Wacky news that makes you go "wtf?"

[MattcAnderson]

Although this is not exactly wacky news, I am troubled by the riots in Missouri .
Racial tensions still exist in the USA
Regards
Matt

[only_human]

Originally Posted by MattcAnderson

Although this is not exactly wacky news, I am troubled by the riots in Missouri .
Racial tensions still exist in the USA
Regards
Matt

It sucks. We fight and hunt in tribes and packs, bleat in our cities and are slavishly devoted to queens of social media. Us versus them is as primary as an infant's ability to uniquely recognize mommy.

We accomplish so much and have good ideals but lie to ourselves too much and even organize that lying in our civics classes. We have thin veneers very slowly accreted over ubiquitous ugliness and I am ever dismayed when we dismiss or discount that veneer as we have in our recent forays into torture justification.

[MattcAnderson]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/18...s-report-says/

[ewmayer]

Thread about this in Soap Box. Details there, but two underreported aspects:

[1] The police shooting and overall thuggery in Ferguson may have more (or at least as much) to do with class warfare as it does with race.

[2] The massive (and ongoing) militarization of local police forces is a "happy side effect" of the U.S.' now-institutionalized "permanent war on terrorism (however the PTB choose to define it, natch)" all around the globe. It is increasingly clear that the aim of the GWOT is *not* to "win it", but to keep it going - via endless meddling abroad in a series of regional conflicts, many largely or entirely fomented by the U.S.^*, in order to keep increasing the wealth and power of those involved in the waging. Keeping the domestic populace in a permanent state of "fear of terror" so as to cow them into accepting such state thuggery and continued erosion of their civil liberties is a key part of this dynamic.

(^*Recent examples: ouster of a by-then-quite-compliant Gaddafi in Libya, false-flag gas-attack in Syria by U.S.-supported "moderate rebels" many of whom are now running amok as the decidedly-not-so-moderate ISIS in Iraq, coup in Ukraine. And someone remind me - whatever happened to those black boxes from flight MH17? Or the tapes of the comms. between the flight crew and Kiev air traffic control? Or that "mountain of evidence implicating Russia" alleged by US/UK? After all the noisy saber-rattling in the weeks following the crash, the absolute silence since then strikes me as ... odd. And I can't help being reminded of a very similarly orchestrated western-media campaign last year following the Syrian gas attack. When that failed to produce an immediate consensus for "humanitarian intervention", all of a sudden, silence. We had to wait for the non-MSM - specifically the London Review of Books - for the inside story there, which also sheds some light on what the attack of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was really about. Hint: It has to do with the arming of those "moderate rebels" in Syria.)

[ewmayer]

Utah teacher fired after homophone blog: Social media strategist lost job in Utah because school 'didn't want to be linked with homosexuality'

Next up: Man accused of racist hate crime after calling tightwad friend a "niggard".

[axn]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Next up: Man accused of racist hate crime after calling tightwad friend a "niggard".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controv...22niggardly%22

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by axn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controv...22niggardly%22

Thanks - I was too lazy to dig, but was reasonably certain that such analphabetism-fueled "incidents" had to have occurred. Props to NAACP head Julian Bond on expressing more or less my belief on the matter. (Though in spoken English I agree one should be careful due to the near-homophonism involved. But many of the collected incidents relate to literary, i.e. written, uses of the word.)

The second wiki-cited incident (UWis) is firmly in the "ironies abound" genre (boldface is mine):

Shortly after the Washington incident, another controversy erupted over the use of the word at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At a February 1999 meeting of the Faculty Senate, Amelia Rideau, a junior English major and vice chairwoman of the Black Student Union told the group how a professor teaching Chaucer had used the word niggardly. She later said she was unaware of the related Washington, D.C. controversy that came to light just the week before. She said the professor continued to use the word even after she told him that she was offended. "I was in tears, shaking," she told the faculty. "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid."[9]

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Utah teacher fired after homophone blog: Social media strategist lost job in Utah because school 'didn't want to be linked with homosexuality'

Next up: Man accused of racist hate crime after calling tightwad friend a "niggard".

I find the similarities between the problems with the words "homophone" and "niggardly" quite witty, but I feel compelled to note two aspects of the "homophone" incident which are not relevant in the "niggardly" incidents in the article linked by axn:

- Even if the teacher had been referring to homosexuality in his language teaching, the school would have been completely out of order in taking issue with it. I hope that that statement is (no longer) controversial here and that it doesn't require the Soap Box to make it.

- What an astonishing self-referencing theme this incident has! Presumably the teacher's blog was more or less about the very type of language misunderstandings which the school then itself displayed and used as a reason to fire him!

[ewmayer]

@Brian:

Another amusing/bizarre twist in the first "niggard" incident mention on the Wikipage is that there might not have been any appreciable backlash against the inanity/injustice except for the gay community:

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. Williams, the black mayor of Washington, D.C., used "niggardly" in reference to a budget.[2] This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who misinterpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.[3] However, after pressure from the gay community (of which Howard was a member) an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That's naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."[3]

With all due respect, I believe Mr. Howard is being overly deferential to the analphabetic PC morons who victimized him -- and who should have instantly backed down as soon as it was clear that Howard was using the word "niggard" and not "nigger". His last quote above implies that to be "colorblind" a person must abandon usage of perfectly innocuous English words which happen to sound similar to "bad words" when spoken.

What, next time I ask for shiitake mushrooms at the store I'm gonna get escorted out for saying "shit", and kowtow to the morons by blathering about "a shiitake eater can't afford to be swear-word-blind?" Bloody ridiculous.

In the above case, the mayor is the one who should have resigned.

[BudgieJane]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

What, next time I ask for shiitake mushrooms at the store I'm gonna get escorted out for saying "shit", and kowtow to the morons by blathering about "a shiitake eater can't afford to be swear-word-blind?" Bloody ridiculous.

What about all the place names in the UK incorporating "swear-words", such as Cockermouth, Scunthorpe, Shitterton (Devon) and Shittington (Bedfordshire), or not-so-swearing words, such as Penistone and Pratt's Bottom (this one is not too far from me)? Are we going to have to change them because people can't see sense?

At least the various Gropecunte Lanes were renamed some time ago.

[retina]

Originally Posted by BudgieJane

What about all the place names in the UK incorporating "swear-words", such as Cockermouth, Scunthorpe, Shitterton (Devon) and Shittington (Bedfordshire), or not-so-swearing words, such as Penistone and Pratt's Bottom (this one is not too far from me)? Are we going to have to change them because people can't see sense?

Yes, of course. We should always pander to the sensitivities of those people that want to get offended by anything and everything and then demand action to punish the offenders. Naturally it is always the other people that are to blame and not those sensitive little snowflakes that hear and read such disgusting words. So let's all make a pact to never use such words ever again in order to avoid corrupting those morally pure little princes and princesses. And then everything will be right in the world. Yay.