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Re: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!

Subject: Re: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!
From: Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:15:45 -0800

Al Geist wrote:

James Barrow wrote:

A 'central reservation' here is a place where American Indians go to play
bingo.


I find your attempt at humor to be in poor taste.

Superficially, I think it sounds like a s***kicker who doesn't have an original observations to joke about. But I think it is funny as a mockery of the incongruous, high contrast meanings of the word *reservation* as applied to the highways of UK and the sovereign Indian lands in US. I picture clowns setting up a bingo game in the middle of a divided highway. I think it is a word joke, not a people joke.
Still, if you've heard the recent news items about the virulent bigoted stuff that certain Hollywood celebrities have spewed, you know that entertainers are capable of ugly, irrational attacks on people of other persuasions. And in that context, this misunderstanding makes the most sense.
I just hope the virus going around the entertainment industry doesn't infect tech writers. If tech writers lashed out, we'd have manuals that begin with wretched laments:

"I'll bet you've come crying to me because you're in over your head and don't know what to do. What the hell is wrong with you? Why don't you work in a field you're qualified for, instead of burdening everyone around with the work you're paid to do? You should be ashamed. It sucks to be you." :-(


They don't want a casino.

The history of out-groups is full of cases where they were driven to the dirty jobs like banking, lending, and gambling. More power to them!


A bit of perspective. Did you know that the Iroquois Nation had a representative democracy during the same period Cotton Mathers and his crew were dunking and burning women for being "witches." and that an Indian city located at the mouth of the Missouri River at the time Columbus "discovered" America was larger than London, England?
The full story is yet to be read from the archeology, ( I don't know if an oral tradition is alive), but pre-discovery civilization was apparently a powerhouse of social organization, trade and manufacturing, scientific agriculture/silviculture, and of course, democracy. Modern historians wonder aloud whether the true inspiration (or you might say etiology) of American-style democracy was the Iroquois model. Ya gotta love those founding fathers!
You can read about pre-discovery American civilization in 1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus <http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/0739464418/sr=8-3/qid=1165186105/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-5296085-1328118?ie=UTF8&s=books> by Charles C. Mann .

BTW, thanks Al. I like your brand of stand-up, especially the way it sticks up for inconvenient truths. You go, boy!

Best regards,

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com

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References:
RE: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!: From: James Barrow
Re: FRIDAY FUN: Snow day!: From: Al Geist

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