I lived in Turkey for four years, and after a while I noticed that Turks didn't respond well to my smiling. They didn't understand it as a friendly signal, and it actually caused friction. I never asked about it, but I somehow caught on that they thought I was stupid. I thought about it, and it made perfect sense to me that it was stupid to smile at things that shouldn't make you happy.

So I stopped smiling in stores and restaurants, with coworkers, and even with Turkish friends. My interactions with people improved noticeably.

After four years, I moved back to Canada, where I continued not smiling for no reason. I've never been able to get back into the habit. I just feel stupid and unnatural smiling for no reason. People smile at me just because they see me, and they smile politely. I can't smile back. I just raise my eyebrows.

People now tell me constantly that I'm too sad, that I should smile more that I'm not happy. Now, there's some truth to that -- I do suffer from depression -- but that predates living in Turkey and it's only since then that anyone's accused me of being sad, or even noticed that I don't smile as much as I should. I've had to train my friends out of referring to me as grumpy.

My job is teaching English as a Second Language to students from all over the world. My Western students -- particularly the Latinos -- tell me daily (literally) that I don't smile enough. My East Asian and Eastern European students have never said a word in that direction. I just realized the divide now after watching this video.

Wait, this asshole gave $110B worth of arms to a country who's flag has a sword on it and the words "Allah is the only god" are written next to the sword?

Good bye westernized civilisation. You were the only hope for humanity.

Chomsky\s position doesn't surprise me in the least and I think is much more easily explainable than you want to make it. Chomsky is taking the default most anti-American position that he can. Part of that includes not letting Russia be painted any more black or dark than America. There's nothing new, surprising or different in his opinion here, he's just expressing it in a way that goes against the democrats which throws people that hadn't seen Chomsky that way before when he was mostly condemning right leaning America. It's pretty much the exact same thing as the shift in opinion towards wikileaks before and after they ran a freight train over Hillary. When they were releasing secrets damaging to the right end of the spectrum they were doing the lord's work. The explicit and sole focus on western evils was ok until suddenly the left end of the west got included. Now suddenly a pro-Russian conspiracy was visible to left leaning folks. You know, the now that it's affecting me it's a problem viewpoint.

Great use of the watch music from the classic western "For a Few Dollar's More," probably my favorite gunslinger movie of all time (Clint Eastwood in his prime as the Man with No Name).

Final duel from that movie which features the watch music (spoiler alert if you haven't seen the film yet):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onjt2L2lDEY

Same situation here. I liked Seven Samurai, and could see how the conversion to a western works well. It's a fairly simple story, classic underdog / good vs evil setup. This certainly isn't going to have the cultural impact of Kurosawa, but I'm guessing it'll be an entertaining flick.

All food is organic. If you wanted to you could try inorganic but it would not work.

Not all food is Organic®. Just coining a new marketing label does not make an apple healthier. You can make people fear pesticides to squeeze some money out of them but in the end they have to eat something. Without pesticides most people would just die. Of hunger.

That said in western culture there is this reluctance to eat apples that are not the perfect shape and colour of an apple. If labeling these imperfect apples Organic® helps sell them and get them eaten, why not? If you want it someone will sell it to you.

I remember having to buy new edition Calculus book ($100+) because they switched the texts between calc 2 and calc 3. Wasn't this shit invented 400 years ago? Did I really need a new book with slightly different questions? apparently so.
Meanwhile the author (Stewart) lives in a multi-million dollar ocean-front mansion on the west coast.

Fun fact: the Indian government regulates textbook costs, and even though the editions sold there are paperback only and lower-quality print, they are <1/10th the cost of western-published books with identical content. (It's illegal to export them out of India though.) Isn't it nice when a democracy works for the people rather than for corporations?

@MilkmanDan

i do not want to speak for eric,so i will just explain why i downvoted.

this video attempts to explain the syrian crisis,with almost zero critical examination.the video practically regurgitates the current american political narrative and never mentions the conflicts of information.

let me explain:

1.the video states this all started due to the arab spring,but totally fails to mention that the MAIN reason for the continued conflict is not arab spring,but the fact the both qatar and saudi arabia have been pushing syria to allow them to build a pipeline through syria in order for those countries to sell oil and gas to europe.

which would be in direct competition with russia,which is the main provider of oil and gas to europe.

2.this video claims..twice..that assad has used chemical weapons against his own people.while convenient for a western power which may,or may not,wish to engage militarily.there was no evidence in 2013,and there is no evidence this time (mainly due to time.i mean come on,TWO days? and BOOM.assad did it,nothing to see here.move along).

the only journalist in 2013 that challenged the narrative was seymor hersh.who was ridiculed and chastised,and ultimately vindicated in 2014 by the UN securities commission,that assad was not the perpetrator,but rather the al qeada off shoot el nosra.

which was barely covered,if at all,in american corporate media.

it is also important to mention that the assad regime,in full compliance with the UN,handed over all materials that could be used in chemical warfare.i.e:sarin gas.

3.while the video DOES mention it,it does so in a very slick way,and if you are not following this situation,you will miss it.

america IS supporting and funding "rebels",but pay attention to who those rebels are:they are the offshoot of al qeada,el nosra.

so in effect,america sis funding and supporting al qeada to fight against the assad regime.

i will give you time to allow that to sink in a moment.

these are only a few of the glaring inconsistencies in this video,but i will agree that the situation in syria is complicated,but the reasons for that complication are not being mentioned in this video..at all.

and one final thing to chew about before i go,because i think it is an important aspect to ponder,and as of right now,thats all it really is:speculation.

assad was set to meet with a UN peace council in a week to discuss possible diplomatic solutions.add to this that trump had just recently (last week) backed off obama's "red line" approach,and stated quite clearly that america is ONLY interested in dealing with ISIS,and had NO interest in dealing with assad.

question:

why would assad,with only a week to go before peace negotiations,commit politicial suicide by gassing his own people?

who benefits from this attack?

because it sure is not assad.

we all know the situation in syria is dire,complicated and grotesque,but the current narrative being fed to americans simply does NOT add up.

2+2 does not = 5

and this video does nothing to clear that up,it simply regurgitates american corporate media's narrative.

and i refuse to upvote that.

Your video, Tribesmen in the Amazon React to Images of the Western World, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 41 Badge!

Isn't this an everyday skill of accounts clerks? Or have things in the western world change in the 30 years?

He's only telling half the story.

Yes, American agencies won't spy on Americans without a warrant, BUT, all Western intelligence agencies have a nudge-nudge wink-wink relationship. "We won't spy on OUR citizens, so we'll just spy on yours, you spy on ours and we'll share intel at the end of the day."

It amounts to the same thing, just with a clever workaround to pretend to the public like you're not actually spying on them.

The more I see about this film the worse it looks. Every new trailer just shows me the same terrible western take on comic-based films, with total disregard for the source material where it counts.

A sad footnote, I just read that Phil Chevron died of cancer in 2013. He wrote some great songs like "Thousands are Sailing".

And "Rabinga", from the "Straight To Hell" soundtrack. That was a bizarre movie, with The Pogues, Joe Strummer, Courtney Love, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones in a spaghetti western in Almeria, Spain.

If 300000000 were dedicated to the destruction of western civilization, it would be destroyed today.

Her contention that the peaceful majority is irrelevant means we must be in fear of and at war with every group we could name, because they all have radicals. That's simply asinine.

She is really angry about this question.
There are MANY Islamic peace movements, contrary to their implications that this single woman is it. Just a few below.

Islamic Peace Movement UK, more widely known as Islamic Movement UK or IMUK, is the largest Islamic organisation in the UK.[1] It was formed in 1989 in Leeds by Mohammed Kilyam

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (Mir-za Mas-roor Ah-mad) is the fifth Khalifa (Caliph) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Spearhead by the Muslim Peace Coalition, 100 New York Imams in the spring of 2011 stood together to issue an historic statement that established the link between wars at home and wars abroad.

Fortunately, a western adaptation will also tone down any kindergarten up-skirt tee hee, if present. Hard core Japanese anime isn't necessarily all good.