Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[Dr_Heech]

3 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

....

On your other point, I wouldn’t care if someone thought I was from a different part of the British Isles, even Scotland!

Oh you're definitely from London mate 

[Talan]

4 hours ago, Duke Mantee said:

If someone was being deliberately disrespectful or insensitive then I’ve no doubt it might cause upset. I don’t believe that was the situation being discussed mate.

Not being served meat or alcohol in Hindu or Muslim restaurants in India is not the same thing as being served meat and/or alcohol in Indian* restaurants in the UK (or elsewhere). In the non-tourist areas of India you mention the restaurant would (normally) be serving food and drink to those of the same cultural background and the same faith. In the UK they are most likely serving food and drink to people of quite different backgrounds.

Those restaurant/food outlet owners have chosen to do this.

Maybe a better analogy was required?

 

Indian* is British - most would be born in the UK and hold British passports.

Well, I suppose that serving meat in a restaurant that positions itself as "Indian" is quite insensitive, for some people even offencive. Like making repro jeans with triangular pockets in the rear...) The way out is quite obvious, either position the restaurant not as "Indian", but as not strictly tied to any particular tradition - that's what they do in tourist places in Mumbai, or don't claim jeans to be strictly repro, and do what you want in either case.

[Flash]

 I work with a few Indian fellas and they all eat meat ... no idea what religion they are because I don't care there nice lads , one fella Tommy even brought in chicken curry for a load of us before we stopped for summer holidays last year . @Talan I honestly think your conflating religion and nationality in this 

How about getting back to some nonsense related to denim or whatnot now? 

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I'll play...

A rare ray of light (indigo)

And some Carnival action

[Dr_Heech]

5 minutes ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

 

Head to toe in Kapital ?

 

[Talan]

40 minutes ago, Flash said:

 I work with a few Indian fellas and they all eat meat ... no idea what religion they are because I don't care there nice lads , one fella Tommy even brought in chicken curry for a load of us before we stopped for summer holidays last year . @Talan I honestly think your conflating religion and nationality in this 

How about getting back to some nonsense related to denim or whatnot now? 

About 15% percent of people in India are muslims, they eat meat. However, ask muslims about pork. I am okay with all religions and all traditions. I just find it insensitive not to respect any. 

[Maynard Friedman]

This could run and run…

[Double 0 Soul]

These are just statistics though.. the UK is considered a Christian country but visit any church which hasn't already been converted into a house, gym or bar and it's ever dwindling congregation of worshipers will tell you otherwise... my folks for instance have never been to church in their lives but would always tick Christianity on the census form because they're old school, they were christened and possibly sang Kumbaya at school therefore contributing to the statistical anomaly. 

..a friend of mine who considers himself a modern-iranian is never seen without a glass of red wine in his hand.. i asked him years ago if his religion allowed him to drink alcohol and he said "well i'm probably as good at being a muslim as you are at being a christian" ..and i left it at that.

[Flash]

1 hour ago, Talan said:

About 15% percent of people in India are muslims, they eat meat. However, ask muslims about pork. I am okay with all religions and all traditions. I just find it insensitive not to respect any. 

Who isn't respecting religion or whatever here ? Mate we all get along in this little corner of the Internet so let's keep it that way instead of trying to get one up on each other 

[Dr_Heech]

I've had enough, l'm off to get a chinese.

 

[Double 0 Soul]

I went for a tramp in the woods earlier..

..i didn't like the way he was looking at me

[Duke Mantee]

30 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

I've had enough, l'm off to get a chinese.

 

Fuck sake - don’t you start as well Doc! Do you mean Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Szechuan or Zhejiang?

[Talan]

36 minutes ago, Flash said:

Who isn't respecting religion or whatever here ? Mate we all get along in this little corner of the Internet so let's keep it that way instead of trying to get one up on each other 

Did I accuse anyone of anything? I was merely expressing the opinion that it is insensitive to serve meat and alcohol in a restaurant that positions itself as a traditional Indian restaurant. It's equally insensitive to serve pork or non-halal food in a Muslim restaurant. Or serve non-kosher in traditional Jewish restaurant. If someone wants to mix everything in the world, that's fine with me. It' makes no sense to demand sensitivity from anyone and everyone. All is fine.
 

[Dr_Heech]

19 minutes ago, Duke Mantee said:

Fuck sake - don’t you start as well Doc! Do you mean Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Szechuan or Zhejiang?

I dunno Duke, just got a chicken fried rice, chips and a barbecue sauce and a can of Lilt, l mean a can of fanta pineapple and grapefruit 

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Dr_Heech

[Double 0 Soul]

My kid introduced me to something called a Tango Ice Blast recently.. I had blue and pink flavour.. haven’t felt that wired since 1989 

[Flash]

15 minutes ago, Talan said:

Did I accuse anyone of anything? I was merely expressing the opinion that it is insensitive to serve meat and alcohol in a restaurant that positions itself as a traditional Indian restaurant. It's equally insensitive to serve pork or non-halal food in a Muslim restaurant. Or serve non-kosher in traditional Jewish restaurant. If someone wants to mix everything in the world, that's fine with me. It' makes no sense to demand sensitivity from anyone and everyone. All is fine.
 

I'm having a hard time following all this mate , to be honest it all seems like nonsense to me and arguing for the sake of arguing ...... anyway .... what jeans you been wearing recently? 

[Maynard Friedman]

14 minutes ago, Talan said:

I was merely expressing the opinion that it is insensitive to serve meat and alcohol in a restaurant that positions itself as a traditional Indian restaurant. 

But we’ve explained (I’m running out of fingers to count the number of times on here…) that the Indian restaurants being discussed are not traditional/vegetarian/Hindi, etc. They are a generic South Asian proposition, selling food (that may or may not not even exist in South Asia) to primarily (but not exclusively) a multicultural British clientele. Your point isn’t relevant as far as this discussion is concerned but if you want us to say you’re right, then yes, you’re right, so you can high five yourself and stop now.

[StuartM]

10 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

My kid introduced me to something called a Tango Ice Blast recently.. I had blue and pink flavour.. haven’t felt that wired since 1989 

I drove past a sign for a sandwich shop last week, it advertised breakfast, lunch and Tango Ice Blast. 

[Double 0 Soul]

It’s almost biohazard in its toxicity.. yet not entirely unpleasant

[Talan]

8 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

But we’ve explained (I’m running out of fingers to count the number of times on here…) that the Indian restaurants being discussed are not traditional/vegetarian/Hindi, etc. They are a generic South Asian proposition, selling food (that may or may not not even exist in South Asia) to primarily (but not exclusively) a multicultural British clientele. Your point isn’t relevant as far as this discussion is concerned but if you want us to say you’re right, then yes, you’re right, so you can high five yourself and stop now.

That's what I was trying to say, "generic proposition" which is being presented as Indian is not, and moreover, ignores tradition and sentiment. But, you're correct, I have said it many times, and whoever wanted to hear it, heard it. I don't care to be right. 

[Talan]

13 minutes ago, Flash said:

I'm having a hard time following all this mate , to be honest it all seems like nonsense to me and arguing for the sake of arguing ...... anyway .... what jeans you been wearing recently? 

Freewheelers Walden corduroy pants today. Iron Heart 634s yesterday, I wear some thick denim in cold part of the year.

[Maynard Friedman]

Forget Lilt, I just found this at the back of the fridge

[Maynard Friedman]

When I was travelling around Latin America, I wasn’t able to find anyone to hold a conversation in Latin with me. I can’t begin to tell you how offended I was.

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

I found philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah’s The Lies that Bind a pretty compelling read. 

[Geeman]

10 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Are you happy with South Asian restaurant? Indian subcontinent restaurant?

On your other point, I wouldn’t care if someone thought I was from a different part of the British Isles, even Scotland!

I'd draw the line at Sheffield though

[ColonelAngus]

2 hours ago, Talan said:

Did I accuse anyone of anything? I was merely expressing the opinion that it is insensitive to serve meat and alcohol in a restaurant that positions itself as a traditional Indian restaurant. It's equally insensitive to serve pork or non-halal food in a Muslim restaurant. Or serve non-kosher in traditional Jewish restaurant. If someone wants to mix everything in the world, that's fine with me. It' makes no sense to demand sensitivity from anyone and everyone. All is fine.
 

You’re not one of these woke ideologues that had to undergo sensitivity training are you? 

[Talan]

1 hour ago, ColonelAngus said:

You’re not one of these woke ideologues that had to undergo sensitivity training are you? 

You're trying to turn the conversation to a discussion of my qualities? Actually, this kind of diversion is a demagogic trick. Are you a demagogue?  

Why not to talk about something else?

[MJF9]

3 hours ago, Talan said:

insensitive to serve meat and alcohol in a restaurant that positions itself as a traditional Indian restaurant.

What is a traditional Indian restaurant in your eyes anyway?

It's a fact that India is a mix of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists etc etc (forgive me those who I've missed), despite the reported efforts to force-change that mix 

So traditional Indian literally has many flavours - let's not forget that

I therefore expect it's 100% ok for traditional Indian Christian restaurants to serve wine; traditional Indian Muslim restaurants to serve only Halal; etc etc... non of that would be insensitive in the setting based on the respective tradition

[Double 0 Soul]

2 hours ago, Geeman said:

I'd draw the line at Sheffield though

"Sheffield, North of Nowhere"   The Designers Republic

[chicote]

I get the sense that @Talan is a deeply analytical and categorical thinker, based on his observation above as well as in other instances on the forum (I remember him making a recent observation —paraphrasing here— that you can, technically speaking, avoid consuming solid food as you can consume sufficient calories by drinking alcohol).

I have a family member who thinks and speaks in a very similar way, and who can sometimes be ostracized in social situations by being perceived as needlessly antagonistic or frustratingly difficult to understand. However, I’d like to believe that many of the stances people who think this way take are well thought-out, even though they may not make immediate sense to people around them.

If any of you are familiar with Data from Star Trek, that might be a good analogue: he is usually always thinking about things deeply ‘logically’ and categorically, and is often used as a gag to show how out-of-touch his thinking is with the rest of his crew members, but just as often his way of thinking is crucial to getting the others to see something they might not see otherwise.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how vast and expansive the human mind is, and how impossibly many different ways each of our minds can develop; how we learn to socialize, to address problems, to connect ideas and process traumas, these are affected not just by the culture we grow up in and the education we are afforded but also by subtle differences in the chemical compositions of our brains and our genetics, foods we have access to as infants, environmental hazards we’re exposed to and so many other factors that we are all still discovering as a species.

And yet, in modern, Western capitalist society, there are certain few “modes” of thinking which are celebrated and valued above others. Deeply focused, traditionally educated master tradespeople, as we all know, are dying off and not being replaced; instead, our schools and universities prioritize creative, abstract thinkers who are “well-rounded” and able to “multitask” — at the same time that as a society, our attention span is plummeting and diagnoses of attention disorders are skyrocketing. And yet other types of “creative” thinkers - artists, poets, writers - are systematically losing significant portions of funding and support from educational institutions, from elementary education on up.

In the last ten or so years, I’ve known a significant number of people, mainly adults, receive diagnoses of autism or one of the related diagnoses that are on “the spectrum”. Overwhelmingly, these people are quite successful: they are engineers, mathematicians, carpenters and machinists, or work in related fields.

Generally speaking, for these people, their diagnosis does not seem to carry the stigma it did even a decade prior, when I was in elementary school and our class was segregated into the “gifted program”, those in need of “special attention”, and everybody else. The hierarchy of attention and value in these classes didn’t need to be spelled out to us, even as first-graders.

I’m glad that things today aren’t what they were then, as our society is starting to recognize that people do not need to fit a singular model of “success” or “sociability” to be happy and make positive contributions to their communities.

I’m glad particularly because I can remember how these students who were placed in the “special attention” tier were treated: with strict rules and surveillance by the schools, and cruelty or ignorance by us students. And yet, maybe all these students needed was an outlet for their explosive energy, or a long-term project or complicated problem to focus their analytical mind. Maybe many of us in the “regular” class could have benefited from such an opportunity also, but we “fit in” too well to warrant the attention. And maybe many of the “gifted” students might also be neurodivergent in their own ways; their differences just happened to have been noticed in a more encouraging and celebratory light.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that some of the types of thinkers who are accepted, popular and successful in our society also expose the cruelty and exclusivity of our current system. (It’s shocking to read about the numbers of diagnosed “sociopaths” populating the executive levels of the global corporate elite.)

All this is to say that, our brains all have their own wildly individual characteristics, and our ways of understanding each individual’s cognitive function all depend on the values of the society or community that we grow up in. (And certainly nobody needs to be “diagnosed” to be accepted and understood!) Perhaps we are all more or less a group of like-minded individuals here, but I’d wager that we are all inherently a lot more different than we are alike, and that our respective adaptations to our society’s pressures have gotten us all to the point where we can pretty well get along. Plenty of people have come to this community in the decade I’ve been part of it who just haven’t fit in, and there are a handful who are pretty memorable among them. My hope is that, one day, we can get to a point where none of us have to watch or restrict what we say or how we think to such an extent, and where none of us, broadly speaking, have to feel ashamed for the way we are.

Edited February 20, 2023 by chicote