"W" and other four letter words!

I would like to make a few comments about the state of the States.

Sorry boys, but your time is just about over. China and a bunch of other, what we used to call "third world" countries, are nipping at your heels and the twenty first century belongs to them.

Although most people do not realize it, the United States reached it's peak under President Ronald Regan and since then has been in a virtual free-fall.

Yes bunky, the fall of Communism coincided with the decline of the American Empire and the signs are all around us.

One example is this piece from CNN News:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: "Put him in touch with me, and I'll send him a reading list."

As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European.

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

He said the 16-member award jury has not selected this year's winner, and dropped no hints about who was on the short list. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates usually figure in speculation, but Engdahl wouldn't comment on any names.

Speaking generally about American literature, however, he said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.

"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."

His comments, as expected, were met with fierce reactions from literary officials on this side of the Atlantic.

However, this is not the only issue, by far, concerning the decline of the American Empire.

No sir!

Just take a look at how the United States views itself with this movie about George "W"!

Coming soon to a theatre near you!



(On a side note here I was putting some tags at the end of this piece and when I typed in "W," a list of possible words and phrases came up like it always does, but the first one on the list for "W" was......... are you ready? "Asshole of the week!")

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E ! and as a paperback H E R E !

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com