Two Americas and more on Tolerance....
Tonight while driving downtown to get take out...best crab cakes in town...I lost my appetite.
What ruined my appetite is this: the protestors are back. Now, before you get all crazy on me about free speech and this is what makes our country great and all of that, well...let me explain. As I'm driving past the grassy mall area in town, there are about 20 protestors with the same old lame signs, standing and waving and shouting. There's the one about Bush killing innocents. There's the giant peace sign. But then there's my favorite..."war is terrorism". And let's not forget, "only love can conquer terrorism."
I generally think of myself as fairly tolerant. While these things don't normally bother me much, tonight they really got to me. If my kids hadn't been with me, it is quite likely that I would have stopped to have a debate...(just ask the lady at the local YMCA-but that's another story). First of all, "war is terrorism" is just about the least correct description of anything I've seen. Second, "only love can conquer terrorism"?! That's the person I wanted to talk to. "Uh, excuse me sir, so you believe that if only we show Zarqawi some love, he'll stop cutting people's heads off, do you?" I felt like I had been punched in the gut. To me, this guy was standing there while families of the victims of these evil bastards are in the grief of their lives, saying, "if only we loved everyone, and never used force, the terrorists would stop terrorising."
Which lead me to thinking about our town in general. Brunswick, Maine is a perfect example of two Americas that live as one. On any given day, you can go down to the grocery store in town, and see cars parked side by side, one with every ABB sticker you can imagine on it, and the one right next to it...it will have a sticker that says "half of my heart is in Iraq". See, Brunswick is home to a Navy base, and also to Bowdoin College, a highly regarded liberal arts college. So we've got professor types, and flyboys living in the same town. We've got a town that is filled with it's share of liberals....and military men and women (who I might add are not all conservative, contrary to many people's beliefs). We smile and say hello when we meet, we come together on holidays and watch parades and wave our flags. We don't key each others cars in the parking lots, nor do we tear down each others signs. There are plenty of old Maine coastal families with money, and there are oyster diggers with not much at all. We are all a vital part of making our community what it is, and there is great pride and acceptance in general because of it.
I was reminded of the post on tolerance....because my intolerance was showing up today, and I just couldn't let it go. I'm working on it.
Friday, September 24, 2004
HERMAN AND THE LAND OF DANGEROUS FELINES.
All right Herman, after having read this I will forgive you for JUST ONE DAY that you, a politician pretending to be center-right and a defender of the free market, are in fact the biggest “employer” in the southwestern corner of Oost-Vlaanderen because of the tens of thousands of dumbass nitwits who would be too stupid to cut off the noose round their neck if someone gave them a knife you helped to a pussy job on some dusty desk in Brussels. I also forgive you for JUST ONE DAY, and this time I eat my heart out, for being such an ardent belgicistic *sslicker to the Royal Family who despise your mother tongue and whose Queen can’t speak three words of Dutch in a row even if she lives in our Magic Kingdom for over forty years and Flanders is Belgium’s economic locomotive…
(A confident Herman, left, explaining to some former Eastern Bloc bloke, probably from Kakapipistan, why Belgium will always have better chocolates and beer than the rest of the world combined.)
The fella in question is Herman De Croo, Chairman of the Belgian House of Representatives, in Dutch parlance “De Kamer” (the other part of Belgain Parliament being the senate (De Senaat). This is what he said just recently:
Bush heeft ballen aan zijn lijf
"Ik ga het cru zeggen: Bush heeft ballen aan zijn lijf, Kerry niet. Bush weet wat hij wil voor de gemiddelde blanke Amerikaan; Kerry is de man van het wazige discours van 'enerzijds anderzijds' omdat hij als Democraat de multiculturele en andere minderheden bijeen moet vagen uit alle hoeken, wil hij de verkiezingen winnen. Ik heb een lang gesprek gehad met de campagneleider van Al Gore. Hij zei: 'Je mag van Bush zeggen wat je wil, maar hij is niet idioot. Hij luistert naar zijn adviseurs, en het zijn de beste. Al Gore was ook geen idioot, maar hij luisterde niet'. Ik denk dat Bush het gaat halen. En ik ben er niet tegen."
Herman De Croo, geïnterviewd door Steven Somers in Het Laatste Nieuws van 18 september 2004
dinsdag 21 september 2004 @ 20:24 - Geen reacties - - 0 Verwijz
Translation:
I'm gonna tell it like it is: Bush has balls, Kerry hasn't. Bush knows what he wants for the average white American; Kerry is the man of the clouded blah-blah-blah of "on the one hand - on the other hand", because as a Democrat he has to scrape together the multicultural and other minorities from all corners, if he wants to win the elections. I had a long conversation with the campaign leader of Al Gore. He said: "Of Bush you can say what you want, but he is no idiot. He listens to his advisors, and they are the best. Al Gore was no idiot either, but he didn't listen." I think that Bush is gonna make it. And I'm not against that.
(Herman De Croo, interviewed by Steven Somers in "Het Laatste Nieuws", Sept 18, 2004 issue)
Hat tip to Luc Van Braekel, Belgian Entrepreneur and ICT-Consultant, man of infinitely high intellectual capabilities AND Belgian Anti-Idiotarian BloggEr (BABE).
Oh, btw, dunno if you heard it but our Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt had a rough ride. His car, an Audi A8, swerved off a turnpike just south of Ghent, rolled over several times and left the would-be EU Chief with bruises and two broken ribs. If you ask me, either the driver was thinking too much of sex (you know how Audi drivers are) or a jihadist cat had climbed aboard and attacked the poor fella, in which case he should simply have made a U-turn on that turnpike, presto.
Finally, a A Belgian woman has given birth to the first baby born after an ovarian tissue transplant, a medical breakthrough that brings hope to young cancer patients whose fertility may be damaged by treatment.
Doctors led by Professor Jacques Donnez, head of the Department of Gynaecology and Andrology at the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Brussels, removed and froze ovarian tissue from Touirat in 1997, when she was 25. This unprecedented event, the culmination of 10 years of research by Professor Donnez and his team funded by the Televie and the FNRS, brings immense joy to the parents for whom this baby represents a true miracle," the hospital said.
All right Herman, after having read this I will forgive you for JUST ONE DAY that you, a politician pretending to be center-right and a defender of the free market, are in fact the biggest “employer” in the southwestern corner of Oost-Vlaanderen because of the tens of thousands of dumbass nitwits who would be too stupid to cut off the noose round their neck if someone gave them a knife you helped to a pussy job on some dusty desk in Brussels. I also forgive you for JUST ONE DAY, and this time I eat my heart out, for being such an ardent belgicistic *sslicker to the Royal Family who despise your mother tongue and whose Queen can’t speak three words of Dutch in a row even if she lives in our Magic Kingdom for over forty years and Flanders is Belgium’s economic locomotive…
(A confident Herman, left, explaining to some former Eastern Bloc bloke, probably from Kakapipistan, why Belgium will always have better chocolates and beer than the rest of the world combined.)
The fella in question is Herman De Croo, Chairman of the Belgian House of Representatives, in Dutch parlance “De Kamer” (the other part of Belgain Parliament being the senate (De Senaat). This is what he said just recently:
Bush heeft ballen aan zijn lijf
"Ik ga het cru zeggen: Bush heeft ballen aan zijn lijf, Kerry niet. Bush weet wat hij wil voor de gemiddelde blanke Amerikaan; Kerry is de man van het wazige discours van 'enerzijds anderzijds' omdat hij als Democraat de multiculturele en andere minderheden bijeen moet vagen uit alle hoeken, wil hij de verkiezingen winnen. Ik heb een lang gesprek gehad met de campagneleider van Al Gore. Hij zei: 'Je mag van Bush zeggen wat je wil, maar hij is niet idioot. Hij luistert naar zijn adviseurs, en het zijn de beste. Al Gore was ook geen idioot, maar hij luisterde niet'. Ik denk dat Bush het gaat halen. En ik ben er niet tegen."
Herman De Croo, geïnterviewd door Steven Somers in Het Laatste Nieuws van 18 september 2004
dinsdag 21 september 2004 @ 20:24 - Geen reacties - - 0 Verwijz
Translation:
I'm gonna tell it like it is: Bush has balls, Kerry hasn't. Bush knows what he wants for the average white American; Kerry is the man of the clouded blah-blah-blah of "on the one hand - on the other hand", because as a Democrat he has to scrape together the multicultural and other minorities from all corners, if he wants to win the elections. I had a long conversation with the campaign leader of Al Gore. He said: "Of Bush you can say what you want, but he is no idiot. He listens to his advisors, and they are the best. Al Gore was no idiot either, but he didn't listen." I think that Bush is gonna make it. And I'm not against that.
(Herman De Croo, interviewed by Steven Somers in "Het Laatste Nieuws", Sept 18, 2004 issue)
Hat tip to Luc Van Braekel, Belgian Entrepreneur and ICT-Consultant, man of infinitely high intellectual capabilities AND Belgian Anti-Idiotarian BloggEr (BABE).
Oh, btw, dunno if you heard it but our Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt had a rough ride. His car, an Audi A8, swerved off a turnpike just south of Ghent, rolled over several times and left the would-be EU Chief with bruises and two broken ribs. If you ask me, either the driver was thinking too much of sex (you know how Audi drivers are) or a jihadist cat had climbed aboard and attacked the poor fella, in which case he should simply have made a U-turn on that turnpike, presto.
Finally, a A Belgian woman has given birth to the first baby born after an ovarian tissue transplant, a medical breakthrough that brings hope to young cancer patients whose fertility may be damaged by treatment.
Doctors led by Professor Jacques Donnez, head of the Department of Gynaecology and Andrology at the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Brussels, removed and froze ovarian tissue from Touirat in 1997, when she was 25. This unprecedented event, the culmination of 10 years of research by Professor Donnez and his team funded by the Televie and the FNRS, brings immense joy to the parents for whom this baby represents a true miracle," the hospital said.
Don't say that this isn't a magic kingdom.
MFBB
Thursday, September 23, 2004
OK, Michael...I've been saving this for you since you missed it, on vacation in Scotland and all....I've been waiting to hear our resident Belgian's take on this post from Sept 9 from Chrenkoff, on his latest EU roundup.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
What does this say about our education system?
Privatization provides better results every time, by nature accountablility comes with it. Our kids don't deserve any less. Our public education system has become much too federalized.
Privatization provides better results every time, by nature accountablility comes with it. Our kids don't deserve any less. Our public education system has become much too federalized.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Time for a new thread:
I'd like to talk about issues, like in a normal election cycle, but truth is, I don't really give two cents. War on Terror overrides everything else. The beheadings make me nuts. As in, I want to get on a plane and fly there now just to say, "you won't break us, you won't win with fear".
And I might just do that in the next couple of months if I get a chance....
I'd like to talk about issues, like in a normal election cycle, but truth is, I don't really give two cents. War on Terror overrides everything else. The beheadings make me nuts. As in, I want to get on a plane and fly there now just to say, "you won't break us, you won't win with fear".
And I might just do that in the next couple of months if I get a chance....
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Tom's Grand Canyon Adventure update:
Since I know that you are all missing his sick sense of humor....
He called tonight and they were forced to come up out of the canyon, the weather has been terrible, with hailstorms and flash flooding, so the rangers asked that everyone remove themselves. Nothing like going in for a day and a half, then climbing back out. He doesn't seem bothered a bit though, they spent today hanging out, and are heading back in tomorrow or Tuesday, the weather is supposed to clear, though it is colder than they expected. He's happily been in the lead on all of the hiking, keeping pace with the fit 34 yr old guy, with his uncle who is in his 50's and is super fit about 8 minutes behind with another guy in his 40's that is also fit, then they've got the laggers behind them. He said that it is just overwhelming and he's gotten a ton of pics, which we will be uploading over at Exposure Manager when he gets back. They may not make it to Sedona. He did say that he took one particularly good pic with the new camera that was half sun/blue sky in the canyon, half storm clouds rolling in, with a hell of a rainbow spanning the two.
Since I know that you are all missing his sick sense of humor....
He called tonight and they were forced to come up out of the canyon, the weather has been terrible, with hailstorms and flash flooding, so the rangers asked that everyone remove themselves. Nothing like going in for a day and a half, then climbing back out. He doesn't seem bothered a bit though, they spent today hanging out, and are heading back in tomorrow or Tuesday, the weather is supposed to clear, though it is colder than they expected. He's happily been in the lead on all of the hiking, keeping pace with the fit 34 yr old guy, with his uncle who is in his 50's and is super fit about 8 minutes behind with another guy in his 40's that is also fit, then they've got the laggers behind them. He said that it is just overwhelming and he's gotten a ton of pics, which we will be uploading over at Exposure Manager when he gets back. They may not make it to Sedona. He did say that he took one particularly good pic with the new camera that was half sun/blue sky in the canyon, half storm clouds rolling in, with a hell of a rainbow spanning the two.
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