Growing up as a middle class, white male, in a small suburban town in New York named Owego has shown me nothing about the world, or the culture that surrounds it. Many Americans feel they have a tough life; little do they know, even on their worse day they have it better than many foreign countries. We are a spoiled country; most of us have lived sheltered lives away from the true horror seen by minorities and third world countries.

 It appears that every American has some kind of a problem with their lives; we take the pettiest of problems and turn them into overblown, dramatic situations. Two examples of these "major" problems would be, shock-jock Howard Stern being removed from six of his 1200 radio positions due to indecent radio programming, and the gay marriage fight that has thrown American into disarray. Sure, these are big problems in America, however, if you look at countries like Africa and Iraq where poverty and disease is destroying lives on a daily basis-our problems do not seem so big, now do they?

 As an American, I enjoy every freedom America has given me-but American's (including myself) tend to abuse those freedoms to a point of sickness. The society we live in shows us that more is better-more money, bigger houses, and luxury cars are the way too live based on what America teaches us. With this being taught, American's tend to gripe over the luxuries they do not have, instead of praising the luxuries they have earned.

 The hot topic of terrorism has ruled the airwaves in the United States since the deadly World Trade Center attacks; many Americans feel that the terrorists hate us due to jealousy and the envy for what we have. The issue of terrorism is much deeper than that; one reason Arab terrorists hate us is because we whine about the possessions we do not have, when they would "kill" just to have half of what we do. They live in dirty slums where disease, civil war, and hunger rip families apart each day; yet we despise being "only" middle class. 

 Another issue American needs to address is how to really define terrorism. The word terrorism is normally only thrown around if an Arab commitments a violent act against Americans or our allies; whereas, in America when a white man commitments a violent crime on a black man or vice-versa it is called a "hate crime." Why are there two separate names for the same crime?  Could it be because America is afraid to admit that Americans may be staging violent acts of terrorism against each other? 

 In closing, due to our sheltered American lives we may not be able to see that we let our own petty problems over shadow the world's even bigger problems. As Americans it is OK to be proud that we are the world's #1 country - but we need to keep our imperialistic egos in check and, realize that our worst day is much better than some countries' best day. Sometimes we need to put our problems aside and feel sympathy for those less fortunate than us; if we cannot do that is it safe to say the world's hate for our country may be justified? 

 If you have any questions or comments about this column, please e-mail me at:
 keithzimmer@yahoo.com.