We’re #1

It’s a funny old world we live in. While it seems that 99% of the world wants to drown us in Napalm, it also seems like 99% of the world wants to be us. The truth, as is usually the case, is somewhere in between. There are certainly many things to admire about America. Americans tend to look out for each other in the main, despite what you see on the news. Also, despite what you may have heard, not all Americans are bats**t crazy and drooling every time they try and express a political opinion. Most of us can vote quite well without requiring tear gas, thank you very much. We, though we sometimes are too shy to admit it, are more accepting of different lifestyles than many other countries. And, in general, our form of government gives people, even the crazy ones, the best chance to heard and have their concerns acted on.

In fact, if you want to have some fun, remind those people who yell at their TVs and then wait for a response that India is actually the world’s largest democracy and then duck.

It is fun though, I’ve done it.

While we sometimes wonder what the heck is wrong with people when we read stories about a guy dressed up as Gumby trying to rob a 7-Eleven and then getting laughed out of the store, we know he’s not the same as us. In fact the clerk was so amused that she forgot to call the cops for 6 hours.

Or we may express a mix of bemusement and outrage, mostly bemusement, when we read about the guy who shoplift 2 live lobsters by stuffing them in his pants while still recognizing that he does not represent America. Suffice it to say that was not the best laid plan in the history of man. He’s in jail and not the hospital, for which he should count himself lucky.

Some stuff in our great land just defies explanation. For example, a Republican fund raising raffle in Arizona, right near where Gabrielle Giffords was shot, is offering a Glok 9mm as it’s main prize. That would be the same type of gun that was used to shoot Mrs. Giffords in the first place. Let’s face it, tact is not a requirement for anything any more. But, again, not all of us are that insensitive.

We won’t even begin to discuss Florida, where the gene pool went to die.

Yet in spite or because of, I can’t really be sure, these things, America has been ranked as the coolest country in the world.

They may be witnessing their global superpower influence decline in the face of challenges from other emerging players on the world stage, but Americans have been voted the world’s “coolest nationality” in an international poll.

Social networking site Badoo.com (www.badoo.com) asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name the coolest nationality and also found that the Spanish were considered the coolest Europeans, Brazilians the coolest Latin Americans and Belgians the globe’s least cool nationality.

“We hear a lot in the media about anti-Americanism,” says Lloyd Price, Badoo’s Director of Marketing. “But we sometimes forget how many people across the world consider Americans seriously cool.”

Of course, not all Americans are cool far from it. Some like Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp and Quentin Tarantino are way cooler than others.

Americans, however, are the dudes who invented cool and who still embody it in many fields from music to movies and TV to technology.

“America,” says Price, “boasts the world’s coolest leader, Obama; the coolest rappers, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg; and the coolest man in technology, Steve Jobs of Apple, the man who even made geeks cool.”

Brazilians are ranked the second coolest nationality in the Badoo poll and the coolest Latin Americans, ahead of Mexicans and Argentinians. The Spanish, in third place, are the coolest Europeans.

The French are voted cooler than the British, and Canadians cooler than the Belgians. This may come as a relief for Canadians, who are sometimes viewed as chronically uncool.

Or, as Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian politician, once put it: “Paris, Texas stands as a metaphor for broken dreams; Paris, Saskatchewan just sounds ridiculous.”

THE 10 COOLEST NATIONALITIES
1. Americans
2. Brazilians
3. Spanish
4. Italians
5. French
6. British
7. Dutch
8. Mexicans
9. Argentinians
10. Russians

FIVE LEAST COOL
1. Belgians
2. Poles
3. Turks
4. Canadians
5. Germans

Belgium is also boring.

I mean mind crushingly boring. As in watching paint dry would be such a violent step up that you might suffer vertigo kind of boring.

While we may cringe at seeing Lady GaGa listed as a reason for our success, there is something to it. She(?) is a a living example of how Americans love to support their rebels, even the aesthetically plagiarist ones. And if, along the way, she actually makes some kids think about how bullying is uncool and how treating all people with respect is, then I can tolerate another round of Born This Way.

Not two, of course, but I’m good for one more.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!