[Mr.PD]

Hey!
Life expectancy is up because of power tools

 

[BDA_ABAT]

Y'all should watch the latest George Carlin HBO show... You're All Diseased. Does a wonderful series on the obsession with cleanliness in our society.

Bruce

 

[kerelybonto]

mbriant, that definition is partially correct, but you have to add the intent to destroy the group. That is integral to the meaning of the word, which was coined in 1943, after the Holocaust. And that's where the acts of the last century differ significantly from the past. The examples you give are not genocide because the Romans had no intention of killing every Jew, just those who were challenging their authority. Nor were they killing them because they were Jews, but because they were the enemy. The same is true for the other examples; remember that the Western conception of combatants and non-combatants did not exist for much of history. Nor did the idea of being nice to the people you conquer.

Lots of things are called genocide that are not. Take the Khmer Rouge killings, wherein about 1.5M Cambodians were killed or died as the result of actions of the regime. That's not genocide. It's impossible for Cambodians to commit genocide against themselves; rather, that was simply very large-scale political violence. Much the same was the case in Stalin's perpetration of the Ukranian famine, the Turk's "Armenian Genocide," and most other large-scale killings.

The Rwandan violence might qualify since Tutsis and Hutus were generally killing each other simply because of their ethnicity. The various Yugoslav incidents might fit the definition as well, since a primary motive was again ethnicity. Even these cases are hard to distinguish, since, for example, in the Yugoslav case, the violence stemmed from a nationalist political agenda. It's even more difficult to call these cases genocide when each group is killing the other.

The only historical incidence that clearly fits the definition is the one it was made for: the Holocaust. It's clearly different from all the others in many ways besides its scope: the Nazis targetted Jews and other groups for no other reason than their ethnicity. There were no qualifiers.

Anyway, I understand your point that today is not generally more violent than the past. I agree with you there. But I find it very intersting that in the century when "tolerism" is generally thought to have taken hold, we saw for the first time people killing each other for no reasons other than what they looked like, how they spoke, and where they came from.

By the way, when has the UN ever made peace?

kerelybonto

 

[kelly]

For the record: even though I initiated this thread and the holocaust is now being discussed in it, I have *no connection* to this. None. Not me.

Ok, I let it go for four pages before posting my views so I think most of you who want to respond or vote already have.

I always wash my hands after doing anything in any bathroom, public or otherwise. I also try to always wash before I eat (though I don't always manage it).

I think somehow whatever we're taught when we're little really sticks... and in an almost obsessive way. I'm really deeply irritated when I'm actually in a public restroom and the other guy there doesn't wash his hands.

So logic kicked in and I started thinking about it. And the truth is that yeah, someone's privates are probably cleaner than his or her hands--if for no other reason than urine's primary ingrediant being ammonia. So now, I'm not only bugged that people don't wash their hands but I'm bugged that I've discovered my neurotic tendency to be bugged by something that probably doesn't matter.

And it still bugs me.

For me this was just an introspection thing and I wanted to see if anyone else got emotional about it. I definitely see fewer than 70% of people washing their hands in the public restrooms I've been in so that tells me that you guys are on the cleaner side of the average. That's not really surprising, I think there are a few Type As among us.

Thanks for participating.

 

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

Quote:

Originally posted by jlo mein i try not to use public washrooms, as in Canada they arent as clean as in the US. Seriously, everywhere i go in the US they have those paper toilet seat cover things so your @ss never comes in contact with the actual toilet seat. AWESOME! lol...but in Canada almost everywhere you go you will NOT find these.... I tend to wash my hands a lot...always like the clean smell of soap....plus i wash my face like 6 times a day....i dunno...it always feels dirty after i take a walk outside....

Last time I checked B.C. didn't account for all of Canada. I have found the Canadian facilities I have used to be generally cleaner then U.S. ones but overall I would think it varies from washroom to washroom, not country to country lol.

Of course maybe you live in the boonies where they don't have toilet covers haha. j/k

Biggie.

 

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

Quote:

Originally posted by Duncan I went for the 'I never use them' option... Bleuch!! The last time that I went into a public loo, I saw two people doing a 'George Michael' That was enough for me, went out - and never been brave enough to go back

<hurls>

I got to stop reading this thread lol...

 

[Driftwood]

truth be told, I am a compulsive hand-washer. It is my philosophy that if one enters a public bathroom, no matter what reason, one must wash their hands before exiting. Even if you are looking for a different room and accidently find yourself looking into a public bathroom, IMO, you have to go in and wash your hands before you continue on.

maybe a bit obsessive, but it always disturbs me when I am in a restaurant and I see someone come out of a stall and exit without even pausing a moment or looking a bit guilty before leaving a bathroom and going back to eating...

of course, I must wash my hands 20 times a day, but this is because I have pretty oily hands, and if I don't do so, sitting at a keyboard all day can get pretty nasty, having oily keys, and ... ugh.

Driftwood

 

[Driftwood]

oh, and speaking about unsettling things in public restrooms, evidently my university is listed on some website as one of the top 10 places in the United States for bathrooms to go to if you want to get anonymous gay sex. This information was given to me by the local newspaper, and I didn't bother to check there references, but either way that is disturbing. Fortunately, I have never seen any of these things happening as this seems to mainly occur in the Fine Arts building, and I am not a Fine Arts person...

Still, I try to avoid the public bathrooms here when possible to save myself from witnessing something I really don't want to see.

Driftwood

 

[RVD]

Quote:

evidently my university is listed on some website as one of the top 10 places in the United States for bathrooms to go to if you want to get anonymous gay sex.

Time to switch to another university.