Watching the World News Tonight the USA Looks Like the Worst Place on Earth to Live With All That is Going On--But is It ?

Here in the San Jose/San Francisco area there are still lots of fires around although they've definitely been reduced overall. The smoke comes and goes at various points in the day and has been diminishing overall the last three days. We actually got to ride our bicycles on a 9 mile bike ride this morning but later in the day is started getting smoky outside again but in the late afternoon the winds from the ocean came up and cleared it up again.

We had mainly peaceful protests several days just after George Floyd was murdered but they haven't recurred. There were some damaged businesses and cars here and there bot the protests were peaceful for the most part. It was an extremely small number of people who caused problems.

So we're just waiting for more wild fires and the next big earthquake since the Loma Prieta earthquake didn't really diminish the likely hood of an earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

Media portray SF as overrun by homeless people. Needles and feces everywhere, plus lots of petty crime. How true is this?
 

I like David Muir, too, and he is soo easy on my eyes! Sounds like Jersey is doing fairly well and that's a good thing.
He got my attention when he was reporting from out there in the trenches. He's serious, yet concerned and caring. And he has a sexy neck! I love his smile at the end of the show after his American Strong segments. He was voted one of the sexiest newsmen alive a couple of years ago. This in addition to being an award winning journalist. https://people.com/politics/15-sexiest-newsmen-alive/?slide=6011236#6011236

From Wikipedia: "Muir delivered the commencement address at Ithaca College in New York in May 2011, during which he urged graduates to use their voices.[21] On March 13, 2015, Muir received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree and the Jessica Savitch Award of Distinction for Excellence in Journalism from Ithaca College. On May 8, 2015, Muir delivered the commencement address at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. During the ceremony, he was given an honorary Doctor of Media degree. On May 12, 2018, Muir delivered the commencement address at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin."
 
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Lets see, this is South Carolina:

- We are being stupid about the virus.
- We are being stupid about race relations.
- We are being stupid about domestic violence.
- We are being stupid about keeping our roads and bridges repaired.
- We are being stupid about political corruption.
- We are being stupid about alcohol and drug abuse.

We are just stupid, ... and this summer has been very hot, humid and uncomfortable with lots of mosquitos.

But, we do have good BBQ!
I happen to love South Carolina....It has some good and has some bad....Where we are located we love the area...
I know when we were there Early February and March they were fixing the long long Highway....Many places to go..
shopping, and lucky to have the Ocean 2 miles away....The only thing if you read the papers, of course, most States
are the same....It just is where you are in the State....
We are in New Jersey, our first home.....I would rather live in SC....NJ politics are awful....Almost going to sell our home of 45 years...
It's a very big decision....By the way....the virus is all over the world.....You just have to be careful....In my area we never had domestic violence
So, come on....Political corruption, has been going on forever....I stay out of that....And drug abuse is worse....Try and stop it....
It is an awful thing to stop....We are to old to think about those things....Our kids are great and their kids....God Help Us....
For me, if you didn't live near New York City, you were lucky....My husband was there....He is OK....He got out of the city and now
is retired….
And, we have mosquitos in New Jersey....I got bit, not knowing when I was getting the pool cleaned at Seven O' Clock...Only
realized it when I went in the house and I was scratching …..So lets here who thinks they have the better, town, city, or anyother…
 

Covid-19 has been rampaging in Mississippi, but the last couple of weeks have shown downward trends in hospitalizations, ICU bed occupancy and deaths. I never look at case counts alone, because the more cases we have that don't require a hospital stay, the better we are in the long run for herd immunity. We'll know in a week or two how restarting school impacts the overall population.

Protesters have stuck to protesting.

State recently retired the flag with the Confederate Battle Flag ...we had nowhere left to sink there, but thankfully it's finally gone!

Late spring and summer have been cooler than usual. Hoping for an early, hurricane-free fall.
 
Then go. Go now. Like all the celebs that said they would leave if you-know-who was elected, you will not. Hypocrite.
I would never live in another country..It's USA where I die....We traveled all over....the USA, Islands, countries.....Not saying I didn't like those
countries....Some were OK, some were great....I want to be burried in the USA....And I don't give a dam about the celebs....Good riddance ….
My family are Italian....I didn't even want to go there.....I'm not happy what is going on in our country....But I don't get into politics....
What ever it will be, I'll deal with it...But I have a But.....But I will not say....
 
Media portray SF as overrun by homeless people. Needles and feces everywhere, plus lots of petty crime. How true is this?

There are areas where homelessness is more prevalent and areas where you don't run into it. There are areas where one might find feces and areas where you won't. I haven't been up to San Francisco recently but I went up there a fair amount last year. I didn't have any issues while up there. One occasionally runs into panhandlers in several areas but I can't say that any of them stood out as anything other than a spare change request. I have never seen a discarded needle in San Francisco and I worked in San Francisco daily for two years ending three years ago.

I think a lot of the media reports are overblown. There are problems but I don't think they're being accurately portrayed in terms of frequency and distribution of the issues.
 
Media portray SF as overrun by homeless people. Needles and feces everywhere, plus lots of petty crime. How true is this?

Thefts under $950.00 are now a misdemeanor so what is seen as petty crime in one place isn't necessarily the same thing other places.
There are areas where homelessness is more prevalent and areas where you don't run into it. There are areas where one might find feces and areas where you won't. I haven't been up to San Francisco recently but I went up there a fair amount last year. I didn't have any issues while up there. One occasionally runs into panhandlers in several areas but I can't say that any of them stood out as anything other than a spare change request. I have never seen a discarded needle in San Francisco and I worked in San Francisco daily for two years ending three years ago.

I think a lot of the media reports are overblown. There are problems but I don't think they're being accurately portrayed in terms of frequency and distribution of the issues.

My sister and her family were there in March 2019. She was terrified. They attempted to walk around Union Square before 7pm. My niece was propositioned by three whatever-the-politically-correct-term-for-stoned-homeless-person-is-the-thing-these-days, they saw a guy shooting up on the sidewalk. They'd toured Alcatraz earlier that day and my sister wanted to go back and sleep there.
 
Thefts under $950.00 are now a misdemeanor so what is seen as petty crime in one place isn't necessarily the same thing other places.


My sister and her family were there in March 2019. She was terrified. They attempted to walk around Union Square before 7pm. My niece was propositioned by three whatever-the-politically-correct-term-for-stoned-homeless-person-is-the-thing-these-days, they saw a guy shooting up on the sidewalk. They'd toured Alcatraz earlier that day and my sister wanted to go back and sleep there.

I'm sorry your sister and her family had such a bad time there. Union Square is very close to the Tenderloin which is an area with a lot of homeless and low income people so sometimes they drift over there to panhandle. When you said propositioned did you mean asked for money or asked for intimate relations?

One thing that is rampant in various areas of California including San Francisco is auto break ins. It is usually people who leave things in their cars who are victims. I don't think they should have to be careful about that but it is one way to reduce one's chances of having their car broken into.

One night I was up in San Francisco to see a band. Their van was parked in front of the club they were playing at and while they were away for dinner someone broke into the van and stole their managers laptop and a few other things. Thankfully they already had their instruments in the club because they did their sound check before going to dinner. So although I said that I have not been affected, I have been in an area where people were affected.
 
I'm sorry your sister and her family had such a bad time there. Union Square is very close to the Tenderloin which is an area with a lot of homeless and low income people so sometimes they drift over there to panhandle. When you said propositioned did you mean asked for money or asked for intimate relations?

Sex. Propositions were explicit and made to my niece in the presence of my sister. What kind of sicko does that ...much less three in a tourist area in the early evening?
 
I watch World News Tonight. Love David Muir. I had actually stopped watching for a couple of weeks...I couldn't take some of the news and I normally did not miss David (don't like it when he takes the weekend off...LOL). Here in Jersey we had some protests in the large cities. As far as I know, they remained peaceful. We dodged a bullet as far as a bad weather even we were expecting. Jersey's COVID numbers had gone down to a manageable level but opening of schools has been postponed until November after they went back up enough to worry teachers, the school board and our governor.
@Rosemarie: "Britain right now has lost its way, pandering to the minorities, but hopefully now that we've left the EU, we'll get back our sense of identity."
Exactly what is your identity? Can you expound on what you mean by that statement?
I can't answer that question without causing offence. People don't like to hear the truth, which is why I've been banned from other forums.
 
@peppermint

I’ve lived in SC since 1979, actually was born here but lived across the border. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

A lot complain about the heat and humidity but it’s not a secret, so don’t act like it’s a surprise after you move here.

To be perfectly honest, some (not all) folks move here and want to change it like it was where they came from (why are they moving here to begin with).

We have a lot of freedom to do as we please and that doesn’t suit them. I think they like the government telling them what to do.

We mind our own business which doesn’t seem suit them either. They like to tell us how to do it and why their way is better.

We pay very little in property taxes ($440 for me last year) which they love initially, but then want services like they had in the places they came from. I guess they must have liked those high taxes after all.

i have a great neighbor across the street from NY, he loves it here and would’t live anywhere else.

Another new couple from Ohio is not liking it as much, they complain a lot about the humidity we keep a secret.

Sometimes we still act like it’s 1953, but most of us have come around.
 
I've visited SC a few times, and enjoyed my visits. The humidity never bothered me, it's just as bad here.

I thought Hilton Head Island was a gorgeous beach resort and enjoyed it both times I was there.

Charleston, not so much. When we visited there, we also went down to Savannah for a few days, and liked its quirky charm better. Charleston seemed too snobby, a bit too much "old south" for my northerner tastes. I was offended by all the monuments to the Confederacy; you'd think they had won the war! Even the gift shops had little Confederate flags and little figures of "our brave boys in gray." It's time we put the Civil War to rest.

Our visit to Charleston was what was then called an Elderhostel trip. (It's been renamed Roads Scholars). I don't remember much about what we learned about the city, but I do remember the food in the college cafeteria being absolutely awful, and most of us just went out to restaurants to eat. And our hotel room had a deafeningly loud air conditioner. Funny, the things you remember!
 
So I was watching ABC World News tonight and seeing about the impending unsurvivable hurricanes coming, the national unrest and killings, and of course the virus stuff, too.

In my state things don't look so bad. We don't have any protests or rioting going on, yes we have the usual murders (it's sad to say it that way actually), our covid problem has gone way down and it doesn't look that bleak here.

How is everything going in your state?
I am in North Carolina. We have extremely high Covid numbers. The usual crap going on like most everywhere else. The good news is that we live in a relatively small town so are out of the middle of race riots and murder. I try NOT to watch/read/listen to a lot of news. Makes me happier.
 
Stay out of the big cities. Other than that, we are good, or at least, I am.
I mostly stay out of the big city near me but there is a nice part of it that is not so bad and I like to go over there to do some grocery shopping sometimes. I used to go to a nice restaurant there too but haven't since this pandemic.
 
Different strokes for different folks, I love some big cities. If it was reasonable to live in San Francisco I'd do that, but it isn't and my wife wouldn't want to live there. I'd also love to live in London or NYC. I'd pass on Los Angeles, Miami and many other major cities.
I've been to NYC for most of my life. only an hour away without traffic....The last time I went to New York City, my husband was going
to the wonderful Hospital in NYC...My daughter paid for the Hotel....Not Cheap....It was awful...It was supposed to be the best in the City..
I had the maids redo the Bed cause it smelled....They did a good job for me and my daughter...It looked like they were ashamed to see
that this happened....We did go to the person that was in charge and told them what the maids did for us...We also had their names...
Who know's if they ever did anything about it....
That was 2 years ago....NYC is a Hell Hole!!!
 
@peppermint

I’ve lived in SC since 1979, actually was born here but lived across the border. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

A lot complain about the heat and humidity but it’s not a secret, so don’t act like it’s a surprise after you move here.

To be perfectly honest, some (not all) folks move here and want to change it like it was where they came from (why are they moving here to begin with).

We have a lot of freedom to do as we please and that doesn’t suit them. I think they like the government telling them what to do.

We mind our own business which doesn’t seem suit them either. They like to tell us how to do it and why their way is better.

We pay very little in property taxes ($440 for me last year) which they love initially, but then want services like they had in the places they came from. I guess they must have liked those high taxes after all.

i have a great neighbor across the street from NY, he loves it here and would’t live anywhere else.

Another new couple from Ohio is not liking it as much, they complain a lot about the humidity we keep a secret.

Sometimes we still act like it’s 1953, but most of us have come around.
Thank you for that....We do love Myrtle Beach in SC....We use to have a Condo there, but we sold cause hubby had Cancer....So 2 or 3
years later we decided to go back to Myrtle Beach, SC...We go back and forth to MB and back to NJ....Our house is too big for us,
huge backyard, a pool and we are now have to bring help in....So, we will be going back to SC in 2 or 3 weeks....We have a cute cottage
with 2 bedrooms and kitchen and living room, and a little porch....That's all we need....We had our family there and they were
comfortable...open up coach, a blow up for sleelping….and the other bedroom....2 bathrooms....I have to say they are building all over
here In MB....By the way, we use to live in Ohio...Only lasted there for 2 years and came back to Jersey....
 
That was 2 years ago....NYC is a Hell Hole!!!

Sorry you had such a horrible experience. We must go to different areas of NYC. There definitely are areas which are sketchy, but overall we has a fantastic time when we were there a little over a year ago. Our hotels were wonderful and only one was expensive because my wife had to stay there with her chorus. We saw three amazing shows, saw a cool taping of The Late Show, ate some wonderful food, did a couple of street art tours in Brooklyn, saw a fantastic museum show, did a wonderful bicycle ride in Central Park and to top it off my wife and her chorus sang at Carnegie hall which was an amazing experience as well.

So to me NYC is far from a hell hole.
 
Wow, honesty.
Lets see, this is South Carolina:

- We are being stupid about the virus.
- We are being stupid about race relations.
- We are being stupid about domestic violence.
- We are being stupid about keeping our roads and bridges repaired.
- We are being stupid about political corruption.
- We are being stupid about alcohol and drug abuse.

We are just stupid, ... and this summer has been very hot, humid and uncomfortable with lots of mosquitos.

But, we do have good BBQ!
Wow honesty, took a bit to recognize it...thank you. (y) (y) :)
 
The U.S. is certainly facing some serious problems this year. However, we get the BBC news on our TV, and they broadcast much more than just politics and virus. Based upon some of their reports, we are lucky....compared to places like Libya, India, and most of the African nations.
 
If America was the worst place in the world to live
why would so many millions of people be coming here
both legally and illegally?
 


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