This is a great post with a few specifics about gestures that mean something different in other places.
http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2014/07/gestures-shouldnt-making-abroad/
by Michiel Andreae from The Netherlands
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What a wild ride 2010 has been! A Gulf oil rig blows up; a West Virginia coal mine explosion kills 29; Greece and Ireland teeter on the edge of default; governments around the world rearrange the deck chairs through austerity measures and quantitative easing; the hottest year on record creates catastrophic floods and fires across the globe; the International Energy Agency finally acknowledges peak oil (saying that it happened five years ago!); and US midterm elections promise another two years of gridlock and political grandstanding.

from the Post Carbon Institute

also interesting, a view of where we are in the pattern of resource and culture:
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/178709-the-end-of-growth

Here is a very interesting video made by the US Department of Agriculture instructing farmers on how to grow and harvest hemp. It was made in 1937 and says "now with Phillipine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese, and shipments of jute from India curtailed, American hemp must meet the needs of our army and navy". So the USDA saw fit to ask American farmers to grow fiber for ropes and twine. It's ten and a half minutes long. Apparently the movie disappeared soon after being made, but was discovered and distributed thanks to Mia Farrow. Who knows how SHE got it. But anyway, check it out if you have ten minutes and an interest in a very useful crop.

Aside: Ron Paul says the best source of ethanol is from hemp, not corn or sugarcane. Saw that on youtube too.