That was a good one, huh!

You have done your research. I love it! I just wanted a PBS program yesterday about a female writer named Zorra Neale Hurston and thought if you. I wondered if you took your screen name from her?

I should have picked Iceland. And in spirit, I do. They are exceptionally progressive and align with my values. Save one.

They eat this: Hákarl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

I love my Icelandic sisters and brothers. I just don't want to share in eating that particular meal!

But, being in England was lovely, too.

On this night of the Oscars, I often ask myself what it means to be "best." And there is no such thing, objectively. Same for ice skaters or pianists or whatever.

Whenever someone asks me what my "favorite" this or that is (color, movie, food, book etc.) I am flummoxed. I have never confined myself to a "best" anything: there are lots of things I like, and it varies depending on the context, mood, viewpoint, etc.

I think we should do away with superlatives. So I have no single country to which I feel friendliest. It might be different for different things: in politics, in food, in art, in music, in sports, in trade.

exactly.

I can never choose just one "favorite" of anything.


Maybe kids can because they don't have a very large experience pool or frame of reference...i.e. it's easy to pick a "favorite" if your experiences only include a few of whatever it is you're trying to choose from.

But, as an adult with many more experiences, it's nearly impossible to choose just one "best" or one "favorite".

UK because I feel a strong cultural affinity. Canada because I lived fro 2 years, and their culture is so intertwined with ours. Germany because I have a great deal of family there.

They actually want to be a state.

Closely followed by Japan. Friendliest people I've ever interacted with abroad.

I know about half a dozen people on DU that speaks Norwegian, but I think only Diclotican and I are Norwegian (I'm a hybrid, but since I live in Norway most of the time, I didn't vote in this poll.) But I'm always curious when other people pick Norway

and everyone I've ever met from there rocks. I've never been, but I'd love to go. It supposedly has lovely country, as well .

Did you hear about our latest foray into slow tv? 2014 is the 200th anniversary of our constitution, so they got one of our most popular poli sci professors, a character to say the least, to do a live, 200 minute lecture on the last 200 years of Norwegian history. It was awesome.

One of the things he said that struck me was that he said that the Norwegian economy isn't capitalist or socialist, it is in fact negotiation-based. We don't have random strikes etc, because we have a framework for negotiation between employers and employees that is on the national level, and that gives both sides a stability and predictability that is lacking elsewhere in the world. I know that the strong worker's rights I have in my job here is the main reason why I'm not moving back to Norway. I wouldn't be able to adjust my attitude back to the serf mentality necessary to work in the US.

you are very lucky to live there! Hopefully I will get the chance to visit one day .

... the folks in the community in which I grew up in western Wisconsin were predominately of Norwegian descent. Norwegian was spoken on the streets, and a few folks only knew Norwegian. I even know a few phrases of Norwegian, some of which are acceptable in mixed company.

Plus I like lefse, but will pass on the lutefisk.

But there's only governments to whom I feel unfriendly; I believe all countries are made up of mostly decent people doing the best they can but some labor under horrible governments. Could be naïveté or a coping mechanism, but whatever it is, I try to keep in mind countries are largely made up of people trying to get by who we'll never hear about; only the loudest and craziest.

It should be an option.

But as an American, I feel like a Spaniard born out of place. I speak the language, I'm culturally immersed, it's where I've known I belong since I was about 17. Someday, I will have the means to emigrate there.

Clan Donnachaidh

We share a common language...

I have in-laws there.

Fuck Alberta with bitumin.

I love Canada

Last edited Sun Mar 2, 2014, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

war is the last thing they want.

Wherever I go, there I am.

I fight for what I believe in, in a very Quaker pacifist way.

Wherever humans live there will be a lot of good in them and a lot of bad.

Nationalism of any sort, whenever it is blind, even something silly like picking nations I feel "friendly" towards, doesn't feel right to me.

My ancestors, going as far back as I can, tended to walk or sail away from nationalistic troubles. That's how I ended up in America's Wild West. The "opportunity" of the U.S.A. wasn't potential wealth so much as it was escape. I'm certain some of them lept off the boat and swam or ran away as fast as they could because their pasts, whatever they were, never caught up with them. Some of the branches in my family tree are outright fabrications, early and middle nineteenth century lies that would have been forever buried before the age of computers.

Otherwise known as Canada!

I am leery and suspicious of the other 49. They're not really Americans.

Especially since it's now Carnaval.

Big deal with me

I'm particular to The Netherlands and Germany since I have lived in those two for years at a time, but I was also in Sweden for quite a while, worked in Denmark as well and found those to be politically to my liking. I know the Netherlands has had it's own influx of RW religious fundi politics more recently so I can only vouch for their progressive attitudes from 2001 and earlier.

Iceland sounds great but I have no personal experience with that country.

Dated a woman from Winnipeg for several years. Friendly, laid back mostly Liberal, people.
Even the Canadian Border patrol are better and less paranoid than ours. I often felt like I was being treated like I was entering the US from an unfriendly country, when I was returning. It was never like that, when I was going into Canada.

I have to admit, however, that the current PM is making me rather nervous.

with Steven Harper GW Bush in charge totally destroying the environment and trying to help with ours as well? Ill take the UK.

Hail Brittanica or Brittania or something.