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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Neigh, Horseman Bree
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Lil Buddha wrote:
quote:
IME, the average Brit knows more about American culture than the reverse.
Well, by the same token, I can say with some assurance that Koreans know more about British culture(Shakespeare, Harry Potter, Mr. Bean, Love Actually) than Brits know about Korean culture(maybe something like Oldboy has a following in the UK, but nothing compared to what Harry Potter has in Korea).
Does this mean Brits are culturally isolated? I don't know. It might not be so much a question of cultural isolation, but rather that the bigger you are, the more people are going to know about you.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Lil Buddha wrote:
quote:
IME, the average Brit knows more about American culture than the reverse.
Well, by the same token, I can say with some assurance that Koreans know more about British culture(Shakespeare, Harry Potter, Mr. Bean, Love Actually) than Brits know about Korean culture(maybe something like Oldboy has a following in the UK, but nothing compared to what Harry Potter has in Korea).
Does this mean Brits are culturally isolated? I don't know. It might not be so much a question of cultural isolation, but rather that the bigger you are, the more people are going to know about you.
Rather, it is both. America is massive and isolated. The UK is less isolated by necessity. But it does not then follow that it is completely aware of everyone. Korea is not as prominent in the UK, due to location and perceived influence, IMO.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I think that functionally the reason why anti-american bigotry goes unremarked more often than other forms of bigotry, is because we notice and worry more about negative sentiments expressed towards groups perceived as less powerful.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Comrades: as has been alluded to several times on this thread, Styx is not just the best place, but the only place, that Ship's business should be discussed.
Slamming HB's knee-jerk anti-Americanism is in order. Asking why he he's allowed to do it in Purg is not. If you think it's a conversation worth having, then you know where to take it.
DT
HH
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I'll back Porridge on this one. I stepped back with a sharp intake of breath from the Last of the Angola Three thread in Purgatory after Horseman Bree posted on it. Eutychus did host post immediately afterwards, so it wasn't unchallenged, but I just didn't want to get into that discussion, especially when I'd spent time finding links that implicated a number of different nations still using the death penalty.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
lilbuddha wrote:
quote:
The UK is less isolated by necessity. But it does not then follow that it is completely aware of everyone. Korea is not as prominent in the UK, due to location and perceived influence, IMO.
Well, you know, Canada is G8, NATO, Commonwealth, Windsor-ruled, English-speaking, the whole nine yards as far as British political and cultural connections go.
But if I said the name "Rick Mercer", how many Brits would know who I was talking about? He's a TV comic, pretty popular in Canada.
(I didn't use Mike Myrs or Jim Carrey as my examples, since they became global hits via American success, and are thus for all practical purposes "American" as far as their profile in the UK goes.)
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Hostly furry hat on
CK.
Allowing for a cross-post, discussing Eutychus' actions as a host anywhere but Styx will mean a quick trip to the gulag for those concerned.
Knock it off.
Hostly furry hat off
DT
HH
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
With respect to the above, discussion begun here.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If you're referring to other remarks I make that convey "Americans are different" then I'm not going to stop making them because that is what I think. There are a lot of ways that American society is noticeably different from Europe/Canada/Australia/New Zealand. If you and all the other Americans are wondering why so many cultural remarks on the Ship are directed at you lot, it's because you stand out. As much as anything, that's an inevitable result of your very different history - a history pretty much built on wanting to strike out on your own path.
Orfeo,
You seem to be suggesting that Europe/Canada/Australia/New Zealand have a homogenous society which is clearly distinct from the US. Is that your intention or am I misreading you through a paranoid haze induced by this thread?
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I have limited time just now, and so will respond just to this:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I begin to wonder at orfeo's motives in his posts
In which posts or bits of posts, specifically? I'm genuinely interested.
First, please note the sentence you quote, orfeo, was snipped. The original said:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
What a poison bigotry is, when it's become frequent enough, and passively accepted enough, that I begin to wonder at orfeo's motives in his posts . . .
US Shipmates have been subjected to a persistent stream of bigoted comments over months if not years from a single identifiable poster. Several of our number have been pointing out this bigotry, also over a long period. Recently, that bigotry has come to the notice of H&As to the extent that the bigot has been warned. At roughly the same time, I started this thread.
In the meanwhile, though, the bigotry has maintained a pattern:
1. Bigoted comment or false general assertion gets made by a single identifiable poster.
2. US Shippie objects and/or challenges.
3. Poster ignores the objection and/or challenge.
4. Sometimes a host (appropriately) refers posters to hell or elsewhere.
4. Thread rolls on.
5. Pattern repeats across various threads.
The impression this pattern left, at least for me, is that the bigotry, despite irritating some US shippies, was pretty much OK with everybody else, just not in the forum where it was happening. Well, there are cultural differences, different personal levels of tolerance for this sort of thing, etc., so I let the dogs sleep. As lilBuddha notes, we have no shortage of things to discuss & do nothing about. In my perception (quite possibly mistaken) the bigoted comments increased in number; it may be that I just happened to cross paths with the bigot more often. On the other hand, it may be that the bigot felt he had tacit permission to continue. After all, it was only Americans objecting, right? And only the location of the comments, not their actual import, being addressed by Hosts right? (I apologize for inclusion of hostly activities, but it does form part of the overall pattern I perceived, and therefore I can't readily separated these from this discussion. I won't comment on it beyond that here.)
Of course, recently this pattern changed, and additional hostly interventions came into play. At roughly the same time, this thread got underway. Somewhere, somehow, I don't know when, where, or by whom, the bigot’s running commentary had previously been labeled “pond war” -- understandably, but from my POV, inaccurately.
I disagree with this "pond war" characterization. In a “pond war,” combatants from both sides (regardless of who starts the “war”) fire shots at each other, as on this very thread; that’s what “war” is. By contrast, when the “enemy” fires back at the bigot in Purg threads, he promptly shuts his guns down and refuses to engage. Odd sort of war, that.
Various strategies, consciously or un-, can support and perpetuate bigotry: labeling the bigotry as “friendly kidding;” accusing the targets of being “thin-skinned” or “insulting” when they object; trivializing or diminishing the bigotry, its effects, the bigot’s intentions, etc. etc.
And now to the post by orfeo which, in light of what had already transpired as filtered, naturally, through my perceptions mistaken or accurate, raised questions for me as to just what has been going on here:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Going to America made me realise that a big part of why Americans are relatively culturally isolated is that they have so much diversity within one country.
Americans don't particularly need to go outside their own borders to find people to make little jokes about. They can make jokes about Californians or Minnesotans or Texans or flyover country or wherever else is the right sort of distance away for a bit of knowledge and a bit of mockery.
I agree with the bulk of this post. I too think America is large, and diverse, and culturally isolated. What raised red flags for me were the phrases “little jokes’ and “mockery.” Was orfeo comparing this behavior -- which really does go on among Americans –- to what the bigot had been doing in Purg threads? Was orfeo suggesting that our resident trasher-of-Americans was just kidding, and thereby providing “cover” and support for his bigotry? My reaction was probably colored by posts from lilBuddha & noprophet just previous to orfeo’s, which also struck me (fairly or not, rightly or wrongly, given the context), as efforts to “excuse” the bigot.
As we all know, the in-group use of the word “nigger” is very different from its use by those not part of that in-group. The use of terms like “Yank” or “honkie” is similar. The bigot is not an American; he doesn’t get the same latitude that another American gets when throwing terms around.
I posted as much to orfeo (though not in those words) and got this response:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Can you understand how these actions and this post might come across to an American as you discuss "little jokes," "a bit of knowledge," and "mockery?"
Yes. Can you understand how I might have been replying directly to something that was recently said in the thread, and how once a thread is started it might not stay exactly on the course you plotted out for it in your head?
Jesus, it's not as if it wasn't predictable that it might expand to the extent of discussing how people talk about people from other countries more generally. For starters, if you want to say that Horseman Bree is behaving in an egregious manner, you have to have the background of what is a normal cross-border behaviour.
It's not as if we all started swapping recipes for lemon meringue pie on "your" thread.
I do understand that this is not “my” thread. Neither, though (as I explained above) do I think it’s helpful to characterize bigotry as a pond war or as “little jokes.”
Again, what leaped out at me from this post (and I was reading in the context of a dawning and horrifying suspicion that someone I had previously admired and believed to be one of the Ship’s many champions against bigotry, oppression, etc. seemed actually to be suggesting that what I (and others) were experiencing as bigotry was, for orfeo, “normal cross-border behavior” i.e., fine, acceptable, and OK behavior.
Maybe I’m alone in seeing a problem here. (I’m pretty sure I don’t yet understand exactly what the problem is that I think I see, but I’m here hoping for other perspectives in an effort to understand.)
I want very much to be mistaken about these discomfiting perceptions, and hope for reassurance that I am. I am out of time, and will be away for several hours, but hope that the discussion continues.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Speaking only for myself, I was excusing no one's bigotry. I find it difficult to see how my posts on this thread could be interpreted so, but grey is the nature of communication.
AS far as the board in general, I think there are multiple things occurring.
First is that each of us wander through here on different paths. We see the posts in different orders, do not see all the same posts or pay equal attention to everyone. And all this is filtered through everything happening in our lives. In short: Your experience is not mine because you are not me. This is not an assignation of right or wrong, though. Just a difference.
Second would be that this place operates in a slightly loose fashion. The same comment by the same person will get different reaction on different days. It is situational and a bit inconsistent like life generally.
Third might be the nature of humour. Mother England and her various children do share much. But there are still differences. The border between good-natured joshing and bigoted comment is a more blurred one in the UK. Watch British comedy and you will see American bashing, but just as much, if not more internal pot shots taken. And comments that would get people fired in the US receive warnings in Britain.
So what you see as offencive may not be seen the same by others. Not because of anti-American bias, but because of different filters.
Not offering any excuses for anyone, but trying to explain why I see the dynamics here differently.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leaf:
...
Horseman Bree: taking repeated cheap shots ... is a shitty ...
...thing to do.
That (as I amended it) is my usual position. Helps keep me out of trouble most of the time.
[aside]I always thought Horseman Bree was a "she". [\aside]
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
US Shipmates have been subjected to a persistent stream of bigoted comments over months if not years from a single identifiable poster. Several of our number have been pointing out this bigotry, also over a long period. Recently, that bigotry has come to the notice of H&As to the extent that the bigot has been warned.
I sometimes get the impression that Horseman Bree has never been to the United States or known an American and bases his idea of American culture solely on our exported media. I think I'd hate America if that was what I was relying on to tell me about American culture.
Hell, even avoiding most media, there are a lot days that I agree with this Angels in America quote:
quote:
I hate America. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Prester John
Shipmate
# 5502
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
[aside]I always thought Horseman Bree was a "she". [\aside]
I think a trip to the Ship's Gallery will dispel that notion.
Posts: 884 | From: SF Bay Area | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Hell, even avoiding most media, there are a lot days that I agree with this Angels in America quote:
quote:
I hate America. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.
That's stupid. The person who wrote the national anthem didn't write the music, nor set it to the tune. That came later. And the tune pre-existed the poem, and which note came on which word was purely a matter of happenstance.
What moron wrote this?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What moron wrote this?
Tony Kushner. (It's a line said by a character, if that makes any difference - probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google).
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If you're referring to other remarks I make that convey "Americans are different" then I'm not going to stop making them because that is what I think. There are a lot of ways that American society is noticeably different from Europe/Canada/Australia/New Zealand. If you and all the other Americans are wondering why so many cultural remarks on the Ship are directed at you lot, it's because you stand out. As much as anything, that's an inevitable result of your very different history - a history pretty much built on wanting to strike out on your own path.
Orfeo,
You seem to be suggesting that Europe/Canada/Australia/New Zealand have a homogenous society which is clearly distinct from the US. Is that your intention or am I misreading you through a paranoid haze induced by this thread?
My intention is to say that in a lot of areas, they have more in common with each other than any of them do with the US.
In terms of broad political spectrum, most of what is labelled "left wing" in America would actually be something like "moderate right wing" in many other countries. Most of what would be labelled "left wing" in those other countries would be bordering on "communist" from an American viewpoint.
This is basically a reflection of the fact that the United States is far more individual-oriented and less society-oriented in its outlook, for better or worse (and there are indeed both pluses and minuses that arise). This is completely understandable given the origins of the United States.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
And now to the post by orfeo which, in light of what had already transpired as filtered, naturally, through my perceptions mistaken or accurate, raised questions for me as to just what has been going on here:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Going to America made me realise that a big part of why Americans are relatively culturally isolated is that they have so much diversity within one country.
Americans don't particularly need to go outside their own borders to find people to make little jokes about. They can make jokes about Californians or Minnesotans or Texans or flyover country or wherever else is the right sort of distance away for a bit of knowledge and a bit of mockery.
I agree with the bulk of this post. I too think America is large, and diverse, and culturally isolated. What raised red flags for me were the phrases “little jokes’ and “mockery.” Was orfeo comparing this behavior -- which really does go on among Americans –- to what the bigot had been doing in Purg threads? Was orfeo suggesting that our resident trasher-of-Americans was just kidding, and thereby providing “cover” and support for his bigotry? My reaction was probably colored by posts from lilBuddha & noprophet just previous to orfeo’s, which also struck me (fairly or not, rightly or wrongly, given the context), as efforts to “excuse” the bigot.
As we all know, the in-group use of the word “nigger” is very different from its use by those not part of that in-group. The use of terms like “Yank” or “honkie” is similar. The bigot is not an American; he doesn’t get the same latitude that another American gets when throwing terms around.
I posted as much to orfeo (though not in those words) and got this response:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Can you understand how these actions and this post might come across to an American as you discuss "little jokes," "a bit of knowledge," and "mockery?"
Yes. Can you understand how I might have been replying directly to something that was recently said in the thread, and how once a thread is started it might not stay exactly on the course you plotted out for it in your head?
Jesus, it's not as if it wasn't predictable that it might expand to the extent of discussing how people talk about people from other countries more generally. For starters, if you want to say that Horseman Bree is behaving in an egregious manner, you have to have the background of what is a normal cross-border behaviour.
It's not as if we all started swapping recipes for lemon meringue pie on "your" thread.
I do understand that this is not “my” thread. Neither, though (as I explained above) do I think it’s helpful to characterize bigotry as a pond war or as “little jokes.”
Again, what leaped out at me from this post (and I was reading in the context of a dawning and horrifying suspicion that someone I had previously admired and believed to be one of the Ship’s many champions against bigotry, oppression, etc. seemed actually to be suggesting that what I (and others) were experiencing as bigotry was, for orfeo, “normal cross-border behavior” i.e., fine, acceptable, and OK behavior.
Maybe I’m alone in seeing a problem here. (I’m pretty sure I don’t yet understand exactly what the problem is that I think I see, but I’m here hoping for other perspectives in an effort to understand.)
I want very much to be mistaken about these discomfiting perceptions, and hope for reassurance that I am. I am out of time, and will be away for several hours, but hope that the discussion continues.
The short answer to this was that my post wasn't about Horseman Bree. Neither, in my opinion, were the posts that I was intending to reply to. The fact that this thread started as Hellcall of Horseman Bree - who, as you have noted, has come to the attention of Hosts and Admins for a pattern of jerkish behaviour - does not mean that every post on this thread is written with Horseman Bree particularly in mind.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What moron wrote this?
Tony Kushner. (It's a line said by a character, if that makes any difference - probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google).
Why the fuck would I google every stupid thing you post, let alone anyone else on the ship? Fuck yourself.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The New York world view is that anyone sensible would want to be in New York.
Which makes sense because many of them went to New York precisely because they loved something about New York.
A lot of them are people who were born and raised in New York and just don't imagine life beyond the city as being worthwhile. It may be isolated but it does armor against gibes. They assume the motive for such abuse must be pure envy.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The New York world view is that anyone sensible would want to be in New York.
Which makes sense because many of them went to New York precisely because they loved something about New York.
A lot of them are people who were born and raised in New York and just don't imagine life beyond the city as being worthwhile. It may be isolated but it does armor against gibes. They assume the motive for such abuse must be pure envy.
There's a lot of truth in all of this.
To use myself as an example, I'm Minneapolis born and raised. I alternately love it and hate it here. (Currently, it's 50-odd degrees F and sunny. I'm beginning to love it again. If you'd have asked me last week when it was below zero, I might have had a different response.) I love the people here, and the culture - except when it feels provincial, stifled, and far too passive-agressive for any sane person to want to stay here. I love the noise, smells (most of them!) and hubbub of the city - except when I really want to move to a cabin in the woods, someplace warm, away from the assholes all around me.
I often criticize my city, my state, and my country. (Lord knows there's plenty of material to criticize here.) I don't even generally get offended when someone else does it. I do get a bit bent out of shape when someone seems intent on telling all and sundry that it's a horrible place, full of stupid, horrible people, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. All. The. Fucking. Time. All the more so when the jackass doing it has (to my understanding) never been here and has no fucking idea what he's spewing his bullshit about.
No matter where you're from, I think, there's always going to be a bit of it that's home. And a bit of you that's somehow both proud and protective of it, at least a little bit.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Is this where we start talking about Minnesota nice?
Yah?
![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
You betcha.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What moron wrote this?
Tony Kushner. (It's a line said by a character, if that makes any difference - probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google).
Tony Kushner also wrote the screenplay to Spielberg's Lincoln, which is about as rah-rah America as you can get while still acknowledging that they had slaves.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Orfeo wrote:
quote:
In terms of broad political spectrum, most of what is labelled "left wing" in America would actually be something like "moderate right wing" in many other countries. Most of what would be labelled "left wing" in those other countries would be bordering on "communist" from an American viewpoint.
This is basically a reflection of the fact that the United States is far more individual-oriented and less society-oriented in its outlook, for better or worse (and there are indeed both pluses and minuses that arise). This is completely understandable given the origins of the United States.
That's true. Though I am old enough to remember the days(pre-1982) when Canadian right-wingers used to brag about how Canadian cops didn't have to read "criminals" their rights, unlike in "the states", where "the courts control everything".
Granted, things like suspects' rights are more liberal, in the sense of individualistic, than they are left-wing.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Minnesotans are awesome.
Well, except for the murderous ones in certain fictional films where dark comedy is created by juxtaposing the sweet exterior disposition of Minnesotans with an intention to commit homicide. Fargo, Drop Dead Gorgeous, that kind of thing.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What moron wrote this?
Tony Kushner. (It's a line said by a character, if that makes any difference - probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google).
Why the fuck would I google every stupid thing you post, let alone anyone else on the ship? Fuck yourself.
Tony Kushner is an excellent Gay, Jewish playwright. The plays saysay mentioned won the Pulitzer Prize, so she might be forgiven for not giving the name of the author. Besides the fairly spectacular Angels in America (Which just was revived here in Seattle last summer), I'm waiting to catch with his newer play "The Intelligent Homosexual's guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a key to the Scriptures"
He's politically active in trying to fix America, and the quote represents one response to the AIDS crisis. I like his observation that it was no accident that Theater and Democracy got started in the place and time.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
On a tangent to the pond war, I was reading a book about English by Bill Bryson which has a lot of discussion about the differences between American and British usage.
He said that the meaning of the word pond is different. In Britain, it means an artificial body of water.
In the United States, ponds are bodies of water, smaller than lakes and larger than puddles. They can be either natural or artificial.
Is the British meaning now that it is always artificial?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I don't think there's any requirement for a pond to be an artificial body of water. Although, in practice, there probably are very few small natural bodies of water in the UK to which we would use the term 'pond'. Certainly, the picture-postcard village pond would be artificial.
The relevant use of 'pond' here is as a reference to the (North) Atlantic Ocean.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The plays saysay mentioned won the Pulitzer Prize, so she might be forgiven for not giving the name of the author.
That's easily forgiven. The offense is to insinuate that everyone SHOULD know that, or if they don't, they should google a quote posted on the Ship to find out who wrote it, and if they don't they are an idiot. Which is fucked-up talk. Which one expects from say-say, come to think of it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
In defense of the moronic, Angels in America is written very poetically. Belize's speech is like an poem of rage, and the context is that he's been listening to Louis' post-racial exceptional America ramblings for what seems like hours, though it's just breakfast, and he's been nursing Roy Cohn, who's dying of "liver cancer" while screaming racist epithets.
eta code
[ 12. March 2015, 03:22: Message edited by: Soror Magna ]
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Palimpsest: quote:
He said that the meaning of the word pond is different. In Britain, it means an artificial body of water.
In the United States, ponds are bodies of water, smaller than lakes and larger than puddles. They can be either natural or artificial.
Is the British meaning now that it is always artificial?
It's not as straightforward as that. The dictionary meaning is 'artificial body of water', but many people would use the word 'pond' in ordinary speech to describe a small body of water without worrying about how it was formed. Also, we have a lot of dialect words for small (natural) lakes; in Cumbria where I come from they'd be called tarns.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
If you want to discuss the minutiae of various terms in various dialects for variously sized bodies of water, I'm going to have to ask you to take it somewhere else. That's perfectly fine in Heaven. This ain't Heaven.
—A,HH
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Again, what leaped out at me from this post (and I was reading in the context of a dawning and horrifying suspicion that someone I had previously admired and believed to be one of the Ship’s many champions against bigotry, oppression, etc. seemed actually to be suggesting that what I (and others) were experiencing as bigotry was, for orfeo, “normal cross-border behavior” i.e., fine, acceptable, and OK behavior.
Normal cross-border behaviour below (given that it's antipodean behaviour, I've inserted a 'u').
Example 1
Example 2
I would be very surprised indeed to discover an Australian who viewed this sort of thing as bigotry, I think it probably hardly registers. Especially the second one. Who gives a shit about schadenfreude when you win all the time anyway? It's the big brother/little brother thing, and what's coming from the little brother isn't bigotry. I got to view it from 'outside' when living in Scotland - lots of virulent anti-Englishness from the Scots, lots of complete and total unconcern in return from the English. And like it or not, the US is a big brother in world terms*, probably especially so with regards to Canada.
*NOT in 1984 terms.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
See, but there's a difference between football club-esque taunts like that—growing up in Oklahoma, we used to explain the constant winds on the fact that Texas sucks—and, say, asserting time and again that Americans are gun-crazy, crass, bigoted, Tea Partying Philistines. There's also a difference between someone who can mock their own home and its foibles at least as strongly as anyone else's (this week, the "Oklahoma: 0 days since we've last been a nationwide embarrassment!" banner has been getting a lot of milage/kilometerage) and someone who is convinced that their homeland or party can Do No Wrong and somebody else's can Do No Right.
Plenty of Americans have problems with America. Lots of us, even the gun owners, don't like "gun culture," to cite one frequently inflammatory point in cultural slagging. Pointing out that politicians sometimes do nutty things that don't make sense or affect other people is one thing. Tarring all the residents of a country with the same brush you'd use for the craziest politicians is quite another.
Look, I'm not going to blame a single Brit on the Ship for the UKIP. I'm not going to ask what you all are doing to stop the Euroskeptics, to end the rise of the far right in your country, etc. I'm not going to assign any of you responsibility for what's happening over there. That would be unreasonable, and not just because I've read so many Brits posting in anger and alarm about Farage and his followers. How can I call British shipmates complicit in the new prominence of the UKIP when so many disapprove of it? Why, I'm pretty sure Euroskepticism isn't even a universal feature of British politics, nor is it something embraced by every British citizen! It'd be like criticizing American shipmates for our universal embrace and acceptance of the death penalty, gun culture, or crass commercialism.
Which is what Horseman Bree has been doing. He's decided that certain things are applicable to American culture, he's decided that they're also applicable to Americans in general, and, it seems, to the Americans on the Ship, nevermind that most of us aren't exactly thrilled about gun violence, the death penalty, capitalist exploitation, or any of the other multitude of evils that get laid at our feet. Those of us who don't support half the things we keep getting told we do have gotten just a bit tired of it. Thus, welcome to Hell, Horseman Bree.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I'm not going to defend Horseman. But I will note that Canadians do look with rather astonishment at some of then things that go on south of the border. In general, I'd say that's because everything has a wider range, larger distances between the two ends of continua. Whether it is income, education attainment, kindness versus violence, stupidity and intellect and nearly anything else, there will be more diversity and a wider range (i.e., poor is poorer, rich is richer, smart is smarter, etc,. There are more extreme expressions of pretty much anything). The USA has ~10 times Canada's population, which may account for this, but there are also some substantial cultural differences which have a lot to do with collective versus individual rights and responsibilities. The cultural differences are often underestimated. So is the climate.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Bigotry? Against the most culturally, militarily and (at least arguably) economically powerful nation in the world? The word cannot maintain any meaning if usage in this context is accepted.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Bigotry? Against the most culturally, militarily and (at least arguably) economically powerful nation in the world? The word cannot maintain any meaning if usage in this context is accepted.
Find me a single fucking dictionary entry that includes phrasing to describe how powerful entities are magically exempt from suffering bigotry.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Canadians do look with rather astonishment at some of then things that go on south of the border.
And yet, somehow, Stephen "Dubya Wannabe" Harper is Prime Minister.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Bigotry has got bugger all to do with relative size and importance. I think Ariston has drawn the line pretty well. And I did like the 'Texas sucks' joke. That's the sort of thing that helps the world go around. Bitter and unfair generalisations are something else.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Bigotry? Against the most culturally, militarily and (at least arguably) economically powerful nation in the world? The word cannot maintain any meaning if usage in this context is accepted.
Ah yes - the "Black people can't be racist" argument.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
I would be very surprised indeed to discover an Australian who viewed this sort of thing as bigotry, I think it probably hardly registers. Especially the second one. Who gives a shit about schadenfreude when you win all the time anyway?
Clearly, you are not at all familiar with the sport of Rugby Union. Which is (a) the sport that New Zealand most cares about, and (b) the sport in which they beat not only Australia but virtually anyone else with impressive regularity.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Bigotry? Against the most culturally, militarily and (at least arguably) economically powerful nation in the world? The word cannot maintain any meaning if usage in this context is accepted.
To some extent, I think the "bigotry" issue is a red herring.
If I have a party with people of various religious faiths, including Presbuterians, and someone starts making insulting generalizations about Presbyterians being this that and the other thing, then that person is going to be asked to change his conversation, or leave.
That Presbyterians are not an oppressed group in our society, and in fact may actually be among the more economically powerful(Max Weber and all that) is neither here nor there. I personally don't want to host dinner parties where my guests get abused on the basis of their religious beliefs, regardless of whether or not that abuse qualifies as bigotry.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Bigotry? Against the most culturally, militarily and (at least arguably) economically powerful nation in the world? The word cannot maintain any meaning if usage in this context is accepted.
Yes, a paper mill worker in North Louisiana has so much more power and influence than say David Thomson.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Canadians do look with rather astonishment at some of then things that go on south of the border.
And yet, somehow, Stephen "Dubya Wannabe" Harper is Prime Minister.
It's odd the way left-wing Canadian nationalists (not to be confused with left-wing Canadians) will frame a guy like Stephen Harper.
The typical spin is to say something like "Harper is importing American-style politics into this country", which tellingly ignores the existence of a huge chunk of the Canadian voting public who are apparently quite willing to embrace whatever Harper is "importing".
I suppose it is the case that certain things came into exisence in the US before they made their way into Canada, but to blame Americans for their positive reception north of the border is a pretty convenient self-absolution. Sorta like xenophobic Americans who blame the drug problem on "Mexican gangs", which is more palatable than admitting than "Gee, there seem to be a lot of people in this country that I love who want to buy illegal drugs."
TL/DR: Canadian nationalism relies on No True Scotsman in order to maintain its conception of Canadians as inherently innocent.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
One more thing...
quote:
And yet, somehow, Stephen "Dubya Wannabe" Harper is Prime Minister.
And recently we've had the spectacle of Harper lobbying Obama to be MORE right-wing(ie. approve Keystone), and Obama resisting. I'm not sure how you would spin that into the narrative about Canada being forced by Americans into adopting right-wing politics.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What moron wrote this?
Tony Kushner. (It's a line said by a character, if that makes any difference - probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google).
Why the fuck would I google every stupid thing you post, let alone anyone else on the ship? Fuck yourself.
It's pretty plain to me that SaySay was talking to herself when she said, "Probably shouldn't have made the assumption that everyone either had heard of the play or could use google)."
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I just had my Minnesota-nice relatives come through after visiting Washington DC and had to listen to the usual "It snowed a few inches and everything came to a stop. They have no idea how to drive in snow," and so on, that we hear from them when they travel this way. I tried to mumble that it snows every year in DC and it's not, strictly speaking, The South and traffic is jammed up there most of the time because the population is huge, not because they don't know how to drive.
That's an example of shut-up-about-my-home testiness, while I gladly laugh at jokes about my West Virginia roots if they're funny and well meant. it's not hard to tell when someone actually thinks everyone from West Virginia is an ignorant hick and when they just like the joke about the library burning down and all three books burning -- one not even colored in yet.
Yes, it's all about "our home," and if you honestly think our home sucks on some deep level then don't even try to say you're joking because we can tell the difference.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Clearly, you are not at all familiar with the sport of Rugby Union. Which is (a) the sport that New Zealand most cares about, and (b) the sport in which they beat not only Australia but virtually anyone else with impressive regularity.
And sadly, almost no one else cares about. It's like American attitudes about Canada's dominance in Hockey.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Canada is dominant in hockey?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Canadians do look with rather astonishment at some of then things that go on south of the border.
And yet, somehow, Stephen "Dubya Wannabe" Harper is Prime Minister.
It's odd the way left-wing Canadian nationalists (not to be confused with left-wing Canadians) will frame a guy like Stephen Harper.
The typical spin is to say something like "Harper is importing American-style politics into this country", which tellingly ignores the existence of a huge chunk of the Canadian voting public who are apparently quite willing to embrace whatever Harper is "importing".
..
Harper thrives on getting 37% of the people to agree with him.
He's got a huge chunk of around 30% that will never vote for anybody else but his view of things.
All he needs is 1 out of 14 of the rest of the voters to change to him and he can be as presidential as he likes.
He's a turd, in my progressive conservative view.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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