OT [at-l] What's Wrong with This Picture?

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 07:43 PM 8/19/2004 -0400, joe miele wrote:
>Will those countries still be "European"?  Who cares?  Culture is generally
>something that I despise because all it does is divide us into groups.  It
>keeps us different from each other when we all know that it is our
>differences that breed contempt.  As long as we're different from each
>other, there will always be racism, war, etc.  Vietnamese, Italian,
>American, Jew, Catholic, whatever...  We need to lose all these labels and
>start being "human" so that the miserable condition we see on this earth
>will start to reverse itself.

This evening my wife and I stopped by a fast food place on our way to buy 
groceries (buying groceries when hungry is not a good plan). They were 
breaking in a new crew so the "fast food" wasn't. While waiting I took note 
of my fellow patrons. Aside from me (a "mature" guy with grey hair in a 
pony tail about 18" long) there was an older couple (70s?) with a 
middle-aged couple (son & daughter, one an in-law?), a couple of mill 
worker types, 2 young guys in fashionably baggy clothes, one sporting a 
Mohawk hairdo (spiked), a couple of real Mohawks (I live near a 
reservation), a really big guy with tattoos showing below his shorts, all 
over his arms, a pigtail braid and a nose ring plus a 20/30 something 
couple with two blonde daughters looking for all the world like Mr. and 
Mrs. suburbia. Lots of differences but we all got on just fine. Differences 
aren't the problem. Attitude is the problem.