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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2020 14:23:36 GMT -5
It’s doesn’t matter. Peace to the dead.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Aug 2, 2020 18:58:51 GMT -5
Taking this discussion off on a different, but related tack (and hopefully diffusing any political ho-hah that may be brewing), I've never really agreed with the old adage that you should never speak ill of the dead. While I do think that it's a noble idea and is certainly the polite thing to do, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, "in death we wear the chains we forged in life." If you've been a bit of a shit when you were alive, then people should absolutely be able to call you out on it when you're dead.
I'm not even really talking about famous figures here. I'm more thinking about folks we've all known in our real lives. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, a guy who was a bit of a colourful, local character in my area died, and lots of folks on Facebook were saying what a wonderful chap he was and how everybody loved him. But I didn't. I worked with him for a time at a small mail order record store about 12 years ago and he was without doubt one of the most bad tempered, sexist, bigoted and inconsiderate assholes that I've ever had the misfortune to know. I feel no sorrow at his passing at all and I wouldn't hesitate to tell anyone who's interested exactly what I thought of him.
I just think it's a bit two-faced and also does a disservice to yourself if you hated someone or bore a grudge against them while they were alive, but you start saying how wonderful they are when they pop their clogs. I dunno, I just don't see the sense in revising your opinion of someone just because they're dead.
What do you guys and gals think?
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2020 19:19:58 GMT -5
Taking this discussion off on a different, but related tack (and hopefully diffusing any political ho-hah that may be brewing), I've never really agreed with the old adage that you should never speak ill of the dead. While I do think that it's a noble idea and is certainly the polite thing to do, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, "in death we wear the chains we forged in life." If you've been a bit of a shit when you were alive, then people should absolutely be able to call you out on it when you're dead. I'm not even really talking about famous figures here. I'm more thinking about folks we've all known in our real lives. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, a guy who was a bit of a colourful, local character in my area died, and lots of folks on Facebook were saying what a wonderful chap he was and how everybody loved him. But I didn't. I worked with him for a time at a small mail order record store about 12 years ago and he was without doubt one of the most bad tempered, sexist, bigoted and inconsiderate assholes that I've ever had the misfortune to know. I feel no sorrow at his passing at all and I wouldn't hesitate to tell anyone who's interested exactly what I thought of him. I just think it's a bit two-faced and also does a disservice to yourself if you hated someone or bore a grudge against them while they were alive, but you start saying how wonderful they are when they pop their clogs. I dunno, I just don't see the sense in revising your opinion of someone just because they're dead. What do you guys and gals think? This RIP thread is 147 pages long and it it usually just a way of spreading the news of a notable person who has passed away. I don't believe that I've read many people getting savaged on these pages. Just because a person Is a politician doesn't mean that the usual rules of class and mercy shouldn't apply. In more than a few threads I've seen little snide comments being thrown at politicians , I guess the lack of a political thread has caused some people to throw cheap shots where they can. We already lost a few members to these types of discussions, I don't know why people that can't fight the temptation to take shots at Dems or Republicans are willing to risk more people walking away.
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Post by brutalis on Aug 2, 2020 19:50:28 GMT -5
Never "willingly" speak ill of the dead is my motto. Every person has loved ones and every person has enemies. A death is NOT the time to speak negatively when you are only "hurting" those who cared about the deceased. If you can't say it to their face when they were alive then there is no reason to say it after their passing.
Now it is another thing entirely down the line if others ask my opinion, but it can be expressed in polite ways without turning it into a personal attack upon the deceased.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 2, 2020 21:09:01 GMT -5
Shit people aren’t suddenly rehabilitated because they died. Some people simply made the world a worse place because of their life.
And no, I’m not necessarily talking about a particular recently dead person. As a general rule I’ll ignore the death of assholes here as a matter of board decorum. But that doesn’t mean my thoughts aren’t “good riddance.” And I absolutely express that thought other places.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2020 22:00:50 GMT -5
Shit people aren’t suddenly rehabilitated because they died. Some people simply made the world a worse place because of their life. And no, I’m not necessarily talking about a particular recently dead person. As a general rule I’ll ignore the death of assholes here as a matter of board decorum. But that doesn’t mean my thoughts aren’t “good riddance.” And I absolutely express that thought other places. In some cases, someone dying is addition by subtraction for the world. I just usually hold my tongue in those cases, as others have said as a matter of decorum. If someone chooses not to do so, that's their choice and I'll respect that too. There are harsh truths people don't want to face/see, but it doesn't change that they are truths. -M
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Post by junkmonkey on Aug 3, 2020 6:22:15 GMT -5
And parochial politics too. The USA has 4% of the world's population. I'm guessing most of the other people in the world - the other 96%, even those who sort of follow American politics like me - will have never heard of this man until now. I had to look him up.
Let's be nice. This is one of the places I come to to avoid petty politicking.
BTW - I also have no idea who John McNamara was - or even what 'The Red Sox' or 'The Mets' are (I'm guessing from context sporting teams of some kind).
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,411
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Post by Confessor on Aug 3, 2020 6:38:50 GMT -5
BTW - I also have no idea who John McNamara was - or even what 'The Red Sox' or 'The Mets' are (I'm guessing from context sporting teams of some kind). The Boston Red Sox and The New York Mets are two Major League Baseball teams in America. I'm surprised you don't know them because I would've said that both teams were reasonably well known in the UK -- especially the Mets! But maybe that's just because I'm really interested in American society and social history...perhaps that skews my view of what is common knowledge about American society over here. I actually went to watch the Red Sox play at Fenway Park stadium in Boston back in 2018 and though I generally loathe sport, it was one of the most enjoyable sporting events I've watched. Baseball -- especially live Baseball -- is a great game and well worth attending. As for John McNamara, I'd heard of him and knew he was a big name in 70s, 80s and 90s baseball, but I really couldn't have told you much more than that.
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Post by junkmonkey on Aug 3, 2020 6:54:01 GMT -5
I think I'm fairly safe in saying baseball is incomprehensible to most British people. I know whenever I watch a film in which people get excited about a baseball game, or use baseball metaphors, and are saying things like "He's got a 346 batting average and with the midfield loaded in the third quarter and the second base is loaded..." They might as well be saying: "Bladdy wahff-lunk wibble wibble...." for all the sense it makes.
I don't understand cricket either - though I do distinctly remember seeing a player move once.
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Post by sabongero on Aug 3, 2020 8:43:22 GMT -5
No comments on the last couple of pages of discussion on that particular recently deceased person. Whoever that is, at least no more suffering physically. Of course this is coming from someone whose got renal kidney failure and needs a machine to stay alive three times per week, disabled after a hit and run. So whew... glad to still be part of the living.
I just want to comment on the RIP Thread to say, hopefully we don't have any more deaths from writers and illustrators of the select few from the Silver Age that are still alive this year.
Have a good day everyone.
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Post by junkmonkey on Aug 3, 2020 9:44:05 GMT -5
Another political one (sorry) and someone I do think of as heroic. John Hume did more than most, and more than most people thought right, proper, or possible in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland. "Politics," he once said, "is the alternative to war." He won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and the Martin Luther King Award. We need more like him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13945530
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 3, 2020 9:52:19 GMT -5
Another political one (sorry) and someone I do think of as heroic. John Hume did more than most, and more than most people thought right, proper, or possible in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland. "Politics," he once said, "is the alternative to war." He won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and the Martin Luther King Award. We need more like him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13945530Thank you for spelling Gandhi correctly. If I see "Ghandi" one more time....
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 3, 2020 10:09:10 GMT -5
BTW - I also have no idea who John McNamara was - or even what 'The Red Sox' or 'The Mets' are (I'm guessing from context sporting teams of some kind). The Boston Red Sox and The New York Mets are two Major League Baseball teams in America. I'm surprised you don't know them because I would've said that both teams were reasonably well known in the UK -- especially the Mets! But maybe that's just because I'm really interested in American society and social history...perhaps that skews my view of what is common knowledge about American society over here. I actually went to watch the Red Sox play at Fenway Park stadium in Boston back in 2018 and though I generally loathe sport, it was one of the most enjoyable sporting events I've watched. Baseball -- especially live Baseball -- is a great game and well worth attending.As for John McNamara, I'd heard of him and knew he was a big name in 70s, 80s and 90s baseball, but I really couldn't have told you much more than that. Thank you for that! McNamara was a dour, grumpy baseball lifer who managed the Red Sox to the American League East flag in 1986 and took them to the World Series after they climbed out of a 3-1 hole in the seven-game pennant playoff against the Angels. Hoping to break what was then a 68-year-old "curse," the Sox took a 2-0 lead, squandered it, but took a 3-2 lead in Game Five, went two runs ahead ahead in extra innings in Game Six and proceeded to blow that lead and the game in stunning, but typically Red Soxish fashion. Mc Namara was roundly criticized for sitting on his hands while his top relief pitcher looked like the classic deer in the headlights, and also for allowing his veteran first baseman to remain in the game instead of taking him out for a more limber player as he'd been doing throughout the series when the Sox were ahead. The Sox still had one game left for all the marbles, but, though they took a 3-0 lead in Game Seven, it all came crashing down late in the game and the Sox went home to Mudville one more time. They had not won a Series since 1918, the last year that they had Babe Ruth on the roster. Selling him to the hated Yankees that off-season was the blasphemous act for which the baseball gods placed a curse on the Sox. They only made it to the Series twice between '18 and '86 ('46 and '67), losing both times, in the seventh game, in excruciating fashion. Those years, along with 1948, 1949, 1978, and 2003, were the stigmata borne by legions of Sox fans. Until 2004, when the curse was broken in spectacular, storybook fashion. Since then, the Red Sox have also won the Series (handily each time) in 207, 2013 and the season you witnessed them, 2018. Poor Johnny Mac could have been the manager who took the Sox to the Promised Land 34 years ago, but alas, it was not to be. he was fired midway through the '87 season. But as I said, his stand on behalf of Reggie Jackson and other Black players in the Jim Crow South expiates any and all of his baseball mistakes for me.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 3, 2020 10:31:33 GMT -5
He might be criticized for keeping his lousy relievers in the game but the Buckner error wasn’t his fault. The ball was hit right at Buckner, and he booted it. It had nothing to do with his mobility. It’s a shame that Buckner is known for that error, as he was a borderline Hall of Farmer with 2700 hits and a batting title in his career.
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Post by junkmonkey on Aug 3, 2020 10:42:24 GMT -5
If I see "Ghandi" one more time.... My spellchecker red-squiggly underlines 'Ghandi' as a typo, even with a capitol, and suggests 'Gandhi' and 'Longhand' as corrections. Someone in Firefox HQ knows how to spell.
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