Journal Entries
Eurocentrism Is Alive and Well and Living at h2g2
Posted May 21, 2001
We live in a big and complex world. Earth has a lot of people and places in it. All of them have long and interesting histories. So why do so many people forget about Africa, India, China, and the Americas when they talk about 'civilisation'?
Is it just stupid Eurocentric schooling? I don't believe that. Isn't this a place where intelligent people (or people who think they are intelligent, which is usually the opposite) gather to discuss matters of interest to them and the world? Are these people fundamentally so brainwashed that they cannot connect the concepts 'Africa' and 'civilisation'? Possibly. 
My ancestors were 'the Natives' in one former British colony. Perhaps we 'Natives' are still perceived as somehow inferior?
My ancestors had universities when the Britons were still painting themselves blue and howling at the moon 
. But just saying that doesn't change a fundamental way of thinking. The Chinese had dictionaries before the Semites had Jews, let alone Hebrew. Nahh. They'll just ignore it. Or forget it. Or disbelieve it.
Why don't Western people *want* to stop being bigots? It's the same in the States, only worse. The US is the biggest and most important; we don't have to learn geography. 
I do not understand how this can still be happening in 2001.
Obviously on or from the wrong 
Arpeggio, not specially proud to be English just now.
Ancestors and family on every major global land-mass.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: May 21, 2001
Snow in May!
Posted May 21, 2001
In Colorado, USA, we have a blizzard today. That's because it's the 20th of May. Some of the World's Weirdest Weather lives in the same place I do. Strange climes for stranger times.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: May 21, 2001
Touchy and Defensive
Posted May 19, 2001
I wonder what it is... but whatever it is, it seems to be infectious.
I'm starting to get touchy 
and defensive 
, too. I've only been here 5 days!
Arpeggio for LeKZ
...need 
, maybe 
, definitely 
Discuss this Journal entry [8]
Latest reply: May 19, 2001
Oh Great... Trapped Again
Posted May 15, 2001
We swore never, ever to use Internet message board type fora again, and here we are. Trifffic. This means we'll get even less accomplished in a day than before. We're going to have to learn to be less wordy. The price we pay for our ridiculously posh education is that we have to post Internet memos in term-paper lengths, depths, detail, and format? This does not make casual chit-chat happen. Are we just too didactic for our own good... never mind, we know we are. Maybe this is the price we have to pay for not having become a University Professor. That's all right then. Getting older every year, while our students stayed perpetually twenty, would have sent us over the edge, early and often.
Reminder to self: there are things that have to be done that are in no way connected with the Guide, the Internet, the computer, or the chair in front of this desk. They should be done soon. Groceries need to be bought. The chemist's needs to be visited. Baths should happen. There are drawings to be drawn and children's rights manifestos to be translated into French, and for some inexplicable reason, also Latin.
The [URL removed by moderator] Action needs to be brought to the attention of the good people here at the Guide. A Guide entry about it might be worth the time.
It's time to leave this site now... no addictive behaviours here... never have been. Dammit, I need a cigarette, a tranquilliser, and a beer!
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: May 15, 2001
Arpeggio - Keeper, Muse, Against Sequiturs, à propos of nothing in particular
Researcher U173889
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