What I wonder is what the term meant twenty years ago in Spain. There are Shiites in various parts of the world, where do you suppose these guys might have been from?
Was it Mark Twain who said that war is how Americans learn geography? It is how they learn history too.
Yeah, when I was growing up we'd say Shiite as a substitute for shit -- not to demean any Muslims, but to technically not be cussing in public. We definitely had no idea what a Shiite was.
Driftwood: Do Americans learn history? I'm not sure about geography, either. I probably couldn't find Iraq on an unlabeled globe and I have three college degrees from very prestigious public schools in the great state of Kansas. (Kansas is the one in the middle, if I remember correctly.)
George: The way hicks like me say shit is shee-uht. I first saw that word in print 15 years ago in a children's library, in a book that "translated" trucker CB lingo. Throughout the book, it kept saying "shee-uht" was trucker-speak for all kinds of different things. I didn't figure it out until I said it out loud.
And I love your new profile pic. Is that somebody famous?
KC: There was a war in Vietnam? When? And everyone knows that Canada is the state where Michael Bolton, Dave Foley, and Alex Trebek come from.
Sure Ben, Americans do learn a bit of history and geography. But they forget as soon as the war is over—was Vietnam the place with the jungle or the desert? So that is why it is so great to have a president who enjoys invading other countries. Because of Bush, Americans know that there are angry Shiites in the world and that some of them live where the oil comes from. Not bad for a self-proclaimed hick from an ivy-league school. (Maybe he couldn’t get into Kansas.)
I started it off, someone else joined in. (dw?) I tried to add a Recent Comments section (because it's hard to keep track), but it didn't seem to be working, so I ditched it. Anyone who knows something I don't should take on that mission.
Yeah, I tacked on a couple of links. And I was thinking of adding a film blog or two that I like. Any thoughts?
Thanks Erin for trying the Recent Comments. If nobody else can be begged into it, I’ll give it try, but such things always take me many hours and much alcohol. So if anybody wants to spare me a hangover, please try. George? You have Recent Comments on your blog, want to paste it in and see if it works?
*****
Oh, and since we seem to have a housekeeping thread underway, I have another suggestion. Why don’t we have a protocol of not posting spoilers on a movie until the first official post—mine will be on Monday—and then assume that all readers have seen the movie and offer no further warning? We could add a subtitle to the name of the blog that would warn any surfers who wandered by. I had a quick look at the html, but I haven’t figured the title out. I’ll poke around a bit more if you all think this is an ok idea.
The settings usually allow a subtitle, and most of the templates have a subtitle field. If not, you can just replace the variables with the text you want, but you'll lose it if you ever change templates. I used to have a manual subtitle like that on my blog because I wanted it to show up a certain way on my profile page and a different way on the blog itself.
The recent comments doesn't work correctly on all browsers, so it's possible that Erin got it right, depending on what browser she used to check it.
You're right, Driftwood, that George is good at this stuff. If you have time, George, maybe you could look into such things.
OK, I added the Recent Comments sidebar; it never works right on kc's computer -- maybe it's a safari thing, though I think it was the same on her machine even in IE.
14 comments:
I thought about that, too. I certainly wouldn't have known before a few years ago.
What I wonder is what the term meant twenty years ago in Spain. There are Shiites in various parts of the world, where do you suppose these guys might have been from?
Was it Mark Twain who said that war is how Americans learn geography? It is how they learn history too.
Yeah, like before the war in Vietnam no one knew where Canada was.
Yeah, when I was growing up we'd say Shiite as a substitute for shit -- not to demean any Muslims, but to technically not be cussing in public. We definitely had no idea what a Shiite was.
What can I say? We were 10 years old.
Driftwood: Do Americans learn history? I'm not sure about geography, either. I probably couldn't find Iraq on an unlabeled globe and I have three college degrees from very prestigious public schools in the great state of Kansas. (Kansas is the one in the middle, if I remember correctly.)
George: The way hicks like me say shit is shee-uht. I first saw that word in print 15 years ago in a children's library, in a book that "translated" trucker CB lingo. Throughout the book, it kept saying "shee-uht" was trucker-speak for all kinds of different things. I didn't figure it out until I said it out loud.
And I love your new profile pic. Is that somebody famous?
KC: There was a war in Vietnam? When? And everyone knows that Canada is the state where Michael Bolton, Dave Foley, and Alex Trebek come from.
Sure Ben, Americans do learn a bit of history and geography. But they forget as soon as the war is over—was Vietnam the place with the jungle or the desert? So that is why it is so great to have a president who enjoys invading other countries. Because of Bush, Americans know that there are angry Shiites in the world and that some of them live where the oil comes from. Not bad for a self-proclaimed hick from an ivy-league school. (Maybe he couldn’t get into Kansas.)
Whoever added those links on the main page, nice job. Thanks.
I started it off, someone else joined in. (dw?) I tried to add a Recent Comments section (because it's hard to keep track), but it didn't seem to be working, so I ditched it. Anyone who knows something I don't should take on that mission.
Yeah, I tacked on a couple of links. And I was thinking of adding a film blog or two that I like. Any thoughts?
Thanks Erin for trying the Recent Comments. If nobody else can be begged into it, I’ll give it try, but such things always take me many hours and much alcohol. So if anybody wants to spare me a hangover, please try. George? You have Recent Comments on your blog, want to paste it in and see if it works?
*****
Oh, and since we seem to have a housekeeping thread underway, I have another suggestion. Why don’t we have a protocol of not posting spoilers on a movie until the first official post—mine will be on Monday—and then assume that all readers have seen the movie and offer no further warning? We could add a subtitle to the name of the blog that would warn any surfers who wandered by. I had a quick look at the html, but I haven’t figured the title out. I’ll poke around a bit more if you all think this is an ok idea.
The settings usually allow a subtitle, and most of the templates have a subtitle field. If not, you can just replace the variables with the text you want, but you'll lose it if you ever change templates. I used to have a manual subtitle like that on my blog because I wanted it to show up a certain way on my profile page and a different way on the blog itself.
The recent comments doesn't work correctly on all browsers, so it's possible that Erin got it right, depending on what browser she used to check it.
You're right, Driftwood, that George is good at this stuff. If you have time, George, maybe you could look into such things.
Sounds like a good plan DW. I'm looking forward to discussing your pick.
OK, I added the Recent Comments sidebar; it never works right on kc's computer -- maybe it's a safari thing, though I think it was the same on her machine even in IE.
On our Mac, it works in Firefox but not Safari.
Thanks George. It is going to be a big help.
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