... and why do you think that some people in some other countries (I was going to use "many" but didn't want to be sidetracked by arguments!) think that on average the US citizen is pretty ignorant and uneducated?

Lots of current very young aussie kids are pretty ignorant about that too, but there is a feeling that they should be educated about it - and there are sporadic attempts to do so. Many people my age grew up in mostly country backgrounds or had relatives that we were "blooded" with...

My brother is 12 years younger than me, and had no experience of the country. Our family went out to a relative's dairy farm - he was about 20 years old. Breakfast was free range eggs, unpasturised milk straight from the cow, left in fridge overnight (and the cream rose to the top! yay! hadn't seen that in milk for years - it's been "homogenised" for about 30 years - so you can't tell just how much cream they have 'stolen' out of it...), and made into scrambled eggs - wonderful - he went green and nearly threw up, he couldn't handle the taste of real fresh proper food! :-)

Robin