Thoughts On A Train: About Impressions & Communications

Does the lack of color in an image, or description, change the impression intended? Image Credit: Justin C. Nuyens

Thoughts on a train ~ 
by Justin C. Nuyens - June 8 at 4:07pm

Cheyenne, Wyoming - I recently listened to comedian Jimmy Carr talk about racism and perceived racism. He said that people ~ whites in particular ~ are so guilt-tripped and paranoid about being perceived as bigoted that the discourse is being compromised.

Carr's example was that a white robbery victim, afraid of being thought racist, might fail to mention to police that the perpetrator was black even if he was.

That might seem extreme and unrealistic, but I have in fact seen newspaper stories about crimes in which weight, height and clothing of a suspect were described but no race mentioned. Now what should i do with that? Assume the perp was black? Now THAT would make me racist.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm sitting in the observation car of Amtrak's California Zephyr train from Emeryville to Chicago. All Chicago-bound passengers riding coach are assigned seats the same section of the train, meaning a number of us have been together for 30 hours with 23 to go.

In this particular microcosm, if someone wants social contact the population is not great enough to pick according to one's common demographic.

The conversations started out slow if not guarded as passengers first overcame the fact that we are all different in impression. That is to say, normally we would not be associating under any circumstances, if only because we live in different neighborhoods let alone our differences in age, appearance, opinion and interest.

And then, slowly, a society is made. Smokers hitting each other up on the station breaks. Drinkers bitching about the cost of beer on the train. People asking, is there wifi? Nope. Guess we'll have to interact.

Then people start opening up. One woman is traveling to Cincinnati with her 14-year-old son to start over, a brand new life. Meanwhile she gets a call from the son she left in Sacramento. HE GOT THE JOB! He's gonna be a host at a restaurant in town.

Another woman is making a break of another sort. She is leaving her boyfriend. When he gets off work today he will find a house emptied of everything including furniture. The girl will be long gone, where to? I haven't asked.

There's a man with a jaw harp. A dude with a goatee. A guy with glasses...

<<< Additional Images - Credit: Justin C. Nuyens >>>

Since departing the Bay Area one couple with a baby was spotted smoking a glass pipe during a smoke break in Green River. They were left behind. An hour ago we made an unexpected stop in the middle of nowhere. Rumor was a guy was smoking weed on the lower deck and Sheriff was coming.

So here is a story unraveling. And find myself asking, at what point does physical description become important to the narrative?

It doesn't matter that the woman leaving Sacto and her son are black does it? Or does it? If i tell you the girl leaving her boyfriend is obese does it change the story, or that the meth smokers were white?

I guess it depends on me. If I wanted to paint a vivid picture I would describe physical traits, mannerisms, speech patterns...

For the moment it isn't necessary. We're all the same. On the train with strangers. Finding where we belong. Negotiating the path. Trying to make friends along the way.

Don't mind me. I'm searching for America on my way to Europe.

Didrik told me to keep an eye out...
(ht: Justin C. Nuyens - assumed permission)

TAGS: Travel, communication, Train, Thoughts, Racism, Description, pictures, strangers, America, Europe, The EDJE, JustinAmerica, Justin Of America

The Real Survivor Fiji – Military, And The Human Toll

Japanese tourists from left Nanako Ota, Megumi Fukaya and Matko Yamazaki enjoy their stay in Nadi yesterday. Tourism in Fiji is far from normal, warns stakeholders. Image Credit: Fiji Times Limited

The Real Survivor Fiji – Military, And The Human Toll

Let’s see, what are the positives of the coup? Increased military checkpoints equal reduced crime – that’s good for tourism, right?

The large tourist developments that congregate around the airport are isolated from the rest of the civilian life activity – that hides some of the ugly side of running a military rule country, right?

Most of the touring world located in Europe and North America haven’t plugged into the political issues that are stifling the island nation – so ignorance is bliss, right?

Well in a country the military has taken over since December 5th, things are grinding to a halt and it doesn’t look good for future either. The human toll under the present set of circumstances is increasing and it doesn’t look like it will get any better soon. After all, the innocent citizens of Fiji will not even be able to have a say (vote) until 2010 if the Commodore is to continue to have his way.

Excerpts from the New Zealand’s National Business Review -

Commodore country
By Nevile Gibson, Editor-In-Cheif – National Business Review (NZ) 1-Mar-2007

The holiday conundrum: Fiji Island resorts allow you to get away from the everyday environment of work, household duties, telephones, television, even newspapers.

Yet since the December 5 coup, Fiji’s resort holiday business has nosedived. And personal experience over the past weekend indicates nothing has changed for the holidaymaker.
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Patrols concentrate on gatherings of young people, who are leading suspects for street crime, burglaries and drug abuse. A new crime in the statistics, threats and swearing at military officers, has boosted the number of arrests to 1200 from Dec 5 to February 15.
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Monday’s editions of both papers this week led with the story of the death of a 19-year-old, who had been assaulted by soldiers and police a month ago when taken into custody. The Times reported this was the second such death and the story is attracting international attention.

The Times also reports an unnamed organisation has documented 200 cases of official human rights abuse while the Fiji Human Rights Commission has 20.

No doubt some heavy-handed treatment is being handed out but the media reporting, particularly in the just-mentioned report, shows a heartening degree of robustness.

Fiji has a five-star holiday industry grafted on to a third world economy.
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The main source of tourists is Australia and New Zealand, where news of the coup has been widely reported and where the governments have imposed travel bans.

But elsewhere in the world, I was told, the news has not filtered through, mainly because little of note has occurred and perhaps there is a greater tolerance of these tourists to hot country politics.
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But the industry is far from healthy and it will fall well short of its aim this year to exceed $F1 billion in turnover. Hotels Association president Dixon Seeto was quoted at the weekend as saying, “We have to face the reality here that things are not normal.”
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The effects on employment are palpable, as full time workers were still on reduced hours and casual staff are jobless.
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A costly coup

While the day-to-day impact of the coup is largely invisible to visitors, the economic impact is already considerable, if not as bad as previous ones.
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Latest Fiji Reserve Bank forecasts show negative economic growth of 2-4 per cent in 2007, mainly from the decline in tourism. RBF governor Savenaca Narube also confirmed in his latest statement that the key industries of sugar, fishing, forestry, agriculture and mining were also faring badly.

Government budgets are being shrunk and each day brings news of sackings from the public sector. But the finance minister, Mahendra Chaudry, who was himself overthrown as PM in a previous coup, is using the crisis to create a new future for Fiji based on an open economy.

At the weekend, he revealed a programme to remove all state business monopolies, notably in aviation, electricity, telecommunications and television. The companies affected are Telecom Fiji, Fiji Electricity Authority, Fiji Television and Air Pacific.

Quoting from the Rogernomics textbook, he promised a better deal for consumers from greater competition and choice. This is radical stuff for a nation in the Pacific, where land ownership remains largely communal and therefore is unlikely to attract the kind of investment or productivity that can take agricultural output to its full potential.
Read All>>

POV Point, Counterpoint – Global Warming Opinion Intentions

A general view shows the lower house of Parliament Bundestag inside the Reichstags building during a commemoration ceremony to mark the Holocaust memorial day in Berlin January 29, 2007. Image Credit: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch (GERMANY)

POV Point, Counterpoint – Global Warming Opinion Intentions

When we, at MAXINE, see, listen, or read anything from longtime flame-throwing MSM liberal hack (Boston Globe, The McLaughlin Group (NPR), and go to “talking head” for biting MSM POV commentary for any political talk enterprise) we are stunned at the echo chamber logic expressed given almost any topic she jumps off into.

Usually, it is easy to just discount the views as coming from a very liberal, journalistic, and socialist camp.

That is, until her latest attempt to place people who want to deny that the Holocaust (where people of the Jewish faith were rounded up, taken to prison camps, placed in gas chambers, and executed) actually happened during WWII are used as the measuring stick for people who wish to debate against the proposition that Human activity is the primary cause of Earth’s temperature changes (Global Warming).

Dennis Prager makes it very clear as to how WRONG, damaging, and piously-political her latest column is on the subject of Global Warming in the Boston Globe through his latest column featured in Townhall.

Point, Counterpoint!

This from Dennis Prager, contributing writer for Townhall –

On Comparing Global Warming Denial to Holocaust Denial
By Dennis Prager - Tuesday, February 13, 2007

In her last column, Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman wrote: "Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers . . . "

This is worthy of some analysis.

First, it reflects a major difference between the way in which the Left and Right tend to view each other. With a few exceptions, those on the Left tend to view their ideological adversaries as bad people, i.e., people with bad intentions, while those on the Right tend to view their adversaries as wrong, perhaps even dangerous, but not usually as bad.

Those who deny the Holocaust are among the evil of the world. Their concern is not history but hurting Jews, and their attempt to rob nearly six million people of their experience of unspeakable suffering gives new meaning to the word "cruel." To equate those who question or deny global warming with those who question or deny the Holocaust is to ascribe equally nefarious motives to them. It may be inconceivable to Al Gore, Ellen Goodman and their many millions of supporters that a person can disagree with them on global warming and not have evil motives: Such an individual must be paid by oil companies to lie, or lie -- as do Holocaust deniers -- for some other vile reason.

The belief that opponents of the Left are morally similar to Nazis was expressed recently by another prominent person of the Left, George Soros, the billionaire who bankrolls many leftist projects. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Soros called on America to "de-Nazify" just as Germany did after the Holocaust and World War II. For Soros, America in Iraq is like the Nazis in Poland.

A second lesson to be drawn from the Goodman statement is that it helps us to understand better one of the defining mottos of contemporary liberalism: "Question authority." In reality, this admonition applies to questioning the moral authority of Judeo-Christian religions or of any secular conservative authority, but not of any other authority. UN and other experts tell us that there is global warming; such authority is not to be questioned.

Third, the equation of global warming denial to Holocaust denial trivializes Holocaust denial. If questioning global warming is on "a par" with questioning the Holocaust, how bad can questioning the Holocaust really be? The same holds true with regard to Nazism and the George Soros statement. Claiming that America in the Iraq War is morally equivalent to Nazi Germany in World War II trivializes the unparalleled evil of the Nazis.

Fourth, the lack of response (thus far) of any liberal or left individual or organization -- except to defend Ellen Goodman -- or from the Anti-Defamation League, the organization whose primary purpose has been to defend Jews, is telling. Just imagine if, for example, an equally prominent Christian figure had written that denying America is a Christian country is on a par with denying the Holocaust. It would have been front-page news in the mainstream media, the individual would have been excoriated by just about every major liberal individual and group, and the ADL would have cited this as an example of burgeoning Christian anti-Semitism and Holocaust trivialization. But not a word at the ADL on Soros's comments about de-Nazifying America or Goodman's Holocaust-denial comment.

Fifth, and finally, the Ellen Goodman quote is only the beginning of what is already becoming one of the largest campaigns of vilification of decent people in history -- the global condemnation of a) anyone who questions global warming; or b) anyone who agrees that there is global warming but who argues that human behavior is not its primary cause; or c) anyone who agrees that there is global warming, and even agrees that human behavior is its primary cause, but does not believe that the consequences will be nearly as catastrophic as Al Gore does.

If you don't believe all three propositions, you will be lumped with Holocaust deniers, and it would not be surprising that soon, in Europe, global warming deniers will be treated as Holocaust deniers and prosecuted.

Just watch.

That is far more likely than the oceans rising by 20 feet.

Or even 10.

Or even three.
Reference Here>>

Hey Ellen! ... Al! Surf's Up!

Good on ya', Dennis.