"As well the corpse, the policeman discovered another man smoking and spitting repeatedly on the floor..."

The British.  I don't think they know they're hilarious.

Dmtdust wrote:

The Kebabs are the least of your worries if you live there.

True. You'll have my distant kin to contend with and they're waiting for you, Dusty. I'll send ahead a description.

Dmtdust wrote:

I have tales about those scurrilous, intolerant pilgrims... your family excluded of course.

Nahh, when Frank Thorne croaks, I've got nobody. If there's a more narrow, feeble minded lot, I haven't met them. The only small consolation is that those of them that fled Plymouth to settle here were marginally more tolerant. This really is a fucked up place. Beautiful, but fucked up. Our fall town meeting is little more than a week away and promises all-out war. The Selectmen may try to jug me. We'll see.

Dmtdust wrote:

The Kebabs are the least of your worries if you live there.

It seems like a regular mecca of culture.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

My Mom's friend is a bestselling author of Massachusetts History. To capture the popular audience he pulls some punches when writing, including just enough thoughtfull reflection that you get the jist. But in his research he has exposed just how twisted the Puritans and other sects were.

By the time the economic boom of whaling came about in the early 1800s it was common for men and women in the competetive quaker culture to go insane and sometimes postal. The societal demand that they repress all expression, even internal realization, of anger and ill will towards their frenemies, eventually pushed many over the edge. Our author friend  makes the argument that the normalization and practice of such extreme psychological repression fueled the sanctioned intolerence in these societies.

Don't even get me started on the Puritans. The real first Thanksgiving dinner was actually a ruse by the Plymouth plantation to lure some indian warriors inside to sit down at a table loaded with tempting English food. Whereupon they had their throats slit before they could rise, spewing their blood all over the feast and gurgling to death in the most gruesome manner. The account goes that Standish sat smiling with his men at the table till the moment he reached over, snatching  the French knife hanging from the warrior buck's neck, and sliced open his jugular before anyone could react. Till the Puritan's traveling supplies ran out, they pursued the rest of the Indian village through the woods. Men, women, boys were hunted down like boars and left to bleed and starve in the swamps. This was the first preemptive act of war by white settlers in America.

Granted the leader of this small handfull of warriors had made some threats. Their young buck leader was contemptious of the English and had promoted himself as the protector of the indian village to the North of Plymouth. That year a rival group of nere-do-well English had tried to start a plantation north of Plymouth. But they were lazy and took no action to establish themselves preferring to mooch off the Puritans. When they started sneaking into Plymouth's fields and eating the newly planted seedlings, the puritans gave them the boot. Forbidding them from entering their plantation. So come fall, they just started stealing all the indian's food caches in what was a time of regional scarcity. The young buck warrior came in and told them to stay away.

The Plymouth Puritans knew full well the situation and the injustice being done to the indians. They also had a treaty and cooperative relationship with the young buck's tribal chief.`Rather then use their influence to make peace and negotiate reparations, as they had succesfully done before, they bowed to the bloodlust of Standish. To plan a slaughter disguised as the first thanksgiving.  Then they ordered their English neighbors to quit their failed settlement and either accept puritan servitude or leave on the first boat. Most left.

It did manage to inspire fear in the region and when what we celebrate today as the thanksgiving feast happened, it was the Indian's part to make trembling tribute in hopes of warding off more violence.

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2008-10-17 18:31:56)

It's our very expressive eyebrows. Wink, wink...

phreddy wrote:

opsec wrote:

Historically, the Caucasian race seem to be the best liars, a Darwinian advantage.

Wow, imagine how good Obama would be if he was completely white, oh yeah, he would be Bill Clinton.

(Note: The above is offered as a humorous jab and is not intended to instigate another political discussion.)

I think he is pretty white, but not as white as McCain, who lies like he is from Northern Ireland.

This was not political, merely an observation