not only extremely informed in their opinionated bashing of neighbors, elected officials, and anyone else who doesn't think like they do… but even worse, many are taking pot shots at their homeland, the U.S.A. Part of this negative approach has to come from ignorance, i.e., lack of worldly knowledge. In approaching and solving any complex problem, education can be just as vital as the application of common sense.

Besides reading, observing, and schooling, there is nothing I know that can be more enlightening than travel. Each time I have returned from a trip to a foreign country an over-riding thought is, "How wonderful it is, how lucky we are, to be Americans."

Because some seem to be forgetting that fact, I've dug out a few more news items from other countries:

1. Beggars are everywhere in most third world countries and India has more than enough to go around. A couple of months ago the India Medical Association began looking into television ads bought by three doctors. The ads were promoting low cost amputations which would help the beggars get more sympathy and thus take in more money. One of the doctors said for only $200 he would remove a leg below the knee so it would be easy to fit a prosthetic.

We've discussed other terrible things about India in past columns, such as selling of young girls, religious murders, etc.

2. Late last year, 48-year-old Maria Victoria Torres, was granted the first divorce ever given in the country of Chile. She took advantage of a new national law passed by the Congress over the strong opposition of the Catholic Church. Eighty-seven percent of Chilean citizen consider themselves Catholic. Maria Torres said the divorce ended what she said was "25 years of continued violence." Other countries that do not allow divorce are Malta and the Philippines. Many countries allow divorce but only the man can initiate it.

3. A young couple became parents of triplets at the Moquassed Hospital in East Jerusalem. Mom and the babies did just fine but when it came time to go home, parents couldn't pay the whole maternity bill, so the hospital let them take two of the babies home but kept the third one ransom. After two months a newspaper reporter in Tel Aviv found out about this and an investigation began, rousing public opinion against the hospital.

4. Approximately 5,000 young women between the ages of 18 and 24 have been taken from the former Soviet Union of Moldova and Ukraine in illegal trafficking and sold throughout Turkey where the are sex slaves in a $3.6 billion a year prostitution network. A spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration says the women serve an average of 15 clients a day. The customer pays $150 but the women don't get a penny."

Feb. 1 of this year, the Turkish Government and the international Organization were "looking into the situation."

-GOD BLESS AMERICA-

Will write a happier column next week.