Random Thought Thread Part III: The Thinking

[LilCerberus]

^Will Ferrell finds out who his real father is, & he's on Santa's naughty list for publishing a children's book with a blank page.^

[RCMerchant]

^ Hmmm. That's not in the movie at all.

[LilCerberus]

^Seriously? I know it's been a number of years since I've seen it, but that's the one thing I recall when they introduce the character....^

[Allhallowsday]

[ER]

I keep having vivid dreams about people I know who have died.

Not long ago I dreamed about this woman I knew in Austin, whose house I stayed in, and she was sitting on the end of a boat dock with her back to me, apparently not surprised to find me there, and we had a short conversation in which she (like all the dead people in these intense dreams) told me she was waiting but she didn't know what she was waiting for.

Last night I had another one about my cousin Magda, who died in London last year, and she too told me she was waiting and didn't know for how long.

Then she said something that should have been nightmarish but somehow wasn't. She told me, "You'll do this too after you're murdered."

I told my husband this morning and he said, "You really gotta stop taking LSD before bedtime." 

[ER]

I wonder if Captain Picard ever read the history of the inventor of his beloved tea? Earl Grey was a jerk.

[ER]

I also wonder if the giant in the castle on top of the bean stalk ever flushed his toilet over top of Jack's cottage to get back at jack for his B&E?

[ER]

And finally I wonder if I have been buying defective Rice Krispies all these years since mine have never once snapped, crackled, or popped, just sort of hissed a little when wet, at best sounding like limp rain hitting a moist sidewalk.

[LilCerberus]

A Christmas Carol....



.... Is about A Christmas Karen.....

[ER]

Faking a mild speech impediment is a good way to cover up a foreign accent if you're imperfectly speaking a language that is not your native tongue.

I used to get paid to tell people tips like that.

[ER]

Sometimes I think the Japanese represent the high-point of human evolution.

[claws]

Faking a mild speech impediment is a good way to cover up a foreign accent if you're imperfectly speaking a language that is not your native tongue.

I used to get paid to tell people tips like that.

No offense but that is terrible advice. It is insulting to people with real speech impediments and insulting to foreigners.

[ER]

Faking a mild speech impediment is a good way to cover up a foreign accent if you're imperfectly speaking a language that is not your native tongue.

I used to get paid to tell people tips like that.

No offense but that is terrible advice. It is insulting to people with real speech impediments and insulting to foreigners.

None taken, since I passed on what my bosses taught in the course, and they were admittedly unconcerned with people's feelings. From a pragmatic standpoint it was useful in covering some flaws in foreign pronunciation, and it activated most people's tendency to then become non-judgmental and at least in most western cultured to make excuses for the speaker due to handicap. It was about covering yourself and exploiting another person's perceptions. What's useful isn't always nice and there was a coldness to it all, no denying.

[claws]

Elegantly explained racism. Our firm has over 50% foreign employees, half of them don't speak the German language perfect. Some do speeches for clients. If our bosses would 'teach' me to say such thing to them not only would I be embarrassed, I would sue the bosses for discrimination. Mocking people with disabilities? Wow. Common sense says this is wrong on so many levels. f**k that firm.

Merry Christmas  

[ER]

Elegantly explained racism. Our firm has over 50% foreign employees, half of them don't speak the German language perfect. Some do speeches for clients. If our bosses would 'teach' me to say such thing to them not only would I be embarrassed, I would sue the bosses for discrimination. Mocking people with disabilities? Wow. Common sense says this is wrong on so many levels. f**k that firm.

Merry Christmas  

Gosh, how about some thoughts in defense of my former employers, before I see what my birthday holds?

Firstly, people with speech disabilities constitute a "race"? I guess I would have thought of them more as representing a handicap since there are only three recognized human races.

Your reaction shows there is indeed a sensitivity recognized around speech impediments and why someone who evinces one might be cut slack rather than have the assumption be that this is someone with a foreign accent. Few are brave enough to jump on the words of someone with a disability, and frankly sometimes it's useful to capitalize on that allowance. Whatever you may think of it, if the technique didn't work it would not have not have been taught for decades. Whatever else may be true of them, my bosses were pragmatists.

Under the circumstances in which this particular technique is used, it's really no better or worse than faking a limp in the hope people won't be as inclined to stare at you, wearing glasses when your eyesight is good, dyeing your hair to look different, or any of a great many other employable deceptions out there in a world that exists right under the radar of the everyday.

Life isn't PC and like I said, these people, my former bosses, couldn't care less about hurting feelings, or for that matter ruining lives, to achieve an end. Insofar as they pause to consider morals at all in their undertakings, they see this and much else---correctly----as justified by their needs and goals.

And that's about all I have to add, except I respect your pique and kind of envy you the luxury of dwelling in a life where you allow yourself the quaint liberty of feeling selective outrage over something so small when in many other people's careers there are much bigger things to worry about,  including protecting other peoples' lives and not just their little feelings.

Mmerry Christmas back atcha....