Tell your senators to defeat the Bush-Cheney energy bill
 

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

Yeah, that's what I thought. And so we see once again, boys and girls,
that
there is no one in this world so easily led astray as an expert.....or a
ROFFian....but then, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Clemens, I repeat myself.

Wolfgang

Well on further thought and reflection, I think I understand the nature of
your question.

I don't believe that I was lead astray, though that's not a difficult task
for someone to accomplish. I never strayed from my agenda of simply
pointing out that, whatever the merits of his point "You might be able to
better link natural resource use and world population, but it might not make
that much of a difference where the people are actually located." , he had
chosen a poor example to use to illustrate it, since the example was based
on an incorrect assumption. I think that the point he states is valid.
However, I certainly don't consider myself an expert on the specific impacts
of global population on resource use, and I try to avoid answering
questions - especially in a public forum - that I don't have good data or at
least a good logical basis to answer. An honest consultant will be as ready
to point out those questions which he considers himself no more qualified to
answer than most anyone else, as he is to answer those questions on which he
has expertise.

I tend to think that our immigration policy has many problems, not the least
of which is the vulnerability of illegal aliens to exploitation, and that
our policy needs to be reformed. However, I am clueless as to what type of
reform would solve many of the existing problems without creating new
problems and/or exacerbating some of the existing ones, so I try to avoid
direct entry into such debates.


--
Bob Weinberger
La, Grande, OR

place a dot between bobs and stuff and remove invalid to send email

Tell your senators to defeat the Bush-Cheney energy bill
 

"steve sullivan" wrote in message
...
In article , JR wrote:



Do you see people against Mexican's who have legally followed the law
and have a green card working here? I havent.

You haven't been in SW Kansas lately have you?

Tell your senators to defeat the Bush-Cheney energy bill
 

wrote in message
...
On 30 Jan 2004 21:20:28 GMT, "David Snedeker"
wrote:

(greatly snipped)

they often get weird, stop looking service people in the eye, get
freaky about the food, and persnickety about "service", or even talking
to
people.

Hey, I've been that lib. It's a bummer to realize it, too. I still
can't figure if it was fear, unfamiliarity, or finding the shoe on the
other foot. Probably a combination, as it's not always the case.
--


I think its a normal and honest reaction. I just can't stand the
defensive/denial preachy stuff that somesuchfolk seem to feel is necessary
afterward to compensate for a feeling that they do not want to acknowledge.

That feeling should be a reminder that difference is real, and openness to
real difference mostly needs to be conscious. By real difference I mean
situations in which whatever the "You" is, is not in control, numerically,
power-wise etc.. Situations where the difference is not merely racial or
linguistic. That feeling that probably creeps out of our primordial nose
curl when we accidentally stepped into a strange camp clearing, instantly
smelled that it weren't aunties rabbits cooking and gripped our spear just a
little tighter till we could see that their word for food did not sound like
the name of our tribe. A big dollop of hyperbole here but I do mean
something primordial.

University and high-end employment environments are full of people who kid
themselves into thinking that their professional associations with
co-workers or students of a different race etc, BUT the SAME CLASS, somehow
characterizes and gives them a special understanding that extends to the
rest of the group. Most often I think real differences are trivialized in
that process.

I think race and language are both basic differences and amplifiers of
difference. But education, economic, geo/historic and cultural differences,
in my opinion, make those basic differences even harder to bridge. And the
difficulty in bridging those differences is at the heart of some of our
country's big failings. I think the individual has a better chance of
overcoming difference if we recognize it.

Dave