Oh yeah. I was shooting for sarcastic self-mockery when I wrote that contradictory sentence. Having said that, I was still blown away by the article; it seems like mores with booze are so different there, it seems dangerous.
In the US, the crazyness has been so big and institutional for so long, chauvinism and unsustainability get normalized to the public. Under normal conditions. But since the financial crisis, things seem to be tearing at the seams a little. We're getting some seriously colorful symptoms, like the rash of murder/suicides by people financially affected, both at the top and bottom of the system. I mean, the Santa Claus massacre's the wildest I can think of, but they're popping up all over the country in local papers. It makes me really, really scared about how well our society would hold up under more serious strain in the future as other things get worse as well.