Defending my home part 1

My family is Lebanese Druze. I'm not so much, per se. I'm an Anglican (practicing even). When I'm outside Lebanon I say I'm Anglican or even Episcopalian (depending on how my conversation partner knows). The point of this being that the Lebanese Druze ideas run through my blood. That's right, IDEAS run through my BLOOD. I don't generally THINK too highly of most of their ideals, but I can't help it sometimes...

Well, what the hell does all this nonsensical rambling mean for me? The Druze (as it turns out) are ardent defenders of their homes. This means several things to several groups of them, but generally speaking it means your home country. The Lebanese Druze are ardent defenders of Lebanon, as Israeli Druze ardently defend Israel.

So here's where I stand on the issue. I'm from Tennessee. It is my home. In a less specific way the United States is also my home. Furthermore I've adopted Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia as my "homes."

When I lived in Chicago and Philly I defended the honor of Tennessee against the onslaught of anti-southern biases. I'm ok with that. Tennesse has both it's own style of music and it's own style of Whiskey. Kentucky would LIKE to make the same claim, but sadly Bourbon CAN BE MADE ELSEWHERE. Tennessee Whiskey on the other hand only comes from Tennessee. If you doubt my fiendish booze knowledge, go look it up.

All that said, the other day, I was at lunch here in India and sitting just a couple chairs down was a French man. He is visiting the institute for some time, and to be fair, I have no problems with they guy. But he was talking to an Indian about how bad the "government schools" in America are. I assumed he wasn't implicating private schools in this. He said "the students come in, put their headphones on, and put their feet up on the desk." I don't mind this so much, except that he clearly didn't go to the same "government school" that I did. I had to jump in (the druze in me couldn't help it). I told him I went to a "government school" (I'm still not exactly sure what he meant by this) and that I turned out just fine. In fact my lower education was in Tennessee which has something like 45th highest educations standards out of 53 (puerto rico, guam, DC, plus 50 states). We're not high on the list of well educated states... I even went to public university. So I promptly informed him that the United States is a big place, and we have everything. "We have the worst of the worst, and the best of the best." He, being a Frenchman negated this, and said "worst of the worst, sure, but you do not have the best of the best." I got a little riled up by this. I haven't tried to push the point any further, it doesn't really deserve much attention, but I realized that I spend a lot of time defending American education while outside America. I defend a lot of things about America while outside America. Especially the good stuff. Of course, we've got problems. I openly admit this, but come one man. America totally kicks ass! I didn't bother to add into my reply, that we certainly have the best overall collection of public universities in the world, and that competition is not even close. I don't think he would've heard it, but no matter. I felt like I had to defend my home.