An apology

Re: An apology

Greg Sloop

>When I saw the subject, I thought you must be groveling because of the "wanker" comment. LOL

It's a very nice word in the appropriate setting, IMHO.

*grin*

Best and don't worry too much about the comments. I think we know your good heart.

Cheers,

Greg

Re: An apology

Steve Kubien

>Hi Derek,

No harm done to this woodworker. I think most people here realize that you've got a good heart and good intentions.

Very good of you to post.

Warmest regards,

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

remove the _9 to email

Re: An apology

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Jap is the diminutive of Japanese, and is not intrinsicly pejorative. No more than Brit, or Aussie. The USA word police are out of control.

Gringo Don

Re: An apology

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Perhaps it would be more useful to ask any Japanese here whether they are offended. It's one thing to know that one doesn't mean any harm. Quite another to know whether a person being spoken of perceives an offense.

Pam

Pam

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>Your ability to stir the pot is without compare. Let's not make an issue of this, let it go.

Re: An apology

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I was that forum member, and contacted Derek off-site because I knew his intentions were innocent.

Maybe this varies around the country. Out here on the Left Coast, where memories of the World War II internments are still pretty strong, the word carries a good deal of emotion.

cutting edges

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>John,

In no way was Pam's comment pot stirring. Don't take it as an attack, or "political correctness", or whatever. Because we live in such an insular society (U.S.), we tend to be more callous, or at least less observant of the perspectives of other peoples than most cultures.

This is not breast beating, its just how things are. We are geographically isolated and tend to be looked up to by the rest of the world because of how wonderful this country is. But once armed with the knowledge that we may be numb to other valid perspectives, we can learn to be on the lookout for our tendancies in this direction and try to avoid offensive behavior the future.

And it will help to keep our cutting edges doing productive things.

Greg

Re: An apology

Greg Sloop

>Stringing this along, perhaps has no point, but here is my perspective.

I, being a privledged white-boy tend to look at denegriating comments about my ancestry, race, religeon and such as regular "joshing."

However, were I black, muslim et al, I'd probably feel a whole lot less secure and sanguine about it.

I said to someone once. I don't even really consider wheather someone is black or hispanic etc.

His response? If you *were* black, not a day would go past that you wouldn't look in the mirror and know that you *are* black and realise the unmistakable impact your skin color has on your life.

This, I think, is exactly why we need to be careful, I as much as anyone, about terms that seem innocent enough but that would be offensive to those more sensitive and less priviledged than I.

Finally, a whole heaping of kudo's to Derek for posting publicly when he was alerted to the potential misreading of his intent.

And thanks to Bill for keeping our minds on how we sound and act.

Thanks to you both.

Greg

Re: An apology

Todd Hughes

>I once had Ebay pull my auction of a US WW II Bolo Knife apparently because I had wrote..."Even though inteneded for cutting wood I imagine it could of done a job on a J*** head as well" Some Ebay woman with a name like Akiwe emailed afterward and said that someone had found it ofensive and she did as well.I wrote back and apologised for "insinuating that any citizens of the Japanese empire may have been injured during the war of American aggression". My Uncle that fought in the South Pacific and when I was a kid used to tell us about his exploits with a flame thrower.....as he grilled Hamburgers! got a kick out of it when I told him.

OK whats next? How about we start calling those ratchet Screwdrivers and Drills "Northern United States" tools, eh?.....Todd

Re: An apology

Jay Hanks

>I think that Pam's response is right on. I also think in the context of the message there was really no harm done. We love to shorten names and that what he did. Some people get their feathers wrinkled pretty easy. Jay

Curious *LINK*

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>While Japanese Americans may have felt that they were imprisoned by their own country for no good reason and that their civil liberties were violated. Internment prisoners in the land of the rising sun had to endure harsh and brutal treatment, narrowly escaping starvation and extermination.

I watched a movie last night called Empire of the Sun. This is a biographical narative by Spielberg which tells the story of the treatment given internment prisoners in Shanghai after Japanese occupation. The brutality and senseless violence doled out on civilian men, women and children by their Japanese caretakers is heartbreaking

These were crazy and uncertain times in history. Let's not go there. Thanks


Click Me

You have no idea how insulting...

Bob Hackett

>The word "YANKEE" can be till you hear it uttered by someone who was born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The fact that I was a heavily tattooed "yankee" attempting to live among decent southern baptists was brought home to me on a regular basis when I lived and worked in the Texas oilfields.The fact that I rode a custom Harley and was married to a heavily tattooed woman only made matters worse.The fact that all three of my children are native Texans cut no ice with anyone that I could see.Discrimination comes in many forms,and they all suck!

Thanks for bringing all this up,I thought the politics and PC discussions were dead.Nice to see we can still digress,even when a well meaning member trys to redress a wrong he didn`t even know he made till someone felt an overwhelming urge to point it out to him,yet again!

Some folks will just never learn how to build even a small bridge.

Mainely,Bob-wondering why we can`t just stick to aliases and home schooling.

Re: Curious

Greg Sloop

>[quote]

While Japanese Americans may have felt that they were imprisoned by their own country for no good reason and that their civil liberties were violated. Internment prisoners in the land of the rising sun had to endure harsh and brutal treatment, narrowly escaping starvation and extermination.

[/quote] (My emphasis)

IMHO, no feeling about it. It was wrong.

Is it just me, or does this sound like a "we only rape but they murder. See how good we are!" kind of response?

My morality and that of my government shouldn't be a relative thing.

Perhaps I misunderstand what you're trying to say - your first sentence is incomplete.

Or, like Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride says...'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.'

Perhaps some clairifcation would be in order?

Cheers,

Greg

Starting to degrade;-)

Dan Donaldson

>This topic appears to be one with strong feelings on all sides. I think that it is time to let it go before it goes somewhere that we would not prefer. Thanks

Dan D.

Re: Curious

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>Ok, what I'm saying is that no insult was intended, it was only perceived. Because this perceived offense has been appologized for, and not because anyone is sorry for anything other than that someone elses feelings have been innocently hurt, we should open our eyes, look around and say to ourselves - "has anyone really been injured?". There were lots of injustices perpetrated in this time period of our worlds evolution, I don't appologize for any of it. I love history, I read history, and I learn from it. I also have a thick skin, and choose to find humor and good nature in even those that try to offend me. BTW - did you read any of those books on your pine bookshelf?

A little food for thought

Excerpt from the origin and nature of polital correctness by Philip Atkinson.

What Is Political Correctness?

Political Correctness (PC) is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behaviour, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished. It started with a few voices but grew in popularity until it became unwritten and written law within the community. With those who were publicly declared as being not politically correct becoming the object of persecution by the mob, if not prosecution by the state.

The Odious Nature Of Political Correctness

To attempt to point out the odious nature of Political Correctness is to restate the crucial importance of plain speaking, freedom of choice and freedom of speech; these are the communities safe-guards against the imposition of tyranny, indeed their absence is tyranny ( see "On Liberty", Chapter II, by J.S. Mill). Which is why any such restrictions on expression such as those invoked by the laws of libel, slander and public decency, are grave matters to be decided by common law methodology; not by the dictates of the mob.

Clear Inspiration For Political Correctness

The declared rational of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behaviour that may upset homosexuals, women, none-whites, the crippled, the mentally impaired, the fat or the ugly. This reveals not only its absurdity but its inspiration. The set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (those who fought the Second World War ), which is why the terms niggers, coons, dagos, wogs, poofs, spastics and sheilas, have become heresy, for, in an act of infantile rebellion, their subject have become revered by the new generation. Political Correctness is merely the resentment of spoilt children directed against their parent's values.

Re: You have no idea how insulting...

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>When I was nineteen I moved to Richmond Virginia and got a job laboring stripping formwork on the AMF plant. Standing knee deep in that red Virginia clay mud in the middle of winter, listening to Yankee jokes, having the air let out of my tires because I had NY plates on my car didn't bother me at all. What did bother me was that I was the only guy putting in a days work for a days pay, so after a few months I quit.

I got another job hanging siding with a bunch of bikers from Texas and shared a scaffold with a guy named Pig. We got a days pay for a days work, and when it rained, we didn't get paid at all. The super for the development was good for a case of beer each day, as he always needed some pick-up carpentry work done, and we were there. "How much ya want to hang some fascia boards?" Red-"case o' beer" One rainy day I got real drunk and got Harley Davidson tatooed on my arm without actually owning one. Crazy Ace was the local tatto artist, and also worked on the crew. I think he knew I was gonna get some sh*t for it, but he talked me into it anyways and glady separated me from my pay. The next day, I got to meet Butchy, the shop pit bull up close and personal. Luckily, he had pitty and left my arm in tact. Meanest dog I ever met. Can't say I hold a bad opinion of southerners or southern humor, but I sure could if I wanted to.

One day at Melissa's bar, young Mike decided he was gonna beat the cr*p out of this guy cause he had a green mohawk. Where he was from, he had never seen one of those punk rockers before, and he was pretty angry most of the time cause his old man was killed in Vietnam and his mom just wanted to hang out with bikers. Now I had gotten into it with this punker a couple weeks before, not cause he had green hair, but just cause he was an idiot. Mike picking on him just for having green hair was to much for me, so me and Mike got into it. After that, me and Mike became the best of friends, even though he still doesn't hold a high opinion of Yanks.

Guess what I'm trying to say is..it's pretty easy to get offended, it's alot harder not to

Olympic Three Letter IDs: JPN, USA, CAN, etc.

Todd Stock

>

Join the crowd...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>In high school I was on the debate team and in my senior year, a number of us made it to the national tournament which was held in Buffalo, NY. I remember one evening where our group went to a restaurant for supper and talked to another group of students from the area. When they found out we were from south Mississippi, the reactions went from "No way... all of you don't sound like you are from Mississippi. You speak regular english!" to "So do you wear shoes when you pick cotton?"

Just recently I read a story about Miss. State Univ laying claim to the 11th fastest super-computer in US (IIRC). There was an editorial comment that basically said this was a sign of the Apocalypse. Funny thing that... I got my degree in Computer Science from Miss. State and MSU is one of the leading super-computer research schools in the country and has been for many years.

The fact is, the door swings both ways or more properly lots of ways. If a group of people run into another group of people they don't like for whatever reason, insults will fly. Sadly that seems to be normal behaviour in far too many people.

And with that... I'll move on from this topic.

;)

How about Int. Licence Plate Codes *LINK*

HC Sakman

>Here you go...


Int Codes of Licence plates

Not always, Don

Dan in Illinois

>Dear Don,

I sincerely believe the word, Jap, was used as a diminutive for Japanese by Derek in this case, but it can have derogatory connotations. Derek realized this and gracefully apologized. I do not believe this gesture of goodwill should be minimized as simply kowtowing to the PC police. While we are on the subject, the word, spic, seems to be a diminutive for Hispanic, but I do not believe I will fare too well or too long if I used that term too liberally in your neck of the woods.

Dan

Re: Curious

Greg Sloop

> BTW - did you read any of those books on your pine bookshelf?

Yup. All of them. Some are reference books and I've probably not read every word. Your point?

BTW, I disagree that bad manners has anything to do with free speech. Free speech protects the most hateful speech around, as well it should. However, good manners would dictate that I strive to not offend by using pejoratives.

Cheers,

Greg

Hey, OZ.........

Jesper, Denmark

>You did good. Your posting was entirely proper and I take my hat off to you for it.

That some of the thread turned ugly reflect only on those posters.

Jesper