Slashdot's Disagree Mail 264
In this week's Disagree Mail, I try to show the range of messages I get. It's not all angry or insane, sometimes it's sent to us for no apparent reason. We start off a little mad, slip into a whole bunch of crazy and finish with someone who has a complaint about racism at his favorite restaurant. Read below to get started.
The last sentence in this one is what sold me.
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, ******** wrote:
"I have been blocked from Slashdot. I have done nothing worthy of being banned and if you would take your head out of your ass long enough you would realize it! I have to put up with this kind of shit at work but I won't put up with it here! so here's what I demand you do: Apologize to me, both here and in a letter. Apologize to my isp, I called at yelled at them yesterday thinking it was their fault. Finally, I want a written promise that you will never do this to me or anyone else again. If you do not meet these demands in 10 business days, I will be forced to take drastic action, including but not limited to: emailing everyone I know to tell them of how you treat innocent users or reading my news else where. Your move asshole!"
I've often wondered to myself, what would you do if someone who stole from the FBI found out you were a human computer? Thanks to this woman I still don't know.
On Fri, 30 Nov, ****** wrote:
"I'm in search for one of your representatives, or National Security. I have been able to read ********** mind. I showed up at *********, in Eugene, Oregon and let him know about the money that he stole from government agencies, including the FBI, which ironically protects him. He thought I was undercover or believed I was a human computer; which he still may believe. He witnesses that his computers talk to me, as if I were one of them. I can tell what program his computers are on and what they are interlocking with most of the time. He gave me a 400 million dollar check that day, as I sat there reading his mind explaining to him what I knew. At that point he had 8-10 billion dollars of government money/funding hidden away. But after the planes went down he stole over a 100 billion. He used Mike's pin# and password to get into National Security. He helped himself into instruments and institutions, and began using them incorrectly and illegally. I am offering National Security or any Representative a lot of my money to help me put this man away. It seems he is being protected by the forces I need. He is station #3 of the HAARP Project and I'm in search for anyone ready to earn a lot of money; for actually representing the United States of America the Right Way. He's been looking into the minds of his people and brainwashing them, so he will not be seen. I can read his mind faster than any instrument, and ironically he seems he has to answer my questions like I was a machine. When I listen, I can hear him telling people he's playing God and to digest this information; or to Change their mind. Another one he uses, line one--, line two--, line three--, Lock and Load, which also seems to convince people that he is innocent. He changes the information nightly so he won't be seen, for he is a computer programmer as you will soon see. I've even tried try to get the HAARP to tune into me, so they could see me which would see him. This is just the beginning of what I know. Eugene, Oregon's FBI seem to be full of idiots or his "Change Your mind Method" is working pretty damn good. Right now I get denied as they listen to him and not me. But COME ON PEOPLE, He wrote me a $400 Million dollar check. (SO, WAKE UP! FBI, because you are obviously, virtually blind),. This Nation seems to be lacking people like me. That can discover people like ********** and his black market industry."
The next is a bit long. I'm not sure why this was sent to us or what he thought we were going to do about it. He might have a legitimate complaint but even with the vast power of the internet I can't make racist people stay away from restaurants. Calling them terrorists is a bit of a stretch too.
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, ******* wrote:
Hello info@ostg.com, Happy New Year to you. Well, I ended 2004 by being called a "nigger" several times by a white terrorist in ****** on December 30. The reason I'm posting you is to seek your advice as to what rights I have in a violent verbal assault, and hate crime situation like this. What would you do if something this devilish had happened to you?
This is the second time this has happened to me in the same *******. The first time was about five years ago when I overheard a professional person using the "N" word to a white woman friend of his as they sat across from me at the bar.
She was telling him that she had found a new boyfriend and thought that things were going to work out well for her. The fellow looked at her and then said "I hope he's not a "nigger" I was astounded that he had said something so lowlife in a full club with about 20 people sitting at the bar and the rest of the tables nearby full as well.
The bartender had been living with an African American male for over five years at the time. She looked astounded, and turned to me as if she couldn't believe her ears. I turned to the white people on each side of me, and asked them if they were going to say something to the person. They are always saying that they are not prejudiced. so this would have been the perfect time for some of them to back up their words with action.
They did nothing! They just looked at each other in that silly "HUH Head" look that they utilize when they run into an idea that they had never considered before on the subject of race. The manager did come out and ask him to leave. He did so and to my knowledge he has never gone back. I have seen the fellow in other clubs where the clientele is more receptive to his modo di pensare. I did nothing official that time. This time I'm trying to determine what the best way to proceed would be. Here are most of the facts as to what occurred last Thursday, the 30th of December 2004.
I went out to ******** here in Cape Girardeau, Missouri around 2100. I sat on the north end of the bar next to several young white women. One of them was named "*******" from the ****** family here. I talked to them about various subjects for about 30 minutes and bought them some Frangelico. They had never tasted it so I thought I would let them sample something different since they were kind enough to talk to me a 58 year young African American. Most whites won't.
Then they left and a friend of mine from Birmingham Alabama called me on his cell phone. We talked for about fifteen minutes about the state of the world and how savage, and inhumane so many Americans are in their thinking when it comes to how they view others around the world.
Out of the corner of my right eye, I notice the young blond white woman to my right pushing a picture of a cute bi-racial child towards me. I picked it up and looked at it. Then I complimented the female on having a little girl that was so cute. After a few more minutes of talking to my friend, I hung up and started talking to the young blonde white woman, her female friend next to her, and her Canadian boyfriend to her right.
The blonde's name was what it is. She said she was a hair stylist at a salon here. I was telling them about how my cousin owned the Harlem Globetrotter basketball team, and how there had been a couple of streets named after my mothers family around here. I was basically giving them a quick history on some black folks who were highly respected in this area.
After about twenty minutes or so this 40ish white ball cap wearing, truck driver looking white fellow across the bar asked me when we had graduated from high school. I told him when I had graduated, and then N told him when she graduated. The white supremacist then said "One of you is right, and one of you is a fucking nigger"
I picked up my cell phone and called the police as the ********* manager was not on the scene. I had no idea what that piece of white trash would do next. After a few minutes Ed, the manager came over to the WS, and told him that he had to leave the club.
The fellow got up and slowly walked toward the door selling wolf tickets all the way. The policeman arrived and he stood in the vestibule and talked to the manager of *******. He never came over and asked me anything; nor did he advise me of my rights in that situation.
I'm one of the charter members of ******* here. I have been going there since about six months after they opened in 1991, and I've never had a serious incident like this one
So I went back to talking to the three people. Now of course we were talking about the white supremacist and his actions. One white 20ish female caught my eye, grinned and gave me the thumbs up sign. Apparently she was happy that he was gone.
After about 20 minutes, another young white female stopped behind me and told me that the fellow was still in the parking lot in his truck. None of the other white men there, except for the canadian fella I was talking to had anything positive to say to me, and they said nothing to the WS who started the whole incident. Why am I not surprised?
So I called the police department again. I relayed the information to the police and sat back once more. After a few minutes the officer arrived and for the second time, the ******** manager met him in the vestibule, and they talked for a few minutes. Again, the policeman never came over to talk to me at all. Now I really felt something odd was going on because I'm the one doing the calling, but no one wants to talk to me. Is that normal police procedure now across the USA?
Nicole was very quiet while the white guy was calling me a nigger. She got on her cell phone and called her biracial boyfriend and told him to come by. The other couple got Up and left after a half hour or so. Then this attractive light skinned black man about 25 came in and Nicole snuggled up in his arms as he sat down beside her.
She told him what had happened and he began telling us what all behind he would have kicked had it been done to him. He told me he was a criminal and didn't play that sort of mess. The more we discussed it the more they seemed to try to blame me for everything. I asked Nicole why she had become such a chatterbox now that her black boyfriend had arrived. She laughed and said that she felt safe now. They continued spewing out all sort of nonsense about race that mentally confused Bi-racials, and uninformed Caucasians tend to do. So after fifteen minutes of listening to their ignorance, I told them I had to go. I wished them a happy New Year and walked outside to the parking lot.
I saw the truck was still there. So when I left I drove around town in a random manner for about fifteen minutes to see if I was being followed. When I felt that I wasn't I headed on home and called it a night. I decided to stay home for New Years eve as I didn't want to run into any more of these beer drinking, ball cap wearing rabid, mad dog, psychotic folks like I had the night before. I didn't want to start the New Year being a victim, or being in jail for harming some piece of trash.
I haven't heard anything at all from ******** yet. I'm not surprised however. They didn't say or do anything when I called them about the first incident.
So there you have it. What should I do in this situation? What are my rights? I've emailed ****** twice, and spoke to them twice, but so far they have done nothing.
I think an apology is owed and reparations should be given. I would really appreciate it if you would take a few minutes of your time to think about this and then email me back with your suggestions if you think there is a fair and just remedy for me here. Amicably Yours If you have a interest in being helpful to me then, email me at *******"
what is the idle template doing (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, haha, you're so funny. (Score:2, Insightful)
Making fun of mentally ill people - how noble of you. Not.
Wow, a whole 3 rants? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, judging by the small number of flames you guys are getting, people must REALLY LOVE YOU.
But then again, based on the number of flames in the poll comments, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Maybe yall are missing some somehow. Something MUST be misconfigured. Maybe you should check your MX records. Then again, maybe not. Ignorance is bliss.
trolling, duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not all angry or insane, sometimes it's sent to us for no apparent reason.
Everything is done for a reason- in this case, it's probably to try and troll Slashdot staff, though some of the babbling nonsense may be spammers; they're known for taking text off the internet and using it. Now that you're posting the emails, expect the volume to skyrocket from the people who are purposefully sending the email to you.
I honestly don't find any values in these emails. They're either assholes or babbling idiots, neither of them interesting or funny.
I Move We Rename the "Idle" Section (Score:5, Insightful)
. . . to the "Lame" section, because the few times I've visited I've always left thinking "Man, that was lame.
PS: found that email.. (Score:5, Insightful)
OT: obvious reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
Posted AC for obvious reasons.
Am I the only one that always gets a chuckle out of these disclaimers? The 'obvious reasons' always seem to boil down to a) don't want to go through the karmic trauma of being modded down or b) persecution complex.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
Practically any crime involving intimidation can be turned into terrorism if you consider that the criminal is trying to terrorize you. The armed burglar, mugger, etc. are all trying to scare you into giving them what they want. Doesn't make them terrorists though.
They already have hate crimes for things like this, no need to further stretch the 'terrorism' word further than it already has been.
Re:like me (Score:4, Insightful)
As a designer this design makes me puke, crap and wee myself at the same time. While seizing.
Please make the text readable with black on white. I realize that there's plenty of pedantic crap that could be said about archaic hardware, 80 columns of text and green on black but we don't live in the 1980's anymore. ;)
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
"But a standalone fact is that racism is indeed terrorism. When you call a Black person "nigger", you are referring to a long history of abuse, often lethal (and worse) of Black people."
No not at all. No more than someone saying whitey or honky is!
What about Redneck or Cracker?
It is ugly and ignorant but terrorism? You are granting idiots too much power over you.
Get over it people.
Not funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of posting the email and laughing at this poor woman, why don't you try to get her help?
It's all downhill from here (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't say anything the first time, but this time.... Really, how do you follow up the first Disagree Mail with something even worse even when you know you're going to get hammered for it? Let's all hope this is the last Disagree Mail episode, because it obviously isn't going to get any better.
Dear editor... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please take this idle shit off the RSS feed.
Ta muchly,
Justin.
Human Computers (Score:5, Insightful)
A little history: [kuro5hin.org] Before ENIAC was engineered, a "computer" was a human being whose job was to do math, e.g. making ballistics tables for artillery, etc.
During WWII the military employed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of human computers.
Frank herbert called them "Mentats".
BTW and OT, the black on dark green on this screen is unreadable to geezers (and possibly to young people as well). I really wish you guys would fix that, thx.
I get enough meaningless drivel in my own mailbox (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't need to read yet more crap on slashdot. Especially when it isn't even funny.
Re:like me (Score:5, Insightful)
I only made it half way through the second paragraph before my eyes started freaking out.
If you want more than that out of me, you'll have to change the colors.
Racist comments are NOT Terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow.
He got called "nigger" two times in five years and that's Terrorism to you?
By your logic, calling someone "Faggot" twice is terrorism, too. After all, there's a long history of oppression of gay people (longer than black people, in fact.)
How about being called "witch" or "infidel"?
All terrorism, according to you.
Ridiculous.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
When you call a Black person "nigger", you are referring to a long history of abuse, often lethal (and worse) of Black people.
"Black people" can be perceived as derogative as well. And so can "negroid", "coloured", and so on. Take offense to the "I hope he's not a" part. That is the racist element.
If I said "look at Obama, there might be a nigger in charge of the USA soon, that'd be so cool".. how would that be racism, let alone terrorism? Context means a lot in communication.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
> But a standalone fact
> is that racism is indeed
> terrorism.
No. Some skinhead pansy prancing around is an idiot. Not enough of a threat to waste the word terrorist on. Some hillbilly who still uses the N word in public is not a terrorist. Bigot? Yes. Terrorist? No.
The Klan burning a cross in somebody's front yard? Terrorist. Burning one at a Klan rally? Stupid but not terrorist.
To qualify for terrorist there needs to be violence or the direct threat of violence.
Of course lesser evil still needs to be defeated, not just terrorists. I'm just objecting to throwing that word around so much it becomes meaningless. And stupid is sometimes just ignorant. Ignorant can be cured.... sometimes.
Re:Yeah, haha, you're so funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the point. In much the same way it's not cool to kick over wheel chairs or trip the blind it's also not cool to troll mad people or laugh at their ravings in public.
It's really a question of taste and sportsmanship, not political correctness.
Re:Dear editor... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:like me (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but the dictionary disagrees with you [reference.com]. I would like to quote the Firesign Theater (I think from the "Bozos" record, I got stoned a lot back then and it was thirty or more years ago):
My ancestors were called "micks" and it was spewed back then like "nigger" is now. Have you seen the movie Blazing Saddles? "Ok, we'll even take the niggers, but NOT the Irish!" We got past it, so should you.
I heard a man once say that when black people would stop using the word "nigger", he would too. Although I personally dislike the word, I think he has a valid point.
The reason the word is so distasteful is that "nigger" means "slave"; back when slavery was legal, a slave was considered just another farm animal, a subhuman. You had "field niggers" and "house niggers", like a house cat or an alley cat.
A "nigger rig" was a mechanical device meant for the slaves to use, usually junk, that was hastily repaired by a white slave owner or his white employees with the least amount of effort and expense. It was not "Afro-American Engineering".
If a word terrorizes you, you are indeed a cowardly wimp. Grow up and grow a spine.
Okay, Doctor. (Score:2, Insightful)
What are your qualifications for diagnosing these people based on a single letter they have written? Who, in your esteemed opinion, is an acceptable target for mockery?
Humor is one of the ways we deal with the world so that we do not become mentally ill. Humor and compassion are not mutually exclusive.
People who cannot find humor in the actions of the mentally ill are usually full of pity, which is much, much worse. It's an insidious way of disenfranchising the mentally ill. It is incompatible with compassion and does no one any favors. The only thing it does is assuage your own guilt - but at the expense of the people you are supposedly defending.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
What would be more accurate: "a child suffering from autism" or "a child whose family suffers from his/her autism"? "An autistic child" is the most accurate of all, just as "african american" isn't anywhere as accurate as "dark skinned person" or "black person".
And I rather don't mention the "special abilities" fad.
It's Newspeak all along, sacrificing clarity and straighforwardness.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree that calling someone "nigger" implies a threat. It's a hateful word, and can certainly be used in a threatening context - but the word itself is not a terrorist threat.
As an extreme and obvious example, Chris Rock can say it and it's comedy. Less extreme is this hick at Applebee's - if he was trying to insult the guy and make him uncomfortable - that's not terrorism. There needs to be a threat of violence.
I'm not trying to defend the hick at Applebee's - he's the worst kind of person. But people are tossing the word "terrorism" around so much that it is losing it's meaning. If insulting people is terrorism, then what the hell do you call blowing up a building full of your political enemy?
Re:like me (Score:3, Insightful)
Please make the text readable with black on white.
Agree!
There are worse possibilities than white on green, but I wouldn't read those, either.
Re:what is the idle template doing (Score:5, Insightful)
...and especially not as "default"
The last e-mailer (Score:4, Insightful)
...was incredibly racist.
It was particularly damning how there were no simple "men" or "women" in that story, just Canadian men, biracial women, black boyfriends, white truck-cap wearing men, caucasian women. How is /any/ of that relevant? He's terribly fixated on race.
Re:OT: obvious reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
by thePowerOfGrayskull (905905) on Wed Aug 20, '08 12:20 PM (#24677003) Homepage
Posted AC for obvious reasons.
This is why the preview button exists, kids.
Re:Yeah, haha, you're so funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not acceptable to kick over wheelchairs or trip blind people because you are directly harming the person. They anonymized the emails so we have no idea who sent them in, even if they did it's a username on the internet. I'm not standing in front of the nutbag that typed all of that up and laughing in their faces. I'm chuckling at some anonymous ravings.
The other consideration you might not have taken is that it could be a completely normal, creative person. I've done similar things before just exercising writing styles, writing about nonsense situations for no reason other than to try out something new.
Re:Racist Attacks are Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
It's essential for our national security to stretch the word terrorism to encompass anything you wish terrorism laws to be used for.
Re:Publicizing trolls? You're worse than hitler! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow, a whole 3 rants? (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed the memo. They said last year that they replaced all their editors. They heard some quote about an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of keyboards.
Now the procedure is, we post something to firehose, and a bunch of monkeys sit around trying to click on a submit button that moves around the page... Kinda like that annoying swat the fly flash ad, or the crosshairs on obama one.
Re:Yeah, haha, you're so funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Time spent avoiding offending the easily offended is time wasted.
Re:like me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reading on a 40" high-end LCD display, so I doubt my monitor is the problem. :)
And yes, I could try to do CSS surgery, but it would be a fair amount of work to figure out what to override. /. depends on CSS for layout control as well, so I can't just turn it off.
If this information were critical to me, I'd jump through hoops to read it. But it's not, so I won't, and thus the design fails. I don't seem to be the only one who feels that way.
Re:Dear editor... (Score:2, Insightful)
I concur. I read Slashdot via RSS. This idle stuff is not as bad as people make out, but I don't want to read it with the rest of my "Technology" stories. So please give me the chance to choose a non-idle RSS feed.
I know it's not a threat to say "or I will stop reading Slashdot" - you don't need my custom, and won't miss it. However, listening to the requests of your users is one of the marks of a good website that people pass on to each other and keep using.
From the summary... (Score:3, Insightful)
Alright, man. You're not the racist. Don't worry.
Re:like me (Score:3, Insightful)