Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

I thought you were tired of this.

I'm waiting for Alan to get over his huff.
 

Tired of bein' preached to is all. Let's sing a hymn and move on.
 

Interlocking series of swastikas have been used on Pre-WWII Synagogues all over Europe.
The reverse of the Nazi swastika was the "Thunderbird" patch of Oklahoma's 45th Infantry.
There are swastika symbols in 8000 year old petroglyphs in the Nevada desert.
But once these symbols have been converted into a shibbolith of evil, then there is no return to the prior meaning of the symbols.

I can fly the Bonnie Blue on my home and it means nothing though its actual history is only slightly different than the Battle Standard.
It may be a symbol but it does not rise to the level of a shibbolith.
 

I think that's what we're in the middle of in this country -- a vigorous argument over whether the battle flag is, and only is, such a shibboleth of evil.

Millions say yes, millions say no, millions don't give a damn. And I think it'll stay that way even after another generation or two pass on.
 

As a word monger, you will be interested in the variance between shibboleth and shibbolith. The former denotes something meaningful to the insiders but devoid of meaning to the outsiders. The latter is Hebrew for the germ in the kernel of corn, that which makes it viable. "...lith" has morphed into "..leth" over time.
Strange is it not, how even the meaning of a word can reverse itself.
 

For some reason, I'm at a loss for words...oh, that's right, Feodor done went and used all of'em... 'bout 3 x's over.

William T. Loney, MD

ps...a local school decided that camouflage was a redneck symbol of racism and banned it...next day, all the redneck kids showed up naked
 

The other discussion got way away from me, expanding too fast for the amount of time I have to spend reading it.

Generally, if someone tells me what something symbolizes to them, I accept it, and don't try to impose my view of the values that symbol has upon them. If an Indian (not Native American) guy has a work of art with a swastica on it in his home, I don't assume he embraces Nazism.

If an avowed racist like David Duke wears one, I assum he does.

If a State flies the "Stars and Bars" from the capitol building, it seems like they could recognize that a large percentage of their population views it as a State endorcement of racism and slavery and entertain serious debate about making a change... and that people for whom it merely represents southern pride could defend their position without depicting the debate as an attack on white people.

To lots of people I know, the Bible is a symbol of oppression, abuse, slavery, and genocide...but if they insisted that Christians displaying the Bible shared and were committed to those things, I would think it was just as dumb as saying that someone is a racist for owning something with the stars and bars.

Feodor questioned what my reasoned discourse was in my argument with my Father-in-law about the Katana...but he equated the idea of a sword as an historical artifact to be the moral equivilant of displaying human remains...
...so Im kind of done talking to Feodor.

That, and he couldn't even be bothered to move his eyes a couple of inches and copy my name down right.
 

While I would tend to support Teresa's point of view, I hesitate for a moment (or perhaps two) precisely because the use of the Battle Flag by racists and groups such as the Klan was a deliberate recall of that terrible time in our history. While I understand and respect your reasons, ER, for having memorabilia that include the Battle Flag, I think any public display, regardless of the intent of the person or group so doing, could so easily be misconstrued as to create far more problems than it is worth.

I am hereby resolved to have said all I am going to say on the subject. Put up a picture of your cats now, or maybe your dogs.
 

GKS,

My point was simply that we should try to understand and respect people's reasons when the display is in their personal domain and not part of a statement made on behalf of society at large...so you seem to be in agreement with me. :-)
 

Depends on where you are when you display such an emblem. Anywhere in Michigan, upstate New York, Illinois, Minnesota -- I agree with y'all.
 

Rudy,

While we're at it, Ima Tony Stewart man, so that Junior pillers offendin the tar outta me...and you know how many trees had to shed their sap to get your lil' fancy stool and tabletop...and my god man, a plastic container tub? U know how long thats gonna be inna landfill? ...and a oscarlatin fan? U know how many electricals them things burnup?...and whasat blanket thing made out of? cotton? you know how much emmisinations them John Deer cotton picker machines had to put out jus' so you could get your lil lap warmer?...man, Rudy, I hate to tellya this, but yousa actin like this is some kinda free country or somethin.

Mmm...maybe them talkin' radio heads is on to somethin.
RockON!!

William T. Loney, MD
 

You know, I consider myself to be, at all times, at the center of this debate.

Feodor, in a particularly jerkish remark on the other post, said the redneck thing here is a "comedy act." No. It's deliberate caricature -- and like any true caricature, it has a basis in fact.

...

Randomness ...

For a time in Texas, I spent most of my time as a journalist covering agriculture and living vicariously through the farming and ranching types I was around all the time. I picked up a bumbersticker at a turnrow meeting once that said "This is Cotton Country," put out by the cotton industry. No hint of anything "Southern." I put it on my Ford Ranger pickup.

It being a smallish daily paper, every few weeks, I had to pull a cop-beat shift on the weekend. Right or wrong, that meant I spent time on the poor, crime-ridden, black side of town.

I realized that bumpersticker might be misconstrued. So I took it off my truck.

Bujt in another example: I had an editor, from Kansas City, chastise me for using the term "cotton-picking" in a column because, he said, it was racist. !!! Total bullsit -- as one of my reporters in Texas, others I've known -- and DrLoboJo, who I believe has toted a cotton sack -- can attest.

Points being: Damn anyone who assumes thnhat because we disagree that I do what I do regarding these things thoughtlessly, or carelessly! I do care -- but only so much.

Control over symbols is a form of thought control -- and to hell with that.

And, being a contrarian by nature, the more I ear how "evvvilll" anything is, the more likely I am to go get one and put it on display -- in the name of freedom of expression and liberty.

That's why in my library I own "The Satanic Verses," "Marijuana Growing Tips" and a few other books: People, for supposedly good reasons, had tried to censor them. Feh.
 

Says Dr. ER, says she: "Tell him Tony and Junior're draftin' buddies so shuddup."
 

yeah, theys draftin buddies...howsat been workin out for'em?

But come to think of it, NASCAR referralments can be misconstructuated as a secret code for racists...so I'm figurin I best stop talkin 'bout it or Feodors gonna post up another novely sermon on here. And Feordor, I'm sorry for using Ozark talkin', as I know that silence rather than humorizing would be a snort better when talkin' 'bout racin drivers... BTW Feodor, we aint talked 'bout no dead drivers...that was Sr, not Jr, and nobody talks about the #3 lightly...least not w/o getting whupassed.

WTL, MD
 

I thought we were operating under "praecipitatum verius quam editum", ER. Maybe not so much.

The comedy routine is Foxworthy's, sir, not yours. Take a day or two and then read what I have written again. It is less acidic than you think.

White defensiveness is not unexpected conflict, but the collusion around the unassailability of "privacy" on a blog is, to me, in the context of none of us knowing each other and riding along exactly like we are on a Metro car and no where near being invited into ER's den.

Nonetheless, the "private" is not necessarily the moral or amoral. A martini glass is amoral. But every time someone acts here like the throw is the same as the martini glass, I redouble my efforts.

A spiritual discipline does not necessarily take one ever deeper. Rick Warren is the sunshine at the shallow end. I am not saying that a confederate flag is anathema in its very material existence. I am trying to ask tough questions about how its use operates morally and does so at the shallow or deep end depending exactly on that use.

Maybe they are not really tough questions. Maybe they are but are presented too sharply. Or maybe a natural, unexamined resistance sees only the cutting edge.

Maybe I assume thick skins and assume too much.

Redneck I have no problem with. Owning a copy of Mein Kampf I have not problem with. Public and personal libraries are institutions of freedom and access of thought and exploration. But that t-shirts and flags with the words of "Mein Kampf" are not successful is because such things communicate allegiance in the way books do not. It is because they are emblems with an immediate non-rhetorical message outside of our control. A book is not the same. I doubt you think that confederate flags are going to turn into "Ulysses" or "The Rainbow."

I do have problems with the refusal of whiteness to question - not its motivations - but the unintended effects of honest motivations put into operation in an unanalyzed way.

To wit, and I know this is not new to you, ER: "the poor, crime-ridden, black side of town." I know you you know how to write this without the compound noun "black side of town" seeming to have a permanent relationship with the compound adjective "crime-ridden." As is, the inference is that the white side of town was not crime-ridden and not poor. Common intuition may add that the white side of town was "not as" crime ridden and "not as poor." A little more generosity may want to indicate the white-side of town was just as crime-ridden, but they were nicer crimes. A real critic might suggest that newspaper buyers don't want to see themselves in the paper. So the myth is kept that the black side of town is the crime-ridden one.

Now I know that you did not intend all of these inferences. I know that you know the equation is racist that black = poor and crime-ridden.

And I know you know that I am a sinner and biased as all Hell. But I want you to know that I could not have written that sentence that way. The inferences present in the jamming together of those adjectives and noun compounds scream at me immediately. They are not innocent words, not just adjectives and nouns, when they are put together that way. They say things unmeant because they bear a relationship of continuity with racist thoughts precisely because of the living history of this country (context).

The throw is not just a throw. Not with that flag on it. You cannot control the meaning in this case. And neither do I. For various reasons that are not being teased out much here.

I am fine with disagreement. But mostly what I hear is stubborn or avoidant resentment.

I don't think Dr. Loney and I use any of the same words, so I believe he still has all of his left.


Apologies, Teresa. One's name is important. Sensitivity to getting another's name right is simply the polite beginning of consideration. Many times, it takes people a couple of times to get it right. Understanding that is also generally the beginning of graciousness.
 

An unexamined life is not worth living. Is there a time when this truth ends before death?

Nasty thorns can be an opportunity to examine myself, and so frequently have been.
 

Feodor,

I gratefully accept your apology regarding my name.

I assume that you did not apologize for your ghoulish characterization of me because you think it still stands.

So, thanks for the one apology, but I'm afraid that my "graciousness" is stretched to the breaking point when you still stand by the main offense.
 

As for your other offense, it is rather a misreading.

I asked what more than "it's cool," did you offer your father-in-law as a reason that counters his.

Then I followed your offering of "cool" in how it has indeed been a reason for past displays. Indian bones were "cool" for a long time. That time has changed.

So, if you agree that displaying Indian bones is not cool then you agree with the general trend of contemporary debate.

To which the follow up is, how do you know that the older you get, the sword will not get less "cool" in time? And I wanted to point out that there may still be living people who are related to DNA on that sword and remember the soul embodied in that DNA.

Do you have other reasons the "artifact" is valuable as a privately owned object?
 

Feodor,

I will re-read what you wrote. I am sorry for any misreading in advance. But there seems to be enough to go around.

You really read "It's a cool historical artifact" as "merely it's cool?"

It didnt say I kept it cause it was "cool" I keep it as an historical artifact. Being an historical artifact, it is cool to have.

I don't see what else I should have to offer to counter the accusation by my father-in-law that in keeping it I am celebrating the deaths of American soldiers and spitting on their graves.

Seriously.

It is a complex and significant piece of history...my father-in-laws interpretation that I am keeping it 'cause I'm evil has no basis in fact.

I'm at a loss as to what I could possibly offer that would satisfy such a wild and frankly, paranoid assumption.

The very irrational nature of it should have been a tip-off that it was not worth the effort I put into arguing with him about it.

He also thinks that the fact that we have some paintings depicting dragons in the house means we are involved in the drug culture, because the dragon is sometimes used as a symbol for heroin.

I suppose we should get rid of the dragon pictures too?
 

I stand correctivated...another condescentional sermonette...I figure next it'll be time for the offerin plate(no confederate dollars please).

And thanks Feodor for not usin' any of the same words as me, and for redoublin' your efforts...I know thats what I wuz prayin' for.

You know, most people'll jus' figure, 'hey, not everbody has the same opinion as me', and sorta move on...but then theres the militant-importunate...hey theres a word I aint heard nobody use.

You got problems with the refusal of whiteness to question the unintended effects of honest motivations put into operation in an unanalyzed way? Me too. My neighbor emu's keep gettin out and twice 'bout pecked me to death and las' year we think theys killed a transient body-piercer. Ol' man Perkins still aint analyzed puttin up a goodenuf fence...that white bastard!

Course if you like, I could write you a dr's prescription for a clinical strength 'Raid' laxative...it'll probably help in gettin that bug outta your butt.

WTL, MD
 

Feodor, re: "I am trying to ask tough questions"

You are succeeding. And I'm answering them honestly. You just don't like my answers.

As for the black, crime-ridden part of town remark: I lived there and reported there for 10 years. My characterization stands. I will not let squeamishness, or political correctness, color the damn facts.

Jesus! Poor generally equals desperaqte generaly equals dysfunction generally equals fricking crime! In that town it was blacks. In other towns, it's po whites. In other towns, it's poor Cherokees.

You are all buts accusing me of being racist. I reject it. Stop it.

You've told me you grew up in Nowhere, Texas. And you've been north since then? You've never actually lived in the South? Then all you know is what you've fricking read? Never actually got it on you?

Tell me again what qualifies you to judge any symbol of the South?

I am fixin' to get pissed off, Feodor. But, as always, you may espouse all you want.
 

Teresa,

I once pulled a nail out of a late nineteenth century ruin in west Texas. It is an historical artifact, too, like your sword. But it is hardly "cool" as an historical artifact. So, despite what you say ("being an historical artifact, it is cool to have") I don't think you would keep it or think it is very cool. Why is that? I think I read you right the first time: your sword is cool not just as any historical artifact but because it is what it is - and not a nail. What is inside of that cool factor of your sword that is decidedly not in my nail?

You mention the sword being "complex" and "significant" and I agree with both and the nail is neither of those things.

But those words are place holders for something still more specific, concrete and still not said.

1. What makes your sword complex?
2. What makes your sword significant?

Whatever those things are, my suggestion is that they are the same kinds of things that reach such an emotional place in your father-in-law. The reasons for the difference are important to know: they are part of the complexity and significance you find cool.
 

O good lord Feodor...dont go pissin off rednecks, particularly erudified ones. He could put all kinda redneck jedi mind tricks on you and have ya drinkin outta the toilet or eatin poisin ivy leaves.

Course, if its a partial-erudified one like me...I believe the latin word is 'redneckius hiteckius', well, we do no mind tricks...I'll jus' let your imagination figure on it...you probably got all kinda good images already like lynchin', burnin', draggin' behinda truck... that's 'bout what you think, huh? Hey!! I know what you are...youra Redneckaphobe!

And after I thought we as a nation had come so far and made so much progress in our thinkin', to see such a blatant display of redneckaphobia is stomach turnin'. I gotta go smoke me some wild celery and relax.

WTL, MD
 

And goldarn it, it's "a" historian. Not "an" historian!

Not unless it's "an" horse or "an" hoe or "an" hotel!

Unless you don't know how to pernounce "history."

NOW I'm really het up.
 

Dr. Looney take ER's bait and questions my southern credentials because he does not hear fragmented words coming out of my mouth. This is something like older black leaders initially questioning if Barack is black enough. Can you guess what that "something" is?

ER, I think you are beginning to come out that carefully constructed closet and reveal yourself.

I noted the irony in you use of redneck and how the caricature can be self-possessed and ironized into a noble cultural identity. I noted Foxworthy's comedic path to the same thing.

But you missed that, "jerk"ed my chain, and then made the same point thinking you were telling me something.

Now you say I am all but calling you a racist when I explicitly said I know better and also said that I am not questioning motives of anyone here, you preeminently.

But you missed that and say you are answering questions but then provide emotions and not answers. Its up to you if you want to review all the questions from the previous post, especially the five in my last comment - uninteresting or unanswered.

Or we can start again and I can ask the question of what is it about the refusal of whiteness to question - not its motivations - but the unintended effects of honest motivations put into operation in an unanalyzed way.

And a new example presents itself: three "generally equals" in one sentence* generally equals a generalization. I wonder if you have ever had your fingers burned by your generalizations and become aware of the album of bias that lies beneath every photo you own. More sadly, I wonder if you would even notice.

Part of your project is to fight the consequential meanings of the generalization of southerners as rednecks as well as protest the long history of devastation of southern culture by Reconstruction and the decades following.

To what degree have these efforts sensitized you to other devastations and destructive generalizations so near to you as to be neighbors?

Yes, the confederate soldier died cold in a Yankee prison. How many lay cold at the bottom of the Arkansas River in 1921 Tulsa? How can they all be reclaimed?

Not by that flag, ER.

* And if you heard me pronounce "sentence" you would know that I am from your neck of the woods, or rather, you would not notice what is noticed by Yankees. Go 'Horns. Let's see if Dr. Looney makes anal fun of the anal apostrophe.
 

Re, "ER, I think you are beginning to come out that carefully constructed closet and reveal yourself."

I hide nothing -- except my name. Keep coming around, and you'll see it all, I reckon.

I question your credentials based on what you've said about where you grew up and where you are now (generally speaking).

I question why you won't let this go. Do you think I haven't thoughtfully come to the conclusions I've come to? Do you think I don't constantly think about myself, my place in the world and the tracks I leave? Do you give a damn? Or do you simply insist that I come to the same conclusion you?

More importantly -- and I say this as a professional communicator -- do you know what the fog index is?
 

Such perspicacious answers, ER.

If you are telling me my Gunning rating is too high for a southerner you may indeed have some self-hate remainder.

Go ahead, let your inner Sunni out of the closet.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

What you and I are hashing out in a piecemeal way is the definition of what an erudite redneck is and what process such a one lives by.

That seems pretty much on topic to me. Gotta go.
 

Except to say that our half-meant innuendos suggest that I think you are missing some on the erudition and you think I am missing some on the redneck.
 

Your Gunning is too high period.

Speaking of.

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Those are periods. Use 'em. I've got more.
 

And I'd suggest you work on being able to talk about a controversial topic, one that reasonable, educated people can disagree on, without eventually becoming arrogant and spicing up things with personal insults. Really.
 

Re, "Maybe I assume thick skins and assume too much."

Dude, if I wadn't thick-skinned, especially by now (I mean after dang near a full lifetime of pondering and coming to conclusions, and rexamining them, and altering them, and moving on until the next time, like this time), why, I'da done had a real hissy fit and started callin' you names, or stormed off in a huff, or told you to go away.

I ain't had no fit, I ain't called you no names, I ain't stormed off in a huff, and Feodor, bro, yer as welcome here as always. :-)
 

Ya know, at the moment, I'm sittin' here in the man room, lookin' at that throw, thankful for it, realizing that for the occassional ill feelings manifest in this thread and the other one, the dang thing is, in fact, doing the very thing I mean it to do by keeping it around.

We're talking about it, about symbols, about race, and about getting along. We'da never milked this cow otherwise, 'cause she'da never got led into the stall.
 

In other words, yer 4:21 p.m. comment is right on.

Peace out. I gotta see if Mizzou can skin 'em some sooners now.
 

Oh for the love of God, Feodor.

What could I poissibly tell that man that would make a damned bit of difference?

The point of the story is:

He is saying that it doesn't matter a lick what the sword means to me. It only matters what it means to him, and I have to get rid of it.

You told ER that his throw had to go, and proceeded to list of all of the things it symbolized to other people (while actualy confounding it with a different symbol) He explained it's meaning to him...but it doesn't matter to you what it means to him...only what it means to you.

That's just crazy, is my point...especially when it is the personal possession of a private citizen on a personal blog...which means that it is supposed to represent what it means to him.

Brings to mind a certain story about an old man, a boy and a donkey.
 

And let me also say for the record that nails can be fascinating historical artifacts. I actually know a few peopl that have some extrememly interesting historical nails.

Just 'caus YOU'RE not interested in it doesn't mean that it isn't interesting...just as because you associate something with racism doesn't mean someone has to be holding onto it for racist reasons, and is no reason to tell them they have to give it up.
 

I have a couple of railroad nails of little interest to anyone but myself, for what it's worth.
 

Teresa,

How was I suggesting you say anything to your in-law?

All I am saying is that the things that make your sword complex and significant is its relationship to life and death in war. For some that is more human drama than terror. Either way, that relationship should be respected.

I agree that one can respect that relationship without dishonoring the American dead as long as one does indeed honor the American dead in all aspects of owning it. The relationship it has cannot be altered by you and should be respected by you.

This is also my point to ER. Confederate Flags have a relationship to terror for those who were not armed, not fighting for their land. They were landless. They were powerless and not even counted as human. And then after emancipation, they were continually deprived and slaughtered. They were not fighting a four year war only. They were enslave for centuries.

I don't think putting that image on a throw and putting it on a couch acknowledges that relationship. I don't think that relationship can be altered by what ER thinks of the matter. It preexists him and involves mass murder over the course of more than two centuries. This is not war between armies on the battlefield. And it also carries the sign of allegiance to a political organization invested with authority for the primary reason of defending that system of inhumanity.

You think this is a disagreement between individuals. It is not. ER admits millions are against it. He underestimates by perhaps two hundred million. He says millions are for it. I'd say less than five. He says millions don't care. I say that is because much of America desperately wants to avoid the conversation.

Kind of like here.
 

Fog index? After my wild celery adventure this evenin', I'm pullin' a pretty good fog index 'bout now.

Feodor, Dr. Looney? Now I aint called you 'feet odor' or 'nancy', so it aint no need for it. Sounds like more redneckaphobia, though round Loney Mountain its called hillbilliphobia.

As for me "baiting" Rudy...physician heal thyself.

And fragmented words is jus' as good as fully spelled out snobby ones.

And, about "ironized into a noble cultural identity"...why the hell does it gotta be ironized to have any nobility? Course I know you wuz talkin to Rudy, but I could crap out gift boxes for the poor and such as you would whine that theys was called poor and not less fortunate. Hell, I'd rather have horse sense, a good heart, and even the approval of ol' man Perkins' emu's before I'd care one goose turd 'bout gettin deemed noble by some bloviatin poser on their webbernet soapbox pontificatin 'bout a duke boys lap blanket. Dang, now I done got all flusterated again...back to wild celery patch! Viva la Sheriff Roscoe!!

William T. Loney, not Looney, MD
 

Hell Feodor, go break into the man's house, steal it, burn it, bury the ashes, give yourself a big ol' "I'm more sensitive than anybody hug", go on the lecture circuit giving 'ignorant whiteness' talks and be done with it.

WTL, MD
 

Re, "Kind of like here."

Damn you. Damn you, Sir.

Feodor, what the hell do you think we're doing here? We're talking about it. Amd you, you arrogant son-of-bitch, have overstayed you welcome anmd overtaxed my extremely tolerant patience.

Get the hell out of my face, and get the hell out of here.

No. more.

THERE. I hope the hell you're pleased. Go away.
 

ER, I'll let you look back to confirm where the insults started (somewhere around "false love... skinheads and overreactors, I'd say), but after rereading how you question my sense of self (as opposed to questioning your sense of a rude rug) and now looney's latest, I'll tell you both what you remind me of that rubbed off of me in these years away .

Glorification of anti-intellectualism.
Expectations of second class status.
Continuation of southern anxiety.
Complacency in the face of moral challenge unrelated to my kind only.
Fear of the other.
Capitulation to stereotypes because I fail to understand "them."
Sentimentalizing inhumanities as a strategy preferable to acknowledging racial history.

Passive-aggressive humor as a defense to becoming conscious of all of the above.

"The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt."

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

This last I know, ER, you wont be able to read in one breath and should have more periods, but I didn't write it. Your man room is a cave. And like all caves it screens out the light.
 

You don't know what you're talking about, and you don't know who you're talking to.

You, you arrogant son-of-bitch, have overstayed your welcome and overtaxed my extremely tolerant patience.

Get the hell out of my face, and get the hell out of here.

You've blown it. You've become ineffective and unable to communicate past yourself.
 

You sound just like those other guys. Two halves of what remains of the rebel army.

"About 140 years from now, the great-great-grandson of one of the Sunnis on TV gettin' bombed by our planes right now will be waxin' poetic over how viciously he and his'n were treated in 2003-2004. THAT'S the lesson of the Civil War. Not 1861-1865. But every damned year since. The Confederacy wanted to be left alone. The Union had to meddle. The Union is STILL meddling."
 

All this you've concluded about me. because I won't kiss your arrogant ass over a GD THROW?


Glorification of anti-intellectualism.
Expectations of second class status.
Continuation of southern anxiety.
Complacency in the face of moral challenge unrelated to my kind only.
Fear of the other.
Capitulation to stereotypes because I fail to understand "them."
Sentimentalizing inhumanities as a strategy preferable to acknowledging racial history.

Bullshit. You don't know a damn thing about a damn thing about me. EFF OFF -- and, I dare say, in Jesus's name, you judgmental, self-righteous asshole.

Beat it.
 

Feodor,

dont let my Loney-isms fool you... Ima 151 on a bad day...and only a 'no sense of humor & likes to read their own typin' jackass would go right to the 'youre dumb and blind' crapola, as youve been subtly doin' ever since the duke boys blanket appeared...now you kinda jus' acting like a lil' kid that aint gettin' his way

and BTW, looks like that man room has gotta whole buncha windows, so I'm figurin its lettin in the light.

WTL, MD
 

Feodor, I've been shadowing the Mark-EL-Ozarka-Tug group-grope joint for awhile, but declining to jump in, because they bring out the worst in me. And I figured that's what was happening with you over there too, 'cause you do go pretty low, admittedly, most times to meet them where they are, it looks like.

But the steamin' piles you been leavin' here have caused me to revise and extend my thinkin' a ways.

Those guys are freaks of a kind. They do bring out the worst in the best of us. But it's plain to me now that you bring your worst with you, and just look for opportunities to dump it, and keep dumping it, and keep dumping it.

Keep that sh-t out of here. I don't deserve it, I'm tired of it, and I ain't gonna take no more of it. Got it?
 

Wrong "light," doct. And I did not say you were dumb. I am saying that you are giving in to a cultural weakness and playing dumb. It has always taken a certain kind of genius to keep this up. And the south has had a lot of this kind of genius. For a very long time.

I would think 151 could have read that in there. But, then, it really does depend on what one does with 151 doesn't it?
 

You have overstayed your welcome and overtaxed my extremely tolerant patience.

Get the hell out of my face, and get the hell out of here.

Arrogant!
 

How do you reclaim the dignity of the confederate soldier and the 1921 Tulsa dead together, ER?

You never ventured an answer.

Your refusals come at the same points theirs do: when it's down to the short straws.

Can't be that weak in the great state of Texas, ER. Or in the Big Apple. We play for keeps. And we smell small ball when it refuses to play the game it says it wanted to play.
 

You know what 151 does? It fights real battles in flesh & blood and dont jus' keep writin' its own preachy drivel on a real erudified feller's blog...the erudified part qualified by the fact that he is tolerant of preachy drivel, unlike some who aint even tolerant of a lil' lap blanket...excuse me, a picture of a lap blanket. 151 laughs at itself and hopes others will laugh too every now and then.

WTL, MD
 

Oh, and about the south comments... jus' shutup already, cuz its gone from snobby to preachy to jus' plain stupid... and if you aint that, then j u s'
s h u t u p

WTL, MD
 

Feoder,

No. YOU find the sword to be significant because YOU associate it with death and horror.

And you damand to know what justification I gave my father-in-law for having it, so you obviously think that I somehow have to justify myself to his charges that I am sick and depraved.

And finally, how many times does it have to be pointed out to you that the throw in ER's office is not the Confederate Flag?

My 15-year old has been observing this argument, and he's a little flabbergasted that you don't understand that adding elements to a symbol can change it's meaning...something that a kid learns in junior high.

And also that a person's reasons for doing something are the property of that person...your objection might have some weight if it were in a governor's office, where it might be seen as a public endorsement of ideas not shared by a significant number of the public the man is supposed to represent.
 

Sorry, Feodor. typo.
 

I really have no dog in this fight (a St. Bernard's a lousy fighting dog anyway, too lazy), but it seems to me that ER and the good Doc Loney have a bit of a point here.

I wouldn't own such a throw rug. I don't think ER should either be ashamed of his, or hide it, or refuse to announce to the world that he has one.

My father has a Japanese bayonet from WWII, as well as one of those machetes the Ghurkas (Burmese soldiers in the British Army) used. The bayonet does indeed have a stain on it, most likely American blood. I wouldn't trade it for the world, because it's just an old stain, as far as I'm concerned.

I have an uncle, one of whose personality quirks (and he has many), came to mind when you were lecturing Teresa. He thinks that the US should never have allowed the Mitsubishi Corporation to export cars to the US because they also made planes that killed American service men and women in WWII. He thinks any American who buys a Mitsubishi automobile is a traitor. Also, when his kids were small, they were forbidden from watching Hogan's Heroes because it made light both of being a POW in Germany and of the Nazis.

It is one thing to believe that there are those who might not like such a one as ER's little throw. It is another thing to insist that others set aside their personal likes and dislikes out of some sense either of cultural sensitivity or heightened political awareness.

Accepting differences most assuredly includes the reality that those differences are going to be meaningful to some, and not always in good ways. It isn't "tolerance" I am talking about here. It is accepting real differences, and being OK with those differences. In other words, if you wouldn't own such a throw as ER has, don't buy one. On the other hand, accept that he has one, that his reasons not only for so owning but for displaying it on his blog are both legitimate and deserving of respect, and move on.

I think NOW is the time for those cute kitty pictures, man.
 

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GKS,

"The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears..."

The Japanese do not need this from the white man. We rebuilt their roads, their sewers, their electrical networks, improved their water system, helped them reform their educational system. Plus the fact that it was war and they generally admit their agenda was wrong as carried out by their military leaders. This is why we are allies for sixty years.

All of which allows your bayonet and machete to contain whatever meaning they hold that keeps you from throwing it away. If the man in the foxhole with you had been bayoneted to death I am sure it would mean more than just an old stain - but that would not prevent the bayonet from being what it is to you today. They were armed armies met in battle representing whole cultures (as whole as nations get, anyway).

A Confederate flag, the Confederate battle flag, say, (Teresa may want to further educate her son with the information that elements have not been added to a symbol, it is a replica-on-throw of the Confederate battle flag [ER demands specificity from me but no one else]), this flag is something else.

And the machinery of MItsubishi is not the machinery of slavery or the Ku Klux Klan. To compare is wrong-headed, like comparing oranges and apples where the oranges are carved out of wax and the apples out of human flesh.

African-Americans need white Americans to free them from their fears. If we think this is from a past time, an historical anachronism, we have another moral think coming.

If reflecting on OJ and Obama doesn't include the awareness of this last point, then school isn't out yet. Not that I expected it to be in this country.

I just never expected to find here the adamant refusal (from silence born of avoidance) to hear voices under terror. Although black folks have warned me throughout my life that good white folks have short attentions spans and leaking capacity to hear.

As Jesus says, whom ER introduces with such appropriate fanfare, let those who have ears to hear, hear.
 

Teresa,

For the library of your budding historian when he is of age and so he can understand America more fully:

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin.

Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North - Thomas Sugrue

[And thanks for being brave enough to give us your considered reasons for the meaningfulness of your sword and your deeply iconic nails.]
 

As to the Japanese bayonet, since I am far too young to have fought in WWII, your comment is irrelevant. Furthermore, I am not responsible for the reactions of others to those things I find precious, special, or important. As the example of my Uncle has taught me, some people just have weird ideas, and I can't run my life based on the fact that there might be more people with weird ideas out there.

You refuse to grant ER the privilege, right, or whatever you might call it, to imbue with his own meaning something he owns, and has that meaning for him. While I would grant that we are not always in control of the meaning of certain symbols - whether it's a flag or the elements of communion - I think that we should also grant that individuals who give to certain objects a certain meaning at variance with long-established public meaning the benefit of the doubt, to say the least. ER has earned my trust and respect in this regard, and I see no earthly reason to insist, as you seem to do, that he renege on his meaning simply on your say-so.

Furthermore, I find the notion that the white majority in the country is responsible for freeing African-Americans from their fears a loathsome, paternalistic idea. It is continuing a pattern of white supremacy in the guise of some noblesse oblige toward our fellow Americans that is hideous to me. I see no warrant for it; I would never presume to offer my assistance to others in lessening their fears.

This conversation has taken a turn toward the grotesque, as far as I'm concerned.
 

Martin Luther King's point is that white people are the source of the fears. And being white, I think we are privileged enough and big enough and healthy enough and moral enough to seek to active ways to remove ourselves from being the source.

I am not asking ER to remove. I am asking if there is anyone here to address the points I've systematically addressed in a systematic way. I have only been able to do so by ERs lenience - though not with his systematic participation.

The example of you in the fox hole was an imaginary one, in order to turn our sympathies toward understanding men of that generation who have these very emotional responses. The refusal to sympathetically understand where they are coming from is a refusal of the required act of polite conversation.

I do not say you and Teresa must agree with their view. I agree with yours, mostly.

Except for saying it's an old stain. Dealing clearly and openly with the grotesque realities is, again, simply a necessary part of talking about the history that continues to produce mid-night sweats and daily suspicious "double consciousness" for millions of black Americans.
 

I've slept on it. Feodor, the sun will not go down on my wrath. Carry on.
 

Re, "How do you reclaim the dignity of the confederate soldier and the 1921 Tulsa dead together, ER?"

I've never seen a connection. Draw the connection for me, and I'll consider it.
 

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Because I am not a Sooner?

GKS (GKS, GKS.. trying to fix it in my head):

Since life is lived in the midst of death, the continuing moral effort while we live is to always try to look at others more fully, to look at them,

"straining my half-turned neck/
straining my half-blind soul."
 

ER,

My proposal is that you, being the historian among us, post something regarding the Tulsa massacre and ask wether there is a connection or not and what kind of connection that would be if there is one.

That would set the table for everyone. And keep me from being the sole redneck talking.

A brief description is taken from www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/148.html:

Investigators are searching for the graves of up to 400 black Americans in an attempt to end the 78-year cover-up of one of the worst acts of mass slaughter in the country's history... The violence followed the arrest of Dick Rowland, a black shoeshine boy on May 31, 1921. Newspaper reports wrongly claimed that he had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old white girl in the lift of the office block where they both worked. Later, gangs of blacks and whites clashed outside the county courthouse where he was being held. In the violence that followed, gangs of heavily-armed whites poured in to town. More than 30 city blocks were levelled, many of them in a thriving commercial district known as "Black Wall Street". Some 10,000 blacks were left homeless and more than 1,000 houses burnt to the ground. Order was re-established only a day later when National Guardsmen entered Tulsa, detaining at least 4,000 blacks in impromptu prison camps.
 

The wiki article gives a pretty good account, but I'd look at the notes and outside sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_Race_Riot


Now, re: "How do you reclaim the dignity of the confederate soldier and the 1921 Tulsa dead together, ER?"

As I ssid, "I've never seen a connection. Draw the connection for me, and I'll consider it."


Since racism, as we now know it in this country, did not and could exist at the time of the Civil War -- that is, a hatred of one race for another, or others, all living under a system calling for, albeit failing to achieve, equality under the law, I look forward to seeing how you make the connection between the Confederacy, my poor white Ozarkian great-grandfather who fought, the riot in Tulsa 56 years after the war, and the logo of the Sons of Confederate Veterans on the throw on my couch 87 years later. Knock yourself out.
 

Feodor,

My son wasn't commenting on history in this case, but was commenting on the meaning of images,
and the fact that the confederate flag is distored, minimized, and made but one element of many in the embelm of the Sons of the COnfederacy...changing it's meaning.

I doubt that your reading recommendations address this subject in any way.

You are eiher being deliberatly obtuse or you are actually really that obtuse. Either way, I've wasted wayyy too much time talking to you, as you either refuse to see the point, or refuse to acknowledge it.
 

ER, while you may have slept on it, I do believe my wrath is being piqued a tad.

There is indeed, as you mentioned before, arrogance in Feodor's comments.

I would take a back seat to no one in my (a) radical abhorrence of racism; (b) radical rejection of its symbols; (c) radical embrace of others in all their difference.

At the same time, since embracing others in their difference includes accepting that others make decisions that I would not, decisions that render them no less human, no less worthy of respect and love, and do so out of reasons and motivations that I would never assume I could fathom, it seems to me that your presumption to lecture me is misplaced.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great, wise, radical, loving son of the Black South. He is not, however, the font of all wisdom in regard to issues of racial reconciliation. It is one thing to be lectured to by my African-American friends on the little, subtle ways in which the things I say and do contribute to the weight they carry. They are both friends of mine, and therefore have the presumption of closeness that gives them that freedom, and being African-American can speak out of their own experience. You know nothing at all about me, however, save what I have written, and I guarantee that is not a drop in the bucket of what I think most days, and even less is it a full picture of who I am.

Just like ER, as you know I have a presence with those clowns over at American Descent. I do not engage them in debate, nor do I challenge their arguments, because they are not interested in debate, and they have no arguments. I go there because such views are the roux in which horrible things become something more than their separate parts. Yet, even so, those men are my fellow-human beings, worthy of love and respect. That they refuse to grant such to those who differ from them is something over which I have no control; I banter, and even occasionally insult them, because it's both fun, and it tweaks out even more of their views than one might otherwise do.

TO gather from my presence there, however, that I hold them in contempt as human beings, is wrong. I know it would be impossible to get them to change who they are, and even if I could, it would be arrogance to assume I could, or should.

Just as there, so here. THe differences, however, are monumental, because no one posting here is as delusional, lost in some alternate universe, or steeped in some disgusting stew of hatred and fear as the men at AD. Rather, all are decent, good people, who just happen to think a little differently about the fact that one of us here has a throw rug with a picture of the Confederate Battle flag on it. Like you, I wouldn't own one. I do, however, respect ER's decision to own one, and to post a picture of it on his blog.

Arguing from a hypothetical in re my father's ownership of a Japanese bayonet - if I had witnessed someone killed by it, I might feel different - would be fine except for one thing. It assumes that all people in such a situation, will have the same reaction. Part of accepting human difference is accepting that many people can witness the same events, and come away with different reactions, feelings, and even reports (which is why lawyers detest eye-witness accounts). So, even your hypothetical doesn't work for me.

As to ER's challenge, I think he has a point. The line from 1865 to 2008 via 1921 is thin at best.
 

"Since racism, as we now know it in this country, did not and could [not] exist at the time of the Civil War -- that is, a hatred of one race for another, or others, all living under a system calling for, albeit failing to achieve, equality under the law..."

ER, it seems you are already presenting an argument of some kind, though I am having a hard time making sense of it.

Two sets of questions:

One, are you saying that the definition of racism is dependent upon the political structure under which racist behavior occurs? And then inferring that as political systems change, the definition or "nature" of racism changes? And does this mean there are as many different kinds of racism as there are kinds of political organization that have been, that exist currently, and that could ever be possibe in the future ad infinitum?

Second, if there have been different kinds of racism according to our political structure, how many kinds of racism have there been in American history. And do you have names or tags or definitions for them? And what dates do you give for their shifting from one kind to another? Has more than one coexisted at a time?

These kinds of questions seem pretty bizarre to me. But when you say that racism as we know became so some time after the Civil War leads me to ask them.

I thought racism was a value term for how Western modernity, emerging from the middle ages, began to create a hierarchy of intelligence and aptitude based on skin color. Even "hate" as such needn't be a part of the notion. Or so I thought. But you seem to have a whole kind of German ontological epoch thing worked out.

I'm going to need to know a lot more before I can begin to know how to respond.

[I was taken up with the pulp fiction that is the Dallas Cowboys. Romo is still afraid of success.]
 

Okay, Teresa

I finally get what you are saying. You are saying your sword is really just a metaphor and so doesn't have point after all, right?

You do like wasting your time an awful lot, though, and saying that you are while doing it. A really tightly spiraled self-fulfilling prophecy.
 

Whew! GKS talks about wrath and pique, arrogance and lecturing and I have no idea which of my recent 2000 words he has a problem with since he hasn't seemingly taken any of them on explicitly.

Except MLKs. That's pretty funny, Geoffrey, how in one paragraph you conditionally deny MLK being right in this instance and then so empower your friends with credibility because of their skin color. Usually that kind of Mr. MaGoo righteous anger comes from Fox News.

Now don't be like ER and say I was insulting first. Actually, I think he implied I was the only insulting one at all. Talk about Mr. MaGoo.

If you can you be clearer about what offends, maybe there is a solution. Fuming is not content specific.
 

The more I think about it, the more I think you have me on a wild goose chase, ER.

"Racism" is, again, a value term of moral cognition and behavior. As a moral value it does not have quantification that can be changed by changing political structures or epochs. It came into existence with the creation of "races," as skin color came to be seen, in order to mythologize a hierarchy of human value assigned to color.

So your statement doesn't mean anything in the end. It would be like saying that since your Ozark kin did not reproduce under the system of "zygote to embryo to fetus to birth in a hospital with a President, Vice President, Chief Resident, ObGyn on call, etc.”, that since he did not live under this system his childbearing is not your childbearing and so the two of you are not really connected. If he imagined anything it was probably something more like an homunculus and that’s just not the same thing.

Well… that’s clearly bizarre. He had children just like you do, or at least could have. Same inner experience, more or less, aside from visualizations. You just have different externals.
___

On a note of resignation, I admit that, being only three months familiar with blogs I may have the whole concept wrong. These are not places to really hash stuff out. They are more like dens - like your preferred category of a "private" place. Only real private places are off limits unless invited and keep others by means of walls and doors and locks or by other things like by passwords or dues or fees. You have none of those things but privacy is enforced by refusals and taking quick and shallow umbrage.

I argue things and expect a certain level of argument back that represents a strengthening of their position or a critique of my points. But I find mostly sidestepping, shadow boxing, endless leave taking, "dander up" and pique peaking.

This is not discussion. This is a den of familiars who are voting on the next winner of American Idol and I came in and said "taxes" or "teacher accountability." Real moral arguments are still only held with books. It's why moralist write them. Even in seminar, the dullness is a self-protection.

Time was when men talked roughly about such things at the street corner. And knew their moral philosophy and their economic theories and their theology. Even down on the Arkansas River or up in the Ozarks, or below the Balcones Escarpment. It's probably still there. Rough men and women hashing it out, looking for how we can be better and stronger as an ever larger society of participants. I miss that kind of Texas.

I'll go a little further on, looking for it.
 

OK all,

How does Feodor change "Feodor,

My son wasn't commenting on history in this case, but was commenting on the meaning of images,
and the fact that the confederate flag is distored, minimized, and made but one element of many in the embelm of the Sons of the COnfederacy...changing it's meaning."

Into "my sword is a metaphore?"

Dishonesty or stupidity? What do you all think?
 

Not stupidity nor dishonest, I don't think, actually. I think this whole thread is a product of Feodor's passion for his positions, which unravels some because he wants to talk about everything at once (common trait of new bloggers); my own lack of desire to engage him on every point; my personal satisfaction, for now, with where I am on the topic at hand (the throw), which is wayh far from where I started out as a young, non-erudite redneck; the limitations of blogs in general; and what I gather is Feodor's assumption that this place is a venue for formal argument, strict adherence to the rules of logic and the parrying, defending, dodging, etc., appertaining thereto -- when it ain't.

Feodor, you cain't always tell from what I put on this blog, which is, indeed, thrown together, not edited, but I am a news writer and editor, and hands-on researchin' and writin' historian (although Ph.D snobs surely look down on my lil ol' M.A.). THIS place is where I blow off, ramble on, BS and stir up shit.
 

ER,

Point taken, it's just frustrating to have someone take the time to completely transmute something you said into something completely different...and do it repeatedly.
 

Whew! That was some fun.

At least I learned it wasn't just me, though.
 

ER

Since to leave your question for me unaddressed would be leaving in a huff and hypocritical:

First, what connects your Ozark kin, Dick Rowland, and me and you is the way in which, only once maybe in a generation, we discover that we actually are able to better comprehend our stew as We The People. This is not theory. In my neighborhood of six million people, and still not a city, thousands gathered at the street corners to high-five strangers and wave at cop cars that were honking in acknowledgment. Not after the Super Bowl but after an election. Thousands more kept their heads out of the windows for a couple of hours joining in the celebration and watching things they had never seen in sixty years; the real Dodgers being champions just outside of that range.

We can still make tremendous societal gains – to our own astonishment. We are the ones who connect them. You, yourself, are a degree of connection between your kin and the Tulsa dead.

Second, they and we are connected by the history of American terrorism, and here the paradox of your political sitz im Leben does demarcate what I am talking about: American terrorism. The system of power in this democracy used force against many members of the new peoples who chose to come here, Germans, Italians, Irish, and Poles. And then, when the effects of time made them American enough, they were recruited to be the front line against other, newly counted members of America; Jews, Puerto Ricans, then Hispanics of all kinds. This is only the underside, the dark side of ourselves as a people, but attention should be paid.

But, preeminently, the system of power treasured the machinery of slavery because that was how the riches of power were built, “by the sweat of another man’s brow,” Lincoln said. Then, as slavery began to be intuitively understood as a hindrance to coming industrialization, the holders of a bigger rubber mallet took it to the holders of a smaller mallet and war ensued. To start this war, a large and endangered minority baptized themselves in heresy. Like all heresy, it was the sole commitment to one truth only in isolation from other truths that to be true must be held in tension with one another. During the war the President made a fairly rapid growth in discovering that what were not a people were indeed a people and part of We The People, aided as he was by urgent pragmatic considerations and private reflection.

Why the lengthy sketch? As Lincoln said in his First Inaugural, “in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied… in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper never had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.” We are connected by this power of a nation to perpetuate itself. This power is a good and an evil. There is no American exceptionalism. We are the French, who are the Romans, who are the Hittites, who are the Egyptians, etc.

The evil of such powerful interests in perpetuation co-opted formerly begrudged people to rise up in its defense of a system that made those peoples half citizens but kept them from being no citizens. Your Ozark kin (and you and me still today) was called by a Siren song that misdescribed what people he belonged to. That he served is no corruption. What he served in the abstract was, and what it served was a concrete machinery of murder that is not Confederate alone, but American. This machinery was set running on the threshingfloor of Tulsa for a few terrorized days in Tulsa.

He served the flag with dignity. The flag did not serve his dignity. Obvious though this spiritual truth is, a more difficult one lies in the fact that that flag connects him and Mr. Rowland and you and me as an emblem of corruption. We are connected in those dark ways of power’s interest in perpetuity. Alan is not found in that flag, except by the inferences of corruption. Teresa is not found in that flag. Asian Americans are not found in that flag, except by inferences of corruption. Hispanics, Jews, women not so much. And the part of yourself that you find is already known.

But we are all connected by the light of “We The People.” A light that is brighter and broader today than it was in the hot light in August. But there is still so much unknown about ourselves in this light. This connection is not in that flag. One can say that it is still in the American flag, but I am not suggesting a replacement, that would be sentimental silliness.

What connects us all and Mr. Rowland, and your Ozark kin is still to be described in better ways that will cause mid-night celebrations unimaginable.

As for your throw, and your Scofield, and their use for your prayerfulness, my worry is that you have to be too rationalistic and rhetorical to make it a discipline to be holistically productive for your future days. To overstate the case, it is too mortifying, and to fight that you have to be too much in your head in ways that you long since have made right. So what’s next? Bird is in the northland? What will her world be like in the next forty years? And what may it have for you to discover?

Lex orandi, lex credendi.

It is all important: the context and method. MHO (which really is implicit in anything one writes, surely, unless one thinks one is God; so why should I have to include it for it to be understood that way), at any rate, in MHO, you should be exploring more things about yourself as you belong to WTP. Being an erudite redneck is pretty firmly established. What else is there? Maybe there’s a soulman waiting to be raised up on a 110th street. Let me know if you come looking and we can find some ribs up there.

We’re connected, you and me. Virtually.
 

Very thoughtful, and clear. Approaching a form of beauty. Thank you.
 

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Mercy. Hard won praise from an editor.

Thank you for letting me walk through your very interesting gallery.
 

Whoa Scout, Lone Redneck in heap big growl fest with Yankees and others. We stay up here behind big ridge and see how it comes out. Then we ride down and save him.

How many ex-Confederate States fly a slightly variant version of the Stars & Bars or the Battle Standard or even Bonnie Blue?

Apropos of not much.....I've got several cool artifact nails in my collections. One is from a Civil War pontoon bridge that used to cross over from east bank of the Patomac in D.C. to what is now Roosevelt Island. When I discovered it washed out of the mud, I measured it and noted its construction. Sure enough it was an exact ringer for a Federal Army issue pontoon section.
Told the Smithsonian about it, in writing twice with pictures. Five years later it was still there only more uncovered and the wood eroding away. So I took three of the rusted wrought 8 inch spike nails out of it. I gave two away and have one myself. I'll bet you dollars to donuts the pontoon is still there in the water(what's left of it that is). You see, none of these pontoons still exist so it can't be there. So I figure if it isn't there, then, there is no harm in taking some of the nail/spikes out of it.
 

You're killing me off with kindness, I think.
 

LOL. No. I meant what I said. Perhaps one day I'll toss my throw. Since all this, I've not been in the man room once without thinking about it.

The bottom line is this: It's about me. I have surrendered so much of the trappings I grew up with, for the sake of others' feelings, because it's all a very Jesusy thing to do, this denying oneself for the sake of other selves. In fact, that's the main thing.

And so now I know what the deal is with that throw: It's my last stand -- well, it and a score of Confederate flags of all periods and sizes that I have stuck away and may or may not put back on my home office ceiling (yes) and bookshelves when I get my office put back together.

It's about me. That throw. Me. That throw. Not about symbols,, only marginally about history. It's about me, the lifetime friend who gave to me, the history I can teach my soon-to-be Yankee son-in-law (Dracut, Mass. -- don't get much more Yankeefied than that), the true fact that I can and do use it to explain to people why I quit the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

But mainly it's about me. And while I may or may not deserve the hell you've given me over that damned red throw of the Rebellion, considering everything else I've given up -- I b'lieve I'm gonna be a selfish bastard right now and hang on to it.

That's one thing this exercise has shown me. It's about me.

And as brer Forrest said, That's all I have to say about that.
 

And about your coming grandson - who will probably hate the Yankees.

For my part, I will have a mixed race child to add to my nordic princess daughter. Jamaican/Panamanian /north Philly black/Texan white/Spanish/English polyglot coming.

Miscegenation. A big part of the South in the nineteenth century and is again in vaster ways. Ameican history has always been about mixing -despite conscious denials - as the author of the new book on the Hemimings says. Rev. Sharpton and Strom, Obama and Cheney. Eugene Robinson has some tender thoughts about this (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022601254.html).

Also all the rage where I live now. Children here have five or six ethnic origins just two generations back. Thai/French, Jamaican/Hindi, Anglo/Scotch-Irish grandparents come together at the birth.

So I already have been grafted on to other trees. Or maybe just re-rooted in the black earth of my southern past. One never knows but my wife and are doing the DNA sample to find out a little more about what nations or genetic areas may be of some interest. Though we will not confuse ourselves if something Turkish or Okinawan turns up. We are, generally speaking, protestant Americans like all people who live here. The cultural sources are so deep and shape everyone a little -- as spelled out by the gay Catholic, Richard Rodriquez.

Still, my father-in-law wept at Obama's election because he saw what America still sees: a black man as President. He knows how he has been seen for his whole life by American culture. A black man may be inferior. more lazy at work, in the mind, in morals, in anger management. And he served in the military all his life.

I spent a week around Thanksgiving in a lake house near Strang once. Is that near your homeplace?

And spent a lot of time in Edmond. Same girl. Got her Masters in Speech Pathology and Speech Therapy from OU.

Mmmm. Dracut, Mass. Lots of Laotians around there. Your Yankee will grow up in a new world.
 

Never heard of Strang. My old stompin' grounds are in Sequoyah County.

Daddy ER always said we were Scots-Irish with some "Black Dutch" on his side. There's supposed to be some Cherokee on Mama ER's side, I think it's her side, enough to rate me a 1/64th, or so I've been told. Not on the Dawe's rolls, so it doesn't matter.

You know, eastern Oklahoma has had its racial blowups, but it's a lot more dadgum multicultural than a lot of other parts of the country: I went to Head Start in summer 1970 -- first bath of 'em, before it was even a year-long deal -- with Cherokees, Choctaws, blacks, po' whites and mutts of all mixes.

It's even more mixed over there now, with Vietnamese who spilled out of Fort Chaffee, Cubans who spilled out of Fort Chaffee and, more recently, Mexicans and others from Central and South America. Just sayin'. And most people usually get along.
 

I hope you keep comin' around Feodor. Yer a good addition to the eclectic mix at the ER Roadhouse.

You, too, Dr. Bill.
 

Wow. Have you ever googled "black dutch"?

Look at www.blackdutch1.webs.com.
 

Cool. I've seen the Melungeon part before. I'll give chase to that link when ai have some time. ... My dad's side has been tytraced back to the 1600s to one of the Swiss cantons. ...