Mumbai - World's Rudest and New York - World's Most Polite ???

I read this Reader's Digest article, "How polite are we?", in the morning and by night all the networks are covering it as big news.

According to this Survey, Mumbai is rated as world's rudest city and New York is rated as world's most polite city. What's wrong with this picture?

I was surprised to see the criteria used to determine the being rude vs. being polite.

1. "Dropping papers in a busy street to see if anyone would help"
Cannot comment much on this, because I never been to Mumbai. However, this partly shows being people as busy, not rude.

2. "Checking how often shop assistants said “thank you”"
This, I have problem with. In country like India forget about busy city like Mumbai, even rural town shop assistant would not say "thank you". But, that's most definitely not because he/she was being rude. It's because ordinary people in India are simply not used to saying such pleasantries.

3. "Counting how often someone held a door open"
This is another area where the survey picked a wrong case to observe to analyze rudeness. Again, most of the ordinary people in India are not simply used to 'holding the door open for someone that's coming behind them'. People just do not such thing as being rude. I will give you an example.

For years I have been working and living in NY/NJ/PA tri-state area. Every time someone sneezes, most of them (including myself) say 'bless you' (short for 'may god bless you'). Some may choose to say it, some don't say it. I worked in Maryland for six months, there I observed my colleagues and not even once they said 'bless you'. I do not think they are any more impolite than the New Yorkers.

I think this survey is severely flawed!

Two moving monologues few days after 9/11

Jon Stewart handled himself great and gave a reaction that seemed to have gotten from his gut. However, I think David Letter who is the senior of the two, was excellent in putting things in perspective and eloquent in his speech. Every one of us can learn great deal by looking at how these two conducted themselves at not only difficult time in their own lives but also of the country.

David Letterman 9/11


Jon Stewart 9/11

Jon Stewart v Bill Bennett

jon stewart v. bill bennett


I watched this on the Daily Show and I thought that Jon Stewart did really well to counter the argument of well known ultra-conservative pundit, Bill Bennett. I especially liked his refutal of the slippery slope argument used by Bennett.

On the whole, an interesting debate about the gay marriage issue.

VoR