CNN Deportes

I will try to make this short, but every time I feel a twinge of pride in my homeland - especially when I'm this far from it - I feel the need to tell someone.  Since I can't just pick up the phone and call a casual friend (and still afford to eat tonight), I will tell everyone on the inter-web-net.  I also noticed a curious phenomena recently, so I will juxtapose that with my previously mentioned pride.   

I was watching CNN en Español this morning.  About every 20 minutes, they interject international sports news - CNN Deportes.  They mostly cover European soccer and American sports; right now its the NBA playoffs and MLB.  This is very nice for me.  I love sports, and while I'm not the greatest NBA fan, I get very excited when I see former Razorbacks on the tube.  When that particular tube is in another continent, I get a little more excited.  Granted, the highlight of the highlight was LeBron James, but Joe Johnson - NBA All-Star and face of the Atlanta Hawks franchise - was out of necessity included in the summary.  That was enough to make me very happy.  I was very excited to see my intercontinental Razorbacks represented.  However, I then saw a clip of the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox from the MLB.  Although he was not pitching in yesterday's game, I saw Cliff Lee - Benton native, former Razorback baseball player and reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.  Other than it being a little chilly outside, this day had gotten of to a rather good start!

Now, to juxtapose my pride with my curious observation.  As an American (or estadounidense down here), I do love my country.  I consider myself patriotic, and although I may not announce my nationality on every street corner of a foreign city, my pride as an American is never far from my mind.  However, I was reading a textbook yesterday.  It was produced in Argentina, of course in Spanish, and its subject was European expansion and colonization.  In this book of roughly 400 pages, there were 8 paragraphs about the USA spanning from Christopher Columbus to The Constitution.  In addition, I saw more than one factual inaccuracy in those short paragraphs.  

I will make a few concessions.  The main point of the book is Spanish and Portuguese colonialism and the subsequent independence movements/wars.  I get that.  This entire continent (almost) speaks those languages and their collective cultures owe much to those countries.  With that said, half of the book was about independence movements/struggles.  

A catalyst is defined by Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as "an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action."  Without the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, there would be no independent countries in South America as we know it.  Those two events served as the catalyst for more world change than probably anything else in modern world history.  Independent countries in Europe and their former territories control world business, control most of the world's money and have the highest standards of living around the world.  This does not include the vast political implications of the US's example as a functioning republic gave to the world.  To summarize all of that into 8 paragraphs - no matter what the context - is a glossing over of world history.  US independence was the catalyst that allowed every democracy (in any form) all over the world to exist right now.  To spend more time talking about ancient Bolivian potatoes is, in my opinion, a travesty.  Then again, I only like my potatoes twice-baked with cheese, sour cream, butter and chives.