Note to Americans: Melburnians suffer from an inferiority complex and always want to be includedHeh. Melburnians always think this Sydney-Melbourne thing is so much more important than anyone from Sydney thinks it is. Let's not even talk about Brisbane and Adelaide.
except when people say that 'we' have freedom of speech as some sort of conversation-stopperPrecisely. "We" often have nothing of the kind, and might not want the kind that exists in the US.
I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam, and I listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globe-trotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation. And as E. Rushmore Coglan prattled of this little planet I thought with glee of a great almost-cosmopolite who wrote for the whole world and dedicated himself to Bombay. In a poem he has to say that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that "the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities' hem as a child to the mother's gown." And whenever they walk "by roaring streets unknown" they remember their native city "most faithful, foolish, fond; making her mere-breathed name their bond upon their bond." And my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants of the Moon.posted by The White Hat at 5:16 AM on June 29, 2010 [4 favorites]
-O. Henry
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states that:posted by odinsdream at 8:24 AM on June 29, 2010 [5 favorites]
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
yes we speak almost the same language as our larger neighbours,Pedantry: This does not hold true for your example of Portugal.
70's "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" Commercial.posted by ericb at 9:31 AM on June 29, 2010
1990 version: Coca Cola Hilltop Reunion Commercial.posted by ericb at 9:36 AM on June 29, 2010
2006 version: Coke Nascar Harmony Ad.
"The television ad 'I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke' was released first in Europe, where it garnered only a tepid response. It was then released in the U.S. in July, 1971, and the response was immediate and dramatic." *posted by ericb at 10:02 AM on June 29, 2010
"In 2006, the song was used again in the Coca-Cola commercial at least in the Netherlands. The song is covered by the Dutch singer Berget Lewis." *
barbequed prawns are revoltingI'm ringing DIAC now, TD. Expect the officials to come around to sieze your passport, throw you in a Rodeo van and take you to Villawood.
It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern:See this snottery aul yop? He's a pure waste o space!So unreferenced and full of original research (for so long) that I want to weep. No indication whatsoever that the topic is especially notable; this is inevitable when no references at all are provided, of course.
What do you mean much MORE boring? Are we boring you? Or was that just a slip of the keyboard?
posted by crossoverman at 11:45 PM on June 28, 2010