Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Tuesday, March 13. 2007I don't want to be an anthropologist and I don't do multicultural (except for food)(By "culture", I refer to religion, ethnicity, national origin, upbringing, education, and everything else relevant to behavior and world-view - except skin color, which I ignore as irrelevant.) Why? Not because they are bad, evil, or inferior, but because they are not on my page, and are thinking about things differently and seeing a different picture. Thus they have often let me down when I have the expectations of others that I am heir to. That displeases me. Since I am capable of learning from experience, I am also able to learn to trust some from other backgrounds, but it takes time - and it takes enough data points to draw a graph. Trust is just as basic to relationships as is distrust. Both are worthy of respect and consideration. For me, trust is earned - never assumed. Learned that the hard way. It is the basis for natural, healthy "tribalism." I have no time for multicultural understanding (especially if all of the understanding is one-way) unless I am having fun in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, and, neither being nor wanting to be an anthropologist, I do not care to try to understand how people from other cultures think. Nor do I feel any compelling desire to adjust. Just not all that interested, really, although I am willing to listen for a minute or two. Got enough to do as it is, like pruning my own trees and planting the peas and splitting firewood and reading a ton of history and being a grandpa and working 60 hrs/wk. Plus regular unpaid appearances on Maggie's Farm - where my rewards exceed my input, and where I am rewarded by self-education by some of my input. I think I am fairly normal in this regard. Understanding people with my own cultural assumptions - my dear wife, for example, who is of an alien "gender' - is challenge enough for me. (From The Barrister of Maggie's Farm, in a comment on the blog on the subject of dormant pruning - of all things - the other night, neatened up a bit by him.) Comments
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Good stuff. About half a dozen solid epigrammatic lines in there--celebrating reality and common sense.
Question: Why is straight talk so rare these days? Dunno, but we do strive for plain truth at Maggie's. Somebody has to do it, even though not many are listening.
Tom Paine is our role model, even if he was just a shill for Tommy Jefferson - or whoever. Ha--right--prophets without honor and all that. Thomas Paine died alone, shunned, and in poverty, so the CW sez. But it was no doubt an exogenous run of bad luck, rather than his straight talk, wot did him in.
Anyhoo, here's a WSJ on Maine ice-fishing kerfuffling: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117373740342034593.html Yes, I understand. However, I would bet you a fiver that because of the power of their worldwide network, that when you are confronting an opponent in a legal matter, who happens to be from a specific tribe, you automatically back down just a little.
Bait. My daughter wanted sushi Saturday night, but my son and I wanted meat. Rotisserie won out.
We told her we are fed up with "bait on a plate." We have had enough sushi for a lifetime. Those little minnows are eaten up so fast that I hardly think it's a problem. This sounds familiar. See here:
http://rightwingnation.com/index.php/2006/08/27/1882/ RE: multiculti food...
I only had sushi once and that was enough. I think you have to develope your stomach a bit to digest raw fish. Mine was not prepared and I suffered. I liked the beef teriyaki but no more raw fish for me. And those expensive and gooey green sea urchins are not something I really want to learn to like. As for France, escargot is ok. But I think that is because of the garlic and butter. The snails do not actually have much taste. As for working with other cultures, I have had some good experiences. One of the best was with a boat refugee from Viet Nam in the early 80's. His name was Boi and his son was named Ping. He was a good worker but the crew was a little embarrassed to be calling him Boi all the time. He picked up on that after a few years and he legally changed his and Pings' first names. And he took the bosses name and the bosses son name as a show of respect and gratitude for the opportunitys they had given him. Patina, if he'd been Viet/Korean, he could've been named Boi Nam Su.
I like other cultures, but in their own country. Am sick of illegals swamping my country and soaking up services they don't pay taxes to support...If you have been allowed to live here, learn the language, study our history and literature, and don't be a hypenated American. Except with food, as already noted...Multicultural food is fine.
But really, enough already with the France-bashing...A great civilization, even if they can be tiresome about reminding us of former glories.. There is no earthly reason why France should go along with every single one of the Bush family's initiatives. They are a sovereign nation, not a colony of ours...If we were as smart and well-educated as the average Froggie, we would be full of ourselves too...Having been Brit-educated, I grew up nervously mocking those supercilious folk across the Channel, but now can admit how much I admire them... Paris is full of @#$holes, but I like it infinitely better than New York. The people in New York are much nastier, and you are likelier to get mugged there. Paris is far more beautiful, romantic, better art and architecture, and I love the French language, literature... Once you get away from the capital, ordinary French people (the chattering classes excepted) are great. And the food....the chateaux... I love my country, but everyone should learn to speak and read French and spend a lot of time there to become civilized...This blog constantly sneers at their problems with the discontent minorities there. Plenty of people sneer at our administration's lack of willpower in securing our borders, at our country's gutlessness in giving away jobs and benefits to an unarmed but invading army of illegals. It seems to me both our countries have sold our birthrights for a mess of pottage, and we should commiserate not throw stones at each other. Both countries have been sold down the river by their elites... And it seems most base ingratitude to forget the aid our brave French allies gave us in our war of Independence. In our current love-in with our one semi-reliable ally, GB, we should not forget who we had to defeat to establish this beloved nation of ours. And who helped us. And, yes, I have French as well as English and Scottish blood, so I am perhaps a tad biased... Way to go girl!! WELL DONE! I love the French, they have always been very kind to me, we have friends in high places there, who are absolutely broken hearted about the failure of their good intentions. As for me right now--J'ai faim de loup!
An after 5:00 and admittedly inebriated remark. But do we go forward based on past or present actions?
I would prefer someone sharing the fighting hole with me. Realizing their lives are on the line as much as mine. In the here and now, I mean. Not in glorified past. No, not rude at all. I just prefer not to give up on old allies. Like family. Love em, hate em, but we have more in common with them than most of the rest of the world.
I kinda have to go along with LM on this one, tho I respect you gals' cultural attraction to the people. Hard for me to compartmentalize & to forget the Chirac gov't's perfidy.
We must remember this: When considering the political strategies of the French, one cannot forget that it is one of the few geographic locations on this planet upon which every enemy--the agressor from either side--must march through, over, and across to get to where they think they want to be at that moment. It makes a nation, an her people very discerning!
The worst experience I have ever had in Europe was in (can you guess?) Yep, of course right there in Gottenberg Sweden. You know that place where all the frustrated socialist geeks are fighting for their tiny little piece of the "legal" pie! GEEEZ they were rude, brutal, and downright vicious. My how cultures change in a generation! "And it seems most base ingratitude to forget the aid our brave French allies gave us in our war of Independence."
We paid back that debt when we saved them in two world wars -- and the French weren't helping us. They were fighting the British. They are now the worst of hypocritical, socialist, euroweenies. Re: The French
I too have plenty of really great French friends and family and know lots of people who are bilingual in French/English and who also exhibit many of the wonderful French cultural traits proclaimed here. But there is a difference between what transpires between us as every day people and what transpires between nations and IMO, France is not a very good ally. Her actions have contributed to many American and Canadian and British deaths and she has NO qualms about protecting her own interests at our expense. The headlines in Paris on 9/12 proclaiming 'We Are All Americans' were, as my Grandma would have said, 'malarkey'. Geez, take a look a her 'former' colonys like Haiti, etc. and the brave government of France even attacked the Greenpeace boat, killing the guy on board. They have been involved in crimes in Africa. They actively seek the break up Canada. They need a reality check on their own serious problems but they can't do it. The EU constitution is as long a read as a James Michener novel AND it was voted down. IIRC, the French government immediately proclaimed they would ignore that vote. Airbus is going down. Car-B-Ques are becoming status quo. Jews are again being attacked and graves are being desecrated and the French are debating whether they should have legislated naps at work. Okay, French rant off. |
However, in general I have learned, over many years, from a long series of unfortunate experiences, to not automatically trust people from different cultures. Not to dislike them, because I tend to enjoy humans - but just to distrust them. I think this is an intelligent decision.