patriotism
sastyk | July 4, 2010Some years ago, I had the occasion of being at a dinner party on the fourth of July with a bunch of graduate students, and we realized that among 11 of us, we came from 9 different countries. After commenting on this and the date and discussing American fireworks laws for a while, we began to compare what we'd been taught in our home countries in school about the history of both our own nations, and about the world. It was a deeply enlightening, often funny conversation.
One of the funniest and most worriesome parts of the evening occurred when the other American and I compared notes. I had…