Random thoughts

[theferret]

Apparently the best time for me to get ideas is at 3am. However, I need to get some sleep but I want to write a few things down before I forget them. (I blame unknownpoet78 and rillaspins for an awesome evening getting my brain to think.)

Triggers: I've had a lot of triggers over various things, especially the loss of Gramps. Some of them have been very unexpected and I

Comments

[cadithial]

The only time I feel that people should learn to speak English is if they're planning on being a US citizen. The official language of this country is English. Every immigrant population up to now has had to learn.

[cadithial]

Oh, and English is the international language for pilots :) Need everyone to be able to talk when landing / taking off.

[theferret]

Both of those make sense. There's this thing on facebook going around saying "press 1 for English, press 2 to be disconnected until you learn English" which is rather racist as not everyone here is a citizen and sometimes it's easier to explain something in your first language rather than your second. The thing that kind of went on about how if you aren't Christian than you aren't patriotic.

But wouldn't it be more interesting if pilots didn't communicate? Oh wait, that'd be bad. ;)

[rillaspins]

Australia also has a version of this meme. Made my head hurt.

[keeperofthecats]

I don't see how Avatar could be racist. The way of life on Pandora is a tribal life, probably drawing on a lot of things from native american and african tribes. And the portrayal of that life shows it in a much better light than our capitalist society. So if someone were going to say something inflamatory about it, wouldn't they say that it was unpatriotic since the american military is the bad guy?

[theferret]

Ah well see, I didn't see it either so I did some research and apparently it's racist because the Navi are combination of traits of various people that have been conquered by Europeans and it takes one of these white guys in his Avatar body to rescue the Navi from the white corporate/army guys. This means that the film is racist because the Navi couldn't save themselves. Or so the thinking goes.

[keeperofthecats]

But it's a classic motif of movies/books - the outsider joins a mysterious group, often with the intention to spy. Once they join the group, they realize that they aren't as weird/scary/whatever as everyone thought.

Their true reason for joining is revealed - plot point! - and everyone questions the newcomer's commitment to their people/cause/whatever.

New person saves the day, thus proving that they have turned their back on their old life/way of thinking/people and are fully one with the new group and are no longer an outsider.

IE - Ferngully. Only in space, without the wonderful vocals of Tim Curry.

And I love how, whenever someone get's offended at movies or comics or something, it's almost always on behalf of someone else. I'd be curious to know if the only people who find this movie racist are middle/upper class white people.

[theferret]

Oh I fully agree with you. That's why I had to go and find out why people were thinking it was racist. Of course, I loved the movie because it was so pretty but that's just me.

Now I'm curious about who the majority of people are that are finding it racist...

I do know with The Princess and the Frog that a lot of the black community have found it racist but that's a whole other can of worms.

Wanted to expand the "it's all about me" comment.

[rillaspins]

Most (almost all) people only see things from "their" perspective. Usually when I say this I've just realized that I have (and it is quite often) gotten the subject wrong or personalized something that is not about me. Thank you Ampersand. Since we all see things from our own view and forget that others do not necessarily know what we are trying to say, it is easy to get into disagreements and silly arguments that have nothing to do with what the actual conversation is about. Hence I remind myself that it is **NOT** all about me and I am being silly. It is a way, hopefully, of bringing in humour to diffuse the perpetual stupidness that is in my communication skills or lack there of.

Re: Wanted to expand the "it's all about me" comment.

[theferret]

I know what you mean and I was trying to be funny but it was almost 3 am when I wrote this so that might have gotten lost. Loves you!