So, here is the other reason why I have changed the theme of my posts: 18 percent of this country think that Barack Obama is a Muslim. That number is up 7 percent from a year and a half ago.
No amount of snark, name calling, or bating will ever change these people's minds. Their frustration with their lives (more than likely due to their economic situation) have clearly overcome them. This would be a reason why we see such an outrage over the Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero. Historically, this makes sense. When times are tough, a certain group or demographic gets the blame for problems. Native Americans, the Irish, the Chinese, African Americans etc have all experienced this phenomenon. Now it's the Muslim's turn.
Over 60 percent of this 18 percent got this information from the media which I think is pretty sad. Wouldn't I be just like this "media" if I resort to telling jokes like this?
Teaching Math in 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1970:
A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money.
The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar.
Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M."
The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M."
Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?
Teaching Math in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment:
Underline the number 20.
Teaching Math in 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20.
What do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees?
(There are no wrong answers.)
Teaching Math in 2000:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120.
How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?
How many documents were shredded to achieve this number?
Teaching Math in 2010:
Un hachero vende una carretada de madera por $100.
El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuanto dinero ha hecho?
Teaching Math in 2040:
ومسجل تبيع حمولة شاحنة من الخشب من أجل 100 دولا
تكلفة الإنتاج هو صاحب 5/4 من الثمن. ما هو الربح له ؟
Answer: Yes.
17 comments:
I saw an interesting editorial in the Washington Post.
The author quotes Samuel Morse, who said, "We are dupes of our hospitality. The evil of immigration brings to these shores illiterate Roman Catholics . . . the obedient instruments of their more knowing priestly leaders."
Doesn't this sound just like today's anti-immigration folks? Only these "illiterate immigrants" he was talking about were Irish and Italian Catholics rather than Latinos.
The author then shared a personal anecdote: "And as late as the 1960s, as a Catholic teenage immigrant dating a Southern Baptist girl in Phenix City, Ala., I found myself squirming in the pews of her small, crowded church. The preacher ridiculed the president then in the White House -- John F. Kennedy -- as a papist and 'fish eater.'"
When Kennedy was running for president the Protestants in the Republican Party claimed that Kennedy would be taking his marching orders from the pope. Today there are no Protestants on the extremely conservative Supreme Court and the Catholics form its most conservative wing.
Not that long ago, Republicans counted Muslims among their core constituencies, because of the extremely conservative social views many Muslims hold, and the fact that we've been propping up authoritarian and dictatorial Muslim leaders for decades (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran before the revolution, Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen, etc.). We even supported Muslim military dictatorships (Pakistan) who were promoting terrorist insurgencies against democracies (India).
But I guess all that is water under the bridge when the politics of hate can so profitably be used to rally the troops. If Newt Gingrich is so certain that all Islam is responsible for the attacks of 9/11 why is he declaring war on American Muslims and depriving them of their religious freedoms, rather than calling for a boycott on oil from Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and UAE, where the 9/11 attackers actually came from?
The imam of the proposed New York mosque is a Sufi, which is like the most liberal branch of Islam there is. Why alienate our natural Muslim allies in this ham-handed fashion?
I'm having a hard time trying to decide which irritates me more; the hatred of posts past or the condescending pity of today...
"He looks pretty bad. Whatever did he try to do to poor, helpless little you?"
"Patronize me."
"Ah."
- Terry Pratchett, "Monstrous Regiment"
Wow. That joke is a zillion different levels of offensive. It's just like you said, Mark. They can get away with it but you can't.
Flat-Earther, I don't see it as condescending pity. Do you think this joke is funny at all? If so, how and why? It seems to me that Mark, as juris recently said, saw himself in this type of writing and decided to not be such an a hole anymore.
blk sez When Kennedy was running for president the Protestants in the Republican Party
Hey chief, you ought to check out what the Protestant Democrats had to say about JFK during the primaries. It wasn't his appeal to Republicans that made LBJ the veep.
The imam of the proposed New York mosque is a Sufi, which is like the most liberal branch of Islam there is. Why alienate our natural Muslim allies in this ham-handed fashion?
Well, let's see, Sufis are the smallest branch of Islam and tend to be reviled by the other branches as heretics (shades of Christian sectarianism there, huh). I don't often see Thomas Sowell make a dumb statement, but he did about Iran and how it is the leading state sponsor of Islamic radicalism. He is wrong. The worst radicalism emanates from the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.
brendan sez That joke is a zillion different levels of offensive.
Oh, how truly thankful you must be for your finely tuned sensibilities - ever so ready to take offense, whether appropriate or not. Do you thank god every night that you are so easily offended? A zillion different levels - wow. That is a LOT of offense. Was your greatest sense of offense that you couldn't answer any of the versions?
Damn, dumb kids.
So how is that any worse, or any different, from this?
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-disappointed-that-obama-isnt-a-real-black-president-with-a-gun-in-his-pants/
Doesn't this sound just like today's anti-immigration folks? Only these "illiterate immigrants" he was talking about were Irish and Italian Catholics rather than Latinos. - blk
Again, you continue to push this idiotic meme about anti-immigration. What is it with you? Can't comprehend english? Or are you talking about a very small fringe of people who want all immigration ended?
The VAST MAJORITY of people want ILLEGAL immigration stopped, not legal. Dang, you are dense. It is not the SAME issue.
"Gingrich is so certain that all Islam is responsible for the attacks of 9/11 why is he declaring war on American Muslims and depriving them of their religious freedoms,..." - blk
I pointed out your moronic statement in another comment thread and yet you continue to spout this crap. Point me to where he is declaring war on American Muslims. Point me to where American Muslims are being deprived of their religious freedoms. If this is in fact happening, it would be an open/shut case for the ACLU. Opposing a Mosque in one specific place is not proof of what you are concluding.
Brendan,
If you find this joke offensive, you are in a sad state. It is not particularly funny but rather clever, talking about three separate political issues of today: The continuing decline of education in America, illegal immigration overwhelming parts of the country, and political correctness and submission in the name of tolerance. I don't think anyone is using it as a policy guide but hey, go ahead and blather on if it makes you feel superior and morally justified.
At least you don't think it's funny, 6kings. It's really not clever either. But this would be why I am done making jokes like this regarding conservatives, Tea Partiers and the GOP. Brendan is right. I can't get away with it because many of you will be ripping me left and right.
And yet this joke is clever which means there most certainly is a different standard. Think very seriously about this statement.
"The continuing decline of education in America, illegal immigration overwhelming parts of the country, and political correctness and submission in the name of tolerance."
You don't see any sort of problem with this at all?
Wow, now Maher really was offensive. Yo' brendan - what do you have to say about that?
To be frank, the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that President Obama is an athiest, who deploys religion as a tool when expedient. (Which would make him like many other politicians.)
His relations with Muslims and related policy issues do not seem noticeably different from his general policy performance. (I do not mean that as a compliment.) It's just that some people are looking at the Muslim issue with a particularly sensitive frame, and coming up with false positives.
"Their frustration with their lives (more than likely due to their economic situation) have clearly overcome them."
Clearly, you don't know anyone who holds this belief. Or if you do, you don't realize it.
I, on the other hand, know several quite prosperous people who suspect that the President is a believing Muslim.
Pop sociology like this may sound good and come glibly to the tongue, but it amounts to sophisticated condescension—closely related to the old Marxist bromide of "false consciousness," which was applied to any case in which people did not behave as Marxists expected. Sometimes they were right, but rarely.
closely related to the old Marxist bromide of "false consciousness,"
Yeah, M just can't understand it when he gets called a Marxist for spouting off tired old Marxist cliches. We even did a whole thread on that here.
But Marx believed that religion was just another institutional extension of the elite used to control the masses.
My point in mentioning people's frustration was simply that blame, invariably, falls on the president and then bias tends to come out. The same thing happened when Bush was president. "George Bush hates black people" is the same thing as "Barack Obama is a Muslim."
It's not for me to judge how deep Obama's faith is although his Easter speech last spring is certainly an indication.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-easter-prayer-breakfast
The same thing happened when Bush was president.
The myth of the rightful ruler (actually the inverse - all the woes of the world laid at the feet of the usurper). Since you reference Campbell in another post you should be familiar with this. Funny thing about myths - most people don't seem to realize that they are part and parcel of our modern existence, not just our past.
Which also happens to explain a LOT of the appeal in Marxism.
In 2004, i remember when we were labeled jesusland. Now those folks who did that labeling are telling us how much obama loves jesus.
Maybe it's because people remember Jeremiah Wright and don't believe obama when he claimed he never heard any of that.
In 2004, i remember when we were labeled jesusland. Now those folks who did that labeling are telling us how much obama loves jesus.
In 2010, I remember someone quoting this:
"Not all Republicans are racist, but if you're racist, you're probably a Republican."
...over and over again on this very blog. Wasn't that originally said by the same guy above, the one who wants "a real black President"?
It's amazing how some things qualify as funny or offensive and others don't. And it's amazing how some people think what they consider funny and not that offensive should be okay, but other people's is offensive, not funny, and shouldn't be allowed.
The more people change, the more they stay the same.
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