John- LTNS! Nice write-up- I enjoyed it. Hope you have been well. One quick comment " My friends who believe United States as a land of opportunities harshly decry my above statement – that it was a land of ignorance. I do not know how they see a relationship between the opportunities they garner with the unawareness within Americans." The two are not really mutually exclusive. How about, with full credit to John Edwards for popularizing the phrase, we look at it as two Americas: one with loads of opportunities and prosperity and the other with shades of ignorance (or volumes depending on *where* in America you are talking about) and much less prosperity. It's probably as unfair to compare rural Mississippi with Manhattan as it might be to compare Manang with Maharajgunj, no?