The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:52 AM

So, uh, what's this thread about? In ten words or less--(I know that it's fewer, but really I just don't care). I want to sleep before my 62 birthday and I'm 60 now, so I don't have time to read it all.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:41 AM

Catspaw49,

About the only people currently posting to this thread who are not arguing with Walkabout are You, me, Carol and Walkabout. Are you inviting these people to go argue with PeterT? Why are you so concerned with breaking up a 370 post argument? Is it a Monty Python thing?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:31 AM

Thought for the day

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 01:15 AM

Let me try this again......Just a quick note to one and all on this thread.



If you want to read some real thoughts, beautifully written, intelligent, and image laden......thoughts that may make you think but are not laced with the willy-nilly bullshit and racist bigotry of this trash (my sincere opinion and not an attack), I suggest you try out Peter T. who has decided to return his classic "Thought for the Day" threads that were once a daily fixture of the 'Cat.



Unlike this junk they are topical and not posted elsewhere. If you want to read Wavygravy crap go to the Wavygravy crap site but if you are looking for something far better Click Here



Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 12:04 AM

Well....I don't actually feel superior, Don. I'm just saying in all honesty how I truly see it (these lengthy personal arguments here), that's all. I think we're all just keeping our restless minds busy here, and I say that in all humility. I'm no better than you or WAV or anyone else.

I don't know you well enough to have any reason to feel superior to you. I don't know anyone here well enough to have any reason to feel superior to them. Honestly. I do know that some people here are crueler than me or harder than me or stronger than me in some way (and others not), but there are probably reasons why in every case, reasons that I'll never know.

I think the only people I've ever seriously felt superior to or been tempted to are some I've known for many years face to face...mostly close relatives or perhaps a lover or two. (and that's a case of that old demon "familiarity breeds contempt" in action).

I'm not really superior to them either. I'm just different in some way, and our rough edges have bugged the hell out of each other over the years because life brought us together closely, and we couldn't avoid it.

The only thing that I think actually matters is love. We hunger for it all our lives. We grow bitter over love denied, love withheld, love reached for but not grasped. We cling to what little love we have actualized.

I figure at the end of my life that none of the debates and arguments will matter. They'll fade into nothing. Only what love I was able to give and receive will count for anything in the end.

It troubles me to see endless arguments fester between people, because I feel that someone is getting hurt. That's mainly why I don't like it. It's not that I'm observing it like I was looking at germs in a petrie dish. It's not detachment. It's that I think people are getting hurt, and probably unnecessarily.

In other words, I empathize with anyone who is in pain. I always did. The people I get truly angry with are those who delight in causing another's pain. Mercy is a mighty thing. So is compassion. So is forgiveness. Revenge is a simply dreadful thing.

I'm not officially a Christian, not officially of any religion, but I profoundly believe what Jesus taught about mercy, compassion, and not judging others. I try to live that way as best I can. I fall somewhat short, of course, like most people, but I try. ;-)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 11:06 PM

Sorry, Little Hawk. That was a bit snide.

However, when you go into this mode, you do have a tendency to act like a scientist commenting on the behavior of bacteria in a Petri dish.

Rather off-putting in its air of superiority, really.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 10:09 PM

I admire your ability to remain above it all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:56 PM

Don, I think that your sermons to WAV are not going to make any difference in the history of the modern world.

And neither are his responses to you. And neither are my comments either. We are all just keeping our restless little minds busy here for a few more minutes, because the human mind is like a dog chewing on a bone...it can't resist...and I know it.

Therefore I do not take it terribly seriously, but I am perennially interested anyway in people's minds, hearts, and souls...the working of their inner psychology, because I fine that interesting in its own right. Period. And that's why I comment upon it.

Not because my comment is important. Not because I think it will change anything or anyone. Just because I find the subject interesting. That's good enough.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:36 PM

And, there is considerably more "at stake" here than merely winning an argument.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:32 PM

Little Hawk, I don't think taking a position on a moral issue is merely "some illusory sense of triumph for someone's ego because they just managed to argue someone else into submission (or so they think)."

My ego is perfectly intact, thank you. Were I in need of an ego-boost, there are far more reliable ways for me to acquire it than what I am attempting here. You see, I have no hope of changing David Franks' mind. I think he's too far gone. But I would urge those who might be persuaded by him to think very carefully.

I'm sure there were people who got tired of Pastor Martin Niemoller's sermons ("First, they came. . . ."), but if more people had needed what he was saying, it might have made a great deal of difference in the history of the modern world.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 08:49 PM

It's not that I'm singling you out particularly, Don, yours was just the latest post devoted to arguing with WAV when I happened to take a look today. Nothing more to it than that.

I am not engaging in colorless neutrality here. I am observing something which I think is rather obsessive-compulsive and which goes on here on Mudcat all the time: people endlessly wrangling with other people over various things which are never going to be resolved, because their resolution would require someone submitting himself finally to the will of another and admitting that he is "wrong", in effect surrendering unconditionally...and most people simply are not willing to do that (for obvious psychological reasons).

Nor are countries...unless forced to by violence.

This is not a war, however, it's a conversation. Nothing is at stake here except some illusory sense of triumph for someone's ego because they just managed to argue someone else into submission (or so they think).

To note this is not to strike a pose of "neutrality" in the argument. It is to observe and comment upon the frailties of the human ego.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 08:30 PM

By the way, the nature of the "ethnic conflict in California, in the early 90s."

CLICKY.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:57 PM

I appreciate your sentiments as a peacemaker, Little Hawk, but I believe I've already adequately explained myself (quoting Edmind Burke in the process). By the way, why single out me? You will note that I am not the only one who is opposed to WAV's continued efforts to persuade others to his narrow views. And I have already agreed with a few things he has said (re: eco-tourism and free trade).

Something to contemplate:   I believe it was the poet Dante who, in his Inferno, said that the lowest rung in Hell is reserved for those who, in time of disagreement over a moral issue, maintain an aloof "colorless neutrality."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:30 PM

Just a quick note to one and all on this thread.

If you want to read some real thoughts, beautifully written, intelligent, and image laden......thoughts that may make you think but are not laced with the willy-nilly bullshit and racist bigotry of this trash (my sincere opinion and not an attack), I suggest you try out Peter T. who has decided to return his classic "Thought for the Day" threads that were once a daily fixture of the 'Cat.

Unlike this junk they are topical and not posted elsewhere. If you want to read Wavygravy crap go to the Wavygravy crap site but if you are looking for something far better Click Here

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:12 PM

Don, I get the strong impression that you're looking for more things to disagree with WAV about, just because you've already been disagreeing with him for quite awhile now.

I see a lot of that on Mudcat threads. It becomes like a dog barking at his own echo after awhile.

How about taking a little break? There must be something you two could agree on as well, surely?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 06:34 PM

". . . ethnic conflict in California, in the early 90s. . . ."

I recall about that time a small neo-Nazi group wanting to hold a parade in a town in the state of Idaho, but this was opposed by other citizens of the town. So where in California was this ethnic conflict? And between which ethnic groups? And what was the nature of the conflict?

I agree that nationalism with conquest is bad. But oftentimes free-floating nationalism carries an implication of "We're better than they are," and this, in turn, can eventually lead to attempted conquest. "We (being better people) deserve their resources more than they do!"

Yes, eco-travel and fair trade are to be encouraged. But why via the United Nations?

The U. N. is not a tourist bureau. And regulating the movements of people, whether individually or in groups, is not the function of the U. N., nor should it be.

The U. N. has fallen short of what it was originally intended to be, largely because of the selfish nationalistic interests of some of its member states. The disputes the U. N. often tries to deal with the most generally occur over matters of human rights, frequently the way some nations treat their own people, especially ethnic minorities who have as much of a historical right to be there than the majority of the country's population.

The U. N. already has plenty on its plate to deal with. It has more important things to do than play tourist agent for eco-travelers.

WAV, learn something about the United Nations.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 05:49 PM

Okay - the event that made the news several nights in a row, in Aus., before I repatriated, was the ethnic conflict in California, in the early 90s, I think. I was there later that decade when, thankfully, it had calmed down, and, for what it's worth, I got okay with people there, on my visit.
Also, nationalism with conquest IS BAD, but nationalism with eco-travel and fair-trade, via the UN, is good for humanity.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 05:08 PM

WAV, you seem to be incapable of answering a direct question.

I do not agree that "the details you asked for, in this case, are not necessary." You made an assertion. Now back it up.

And lest you think otherwise, I most definitely do not agree that "it's good for Americans to see themselves as Americans." Nationalistic claptrap of all flavors is one of the major causes of strife in this world, and the sooner we get rid of it, the better chance the people of this planet will have to survive into the 22nd century and possibly even beyond.

I echo the general sentiments expressed by stigweard just above.

I am a human, and an inhabitant of the Planet Earth. When and if other intelligences are found in the Cosmos, I shall broaden even that categorization. Nationalism, racism, and, for that matter, even speciesism can be carried much too far, with sometimes disastrous results—as we keep seeing!

Constantly saying "I'm proud to be an American" or "I'm proud to be English," or "I'm proud to be (whatever)," implies that you may not have much else to be proud of.

A rather pathetic state of affairs, really. Have your ever read The True Believer by Eric Hoffer?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 04:56 PM

the details you asked for, in this case, are not necessary

I think that's for Don to decide.

Word to the wise, David. You're not coming across as principled and aloof - just shifty and evasive.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 03:02 PM

I just got back from the Folkworks Durham Gathering and, as usual, I have no problem with the quality but am disappointed by the selection - of tutors and tunes. I thought, as I caught the train home, that when something similar is held in Scotland there's no way it would have such an amount of English culture (and I agree with them). Accordingly, if you'll pardon the pun, I agree with Stigweard on monarchism itself, at least.
Don - I think you'll agree that normally I'm quite frank, but the details you asked for, in this case, are not necessary; but you agree that, whilst respecting land rights, as above, it's good for Americans to see themselves as Americans - it's Americanisation/globalisation that I'm against, as part of my multicultural world argument.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 12:37 PM

He's working on that. Just wait till you hear the APP cheering section at football games.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 10:35 AM

I'm hoping Chongo can institute a one-word government.


Ook!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 09:03 AM

"Is Fathom the Bowl Irish...?"

Not as far as I am aware. I should have written this clearer; for me the English have the songs and the Irish have the tunes (although that's a pretty loose interpretation).

"Stigweard - you clearly see yourself as Bittish and I as English"

I certainly bloody don't see myself as British at all. In fact, I would go as far as to say I reject the artifice of 'Britishness' utterly, in the same way I reject the Union Jack as being my flag and I reject those sponging gits in Buck Pal as having any right to rule over me or me any obligation to loyalty to them, or their useless political onanists in Westminster as representing me in any way, shape or form.

During the last ice age, a group of people crossed the land bridge from the continent and decided to settle in the green and pleasant land they found. After the ice melted they realised they lived on a fine set of islands with cool green forests, high mountains and deep blue lakes. There were no borders, countries or accents, and everyone got on just fine. They loved the land, the animals and above all the music they heard around them - the melodys played by the running of the streams and becks, the vast sweeping cadences of the winds caressing the hills, fells and mountains and the rhythm of the rooks wing beating home to the roost as the day draws to a close.

These people, who went on to populate all the many islands of the archipeligo were the ancestors of stigweard, who still delights in the music and stories of these Isles he calls home, whose diverse traditions are the musical heritage his ancestors have handed him.

So nadgers to nationalism and petty prejudices - they're to be thundered against wherever they crop up; all they do is demonstrate the small-mindedness and myopic view of the worst sort of parochialism . People have been coming here for over 14,000 years contributing to our individual and shared cultures - long may they continue to do so.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 09:07 PM

Vote APP in November!

You know you want to. Just do it.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:43 PM

"I've seen terrible ethnic conflict in the USA."

I don't deny, and never did, that there have been ethnic conflicts in the USA. But for the most part, those ethnic conflicts have been initiated by small coteries of racists, and within recent years, those who endeavor to start them often find themselves confronted by members of their own ethnic group, who prevent the conflict from developing further.

WAV, you say you have seen terrible ethnic conflict in the USA. Will you kindly enumerate when and where you saw these conflicts? And which particular ethnic groups they were between?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:19 PM

it's surely silly to say that because something has gone on for so long, it must continue. Slave immigration sadly went on legally for a long time.

True - and it would have been better if it had never happened at all. That's precisely the point that I've been trying to get you to acknowledge - that you're opposed, in principle, to the immigration that has already happened.

To recapitulate: you believe that, in order for English culture to flourish, many individual men and women should have been prevented from coming here. And if you think that, then you must think that English culture would be in a better state if those men and women weren't here now.

If someone says "I would rather Mr Jones didn't live next door", it's a safe bet they don't like Mr Jones.

If someone says "I would rather there were fewer hotdog vendors in town", chances are they dislike hotdog vendors.

And if they say "I wish there were fewer people of non-English cultures in this country", it seems to me that they're expressing prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, especially those felt to be a threat to one's cultural or racial integrity.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:32 PM

One more from me. I'm hoping Chongo can institute a one-world government. Maybe then he can put WAVs ideas into practice.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:29 PM

Absolutely! Anyone can vote in this manner. It's time that the world had its collective voice represented this way, I think.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 05:22 PM

So LH, do this have this thing rigged so non-Canuck votes count? I hope so, vote early and often.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:58 PM

Not just "our nation", Little Hawk!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:53 PM

A software protocol has now been set up so that each succeeding post to this thread will register as a vote for Chongo Chimp and the APP in November's presidential election.

Post frequently and succinctly! The future of our nation rides on the outcome.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:24 PM

..and I almost forgot that I'll be at the Durham Gathering tomorrow, so here's the next Weekly Walkabout, a tad early...

Poem 76 of 230: LAND RIGHTS

If there is a good thing
    From the Second World War
It's that most peoples learnt
    To conquer lands no more.

In Africa, Asia,
    And the Pacific, too:
Post-war independence -
    Steps only bigots rue.

But for some indigenes,
    Outnumbered much-too-much,
It has all come too late
    For liberty, as such.

So 'tis in Australia,
    And America's sites,
Where the best now, I think,
    Is to respect land rights.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:04 PM

And once again I forgot to emntion that most of the shows on TV back then were British.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:03 PM

Really? Most of Fidel's policies were destructive, both economically AND culturally. Yes, he could get things done, but doesn't mean that he knew what he was doing!

I should also mention that in the local library were several Asterix books, as well as Tove Jansson, and many other writers from around the world. On TV we would get Blinky Bill and Boes,a mong other things. Far from damaging my own culture, it gave me a lot of common ground around Belgians and Ozzies.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:43 PM

Support, Volgadon - just in case anyone there might like to have a read; as I've made clear, I much prefer a regulated market to a free one, and would agree with Fidel, etc., on quite a lot, for what it's worth.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: irishenglish
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:37 PM

Wow Volgadon-fascinating background! It wasn't until just a few years ago as I got into world music more that I started putting the connections between places and people better. It was through the music that I understood the history better actually. Suddenly everything became linked, and I had a reference point to understand what Andalusian actually is, or Calabrian, or Armenian. That's purely on a musical basis, culture cannot be defined by what are the artificial borders we use now. It has a much broader geographical range, a point I have tried to get WAV to understand.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:20 PM

Volgadon is a he, not from Europe, born and bred in Israel, who spent a few years in Russia just recently. His parents are American, one half of the family isn't Jewish, but of very old Anglo-Scottish extraction, sprinkled with a few Norwegians and Danes. The other half, the Jewish half, mainly came from Czernowitz, an Ukrainian town under Austro-Hungarian rule, next door to Bessarabia. Also to fit into the mix are Pomeranians, Rumanians, Poles, Galicianers, and non-Jewish Danes.
He grew up in a town mainly populated by immigrants from North Africa and Iran, with a fair amount of Yemenites, Kurds and Iraqis and Indians, next door to both an old Jewish Rumanian town, a kibbutz of English and Yiddish speakers, and a Bedouin village. His grandparents lived on a farming community mainly consisting of Moroccans. His sister's babysitter was Persian and she spoke Farsi (long since forgotten) just as soon as she spoke in English and Hebrew. His early childhood coincided with the break-up of the Soviet Union and massive immigration from the USSR. He later moved closer to the Sea of Galilee, an area dotted with churches as well as mosques and synagogues. Not too far are several Jewish settlements, a Bedouin village and an Arab town of Muslims, Christians and Druze. In his area council there is also a Circassian village. The Circassians are from the Caucasus and were resettled here by the Ottomans. In his childhood he grew up with people listening to French and Spanish music, as well as American, British and ethnic things like Yemenite, Greek, Turkish, Persian and Arab music. That, as well as Israeli folksongs. The first song he recalls hearing was Old Maid in the Garrett, being played on the radio. Especially vivid is a childhood visit to the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem. His parents were friends with a lot of people serving in the UN peacekeeping forces, espcially Austrians and Polynesians.
In the army he served with Caucasians, Georgians and Ethiopians.
Not to blow his own trumpet, but he has met and associated with people from nearly every corner in the world.   
There, a potted culturo-ethnical biography.


So, where was the nearest country, culturally, for a German Jew of Polish extraction, in the 1930s? Intersting question, isn't that?

Out of pure curiosity, why the library in Havanah?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:12 PM

Yes, Pip - but with some qualifications that I made above, regarding the different kinds of immigration/reasons for emigrating. There are some immigrants in England, e.g., who also think that, FROM NOW ON, restrictions should increase/numbers decrease.
And it's surely silly to say that because something has gone on for so long, it must continue. Slave immigration sadly went on legally for a long time.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:59 PM

Yes I said "yes", Pip.

OK. So, explain something to me. If you believe 'mass immigration' has been bad for English culture and should have been limited, you must believe that individual men and women should have been prevented from coming here: there's no other way to limit immigration. And if you think that, then you must think that English culture would be in a better state if those men and women weren't here.

Am I right? If not, how am I misinterpreting you?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:50 PM

No - I didn't say you were soporific, IE; I lightheartedly suggested you can be quite demanding. I have been to New York and, as well as Central Park, I made a visit to the UN; one thing I remember liking is the idea of one nation/one vote (which, I think you'll agree, both your nation and mine have sadly overridden). And, if it does become stronger/better respected, there will surely be less suffering in our world.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:46 PM

pop is one of the American genres of music

Given the truly international input into pop music and its deep roots in African & European cultures, how on earth can you say that it's one of the American genres?

Where's Spleen when you need him? Pop, like Folk, is not a genre, it is a process that has yielded a plethora of distinctive musics - certainly as distinctive & culturally significant as Folk, if not more so. Here's a few names for you to Google: Magma, Soft Machine, Gong, Univers Zero, Sigur Ros, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Third Ear band, The Man Band, Henry Cow, Jabula, etc. etc.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: irishenglish
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:00 PM

Sorry, but I live in the city. I don't have a backyard, unless Central Park counts. Fidel's brave successful return is not something a lot of Cubans would call it WAV.

Ok, well thanks all the same, because at least that was some clarification. Before you accuse me of being soporific, I would suggest atempting to answer some of the questions put to you, respectfully. What you suggest would also entail a rather large UN infastructure in place, in virtually every nation on earth dedicated solely to this problem. I'm not exaggerating when I say that either. If you want the UN to make these determinations, then there would have to be employees in place to determine who is a viable candidate for asylum-ie, those seeking refuge for their political, religous, and sexual grounds (by this I mean sexual orientation, as well as sexual crime against women). That would have to be a massive infastructure, and it would have to coexist with the border controls already in place in each nation.

Of course, there are people who make that determination now, who do not work for the UN, my aunt is one of them-in her case in Ireland. It's a tough call. I don't know if it has changed, but I know that in Ceuta, there were hundreds of Africans housed in a complex, overseen by the Spanish, who were waiting to get into a EU country. So on top of its own border operations, you had the costs of running this facility as well. I'm all for ideas WAV, and I believe that there is a need for a different approach, but I don't believe your ideas are possible. Nice though they may be, but there is a lot of reality out there that isn't so nice.

I mentioned previously the rather sad plight of the Saharawis, living in camps in Algeria for 30 or so years. I have always hoped for a stronger UN WAV. Despite it all, all the diatrabe that goes on here at Mudcat, including from myself, despite all that, I wish the UN could come up with solutions for situations like that. Sadly, its not the case. What can I do? I can petition for human rights, I can make people aware of political and social strife. I can share my thoughts and feelings and educate, and be educated. The one thing I can't do is profess that I have the answers. No one person does.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 02:00 PM

Yes I said "yes", Pip, and yes I said immigration/emigration regulation/restrictions should increase - the world over, via a stronger UN.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

You're missing the "given that all that immigration has occurred, WHAT'S BEST FROM NOW ON" part, Pip.

You're missing a question you've already answered, WAV. Some way upthread, I asked you "Do you think it would have been better for England, culturally speaking, if immigration from the West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda had been severely limited?" You answered "Yes".

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:19 PM

P.S: no cigars, and I don't even know if it got there, but I did send a copy of "Walkabouts: travels and conclusions in verse" to the main library in Havana.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:12 PM

IE - an Honours in Humanities must be easier than trying to answer your serial questioning...you make some of my BA tutors seem soporific.
1. the nearest Spanish-speaking nation I suppose - I think Fidel himself was in Mexico for a while before his brave successful return.
2. Well it's not the nearest safe country then, is it?
3. the standard factors - threat due to beliefs etc.
4. The UN should take control and determine who and which is the nearest safe country for them.
5. I said nearest NOT the exact same culture!!!
6. It's all those things - WONTS.
7. If I were to "keep digging", I'd hope NOT to end up in your backyard, with all due respect, IE.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:55 PM

B-Zing! B-Zing! B-Zing! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! B-Zing!

(sound of hamster running furiously on inner mental exercise wheel inside next poster's brain...)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: irishenglish
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:41 PM

So again, I say, give me a hypothetical here WAV. An asylum seeker from Cuba trying to enter the US should be helped to what nearest safe country? Again I ask, what if said nation does not seek, nor want asylum seekers? Again I ask when, since you contradicted yourself, you determine what factors constitute allowable genuine asylum? You are the one who said it, I'm trying to fill in the many blanks you have left. You are saying within your certain rules, in your case England, should allow asylum seekers, but in other cases, a deliberate choice would be made to send an asylum seeker elsewhere. SOmewhere with a similar culture, since you feel that is the most important thing. What if THAT culture exists only within the country someone is fleeing from? Then what? And, like the chicken and the egg, or what is folk, how do YOU propose to define what that culture is? Is it language only? Ancient culture? Music? Cinema? Architecture? Fashion?

Keep digging that hole WAV.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:26 PM

If this thread had legs it would be in the Olympics...long distance runners' division. ;-)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 12:23 PM

Volgadon, I seem to recall, now lives in Israel, having left Europe and this, along with other things posted, tells me that she (I think?) probably does know more about this than me, as said; but a lot of people from Europe (from many lands as you say, Joseph) who practice the Jewish religion left to settle in Israel, where there has sadly been a lot of ethnic conflict, over land, since.
You're missing the "given that all that immigration has occurred, WHAT'S BEST FROM NOW ON" part, Pip.
IE - I said, repeatedly, culture is the most important aspect when considering the nearest safe country for an asylum seeker.