Especially, contrasted with the second hour of last night's rebroadcast of PBS's Buddha story:
about Bhutan, it's 'Philosopher KIng' who recently retired and installed his son (educated in US and Cambridge).

I will get a DVD of this one.. Gorgeous *environment, preserved both by National Consciousness and via tenets of Buddha. Too many incisive comments re. their choices ... to just limn.
[aka Good government, Preserve the culture, Respect and guard the environment, Do not confuse the acquisition of endless material things but develop your own satisfactions ... and more.]

The nation replaces the West's notion of a GDP with a GDH; oft mentioned in conversation, seen on placards everywhere -- it means:

Gross Domestic Happiness and it is not a slogan or political koan -- it's a common goal of all deliberations and decisions on the running of the country. Sounds like fantasy, no?

* By a happy fortune, there are many sites suitable for hydroelectric power generation (with expected fish-ladders and the like.) All the machinery is built underground, so as not to deface the lush varietal greenness / discomfit the animal life, affront one's view.

http://www.kqed.org/...x.jsp?pgmid=18221
{Local stations' rebroadcasts; haven't pursued on-line views or DVD sources yet.)

Following-on the well done life of The Buddha, all-in-all the contrast with the greed-besotted Aims of Vulture Capitalism and its suited Overlords + the regressively deteriorating zeitgeist in our local stolen-then-plundered wasteland was much like trying to enumerate 1/0: it doesn't compute. Whole broadcast just might -- for a few blissful moments -- get the taste out of mouth of your three examples of What gets attention here / What never Does, since the hypocrisy is endemic and the habits have been inculcated into too many generations. We'd have to start over from Ellipse One: Unpossible from whence 'we' came.

I'd emigrate in a trice; some talents might prove useful, even, given the narrative (the common-second-language across sects and for all obvious World-reasons has become: English !)
Doing homework next. I expect they shall have to take some measures re limitless refugees from the Insane World and that 98% of the stuff on 'resumes' here would be irrelevant.
(I'd also bet that they don't have thousands of pets waiting in cages to be euthanized -- they've already embarked upon distribution of contraceptives, so likely they see the connections elsewhere.

Glad I saw that little story prior to the real-G l ory of our Warfare State!
Imagine, such a place exists in 2011, not in just fairy tales.. Love. It.