Cross-Cultural Understanding

I admit, I spent most of the day composing a bit of a rant, after realizing how tough it is to find a dry cleaner here who doesn't look as if you've asked for their next-born child when you want a shirt cleaned by the end of the following day. I may still write it, since I pretty much finished it in my head. I was planning, in my defense, to balance it with great things about life here, as well.

But I stumbled upon this while surfing and got sidetracked. Rather heroically surfing, I must say, since it was linked to in an article about Stradavarius violins, which I got to through a sidebar ("Other interesting articles") on a page about whether men could lactate, which I got to after watching an episode of QI (a British panel quiz show) in which the host claimed they could. (They can, but it's highly unlikely.)

Anyyywayy.....

Stare at the chart for a while, then go here to decide whether you agree with the methodology and findings. I will remain neutral, like Switzerland, which happens to be a pretty happy place, it seems, if you surf around the site a bit. As is most of northern Europe, excluding Germany. Spain, France and Italy (sorry, Portugal) are also on a steady upward path (at least, through 2007).

By the way, I am not at ALL convinced by the methodology behind the "happiness" surveys, which basically ask "So, how are things going these days?" The findings make for wonderful human-interest segments in the press when the results come out each year, but I hope we all agree that happiness is a bit broader and ephemeral than that.

Oh yeah, here's where the long ride down the wave that is the internet began: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2vadSwzAijs&feature=related