Talk:United States/Archive 10

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More American History to be added

I recently watched the film "The Corporation" and it repeated a little remembered story about an attempted coup in the US - I thought you might want to include it somewhere in the American History Section, and perhaps have links from Fascism section as well.

J P Morgan and a group of financiers were prepared to spent up to $300 Million in 1934 to stage a coup, using over 500,000 ex-servicemen. The plot was foiled [Smeadley D Butler] testifying in Congress.

The below quote from http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/morgan3.htm - I don't know how correct the whole article is regarding it's point of view, however the film repeated details from this page. FRom what I can see it's OK to quote from that site if attributed to them http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/intro.htm#fdr

quote from page------

On Nov. 21, The New York Times, a paper that Heywood Broun once described as ``black with the shoepolish of Morgan, took the lead in this campaign, with a front-page two-column article under the headline: ``General Butler Bares `Fascist Plot' to Seize Government by Force. Having already put the words `fascist plot' in quotes, the paper led with:

A plot of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt and establish a fascist dictatorship backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, was charged by Major General Smedley D. Butler, retired Marine Corps officer, who appeared yesterday before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which began hearings on the charges.

end quote------


The Great Satan

While "colourful" and a joke to some degree, the addition in the names' section was not without good reason. The article needs at least a short section on foreign policy and perception of the USA by others - which is the section such a name would obviously seamlessly fit in... Refdoc 21:53, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Even as a joke, "The Great Satan" is not a "good example" of the range of responses to US foreign policy. Another example showing "uninhibited admiration" might balance the article and restore NPOV, but I really don't think that giving a couple of extreme examples helps very much. I would strike the example. Rick 17:22, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As it is the joke bit was putting it into the first line - to see how long it would last. The place now is meant very seriously and is in my opinion a necessary addition. There are few countries which provoke such massive reactions in all directions - well maybe Israel. The Soviet Union at its heyday - maybe. Nazi Germany - only towards the negative I would presume.
"The Great Satan" is not just a colourful epithet - well it is in Western Eyes/Ears, but the phrase it is part of the political discourse in the Middle East and it neeeds to be mentioned if the impact and the image of the USA foreign policies is discussed. I do not understand why you would want to balance it. It is quite a unique thing and there is probably no 'balancing' epithet around - unless you want to become all contrived. Refdoc 22:53, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it is utterly irrelevant whether people in the USA like being called "Great Satan" or not as the paragraph is about thh image of the USA abroad, not about the impact of the image abroad. If you feel this is a necessary addition - reaction of the USA population to the perception - positive and negative - aborad,then it should be addded in a more complete manner. Refdoc 09:49, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To put in my two bits on this debate: As an American, I find that epithet to be extremely offensive, inflammatory, and inappropriate, as currently used in the article, and possibly in violation of Wikipedia style. With regard to what would be the appropriate context, I believe it should be put in the Anti-Americanism article, since the term "Great Satan" is simply the most extreme example of anti-Americanism.
Does anti-americain sentiment not have direct bearing on international relations? I find it to be interesting, although I do not believe that america is the great satan, I believe the great satan is ignorance.
As another American, I don't find it offensive at all. When a mentally disturbed person walks down the street muttering things, I don't worry "oh, he might be speaking the truth". In a like manner, for people in the Middle East to use a term in their own languages that translates to "Great Satan" says more to me about those people in the Middle East than it says anything about the world's oldest democracy. All sorts of people in the Middle East say all sorts of things. So what? But really, Great Satan deserves its own article, with copious references to and from articles about the current government in Iran which not only coined the phrase, but which is also despised by many of its own oppressed people. brassrat


There is no need to clog up a general article on the United States with such loaded terms. To put this in perspective, UK citizens would be offended if the British English page equated Received Pronunciation with being homosexual, which is a common perception in the United States (on Saturday Night Live, one comedian once said about Tony Blair: "Is he English?" and the other responded: "No, he's gay." [uproarious laughter]).
Frankly, I think Refdoc is nuts. But I'm too busy---with certain personal matters and with trying to cool down an edit war with another wacko on another page---to risk getting into an edit war on this one.
--Coolcaesar 09:18, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be a lot better if you would not use personal attacks. Apart from this - If you have a look at the history, the article was already concerned with the image of the USA abroad. So I expanded on this and used the one most (in)famous term. It certainly appears a going concern rather than a matter for the lunatic fringe. Why else are gazillions of books and articles written on "Why do they hate us?"[1] and [2] ? If this offends you or other Americans , than so be it. I have not said that I think so or that the term is Wikipedia endorsed or similar nonsense , but simply stated a fact - The USA arouse strong feelings abroad, positive + negative, the one most famous example is xyz" Refdoc 11:45, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As an American, I have no problem with such an inclusion. If folks abroad really do refer to the U.S. as "The Great Satan", this should be included in the article, even if it's only to be given a brief sentence. It isn't as though someone's trying to put an image of Uncle Sam with devil-horns at the top of the page. And even if he/she were, I wouldn't be offended, nor would I understand how anyone else could take offense to it. We're all just Homo sapiens after all; nationalities are incidental and meaningless. Countries and kingdoms and nations are only lines on maps anyway. It's not like they really mean anything. --Corvun 05:29, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of talkpages

There is something profoundly wrong when people delete discussion from the talkpages, using as an explanation "leftist crap" Refdoc 00:39, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A 9-year old's thoughts on the President are not appropriate for this talk page, Refdoc. - Calmypal 01:04, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
That isn't your decision to make, Calmypal. Even if the comment was in poor taste, it was relevant, as were the responses and the replies to the responses. Just as the comment itself may be "leftist crap", so is its removal "rightwing cowardice". Those of us who saw no reason to delete it can only be left to assume that something about the comment makes you extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps you know that the Bush administration is guilty of terrorism, and are uncomfortable with someone calling attention to this fact -- as it paints Bush's supporters as hypocrites for simultaneously supporting both this "war on terror" and the acts of terrorism commited by the Bush administration for which this "war" is a pathetically transparent guise, as well as (and more simply) supporters of terrorism. Normally I would make no such suggestion, but these constant acts of selective censorship lead to no other plausible conclusion. --Corvun 03:54, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Legal vs. Popular Names for National Leaders

I don't want to get into an edit war, but it seems to me that the proper reference for national leaders for all countries in Wikipedia should be their actual name, not their popular name (i.e., Richard Cheney vs. Dick Cheney). I know that the actual Wikipedia article is titled "Dick Cheney" and that's probably OK since that is how people will first think of him, but his legal name is Richard Cheney. In fact, this is the citation used in other reference materials (e.g., see infoplease almanac United States entry). Earpol 10:02, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware the concept of a "legal name" is not universal. In my country, for instance, my name is whatever I want to call myself. On US government figures, everybody calls Jimmy Carter by that name and everybody knows Dick Cheney by that name. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:46, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political Parties Vs. Political Ideologies

There is a difference between political parties and political ideologies. Ideologies compete for the same name space, but use the same words in a more technical sense. Also, ideologies occupy two dimensions, not one. Edit wars start when someone who doesn't understand these facts confuses an ideological term with a political term and decides it is "too general". --Dbabbitt 10:45, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is some propaganda near the top about Russia and Bush that should be deleted.

I've posted a message at Image talk:Political Ideologies.png outlining some of my concerns about Image:Political Ideologies.png. Figured that doesn't have much visibility, so I'm posting a note here. Rhobite 22:58, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
For the great reasons mentioned at Image talk:Political Ideologies.png, I'm moving it off the main page. --Dbabbitt 14:00, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"United States" and "U.S."

There are specific usages for these terms. The abbreviation "U.S." should *only* be used as an adjective, such as "U.S. dollar." In noun form, the country must always be spelled out as "the United States." Never refer to the country as "the U.S.;" that may be common in slang usage, but it is considered improper in writing.

Abbreviations are a form of slang that can only be used as adjectives. Gotcha. Likewise, "Aren't I?" should be used instead of "Ain't I?", because the correct answer to the question would be "Yes, I are", and not the ungrammatical "Yes, I am" ("Ain't" being a variation on "Am't", the contraction of "am not"). See, because "ain't" is non-standard.
Call me crazy here, but if we're going to be so linquistically pedantic, we should at least strive for sensical pedantry. -- King of the Pedants, Corvun 00:58, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Corvun: The use of United States as a noun and U.S. as an adjective is standard in most style guides: NY Times, AP, Chicago Manual (used in book publishing), etc. Those of us who are professional copy editors and proofreaders like the distinction. Of course, we have a bigger bone to pick with Wikipedia: the substandard English found in many articles by contributors whose mother tongue is not English. Horrendous errors of syntax, grammar, spelling, and punctuation are ubiquitous.

You say that you are a copy editor and proofreader: so, edit the places where you see problems. that is the whole point about wikipedia, you contribute what you can. you don't say that you are an author, you say that you are a copy editor and proofreader. Otherwise, it is better that someone contribute even if they have some rough edges, if their contribution is otherwise an improvement. brassrat

I do that, Brassrat—I often edit one English Wiki article each day to fix punctuation, syntax, and spelling. Some people take offense and revert my edits. (I also contribute articles in English, French, and German, and don't mind if someone alters my writing, especially in French and German.)

ok, that's fine, but of course i misunderstood because that's not what you wrote... see any parallels? :) Peace. Brassrat 14:51, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Move page

To United_States_Of_America ?

Er, no. See above. older≠wiser 19:14, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Fix needed.

" The United States country also a collection of overseas territories and possessions around the world" SOrry I'm too tired to do this, can someone else please? Manty thanks. Rich Farmbrough 19:06, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Notes

In the notes section, it reads: "^1 In the English-speaking world, America has become synonymous with the nation of the United States while American refers to United States (U.S.) citizens; this is a standard usage not in only the U.S. itself, but also Australia." Why does it mention just Australia? I'm sure that heaps of countries use "American". Is it supposed to be like this? Rainer 10:31, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Kilometers vs. Miles in Infobox

Wikipedia:Standardize_Spellings set a precedent that all info should have a bias toward the country that the article concerns. Shouldn't, therefore, the area of the United States be changed to miles, since this is the de facto system of the country? It's 5,984,686 sq. miles by the way.

It's stupid, since the "English System" used in America is quite costly to scientists who have to convert. But that's the precedent we've set on Wikipedia and I think we should follow our precedents.

Juppiter 20:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I concur that square miles should be added. A lot of the people creating infobox templates have been inserting sq. km as a default unit on the end for the area field, which is kind of insensitive to us Americans. For one clever way to get around this and squeeze in miles along with kilometers, go look at the City infobox template as implemented on the Los Angeles page.

--Coolcaesar 11:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't care, except I had 40+ people tell me that articles should be regionally biased.

Juppiter 04:31, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Bias toward the country" means we don't say "This is an awful place", or other things like that. Things like distances and areas are generally part of factual information, which does not involve bias.

The "metric system" is the worldwide standard measurement system. It is used by everyone outside the U.S., some people inside, and all scientists, pharmacists, etc. It is also the official measurement system in the U.S. The U.S. measurement system is used by some people inside the U.S. and no one outside it. So the question of units is not one of bias, but one of "Is this information ONLY for U.S. residents?"

Certainly, include U.S. units as another option, but km and the like are what the whole world has standardized on, and what Wikipedia should use.

-- Nowhither 23:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The vast majority of people in the US have no idea how big a kilometer is, and the vast majority of the people outside the US have no idea how big a mile is. Unless the information is intended to be read only by one group or the other, we must include both. - Nat Krause 05:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The U.S. measurement system is used by some people inside the U.S. and no one outside it.
Some people in the U.S. use the English (now better called the U.S. system, I suppose) system?? Like it or hate it, not only does nearly everyone (apart from recent immigrants) use the U.S. system, most people - certainly the great majority of native-born U.S. citizens - have no strong concept of the Metric system (they may know a km is shorter than a mile, but not by how much). Please don't understate the case. Moncrief 05:09, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Is there a reason we can't simply have both? Also, this little battle where people swap "500 km (300 miles)" for "300 miles (500 km)" is petty. It doesn't matter which is chosen, as long as it's consistent. Dpark 06:00, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we should have both mi. and km. As of 2005, a large nation of 295 million people has not yet adopted the metric system. It's a fact, and we Americans still live in miles, degrees Fahrenheit, feet and inches. We can give both figures in U.S.-related articles. What's the problem? Mason.Jones

It looks unprofessional to have both. That's why I thought spellings should be standardized. People insisted on making that about nationalism, unfortunately, so we're stuck looking like children spelling words all kinds of different ways. If that's the official policy of wikipedia, so should be using both miles and kilometers (and I say this purely out of spite, there is no reason why measurements should be standardized in what's more commonly used, but spellings should not. I think it's just the wikipedia aristocracy getting its way as usual. Juppiter 00:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'd say it looks unprofessional to fail to provide the U.S. standard units in an article about the United States. I'm willing to grant that we should prefer metric in most (all?) articles. In fact, I'd say we should present metric first in this article as well, but completely omitting the units Americans are most comfortable with in an article about America seems inappropriate. I'm also in favor of standardizing on a single spelling style. (I'd prefer American, of course, since I'm American, and so is Wikipedia.) -- Dpark 01:23, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Also, here's the Measurements Debate, for anyone who cares to look.

This article should have miles, first and foremost. As a second option it should also have kilometers. It's absolutely ridiculous for it to only have a unit of measurement nobody but a tiny minority actually use in this country. DreamGuy 02:33, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

If anything, it is more professional to have both since it serves both parties who use it. Everything in this article should use the American system and have kilometers in parentheses. --tomf688(talk) 03:03, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Since no one seems to have any objections, I say we add U.S. units. I'll do it within a few days if no one else does so first. -- Dpark 15:33, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's the best option. Americans rarely use metric units (and often can't convert English units to metrics). Americans also prefer U.S. spellings such as honor, capitalize, and lackluster—and would expect them in articles about New Orleans, Mariah Carey, and brownies. The Brits have long adopted metrics and are comfortable with them; the British spellings honour, capitalise and lacklustre are standard in the U.K., and would be appropriate in articles about Liverpool, Elton John or Yorkshire pudding. The point: unlike other Wiki language sites, English Wikipedia can't standardize everything. English units are indispensable in U.S.-related articles. Use consistent spelling and punctuation within an article (official Wiki style), but with two big English-language groups sharing English Wikipedia, we should accommodate and not irritate.Mason.Jones 03:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Isolationism and Imperialism

there seems to be a revert/unrevert going on over the phrasing about US Foreign policy wavering between isolationism and imperialism. Although I suggest it be rephrased and expanded, from a historical view this can be judged as somewhat uncontroverted. There is a period essentially in the late 1880s and early 1900s where patterns commonly refered to as "Empire" where somewhat a part of US policy and there was even an "Anti-Imperial League" at the time (included Mark Twain, William James and Andrew Carnegie) over the Philippines. Of course, like anything there are counter-points and other views on this, but it would be fair to say that the expansion and creation of "Territories" which some would say were colonial in nature was similar to what the British called an Empire.

Possible sources: http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/INTA/R_0020_5850_1117_1004595.asp

Beisner, Robert L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Imperialism, 1860-1898. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963.

Tompkins, E. Berkeley. Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890-1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.

http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/anti-imperial.html "Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League (October 18, 1899)."

--Reboot 2005, April 14, 9:17pm EST

The map on religion needs to be removed

--I think having a map showing major religious affiliations in the U.S. is a great idea, but the one that's on here now is completely unintelligible. It really contains no useful information at all, and will likely be misunderstood by most of the people who see it. The map portrays places like West Virginia and Colorado as being far less religious than states like Massachusetts or New Jersey. Anyone not too familiar with the U.S. will be greatly misled by this map, and I believe we should have one showing majority populations of individual religions/denominations. Unless anyone can give serious reasons to leave this particular map on here, I think I'll remove it in a few days. --Jleon 15:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It's just a bunch of random colors representing alleged claimed percentages of religious belifes, but not what kind or anything useful. The source of the data is highly questionable. It's also under copyright, and while the the fair use declaration is certainly arguable, it is not ideal. DreamGuy 21:54, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Portal

Someone removed the United States portal link from the top of the page. I'm curious who's in favor of the portal and who's against it. I think the portal needs a little work (the blue is a bit harsh to my eyes), but it's promising, and could be useful. Who thinks we should add the link back? And who thinks it should stay off? -- Dpark 19:08, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I am against the portal. There are enough ways to point to other related items, like wikilinks, external links in the text and the whole separate section on links. No need to duplicate this in a newspaper style portal. Additionally this particular portal is a rather haphazard and overly decorated choice of references. It does not fit in wiki style. −Woodstone 19:23, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
  • The portal is ok by me, but perhaps a bit redundant. If there's a link to it in the U.S. article it really shouldn't be in the intro. --Jleon 19:27, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The portal looked rather cluttered and silly where it was put. I am getting rather sick of all the wiki-media/-source/-whatever being crammed into every article (tons of boxes everywhere). If it is put into this article, with the ugly tiny box it is in now, it should be stuffed near the bottom somewhere, not at the top. Ideally, somebody at wikimedia central should cook up some default links for all these offshoots and thingamabobs that are related but not directly relevant to the article so that they show up unobtrusively elsewhere on the page instead of crammed into the article text itself. DreamGuy 21:36, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

So basically, no one really wants it. Those of you who are neutral definitely don't want it at the top. I just asked yesterday, so others might chime in later. If it's decided that no one really wants it, we can just leave it off. If enough people chime in to say they want it, we can put it somewhere further down, I suppose. -- Dpark 12:13, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I readded the portal link before reading this. It would seem that your portal is falling into disuse, maybe the link to it will attract some more collaborators... -MarSch 15:00, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I've moved the portal down to "external links" as a compromise. It doesn't really fit there, but it looks like no one really wants it at the top. If anyone can find a more fitting place, by all means, move it there. -- Dpark 20:17, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, since it's a link into the Wikipedia namespace, I think it qualifies as an external link, so I guess it does belong there. -- Dpark 20:19, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Official Language

I noticed someone had removed "and a percentage of Spanish" from the "official language" entry of the infobox. I was going to add it back (perhaps worded differently, because it's awkward as is), but decided I should just ask what everyone else thinks. This has been discussed before (check the archives if you want). But it doesn't look like anyone really resolved it.

The facts(-ish):

  • There is no "official" language.
  • While English enjoys the widest use by far, 10% of the population speak Spanish in the home.
  • All government documents are in English. (So far as I know.)
  • All public schools are required to teach English. (I believe.)

My question is what do we want to call the "official language", since there really isn't one? Do we go with what's widely spoken? And thus put Spanish back in the box? Or do we go with what the government uses? And thus only list English?

The listing of Spanish seems to come and go arbitrarily depending on who stops by the page. It'd be nice to have an reasonable consensus. -- Dpark 13:07, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The "official language" entry should say "none", since there is no official language. Why is this so hard? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 13:55, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, as Languages in the United States notes, in several states English, Hawaiian and Spanish are official (so really the question is does the infobox in the US page refer only to the federal govt, or to state and local govts' definitions of official too?). As [3] this article notes, other states have declared English their official language. The only place I know of where English isn't the de-facto official language is El Cenizo, Texas (and that's an old news story, I don't know if it's still valid). -- 14:00, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and now that I think on it, aren't the prevailing tribal languages official on various native-american reservations? -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 14:00, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Because at the very least, the government conducts business in some written language. It makes sense to me to at least acknowldge that. -- Dpark 16:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

CIA World Factbook can be taken as reasonably authoritative on the US government's position as it's a US government publication. No official language is listed for United States, whereas for Philippines we have "two official languages - Filipino (based on Tagalog) and English; eight major dialects - Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocan, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinense".

So I think the "official language" shouldn't be included in the infobox for United States, but the fact that government business is conducted overwhelmingly in English only, while there is a substantial minority Spanish-speaking population, should be noted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:14, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is the trouble with infoboxes (as with all kinds of form-filling): it really wants a one-word answer, but reality demands an complex and nuanced paragraph. The United Kingdom page (which has exactly the same problem) solves it with a footnote; I think the US should do likewise. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 14:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Factbook didn't actually skip the "Languages" section, though. It says "English, Spanish (spoken by a sizable minority)". It doesn't call them official, but provides the info nonetheless. Maybe we should do the same. How difficult would it be to modify the infobox template so that it doesn't call them official unless they actually are? I still feel we need something there, because the government uses English to conduct business in.
The style used on the UK page is possible, as John Fader pointed out. In any event, the factbook does seem to give support to the idea that if we include English, we should also include Spanish. -- Dpark 16:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the appearance of an Official languages field in the infobox is the cause of the problem. Replace that by Languages and then each of the three-dozen articles currently using Template:Infobox Country can be edited accordingly to reflect the new semantics. But this should be discussed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries, not here, and the proposed change should be publicised adequately. If substantial opposition should occur and it is not possible to resolve differences easily, perhaps we would have to list it on Wikipedia:Current surveys. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:15, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm making a couple of attempts at a footnote; please check it and edit as necessary. --Golbez 17:26, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

While there is no official languge, the languges of English, Spanish and French are all official and/or spoken regionally in different states.These three languges are also recognized by the government and passports are issued in these languges. Perhaps we should state that english is the de facto languge of governments and business while, Spanish and French are regional. Hawaiian is also official in Hawaii. (Spanish primarily in Florida, New Mexico, Arizona Texas and California) (French spoken regionally in Louisiana) (Mac Domhnaill 18:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC))

Minor holiday problem

The table about holidays implies that government organizations observe Martin Luther King Jr Day, President's Day, and Colombus Day. Some do, but many, including schools, do not. Are there statistics on the matter that anyone knows about? President's and Colombus Days are, in my experience, extinct holidays. The table makes it seem like they are not.

They aren't extinct as far as the federal government is concerned. We should perhaps mention that these are holidays that the government recognizes, but private citizens and businesses are not required to observe them. It also mentions they are federal holidays. And it does say that not all schools observe them. Do you have a specific complaint? --Golbez 03:29, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

I happen ot highly disagree with them being only minor holidays, as in school i have always recieved all those holidays off, and i have never heard of anyone not getting President's day off, i can accept that MLK day and Columbus day are not recognied, but in my experience Presidents day has always been recognized. (Mac Domhnaill 18:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC))

Photographs

Any consensus for adding photographs of "typical" (as much as such a thing is possible) vistas and views and sights of the U.S. to this article? It's nice to have the Bill and Rights and George Washington, but those photos are a bit static and I like the idea of adding photos that aren't so "official" - a main street in a town, perhaps, or something along those lines. See New York City's article for an example of what I'd consider dynamic photos that enhance an article. Moncrief 05:14, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree; how about a picture of, perhaps, a football game? The NYSE trading floor? --Golbez 21:47, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
Totally. Either of those would work in the appropriate section. Moncrief 22:06, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Culture

The section on Culture seems to be focused on exported popular culture, rather than on American culture as experienced within the country. And, it mentions Seattle several times: I like Seattle a lot, but it has not had much influence on American culture. Whereas, for example, Californian culture (and I'm not writing this as a fan) has had a huge influence and it is not really mentioned. brassrat

I agree with user:brassrat. The culture section is focused on exported culture in TV and movies. The US is a diverse place and there should be a section titled Regional Culture. Please user:Golbez stop vandalizing and deleting the Regional Culture section. Can we get a sys admin to stop Golbez?

Hey, 67.123.172.188, sorry if I called your additions "useless," but Golbez didn't vandalize anything: your additions weren't even really about "culture," you basically just mentioned different church denominations and said that Northerners are called Yankees. I agree with Brassrat too, but your stuff didn't really cover that. --Jleon 01:47, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

lol wtf --Golbez 04:23, May 14, 2005 (UTC)
That said, the anon's edits may well have a place, since it has been pointed out, accurately so, that the Culture section focuses too much perhaps on the export of culture. Still, it was turning into somewhat of a checklist of the different cultures in America, without giving any time to the unifying culture most Americans have. The different bits may have a use, but this is the article for the country, not for the states or the regions. --Golbez 04:30, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

Why not rename "Culture" section, "Entertainment Industry" and move it to the "Economy" section. You can read the "Culture" section and think the USA is all about "Sex and the City". The culture section has nothing about cultural traditions, traditional clothing, traditional attitudes, or traditional holidays. And yes, my input is more like a starting point for others to add on to. I have not lived in the North, so I could not add much about it's culture, but had hoped someone would add on. As far as deletion of newly entered is concerned, it is forbidden in all the guidelines I have read. Stubs are encouraged as a starting point. If somebody goes along deleting contributions, pretty soon people will stop contributing. -anon

<Quote>The United States is a great center of higher education, boasting more than 4,000 universities, colleges and other institutions of higher learning, the top tier of which may be considered to be among the most prestigious and advanced in the world.</Quote> Neither is mentioned that higher education in the US is one of the most expensive in the world, nor that besides few universities (Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford) universities in America have a low level of education compared to universities around the world. This is something commonly known to many people that come from other countries, that shared with me (what I experiences as well) that getting a higher degree in the US is almost as simple as finishing regular school in other countries. User:64.175.251.190

--Well if you have anything other than anecdotal "experiences" to show as evidence, then please share it with us. --Jleon 19:50, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The "top tier" of U.S. universities is just that: the Ivies (Harvard, Yale, etc.), the elite schools (Chicago, Johns Hopkins, etc.) and the prestigious public universities (Michigan, Virginia, Texas-Austin, etc.). They are still superior to most European and Asian universities. My "anecdotal experience" as an American in Europe: I found Euro-academics to be rather easy and the grading much more lenient than in the States. I would add that many U.S. flagship state universities (Michigan, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Minnesota and dozens of other PUBLIC universities) are more rigorous and require more work than do many European universities.Mason.Jones 17:02, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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