Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 11:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Turning into butter, was RE: faith
Steve,
Do you remember in what childhood story, things run round and round a
tree until they turn into butter?
My mixed allusions were definitely intentional. The reference of
course, is how we, the FRIAM community are very good at hashing and
rehashing the same material until even those of us doing the hashing (can
you find the etymology for hashing?) are even tired enough of the sight of
our own tails that we might as well turn into butter from all that
agitation.
The story of course, would be "Little Black Sambo" where he lead the Tigers
out to eat him for breakfast to chase one another around a palm tree until
they turned to butter (something about vanity amongst the
tigers who had first stolen his clothing, etc.). This story, of course
is now totally and completely politically incorrect, though the Sambo was a
very dark southern Indian boy I believe as opposed to a Black African Slave
in the southern US as many people assume. (else it would have been
panthers?)
In any case, the restaurant chain "Sambo's" who used the boy and his tigers
as Icons made a mean stack of pancakes with plenty of *butter* (which as a
child I was sure was made of melted tigers). The Chain has either gone
defunct or changed it's name.
Those things weren't monkeys, weasels, OR MULBERRY BUSHES.
If I can mix metaphors, surely I can mix nursery rhymes and childrens
stories of various origins... when I first heard those stories I had never
seen a weasel, a monkey, a tiger, a mulberry bush or a black person. And
yet somehow the stories made sense... how is THAT for Faith?
Ever hear the one about... Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?
Hint: No teacher would read this story to a child, nowadays.
My sister had a black life-sized infant doll handed down through the family,
known as a "tar baby" referencing the days when white slaveholding children
were allowed to "play" with slaves' babies... as
if they were dolls. I remember when my mother explained how totally
politically incorrect (there was no term for this, it was just explained as
"wrong headed") the whole situation was... until then, my sister
thought it was "just another doll". I lived in a secluded southwestern
rural area where I'd never seen a "person of color"... well, plenty of
Native Americans and descendents of Spanish Conquistadors, but no African
Americans, and no TV either, though I suppose pictures in Encyclopedias and
Nat'l Geographics?
-----Original Message-----
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 5:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith
Doug -
Congratulations on avoiding another opportunity to become someone's
hood ornament!
Apropo of nothing, of course, except that I retain my faith that they
are out to get me when I'm on the motorcycle.
However, for the sake of the Monkey, the Weasel and the Mulberry bush,
I contend that your use of the world "faith" here aligns with my use
of the word "Faith" in general and roughly matches what those who I
believe you revile (or at least chide) do. You (as they) choose a
*working
statement* which has no basis in fact (has been refuted or at least
can't be verified), but which *works well for you* and the *rhetoric*
of the statement plays well within your community (of other riders who
subscribe to the same Faith).
I think I'm turning to butter.
- Steve
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe
at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
