For Tuesday: Anderson, "Rick Steves Wants To Set You Free" (pp.1-19)

NOTE: Remember that Paper #1 is due Thursday by 5pm! You can turn it in late, but you lose ten points for every day it's due for a maximum of two days (a zero after that). So after 5pm to 5pm Friday is one day, and then Friday to Saturday is two days. As I say, it's always better to turn in a rough draft rather than nothing at all...but the more you write, the easier it is to revise (turning in a single paragraph won't help you or me revise the paper!).

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Rick Steves is a self-professed missionary of travel, and he claims that travel "wallops your ethnocentricity" and "carbonates your experience" and "rearranges your cultural furniture" (5). How does travel do this, and why might he believe that Americans in particular are in dire need of walloping, carbonation, and rearranging? 

Q2: How does the author seem to feel about Steves as a person? He writes that Steves is "a combination of preacher, comedian, salesman, life-hacker, professor, and inspirational speaker" (7). Does he think Steves is a bit too much? Is he slightly making fun of him? Or is he also taken in by the Rick Steves gospel? Explain what makes you think so.

Q3: Many people find Steves' message a form of "liberal propaganda" and some go so far as to claim he's "anti-American." Why does he claim the opposite, that his programs are actually "American-loving"? 

Q4: Steves tells our author that "Fear...is for people who don't get out very much" (17). Why does Steves and the essay argue that travel is a way to confront and cure many of our cultural fears? Why would he also claim that the people who are most fearful (and angry) are the ones who travel the least? 

NOTE: If you're interested in watching Rick Steves do what he does best, you can watch some of his travel shows on You Tube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ricksteves