On a serious note, it occurs to me that it's usually acceptable for people who know each other well to engage in light hearted play on words about the other person's non-standard name and other cultural things (such as some posts on this thread that Bruce [Peace] and David el Gnomo 's wrote that refer to George [Yorgos Papavgeris]'s name.*

But that same play on words would likely not be acceptable among people who don't know each other well.

I mention this because I think that one of the goals of the Folk Against Fascism website, Facebook page, and MySpace page would be to foster greater understanding among people of different backgrounds. Which doesn't mean that I think there should be a "social etiquette among people of different backgrounds" page. But some features that help populations of people know each other better may do a lot to reduce the pull of fascism.

* I mentioned Bruce's name "Peace" because people who might visit this thread from Internet search engines might not know who the heck "Bruce" is. And I'm presuming that George didn't take any offense to Bruce's and Dave's remarks because I (kinda) know them through their postings on Mudcat. t also seems to me that George's 10 Jun 09 - 10:00 PM shows that he accepted these play on words about his name in the spirit that they were given. However, the point I'm trying to make is that people who don't know each other can take offense and be offensive when joking about different personal names and about words from other languages.

Also I want to say that I think that Bruce's 11 Jun 09 - 12:13 AM comment and David el Gnomo 's 10 Jun 09 - 07:00 PM and any comment about George's name and the Greek word for "Peace" (Irene) were probably posted to add some lightheartedness to a very serious thread as was the intent of my 11 Jun 09 - 04:15 AM post).

I think these serious, emotionally gut wrenching discussions need a careful, sensitive light touch some times- or speaking for myself-I know that I need a careful, light touch sometime when I read these "heavy duty" threads. (Why did that phrasing about careful, sensitive touch cause my mind to go someplace else? Never mind that.)

:o)

Moving right along, thanks Bruce, and George, and Dave and any other play on word-er that i failed to mention.

Ms. Azizi