Meanwhile... Pt. 1

[zryson]

Wanted to visit the discounted stores today but everyone's sick (including me). So maybe next week? The last few visits have been really good. They had a huge box of fantasy/sci-fi comic magazines, Phantom (the man who walks or is that the ghost?), as well as Punisher and Hulk large size magazines. Really liked the stack of Star Wars comics I purchased last time. Kept most of them and gave a mixed superhero lot to charity since they are proving so popular with kids and women. Some of the HC annuals are very rare. They had some of those old UK ones with colored pages inside (as well as half color/b&w). Enjoyed reading the Teen Titans comic books I purchased too; Perez is always a delight (and growing up he was a fave of mine). Came across quite a few older Marvel comic books in pre-loved condition (Spider-Man, Hulk, Avengers). Most of them in VG. Quite a few HC archival volumes were selling cheaply too.

[Cei-U!]

Despite what some sociologists have claimed, serial and spree killers are not a modern phenomenon. They have existed throughout history but prior to the Industrial Revolution they usually found an outlet for their homicidal impulses through war, crime or religion. The fact is the human race has always included a certain (thankfully minute) percentage of these monstrosities. To blame their existence on the depiction of violence in modern media is about as sensible as blaming our history of war on the invention of the internal combustion engine.

Cei-U!
I summon the murderous minority!

[BDiogenes]

GavinR, there's no reason for you to understand since you didn't read the "Opinion of Wikipedia..." thread, which is why discussion of nigra (if there had to be any) should've stayed there but dr chimp moved it here and because what dc said was so inflammatory I felt obliged to reply here. Phil Maurice, I don't know what you mean, and you posted in that thread. db from there:

No one died & left me an expert, but I did grow up in the South & was here (well, Arkansas, not Alabama, but still certainly the South) in 1968. My take on "nigra" is that by that day & age it was the "polite" way of saying n***r, for all intents & purposes. I can't imagine that it wasn't considered offensive in 1968, depending on the speaker -- certainly if the speaker was a Klansmen.

I well remember a black friend taking umbrage in probably 4th grade or so* at some word a classmate used on the playground in 1968 & telling said classmate in no uncertain terms that he should use the term "Negro." Rest assured, he would not have expressed any fondness for "nigra" ... though, yes, I would also say that its origins lie in a dialectical pronunciation of "Negro." I've heard people in their 80s & 90s use it in that fashion, most recently a friend's grandmother who died at age 103 about 4 years ago.

*Even though the school systems in my part of the state didn't desegregate until the start of the 1970-1971 school year, as of at least 3rd grade -- the start of the '67-'68 -- a handful of black students were scattered throughout the various grades. In retrospect, I'm really intrigued by that.

db and everyone, I must go with the dictionaries. They are supposed to gauge all areas of the country in their research and I've never known reputable ones to be wrong. Even after 1968 their staff surely could've included African-Americans; now it'd be mandatory. I sometimes read dictionaries for pleasure. Originally I heard nigra in a documentary segment circa '94 with Klansmen using it and wondered why they were self-accusingly doing that. Then I realized it was their pronunciation of negro. I don't regard Klansmen as masterminds capable of doing subtleties for effect, but I can't go back in time. The crux is that nigra is not recognized by the relevant authorities as a slur, though some would react unfavorably to it and very few people now would ever say negro, let alone nigra.
________Jack and HHHolmes, etc. were isolated incidents. Now these crimes are routine. I say cause and effect, 1960 on. Be blase about the murder of women, but I won't. You wouldn't about anyone you knew, and I won't about any kind of oppression of women or other disadvantaged groups. db, it "stops" just where the fire in a crowded venue limitation stopped: where prudence and reason dictate. I forgot you were a journalist when I was typing before. No professions welcome regulation of themselves. Bush and Cheney regardless of the rectitude of their acts are not seen as clinically disordered. You know that's apples and oranges and we don't have forever. Did you watch that clip? Local coverage would continue; the point would be to dampen the dramatization cum magnification cum glorification of the crimes of mass killing, to prevent ideation of further massacres in the minds nationwide of the disordered, who will inevitably be with us at our present level of medical knowledge. Forget BFranklin's saying; live by empiricism and save maxims for nonessential applications. The rich got their restrictions enacted, agree or disagree, when bin Laden stepped on their toes. Ordinary people going to a theater rank just as importantly.
_________dr chimp, the etymology of nigra is that of negro and not the same as that of the n word. Also, I said sexualIZED violence in art (on a case-by-case basis), not rape in autobiographical fare, but the key would be how something were stylizied. I WON'T ACCEPT WOMEN BEING PICKED OFF IN PERPETUITY AS THEY NOW ARE WHEN THIS HAD BEEN A RARITY.

[MRP]

What arguments using etymology to justify the use of a word fail to take into account is that such arguments only present the denotation of a word, not its connotation. Since we live in a world populated by people, not books, the emotional reaction a word creates is just as important, if not more important than the book definition or history of the word. Having taught for several years at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University for those unfamiliar with the term) and being a white male, I saw this just about every day I went to work. It is not only the word, its context, but also who is using it that defines how people will react to it, not what a book says it means, or how it was used five, ten, or a hundred years ago.

I would think that someone who was clamoring about censoring certain types of images because of how they affect people would be more sensitive as to how words affect people and the appropriateness of their use, but somehow, the compartmentalizing of things to split hairs is all too common.

I'm paraphrasing here, but Robert Anton Wilson once said the only way that something is offensive is if someone takes offense. His intent was to place the burden and the blame of the offended party not the offending party, but there is something to be said for the reverse, just because we do not think something is personally offensive, it may offend someone. There will always be people looking to take offense at everything, and others who will try to be as inflammatory as possible to see what happens, but there is something to be said about the appropriateness of things. Are images of sexualized violence harmful-certainly in some situations, especially when accompanied by the culture of silence that dominates western society. They can also be the inspiration for a teaching moment or a discussion that can help some understand what a victim has gone through and begin to empathize. If we push it under the carpet, nothing is ever accomplished, but on the other hand if we sensationalize and glorify is, we exacerbate the problem. The flip side to every freedom is a responsibility to use that freedom well. Unfortunately for too many fail on that accord and the reaction is to curtail the freedom rather than to teach people to act responsibly and hold them accountable when they do not.

Sorry for the soapbox, and feel free to comment or criticize...I have put this in a public venue and the very act of doing so invites comment and criticism.

Now back to our regularly schedules discussion of the important stuff like music and comics, and of course baseball. Go Sox!

-M

[prince hal]

________Jack and HHHolmes, etc. were isolated incidents. Now these crimes are routine. I say cause and effect, 1960 on. Be blase about the murder of women, but I won't. You wouldn't about anyone you knew, and I won't about any kind of oppression of women or other disadvantaged groups. db, it "stops" just where the fire in a crowded venue limitation stopped: where prudence and reason dictate.

Tough to know where to start with this, Mr. BD, so I'll go with this, and try to maintain good humor and a cool head.

Dan is not being blasé about the murders of women. Neither would Dan be blasé about the murders of men, the rape of Sue Dibny, or the debacle that was the Cheney-Bush administration. Dan is not blasé about anything. We know Dan Bailey, sir, and you are no Dan Bailey.

As for that burning theatre people so fond of shutting up others refer to any time they want those with whom they disagree to go away, it is derived from an entirely bass-ackwards Supreme Court decision, and the opinion in which Chief Justice Holmes used that analogy to justify the decision to jail a man named Oscar Schenck.

Schenck was imprisoned for passing out literature urging young men not to register for the draft during the first World War under the terms of a handy little bit of legislation called the Espionage Act. (Think Patriot Act and you're in the ballpark.)

As Howard Zinn wrote in his invaluable People's History of the US, a better analogy was that Schenck was warning people not to go into a burning theatre.

Oh, and if you believe that Klansmen were saying "nigra" b/c that's just the cute way they talk, I've got a copy go Brother Power the Geek #4 in NM to sell you.

And also, I'll bet a few of us around here do see Bush and Cheney as clinically disordered.

What Cei-U said, too.

[BDiogenes]

MRP, I respect you immensely and will study your reply, but let me just inform that the original issue on nigra on nother board was solely whether it was a slur and whether I should've known this, not how people react to it. I usher you into any discussion with me with open arms. The White Sox, I presume. Not sure about your avatar so it's mentally in abeyance, its imagery not being associated with you. Perhaps it's Conan, but he looks ill.

[Phil Maurice]

Despite what some sociologists have claimed, serial and spree killers are not a modern phenomenon. They have existed throughout history but prior to the Industrial Revolution they usually found an outlet for their homicidal impulses through war, crime or religion. The fact is the human race has always included a certain (thankfully minute) percentage of these monstrosities. To blame their existence on the depiction of violence in modern media is about as sensible as blaming our history of war on the invention of the internal combustion engine.

Cei-U!
I summon the murderous minority!

Have to agree wholeheartedly wiith this. Submitted for your consideration: the case of sixteen year-old Elmer Fanter, circa 1915:



Here are the facts:

"Elmer Fanter, sixteen, with two accomplices, sixteen-year-old Charles Milller and nineteen-year-old Otto Mann, attempted to hold up Mrs. Diana Hofmann's delicatessen-confectionery in Chicago on a February morning in 1915. A fifty-three-year-old tailor named August Jantzen came to Mrs. Hoffmann's aid, and Fanter shot and killed him."

and the troubling, prescient circumstances of his incarceration:



Source: "Shots in the Dark" by Gail Buckland. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Shots-Dark-Tru...+dark+buckland

[BDiogenes]

ph, await my pipeline for there's good stuff therein for you. Thanks for the history lesson. I assumed that Supreme Court decision literally dealt with mass panic. I'll research that, and I've always heard that bit referenced favorably, not self-servingly, by a variety of folks.
___________I regard bin Laden as a psychopath along with many of such, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.; the parasitic rich don't advocate that route because it will invite similar scrutiny of their behavior, including their fixation on wealth and desperation to dominate others. I predict their ideation will eventually be deemed disordered (see "The Neutral Zone", NG). Bush and Cheney fit in this mix, but the operative point was that they, unlike the latest killer, are not societally recognized as deranged. db can take care of himself; I caught that bit might bug him but left it in without qualifying with "relatively". Not thrilled with his comic censorship mention added later.

[MRP]

MRP, I respect you immensely and will study your reply, but let me just inform that the original issue on nigra on nother board was solely whether it was a slur and whether I should've known this, not how people react to it. I usher you into any discussion with me with open arms. The White Sox, I presume. Not sure about your avatar so it's mentally in abeyance, its imagery not being associated with you. Perhaps it's Conan, but he looks ill.

The avatar is Conan, one of the choices CBR provided, and no not the White Sox even though they now employ the Youk-Dog. Bosox all the way. I grew up in New England, went to school in Boston, and have been following the Red Sox as long as I have been reading comics (since the early 70's in both cases).

As for whether something is a slur or not, that was my point, if someone takes offense at the word being directed at them, it is a slur whether or not a book, dictionary or website says it is or not. Now, as to whether one should know if something is a slur or not, I can't speak to that, as I don't know the circumstances, but I would say, and this is solely my opinion, that I would consider someone not knowing how people react to the use of negro or any similar words or derivatives to be very naive or very sheltered. Again, I don't know the full circumstances, so I am trying not to point fingers. However I have taught at inner city secondary schools before teaching at the HBCU, and I have been out of teaching for few years now, so I have a very skewed view of such issues as I have dealt with them most of my adult life.

-M

[BDiogenes]

Phil Maurice, your lower two links are the same. I find Amazon book listings hard to use and miss those of Borders. Elmer Fanter's story isn't in your three images. Could you quote something? But you're up against the avalanche of mass crime in recent decades so I don't see that being overcome. I choose people living over unfettered art.
___________MRP, the Klansman in my satire was speaking in '68; he had to use negro or colored, and I chose the former. My contemporaneous readership was expected to realize this was done in the cause of antiracism.
___________May we all now get off at least the nigra subject with no offense taken? My original contention was that Wikipedia should reflect reference books ahead of anecdotal opinions.

[Phil Maurice]

Phil Maurice, your lower two links are the same. I find Amazon book listings hard to use and miss those of Borders. Elmer Fanter's story isn't in your three images. Could you quote something? But you're up against the avalanche of mass crime in recent decades so I don't see that being overcome. I choose people living over unfettered art.

Somehow, I totally hosed that post. I apologize to everyone. Had I got that right, it would have been epic I assure you. Nothing of the Fanter story appears in anything I posted? How embarrassing. I'll try to rectify that in a future post. Thank you for your understanding , and please stand by as I adjust for technical difficulties.

[dupont2005]

Things like the holocaust didn't happen before those violent video games and comic books.

[Phil Maurice]

Things like the holocaust didn't happen before those violent video games and comic books.

Sarcasm noted. That's sort of the point I clumsily attempted to make. A free society will, by its very nature produce some individuals who will test those freedoms through criminal means. They're generally cowards who prey on the most vulnerable among us, and they often revel in their thirst for recognition.

[dr chimp]

and the history of art in europe has over a 1000 years of images of brutality and violence in it - man being nailed to a cross being quite a common image.

and 2 of history's worst female killers were Countess Bathory and Matthew Hopkins -100s of years before the age of mass produced art.

and having worked in sudan i can say that its one of the most censored places on earth and yet a country with an absolutely abysmal human rights record.

and yes the etymology of nigger is the same as negro - latin : niger : black

and as said repeatedly there were groups in the civil rights movement in the 1960s who did indeed consider negro offensive.

the only reference you have that nigra wasnt offensive is its etymology which isnt enough evidence to change the entry in a common resource used by millions

[Cherokee Jack]

I know the first three versions, although I don't think the FBBs actually recorded the song in the studio, although it was a live concert staple during the Gram Parsons & Rick Roberts eras. Maybe it turned up on an album after that point, I'm not sure.

The Roberts era FBB released a live version on THE LAST OF THE RED HOT BURRITOS. The song was still part of their setlist in the (for lack of a better term) Sneaky Pete era. A live version was featured on LIVE IN TOKYO (also released as CLOSE ENCOUNTERS TO THE WEST COAST.

I don't know if the NRPS ever recorded Six Days on the Road. It was a part of their live show in the early 70s when I saw them.