macguy - the naginata looks cool. i am familiar with the weapon but did not know its name or that the styles for using it are taught in the US. It looks like a great thing to be learning. I have never had the discipline to devote myself to any martial art but have had basic instructions in several of them. I know enough to keep from getting beat up if i see an attack coming, but not much more. MY respect goes to all of you who study such disciplines.
ok, so maybe i am the grand pobah of idiocy today. But lets continue to use the past as an example and relate it to today's topics. First, Jeff, i think all some of us really wanted was for you to admit what you finally did in the sports thread thing - that it was really those particular fans that were boorish and not all american sports fans. You simply made the wrong choice of words to start with. I never at any point thought really bad of you because i already figured i knew you well enough to know that you didn't really think all americans were such assholes.
Now in today's debate with Vic, all i've been after is for him to admit that Americans are not nazis. We might be patriotic, but that doesn't make us nazis. Like you before, he let himself get mixed up in all the tangential issues rather than addressing the core subject. And frankly, he has now put himself in a position where he really owes us more of an explanation for how he does feel about diversity as well as why he gets patriotism and nazism mixed up. But really all he ever needed to do to avoid this was apologise for calling americans nazis for wanting to show support for their men and women who put their lives on the line for those of us at home.
also, in another issue of past and present - i can appreciate being tired and not wanting to get involved in big discussions. I just spent most of a month being like that because of my yard work. i have pretty much been gone from the site because of it. and what was the major topic of conversation going on in Herve's - "where is everybody?". nobody talked about anything. Well, today people have been here. and people are talking and there isn't 3 pages of "somebody post" and "this is post number 5, only 995 more to go till i get a congrats thread"
so obviously i am not tired today. please humor me because i have missed these kinds of discussions.
and what has always been the wonderful thing about this bar - that 3, 4 or more conversations can all be going on at once. no need to get involved in everyone if you don't want to. In fact i think it is really cool when 2 or 3 people are discussing one thing, 2 or 3 are discussing another, somebody else is starting a new topic, etc. It really starts to feel like a real world party then.
so if you don't want to argue or mediate or even read our stuff, then don't. We won't love you any less if you just let us wrangle this out on our own.
so why are you guys so tired anyway?
