Living inside a cultural bubble

This is not America\nBrightly illuminated upon one whole side of a city building, the words above glowed within an outline of the United States. I don't remember on what building or in what city this electronic billboard appeared because I saw it in a photograph. But I do remember my reaction: "What the hell do you mean this isn't America?"\nI am ignorant\nMy head sort of jolted as the neurons in my brain snapped these words to myself. Wow, I thought, I really am an idiot! That sign must have been specially conceived for people like me. This really isn't America. America stretches from Cape Horn to the Eskimos, whereas the United States is plugged in the northern half.\nOf course, I knew that the United States was only one area of the vast Americas, but how could I explain my initial ignorant reaction otherwise?\nI found myself trapped in a bubble. What is this bubble, you ask? It's the U.S. bubble. It's where people see in, but people don't see out. It's a blinding biodome of celebrity sensationalism void of any contact with the outside world.\nPick up the newspapers. Tell me what you see on the front page -- Tiger making out with that heinous metallic hunk of a trophy, the thrilling exclusive on who might direct the first Harry Potter movie, Jennifer Lopez's shocking new outfit, the latest life-altering coverage of Bobby Kni... well, I don't want to transfer my senior year.\nAnyway, these stories aren't exactly windows to the outside world. What is the outside world? Pick any city outside the United States. We'll say London because that's where I had my first experience with people who see inside the bubble.\nA friend and I were walking down the street, and we stopped to talk to a temporary-tattoo artist. He says, "Oh, you're American? Name any state."\n"Texas," we said.\n"Death penalty!" he replied.\nBeaming with pride and very self-impressed, he challenged again, "Name another!"\nNow, that might not be an accurate description of Texas in a nutshell, but answer this: If you were a tattoo guy on the street of, say, New York City, and a kid from the former Soviet Union walked up and said, "Kyrgyzstan," what would you say?\nI am ignorant\nExactly. But I'm not judging tattoo artists -- that would be a different story of ignorance. He could have attended a place of higher learning. This brings me to another point. The media isn't the only tool of the blinding bubble.\nDon't forget about bubble education. The Carnegie Foundation surveyed 13 developed nations and found that 62 percent of U.S. professors thought a scholar must read publications from abroad to keep informed with scholarly developments as opposed to more than 90 percent of the faculty members from the other countries.\nIf the other 38 percent of U.S. professors are reading only bubble papers, that farther reduces our information on global developments. I'm not so sure this is the kind of higher learning students should have in mind.\nUnderstanding such studies, a more accurate statement describing our bubble should be, "This is not Earth."\nBut can we really blame ourselves? I mean, the country is stable. We're comfortable. We get loaded at night. The girls wear spaghetti straps. It's just going too great to think about Foday Sankoh hacking that little girl's arm off in Sierra Leone.\nSorry, I didn't mean to kill your buzz.\nThis finally brings us to the theory of demand. The reason we are not informing ourselves is because we don't want to inform ourselves. In our warm and cozy bubble, why should we want to know about the happenings outside? Better yet, why should we care?\nIf we did decide to care, what could Joe College Student do about the atrocities in a war-torn African country? What could Joe College Student do about the injustice in his own country?\nI am ignorant\nTell me. I don't know. I don't have a solution.\nBut I believe the first step to solving a problem is being aware that the problem exists. And as our world gets smaller and our cultures collide for better or worse, their problems will be our problems, and our problems will be their problems.\nNone of us can know what might ensue during our generation until we bust the bubble. If our papers won't tell us, we'll read something else. If our television programs won't show us, we'll look somewhere else. If our teachers won't tell us, we'll listen to someone else.\nOnce we realize we all share the planet's problems, we can understand it is not a question of them or us, because "We are Earth"