Ugly Americans
Regular Americans will get lumped into the ugly American category because these are the people we advertise, promote, follow, the ones we hold up for all others to admire.
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The term “ugly American” describes an American in a foreign country whose behavior is offensive to the people of that country. It’s a negative stereotype depicting them as loud, arrogant, and culturally insensitive. I saw plenty of them while traveling with my kiddo when we were homeschooling.
Did you know that phrase originated from the 1958 novel "The Ugly American," by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer?
The novel depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia. The book had major political implications. The Peace Corps was established during the Kennedy administration partly as a result of the book.
And while ugly Americans have been around for a long time, it’s been just recently I’ve noticed them more than ever.
Here. At home.
I think it’s American contemporary culture doing it.
People are nasty and rude these days.
It’s difficult to avoid them and I encounter one if not more than one rude and nasty person in a day, depending on where I go.
But it’s hard to miss them reading daily new stories.
Some of them are even portrayed as “heros”.
Our education system since the late nineties has focused on teaching students what to think and not how to think so common decency and any level of morality is nonexistent. Today TeamUSA posters, pictures of the current president, pictures of great American places have been replaced by anti-police posters, Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ pride flags.
Kids don’t have a chance.
Recently, a well known gymnast criticized a well known collegiate swimmer who lost her NCAA title to a boy pretending to be a girl.
The well known gymnast was Simone Biles and the swimmer was Riley Gaines.
Riley Gaines commented about the girls Class AAAA high school State championship:“to be expected when your star player is a boy”.
The star player on the Minnesota State High School league pitched 14 shutout innings in back to back games to defeat the defending state champs.
The star player was a transgender who started “transitioning” at age nine.
So much I could do with that sentence, but I digress.
"You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!" Is what Biles wrote on X.
Then added : "bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male."
The legacy of Simone Biles: lost in an ignorant virtue signaling instant.
If you look at Riley in the photo above, she hardly has the stature of a man, much less a college age boy (the one standing next to her).
Riley, not one to back down when something idiotic has been thrown out there replied:
"This is actually so disappointing. It's not my job or the job of any woman to figure out how to include men in our spaces. You can uplift men stealing championships in women's sports with YOUR platform. Men don't belong in women's sports and I say that with my full chest,"
Once upon a time American athletes were our heroes.
We put images of them on cereal boxes so we as kids could study them while we ate breakfast.
With a combined total of 32 Olympic and World Championships medals, Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast of all time. She too has been on a cereal box, but I’m not sure I’d want my kiddo studying her and I’ll tell you why. When her team was counting on her at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, she ‘stopped doing’ the gymnastics.
She quit.
Left the team swinging in the wind.
She had been expected to waltz off with five golds from Tokyo but in the end she got just one team silver and a bronze in the balance beam.
At a press conference afterward, Biles cited mental health concerns as her reason for pulling out. “I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being,”
She had also cited mental health concerns prior to traveling to the 2020 Olympics and because of that probably should have stayed home and let her rival on the team go in her place, who by the way, filled in for Simone when she couldn’t perform.
She just couldn’t sacrifice for the team and selfishly ruined it for all of them by going.
‘I feel like I’m also not having as much fun - and this Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself and it felt like I was still doing for other people - and that hurts my heart that doing what I love has been taken away from me.’ Simone Biles
What this gal doesn’t seem to understand is that you were supposed to be doing it for other people. Specifically, you were supposed to be doing it for your team, your country, for all Americans, not for yourself, or at least not only for yourself.
Kerri Strug won the gold for Team USA at the 1996 Olympics, vaulting on two torn ligaments in her ankle in one of the most memorable Olympic moments ever. Later she said she did it for her team, her country, and herself. She knew that in order for her team to win, she had to pull it together, mentally and physically, and do the vault.
What Biles experienced wasn’t mental illness, which American media glorified her for her “victimness”, it was something more common among athletes: she got psyched out.
She wasn’t mentally tough when she needed to be and she quit.
American media made her a hero because of it.
Is that a message we want to send to our kids?
Be a quitter and you’ll be a hero?
Won’t that be a confusing disconnect in the kids head?
Kind of screw him up?
Is it what the original Olympians did? Quit?
But that list of ugly are not the only things that makes her an ugly American in my book.
It is that she knows her sport is safe from boys pretending to be girls and she’s said so.
A 2017 tweet about her sport from Biles:
"ahhhh good thing guys don't compete against girls or he'd take all the gold medals !!"
AI generated:
Men do not compete on the balance beam in gymnastics, as this apparatus is designated for female gymnasts. The division of events is influenced by traditional gender norms, with men focusing on apparatuses that emphasize strength rather than grace and flexibility.
Though it might be tough for a boy to pretend to be a gymnast on the balance beam, it could just happen.
Perhaps they’ll alter the balance beam in some way for them…
Might be interesting to watch, transgenders on balance beams…
I know…stop.
Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, an 18-time Grand Slam champion said it best about the tournament Riley Gaines originally commented on:
"But that still doesn't give them the right into women's sex-based spaces. What about the women? What about the girls? Every athlete affects every girl on that pitch, on that playing field. By including male bodies in the women's tournament, now somebody is not getting into the tournament — a woman is not getting in because now a male has taken her place."
In case you don’t remember Martina:
Martina Navratilova, born October 18, 1956 is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world Number one in women's singles for 332 weeks, including as the year-end Number one seven times, and was world Number one in women's doubles for a record 237 weeks. Navratilova won 167 top-level singles titles and 177 doubles titles including an Open Era record 59 major titles. Her nine Wimbledon singles titles are an all-time record.
Athletes & Gratitude
But the ultimate observation that makes Simone Biles an ugly American in my book is her lack of genuine gratitude.
Novak Djokovic is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for a record 428 weeks across a record 13 different years, and finished as the year-end Number one a record eight times. Overall, he has won 100 singles titles, including a record 72 Big Titles and an Olympic gold medal. Djokovic is the only man in tennis history to be the reigning champion of all four majors at once across three different surfaces. In singles, he is the only man to achieve a triple Career Grand Slam, and the only player to complete a Career Golden Masters, a feat he has accomplished twice. Djokovic is the only player in singles to have won all of the Big Titles over the course of his career.
Novak Djokovic made a lot of enemies during the COVID-19 pandemic when he refused to take the vaccine, citing his belief in the freedom to choose what he puts into his body. He could have won even more titles but he was banned in some countries during tournaments because of his vaccination status.
Do you want to know how he starts his day?
How does Novak Djokovic start his day?
Novak starts each day with intention and gratitude. “The very moment I wake up is always a prayer. It’s always an expression of gratitude, first of all, to be alive, to have another chance to live that day,” he shared. This mindful beginning sets the tone for his wellness-driven routine.
It’s how he tends to his mental wellbeing, something Simone Biles might look into.
Another athlete who demonstrates gratitude.
Enes Kanter.
Enes Kanter Freedom played 11 seasons in the NBA, averaging 11.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game over 748 regular-season games.
He legally changed his name to Enes Kanter Freedom to celebrate becoming a US citizen.
The Swiss-born, Turkish-raised Mr. Kanter, recited the oath using his new name. He said the name change will reflect his "fight" for freedom throughout his life.
"Here [in the US] there is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press," he said. "I didn't have any of those with Turkey." Enes Kanter Freedom
He has been criticized and sidelined because he has condemned human rights violations in China and Turkey.
Simone Biles isn’t the only ugly American athlete in my book, there are other athletes and I could write about them as well, but I hope you’re getting my point here.
Gratitude is rare among American athletes these days.
Ugly American Icons
While Bruce Springsteen has made his politics known, a move that generally pisses off half your audience, he has taken ugly American to a new level.
Fueled by TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) “The Boss” aired fabricated American dirty laundry abroad:
Bruce Springsteen has angered Donald Trump supporters after he launched into a blistering attack on the US President during his Manchester concert Wednesday night, calling the current administration "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous" while urging fans to stand against authoritarianism.
The 75-year-old rock legend made the remarks at the opening of his European tour at Manchester's Co-op Arena, where he delivered one of his most forceful political statements to date. Bruce Springsteen, 75, faces 'RETIREMENT' calls from furious Trump fans as he unleashes blistering US President attack at UK show
In his hey-day, I saw Springsteen at least five times. He used to be all about the middle class American and now he’s a hypocritical elitist promoting crazy leftist ideas.
He should have retired and disappeared when he held all American hearts.
Now he appears to be an angry old man sadly spewing ideas most of America isn’t interested in - on a world stage.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Springsteen express genuine gratitude.
Go away Bruce.
And did anyone miss the Nerd’s wedding in Venice?
Once an unknown book hawker, now one of the cool kids.
The Bezos wedding in Venice.
Was there ever a more ugly, crass crowd of Americans to descend on a place?
The illustration for the original phrase “ugly American”.
Aren’t there “magical places” in the United States for a multimillion dollar wedding?
One wonders why an American entrepreneur like Bezos would consider throwing his billions away in Italy when fledgling American businesses could have enjoyed the attention and income.
One wonders.
With as extravagant as it was and with the bride wearing white, you’d think it was their first wedding and they were virgins or something.
Yuck is all I can say about this current event.
Oh, and crass would be another word.
Yuck is what Venetians said too.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's Venetian wedding continues to be targeted by local protestors.
On Wednesday, June 25, protestors placed a dummy in Bezos’ likeness in a Venice canal. The dummy, which clutched onto a large rectangular Amazon box and held fistfuls of cash, was dressed in a blue Amazon worker’s jumpsuit.
The figure floated in the canal past gondolas and groups of tourists. Protestors Push Jeff Bezos Dummy, Clutching an Amazon Box and Fistfuls of Cash, Into Venice Canal amid Wedding Protests
The rest of the world sees us.
Regular Americans will get lumped into the ugly American category because these are the people we advertise, promote, follow, the ones we hold up for all others to admire.
But do we really admire them?
These are manufactured heroes created and promoted by contemporary American media.
Ugly Americans need to demonstrate a whole lot more of genuine gratitude. But they won’t.
They are not our heroes and I imagine most of us don’t admire them.
Narcissism runs rampant these days with our athletes and icons.
People toss around the idea of “gratitude” pretty casually without really understanding what it means or involves.
To use my simple definition.
Gratitude requires that you understand how you landed where you did in a situation and that you appreciate the good stuff, regardless of the outcome.
You’re happy with what you have and don’t dwell on what you don’t.
You’re proud of what you’ve accomplished and don’t focus on what you haven’t.
Whether you are 25, 30 or 60, aging is about mastery not decline.
Age gratefully.
We live in the greatest country in the world.
I once had a neighbor who had to be in industrial China for a whole month, when he returned, getting out of the cab, he kissed the ground, literally.
How about you?
Are you grateful?
Adulting Part Six: Gratitude
If you practice being grateful you will be less stressed, less angry and happier. You will be civil; you’ll encourage civility towards you because generally people are not mean to grateful creatures.
Did you mean to share this on Canada Day? :)
Agree 👍
It is the work of the devil.