French Rudeness

Call this a case of a stereotype coming true, well sort of. France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, hears about that French are rude thing often, about "acting French". In a tongue in cheek answer to the famous French rudeness to foreigners, he has just announced a new tourism goal and a new tourism investment fund for France that will come with a humorous ad campaign and with the simple suggestion that maybe French citizens could start being a little less, well, French to tourists.

Hmmmm Many who have visited France have experienced a rudeness, particularly in Paris. But I suspect it isn't really rudeness. It's more smugness with self or just a feeling that "We French are superior" to outsiders.  Nothing bad there. Every culture has a personality. Americans can be condescending, for example. But Rude Minister...err..I mean Minister Fabius understands that France is as legendary for its rudeness as it is for its wines and cheeses, and he’d like everyone to do their part to downplay that stereotype.

In his announcement Fabrius said, Tourism is a treasure that needs to be protected, nurtured and developed. We have room for improvement here. When we come up against a foreign tourist, we are all ambassadors for France."  Further he added, "And if those stinking foreigners don't like it they can ---- off!" No, no, that last line I added just to see if you were paying attention. He didn't say that. (But he was probably thinking it)

Under this initiative France will start doing what almost every other nation does for tourists.  Money will be spent to improve some of the French “tourist hot spots,” like the Gare du Nord station in central Paris, and to tell those surly border guards to say “Hello” and “Good bye” when they're stamping visitors’ passports. Oh my, that might cause a few heart attacks in the guard troops.  Money will also be spent to increase the amount of sign age in popular locations, and to translate those signs into languages other than French. Since most French actually believe their language is better than others (French delusionment), that one is going to be a painful change.

The goal is to increase an already huge tourist trade in France. But I wonder if France will be worth visiting if it loses that rude approach. We tourists expect the French to be obnoxious and too ignore us in time of need.  We Americans already tried to kill their culture by exporting Jerry Lewis, who the French singularly believe is an artist the parallel of Shakespeare. Viva Le France!

Shame On You

There is trouble in La La Land (California) again these days beyond just the crazies that live and thrive there. The trouble concerns a precious resource that is essential for all life, water. With California in the fourth year of a drought with no end in sight, the governor (who things the world will soon end anyway because of that nebulous "global warming" theory) has ordered everyone to use 25 percent less water than normal. It's difficult to know who is meeting the goal (the state and local governments have mandated simple water reductions per residence, not non use of water sources) and who is not, since it is largely voluntary. Neighbors have divided into water and mo water camps and it's a "slippery" slope that could lead to big trouble.

So the age old concept of shame is taking over in California. "Shame on you if you don't stop using your sprinklers or hoses on your lawn", they say. That mentality itself is greatly effective in instituting voluntary rationing of water, since humans do not like to stand out as the cause of society destruction.  But now there is another way of motivating water usage in California. It's the drought shamer. Those are people, armed with cameras, and internet connection and shame web sites, who prowl the neighborhoods of Southern California and post pictures or videos of those who are not curtailing the use of water on their lawns. Drought shamers say the easiest way to accomplish that is to quit watering your yard altogether or at least be careful about it and not let water spill into the street.

I wonder if that tactic is just old fashioned bullying, the bullying of the same kind on the internet that adults complain their children are subjected to. Drought shamers post the names and addresses of the "offenders" they catch. The good news is they seem to have found the biggest offenders are in Hollywood and in other super wealthy neighborhoods. Beverly Hills, for example,  has new limits on watering lawns, washing cars and refilling pools. A $1,000 fine is in place water wasters there .Nothing like knocking the biggest off their thrones, I guess.

Other drought shamers use tweets to put out addresses and photos of those naughty water users,  Still others are snapping cell phone pictures photos of them and sending them directly to authorities. I guess that's one way for the public to become involved with the police. You can't water your lawn every day in Los Angeles, for example. Sprinklers can't last so long the water runs down to the street. And you can't wash your car with a hose that doesn't have a shut-off nozzle. Fines for violating these rules can run as high as $500.

I say, hose the doubt shamers down when they lecture you or take your water usage photo.  Water their drought shaming apps! Let them know the glories of H2O first hand. But will more compliance with reasonable water reduction guidelines instead of public shaming during a shortage bring about better results in conserving water?  I guess we will never know, given the way so many of us are enamored with our communication gadgets, and how willing we are to use them to push our agenda.  It might be the act of shaming, not the conservation of water that the drought shamers most like. That a person's name address and photo is posted on line for public shaming today is a sad testimony of the abuse of our technology, and of the fact that for some public bullying is just another way one can have fun with their electronic communication toys.

On Father's day

Another Father's Day has come and gone. And most people did not even know it passed.  Such is life for dad, the parent who is often ignored, overlooked, scorned and pitied.  So unimportant is dad that in the U.S. it was not until 1972 that Father's Day was officially made a holiday. And though some nations do celebrate Father's Day, compared to Mother's Day it is a non event. I wonder why dad is so little recognized in so many places on earth.

Perhaps because it is mom who conceives, carries and delivers a child that the world tends to think of a child as "mom's baby" and dad as.....well the guy who rents a room in mom's house, I guess. Hmmm Science should try to find a way for males to be the pregnant partner (oh my, guys with breasts that give milk) so the domestic favoritism for the female can be put to rest. Uh, I think I'll pass on being one of those pregnant dads, but surely there are a whole flock of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner types that will relish the new arrangement. Thank of how the world population bomb could be defused if women were impregnating the men and smiling as the male suffered through nine months of agony. I suspect many women might not dislike the role switch and we would have far fewer babies birthed each year.

Forget the popular notion that women are treated as the inferior sex! We men know that women rule the home and the world. Is it not the job of the dad to make mom happy, and will she not make his life miserable if he does not?  But sometimes she makes his life miserable anyway. Gee, I have to admit that women are talented. And from birth the female is regarded as the superior sex. 

As babies, girls are seen as "sugar and spice and everything nice". Boys are "little monsters" (as opposed to the big monsters we are as adults).  For little girls there is 'Take Your Daughter To Work Day' every year. But they leave the boys at home, which implies they are inferior creatures. Are not male grade school students lectured on the evils of the male and forced (sometimes the ladies tie us to chairs to make us listen) while schools propagandize the class with lessons highlighting "female contributions to the world" (It's where I learned  from my teacher, Old Lady Jones, that a woman invented the airplane, the automobile and even that device implanted in male brains that makes us say "Yes, Dear" to all female commands). Why even TV shows display the mom as a renaissance woman who handles every matter, big and small, with aplomb while retarded dad can barely tie his shoelaces or find his way to the rest room (I am working on mastering the tying thing).

This discrimination against males also continues after high school. Those college brochures are filled with pictures of women, almost ignoring the existence of the inferior male. This reinforces the commonly held notion that women are not only much smarter than men, but they are so smart they make the male think otherwise. If a male is ever accepted to a university (I hear a few have been admitted) they are quick to notice the endless numbers and varieties of organizations on campus that are only for women. Most are anti male in orientation. And the scholarships the colleges give to students always favor the ladies. Why have you ever heard of a man who was offered to "lay for an A" like female students have done for decades?

After graduation and before enslavement as a woman's property in the marriage thing, a man quickly finds that the workplace is female oriented too. Instead of the male approach in which the man says "let's do this", the boss (always a woman) will quickly demand that the inferior male adapt to the collaborative, touchy-feely, team oriented decision making process that women prefer. And who gets promoted faster on the job?  It's those sexy female interns who seem to spend a whole lot of extra time with the female boss' male associate. I wonder what they are doing alone with that guy?

Finally comes marriage (voluntary enslavement of the male) and fatherhood. I can't even begin to describe the degradation of the dad during this stage, but he goes to his grave willingly like a cancer patient acknowledges he has lost! He surrenders. It's better that I just wish all  fathers a 'Happy Father's Day' and warn them that there is no escape for them. Oh, just in case I wasn't clear in my exposition on dad, I WAS JUST KIDDING ABOUT ALL THIS.

If a white male gets hired, he’ll likely quickly learn that women’s approaches to work-- collaborative, team-oriented, exploratory of feelings--is viewed as superior to men’s competitive goal-orientedness. If a man dare says, “Enough of this processing of feelings, let’s just get on with it,” he’ll usually be viewed as Neanderthal if not fired for “not fitting in” or for not being “a team player. - See more at: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/saving-our-young-men_id1557#sthash.Z87jVnmP.dpuf

When boys start to look into college, the very first thing they see are the colleges’ brochures and websites, with far more pictures of women - See more at: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/saving-our-young-men_id1557#sthash.Z87jVnmP.dpuf

Starting in elementary school, boys are made to feel inferior. Take Your Daughter to Work Day implied to boys that they count less. Endless lessons highlighting the contributions of women (from Pocahontas to Rosa Parks to Hillary Clinton) and the evils of men (from Hannibal to Hitler to McCarthy) make boys feel inferior. That inferiority is reinforced when they come home from school and see TV shows and movies with Doofus Dads or Scuzzball Sams being put in their place by Wise Women. In the effort to boost girls’ self-esteem, boys’ are destroyed. - See more at: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/saving-our-young-men_id1557#sthash.Z87jVnmP.dpuf

Mass Migration Of The Poor

The world is in chaos. Ok, I know you already knew that. It has long been chaos in so many ways, but a more recent one is the migrant chaos. Millions of mostly poor and  uneducated people are leaving overpopulated and impoverished third world countries for richer developed areas. And they are doing it without permission.  The reasons for the migration out, the illegal immigration,  include corrupt governments at home, broken economies, religious or ethnic conflicts, wars etc. But at the root of the movement is overpopulation. The overpopulated third world is exporting its surplus of poor to the developed world.

When hundreds of millions of poor, illiterate in their own language, and unskilled people pour into a developed world it creates problems for everyone there. The new nation must care for them with expensive social and economic programs that are a burden to the working, taxpaying of the developed nation. Schools in the developed nations, for example, are flooded with students who can not speak the language of the new country, and this causes teaching to be directed at the newcomers who "are behind' the rest. The native student population suffers as a result.

Problem is, none of the developed nations can  nor has the will to regulate the illegal immigration. The current political tone in the developed nations is that anyone should be allowed to live wherever he or she wishes.  The two wealthiest areas of the globe have already been severely damaged by the influx of too many illegals. The U.S has tried to absorb almost 50 million of them, largely central American poor, who "can't even make it in their own countries" The social disruption of so many low functioning newcomers coming at the same time can be seen all over America.

In Western Europe the story is similar, except that there are other unique elements injected by the (mostly Mid eastern and African immigrants) that make it even a worse situation for European economies that are already in debt. The rise of Muslim fanaticism in Europe is a good example of this extra problem, for the Muslim immigrants in Europe have been far more militant and in opposition to traditional European culture and habit.


Even barely developed nations like Greece see a huge number of desperate illegal migrants, further straining the economy and social structure. Once when in China I remember being shown a section of Shenyang, China that contains almost 1 million illegal North Korean migrants. The Chinese state allows them to stay because they, like the other recipient areas, don't know how to contain the influx.

All of these movements will continue and grow in number as the underdeveloped countries are so bad off, so overpopulated,  and so abject economically that there is little to lose in making a dangerous and difficult journey for what the migrant perceives as a better life. And sadly,  those who leave their homes are the greatest victims of  mess we call planet Earth.

Another Airline Fee Coming

The airline war against passengers keeps heating up.  In response to the ever-increasing time it takes to board an airplane these days  as passengers haul  to overhead bins bag after bag more than the airline allowance, Delta Air Lines plans to pre load carry-on bags above passengers’ seats on some flights. Yep! It's so bad those sometimes 45 minute or more board times, that now they want to see if the flight attendant can stow our carry-on faster and more orderly than we.

It's a good idea, but only if Delta enforces the number and size limits for a carry-on baggage. They most often do not currently do so. One need only watch a plane boarding today to see passengers carrying three over sized bags on board, and be allowed to do so, in order to evade the standard, stupid luggage fees we all now seem to accept as part of the flying experience. I can stow my legally allowed carry on myself, Delta. Just enforce the carry-on rules you now ignore, and we won't need to have airline employees act as porters.

Slow boarding creates delays, which mean missed connections, unhappy customers and extra costs for the airlines. The fight for overhead baggage space is almost violent these days. The fault is that airlines are afraid to insist boarding passengers bring on only the allowed amount of luggage. Rather than offend and lose business, they let the inconsiderate and selfish passenger create havoc at boarding time.  Every extra minute that a plane stands idle at the gate adds significant costs for the airline. About 1 in 4 U.S. flights already runs at least 15 minutes late, causing many missed connections and changes in flights to accommodate those who missed their flight because someone wanted to bring four bags on board for the overhead bins.

My first question to Delta of it's "Early Valet" service would be, "Do I have to pay extra to have my carry-on stowed for me?" Stupid question, I guess. Surely passengers will be hit with another "extra" fee in the form of  having their bags placed in overhead bins. Could this  experiment by Delta be just another way of cleverly installing another extra fee? Probably so. The airline says it only wants to see if its own workers can load the bins faster than passengers, but more likely it ants to see if this can be another new fee that passengers will not object to vigorously. Once an airline creates a new fee to rob passengers, there is furor and dissent. But gradually, the passenger shrugs his or her shoulders and accepts it as a normal cost of flying. Get ready for this kind of charge being another normal one for flying.

Sigh. I think it might be better to just forget about flying and instead to more often travel where one can do so without the airlines getting us there. How are you?Tod

That Nonsense That The Rich Are Evil

One political tactic President Obama and his political party have embraced over the past six years, demonizing the economically successful person, is starting to wear thin with some of the targets of their wrath. The premise taken by the left wing in politics is that those who are successful are evil and those who have failed economically are "victims" of "the rich" who allegedly keep them from rising economically. Personal responsibility, the biggest attribute a person must have in a capitalist system, is forgotten and blaming the successful for the failure of others is the replacement. It's a cheap, dishonest view that unfortunately wins votes. Obama frequently cites the "99%" (non wealthy) as victims of those who are successful. He embraced  the class warfare narrative so  successfully that most left leaning politicians use it routinely to pander to their voting base.

The result is those who are economically successful (Obama calls them all "the rich") are publicly excoriated, blamed for others failures and forced to go into a form of exile where they try to hide their affluence. But one of those super wealthy people who worked hard and used his ability to become successful is finally fighting back. Billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman is sick of disingenuous politicians criticizing him for being rich, and would prefer that his success story be held up as "an example" to be followed. "I think that my life should be used as an example to the 99% of what could be achieved,"  said in a recent taping for the capitalist groupie television program "Wall Street Week". "These youngsters can see what can be accomplished with some hard work.

"To tell the 99% they are being screwed by the 1% is just wrong," said Cooperman, who is valued at $3.7 billion.
Good for him! In this age of entitlement, an age in which the individual thinks that society is responsible for his or her welfare, a jolt of reality is a good thing. Hillary Clinton has decided to campaign on the rich are evil mode too. It's preposterous when one looks at Clinton's own bank statements. Bashing Wall Streeters and the rich is part of Hillary's strategy of remaking her image to appear more sympathetic to middle class voters, while also appealing to left-wing Democrats. But how insincere that is!  Hillary and Bill Clinton have earned hundred's of millions of dollars on speaking fees alone. A one hour speech by Hillary goes for about $300,000. Hillary fails to mention her own wealth when demonizing the wealthy.

So are voters just plain stupid in not seeing the shallowness of the issue, the falsity of it, the insincerity of politicians who campaign on it? Apparently that or they like being pander to. Income inequality, or concerns of a rising wealth gap between the rich and everyone else, has become a hot topic on the campaign trail for both the left leaning Democratic and some right wing Republican candidates who don't want to be left behind by the voters in the ruse.
Cooperman grew up poor in the Bronx as the child of immigrant parents. He was the first one in his family to attend college and he worked hard for his success. But I guess that doesn't comfort the voter who is mired in poverty because of his or her own negligence to achieve more.

Oh, No! Not Another Test....

Recently Mira Hu, a 16-year-old student from Arcadia High School said she had enough of testing and academic pressure. After her mom dropped her off at Arcadia High School in Canada to take the SAT that every high school senior expecting to enter college must take, Mira did something, I think, to slap the studious Asian American culture right in the face. Mira not only skipped the test, she disappeared completely to parts unknown. Wow! The ancient Chinese test Gods will surely seek revenge against Mira.

But what Mira has done should in fact happen more among, not only all those super smart and studious types that live in Silicon Valley, but with average ordinary dolts like me. I find it refreshing that the first high profile case of "I don't care about your tests or your Ivy League plans, mom" is from a super high academic, Asian community in the wealthy Silicon Valley area. Give that girl a scholarship for creative arts...or something. I like her style, if not the fact that she may have carried her protest too far by running away from home. Her Tiger Mom is not gonna like this whole scene.

Anyway, after she disappeared from school test taking demands, Mira Hu sent a message to her brother indicating that she was running away because she was overwhelmed by school and the exam.  Chinese and other Asian immigrant parents routinely pressure their kids to study, study, study. Outside interests and activities are so discouraged that the little one become a little computer, for which Tiger Mom and Tiger Dad are extremely grateful. After all, how can an immigrant earn widespread social class and respect if their children among them is not the next genius at Stanford or MIT?

Too, such study fanaticism is an on-going problem in  many Asian countries, one which mom and dad take with them and embellish when arriving in the U.S. There have been cases in which a number of suicides here by kids were the result of too much pressure to do well in school and to please Tiger Mom and Tiger Dad.  It's an odd cultural clash with the often lazy, empty headed native born parented kids of the U.S.  Second generation (of both Asian and non Asian families) are slacking too much and Asian immigrant kids are cracking the books too much and becoming little geniuses but with little personality or private interests compared to the doltish slacker kids found everywhere in America.

I suspect Mira wants to be a slacker because the pressures of being the Chinese immigrant kid are too much for her to be something in-between the too (what we used to call "normal").  It's sad when just being a kid isn't possible today for all kids, that kids can't choose on their own how much study is enough, and that too many kids can't find joy in life because of it.

D-Day

Another anniversary of D Day has arrived. I won't go through the specifics of the event, but simply write that D Day (Decision Day) was the turning point of W.W. II and the end of the Nazi attempt to expand into other nations and practice some very inhumane doctrines there. There are few survivors, civilian or military, of W.W. II, and as a result few people today note it or think about the slaughter that came about in the world's greatest conflict (per casualty numbers). That is a shame. Our technology and conveniences have robbed us of appreciation of and about previous eras that can instruct us well even today.

Much of the world saw that war as a reluctant crusade to exterminate the horrors and threats of Nazism and as a result, there were few people who protested fighting Germany and her allies because the evil was clear to all. Today such clarity in the evil arena is not what it used to be. With modern communication, and the protests and restraints on government that go with those protests,  it is hard to imagine countries being able to mobilize such a great war again. That's the good news. No doubt, for example, the west would have long ago attacked Muslim countries in response to their support of Islamic terrorists if this were the era of the 40's rather than the 2000's. The public today would instantly oppose a war of that kind today and freeze their governments from executing such a war. It's a nice restraint to have in preventing a foolish rush to judgment..

The bad aspect of this is that renegade nations and groups sheltered by them, as in Iran and many Muslim nations, feel less pressure to behave fairly knowing that an attack on them today is unlikely. In a sense, W.W. II was the last world war to be fought in a conventional way. Such a world wide conflict will be highly unlikely to happen again. And that has a bad connotation as well as the good one I mentioned.  That is, nations now may act badly and aggressively against others with much less fear that they will be challenged and stopped in their acting out.

War should always be a last answer. Humans lose lives needlessly in them for wars are most often nothing more than temporary territorial changes. The humans who experience war return from those conflicts physically or emotionally injured, and the civilian population loses much as well. The carnage of D day and W.W. II should be a good reminder to us of that.

Passports

My passport will expire in 9 months.  It's not a problem for me now, but by the end of the year I will have to renew....if I can remember to do so. The only reason I know about the expiration date of my passport is because I read a newspaper story about passport fraud. We don't often think about our passports.  But that article reminded me to see if my passport is near to the date it will expire. My guess on expiration (in 2016) was correct.  I guess a great number of people forget to renew their passport before expiration. And there are those who renew theirs in time but who can't use it because some nations require that a passport must be valid for at least 3- 6 months before entrance is allowed into their country.

The whole subject of passports is complicated and too involved for me. There are passports that counterfeited, passport mistakes that doom one to sit in an airport rather than board an airplane, there's the passport picture of a person that doesn't match his or her appearance because of that 30 kilo weight gain since the last issuance of the passport. It goes on and on. many years ago while in a communist country my passport was taken from me by the police there (International law says that in most nations a passport and the passport user must never be separated from each other when the foreigner has his passport checked by the country's police).  Did you know that some small Pacific island nations, in order to raise money, sell anyone one of their passports? And what about the value of a passport? Are all passports equal in value?

No! That short answer is because passports are rated as more powerful if they allow the traveler to go to more countries without also obtaining a visa for travel in the visited country. Nations have travel arrangement/treaties that allow visa wavers. The three nations that have the most powerful passports allow their citizens to travel to 173 nations, visa free. Those three are Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The U.S. is next with 72 visa free travel destinations. A nation like North Korea doesn't allow any travel outside itself, which makes passports irrelevant there. But among those nations that do allow foreign travel, the following (unpleasant and dictatorial) nations have the least powerful passports; Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Pakistan, and Nepal.  The worst nations make their citizens spiritual as well as physical prisons.

Every nation issues different types of passports. The Diplomat passport, for example, bestows special privileges to the user that you, me and other peasants of the world won't get. We get the "tourist" or "ordinary" passport, because....well....we are ordinary  One passport type you never want to have to obtain is the emergency passport, issued when you stupidly lose your passport or have yours stolen.

In general, passport holders in North America and Europe have the most freedom of travel, while passport holders in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have the least. This proves the "life is not fair" proposition all humans learn at some early point in life. On that note, I suggest you check to see if you can find your passport and whether or not it is still valid. Happy traveling to you!

Hamburgers

I just discovered that May was National Hamburger Month, and that at the end of May, May 28th, it was National Hamburger Day.  Hamburgers were not first cooked in the U.S. (they started in Germany but the first burgers on buns were American) , but for anyone who has ever had a hamburger outside of the U.S. it's usually not a tasty experience. The fast food chains, mostly American but also their foreign counterparts, are what an American will find in other countries. They are not what a true hamburger is about.  It's not wonder that some snooty foreigners lift their eyebrow and express disdain for the all mighty burger. They don't know the taste of a real hamburger.

Americans eat almost 50 billion burgers a year, which is the equivalent of three burgers a week for every person in the United States. That's too much for me. If I have one every two weeks I am satiated, but what I dislike is the trend for burger sellers to add so much "junk" to the burgers they serve. You name the topping and it has probably been put on top of a hamburger. That, in my view, is what has given some foreigners a bad reputation for hamburgers. The worst trend is the so-called spicy burger. All that spice isn't good for a burger. Burgers should be eaten al natural.  Besides, people who love hot sauces and other sources of heat probably don't even taste the meat. Maybe they should just drink their hot sauce straight from the bottle and leave the dead cow meat alone.

I like to cook my own hamburgers and the way I do it is simple and in keeping with letting the meat carry the taste. I like a burger seared at high heat on both sides, cooked medium are and I want my burger with a high fat content ( 20% is best) and served on a bun that holds the burger with onions that have been sautéed in butter. That's it. No spicy seasonings (just salt) no vegetables other than those onions...simple, basic burger in which the meat carries the day. I never buy any meat except beef and try to cover the taste with condiments. Even better is a barbecued burger. The charcoal gives it a special taste when the cook doesn't overcook the burger.

Here are some burger toppings that make me want to run and hide:  Gouda cheese, bacon (put bacon on your burger and you should be put in prison) panchetta, avocado, ketchup, lettuce wrap instead of a bun, French Fries, Brussels sprouts, peanut butter, chard, salsa, spinach and artichoke dip, pickles, chilies, mushrooms. egg............Ah, just about anything other than those sautéed' onions.

And then there are those crazy people who want double or triple burgers. Why don't they just eat a steak. Bigger is not definitely not better with hamburgers. I could go on about the noble burger but  I think I'll leave you and eat one instead.

The Spreading Emoji

The U.S.A. Today on line newspaper that I browse regularly had a filler of sort today that represents why culture today is headed downhill. It was an emoji match game. That would be those crazy smiley faces and other emotional responses some people use in place of real language. I know it is a filler and has no effect on what is the news, but this thing was on the front page of the U.S.A. newspaper. If you have time to waste and are interested, here's the link to the "test".  http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/emoji-match-game/

When playing the game you will read the following....."What does your emoji use say about the country you live in — and what could your country's emoji use say about you? A new study by Swift Key, a company that develops mobile keyboards, analyzed more than a billion emoji used by speakers of 16 languages around the world between October 2014 and January 2015. See if you can predict the results."

My first observation is a question. Why would we want to know this? Just thinking about the trivialization of language that such such silliness has encouraged makes me want to make a sad emoji face. And strangely, emoji's started in a place of education and culture, Japan. That they spread all over the internet makes me have another sad emoji expression when I think of Japan.  The use of Emoji Icons has been so prevalent that people don't think twice about sending these icons of happy, angry or sad expressions. They just insert it in their messages when most of the time, they aren't even really feeling that happy, angry or sad.

Secondly, how am I suppose to react to a text message accompanied with these icons? Does it matter? And why does the sender think I know the meaning of those icons?

Those things should be a rarely used amusement, not a regularly used irritant. There is a certain lack of sincerity I feel when someone uses too many of them. A simple insertion of Emoji Icons can seem to be a substitution for thought and feeling in the message. Emoji icons are the reality TV of writing, cute but vapid and without substance. If the cutsie "lol" and "brb" nonsense we first endured when chatting on line were not bad enough, the emoji might be the death knell to communication.

Finally, is the rise and popularity of the emoji reflective of the decline in precision in our communication, both in writing and verbally, or is it just a reflection of how lazy we have become? I vote for both. Gee, I wish I could find an emoji that would illustrate that(imagine an emoji here).