OT - Fireworks?
 

hopitus wrote:
On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote:
"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:
Lesley wrote:

In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a tour
guide.... but after all the things I told them when I mentioned the
Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela
Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife when the
clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and shot off
to take photos

....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad reputation in
Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting the natives
to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in other
countries.)

I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I mean,
she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a connection
with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an
example of being an obnoxious tourist?

Joyce
You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I believe
Lesley
was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being
"obnoxious"
but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the
attention
span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if
you will)
tries to inform them of the answer to their historical
question......they run off
to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not
obnoxious,
just thoughtless.
Feel free to disagree with my interpretation.

Yeah, that was more-or-less what I meant (although some people carry
that rudeness to extremes).

OT - Fireworks?
 

wrote:
hopitus wrote:

On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote:

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Lesley wrote:

In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a tour
guide.... but after all the things I told them when I mentioned the
Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela
Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife when the
clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and shot off
to take photos

....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad reputation in
Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting the natives
to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in other
countries.)

I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I mean,
she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a connection
with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an
example of being an obnoxious tourist?

You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I believe
Lesley
was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being
"obnoxious"
but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the
attention
span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if
you will)
tries to inform them of the answer to their historical
question......they run off
to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not
obnoxious,
just thoughtless.
Feel free to disagree with my interpretation.

OK, no problem. I don't disagree. I was just thrown off because first,
the story didn't sound very bad to me, and then Evelyn was talking about
people expecting people to speak English? What did that have to do with
anything? :)

Americans abroad! Unfortunately a great many American tourists address
French and German and Italian natives in English and expect them to
reply. Without taking the trouble to at least learn "Do you speak
English?" in their language (Along with "please", "thank you", "pardon
me" and a few other polite phrases - plus a few like "where is the
lavatory"?)

OT - Fireworks?
 

On 4/07/2011 1:03 AM, CatNipped wrote:
wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote:
I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history -
any longer than a couple of centuries' worth.


You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human
history. Its just not Western history.

Yowie

Got me there! ; And it's more an oral history than a written one. And
seeing that I'm part native American I shouldn't have made that gaff to
being with!shame faced

You are a smart chickadee - how about finding out more about that NA
part of yourself?

Yowie

OT - Fireworks?
 

On 7/3/2011 7:47 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Yowie wrote:
On 3/07/2011 3:32 AM, CatNipped wrote:
LOL! Your post sent me back to a childhood of playgrounds set in
concrete.
Bones had to be sticking out of skin before anyone was sissy enough
to go
home crying to mom when we fell off the top of the monkey bars or
"tightrope
walking" on the top of the extra tall swing set - not to mention
trying to
get the swing to go completely around in a circle and more often than
not
banging into the steel posts instead. Then there was the ever popular
child's game of "Lawn Darts" where children stood on opposite sides
of the
lawn and threw very large steel spikes at the target at one child's
feet -
can't tell you how many times I had to pull a dart out of my leg.

There were public pools that kids could attend alone at any age, dive
off
the high dive 25 - 30 feet above the deep end of the pool, and drown
if the
lone "lifeguard" happened to be flirting with a pretty girl at the time.

Not to mention being basically kicked out of the front door with a
backpack
of sandwiches at first light and not allowed to come back (even had we
wanted) until after dark. I lived next to a large copse of wild woods
with
many wild animals, such as nutria (think rats on steroids - they
could take
on a large dog and win). there were streams to cross on a fallen log,
trees
to climb to serious heights, ropes strung across the trees to swing
on like
Tarzan or make a rope bridge. To build tree houses we had to "borrow"
from
our garages machetes, axes, hammers, ten-penny nails. saws, etc. -
all of
which we were never taught how to safely use - we either figured it
out or
lost a piece of finger. Any less serious injury was treated with spit
and a
mud pack (it's amazing how few infections we had - I guess we built
immunities pretty quickly).

I sometimes think that we were still practicing "evolution in action" in
those times. Anyone smart enough to live through a childhood like
that had
the privilege to grow up to marry and contribute to the gene pool.

I walk past the playgrounds of today, with their moss and wood chip
ground
cover - nothing high, nothing steel, everything a very light plastic, no
monkey bars, no see-saws and more often than not totally deserted
(how could
kids possibly have fun on those unthrilling, vanilla "toys"). And
children
have to be accompanied by parents, they're not allowed to venture
anywhere
on their own now-a-days (even if they should desire a few minutes
away from
their Nintendos and WIIs). It's all pretty sad really. And I'm sure it's
why so *MANY* of our children in the US are seriously overweight and
having
*HEART ATTACKS* in their *TEENS*!!! That was unheard of when I was
young.
There was maybe one poor child in the whole school whose single mother
coddled into overweight and that poor child was teased and hounded to
misery
(there weren't any awareness programs about the damage this did). I can
say, righteously, that I was not a teaser - having lost my dad at age
4 and
being brighter than my peers caused me enough teasing and grief from my
peers that I could empathize all too well.

Most of that is due to the culture of suing if a child gets hurt. If
local councils choose to put in play areas for children, they have to
be as safe as possible and have signs all around saying that children
have to be supervised at all times and that any use is solely at the
user's risk.

Combined with the general culture that sees 'outside' as a big scary
place and that 'unsupervised' children are 'neglected', and you have
an indoor culture. According to current wisdom over here, children
should not be left unsupervised for any length of time until they are
at least 12. I was walking to and from school which was just under a
mile each way by the time I was 7. Sometimes I walked with friends,
but often I walked alone. I knew how to cross a road, and not to talk
to strangers /unless it was an emergency/. I knew how to dial
emergency on a public phone, and knew my next door neighbour's phone
number (we didn't have a phone) if something happened and needed to
contact my parents. I fell over and grazed verious bits of me more
times than I could coung, got sunburnt, got beat up by a boy I liked
once, and was even approached by a stranger once (I don't know if he
was dangerous or just 'not right in the head' - I ran home). I went to
the shops for Mum to pick up milk and bread and like you had the
kicked-out-in-the-morning, be-home-by-dusk curfew. WOuldn't, and
couldn't, happen now though - that would be considered neglect.

Unless crime in Australia has lagged behind the U.S., it's not a
question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little
boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either,
but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no
attendant parent or companion.)

Is it more common, or do we just hear more about the cases that do happen?

Or do we have a mistaken notion of 'safe'? Nothing in life is 100% safe.
There has probably been sexual activity in public toilets back before
any of us were born; there was certainly abuse of children whispered
about in the idyllic small town I grew up in. I knew women who were
sexually assaulted as very young girls - a good 40 years ago now. But it
was never mentioned on the radio or in the newspapers (later on TV) for
fear of stigmatizing and further harming the child victim. We were
taught not to talk to strangers (ironic when most abuse is by a family
member or close family friend), to talk to someone we trusted if
'anything' happened etc - but we were still permitted to play and walk
outside. It wasn't 100% safe, but we didn't expect it to be. And I'm not
sure that today it's any less safe - assuming you don't live in a street
with street-level drug dealers living down the road.

I'm not at all sure that the modern approach - encouraging children to
be afraid instead of teaching them to manage their fears and avoid
common dangers - is an improvement.

--
Cheryl

OT - Fireworks?
 

On 3/07/2011 11:38 PM, Lesley wrote:
On Jul 3, 6:05 am, wrote:


Would you Adam and Eve it?


I would have never believed you were a cockney me old china

Australian slang is full of rhyming slang, perhaps because Australian
slang is mostly a descendant of the working class dialects of the UK &
Ireland.

Yowie

OT - Fireworks?
 

On Jul 3, 4:33*pm, Yowie wrote:
On 4/07/2011 1:03 AM, CatNipped wrote:

*wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote:
I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history -
any longer than a couple of centuries' worth.

You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human
history. Its just not Western history.

Yowie

Got me there! *; * And it's more an oral history than a written one. *And
seeing that I'm part native American I shouldn't have made that gaff to
being with!shame faced

You are a smart chickadee - how about finding out more about that NA
part of yourself?

Yowie

I can see that neither Lori nor Evelyn have clubbed in any raves
lately. There
are some up-to-the-minute stuff you just can't google up the right
answer to, LOL.
Did you get rid of your lurge, Yowie?

OT - Fireworks?
 

"Yowie" wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 10:04 AM, wrote:
hopitus wrote:

On Jul 2, 4:18 pm, wrote:

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Lesley wrote:

In the end they almost wanted to come back and hire me as a
tour
guide.... but after all the things I told them when I
mentioned the
Minnie Lansbury clock they asked "Is she related to Angela
Lansbury" (Sort of Minnie was her grandfathers first wife
when the
clock needed work done she put 5K or so into the fund) and
shot off
to take photos

....And then we wonder why American tourists have a bad
reputation in
Europe! At least, in the UK they are justified in expecting
the natives
to speak English. (One of the prime complaints against us in
other
countries.)

I don't understand. What did she say that was objectionable? I
mean,
she was on the right track, wasn't she? Minnie *did* have a
connection
with Angela, if not by blood, then by marriage, so how was this an
example of being an obnoxious tourist?

You are right; she did NOT say anything objectionable. What I
believe
Lesley
was LOL pointing out was not a big deal of Merkin tourists being
"obnoxious"
but simply pointing out that as tourists out of USA , they have the
attention
span of a gnat when someone *they ask* on the street (a stranger, if
you will)
tries to inform them of the answer to their historical
question......they run off
to shoot photos of the local sights . Kinda airhead behavior but not
obnoxious,
just thoughtless.
Feel free to disagree with my interpretation.

OK, no problem. I don't disagree. I was just thrown off because first,
the story didn't sound very bad to me, and then Evelyn was talking about
people expecting people to speak English? What did that have to do with
anything? :)

However, I have to say that American tourists do not corner the market
on airheadedness or short attention spans. Airheads come from everywhere
and they come in every size, shape and color!

It's funny - I know I don't come off as the most patriotic type, and I
have a lot of criticisms of our government, our economic system, and
many aspects of our culture. If someone outside the US criticizes those
things, I can only agree with them. Even when it's a caustic criticism,
like when Jack said that the goal in the US is to burn up every last
bit of available energy. It's embarrassing to hear that, but I can't
deny that we are the biggest wasters of energy in the world.

Actually, thats not entirely true. Australians are, per capita, the
biggest emitters of carbon on this fair planet.

And I do
think people outside the US have every right to criticize it because
it affects them, too. This country has an abysmal energy policy.

But when people confuse American *policy* with American *people*, and
start critisizing or making fun of us as individuals, I really bristle
at that. How is that different from any other prejudice? We aren't all
alike, any more than members of any ethnic or national or racial group
are all alike.

You are right, Joyce, blaming individuals for the actions that their
country undertook is a form of racism, although its darn hard not to,
sometimes.

The USA is a democratic country. The people who make the decisions about
what *America* does was elected by *Americans*. Therefore, the actions of
America cannot be entirely decoupled from 'the will of the people' (even
if you personally disagree with those actions).

I'd love to chat with you some time about it all, but not in a public
forum. Its too sensitive a subject, and we'd be relying a lot on the fact
that we're friends and wouldn't say things with the intent to hurt or to
troll. This sort of stuff could easily be taken *way* out of context. Feel
free to e-mail me, though.

Yowie

Theoretically you're right about the actions of the government reflecting
'the will of the people'. However, politicians often promise one thing to
get elected, then do another. Also, lately, elected 'representatives' of
both our major parties seem much more interested in defeating anything the
other party proposes than they are in serving the people they were elected
to serve.

I do agree that political arguments can get out of hand. My first, and once
favourite, newsgroup was ruined by just that.

Joy

OT - Fireworks?
 

"Yowie" wrote in message
...
On 3/07/2011 8:47 AM, CatNipped wrote:
I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place of such history -
any longer than a couple of centuries' worth.


You, like I, live in a country with many thousands of years of human
history. Its just not Western history.

Yowie

Actually, your human history goes back much further than ours, as far as
anyone knows so far. The Aboriginal people of Australia are by far the
oldest group of people known on earth.

Joy

OT - Fireworks?
 

"Lesley" wrote in message
...
On Jul 2, 5:16 pm, hopitus wrote:
..
Am I the last remaining reader of newspapers? Would like to think not.

Far from it- I read the 2 free papers every working day then I also
buy a couple of national papers (depending on what gets my attention)
most working days and also buy my local paper and sometimes weekend
papers (although I loathe those supplements and the fact I have to pay
extra for them I always hand them to the newsagent and say "Got a bin
behind there? If I wanted a glossy magazine I would have brought
one")

Dave reads them online

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furball

***

I subscribe to two local daily papers and read them while I eat my
breakfast. I also get, and read, a free weekly one.

Joy

OT - Fireworks?
 

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
On 7/3/2011 7:47 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Yowie wrote:
On 3/07/2011 3:32 AM, CatNipped wrote:
LOL! Your post sent me back to a childhood of playgrounds set in
concrete.
Bones had to be sticking out of skin before anyone was sissy enough
to go
home crying to mom when we fell off the top of the monkey bars or
"tightrope
walking" on the top of the extra tall swing set - not to mention
trying to
get the swing to go completely around in a circle and more often than
not
banging into the steel posts instead. Then there was the ever popular
child's game of "Lawn Darts" where children stood on opposite sides
of the
lawn and threw very large steel spikes at the target at one child's
feet -
can't tell you how many times I had to pull a dart out of my leg.

There were public pools that kids could attend alone at any age, dive
off
the high dive 25 - 30 feet above the deep end of the pool, and drown
if the
lone "lifeguard" happened to be flirting with a pretty girl at the
time.

Not to mention being basically kicked out of the front door with a
backpack
of sandwiches at first light and not allowed to come back (even had we
wanted) until after dark. I lived next to a large copse of wild woods
with
many wild animals, such as nutria (think rats on steroids - they
could take
on a large dog and win). there were streams to cross on a fallen log,
trees
to climb to serious heights, ropes strung across the trees to swing
on like
Tarzan or make a rope bridge. To build tree houses we had to "borrow"
from
our garages machetes, axes, hammers, ten-penny nails. saws, etc. -
all of
which we were never taught how to safely use - we either figured it
out or
lost a piece of finger. Any less serious injury was treated with spit
and a
mud pack (it's amazing how few infections we had - I guess we built
immunities pretty quickly).

I sometimes think that we were still practicing "evolution in action"
in
those times. Anyone smart enough to live through a childhood like
that had
the privilege to grow up to marry and contribute to the gene pool.

I walk past the playgrounds of today, with their moss and wood chip
ground
cover - nothing high, nothing steel, everything a very light plastic,
no
monkey bars, no see-saws and more often than not totally deserted
(how could
kids possibly have fun on those unthrilling, vanilla "toys"). And
children
have to be accompanied by parents, they're not allowed to venture
anywhere
on their own now-a-days (even if they should desire a few minutes
away from
their Nintendos and WIIs). It's all pretty sad really. And I'm sure
it's
why so *MANY* of our children in the US are seriously overweight and
having
*HEART ATTACKS* in their *TEENS*!!! That was unheard of when I was
young.
There was maybe one poor child in the whole school whose single mother
coddled into overweight and that poor child was teased and hounded to
misery
(there weren't any awareness programs about the damage this did). I can
say, righteously, that I was not a teaser - having lost my dad at age
4 and
being brighter than my peers caused me enough teasing and grief from my
peers that I could empathize all too well.

Most of that is due to the culture of suing if a child gets hurt. If
local councils choose to put in play areas for children, they have to
be as safe as possible and have signs all around saying that children
have to be supervised at all times and that any use is solely at the
user's risk.

Combined with the general culture that sees 'outside' as a big scary
place and that 'unsupervised' children are 'neglected', and you have
an indoor culture. According to current wisdom over here, children
should not be left unsupervised for any length of time until they are
at least 12. I was walking to and from school which was just under a
mile each way by the time I was 7. Sometimes I walked with friends,
but often I walked alone. I knew how to cross a road, and not to talk
to strangers /unless it was an emergency/. I knew how to dial
emergency on a public phone, and knew my next door neighbour's phone
number (we didn't have a phone) if something happened and needed to
contact my parents. I fell over and grazed verious bits of me more
times than I could coung, got sunburnt, got beat up by a boy I liked
once, and was even approached by a stranger once (I don't know if he
was dangerous or just 'not right in the head' - I ran home). I went to
the shops for Mum to pick up milk and bread and like you had the
kicked-out-in-the-morning, be-home-by-dusk curfew. WOuldn't, and
couldn't, happen now though - that would be considered neglect.

Unless crime in Australia has lagged behind the U.S., it's not a
question of "neglect", it just isn't SAFE! (When I was a kid, little
boys were never seen in the ladies' lav in department stores, either,
but nowadays it's not really safe to let them use the mens' with no
attendant parent or companion.)

Is it more common, or do we just hear more about the cases that do happen?

Or do we have a mistaken notion of 'safe'? Nothing in life is 100% safe.
There has probably been sexual activity in public toilets back before any
of us were born; there was certainly abuse of children whispered about in
the idyllic small town I grew up in. I knew women who were sexually
assaulted as very young girls - a good 40 years ago now. But it was never
mentioned on the radio or in the newspapers (later on TV) for fear of
stigmatizing and further harming the child victim. We were taught not to
talk to strangers (ironic when most abuse is by a family member or close
family friend), to talk to someone we trusted if 'anything' happened etc -
but we were still permitted to play and walk outside. It wasn't 100% safe,
but we didn't expect it to be. And I'm not sure that today it's any less
safe - assuming you don't live in a street with street-level drug dealers
living down the road.

I'm not at all sure that the modern approach - encouraging children to be
afraid instead of teaching them to manage their fears and avoid common
dangers - is an improvement.

--
Cheryl

There are a lot more people now, so most likely there are more such
incidents. Also, as you say, more of them are known than were in the past.
I'm opposed to teaching children to be afraid. OTOH, I think it's common
sense for children (and adults, for that matter) to be aware of their
surroundings and to take sensible precautions.

Joy