Re: ??? ??? ???

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 02:28 9/7/97 -0500, you wrote:
> At 6:44 PM -0600 9/6/97, Dewey Dykstra, Jr. wrote:
> > > There is no shanty in the world too poor to possess a TV.
> >
> > > Yours ( not especially with tongue in cheek )
> > >
> > > brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
> > > Altus OK
> >
> > Brian:
> > I can only assume that you've never actually been in a 3rd world country.

> > Dewey
>
> To echo Dewey's sentiments, I recently spent ten days in the Yucatan
> peninsula of Mexico with my family.  We spent a few days in a resort which
> had AC and Tv with CNN, ESPN, a Mexican channel, a French channel and a
> German channel. Then we went into the countryside and visited many villages
> which do not have electricity!
>
> Richard Grandy
> Rice University

Strange how good we are at seeing poverty in other countries.
 Just to remind you, the US rates about 17th on the international scale for
standard of living; we have beggars, people living in cardboard boxes, and
people dying in the gutter from starvation, and for want of medical 
attention.
  I tend to rate countries with these features as third world - or at least, 
as third class. How about you?

  Now let's take a little look at this claim of
"Many Mexican villages which do not have electricity..."

Did you see one village without a single car?
 Have you seen those little cheap portable tvs that plug into a
cigarette lighter?

How sure are you that a village with no electricity does 
not have a single tv?

Could it be you are just jumping to conclusions, in the same way
that Dewey did when he assumed I have no basis for international
 comparisons?

Regards
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK