Re: friends of imap dinner tonight

[Mark Crispin <MRC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
> Have you been to Amsterdam/Venice/<x>? Have you seen the wide-eyed
> tourists, very obviously thinking «gee, this isn't at all like Des
> Moines/San Tone/<y>»?

I have indeed; and was hoping that was what you meant (as opposed to an 
alternative interpretation of "different attitudes").

We call it the "Disneyland phenomenum": the tendency of naive Americans 
travelling abroad to act as if they are in Disneyland where everything is 
perfect and safe.

In my experience, it's mostly urbanites who do it.  They seem to think 
that street crime only happens on large US cities, and that the rest of 
the world is a place where nobody locks their doors and everybody is as 
safe as in a Disney theme park.  Americans have a particularly unrealistic 
notion about the UK in this regard.

I have seen non-Americans (particularly Japanese) behave this way too, so 
it isn't exclusively a US weakness.

> I've never lifted anyone's wallet and don't know what the professionals
> are looking for, but my amateur analysis is that that look says «please
> do relieve me of my possessions».

Indeed.  The first step of security is to look at yourself the way a bad 
guy would.  Most crime is opportunistic, so you want to make yourself a 
less easy target than someone else nearby.

> It was a pleasant dinner.

I wish that I could have been there, but I simply could not justify a 
junket to the Czech Republic.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.