Virtual Interplanetary Travel
Some of you might be interested, amused, irritated, irrigated or exasperated to read the exchange I had near the end of the combox here. I don't claim to know what kind of serious conclusions to draw from it, so anyone can help me out who wishes to.
I don't know if I'll continue the discussion. The truth is that the primary reason I engage certain people is to attempt to understand how they think, or at least to find out what they think. When someone questions many of the things I take for granted I always seek to clarify, but never to persuade. The opinions one finds voiced on blogs can be an endless source of entertainment.
I guess one man's entertainment is another man's punishment. That looked like punishment to me -- a bad game of whack-a-mole.
ReplyDeleteThat exchange reminded me of those smarmy lecturing "COEXIST" bumper stickers (which make me want to do the opposite). Hey buddy, we're not the ones having the trouble co-existing. Go tell the Muslims to co-exist, why dontcha?
Wondering when American became an ethnicity reminds me of an anecdote told by the novelist Walter Mosley: his father, though born in Mississippi, didn't considered himself an American. Americans were the white people. Then he got drafted, and the Germans started shooting at him, so he figured he must really be an American.
ReplyDeleteThough I'm sure Fr. Greg didn't intend it, it may well be that many ethnicities started being ethnicities about the time other ethnicities started fighting them.
Tom, thanks... I love it!
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me also of a story, a joke really, by Pope John Paul #1 in his book Illustrissimi in which he describes the reactions of people of differing national origins to finding a fly in their soup. I don't remember every part of the joke, but I'm pretty sure that an American is involved along with French, English, German. The last one is an Eskimo who actually eats the fly and throws the soup away.
Anyway, I don't think a normal person splits hairs about national origins and worries whether or not they are ethnicities. I mean, stop trying to find me somewhere in Europe.
'BTW, one problem in northern Ireland is that the paramilitaries on BOTH sides could be considered “terrorist”. '
ReplyDeleteum. NO.