"Today's assignment: Define the term 'first world country' in 750 words or less. Be concise and be sure to discuss politics, economics, demographics, etc., as they apply. You may include examples where necessary."
I'll spare you the diatribe on infant mortality rates, poverty percentages, rate of technological change and other academic jargon for determining modernity mainly because I possess little or no knowledge of how to interpret and use this data intelligently anyway. And why should I? As the cliché more or less says: Who cares about the high brow, academic, rote memorized response; it's the real-world, practical answer to the question at hand that really counts. So then what is the answer to this truly engaging question? Water faucets. That's right, write it down: water faucets.
Does your sink have two water faucets, one hot, one cold? Sure. There's nothing wrong with that. But are there two separate spigots for hot and cold water? And if you're lucky enough to have only one faucet or spigot, does the water still come out in two separate streams, scalding hot and freezing cold? Highly unlikely. What kind of advanced first world country would make something so impractical? So inane? So utterly painful?
England: Where technological progress has stagnated and no one really seems to notice or care.
One would think that with all of the free college education the government is handing out that England would be at the forefront of technological innovation.
Sadly, that's not the case.
Take another less technological example. Something simple like teeth. British people are renowned for their horrible teeth. And this whole, "there's no bloody fluoride in the water," act hasn't floated with me from the start. It's called orthodontia, folks. Crooked teeth went out of style along with those fancy wig getups, unless, of course, you're a member of Parliament. You'd think that perhaps those Scots up north could spend their time more wisely (and lucratively) cloning jaws with straight teeth instead of biding their time with silly farm animals.
Now picture this: You're cuddling up in front of the television with your fit bird (that's colloquial Queen's English for woman) to watch a cheesy love flick you've brought from back home. You make your move. It fits. But it doesn't seem to be working. You take it out. You put it back in. It's still dysfunctional. Why? No compatibility. British tapes, while standard VHS, move at a different speeds than those in the States. Slower, no doubt.
And lets say that you want to reach out and touch someone (by phone, that is). So you put a pound coin in and are credited this amount toward your calling time. You talk for 30p worth of time and then hang up expecting to receive 70p back. You wait. Nothing comes out. Ah, the coin release. Ka-chink. Nothing. The phone must be broken, you think, and then you amble on until your next call. But then it happens again. And again. It cant be bad luck; there must be some (un)reasonable explanation behind it all.
The conspiracy: If you want to get correct change back, you have to put correct change in first. So unless you know exactly how much time you're going to spend on the phone or routinely carry around a hefty bag of change, the telephone company will send you to the poor house before you can finish saying "cheerio."
But it gets even better. Unless you're a jabber jaw, it's cheaper to have a cellular phone than a land line over here. That's right, the aforementioned telecommunications firm has either figured out how to defy economies of scale, or is simply charging outrageous prices because it's a monopoly. You'd think that first-world countries and anti-trust laws would go hand in hand. Maybe that's extra credit.
And speaking of money: It's so simple, so useful, so hard to screw up? Wrong. The British have found a way. In America, a quarter has looked like a quarter for decades. Sure the penny changed from having wheat to the Lincoln Memorial on its back, but it still retained a uniform size, shape and weight.
But the British, unlike their taste in clothing, enjoy variety in their currency. They change it all the time. And all at the expense of efficiency, practicality and convenience. Gotta do laundry? Buy a subway ticket to work? Sorry, the dispenser hasn't been updated to accept the new 50p. Oh, and the old 50p has already been taken out of circulation.
"So, I ask you once again, to define the term 'first world country.'"
"ESPN."
Rod Feuer is a Trinity junior.
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