Politics in the UK

We were at a small cafe across Prince's Street, looking up toward Edinburgh Castle. A young man heard me order in my Yankee dialect and began questioning me on the politics of George W. Bush and the United States. It was obvious from the beginning that he really knew more than I did. The people in Europe, and especially in the UK, read newspapers and keep current. The BBC gives them information in depth. I was impressed, not by his opinions, but by his knowledge of the relationships of the United States to the rest of the world.

I do not think most of us in the U.S. know much about how the actions in the UK or Italy or India effect the world. We are ethnocentric.