Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences 
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Because it’s so easy. It takes little or no effort to drop a butt on the ground (and, hopefully, stomp it out). The thing is, it’s not that hard to do the opposite, either. What I had come to do (as littering butts was bothering my environmentalist conscience) was to knock the fire off the cigarette, empty the remaining tobacco, and stick it in my pocket. I’ve quit smoking now, but I do wish other smokers would show a little thoughtfulness towards others. It’s not that hard.
User Detail :
Name : Guy, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Humanist, Age : 43, City : Birmingham, State : AL, Country : United States, Occupation : Cashier/clerk, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,Whether this song is an authentic Irish folk song or not (I’ve never seen any writing credits for it, but there are some indications that it may be a ‘composed’ folk song), it belongs to a group of Irish folk songs that involve a loved one (usually the mother or lover) lamenting a boy’s enlistment into the army. ‘Mrs. McGrath,’ ‘The Wars of America,’ ‘Johnny has Gone for a Soldier’ and ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’ (from which ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’ is descended with nearly the same tune) are some others. Many times the songs have the lad returning with amputations, and ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’ actually has Johnny returning as a basket case, with no arms, legs or eyes. The reason for these types of songs was that the Irish, when they went to enlist, were joining the British army, an army of occupation, to go fight in the foreign wars of England, whether in the French and Indian War of North America, the Napoleanic wars or other colonial wars (as ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’ says, ‘I’m happy for to see you home, all from the island of Soolon [Ceylon]’.)
From all I’ve heard, ‘Danny Boy’ is traditionaly sung from the point of view of the boy’s father, and the main theme is not so much the fear that the son will be killed or maimed (although that subtext is certainly present), but that the singer will be dead when he returns. This and the wording of the song show that the song is different from the rest and may not have grown from the oral tradition but was instead composed. But as I said, I’m not sure about this, and it makes the song no less beautiful or sad. By the way, the music is from a tune called ‘The Londenderry Air,’ a song of unrequited love.
User Detail :
Name : Guy, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Humanist, Age : 43, City : Birmingham, State : AL, Country : United States, Occupation : Cashier/clerk, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,As an ex-fundamentalist (Christian), I can report that some believers consider the behemoth and leviathan of Job to be dinosaurs. This was very comforting to me at the time, as I wanted desperately to have my Genesis and Tyrannosaurus, too. Others rationalized that they were not taken on the Ark or that they had died out before the flood. The truth, of course, is that no one in Biblical times knew of dinosaurs or of paleontology. The other rationalization is that the three sons of Noah were the forefathers of the three ‘races’ of man, and the more hardcore racists rationalize that the black ‘race’ (I use quotation marks here because I believe there’s only one race, and that’s the human race) was the descendants of Ham, whose offspring were cursed for shaming his father. This they take as Biblical justification for the oppression of Africans and African Americans. From the New International Version: ‘Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside… When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.’ (Genesis 9;20-22, 24-25.) Now, the fact that one of Ham’s descendants was Nimrod, who (according to Genesis) founded Babylon and Assyria, or that the Canaanites were inhabitants of Palestine and not Africa doesn’t seem to matter to these folk; they’ve got their religious justification for hating African Americans. Of course, only a minority of fundamentalists still buy this extremist view.
User Detail :
Name : Guy, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Humanist, Age : 43, City : Birmingham, State : AL, Country : United States, Occupation : Cashier/clerk, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,One factor to consider is the effect of poverty, especially crushing poverty, on the psyche of the individual. If a person has low self-esteem, that person will take less interest in the appearance of his/her surroundings. And believe you me, poverty is great at crushing the spirit. Some people may be strong enough to resist this, but not many. The incentive to keep things neat and take pride in your surroundings just isn’t there. I’ve journeyed into this pit and do not want to go back. However, with no safety net or job security, it is all too horrifyingly possible.
User Detail :
Name : Guy, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian Humanist, Age : 43, City : Birmingham, State : AL, Country : United States, Occupation : Cashier/clerk, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,
