Context is everything, dear friend.

You will find upthread a pissing match couched in purely "American West" terms, involving the fulgent and intransigent Rapaire, whose obsession with barrels, powders, triggers, and various sorts of toxic emissions is well known. Why, his very bedsheets have .44 caliber holes burned in them. In this context, "West" means the American West, roughly defined as everything west of the sleepy little town of Idaho. Not purely geographic West.

You will also find, I think, that of all those tribes geographically more West than California, few participate in the icons and emotional values, the testosteronic nobility and grandeur, that characterizes the mythology of the American West, the context in wehich this dialogue properly belongs. How often have you heard of, or seen dramatic images of, a Malaysian, Singaporean, Polynesian, Japanese, Hindu, or Muslim, Slav, Magyar, or Roman, mounting a stallion, twirling a rope and firing a six-gun in the untrammeled joie de vivre that is the hallmark of the brave men of the American West? Not bloody often, I warrant.

I rest my case.

A