Tuesday, October 03, 2006
topsy-turvy
While in America, a teacher was suspended because some kid told his parents he saw nude art on a class field trip to a mainstream museum (Museum Field Trip Deemed Too Revealing), parents, students, teachers, & pedagogues took to the streets in Copenhagen today to protest budget cuts in childcare and other welfare programs (Protests paralyse nation's schools and day care centres). There are times when it's hard to notice the differences between Denmark and America, but reading the news today, it's almost disgustingly obvious. In the US, there are places where one crazy parent can complain that her child was exposed to some art and a qualified teacher is out of a job. In Denmark, people who already pay up to 60% of their income in taxes are more than happy (in principle and in reality) to pay even more if that means that their children can attend better schools and childcare and the elderly can live in better nursing homes. Denmark is far from a perfect country, but America...sometimes America just sucks.
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1 comment:
yeah but it happened in texas- it wouldn't happen in, say, nyc. the usa is such a melting pot of cultures that i don't even know if it's fair or worthwhile to compare the united states as a whole to denmark. though i do agree that there is some dumb stuff that gets protested in parts of the country while other things (the patriot act?? guantanamo bay?) don't get nearly as much attention as they deserve. i think american (myself included) are overly complacent compared to a generation or two ago even though now things are arguably worse off.
-claire
p.s. i don't think anyone in any country, even a northern european one, would be "happy" per se to pay more taxes haha, though i would definitely be interested to know how they think about taxes over there. do you talk about that at all with like your host family or anyone?
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