Joys Of Perusing Foreign News

The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

The Prague Post is a Czech paper. It isn't Czechoslovakia anymore. There are two separate countries now. The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Seems strange, as if we broke up and became two countries, one called United and the other called States.

A story in the paper says the Czechs don't have much self-esteem. That's one thing Americans don't have to worry about. Self-esteem we got.

I got two London newspapers - The Daily Express and the Daily Mirror. I once lived in London and a lot of things have changed there but these were two of the worst newspapers in the world when I lived there and that's one thing that hasn't changed.

Here's a good item though. "Driver Dennis Williams threw a £25 parking ticket onto the pavement in Carmarthen, West Wales, and was fined £150 for littering."

In the papers, there are more low-cut dresses than news.

Here's a feature story in Ireland's Sunday Independent "For some reason I find myself ironing naked during "Six Feet Under."

That wouldn't happen to me because I don't iron anything. I used to iron my pants but I always ended up with two creases down the front.

Here's something I find really interesting. It's from a newspaper called India Abroad. The writer, Sanchit Gupta, lives in the United States and he wants to know why Diwali is not recognized as a holiday here.

I looked up Diwali and it sounds like a great holiday. It's a five-day Hindu festival.

And it's interesting because we're getting more religious diversity in this country and they're all going to want their own Diwalis. I don't know how we'll handle that. We're already taking too much time off with holidays we have. How can we celebrate Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Christian holidays? What about an atheist holiday?

Here's a story from Warsaw that might interest any of you American women who've been thinking of moving there.

"Poland's new conservative Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz announced Friday that the Office for Equality of the Sexes would be one of several agencies to be shut down as part of a cost-cutting drive."

You probably wonder why I bother reading these foreign newspapers. Well, very simple. They all make me feel so good about living here.
By Andy Rooney