CRAMULUS

[navkat]

I can't trace shit. My great-grandfather came to NY from Calabria under a different name because he was running from some shit in Italy.

Later, after he cleaned up his mess, the name he came under mysteriously disappeared and a bunch of Cavallaris mysteriously started running shit at South Street Seaport.

We go back, more or less, to about 1870.

But since my family INVENTED "out of wedlock", it is utterly impossible to verify anything before that on my mother's side.

On my dad's side, all evidence points to us being very, very untalented pirates out of Cornwall, who lasted JUST long enough to breed before getting their necks stretched.  We've also been able to pin down 2 famous sheep thieves (WTF?), a whole family of boat wreckers, and a poisoner.

That's fucking fantastic.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I can't trace shit. My great-grandfather came to NY from Calabria under a different name because he was running from some shit in Italy.

Later, after he cleaned up his mess, the name he came under mysteriously disappeared and a bunch of Cavallaris mysteriously started running shit at South Street Seaport.

We go back, more or less, to about 1870.

But since my family INVENTED "out of wedlock", it is utterly impossible to verify anything before that on my mother's side.

On my dad's side, all evidence points to us being very, very untalented pirates out of Cornwall, who lasted JUST long enough to breed before getting their necks stretched.  We've also been able to pin down 2 famous sheep thieves (WTF?), a whole family of boat wreckers, and a poisoner.

That's fucking fantastic.

You can't buy a family history like that.   

[Luna]

Dang.  Farthest back we've gotten is a great-something-granddaddy who fought alongside Washington at Valley Forge.

[Aucoq]

But since my family INVENTED "out of wedlock", it is utterly impossible to verify anything before that on my mother's side.

   That sounds like my family.  When I was younger, I was very interested in trying to find my roots.  But it's pretty much impossible to find any information on my family, both sides, that's earlier than my grandparents because of all the kids out of wedlock, adoptions, etc.  Hell, I bet if you look up my family's crest, it'd feature a mouthless face with the motto "we don't talk about it" written across the top.  I eventually just said screw it and stopped caring altogether, lol.

[Richter]

I was lucky, recently to hear a line of bullshit / oral history explaining an obnoxious state highway and a curiously named area of Providence.

Olneyville is not a place to walk unwary.  One gaming buddy, Drunken Dragon, strolls here often after purchasing head-shop herbs or imbibing as his name suggests, but is the only person I know who can do this with impunity.  (His preferred way of relating to the locals is to cast them into the local canals for the pleasure of the brackish fish people demographic.  He is also one of rare few who can get poleaxed with a 2x4 and not bat and eyelash.) 

Olneyville's culinary claim to fame are the "weiners".  These, so far as I know, are not classifiable as meat, or legal to sell outside of the state.  While they claim they prepare these by the "NY system", no one has ever been able to explain their preparation, composition, or appeal to my satisfaction.  They are cheap hot dogs of american fame, but they always leave you feeling slightly unsettled.

The titular Olneys are long gone.  WAY back (post Revolution they THINK), the Olneys finally found the heat too hot, and got out of town.  No one remembers why.  Bootlegging, cattle rustling, daughter macking, claim jumping, or horse theivery were suspected.  It was likely ALL of these, just one set it off.  So the Olney's got out of Providence.

Before they went, they stripped the house down to a bare frame, and every cow they drove west had some peice of the Olney house strapped to it.  Windows, Mantles, crown molding, doors, all found a bovine lift off and away.

Back then, the arm of the law was long, but not that long.  In fact it was exactly 59 miles long.  The Olneys, swamp yanke practical, went 60.  And Hartford  CT happened.  The path their goods ladden cattle trod is now Rte. 6.  Those who know either may, as I did, get the dawning sense of "Damn.  It makes sense now."

[Disco Pickle]

13 pages and still no Cramulus..

[Luna]

I was lucky, recently to hear a line of bullshit / oral history explaining an obnoxious state highway and a curiously named area of Providence.

Olneyville is not a place to walk unwary.  One gaming buddy, Drunken Dragon, strolls here often after purchasing head-shop herbs or imbibing as his name suggests, but is the only person I know who can do this with impunity.  (His preferred way of relating to the locals is to cast them into the local canals for the pleasure of the brackish fish people demographic.  He is also one of rare few who can get poleaxed with a 2x4 and not bat and eyelash.) 

Olneyville's culinary claim to fame are the "weiners".  These, so far as I know, are not classifiable as meat, or legal to sell outside of the state.  While they claim they prepare these by the "NY system", no one has ever been able to explain their preparation, composition, or appeal to my satisfaction.  They are cheap hot dogs of american fame, but they always leave you feeling slightly unsettled.

The titular Olneys are long gone.  WAY back (post Revolution they THINK), the Olneys finally found the heat too hot, and got out of town.  No one remembers why.  Bootlegging, cattle rustling, daughter macking, claim jumping, or horse theivery were suspected.  It was likely ALL of these, just one set it off.  So the Olney's got out of Providence.

Before they went, they stripped the house down to a bare frame, and every cow they drove west had some peice of the Olney house strapped to it.  Windows, Mantles, crown molding, doors, all found a bovine lift off and away.

Back then, the arm of the law was long, but not that long.  In fact it was exactly 59 miles long.  The Olneys, swamp yanke practical, went 60.  And Hartford  CT happened.  The path their goods ladden cattle trod is now Rte. 6.  Those who know either may, as I did, get the dawning sense of "Damn.  It makes sense now."

"Slightly unsettled" may be an epic understatement.  I was fed three of these just before my first time out on a boat.

I'm still not sure if I got mildly seasick, or my stomach just decided to take offense at the presence of the damn things.

(Hey, at least I got it out over the back of the boat, no cleanup required...)

[LMNO]

13 pages and still no Cramulus..

Contacted him through FB.  He's taking a break to work on personal headspace stuff.

[Jenne]

13 pages and still no Cramulus..

Contacted him through FB.  He's taking a break to work on personal headspace stuff.

someone else told me the same thing.  he'll be missed. 

[Triple Zero]

The word "white", as I have already explained a few times, is just a hotbutton

Then why use it, if it's not the actual point?  Why not just say "middle class"?

I'm not trying to start anything, it's an honest question.

Because "white" is technically accurate...not our fault if it makes people uncomfortable.

How so?  How are middle class black people exempt?

I'm not trying to say that I don't think white people have had it good for a long time, but I take issue with the attempt to make me feel guilty over an issue I have no control over, and feel I haven't contributed to.  So yes, the accusation (if that is a fair word to use) makes me uncomfortable.  I suppose this is something I will need to put a lot more thought into.

I wonder more about the other way around, technically it makes sense because (in America) there are a lot more middle class white people than non-white people, but what about the lower class white people?

That's why I agree with Roger and Cpt.Utopia

"I will agree that there are economic issues. I will agree that there are racial factors in economic issues. But I don't think we project any barriers to other ethnicities."

"It's a white herring."

Maybe it falls nicely together in America, but it's still a herring. If I look at my own surroundings, it'd be ridiculous to outreach to non white people because Discordia is not about race, it'd be much more useful to outreach to lower class people in general, IF we're going to reach out to anyone.

And in fact in the lower strata of income, HERE there's much more intermingling between races than in the middle and upper, it doesn't make sense to me to bring race into the picture, at all. I suspect it's a bigger deal in the US though (probably because the Dutch didn't bring their slaves home very much--we committed our fair share of atrocities though). Most of the racial variety in the Netherlands originates from immigrant waves over the past 50 years or so.
If I were going to address this issue, I'd sooner take up some volunteer work helping immigrants and doing multi-culti projects (both of which are in the long- and shortterm books, respectively), and bring in my Discordian views doing that stuff (which I'd do anywhere anyway some way or another), rather than doing Discordian activities targeting non-white people. That just strikes me as odd and counterproductive.

If you think that using the word "white" is a useful hot button to make people uncomfortable and re-assess their views, it'll be kind of puzzling to the non-American people on this board, cause you're arguing from a cultural perspective I'm quite unfamiliar with (read about it, but can't "feel" it). Though maybe I'll understand better after I visited there.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

As I mentioned, there are racial/cultural shifts happening in my region, and like everyone, that's my point of context... I can't presume to find a universal language that everyone speaks. I'm sure the Netherlands has its own hot buttons! Perhaps you can find them.

[Freeky]

with a pedigree

So do you have purple ribbon blood?

[Richter]

with a pedigree

So do you have purple ribbon blood?

They bleed certificates and awards when you cut them.  At night they huddle in a corner and fear someone might find a drop of red blood in them one day.

[Freeky]

with a pedigree

So do you have purple ribbon blood?

They bleed certificates and awards when you cut them.  At night they huddle in a corner and fear someone might find a drop of red blood in them one day.

I was asking because my old Snowball was PR bred.  We had the papers to prove it.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm generally of the opinion that racism is learned from parents first, reinforced in childhood by being with other children who've learned the same shit, and either unlearned in early adulthood, or otherwise carried through life like a virus, ready to infect their children as well.

Balls.  My parents were/are the classic aging lefties, and my sister is a racist shitneck.

Is it any different than the anti-italianism of the late 1800's/ early 1900's?  And was that, in your opinion, driven by the same thinking?

No different.  Same with the anti-Irish thing of the same period.

It's easier for the upper-class to tell the middle and working classes that [insert recent immigrant population] are taking our jobs than creating new jobs in the first place. Cuz that would mean they'd have to pay more people for working for them. And the middle and working classes buy into it, while the upper class sits back with a cognac and a cubano.

you believe it's origin is from the upper class instead of cultural, religious, and language differences being the driving factor?  

The fact is that when Italians of that era began migrating here in mass, they WERE working for less wages in order to survive, suffered from religious discrimination for being catholic and faced other common stereotypes.  

Racism also exists among rich people of different ethnicity but similar socioeconomic background.  How does that fit in with what you said?   And how is this message being delivered to the working and middle class people?  I know newspapers of the time could be pretty damn blatently racists, but considering literacy rates among the poor of that time, it doesn't account for the sheer amount of it happening in the public arena.

I believe that the origins of it are no longer the driving factor, but rather a convenient excuse. Racism/cultural and religious differences have always made convenient excuses.

I'll give an example in a different setting, because it's one that I have some familiarity with. Prior to the partition of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican movement was made up just as much of Protestants and atheists as they were of Catholics. Indeed, some of the leaders of the Republican movement were Protestant. Theobald Wolfetone jumps to mind (My father pitched the idea of naming me Wolfetone. My mother shot that down right away). However, since most of the Protestants lived in the north, it was easy for the British to justify partitioning Ireland based on old tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Rather convenient too, because if I recall correctly, most of the industry in Ireland at the time was located in Ulster. The factory owners were Protestant and loyal to London.

Print isn't the only way that you can disseminate these ideas. Preachers are pretty good at it, and nowadays you also have radio and television. Radio and television is especially important for that these days.

As far as how racism fits in with the upper-class with people who discriminate against people of the same tax bracket? I don't know. The upper-class people that I've known don't really give a crap about race, but then again, I live in Massachusetts. Not saying that racism doesn't exist here, but if someone here is racist they're going to keep their mouth shut. In my experience actual racism is embraced by lower class people who need someone to blame for their inability to move up in the world.