A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Ah. If someone says or does something stupid, he must be a Democrat.

And you wonder why your wife stopped fucking you during election season? Or are you hoping to bag Annie?

Merry Christmas to you, too!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by dtb
What a horrific tragedy. 40,000 people killed -- who cares what nationality they were? It seems kind of silly to point out nationalities.

Actually, lots of Americans vacation there, and it's a noteworthy piece of information for those of us wondering if our friends are okay. In the absence of direct news about someone, not seeing their names among the eight is at least a little comforting. In a sort of short-term, incomplete way.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by dtb
Yes.

What a horrific tragedy. 40,000 people killed -- who cares what nationality they were? It seems kind of silly to point out nationalities.

Not if you're a believer. According to them, hell is pretty damn swamped at the moment. But they're sweet - most are bundling sweaters, canned tuna and bibles to send to the heathens.

[dtb]

Originally posted by bilmore
Actually, lots of Americans vacation there, and it's a noteworthy piece of information for those of us wondering if our friends are okay. In the absence of direct news about someone, not seeing their names among the eight is at least a little comforting. In a sort of short-term, incomplete way.

Uh huh. I'll bet there are a lot more people in this country who know or are related to someone who actually lives in the area than there are people who know someone on vacation there.

Whatever -- I still find it insensitive, but I suppose you've just proven the point. We care more about (or at least the media think we do -- and you've demonstrated that it's true) the few people who died who happen to live within our borders than the massive number of people who have lost their entire families.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by dtb
Whatever -- I still find it insensitive, but I suppose you've just proven the point. We care more about (or at least the media think we do -- and you've demonstrated that it's true) the few people who died who happen to live within our borders than the massive number of people who have lost their entire families.

I'm worried about specific friends and relatives. For that reason, I appreciate the news about the Americans in the region. I suspect the German media are talking about Germans in the area, the Italian media about Italians, and so on, because of that exact regional interest. Of course I care more about my relatives and friends than I do about strangers - that doesn't mean that I don't care at all about the strangers, just that I have a more pressing and personal interest in this. I'd love, at this point, to be able to share your noble and egalitarian concern for all of humanity, but I'm busy worrying about some specific humans. I guess I'll just have to live with my insensitivity.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Seems to me a slight rise in the max-wage number coupled with liberalization of 401k rules would fix things up very nicely, without screwing with the one governmental program that seems to have worked for so long. Anything new is going to have a ton of those pesky unintended consequences. (Or, as someone I admire phrased it, those things that we don't know yet that we don't know.)

That would be an excellent start. In addition, I would go with means testing and a reduction in the rate.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I know we had an argument awhile ago about how it is/(is not) insensitive when a News story on a crashed plane in some Foreign country points out the number of dead Americans- "Plane Crashes Killing 250- 4 Americans Among Dead."

Both sides had valid points as I recall. But this morning NYT had the headline "40000 Killed By Tsunami- 8 Americans Among Dead."

Somehow, given the imbalance in the number of significant figures, pointing to the number of Americans seems horribly insenstive. No?

I think there was a parody of the Boston Globe a number of years ago that had a headline like, "Nuclear Holocaust In Soviet Union -- Hub Man Among The Dead."

[sgtclub]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4127063.stm

[Ukraine elections]

This, seems to me, is one of the biggest stories of the year. Why no interest? Hundreds of thousands of people bravely took to the streets to protest a crooked election and, in the end, democracy prevailed. What a story! It also has profound implications for the way in which the world will organize itself in the next few years, as Russia seeks to allign itself with China (and possibly France?) to challenge the true democracies of the west.

[dtb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think there was a parody of the Boston Globe a number of years ago that had a headline like, "Nuclear Holocaust In Soviet Union -- Hub Man Among The Dead."

Gosh, I hope Bilmore doesn't know anyone in the Hub!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by dtb
Whatever -- I still find it insensitive, but I suppose you've just proven the point. We care more about (or at least the media think we do -- and you've demonstrated that it's true) the few people who died who happen to live within our borders than the massive number of people who have lost their entire families.

Of course we're more interested in those from our own nation who might have perished. Such a reaction is natural - you may know a neighbor or co-worker on holiday over there.

What is insensitive is the fact that we separate Americans from the rest as though we're exotic creatures of higher value. Whenever any of this shit happens, the number of dead Americans is listed, as though we're all celebrities. Where we get this higher value I don't know. My guess is its partly a symptom of the fact that we control a lot of media, so info regarding our losses is always easy to obtain.

But it remains pretty strange that bad things that happoen to foreigners don't usually make the front page, whereas whenever these things involve Americans, its a huge multinational story. The Saudis slice the heads off Pakistanis and Somalis like they're cutting grass and no one cares, but when the British nurse stood trial for her life in SA a few years back, it was a huge story everywhere. Two planes full of Russians go down due to terrorist bombers and they get about three days of coverage. Imagine if that were two planes of Americans.

I think we expect people to stop what they're doing when som,ething happens to us, but are not too interested when similar things happen to others. Sure, we'll send aid and some missionaries will ship boxes of food and run rescue missions, but the everage American on the street won't really care or even read up on what happened. He'll be too interested in his life, his bills, his kids and his next administrative or consumptive conquest.

[dtb]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm worried about specific friends and relatives.

Right. And the media exist to allay your personal worries. Gotcha.

[dtb]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Of course we're more interested in those from our own nation who might have perished. Such a reaction is natural - you may know a neighbor or co-worker on holiday over there.

What is insensitive is the fact that we separate Americans from the rest as though we're exotic creatures of higher value. Whenever any of this shit happens, the number of dead Americans is listed, as though we're all celebrities. Where we get this higher value I don't know. My guess is its partly a symptom of the fact that we control a lot of media, so info regarding our losses is always easy to obtain.

But it remains pretty strange that bad things that happoen to foreigners don't usually make the front page, whereas whenever these things involve Americans, its a huge multinational story. The Saudis slice the heads off Pakistanis and Somalis like they're cutting grass and no one cares, but when the British nurse stood trial for her life in SA a few years back, it was a huge story everywhere. Two planes full of Russians go down due to terrorist bombers and they get about three days of coverage. Imagine if that were two planes of Americans.

I think we expect people to stop what they're doing when som,ething happens to us, but are not too interested when similar things happen to others. Sure, we'll send aid and some missionaries will ship boxes of food and run rescue missions, but the everage American on the street won't really care or even read up on what happened. He'll be too interested in his life, his bills, his kids and his next administrative or consumptive conquest.

Sure -- on some level, we "care" more about our comrades than foreigners -- but for crying out loud, it's FORTY-FUCKING-FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE! The fact that there were eight Americans doesn't really seem newsworthy when we're talking about the decimation (or more!) of entire populations. It's absurd and insulting to point out there were single-digit deaths of Americans. While their deaths are no doubt horrifying to the friends and families of those killed, where is the horror for those people who have lost everything in the devastation?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by dtb
Right. And the media exist to allay your personal worries. Gotcha.

Wow. You've gone beyond caricature.

[dtb]

Originally posted by bilmore
Wow. You've gone beyond caricature.

Physician, heal thyself.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by dtb
Physician, heal thyself.

Sorry, no time. I'll be checking my phone messages, calling people to see what they've heard, and watching those evil newsies who might say something more about missing Americans (have they no fucking shame?!) In the meantime, you should get your book discussion group together and share your horror over humanity's travails. There are some good merlots that go well with fashionable, costless angst.

(P.S. The new estimates are around sixty thousand.)