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This is not a scientific comparison, but when I saw one scene I remembered another. This is the recent scene: yesterday afternoon, Naha airport, Okinawa, Japan. Line crew gassing up a Cirrus SR22: Details to notice below: crew identically dressed in company uniform; complete safety gear -- hardhats, reflective chest straps with procedural checklist clipped on, puffy protective cuff to shield the plane's wing from damage. It's hard to see in the picture, but even the boots are part of the uniform: black, with red laces, and company logos on the back. Impossible to see in the picture: the coordinated...

The Cross-Cultural Do's And Don'ts Between Israel And US (Photo) The American handshake: smile, eye contact, reach in and maintain physical space. By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Ra'anana, Israel ---- May 12, 2007 ...... There are many smart and innovative companies in Israel. But even with the finest minds, products and services, quite often business people in Israel trying to penetrate the US market run smack head-on into walls. Cultural walls. Leyden Communications (Israel), a full service, worldwide business to business marketing, media, Internet SEO and e-commerce consultancy organization, has been providing the doing business - the do's and...

AMPA - A judge revoked bail for two Saudi men arrested Friday for boarding a school bus and riding to Wharton High. Initially, Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were held in Orient Road Jail on bails of $250 each on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Circuit Judge Monica Sierra decided to hold them at a court appearance Saturday so investigators could dig deeper into their pasts. A friend of the two University of South Florida students tried to post their bail Friday night, said Ahmed Bedier, Tampa director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but a jail clerk...

...Patriotism in Red America didn’t have to be relearned after September 11. Selfless sacrifice is still an honored tradition in our communities, whether it takes place on the nation’s battlefields or a home in the nursery...Aside from religion, one of the most marked differences between the two parts of our country is the way we think about the military...Red America is full of smart people, as many employers are learning. It’s just that intellect, like wealth, isn’t flaunted here..... After the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections the blue and red map became ubiquitous. The large expanses of red represented areas...

After the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections the blue and red map became ubiquitous. The large expanses of red represented areas where a majority of voters favored Bush. The smaller, but more heavily populated, areas of blue represented votes who chose Gore [and now Kerry]. Now the nation’s social commentators want to know why there’s such a gap in our citizenry’s disposition. When David Brooks penned an article for The Atlantic Monthly (December 2001) describing the differences between rural and urban America, he started with his tongue in his cheek. But in the midst of the long essay, to the...

He's from Bosnia. New to the United States, never trick-or-treated before. It's just after dusk and he wears a ghoulish white mask. His 5-year-old cousin is a witch with a black hat and orange hair. They're running around with other Bosnian kids, none older than 8, with no accompanying adults. They run onto a dark road in Carlisle, right into a moving minivan. Asmir dies of his injuries. The details of the Halloween tragedy bring fresh pain with each telling. They are being relived this week by many of the estimated 2,000-plus members of central Pennsylvania's Bosnian community, as Asmir's...

One side of the Jordan River lives in the 21st Century, the other the 7th. One side wonders, the other submits. One is resourceful, the other fatalistic. One values democracy, the other autocracy. One looks forward, the other backward. One strives, the other resigns. One creates, the other stagnates. One discovers beauty and love in the world, the other hates. One embraces life, the other death.