Am I the only conservative-type who thinks WikiLeaks are a GOOD thing? by Wulfenstar

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Krell

Australia,

You can either be the country of Rupert Murdoch or the country of Julian Assange. Take your pick. That's what the world is seeing from Australia right now. It's been a long time since Mick Dundee.

Thank you for telling us what we can or should be.

As you may or may not be aware, America's image has sucked for the past 10 or more years. It probably doesn't reflect what America truly is,the total truth of the whole nation, just what the perceptions from abroad are.

It's quite possible to be both the country of origin of Rupert Murdoch, (although he is officially yours now and welcome to him) and the country of origin of Julian Assange, although he no longer lives here, and have neither person represent us as an entirety. As with the US, where a country of different views and different peoples. It makes little difference to how we are perceived to how we are. But for my money, I'd rather be assosicated with Assange. ;)

NB i think stephen colbert and Jon stewart have done a lot to amend the world's perceptions view of Americans, if not the USA.

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Saturday, December 4, 2010 5:21 PM

Krell

I thought it was brilliant. By which we Americans meant very cleverly devised, not admirable or perfect, as folks down under might say, or over in the UK, see, we have problems communicating in our own language.

A couple things. First, obviously, I disagree with the agenda, but I was fascinated by how the Danish bigots (sorry) chose to do it: It wasn't *intended* to make the Muslims feel welcome, it was intended to make them feel *unwelcome* and many of them left, which was the agenda. It was so much more clever than acts of violence, or stupid laws forbidding the construction of minarets, etc.

What they did was turn the islamic population's own intolerance against them, and show that Denmark was not a place where their intolerance would be tolerated.

Normally, Israel proponent that I am, I tend to take the muslims' side, but their is a breaking point. The more radical elements of intolerance had been going around killing french film makers, setting fire to cars and the like. Demonstrating that if one was going to live in Denmark, one lived by Danish rules was really a solid strategy: Either the muslim population accept that change, and realize that *everyone* is the butt of the joke sometimes, *or* they stick to their guns and riot.

So, okay, there was some bad fallout, but I don't blame Denmark for that. There were some people who purposefully reran the cartoons in muslim countries indefinitely until there was a riot, which was their point, and the danish international image was tarnished. But the point was well made, and the objective was carried out to some effect in the more bloodless way possible, letting future muslims know that Denmark was not their best choice for a migratory destination, which is really what the cartoon creators intended, and did so without directly infringing on anyone's rights.

Considering the way other countries have dealt with and still do deal with "problem populations" usually meaning really those who don't significantly contribute to GDP, such as the USA and the Latino minority here, I think that I much prefer the Danish approach to bounty hunters, special police strike squads, concentration camps and a border fence, all of which the entirely lack of change Bush-Obama govt. has pursued.

Magon

Ten Years!?!? Sorry, I'm sorry it took y'all so long to catch on that we sucked

My brother laid out this curious theory of American image overseas:

The more we have protected a nation (like Australia, France, Britain) the worse our image is with them. The more we have fucked a nation over (Vietnam, Korea, Russia, Japan) The better our image is with them.

Curious paradox that.

Australia's image in the US used to be infallible. Now it's begun to fade as it has become infamous for its racism problem, particularly towards asians. Sure, yes, you could say "The US is a fine one to..." but you have to realize that Americans *also* see the US as a bigoted republic, as witness the many posts on this forum, some of them, alas, by bigots.

While we're on the subject of bigots and international image (yeah, I know, Israel's image sucks, and it's bigoted) anyone have any picks for "Nations with the best international image"?

Right now, my picks would be:

ETA: Chile (I forgot, twice now they have shown why they deserve to be up here.)[/edit]
Finland
S. Korea
Japan
Iceland

Worst Image

N. Korea (notice that any argument about the evils of Iran will bring out its defenders like me, because I know a fair number of Iranians, but no argument ever seems to bring out defenders of N. Korea? *That's* an image problem.)

Venezuela. Chavez is a lunatic, it makes him hard to defend.

S. Africa. Alas, ending apartheid and switch to black majority rule turned into a brief honeymoon for S. Africa, and then Thabo Mbeki happened, and they plummeted back to the bottom of the list.

While I'm in Africa, Zimbabwe.

I can't really say Russia has a bad image. It has the same image it's always had.

France. I have to admit that while I'm pretty neutral on the issue, I speak the language because I'm really right across the border from a French speaking country, while Quebec ranks high on my overall list, France is a sinking stone of image. From arming Rwanda to nuking Tahiti, France is just a bad govt.

I wonder what country has the lowest image for its actual citizens (other than us) that would make someone not want to admit to being from there?

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Saturday, December 4, 2010 5:48 PM

DT, the image that Australia has had OS has always been completely distorted. We get very little media coverage across the world, probably more in the Uk than the US because of our 'traditional' relationship and because historically citizens have moved backwards and forwards across the two countries.

Americans receive very little coverage of our country and in my experience, know very little about us. It's not a criticism, btw, just and observation and why should you? We're a long way a way and not a big player in world politics.

The coverage you do get would appear to be somewhat sensationalist, because that's what makes us newsworthy on the odd occasion that we are.

I can tell you that Australia is at present the least racist than it has ever been in its history, at least in legislatively speaking and possibly amongst the general population as well. That's not to say that there are not racist elements in our society, but in terms of where we've come from in our treatment of the Indigenous population and immigrants, we've come a long way. Got a long way to go too. However, we are an incredibly multicultural society, intensely so, and on the whole do it tolerably well.

The Mick Dundee, Steve Irwin types are mythological beings , really aimed at US audiences, and never been representative of the largely urban population

I am happy to talk to you about what we are like, but you've seen quite insistent on telling me how we are, and don't seem to be persuaded otherwise, so I gather that's not the intent of your raising what you do, which has appeared to be little more than a snark.

So as far as 'the world sees us' or you see us, meh...

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Saturday, December 4, 2010 11:02 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I think you will find that Dreamtrove tends to frame personal observations, deductions, and research as fact. Despite this trait, Dreamtrove seems to be a good sort.

Just remember to insert "In my Opinion," or "Based on my perceptions," or "People I respect have suggested," before everything Dreamtrove says, and conversations become much smoother and happier.

This is, of course, my opinion, based on my perceptions. ;-)

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Just remember to insert "In my Opinion," or "Based on my perceptions," or "People I respect have suggested," before everything Dreamtrove says, and conversations become much smoother and happier.

If you read every RWED post like an Op-Ed in a newspaper, then "in my opinion" or similar qualifiers are really redundant. It should be obvious that everything everyone says here is a personal opinion.

However, many people here view it as discourteous to eschew this redundancy. When in Rome.... I have subsequently changed my style to accommodate this demand.

This guy here summarizes it very well for me:

Quote:
I used to teach my students that, if they were expressing on paper something which was clearly a matter of opinion, they shouldn't trouble the reader with expressions like in my view, in my opinion, or I take the view that, etc, but pay the reader the compliment of seeing that it must be the case. There is a sort of convention in some academic circles that this should be the practice. The reason for leaving out such expressions as in my opinion was not that they are old-fashioned but they are redundant: if I say the price of oil is going to fall sharply next month then this is clearly a matter of opinion, and I can just go ahead and put my reasons for taking this view.

However, in other academic circles, and in many non-academic ones, people need the softening balm of a few in my opinion's or in my view's, if they are going to avoid thinking I'm mistaking fact for an opinion, which they may hold to be fiction. In this forum, for instance, and in oral discussion, we have to be careful not to sound dogmatic by presenting our views as fact. We need those expressions. In my view in my opinion is as good as any of them, though perhaps a touch balder than some.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=954481

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 3:55 AM

KRELLEK

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Krell

I thought it was brilliant. By which we Americans meant very cleverly devised, not admirable or perfect, as folks down under might say, or over in the UK, see, we have problems communicating in our own language.

A couple things. First, obviously, I disagree with the agenda, but I was fascinated by how the Danish bigots (sorry) chose to do it: It wasn't *intended* to make the Muslims feel welcome, it was intended to make them feel *unwelcome* and many of them left, which was the agenda. It was so much more clever than acts of violence, or stupid laws forbidding the construction of minarets, etc.

What they did was turn the islamic population's own intolerance against them, and show that Denmark was not a place where their intolerance would be tolerated.

Normally, Israel proponent that I am, I tend to take the muslims' side, but their is a breaking point. The more radical elements of intolerance had been going around killing french film makers, setting fire to cars and the like. Demonstrating that if one was going to live in Denmark, one lived by Danish rules was really a solid strategy: Either the muslim population accept that change, and realize that *everyone* is the butt of the joke sometimes, *or* they stick to their guns and riot.

So, okay, there was some bad fallout, but I don't blame Denmark for that. There were some people who purposefully reran the cartoons in muslim countries indefinitely until there was a riot, which was their point, and the danish international image was tarnished. But the point was well made, and the objective was carried out to some effect in the more bloodless way possible, letting future muslims know that Denmark was not their best choice for a migratory destination, which is really what the cartoon creators intended, and did so without directly infringing on anyone's rights.

Considering the way other countries have dealt with and still do deal with "problem populations" usually meaning really those who don't significantly contribute to GDP, such as the USA and the Latino minority here, I think that I much prefer the Danish approach to bounty hunters, special police strike squads, concentration camps and a border fence, all of which the entirely lack of change Bush-Obama govt. has pursued.

Magon

Ten Years!?!? Sorry, I'm sorry it took y'all so long to catch on that we sucked

My brother laid out this curious theory of American image overseas:

The more we have protected a nation (like Australia, France, Britain) the worse our image is with them. The more we have fucked a nation over (Vietnam, Korea, Russia, Japan) The better our image is with them.

Curious paradox that.

Australia's image in the US used to be infallible. Now it's begun to fade as it has become infamous for its racism problem, particularly towards asians. Sure, yes, you could say "The US is a fine one to..." but you have to realize that Americans *also* see the US as a bigoted republic, as witness the many posts on this forum, some of them, alas, by bigots.

While we're on the subject of bigots and international image (yeah, I know, Israel's image sucks, and it's bigoted) anyone have any picks for "Nations with the best international image"?

Right now, my picks would be:

ETA: Chile (I forgot, twice now they have shown why they deserve to be up here.)[/edit]
Finland
S. Korea
Japan
Iceland

Worst Image

N. Korea (notice that any argument about the evils of Iran will bring out its defenders like me, because I know a fair number of Iranians, but no argument ever seems to bring out defenders of N. Korea? *That's* an image problem.)

Venezuela. Chavez is a lunatic, it makes him hard to defend.

S. Africa. Alas, ending apartheid and switch to black majority rule turned into a brief honeymoon for S. Africa, and then Thabo Mbeki happened, and they plummeted back to the bottom of the list.

While I'm in Africa, Zimbabwe.

I can't really say Russia has a bad image. It has the same image it's always had.

France. I have to admit that while I'm pretty neutral on the issue, I speak the language because I'm really right across the border from a French speaking country, while Quebec ranks high on my overall list, France is a sinking stone of image. From arming Rwanda to nuking Tahiti, France is just a bad govt.

I wonder what country has the lowest image for its actual citizens (other than us) that would make someone not want to admit to being from there?

It is just that I think that if we could bee slightly kinder towards them up here in europe now, might would be better in the long run, not saying we should not punish troublemakers, just that I think that some of these troublemakers might in a way be homegrown so to speak, be it common criminals, or those that might be/become radicalised.

Like if we maybe could give the future generations of muslims something they might like, look upon positively, like perhaps a more male/female is equals world view, a more relaxed view of religion(and its not going to happen over night, I know)something that maybe some of them that might take back to the midleeast countries, would maybe take with them, and through that slowly make the changes there too.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 4:47 AM

Magon

You never take anything I say seriously. I'm not sure why, you've just been hostile to me for a while. That's why I don't usually respond to your posts, I have no interest into getting into another round of kick the DT.

But honestly, if you want to know how you look overseas, that's pretty much sums it up. Even Australians I meet overseas, which I meet a lot of, seem to share that image, or reinforce it. I think you reinforce it here. But on the plus side, Australians you meet travelling are always very jolly. They tend to be more like mick dundee and steve irwin actually.

How the US looks overseas I don't even want to contemplate. My guess is we look like a multiracial version of Nazi Germany. The weird thing about America is that our new racism seems to include black and white as one race, and makes muslim a race, and then latino. I think we're easily manipulated by our media. Which come to thinking of it, which is to say your media, since it's really murdoch we're talking about here.

Got nothing against the land of oz, and you don't actually strike me as more like Britain than Canada or the US. Maybe you personally, but the country doesn't. Americans travel to the UK fairly frequent also, because they speak english over there.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 5:51 AM

Krell

Good points. I wasn't agreeing with the danish cartoons in way of agreeing with attacking muslims, just saying it was the least aggressive attack that I've seen, and probably more effective than what we do. It was clever of the attackers. I read the cartoons. I thought they were for the most part fair, and if it was my religion, it might bug me, but I wouldn't riot, and I figure muslims are much more like me than the press tells me, and so they reacted the same way, but over time some radical types were able to stir someone into a fervor.

I seem to recall that someone in europe was killed by muslims after he called them intolerant and violent, thus proving his point for him, albeit posthumously. It's not really a one-sided conflict. While Europe shouldn't be intolerant of muslims, it shouldn't allow muslims own intolerance to change europe. Personally, I would just shrug. We get muslims too, and no one really reacts at all, but I can see where people would get ticked if they started in on dress codes for women, etc.

Anthony,

Yes, I just sort of assume that qualifying everything I say is a waste of words. Each post might need a dozen of them, which wastes everyone's time, and style manuals advise against doing so.

It seems obvious to me that anything posted is my opinion, or anyone elses. If you look at the rest of the posts around here, I think you find that everyone pretty much does the same thing. If I were to take everything that [insert any of half the usernames here] as fact, the world would quickly become discombobulated.

My statements to magon were qualified though, I said this is how australia's image appears (i guess i need additional qualifiers? to me? from america? These were sort of implied. I don't know how it appears to krell in denmark or cts in peru, that's way out of the jurisdiction of my brain.)

But seriously, who am I to default take as fact rather than opinion? Pirate News? Signy? Riverlove? Whozit? Wulf? Kaneman? Hell, I'll throw all of us into this box, not just half. I don't think that it logically follows that if Auraptor says it, it's fact. I just assume it's his understand/opinion. He's not a dictionary. If it's wrong, I or someone else will post it. But I also assume that anything like "it looks like" means "it looks like to me" etc. Hell, I assume if someone says "Assange is helping al qaeda" that that would be pure opinion of the fallout of Assange's efforts, not "I researched this in exhaustive detail and found that Julian Assange is employed by Al Qaeda"

So, yes, take everything I say with a grain of salt. And take everyone else here with the same grain.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 11:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Magon

You never take anything I say seriously. I'm not sure why, you've just been hostile to me for a while. That's why I don't usually respond to your posts, I have no interest into getting into another round of kick the DT.

But honestly, if you want to know how you look overseas, that's pretty much sums it up. Even Australians I meet overseas, which I meet a lot of, seem to share that image, or reinforce it. I think you reinforce it here. But on the plus side, Australians you meet travelling are always very jolly. They tend to be more like mick dundee and steve irwin actually.

As usual, you are right about my own country based on the Australians you have spoken to, oh yeah the same ones that said Australia is a right winged paradise!!!!! Clearly YOU are the expert and I must be delusional about my own country. Thanks for putting me right.

If our image sucks within the US, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it might mean we're not just towing the alliance line for once and thinking on our own. I'm sure no one hear gives a damn one way or another.

The reason I react badly to you is that, firstly you have a go at me any chance you can. Might not be that obvious, but I see it. I call people who do what you do 'smiling assassins'. They're subtle with their insults, and they smile when they do it, but they are still insulting. Secondly, you present misinformation and wild speculation as fact and then go off in a huff when you are challenged.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:19 PM

Magon

Sorry to diappoint you, but I don't read most of your posts, or most posts. I don't pick fights either. If you have something to say I'll comment, otherwise, your opinion is you opinion, I try not to play "Someone is wrong on the internet."

The image of your country is pretty good. Right now, your not helping it, but then again, youre really a Brit.

If your nation supported Assange, it would be looking a lot better

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Sunday, December 5, 2010 10:30 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

With my own extensive research and exhaustive interviews, along with years of study (I saw all of the Crocodile Dundee movies, to my everlasting shame) I can say authoritatively that the average American doesn't think of Australia at all until they go to the local Outback restaurant.

The average American doesn't know anything about Australian politics, and doesn't particularly care. The average American merely has vague, pleasant thoughts about that place near where they filmed Lord of the Rings.

We generally assume Australian men are manly men, and the whole country is a wilderness with a few major cities in it. We think they are our allies. They were on our side in WWII, right?

And they have Kangaroos there, and everyone likes Kangaroos.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my tongue out of my cheek before I turn in. Otherwise I snore wayyy too much.

With warm regards across the way,

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 2:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
We generally assume Australian men are manly men,...

Except when they are riding Priscilla, Queen of the Desert....

Everything I know about Australia, I learned in the movies.

That is where most people, including Americans, get their idea of what America is like too.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 2:46 AM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:

I have this argument more with the left than the right, and usually over education. Our system is not good enough just because we say it's good enough. In a global economy, the stability of our economy, currency, and markets, the strength of our education and industry, these are not subjective measures that have no comparison on Earth. If we get trounced by S. Korea, Japan, China and India, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We were so sure that we were good enough that we didn't bother to evolve. Ergo, we will become extinct. At the moment, I think our govt. is way too much of an impediment to that evolution, and we would evolve much faster without it.

I'm not saying I want the US to be overthrown by China, I think that's a worst case scenario. I would say that I think the US could learn a thing or two by studying those who are outperforming us on economic growth, education, and industry. Right now, that's damn near everyone.

You DO realize you just godwinned "the left" in that absurd claim, right?

Can you show me ANYONE on "the left" who thinks that America's education system is the best, or even good enough? It's "the left" who wants BETTER education opportunities, while on the right, there are actual candidates running on the promise of abolishing public education completely. Apparently they think the the solution to getting trounced by the rest of the industrialized world is to just quit.

This Space For Rent!

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Monday, December 6, 2010 3:46 AM

Mike

Go look up godwin

All I said was I argue with the left more than the right, can this be questioned?

But the left defends the education system, yes. Even have an argument on the topic with anyone? The right generally thinks the same thing they think about everything "Oh, we should privatize it."

I'd go with "abolish" but I'd accept privatize as a step up. Yes, the left wants to "improve it" but they rarely want to get rid of it. Even noticed that homeschoolers overwhelmingly fall on the right? This is why when I was homeschooled and now when I see books there's a whole lot of Jesus-related material involved. Hell, even the people who showed us how to do it were fundies.

But the left position on improving it, from the arguments I've had, seems to include one of a few options:

1) Making structural changes without cutting spending, or reducing hours or days. Sorry if this strikes me as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

2) *Increasing* spending. Did anyone hear this complaint about "No Child Left Behind" : "Oh no! It's an unfunded mandate!" And yes, before anyone gives me the "I'm a teacher" indignation, I used to teach high school, in spite of never actually having gone to the thing. I think we'd all agree the system doesn't work, and some of us would disagree on why.

3) *Extending* the school year to year round. This suggestion was most recently proposed by our current president, in an effort to sink his ratings for good.

Okay, we already incarcerate kids for 13 years for 8 hours x 5 days x 40 weeks, and we spend $25,000 per child per year when you add in administrative and infrastructure costs.

This means that each one of the of these graduates, of which most of you will be members, and just about all of my classmates in college classes were members, received what today would be $325,000 worth of education.

Now when I took college classes, I did so while working two jobs, so I did not have more free time than the other students. As demonstrated clearly many times here, I'm not smarter than other people, I'm of average intelligence. Yet I was at the top of every class I took. I was not more prepared than anyone else. I got 100% average on science classes in subjects I knew absolutely nothing about, like physics, chem or microbio. So much so that my fellow students offered to pay me more than once to take a fall so that their 50s to 70s scores could be As.
'
I had to analyze why this was happening. All I did was read the text and do the assignments. Then the answers were pretty obvious. Anyone could have done the same. There were only a few possible things:

1) Some of the students liked to drink and party, but these are geeky subjects, so half of them at best, scratch that, all these guys were bombing.

2) Some of them were rich, but some of them were as poor as me, so scratch that too.

3) Everyone was a moron? No, I knew many of them, they weren't morons.

4) All of them went to school, and I hadn't. This had to be a key.

More digging into this revealed that there was a universal "fear of learning" among the people who had gone to school. In time, as I took more classes, I would run into a couple of students who would do as well as I did. One from India, one from China and two American homeschoolers. None from our education system.

Here's my best guess: To the American public school student, learning generates fear, and is to be presented in a manner which can be parroted. Concept like physics are known to be complicated and difficult. Terms like Nuclear Physics, Biophysics, Genetic Engineering or Macromolecular Biochemistry inspired outright terror, even in those majoring in related fields. Why should someone majoring in Art and Music have a top grade in these classes unless he just didn't know to be afraid? I didn't have more preparation, I had less. I knew I wasn't smart, I was definitely dumber than a fair number of these kids.

Sure, one or two had bad home lives, but most were pampered. So, there was only one logical conclusion I could come up with: Public Education was not a benefit to their studies, in fact, it was a liability.

This problem persists throughout our society, this kind of fear of information, infophobia.

I recall a 60ish secretary at work who wanted a task done done. I said "we could program the computer to do it" and you could see the fear in her eyes. Not just that she would have to do it, but that it would be done at all, and then the known black box called computer would change. Is this intelligence? No, it's fear. How long do you think it would actually take her to learn how to program her computer and then automate it to do simple tasks? Maybe a month or two? I mean, she clearly knows how to use machines and speaks the language. How long do you think she will or has actually gone without even being about to adjust settings on her computer? Probably her whole career. Why? Fear.

We have an education system based on fear. For people who need it, yes, this is my humble opinion. There's nothing else that I can come up with that explains why those who have more benefit of our public school system do so poorly, or why people presented with *new* problems, not complex ones, but new ones, run and hide under the sofa until the problems go away. It does not seem to matter whether they go to public school in a glitzy suburb or a broken down inner city neighborhood, the result is the same.

And I know this post will get flamed a lot, because I figure most of y'all went to public school, since statistically it's what people do. More than a couple will also have taught at it, and will be adamant that they never taught fear, and I would say the same, but I suspect it only takes a couple of terrors in the system to instill that fear.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 3:47 AM

Oh, and I wanted to share this.

It's just an ad. Not an actual story. They're using Julian Assange to draw traffic, but in a most peculiar way. Curious.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:03 AM

DT,

fear of learning is not exclusive to public schools.

I have a friend who was homeschooled by her parents and developed a veritable math and science phobia, instilled by her very own parents.

So homeschooling is not a fool-proof answer at all. It can often be better than public school, but it can also be a LOT worse.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:18 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Dream,

Why do you suppose someone might have a 'fear of information' due to public schooling?

What is the salient difference between the U.S. education system and the ones in India and China?

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
So homeschooling is not a fool-proof answer at all. It can often be better than public school, but it can also be a LOT worse.

Your example only demonstrates that homeschooling can be *as bad as* public school in terms of instilling fear of some subject.

Could you provide an example of homeschooling being a LOT worse?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Why do you suppose someone might have a 'fear of information' due to public schooling?

I would say American public schools teach children to undervalue good grades, educational work, and smarts. Perhaps this is more a function of the larger culture, but I think there are inherent structural problems in the school system that contribute as well.

Americans pay and venerate people with charisma and athletic ability rather than smarts. We put up with smart people. Sometimes we give them some attention. But who does everyone want to be in school? The rich kid, the pretty and skinny kid, the sports hero. Geeks are freaks who are socially imbalanced. Who wants to be them?

Moreover, I would venture to say, American people fear smarts. The popular culture tends to portray smart people as fringe at best, and dangerous at worst. The worst villains are smart people gone rogue. They are like mutants in Xmen, or the govt to libertarians. It's just a matter of time before smart people use their powers for evil. They have REAL power, and therefore can wreak REAL havoc.

Structurally, the public school system is underfunded or rather, inefficiently funded. They have a hard time dealing with extreme ends of the Bell Curve. With the advent of the ADA, they are required to leverage more resources to the lower extreme end, which leaves the gifted students rather neglected. Who cares is the attitude, since they are actually advantaged than disadvantaged. But complicit in this system is a tendency to move the smart kids down to the middle. It makes life easier for the teachers.

Quote:

What is the salient difference between the U.S. education system and the ones in India and China?

Attitude about education. In India and China, education has always been a socially desirable goal. Teachers are paid and venerated accordingly. Geeks and smart people are at the top of the social echelons, Cultural Revolution aside.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
It goes without saying all my views above are my humble opinions, based on my personal experiences, from my limited perspective, and should not be construed as fact.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
So homeschooling is not a fool-proof answer at all. It can often be better than public school, but it can also be a LOT worse.
Your example only demonstrates that homeschooling can be *as bad as* public school in terms of instilling fear of some subject.

Could you provide an example of homeschooling being a LOT worse?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

Okay, the "a LOT" was exaggerrated, you are right. But I think if parents are bad, school can be an escape even if school itself is not necessarily good. Not having that escape can be just as damaging as feeling oppressed by the public school structures.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

I'm actually in favor of letting people who can and want to homeschool their children as it often leads to better results and because the structures of public school can be oppressive, but I would never agree to derriving some sort of statement like "public school generates fear of learning" from this evidence because homeschooling is very much capable of screwing that up royally, as well.

Not to mention the fundies. Ugh.

So, I think your conclusion is fallacious, especially since you were the only specimen in the test group, so to speak. And because the test group is biased in favor of those who were likely taught by motivated parents (you were, right?) which would be less given if all parents were homeschooling their kids, regardless of inclination.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Agreed.

Quote:
So, I think your conclusion is fallacious,..

Not my conclusion. DT's conclusion.

I went to private schools all my life and had a great time as teacher's pet.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
Disclaimer: Everything I say is just my opinion.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Not my conclusion. DT's conclusion.

Ah, crap. You are right. I apologize. Again.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:18 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Sky,

You describe a fear of being perceived as smart, and allocate the majority cause of that fear to be cultural.

There is a contrast with India and China. These are cultures which treat students much more harshly, and demand more from them- while creating better learners.

These arguments seem more damning of culture than of public schools.

Also, as an aside, I'm not convinced that 'smart villains' have created a disincentive to be smart. If anything, they made smarts a cool thing. Hans Gruber was the most admirable villain I'd ever seen up to that point. Better than Lex Luthor. Because while Luthor was stated to be smart, Hans actually demonstrated intelligence.

We also now have shows like CSI, Law and Order, Lie to Me, and House which garner good ratings while demonstrating the desirability of brains from the Hero's perspective. I'm sure there are a half-dozen more I have overlooked. We have as many 'Heroes with IQ' shows as we have 'Action Hero' shows on television.

For these reasons, I'm not sure that the media's showcases of intelligence can be fingered as a trigger for the cultural phenomenon you describe. The average IQ of both protagonists and antagonists is higher now than it was when I was ten.

Something is missing from the 'fear of information' puzzle described here. If Public Schools are going to be fingered for creating this fear, then narrow and specific articles unique to American public schools will need to be cited.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:46 AM

Don't most shows just show heroes being smart, but not getting smart? The act of studying, reading, extracting information or internalizing knowledge is rarely shown.

The only show I could name off the top of my head that actually depicted this process in a teenager, especially, was "Gilmore Girls", which might say more about my tv habits of the past than about tv culture, but... can anyone name other examples of the actual act of studying being shown?

Knowledge becomes this sort of intrinsic quality that just appears with no effort. Most smart heroes aren't just smart, they are exaggerated geniuses, who "think outside the box", basically removing them from those who merely value learning and placing them on the elevated plane of those who are intrinsically better, learning or not.

Or, say, the street smarts vs. booksmarts thing. The latter is usually shown as inferior to the point of being obsolete.

I think that while being smart is generally valued, an actual academic or intellectual process of becoming smart is... not. Implying that it's only important to feel smart instead of working on improving one's knowledge.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
These arguments seem more damning of culture than of public schools.

Indeed, that was my argument. I think the social atmosphere of public schools intensifies these cultural prejudices, and the structure of the public school contribute as well, but the main culprit would be culture.

Quote:
We also now have shows like CSI, Law and Order, Lie to Me, and House which garner good ratings while demonstrating the desirability of brains from the Hero's perspective.

I think AgentRouka addressed this very well. There is very little valuing of book smarts and studying hard in popular culture. But it isn't just the media. The way teachers are treated is a big part of this devaluation.

Quote:
If Public Schools are going to be fingered for creating this fear, then narrow and specific articles unique to American public schools will need to be cited.

From my perspective, public schools foster the fear rather than create it.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Or, say, the street smarts vs. booksmarts thing. The latter is usually shown as inferior to the point of being obsolete.

I think that while being smart is generally valued, an actual academic or intellectual process of becoming smart is... not. Implying that it's only important to feel smart instead of working on improving one's knowledge.

Excellent points.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:25 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I'm not sure the depiction of studying in school is something that can be easily shown outside the context of High School/College dramas.

However, there are many intelligent people on television who are implied to have gained their skills through traditional learning. On shows like CSI and Law and Order, we can naturally assume that the intelligent protagonists of the laboratory and the law firm learned their stuff in school. Some of the officers are clearly 'street smart' people, but other detectives are the product of a college education.

On Lie to Me, Doctor Lightman is specifically implied to have gone through traditional schooling before performing worldwide studies of various cultures to develop his trademark 'Lightman method.' After hiring an airport inspection officer with the natural ability to sense lies, he proceeds to stress the importance of studying the actual textbook method to avoid false positives based on gut instinct. Subsequent shows occasionally highlight the Doctor and others on his team studying images of people and drilling themselves on tells.

There are shows that depict 'naturally smart' thinkers, almost mutant intellects, but I'm not convinced the presence of such invalidates the rest, nor that they independently steer our culture despite the products of traditional education displayed on other shows.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:08 AM

Rouka

Good point. Parents can do a fine job of instilling all kinds of fear.

Anthony

Now? Probably much less. But this was a long time ago, when people from rural India and rural China, and indeed rural Africa were often not in an official school setting.

What makes me draw the parallel? The coincidence of data. It's circumstantial, but it seemed indicative. I don't have another reason to explain why I outperformed my peers.

CTS makes a good point here

Quote:
I would say American public schools teach children to undervalue good grades, educational work, and smarts.

CTS, good point. That's an alternative to infophobia. There was some pretty evident infophobia involved though: They seemed convinced that they *couldn't* understand it. But yes, they were more apt to spend time socializing than studying, even those who were not particularly apt at socializing. A value system was also undoubtedly involved.

Quote:

Not to mention the fundies. Ugh.

*ducks*

Rouka

Nah, a single mom actually, who was also working full time. She did her best, but mostly I think it was self-motivated learning. Very little of it came from the hour a day of homeschool curriculum.

Quote:
Anthony:
These arguments seem more damning of culture than of public schools.

Possibly. My sister in law grew up in a Chinese village where girls weren't allowed to go to school. She snuck down to the schoolhouse and listened outside the window, and took notes. She's the one who designed those machines where you look at the little red dot in the eye doctor's office.

There may be a reverse psychology here. The forbidden fruit of knowledge created an exceptional engineer, whose has probably caused many of us here to look at little red dots.

Humans are more complex than those who run our society conceive them to be.

Quote:
Something is missing from the 'fear of information' puzzle described here.

No doubt there is. CTS just pointed one out. I don't think that I can cite articles, I figure almost everything writing on education would be coming from this system, and would support it.

I actually don't put a lot of faith in this sort of thinking. I posted here some guy who "proved" on wikipedia that jews were inferior because he could "cite" a whole host of documents all from bertelsmann, the world's most respectable publisher, also the #1 producer of nazi propaganda. His point being: Respectable sources can be biased.

Not saying citations are bad, just that things like journal of higher education etc. are probably going to support the education system.

I agree that characters in tv shows have gotten smarter. Maybe people have gotten smarter. I don't know. The audience might be demanding smarter characters. Or maybe it's a slice of the public. The characters on star trek were smarter than the characters on gilligan's island, mission impossible smarter than laverne and shirley. I'm not sure, but I don't know that there's a correlation here with society.

At least I applaud the new "heroes who actually figure things out" as opposed to "it all comes down to a fist fight" which even the BDM falls to.

Logically, the idea of being forced to sit stationary while bombarded by lectures on topics irrelevant to your life for a 13 year prison sentence as your first major experience in life can't do anything good for the human mind.

Quote:
From my perspective, public schools foster the fear rather than create it.

Yeah, this is what I meant

Rouka,

For a second I though you were calling Hero smart. I had to go back and re-read

I'll give you guys one show where people apply studying as a technique for increasing the use of their brains to solve problems:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I think this is Joss' intentional ideal learning environment. It's not the school itself, that is portray as fairly banal, generating only potential humor for Cordelia. It's Giles' library where all the learning actually takes place.

Notice also an interesting commentary here: Everyone is roughly of equal intelligence in the Giles' library environment, but in conventional school, Cordelia and Willow are significant better students than the rest.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 9:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"well denmark has a bunch of parties..."

Hello,

It must be too early in the morning for my brain. I read this and thought, "Denmark sounds like a fun place."

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

Well, it IS the happiest place on Earth, according to surveys and studies on such things...

This Space For Rent!

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Monday, December 6, 2010 12:36 PM

God, I love Ron Paul.

Quote:
The truth is that our foreign spying, meddling and outright military intervention in the post-World War 2 era has made us less secure, not more, and we have lost countless lives and spent trillions of dollars for our trouble. Too often it’s the official government lies that have given us endless and illegal wars resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and casualties.

Transcript here: http://www.ronpaul.com/

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 1:36 PM

Quote:

Mike

Go look up godwin

Oh, I'm familiar with godwin. I think you're missing the point, yet again. When I said you "godwinned the left", that's exactly what I meant. You're using "the left" for all your boogeymen, instead of using Hitler, but the intent and the strategy are exactly the same. Godwin used Hitler as his "godwin", but anything you use conceptually in the same way can be said to be a godwinning of that thing.

"Do this, or the terrorists win" is another godwin. Telling someone that if they order french fries instead of freedom fries then al-Qaeda just killed a baby and a kitten, is a form of godwin.

This Space For Rent!

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Monday, December 6, 2010 3:31 PM

Quote:
You're using "the left" for all your boogeymen, instead of using Hitler, but the intent and the strategy are exactly the same.

Mike

You're seeing things. How is saying that, in my experience, which I said by saying "arguments I have" that "the left" are more likely to support the education system, how is that comparing them to Hitler, or anything of that ilk.

Yes, I said the left. And the zombie (see interview with a zombie) jumped.

I said the left, and I meant the left. I meant, the left have defended the education system to me more than the right has

That's a statement of fact, and does not fall into this definition:

"Making illogical conclusions that draw extreme parallels"

I don't see that its even related. The left *do* defend the education system. They also defend social security, another system I think works very poorly.

They're not a boogeyman, they're half the population.

Also, back to when everyone attacked me for saying "the left is more visceral and negative," it was not a criticism, it was me, pointing out what I saw, which was you guys shooting yourselves in the foot. The left responded by proving me damn on the nose right, by responding viscerally and negatively.

And guess what? I know people off this board. I know lots of people on the left. It's not just an FFF phenomenon that people on the left draw extreme parallels when criticizing Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck, and they tend to do so in a manner so verbally abusive that it makes my skin crawl, makes me want to leave the room, or just makes ill.

Does that mean I want to defend Beck or Palin? No.

Is it the only place I've heard it? No. Some on the neocon right do the same thing.

My comment to the board was: Hey, look, you guys are losing arguments by being too hostile.

And its true.

I'm no master of debate by any means, but I can see that calling people nazi sympathizers, posting pictures of feces and endless rants citing every hateful thing any opponent has ever said is a way to win over the heart and minds of your audience.

Remember when PN was posting countless images of dead bodies and naked gay sex acts? Remember *why* it was that we all asked him to stop? Remember why he actually did stop? Because we weren't reading his posts because we didn't want to look at his images or listen to rants about how about how we should all fuck off and die. You lost an audience, and you lose the argument.

But in no way do I treat the left as a boogeyman.

Fact is, for all the berating and beating that you guys gave me over that post, I noticed that y'all did heed my advice, because the fact is that all of us are an ass sometimes, and none of us when we have it pointed out to us that we're being obnoxious take it well, but when we step back, upon reflection, we do tend to pay attention. That's why my signature line used to be "Everything I know I learned by losing an argument with an asshole." That day, I was that asshole. It wasn't a conscious decision, I just couldn't stand to see y'all dive off a cliff like that.

I actually thought that I would be attacked from the *right* for that, not from the *left* which shows how little I understand about humans. Humans, apparently, hate advice, and will harbor ill will against those whose advice they have accepted for a long time.

But no, in no way was the left a boogeyman, in that statement, or ever.

Please go back and read my post. Then maybe you can see what I was really saying.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:28 PM

DT, what I have been trying to point out - and what YOU keep on missing and not seeing - is that you are starting to develop quite a pattern of always portraying "the left" as a boogeyman. I'm not the only one who sees it; in fact, you may be the only one who doesn't.

You chided me fairly non-stop for calling people teabaggers. What you refuse to see - or simply don't care about - is that when you say things like "the left thinks it's good enough" about the education system, you dole out the same kind of insult. Do you think it's better, or worse, that you don't think you're being insulting with such generalities and illogical claims?

This Space For Rent!

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
... you are starting to develop quite a pattern of always portraying "the left" as a boogeyman.

"Always" is a bit misleading. He portrays the right as the boogeyman too. And some things on the left he agrees with.

If I may, I think there is a bit of negativity bias here. That is, you tend to only notice it when he is negative about the left, and not as much when he is positive.

Quote:
I'm not the only one who sees it; in fact, you may be the only one who doesn't.

I don't see it either.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:45 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I do. IMHO of course.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:19 PM

Quote:

DT, what I have been trying to point out - and what YOU keep on missing and not seeing - is that you are starting to develop quite a pattern of always portraying "the left" as a boogeyman. I'm not the only one who sees it; in fact, you may be the only one who doesn't.

Mike, this is pointless. Do you even read my posts?

I said people defend the education system. To me. More often they are on the left. That's a statement of personal experience. It's not a condemnation, or a scare tactic.

Okay about a month back, at the end of a very bad week end when one of my best friends had been murdered, my neighbor died, my sister got a brain tumor, can't talk, and my mom fell off a walkway, so I sign on here, and make a couple of "can't we all just get along" comments, and I just saw all this hate, not directed at me, just petty hate and crudity filling posts and signatures. Each post was beginning with something negative and hateful. I looked at that and thought "Why would anyone listen to any of you ever?" So, I decided to make a recommendation that people stop and think before posting that stuff.

When I said the left was being hostile, I was saying to the left members on the board "stop being hostile" because it's hurting your credibility. That was my attempt to try to help. See what it got me? So okay, they took my suggestions, while tearing me to pieces. I'm not sure if that was a victory or defeat for my efforts, but it seems that afterwords, people stopped posting hate, and the board became much more mellow and cordial. Maybe I did help, in spite of how poorly received it was. Maybe I blew it as constructive criticism goes.

But everyone pretty much got over the notion that I was a partisan ideologue trying to attack the left, and kinda got that I was just upset, and the amount of hate on the board set me off at the end of and extra-ordinary bad day.

Everyone but you. You got this idea into your head about me.

Mike, I don't have anything against you, seriously, but you've kind of been a dick to me lately, and it's starting to grate.

A couple of observations, for what they're worth:

1) Are you the left? I don't value people by where they are on the political spectrum, not at all, but honestly, I think the left is like Sig and Niki. I'd put them on the left. Maybe Texas is some strange political world I don't understand, and perhaps you're on the left there, but on the overall spectrum, you're barely left of center. You've been to the right of me on a couple issues, you're probably to the left of me overall, but you're hardly where I would target my aim if I were attacking the left. Did you notice me recently say "can Sig and I come to a consensus?" That wasn't an attack on Sig, it was a recognition that she is my ideological counterpoint here, the way maybe Rap is to you. For me, I don't agree with either Sig or Rap very often. Maybe one time in four for each of them. They both post stuff I agree with, but I don't share the world view of either.

2) What do you gain by seeking out enemies? I mean, you do kind of post as if I'm some sort of aberration to be destroyed. Niki and Sig are seriously to the left of you, do you see me attacking them? Or their world view? They disagree with me, I get that, but that's not nearly as important as what we might *agree* on.

Sure, I've been dismissive of Magon recently, but that's because every post she has thrown my way for a while has been sarcastic and hostile. I don't really want to have a conversation on that level, so I've got nothing to say.

Finally, the nightmare world I'm in is not over. Screw the fact that I work from dawn 'til midnight each day, and am only here to type because my back hurts too much to go on working... my problems are minor.

Tomorrow morning my sister goes in for brain MRIs. She can't read and write, and loses most of her vocabulary when she talks. Imagine first how painful that is, then imagine how painful it would be for someone who is a professional writer. Then imagine how painful it is for a professional writer who is also physically disabled, so has no other real outlet in life.

Do you think I even have time to care whether or not a message board about a TV show has people on it who have a different ideological perspective than I do?

I'm here for the same reason a couple other people stated: Because there are smart people here willing to exchange intelligent high minded ideas in an objective fashion that are outside of the mainstream box. I get annoyed at people who fight because I'm under a lot of stress, but also because they are polluting the infostream, and making it more difficult for us to see the valuable information.

I only say this because I value your input. Please don't just march on into troll territory where I just end up ignoring your posts until they're relevant again.

Finally, just because I think this is appropriate: I am not a topic for discussion on a public forum. You have my email, if you have a problem with me, email me. Only try to have some actual respect for the fact that I am human and we are all, over here, going through a very rough time.

As for the topic you were posting on, I urge you to go back, reread, and see if there wasn't perhaps a different interpretation. If there was something I said that particularly gave the wrong impression, feel free to ferret it out and email it to me.

Passed that, I'm at wits end on this one. I'm not up for an public online argument. I have way too much going on right now, none of it good.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I do. IMHO of course.

Oh, gee, Sig, thanks for the support

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 2:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
There are shows that depict 'naturally smart' thinkers, almost mutant intellects, but I'm not convinced the presence of such invalidates the rest, nor that they independently steer our culture despite the products of traditional education displayed on other shows.

Yes, there are some shows where the heroes are smart through studying. I would argue there are a lot more shows where they are not.

That is beside the point, however. It isn't that TV shows make us believe this way. It's the social hierarchy that exists in public schools (and some private schools) in the USA. This hierarchy is sometimes portrayed on TV. But TV/movies/media are only a reflection of the culture, not the cause.

I'm talking about real life, the public school lunchrooms, the playgrounds, the hallways where the bullies hang out. Twelve years of this prison social system can instill a deep fear of and aversion to academic learning.

This public school social hierarchy is an intensified version of the culture at large. What do people want to hear more about? How river dolphins in the Amazon are being killed for fishbait? Or what Angelina Jolie tattooed for Billy Bob? The media feeds what is popular. And what is popular is not smarts.

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned media though, because it confuses the situation. If I had to point to a culprit in culture, I would point to the devaluation of teachers. Because the public school system feels more and more like a prison, teachers are seen more and more like prison guards. The goal of schools feels less like a place to learn, and it feels more like a place to be warehoused until one can go home.

The fact that teachers don't get paid a lot compounds the problem. There are very few GOOD teachers. So most of the teachers really do feel like prison guards rather than people who can inspire the desire to learn.

If I were able to solve this problem, I would immediately increase the salaries of all teachers commensurate with their popularity with the children. The children would be asked by independent evaluators how much they like each teacher and how much they learn from them. The higher the rating, the higher the salary. The children need to be seen as the customers, and customer satisfaction is reflected in teacher pay.

Then I would make sure all new hires are highly paid skilled professionals. They are in charge of our CHILDREN and our children's minds several hours a day. Would you hire a Walmart greeter to watch your diamond shipment, or would you try to get as close to James Bond as you can afford?

That's it. The rest will follow.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:01 AM

CTS

I'm basically with you on this one, just one or two points

The Media *creates* popular. It's been demonstrated enough times for it to sink in to me that the media fudges ratings on shows, music charts and book sales to demonstrate the idea that certain things are popular. They also constantly bombard us with stories that *they* want us talking about. This made more obvious by how focused the population will be on a situation that never changes, like Zimbabwe, or the seven year go nowhere project to build a Mosque in lower manhattan and we focus when the media does, and with whatever spin they want, scientologists are evil or assange is endangering americans. (I noticed talking to people that about 2/3 are now anti-assange, and the only reason is "he's endangering america," even die hard feminist types aren't buying the rape story.)

The most damaging thing to me on the social dialogue was the separation of geek and jock. As a kid, I stopped playing sports, which I was quite good at, because I was a geek, and so I was better at programming computers, and even outside the system, I was an idiot, and had been convinced that you couldn't do both.

I don't think it's really a judgment on teachers, I think that's a framed debate that supports the public education system. It's sort of like making the war about whether or not the soldiers are good people. It's not about that, it's about a top down system and the decisions made at the top of that system.

The education system will never see the students as customers, and can never evolve to be positive and effective as long as the students are treated like prisoners. They need to be outside the classroom, and only attend when they want to. Then the classroom would have to sell itself with some reason to go.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:24 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"I would immediately increase the salaries of all teachers commensurate with their popularity with the children."

Hello,

I have a concern here, in that I have seen several popular and ineffective teachers.

I have seen popular and effective teachers, too, but popularity should not be tied to salary.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 6:02 AM

Anthony and DT,

I've moved the discussion to a new thread. My responses are there.

Fear of Learning:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=46591

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:36 AM