Racism at its finest
Thu, 2007-05-17 10:39
#1
Racism at its finest
Thu, 2007-05-17 10:39
#2
"THE HUMAN RACE: Reparation repercussions
Published on: 4/15/07.
BY BOB VERDUN
CANADA IS A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS: the world's most international society. Canada is making huge strides in eliminating racism, and promoting true equality.
Sadly, one group refuses to accept the reality of Canada. These are the Indians, or Natives, or Aboriginals, or whatever the politically-correct term happens to be. They constitute fewer than four per cent of 30 million Canadians, but they cause great problems.
They refuse to accept the fact that they are immigrants, too, and that there were no truly original inhabitants of America.
They came from Asia! Many of them still look Chinese, and they have too little body hair to be able to claim they evolved in the very cold climate of North America. When European explorers and settlers first arrived on the Atlantic coast, the "natives" described them not as "white men" but as "hairy men"!
The "natives" certainly suffered in competition with the new immigrants who had superior tools and weapons, and inadvertently exposed "natives" to devastating new diseases.
However, most "natives" had been doing a poor job of stewarding the continent. Tribes regularly made war on each other, often capturing and enslaving each other.
Their myth is that they lived in harmony with nature, but, in fact, they were merely existing! Most tribes failed to thrive in either agriculture or manufacturing. They simply survived, killing wildlife and gathering wild nuts and berries.
Even their artworks, such as totem poles and stone carvings, are mainly very simple.
Canadians, in a collective desire to celebrate all races, go overboard to be sensitive to the "natives" – to the point of making fools of themselves. Canada is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the official symbol is an "inukshuk" – which is just a pile of rough rocks that sort of looks like the shape of a human. How embarrassing to proclaim to the world that Canada considers this to be art that is representative of our society!
Canada's "natives" may have been mistreated by the early waves of immigrants from Europe, but we are now killing them with kindness.
Canada allows them to claim vast tracks of land for their exclusive use, but it's never enough. Canada allows them to live a totally subsidised life on their reserves, never having to work if they choose not to.
Canada gives them every possible opportunity for education. Canada gives them special access to employment. A young man working for my newspaper company was merely adequate as a reporter. He had plenty to say, but little real ambition.
I was shocked when he suddenly resigned to take a high-paying job at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which apparently had not filled its mandated quota for "natives". Until then, I didn't even know he was a "native", but he had the right ID card to qualify him for a cushy job on a basis other than merit.
I have never heard of him since; he clearly has not distinguished himself!
Canada's "natives" are a glaring example of why reparations are doomed to failure. No amount of land, no amount of money, and no special privileges will ever satisfy people who are not motivated to advance themselves using their own ambition and ability.
Despite all the opportunities and handouts, the "natives" are the poorest, least educated, and most unhealthy residents of Canada.
They are ten times more likely to be in jail for criminal activity than the average Canadian – and that does not include vast numbers of criminals who go unpunished because of special treatment on their private reserves (the ultimate gated communities!).
For example, Canada allows them to make cheap cigarettes, which are smuggled into mainstream society without paying the usual high taxes. Canada allows them to run gambling casinos without regard to the laws that apply to the rest of the country.
The "natives" are never satisfied with the reparations they continue to receive, and they regularly denounce all other Canadians as "racist".
* Bob Verdun is a Canadian; a former editor who resides in Barbados. Email [email protected]."
Thu, 2007-05-17 10:56
#3
WTF
Moderators will be PM'ed. Trolls everywhere with their racist garbage.
Thu, 2007-05-17 10:58
#4
Geez. That IS racist.
However, reading NorthernWoman's other posts, she is definitely not a troll. It looks to me like she is posting this article as an example of the racism faced by First Nations people in Canada.
[ 17 May 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:06
#5
N.Beltov
Perhaps someone could explain to NorthernWoman that providing a few explanatory comments would be a good idea when reprinting such an example of racist journalism.
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:12
#6
Yeah, I was going to do that. How about let's cut a bit of slack for a newbie, especially someone who, judging from the alias and other posts, just might be First Nations. This forum IS supposed to be from an Aboriginal point of view, right?
NorthernWoman, I appreciate your input in this forum (and all the others!), and I hope you won't take this as unwelcoming. But we do have a sort of convention here, where we don't reprint articles (especially really racist ones) in their entirety on babble. A link to it, plus a couple of quotes, and perhaps some of your own commentary would be best.
Although, as you say in the thread title, the racism in the article really does speak for itself, doesn't it? Pretty gross.
[ 17 May 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:19
#7
saga
NorthernWoman you rock!
Can you give us a link to where is this from?
On the same topic ... racism ... I just sent a message to the Globe and Mail to PLEASE moderate their discussions on aboriginal issues ... like this one:
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070517.wRoseau17/Co...
There is a regular cabal of 'white nationalists' who show up for every G&M discussion on this issue to spread their hatred. They sidetrack and derail every discussion with their crap, and scare away people who might have INTERESTING things to say!
G&M could learn a lesson from babble moderators, because those same posters are not welcome here.
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:28
#8
N.Beltov
OK, I'll try to be more helpful. Here's a [url=http://www.nationnews.com/editorial/297343495418739.php]link [/url] to Verdun's racist article. There is a Village of First Nations [url=http://www.firstnations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2326&sid=4da11bec27e2f... Forum [/url] in which the email addresses of the author ([email protected]) and the publication ([email protected]) are provided and participants are encouraged to write to the publication asking them to remove the hate propaganda and print a retraction. There is also a good summary which debunks a number of the falsehoods by Verdun in his article.
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:35
#9
My appologies for not putting in any comments. I am at work and just when I pasted, I had to leave, I will remember for the next time.
Cheers,
NorthernWoman
by the way, I am aboriginal.
Thu, 2007-05-17 11:56
#10
Sorry for presuming you were a troll but with no commentary I just found it totally objectionable. Apparently that was your point.
The insidious part is that he has some facts like the percentage of FN's incarcerated that are proof of raciosm in Canadian culture and turns them on their heads to denigrate the oppressed. Hopefully he will be as outspoken in person to non-whites in Barbados and they will give him all he deserves.
Thu, 2007-05-17 12:34
#11
N.Beltov
NorthernWoman: It might be useful for you to be aware that we sometimes get "trolls" who post incendiary articles, often without acknowledgement, as a kind of provocation. It's like they're planting a little Confederate flag on Union territory.
Thu, 2007-05-17 12:38
#12
Catchfire
Well, she did title the thread "Racism at its finest" and give the email of the "journalist" to leave comments. Seems fine to me. Although I suppose we all have reason to be troll-sensitive these days.
Hi NorthernWoman! Welcome to babble!
Thu, 2007-05-17 12:39
#13
Just an update to let everyone know, I have contacted the Hereditary Chief of Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawaks from Barbados and they are aware of the article. His goal, as is mine and I am sure the same for the rest of you is to get the word out about these kinds of humans. They do come in all races, shapes, sizes, educational background etc and the more of us that stand together to fight racism, the better. As the Hereditary Chief of Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawaks said to me "We are one race - just different tribes afterall"
Cheers
Thu, 2007-05-17 18:46
#14
Maysie
Whew! I'm glad that's all cleared up. I was just getting my snarl all ready to go! [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Hi, NorthernWoman! Welcome to babble and I hope you stay around and continue to contribute.
As for Bob V's dumbass article, these are the same tired old racist tropes that have been trotted out forever. They'd be boring if they didn't carry such currency and if people didn't still believe them. Sigh.
Thu, 2007-05-17 22:15
#15
OK, since this isn’t some flame just to piss people off, let’s have some fact fun with this article:
quote:
CANADA IS A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS: the world's most international society.
T’is news to me. Canada does have a [url=http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89-593-XIE/89-593-XIE2003001.pdf]f... good ethnic mix of people[/url]. But there’s no evidence it is the “most international society.
quote:
Canada is making huge strides in eliminating racism, and promoting true equality.
Now that’s a highly subjective statement, and certainly exaggerated on the equality part. Certainly there have been a number of initiatives and legislation over the years to promote this. How effective it may be is another matter.
[url=http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/can-summary-eng]Canada[/url] fares only modestly on the Amnesty International human rights list—ahead of the US, China and the usual dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. But it lags behind places like [url=http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/swe-summary-eng]Sweden[/url].
In terms of equality, forget it. The biggest barrier to general equality is economic inequality. On that front, we’ve never been even remotely close, and in the last 20 years, we’ve gotten [url=http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2002/pcc02/jo.pdf]a lot worse.[/url]
quote:
These are the Indians, or Natives, or Aboriginals, or whatever the politically-correct term happens to be. They constitute fewer than four per cent of 30 million Canadians, but they cause great problems.
Obviously, this idiot, being a typical right-wing corporate brown-noser, thinks people standing up for themselves and their rights and freedoms, expressing their concerns, demanding the right to be heard—basically practicing democracy—constitutes causing great problems. Joseph Stalin would have loved this guy.
quote:
They refuse to accept the fact that they are immigrants, too, and that there were no truly original inhabitants of America.
So I guess that’s why we call them the First Nations. They certainly immigrated, but were here first.
quote:
They came from Asia! Many of them still look Chinese, and they have too little body hair to be able to claim they evolved in the very cold climate of North America.
This guy can obviously barely spell “anthropology” but he’s got it all figured out. Millions of Asians live in cold climates too—and they evolved there. Hair seems to have little to do with it.
quote:
The "natives" certainly suffered in competition with the new immigrants who had superior tools and weapons, and inadvertently exposed "natives" to devastating new diseases.
Actually, the “natives” were overpowered and out-bargained not by immigrants but by violent capitalistic elites and their devastating armies that butchered their citizenry, plundered their means of survival and destroyed their economies and cultures. Disease was only one part of it.
quote:
However, most "natives" had been doing a poor job of stewarding the continent. Tribes regularly made war on each other, often capturing and enslaving each other.
Right, whereas the honourable civilized Europeans all lived together in peace, freedom, equality and shared prosperity in wonderful enlightened communistic utopias cooperatively trading in a wide range of commodities and sharing technologies, science, art and culture in a spirit of mutual respect and innovation.
I’m getting sick.
quote:
Their myth is that they lived in harmony with nature, but, in fact, they were merely existing!
OK I get it now. Living in harmony with nature is just worthless existence. Living in dire poverty as a proletarian or land serf, often subject to bonded labour or slavery, mass persecution, brutal repression, horrid health and living conditions, all to serve and enrich a powerful parasitic elite of some sort—which is how most Europeans were forced to live (and many still are), well, that’s the good life.
quote:
Most tribes failed to thrive in either agriculture or manufacturing.
So, I guess all those highly advanced urban trade centers, complete with stadiums, pyramids, aqueducts and integrated roads in the south, along with vast farming and fishing networks, etc. don’t count. They “failed to thrive” yet managed to grow and maintain primitive but obviously resilient and cultured societies for an estimated ten thousand years. Guess that doesn’t count either.
quote:
They simply survived, killing wildlife and gathering wild nuts and berries.
Considering millions of Europeans had to bust their asses to make some parasite richer in order to get even this, the “natives” were quite better off just having to hunt and gather without such oppressive restriction.
quote:
Even their artworks, such as totem poles and stone carvings, are mainly very simple.
Whereas our artworks, like Britney Spears and Austin Powers, well, they tax the extreme limits of human creativity.
quote:
Canadians, in a collective desire to celebrate all races, go overboard to be sensitive to the "natives" – to the point of making fools of themselves.
Of course! Canadians are such suckers! Look at all the wonderful things the government has done for them:
[url=http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/files/PDF/racism.pdf]Report: Institutional racism Against First Nations[/url]
[url=http://www.elizabethfry.ca/litneeds/page11.htm]Report: Incarceration of First nations Disproportionate[/url]
[url=http://www.kahtou.com/images/apr_tlkingstck.html]Genocide in Residential Schools[/url]
[url=http://www.usask.ca/education/people/battistem/csse_battiste.htm]Education System Fails First Nations[/url]
[url=http://briarpatchmagazine.com/news/?p=276]Federal government Votes Against UN Aboriginal Rights Standard[/url]
What more could anyone ask for!?
I could go on but I won’t. This is gone beyond offensive.
With due respect to the person who posted this, I understand and appreciate the effort to show people just how sick-assed bigoted some folks are and how it is often accepted in society, especially in the halls of undemocratic wealth and power (I wouldn’t be surprised if this creep is an editor for the Global CanWest monopoly).
But next time, if you’re interested in this type of shock value for this site, maybe you could try something a bit more interesting, like bad racial or ethnic jokes you hear, or something similar. At least they won’t be expected to be taken seriously like this idiot.
Fri, 2007-05-18 03:58
#16
Maysie
quote:
Whereas our artworks, like Britney Spears and Austin Powers, well, they tax the extreme limits of human creativity.
Steppenwolf, you made me laugh. Thank you. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Fri, 2007-05-18 05:07
#17
quote:
Sadly, one group refuses to accept the reality of Canada.
The fact that he sees First Nations peoples as "one group" is quite revealing of his ignorance. I suppose he also sees people of European descent as "one group". English, Italian, Swedish, Russian... bah, they're all the same. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
His main premise is that the "one group" he singles out refuses to accept the prevailing order here. Would he have applied exactly that same standard some 500 years ago? Who then was the "one group" that refused to accept the prevailing order here?
Fri, 2007-05-18 09:32
#18
This guy is as sickening in his historical outlook as Justice McEachern was in his Delgamuukw decision. (fortunately he was overturned by the SCC) However I remember when I read that judgement thinking which would I pick to lve in, a long house on the west coast or the East End of London before the 19th century.
Seems like a no brainer to me.
quote:
Similarly, it would not be accurate to assume that even pre-contact existence in the territory was in the least bit idyllic. The plaintiffs' ancestors had no written language, no horses or wheeled vehicles, slavery and starvation was not uncommon, wars with neighbouring peoples were common, and there is no doubt, to quote Hobbs, that aboriginal life in the territory was, at best, "nasty, brutish and short."
The above unbelievably was written by the then Chief Justice of the BC Suprem Court in 1991. In the east end of London or the ghettoes of other European cities it was nastier more brutal and probably even shorter life spans. It is no wonder that the Howe street elite has such a hard time with land claims.
The scary thing in Vancouver right now is that they have hired Jeff Plante to deal with homelessness and he has shown himself to be an opponent of native rights so I can imagine his plan.
Fri, 2007-05-18 11:33
#19
quote:
Originally written by some dimwit:
[b]...no written language...[/b]
That the pre-Columbian people of the Americas had no written language would have come as a huge surprise to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems]those who were writing up to 3000 years ago[/url].
It is interesting that so few cultures anywhere in the world independently developed writing systems. Most simply borrowed and adapted the writing systems of others -- this was easiest and most common in the so-called "old world", the middle-east and around the Mediterranean and out into Asia, where long-established groups expanded, traded, traveled and interacted with each other over many thousands of years.
In the Americas, even though people arrived, spread and established stable communities much more recently than in the old world, writing systems developed here, as well.
quote:
[i]Only 5 cultures in the history of the world have developed a unique writing system. These ancient cultures included the Sumerians(who created cuneiform writing and lived in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq), the Chinese, the Harappans (who lived along the Indus River in what is today Pakistan, the Egyptians and the Maya.[/i][b]When was Maya writing first developed?[/b]
Writing was first developed among the Olmec around 600 BC. The Maya system records both the words and the grammer - vocabulary, phonetics and syntax - of the spoken language.
The ancient Maya wrote on many different objects including paper, wood, stone, stucco, shell, bone, cloth, pottery and animal hide. Although great progress has been made on deciphering ancient writing, there are still many glyphic sighs that cannot be read and texts whose meaning is not yet known.
[url=http://hrc.nevada.edu/museum/Education/MayaEducation/glyphs.html]Marjorie Barrick Museum, University of Nevada[/url]
A beautiful example: [url=http://tinyurl.com/39pv9f]Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Palenque_glyphs...
Even before the Mayan writing system, there were the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_hieroglyphs]Olmec hieroglyphs[/url]. The 62 glyphs of the Cascajal Block, from almost 3000 years ago:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/Cascajal-text.jpg/26...
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Mathematics]Also[/url]:
quote:
In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) and base 5 numbering system (see Maya numerals). Also, the preclassic Maya and their neighbors independently developed the concept of zero by 36 BC. Inscriptions show them on occasion working with sums up to the hundreds of millions and dates so large it would take several lines just to represent it. They produced extremely accurate astronomical observations; their charts of the movements of the moon and planets are equal or superior to those of any other civilization working from naked eye observation.Also in common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya utilized a highly accurate measure of the length of the solar year, far more accurate than that used in Europe as the basis of the Gregorian Calendar. They did not use this figure for the length of year in their calendar, however. Instead, the Maya calendar(s) were based on a year length of exactly 365 days, which means that the calendar falls out of step with the seasons by one day every four years. By comparison, the Julian calendar, used in Europe from Roman times until about the 16th Century, accumulated an error of one day every 128 years. The modern Gregorian calendar accumulates a day's error in approximately 3257 years.
It was no small matter that the Maya or their precursers developed the mathematical concept of zero -- they were one of only a few civilizations in the world to do so, which of course they did independently of (and possibly) before it was done in the old world. ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28number%29#History_of_zero]History of [i]zero[/i][/url].)
In South America, the Incas and their precursors did not develop "writing", as we know it, but instead developed a unique system of communication and record-keeping: the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu]Quipu[/url]:
quote:
Quipu or khipu were recording devices used in the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region. A quipu usually consists of colored spun and plied thread from llama or alpaca hair or cotton cords with numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base 10 positional system. Quipus may have just a few strands, but some have up to 2,000 strands.
This system of communication may be nearly [url=http://archaeology.about.com/od/ancientwriting/a/caralquipu.htm]5000 years old[/url], and therefor "may represent one of the earliest forms of communication in the world, roughly equivalent in age to the cuneiform of Mesopotamia."
Inca [url=http://129.177.34.238/museum/politikk/inca/1inca.htm]Quipu[/url]:
But why do we know so little about the Quipu, and why have so few of them survived? Well, it seems that this unique system was [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu#Suppression_and_destruction]suppressed and destroyed[/url] by the oh-so-civilized Europeans:
quote:
The Spanish quickly suppressed the use of the quipu. The Conquistadores realized the Quipucamayocs often remained loyal to their original rulers rather than the King of Spain, and Quipucamayocs could lie about the contents of a message. The Conquistadores were also attempting to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism. Anything representing the Inca religion was considered idolatry and an attempt to disregard Catholic conversion. Many Conquistadores considered the quipu to be idolatrous and therefore destroyed many of them.
Another fine example of one group refusing to accept the local reality, to paraphrase the moron whose column sparked this discussion.
[ 23 May 2007: Message edited by: Albireo ]
Mon, 2007-05-21 21:27
#20
It does bother me sometimes, this impression that writing things down is a measure of cultural value. To some cultures it was important.
Some of our Indigenous cultures choose not to write things down for a lot of reasons. Sometimes the best strategy to preserve knowledge and to add value to the knowledge is to not write it down. In order to impress upon the keeper of that knowledge, the responsibility to share and preserve it's accuracy, it would be best to keep it unwritten. Once written one reduces it’s intrinsic value to the keeper. One doesn’t need to work as hard to remember it. One doesn’t have to work at preserving, or respecting, its accuracy. You remove certain intellectual disciplines by writing it down. Once written, it loses its value to the culture and becomes mere commodity.
The best way to teach is to present a challenge. Having such a cheat sheet would be far too convenient and offer little reward for the learners, and the knowledge keepers. This wouldn’t go for everything. I might document a hunt I’d been on, but I certainly wouldn’t disrespect an Elder’s teaching by writing it down. I’d only proving to them that I didn’t, or was too lazy, to learn. Knowledge is suppose to be something that doesn’t belong to us. It’s something that’s owed... not owned.
I only assemble understandings of the knowledge given to me by other Spirits. I grow with that knowledge. Suffice-it-to-say, Mr. Verdun is making broad explanations through a narrow understanding. He's not respecting the knowledge being presented to him by his environment.
There, that saved me from simply reciting another intellectually evocative rebuttal to Mr. Verdun's statment, like WTF.
Tue, 2007-05-22 10:55
#21
Makwa
sknguy, I think you honour the ancestors with your appreciation of the value of the oral tradition. Miigwetch.
Tue, 2007-05-22 12:22
#22
" But next time, if you’re interested in this type of shock value for this site, maybe you could try something a bit more interesting, like bad racial or ethnic jokes you hear, or something similar. At least they won’t be expected to be taken seriously like this idiot."
Steppenwolfe:
I posted the story because I thought that the people here might be interested. I read stuff on this website everyday that "shock" me. I accept their posts and the people their own opinions as I was traditionally taught.
Aboriginal people in this country have been stomped on and shut down for way too long.
Posters like you who shut people down if they don't follow your "agenda" are, as far as I am concerned, nothing but little replicas of Indian Agents.
Tue, 2007-05-22 13:38
#23
Makwa
quote:
Originally posted by NorthernWoman:
[b]Posters like you who shut people down if they don't follow your "agenda" are, as far as I am concerned, nothing but little replicas of Indian Agents.[/b]
Bahahahaha. Oh my. Can I steal that line, pleeeese?
Tue, 2007-05-22 18:16
#24
quote:
"Anything representing the Inca religion was considered idolatry and an attempt to disregard Catholic conversion. Many Conquistadores considered the quipu to be idolatrous and therefore destroyed many of them."
(quote posted by Albireo)
It seems to me that conquistadores and those known by other names used religion to mask their true purpose. Destruction of another people's culture and knowledge just makes the process of conquest that much easier. Calling another peoples' beliefs and knowledge idolatrous justifies their own immoral actions.
A lot of our people went 'underground' so to speak, in order to preserve some of the knowledge that was, (and unfortunately, still is by some), deemed of the 'devil'.
Tue, 2007-05-22 20:48
#25
quote:
Posters like you who shut people down if they don't follow your "agenda" are, as far as I am concerned, nothing but little replicas of Indian Agents.
What? Huh? Are there hallucinogenic electrons floating around the Internet these days?
Shut you down?! Is that what you think I did? Got news for you: if you go back and look at my post, I'm the one who took the time to comment on the article you posted. I'm also the one who said I appreciated your efforts in doing so.
quote:
I accept their posts and the people their own opinions as I was traditionally taught.
Fine. But does that mean that those of us who find his “opinion” a tad out to lunch (to put it mildly) should not express ours?
The fact I found the piece offensive only reminds me that I suffer from something that is very un-cool these days: a conscience. The fact the total factless made-up crapola and total disrespect of that article pissed me right off was the only agenda I had.
How anyone with a half decent set of values or ethics could not be offended by what that asshole bigotronic editor was writing is beyond me.
BTW, if it’s not too much trouble, could you please explain what you mean by “little replicas of Indian Agents?” That’s a new one on me.
Wed, 2007-05-23 06:38
#26
Steppenwolfe:
Little replicas of Indian Agents are on every reserve. You can always spot them because they "know" what's best for their people. They are usually fairly well educated and continually spew out pedantic drivel in the hopes of confusing and making their own people feel inadequate and useless.
Wed, 2007-05-23 08:46
#27
N.Beltov
Hey NorthernWoman! We could use your knowledge for some of the middle east threads in the International News and Politics section. The similarities between colonial situations elsewhere and in Canada are sometimes striking. Please consider dropping by now and then to share your wisdom.
A word of caution, however. Middle East threads bring out "the usual suspects" (like me) and there's some pretty ugly hand to hand fighting. But if you feel confident and willing to drop in, now and then, perhaps I can convince the moderators to bake some cookies or something. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Wed, 2007-05-23 12:34
#28
I was shown the rant by a co-worker. I Googled Bob Verdun and he seems to be a loose cannon that will shout from his soap-box trying to make his world in his image. If you have anything to say please don't engage him personally, instead I suggest email the Nation News in Barbados and challenge him in a public forum. You can email their editorial section at [email protected]
Apparently he likes to think of himself as a voice for the down-trodden and is busy helping shape Barbados society in his image. I think we owe the people of Barbados the benefit of our disagreements with ignorance.
Wed, 2007-05-23 12:51
#29
Maysie
Can a moderator with greater powers than I PLEASE fix the sidescroll?
Wed, 2007-05-23 12:53
#30
Hmmm... I'll bet that's one of my pictures... Looks fine at 1024x800 or better, but likely causes sidescroll at 800x600 or less. I'll try to fix...
Wed, 2007-05-23 12:57
#31
[Deleted]
[ 23 May 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]
Wed, 2007-05-23 12:59
#32
OK, I narrowed it. That should be better. Sorry, folks.
Sun, 2007-05-27 18:26
#33
This Verdun fellow should read a little Stephen Jay Gould. Might clear him up a bit.
Mon, 2007-05-28 03:54
#34
So did anyone write to anyone about this? I'd be interested in hearing any responses.
Steppenwolf, you may not have meant to, but with this comment, you came across pretty poorly:
quote:
But next time, if you’re interested in this type of shock value for this site, maybe you could try something a bit more interesting, like bad racial or ethnic jokes you hear, or something similar. At least they won’t be expected to be taken seriously like this idiot.
Perhaps it wasn't your intent to "shut her down" and perhaps you did "take the time to comment", but this statement above doesn't sound like you were saying "I appreciated your efforts in doing so". This sounds like you were telling her what she should and shouldn't post here. So I can see where the misunderstanding came about.
Sorry to bring this up a few days later, but I felt it needed to be addressed.
Mon, 2007-05-28 09:29
#35
I'd like to just forget about all that and start over! Truce.... Steppenwolfe?
NorthernWoman
Mon, 2007-05-28 11:02
#36
quote:
I'd like to just forget about all that and start over! Truce.... Steppenwolfe?
NorthernWoman
Sure. No problem. I don't think there's been much of a war, though.
I actually got shit from some folks here awhile ago for posting a piece by a clique of ultra-bigot screw-ups "white supremacists" to show some folks on that thread just what sick-minded hateful bastards these types can be. So when I read that piece from what's-his-face here, it kind of re-opened that chapter for me.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But when someone starts hurling out totally inaccurate slanderous crap, I think that crosses the line big time. That he is also slamming First Nations in Canada from his safe haven in Barbados just adds to the fury.
Hey! Maybe as a truce party, we could poll our money, fly to Barbados for the weekend and show up at this guy's house!
After that, we could look up [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Grant]Eddy Grant [/url] (who lives there now) and go for a beer on [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Avenue_%28song%29][i]Electric Avenue[/i][/url].
PS: it’s Steppenwolf (with no “e”)
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