The American Cowboy Myth

[Chuck Naill]

Why does this matter? It matters because white American males have been brought up thinking it’s true.
http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/heather-richardson/cowboy-mythology-twenty-years-since-reagan-revolution-rise-movement-conservatives/

[Chuck Naill]

More

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/01/the-making-of-the-cowboy-myth/

[Chuck Naill]

More
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/

[Chip]

They're still pushing it out here. At the university, yet. . .

https://i.imgur.com/wrH0Dvp.jpg

Does USC sell shirts that say: The World Needs More Trojans?

[TSherbs]

Yellowstone has become a very popular series.

[Chip]

Yellowstone has become a very popular series.

No doubt. Never watched it. Is that the Kevin Costner travesty? I quit seeing his stuff after Dances With Wolves.

I avoid most "western" movies and TV series because the thrill-pumping urban screenwriters come up with so much mad horseshit. That alleged classic, The Revenant, got so many things wrong that I could fill a couple legal pages. I suffered through the Wind River horror show, starting with the flawed premise that tribal folks would call a US Fish & Wildlife gunner to kill a coyote, and descending steeply from there. They pronounced names and places wrong, screwed up the geography, and had a drilling location that shuts down in winter (requiring a paramilitary security team), like it snows underground or something.

Problem is, you myth-hungry suburban suckers like it that way.

[Chuck Naill]

There is nothing spectacular about breaking young horses, banding calves, tacking on horse shoes, or cleaning cow and horse shit off your boots. And, mending broken strands of barbed wire.

[Chuck Naill]

As someone said, no gun required. And certainly no military type

[Chuck Naill]

The quarter horse I raised, I used a bozzel

[TSherbs]

America loves its myths!

[Chuck Naill]

It’s up to teachers

[bunnspecial]

Interesting choice of the word "myth" Chuck considering that you once called me stupid and made quite a few other assumptions about both my intelligence and level of knowledge on a particular topic when I used that word-with a further generalizing that anyone calling something a myth was stupid.

So, I guess now Chuck we can officially confirm that you are, in fact, stupid by your own definition.

[Chip]

It was work, most often pretty short on glamor.

https://i.imgur.com/bnEwDkf.jpg

[Chuck Naill]

Interesting choice of the word "myth" Chuck considering that you once called me stupid and made quite a few other assumptions about both my intelligence and level of knowledge on a particular topic when I used that word-with a further generalizing that anyone calling something a myth was stupid.

So, I guess now Chuck we can officially confirm that you are, in fact, stupid by your own definition.

Using "myth" to express an opinion is different than using it when the topic is a matter of historical fact as in the case of the topic. For example, if I said God is a myth, that's just my opinion because there is no way to prove. I suspect that your use of myth was to express an opinion and not something that could have been shown to be true or valid. In other words, I cannot refer to your opinion as a myth just because I happen to disagree with what you think. If I am off base, let me know. I have no recollection of our encounters.

[Chuck Naill]

It was work, most often pretty short on glamor.

https://i.imgur.com/bnEwDkf.jpg

Where is the AR-15?

Nice photo. Thanks for posting.

[Chip]

Back-riding mountain grazing allotments for broody cows and sore-footed bulls. Early winter in the high country.

I never cared for the myth, but being outdoors and horseback for days on end was a sweet life.

https://i.imgur.com/8Jekd7Q.jpg

[Chuck Naill]

The topic is not about being a cowboy.

White men have suggested they had no help. I’m listening to an investigative report about Jack Welch aka head of GE. He had plenty of government advantages.

[bunnspecial]

Interesting choice of the word "myth" Chuck considering that you once called me stupid and made quite a few other assumptions about both my intelligence and level of knowledge on a particular topic when I used that word-with a further generalizing that anyone calling something a myth was stupid.

So, I guess now Chuck we can officially confirm that you are, in fact, stupid by your own definition.

Using "myth" to express an opinion is different than using it when the topic is a matter of historical fact as in the case of the topic. For example, if I said God is a myth, that's just my opinion because there is no way to prove. I suspect that your use of myth was to express an opinion and not something that could have been shown to be true or valid. In other words, I cannot refer to your opinion as a myth just because I happen to disagree with what you think. If I am off base, let me know. I have no recollection of our encounters.

What you choose to call me "stupid" over was a factual-based and backed reference to a common misconception about a particular segment of history.

Oh well, rules for thee and not for me, par for the course. Go ahead with using words that you don't like others using, Chuck, or the next time someone corrects you accept it gracefully and accept that just MAYBE someone knows more about a particular topic than you do(I know that one might be hard to admit).

[Chuck Naill]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

[Chip]

The Cowboy Myth, like the Superior White Race Myth and the Gun Myth, are deeply embedded in American culture.

That is, they motivate actions that are often insane and self-defeating without the license granted by the myth.

[bunnspecial]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.


EDIT: Inappropriate statement on my part removed for which I explained the meaning and apologized in post 36. I stand by the remaining portions of this post.

[Lloyd]

The Cowboy Myth, like the Superior White Race Myth and the Gun Myth, are deeply embedded in American culture.

That is, they motivate actions that are often insane and self-defeating without the license granted by the myth.
If it weren't for the myth of "streets lined in gold", would put ancestors have come here?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[TSherbs]

.... but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

I am reporting this post.

[Lloyd]

.... but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

I am reporting this post.
🙏I didn't know there was anyone to report this to.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[bunnspecial]

.... but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

I am reporting this post.

Report away and I'll stand by what I said about the nasty hypocrite Chuck. BTW a simple "I'm sorry I'm being a hypocrite about this and for calling you stupid for using the same phrasing I'm using now" from him would have sufficed but we all know he has too big of an ego to admit he was wrong.

What are you going to do, ban me from here? Go ahead if you have that power, but Chuck would be a better one to get rid of since I try to actually contribute substance to this site and he does nothing but troll here and on FPN both.

[Chuck Naill]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

[bunnspecial]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

Yes, that was it and you decided you would make it personal when I showed you were wrong.

I'll await your apology for calling me stupid, resorting to cheap personal attacks, and the like because you posted incorrect information that I corrected.

[TSherbs]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

Yes, that was it and you decided you would make it personal when I showed you were wrong.

I'll await your apology for calling me stupid, resorting to cheap personal attacks, and the like because you posted incorrect information that I corrected.

This wasn't even on this site? Why don't you two take this to PMs and resolve things there. Or over on that "other site" where something happened. And bunnspecial, keep your indirect references to violence against another poster off these pages.

Here is another thread totally sidetracked by some kind of personal animus between posters.

[Chuck Naill]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

Yes, that was it and you decided you would make it personal when I showed you were wrong.

I'll await your apology for calling me stupid, resorting to cheap personal attacks, and the like because you posted incorrect information that I corrected.

Did you say that something I wrote was a myth? If so, explain the context. I need to be reminded.

[bunnspecial]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

Yes, that was it and you decided you would make it personal when I showed you were wrong.

I'll await your apology for calling me stupid, resorting to cheap personal attacks, and the like because you posted incorrect information that I corrected.

This wasn't even on this site? Why don't you two take this to PMs and resolve things there. Or over on that "other site" where something happened. And bunnspecial, keep your indirect references to violence against another poster off these pages.

Here is another thread totally sidetracked by some kind of personal animus between posters.

That was not a thread of violence by any remote stretch. It was a threat of burying with superior KNOWLEDGE-a figure of speech. I would not resort to violence of a stupid internet disagreement.

[Chuck Naill]

This threads topic is about the “cowboy” myth that white men began and Hollywood perpetuated post the American Civil War.

You chose to vent your issues with me. We could have handled this privately, but you wanted a public outlet to air your grievances.

You needed to whine about me calling you stupid by calling me an asshole. Own your own shit,

As before, if I was wrong about rail road watch history, just say it. Hell fire with this passive aggression.

[bunnspecial]

Let it go. I have no recollection.

Fine advise-you should take it yourself.

I suppose selective memory is at play that you don't want to remember a time where you had your ass handed to you being proven wrong despite being your usual nasty self.

That's all, though, Chuck. Please continue calling things "myths" when it suits you, but by gosh if you EVER call me stupid again on a topic where I'm(very) knowledgeable because refer to something as a myth, I WILL BURY YOU asshole.

Were we discussing rail road watches? If so, reply with the context of our interaction. If I feel you deserve an apology, I will gladly provide. Seems like I remember something on the other site.

Yes, that was it and you decided you would make it personal when I showed you were wrong.

I'll await your apology for calling me stupid, resorting to cheap personal attacks, and the like because you posted incorrect information that I corrected.

Did you say that something I wrote was a myth? If so, explain the context. I need to be reminded.


Here was the story-

You posted an elaborate story about how Webb C. Ball "created" railroad standards because of a train wreck in Ohio in the 1890s. This is a commonly repeated story that originates from an interview Webb C. Ball gave in the 1910s or 1920s, but it historically inaccurate. Standards were in place before this accident, didn't change immediately after it, although Webb C. Ball certainly had input he was not the key player and the majority of his "suggestions" were not implemented. Still, though, Ball was a showman and continued repeating the story to bolster the perceived value of his company.

I referred to this story as a myth based, again, on in-depth research on the subject by people who actually know their stuff on this.

You referred to anyone, and by extension me, as being "stupid" for calling something a myth when that person wasn't there-much as you've done with this article(were you around in the days of American cowboys? I think not, therefore this scenario is the same).

As I attempted to dispute you, you continued employing strawman arguments saying that I was arguing such standards never existed(I never disputed this) and sharing information that was essentially the first result of a Google search. Any time I'd call you on one and refute something, you resorted to, again, the same strawman.

You finally closed out the conversation with what I think you intended to be a low blow that really showed your limited knowledge on the subject by saying(apparently based on my user name) that you'd ask me about "Coffee Pots", not realizing that in fact Bunn Special was the most popular grade of Railroad Watch made by the Illinois Watch Company of Springfield, IL.

And that was when the mods cleaned it up and closed it.

And again, my "I will bury you" was in reference to the fact that I know my shit on this topic. I've immersed myself in research on it for years. I've contributed to the body of research on it. I personally know The folks you liked to cite I know personally(as in they're people I've shared meals with at shows, etc) and correspond with them regularly. You were showing a level of knowledge that indicated you'd spent an afternoon Googling the stuff. You dug your hole posting incorrect information and staunchly defending it. More, it's a specific reference to Kruschev saying "We Will Bury You".

So, again, I await your apology.

[Chuck Naill]

https://www.ideastream.org/programs/specials/on-the-ball-the-story-of-webb-c-ball-and-the-railroad-watch


https://casostation.ca/webb-ball-and-the-railwaymans-watch/

So, I didn’t call you personally stupid?

When I got interested in the Hamilton 992 with a Montgomery dial I did some research on the whole history that brought about the use of watches to prevent accidents.

I also did some interviews with retired RR employees.

I was unable to find any information to verify your opinion that the Webb C. Ball history was a fabrication or myth.

No apology is required. You can believe what you want. If you want to start a thread to prove you are in fact correct and that Mr. Ball had no influence on RR time keeping, I will read what you post and decide then if my comments where misplaced. However, saying something is stupid is not a personal attack. You calling me a asshole is, however, very much one.

[TSherbs]

Here is another thread totally sidetracked by some kind of personal animus between posters.

Like I said.

[Chuck Naill]

Let’s not go there. We’ve all sidetracked at one time or another. When emotions flow, it’s bound to occur.

[bunnspecial]

https://www.ideastream.org/programs/specials/on-the-ball-the-story-of-webb-c-ball-and-the-railroad-watch


https://casostation.ca/webb-ball-and-the-railwaymans-watch/

So, I didn’t call you personally stupid?

When I got interested in the Hamilton 992 with a Montgomery dial I did some research on the whole history that brought about the use of watches to prevent accidents.

I also did some interviews with retired RR employees.

I was unable to find any information to verify your opinion that the Webb C. Ball history was a fabrication or myth.

No apology is required. You can believe what you want. If you want to start a thread to prove you are in fact correct and that Mr. Ball had no influence on RR time keeping, I will read what you post and decide then if my comments where misplaced. However, saying something is stupid is not a personal attack. You calling me a asshole is, however, very much one.


So first of all, let me offer my own apology directly to you, Chuck.

I called you an "ass" and an "asshole." I may at times not agree with what you say or take personal issue with how you deliver it, but that is not an excuse to resort to ad hominem attacks or simple name-calling. It will not happen again, and I hope you will accept my apology.

Second, I realize my use of the phrase "I will bury you" can easily be construed as a threat of violence. Although I in no way intended it as such, I hope it can be believed that I in no way intended it as such. As we have been discussing in other topics(specifically the Noodler's ink topic) the meaning of what the person does not over-rule how the statement is perceived. I will fully own that, and again apologize and hope that what I am saying here can be accepted as an true statement of my intentions.

Now, to the other topic-

Once again I take issue with this statement



I was unable to find any information to verify your opinion that the Webb C. Ball history was a fabrication or myth.

I made a very nuanced statement that essentially was "Webb C. Ball did have a role in setting standards, but his role was not as great as he claimed in later years it was."



You posted an elaborate story about how Webb C. Ball "created" railroad standards because of a train wreck in Ohio in the 1890s. This is a commonly repeated story that originates from an interview Webb C. Ball gave in the 1910s or 1920s, but it historically inaccurate. Standards were in place before this accident, didn't change immediately after it, although Webb C. Ball certainly had input he was not the key player and the majority of his "suggestions" were not implemented. Still, though, Ball was a showman and continued repeating the story to bolster the perceived value of his company.

Please CAREFULLY read this statement and note that I acknowledge he had a role, but the core of it is that he was not the key player in this statement.

I will, in the next few minutes, be providing references from the Watch and Clock bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal from the National Association of Watch and Clock collectors. The references I will provided are(severely) paywalled(I just paid over $100 for another year of membership in the organization, which includes access) but would be happy to provide full text PDFs via email. I'll also mention that although I have had articles published in this journal, I will not be providing any in which I had any direct involvement to remove bias on my part.

[bunnspecial]

Okay, here is the key article

https://docs.nawcc.org/Bulletins/2000/articles/2002/338/338_349.pdf

Here is a relevant quote-actually the entire first page


THE BALL WATCH STORY—PART 1
RAILROAD STANDARD WATCHES—
THE EARLY YEARS

Whenever one considers the subject of standard
watches associated with railroad time service, the
name Webb C. Ball and two of his businesses quickly
come to mind. During the early 1890s there was a huge
surge of development in railroad time service and
watch inspection systems. Many roads that had been
publishing rules and specifying watches for decades
overhauled their practices, while other roads initiated
new time service systems. Ball was active from the
onset, establishing the Ball Railroad Time Service to
contract for inspection services, and both the Ball
Watch Co. and the Railroad Watch Co. to supply the
watches. Ball was active from the onset, establishing
the Ball Railroad Time Service to contract for inspec-
tion services and both the Ball Watch Co. and the
Railroad Watch Co. to supply the watches.
Ball’s watch companies obtained watches, built to
his specifications, from a number of manufacturers.
The vast majority of these were ordered as unadjusted
movements to be taken down and adjusted by Ball’s
employees prior to sale to the dealers. These watches
were stamped with Ball’s registered trade marks,
appealing to railroaders and ensuring that others
would not be able to market watches of the same name.
The high quality of these watches are an irresistible
lure to today’s collectors and Ball’s Official RR
Standard (ORRS) watches and their companions, the
brotherhood Official Standard watches are highly
prized.

With the help of many of our fellow members, we are
pleased to present a look at the wide range of standard
watches that were marketed by Ball. In this column,
we’ll start by discussing the formative period from the
late 1880s to 1900. In Part 2, the next column, we’ll
trace the evolution of the Official Standard watches
from 1900 to the post-World War II era when the last
of the Ball railroad pocket watches were made. Part 3
will take a look at Ball’s private label and railroad
brotherhood standard watches. Part 4 will examine the
variety and changing style of cases in which almost all
of the Ball movements were sold.

The Myth

A lot of collectors believe that time service was non-
existent, or at best chaotic, prior to Ball’s association
with the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway
(the LS&MS, a New York Central Lines road). Ball
described his involvement as following a wreck on that
road in 1891 at Kipton, Ohio. 1 The general belief is
that upon being appointed to the position of Chief Time
Inspector of the LS&MS, Ball immediately created the
overall system of railroad time service and issued
requirements for standard watches that included: 17-
jewel minimum, adjustment to five positions, double
roller, open-face only, Arabic dials, and lever-set move-
ments.

The Reality

The reality is somewhat different. Time service sys-
tems continually evolved starting from the 1850s, as
did the watches that were used in service. Even Ball
himself was the General Watch Inspector for a number
of railroads prior to the Kipton wreck. These railroads,
including the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St.
Louis (otherwise known as The Big Four - another New
York Central Lines road), and the Pennsylvania
Railroad (the Standard Railroad of the World), are list-
ed in a January 1891 Ball ad. 2 Although there was an
upsurge of new and revised systems in the early 1890s
in which Ball played a significant role, the require-
ments mentioned above weren’t widely in place until
about 16 years later, around 1907.



Note that Singer and Uberall do use the words "significant role" in reference to W.C. Ball, so I am happy to modify my earlier statement, however note also that they use the word "Myth" in reference to the whole Kipton wreck story.

Again, full text available by private contact. This article is part of a long series published by Singer and Uberall in the early 2000s called "The Railroader's Corner"

[Chuck Naill]

I am interested is knowing about the evolution of the RR watch. I have the 992 but also a 1901 940 RR .

My cousin said as a conductor he had to have his train on the side track in 37 minutes from Hot Springs in Del Rio to allow the fast mail train coming North out of KNOXVILLE. He used a wrist quartz .

[Chuck Naill]

From what you posted, it appears Balls involvement was early on. An accurate time piece is essential for a reliable time standard to be possible.

I’m struggling knowing where we disagree?? If you said my posts were a myth, obviously I’m going to respond. Not even what you posted today refutes.

[bunnspecial]

From what you posted, it appears Balls involvement was early on. An accurate time piece is essential for a reliable time standard to be possible.

I’m struggling knowing where we disagree?? If you said my posts were a myth, obviously I’m going to respond. Not even what you posted today refutes.

Every reference you've cited either implies or outright states that standards did not exist before the 1891 Kipton train crash, and that it was Ball's exclusive work that put a specific set of standards into play. In short, it's often cited that the 1891 wreck was a catalyst for this happening.

This is what I'm calling a myth, and this is what you took offense to in the prior discussion. The standards existed WELL before Ball was even involved in the watch trade, and the wreck may have caused a look at them but it was not something that Ball simply snapped his fingers and made happen. This is a key difference and where I have a real issue with the often-repeated story(read your own references and you'll see that they do not tell the same story as the article I shared tells).

I suppose you are fortunate the nastiest comments you made have been removed so I can not quote them verbatim, but you took specific issue with this post https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/362121-mount-blanc-meisterstuik-be-honest/?do=findComment&comment=4463947

You objected my use of the word myth and your statement effectively was that people who call things myths when they weren't there are "stupid"(yes, those were your exact words) and when I pushed you on if you referring to me as stupid, you specifically confirmed as such and continued with the personal insults including the most illogical one of suggesting I'd be an expert on coffee pots...

So, my original point in all of this discussion was that you are using the word myth in this post to dispute history, just as I did in that post and you took offense.

[Chuck Naill]

There are myths based in preferences and myths based on fact/history.

Standards without a proper time piece is moot.

To call what is posted a myth was inappropriate. Many sources to the contrary.

As posted, most give Ball the glory. If I were to think otherwise, would be stupid on my part.

No apology to follow.

If you want to end my life over this tells me you have issues.

[bunnspecial]

There are myths based in preferences and myths based on fact/history.

Standards without a proper time piece is moot.

To call what is posted a myth was inappropriate. Many sources to the contrary.

As posted, most give Ball the glory. If I were to think otherwise, would be stupid on my part.

No apology to follow.

If you want to end my life over this tells me you have issues.

I'm done here, although I see at best you're only skimming my posts and not bothering to actually read or comprehend them especially when I did take issue with your statement of facts and you chose ad-hominem attacks.

Still, though, I manned up and apologized to you for places I was clearly in the wrong. This was a time where you were in the wrong, but again you're not bothering to read what I'm saying and instead simplifying my arguments(AKA straw man) so that you can easily refute them. In fact you're twisting things to the opposite of what I said.

The fact that you won't acknowledge somewhere you were wrong tells me a lot about you as well. Either you are not discussing in good faith or you don't WANT to acknowledge that someone knows more about a subject than you, or perhaps both.

[Chuck Naill]

That you came on here with inaccuracies and personal attacks doesn’t better you or your opinions. What happened is that I posted what most historians say and for which you called a myth. That you threatened my life is insane. Hopefully you are not purchasing an assault rifle and huge quantities of ammunition.

Think about it, are your fucking opinions worth my life. Don’t answer, apparently they are .

Go away. This thread is more important than your bruised ego.

[bunnspecial]

Chuck,

READ! READ! READ!

READ my post 36 and see the explanation of what I meant and it had nothing to do with your or anyone else's life but just your lack of knowledge and refusal to READ and UNDERSTAND what people are saying. Why I chose to engage I don't know other than being tired of your repetitive crapand refusing to READ what other people say.

Last I saw too, you are not a moderator. Go ask one of them if you want me to "go away."

Funny too how you wanted to pretend to have a civil discussion then somehow or another the tides turned when I started posting facts...it seems to me(as it always has) that you have no desire to discuss things in good faith.

[Chuck Naill]

You have problems that you need to consider. I read what you posted and nothing you posted warrants calling the history of Ball a myth. In fact , it confirms the history usually attributed to Ball. Non of this is worth my existence.

Go way just refers to the topic of this thread for which you have made no contributions.

[bunnspecial]

Apparently you also didn't read that I never threatened your existence or at least intended to.

Believe what you want on your incorrect version of history. Again, if you could actually read and understand nuance, you would understand why you are wrong, but I'm not holding out hope.

[Chuck Naill]

I read. Ball was both instrumental and early, as you post confirmed, and consistent with what historians have written.

Yes, you threatened me. Another member noted and said he would report. This tells me you can’t own your shit. Go away. I have no motivation to interact with invertebrates.

[bunnspecial]

I read. Ball was both instrumental and early, as you post confirmed, and consistent with what historians have written.

Yes, you threatened me. Another member noted and said he would report. This tells me you can’t own your shit. Go away. I have no motivation to interact with invertebrates.

Once again, selective reading. I did own it, unlike you ever refuse to do. Read post 36 again, where I own it and explain my meaning. I can't help it if you can't comprehend what I'm writing. I also can't help it if you can't comprehend where you are factually wrong-once again you are showing-repeatedly-that you have no grasp of nuance, or just choose to ignore it for the sake of being "right." As I said before, this is a topic about which you show very little real knowledge and your posts suggest your "research" was an afternoon of Googling. If you really want to learn, I offered to send you a pile of real, scholarly research on the topic but you seem resistant to actually wanting to learn more from trustworthy sources.

I also can't help your lack of reading comprehension, but nice job with the ad-hominems again. Again, I'll go away when a moderator, which are not, tells me to go away. At this point, especially now that you're throwing insults-again-if it pisses you off I'm only too happy to keep posting.

[Chuck Naill]

You live in a sad narrow world where everyone is at fault, but never you. And if threatened, shoot to kill. Hopefully the authorities are aware.

[Chuck Naill]

Please don’t go out and purchase lots of ammo and an assault rifle. I have a life and am engaged in my grandchildren’s lives. Killing me might omit a Ball history,’but there are much more important things.

[bunnspecial]

Please don’t go out and purchase lots of ammo and an assault rifle. I have a life and am engaged in my grandchildren’s lives. Killing me might omit a Ball history,’but there are much more important things.


What on earth have I ever said that makes you think that! I am quite content in my life and have no intention of hurting a fly. I don't know why you are being so obtuse about this especially when I HAVE explained myself. Why you're blowing this out of proportion I don't know. You're making a lot of suppositions, and as for "always right" look in the mirror.

In fact it's quite insulting to make those kind of leaps about what's going on in my life based on a single post here. I don't even know who the heck you are other than your name and that you are someone who can't accept when the fact show you being incorrect.

Feel free to continue with your hysterics, though.

[Chuck Naill]

https://www.ballwatch.com/global/index.php?option=com_opening&view=opening&Itemid=101

[Chip]

🙏I didn't know there was anyone to report this to.

There's a tiny black triangle at the lower left corner of the dialogue box with a !

That flags the post for admin to act.

I flagged it, too. It was nasty, rude, and threatening.

[Chuck Naill]

Please don’t go out and purchase lots of ammo and an assault rifle. I have a life and am engaged in my grandchildren’s lives. Killing me might omit a Ball history,’but there are much more important things.


What on earth have I ever said that makes you think that! I am quite content in my life and have no intention of hurting a fly. I don't know why you are being so obtuse about this especially when I HAVE explained myself. Why you're blowing this out of proportion I don't know. You're making a lot of suppositions, and as for "always right" look in the mirror.

In fact it's quite insulting to make those kind of leaps about what's going on in my life based on a single post here. I don't even know who the heck you are other than your name and that you are someone who can't accept when the fact show you being incorrect.

Feel free to continue with your hysterics, though.

Here in lies the problem, you threaten me that if I ever call you stupid, which from what you posted z I didn’t, you would bury me. You don’t know why?? Really ? Are too posting drunk?

Don’t bitch to me about being insulted. You obviously have issues.

[bunnspecial]

Whatever, Chuck.

I offered you an apology for what I said. I offered you an explanation for my meaning and where the phrasing came from. You just choose to ignore those.

I've said my piece and I know you need the last word.

It's awfully difficult too for someone who doesn't drink to post drunk.

[bunnspecial]

🙏I didn't know there was anyone to report this to.

There's a tiny black triangle at the lower left corner of the dialogue box with a !

That flags the post for admin to act.

I flagged it, too. It was nasty, rude, and threatening.

Please note that I have self-edited the problematic post, as I did not stop to think how it could be read and interpreted until others(understandably) took issue with it.

See my full explanation in post #36 for the reasoning behind my choice of words and the fact that it was not a literal threat of violence.

[Chip]

Like a band-aid on a bullethole.

[bunnspecial]

Like a band-aid on a bullethole.

First time wading into this section.

Yes I said something stupid. I explained why I phrased it the way I did even though, as I said, after it was pointed out I realized that the literal meaning had terrible implications that I did not mean. I don't know what to say beyond that.

Petition to have me banned from here if that's not enough as I said I don't know what else to say. Chuck's complaining that I won't own it. What am I doing now? What did I previously do in this thread(post 36)? What else should I do?

[Chuck Naill]

If there are any children when you come to “bury me” spare them please.

[TSherbs]

Here is another thread totally sidetracked by some kind of personal animus between posters.

Like I said.

Like I said like I said.

[Chuck Naill]

Here is another thread totally sidetracked by some kind of personal animus between posters.

Like I said.

Like I said like I said.

You would have done the same, Ted.

[Chuck Naill]

Bunn guy might be looking for guns and ammunition as we speak. Or, perhaps a shovel!!

What kind of person allows themselves to get their panties in a wad over rail road history.

This is the world we live in. Crazies abound!!

[Chuck Naill]

Sometimes all you need is a hickory stick
https://youtu.be/eyjrUAimzZg

[calamus]

https://media3.giphy.com/media/d3YQCPcckxQiYibe/giphy.gif?cid=790b761180095f823a422416064559cb08f8 448080ac4359&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

[Chip]

Barf! :bad:

[ethernautrix]

Y'all have lost your goddamned minds....

[TSherbs]

:). ....

[Chip]

According to Google Translate, the Polish equivalent of Y'all is Wy wszyscy.

How are things in Wroclaw?

[ethernautrix]

The forecasted storms with hail did not visit this city, at least not in the parts I was in. Took a night walk (nocny spacer) (z psem, Łapa). Było ładne. Był ładny wieczór.

Widok z Mostu Piaskowego:
70520


Seems like the forum software resized the photo.

ETA a photo from a bike ride in the city, along the Odra, from the other day. That's Łapa.

70521

ETA: I don't know why the software flipped the photo, and it's much too late to figure it out. (I swear... every simple computer task that begins with my thinking, "Oh, I'll just do this easy thing before I go to bed" turns into a ... just a ridiculous and frustrating time-suck.)

[Chip]

https://i.imgur.com/VmmWkEp.jpg

Looks like a sweet spot. The night photo's grand.

[TSherbs]

those trees have eyes

makes me think of Pan's Labyrinth

[Chip]

Love the doggo! Is that his cycle caravan?

For some reason, smartphone pics seem to get flipped and are hard to fix.

The initial character in Łapa (paws?) is common in my graduate language, Diné (Navajo) in which it's pronounced with the tip of the tongue on the top teeth, through an exhale: sounds like an English hthl.

Łlíí is horse.

[ethernautrix]

those trees have eyes

makes me think of Pan's Labyrinth

Or baboon butts, maybe. I can't help myself, but this tree makes me laugh.

70594

Drat. Can anyone teach me how to rotate a photo? Och.

[ethernautrix]

Love the doggo! Is that his cycle caravan?

Thanks! This is her second przyczepka (cute way of saying przyczepa to imply, in this case, small size; both words mean "trailer").

My friend (Łapa's OG, original guardian) and I tried baskets on our bicycles to give Łapa breaks on longer bike rides. She learned to jump out of them. I'd like to share a video of Łapa in the bike basket (I'd have to find it and figure out how to upload it).

When we and another friend decided to tour Poland by bike (not all at once, heh), I got a great deal on the trailer (intended for a young child), and I had to train Łapa not to be afraid of it and then to sit in it (in the apartment) and eventually how to stay in it for rides (using a harness, not her will) and then had to endure her screaming-monkey protestations on the bike tour where she could not run on the narrow two-lane "highways" in some parts of the country, cos... obviously.
That first tour, I was the screaming-monkey dog hauler, cos my then-bike couldn't be fitted with a pannier rack.

Now, when she wants to run, she barks once and waits. Barks again if her wish isn't granted. Sometimes I stop and let her out, sometimes I tell her she has to wait (poczekaj![/I)].

She's a smart dog. She hops in and out (when I say so). Sometimes she takes a minute to decide about hopping in. She seems to respond positively to "Down hill!" and "Traffic! Bad traffic!" But hops out immediately when I say "proszę bardzo."

When she's trotting alongside me and I say, Chodnik, she moves onto the sidewalk. I have to admit to preening a little bit when she goes to the sidewalk and pedestrians notice and get excited about it, but I KNOW that she doesn't ALWAYS go to the sidewalk. Hahaha. Usually. Maybe 80, 85% on the first "chodnik... chodnik."

And she's not THAT smart. Or she is but she's also stubborn, either way, not always a "good girl." Hahaha. So I don't let the occasional impressive moment confuse me about that.



For some reason, smartphone pics seem to get flipped and are hard to fix.[/QUOTE}

ARGH.

Sigh.


[QUOTE]The initial character in Łapa (paws?) is common in my graduate language, Diné (Navajo) in which it's pronounced with the tip of the tongue on the top teeth, through an exhale: sounds like an English[I] hthl.

Łlíí is horse.

Łapa is paw, łapy is paws. For feminine possessive, the a (in most cases) becomes a y. Thus: Łapy łapy is Łapa's paws. Also, łapy Łapy, cos in Polish, grammatical case more than sequence determines the meaning, which is why I've theorized that mathematicians and pre-computer-era programmers invented the language while tripping on acid, as a joke. Those bastards.

Also, Ł is more or less the English W. The Polish W is the English V, or F depending on where it is in the word. Wiadukt (viaduct), it's a V; Wrocław (frots-waf <-- F).

Is Diné also so complicated?

[Chip]

Is Diné also so complicated?

Fiendishly so. Not only are the basic sounds very hard for an English speaker to pronounce (took me two weeks of practice to say the words for snake: tł'iish pronounced klesh, or na’ashǫ́’ii: naah-ah-show-eeh), but the verbs follow what's called an aspect pattern in which the subject and/or object of a sentence determine the verb (there are around thirty possibilities).

So, to say I picked up my dog (animal) requires a different verb than I picked up my mail, or I picked up some Chinese takeout. A rigid, hollow object (cup) uses a different verb than a soft fluffy one (pillow).

Navajos take great joy in making verbal puns by popping in the wrong verb. For instance when a plump person sits down, they might use the verb for a large, soft object (sack of wool) being put in place.

Diné is incredibly precise about time, duration, direction, location, and similar terms for movement and place, as befits a tribe of nomads.

I also studied Mandarin, to better understand classical Chinese poetry. Diné is way harder. But I enjoyed being around my students and their families: good way to learn more quickly.

[TSherbs]

those trees have eyes

makes me think of Pan's Labyrinth

Or baboon butts, maybe. I can't help myself, but this tree makes me laugh.

70594

Drat. Can anyone teach me how to rotate a photo? Och.

NSFW!

[Chip]

Trees can be scary.

https://i.imgur.com/cy5OTLs.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/x76x1vw.jpg

The psychological phenomenon that causes some people to see or hear a vague or random image or sound as something significant (e.g. a face) is known as pareidolia.

I see faces in the tweed carpet in our bathroom, or the textured paint on the ceiling, and they shift. Weird.

[ethernautrix]

I also studied Mandarin, to better understand classical Chinese poetry. Diné is way harder. But I enjoyed being around my students and their families: good way to learn more quickly.

Pronunciation -- Polish sounds use different muscles in my mouth and tongue. Took me six months to pronounce Wrocław. I just couldn't hear it. (Polish must use different muscles in my ears, too. Ha!)

Diné sounds -- super complex. How long did it take until you were fluent?

I'm still not fluent in Polish, but my last lesson was at least five years ago (and lessons were spotty). I'm better at writing and reading and can say my part of a casual conversation while guessing at the other's part, straining to hear familiar words and guessing the rest by context.

If people speak English, they automatically switch to English. I continue to say my part in Polish (until the flicker of "What?" in his or her eyes, then I clarify in English, but at least try to use Polish as much as I can. This doesn't help my "hearing" Polish, though.).

How long did it take to learn Mandarin? Sounds like Polish would be a cake walk for you!

[Chip]

Diné sounds -- super complex. How long did it take until you were fluent?

I was never fluent. I'd have needed to live among Diné speakers for years to become so. But older folks kept asking me if I was a Mormon ex-missionary, a compliment as it turns out. The LDS church has the best Diné language program on earth.

A friend (John Mionczynski) speaks some Polish. It's hard to pick up from the English literation: his name looks like My-on-zin-skee, but is pronounced Mee-awn-chin-skee. What was your first language?


How long did it take to learn Mandarin? Sounds like Polish would be a cake walk for you!

I studied Mandarin as a linguistic exercise, to get a grasp of how ideograms were used in poetry. Books (Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, two volumes) gave definitions and also some cultural resonances. I took an entry-level conversation class but didn't get much out of it. Met a grad student, Pin Li, who'd written a thesis comparing translations of the T'ang poet Han Shan (Cold Mountain) perhaps my favorite. She was a great help. Another friend, Masahiro, was translating the Tao Te Ching to both Japanese and English, and loved to talk about his process (with lots of jokes and wit). Yet another friend, poet Arthur Sze, helped my pronunciation and talked at length about the different qualities of Chinese and English poetry. He was married to a Hopi weaver, Ramona Sakiestewa and had learned quite a lot of her tongue, Tewan I think.

Anyhow, I messed about with it for ten or fifteen years and did some interlineal translations of poems. Don't recall if I published them.

What I most love about learning a language is the way it lends such a different view of the world we share.

For instance, in Diné, The horse kicked the boy is not a grammatical sentence. In the Navajo hierarchy of being, humans are superior. For a horse to initate an action against a person is absurd. So one must say, instead, The boy caused the horse to kick him. Which is probably closer to the truth.

Pretty cool!

[TSherbs]

Cool indeed!

[Chip]

This seems like a good summary, well-stated and calm. I did c & p in case there's a paywall.


Our Gun Myths Have Held America Hostage for Too Long
July 4, 2022

By Francisco Cantú

Mr. Cantú, a writer and a teacher, is the author of “The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border.”

https://i.imgur.com/9NEzeJb.jpg

Like so many Americans, I have been called into relationships with guns since I was a child and have been made to understand, even long before I could articulate it, that guns represented something essential about what it means to become a fully realized American man.

My first guns were toys, followed by a pump-action Daisy BB gun that I used to shoot down green army men in my father’s garage. Then came the real guns: the .22 rifle I learned to use at summer camp in the fourth grade, the handgun my father taught me to shoot during a boyhood visit to a friend’s ranch in Nevada and the Colt 1911 he let me fire years later, which had been carried by my grandfather throughout his service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

As I became older, guns were given to me as a right of passage — by my father, by my mother’s boyfriend and by the United States government upon my graduation from the Border Patrol academy when I was 23.

Guns have long been an integral part of our national mythology, woven deep into our most sacred lore about the winning of our independence, about manifest destiny and territorial expansion, about the defense of democracy and the spread of our empire across the globe. At the center of this mythos is an abiding archetype — the lone man and his gun. This figure (usually white and positioned in opposition to people of color) has been represented throughout history in many familiar forms: the musket-toting militiaman with a revolutionary thirst for liberty; the cowboy chasing freedom with a six shooter across a frontier full of hostile natives; or the soldier with a rifle deployed to conquer or save a distant people inferior to his own. In each case, the gun is an essential counterpart — serving, like King Arthur’s sword or Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, as the one tool that makes possible the hero’s journey.

Our stories have been steeped in guns for so long that they have become an inevitable-seeming element of our lives, saddling us with institutions resigned to their power. As a result, American politics has become dissociated from the reality of gun violence even as that violence creeps into more and more intimate public spaces.

Proponents of gun reform in this country are not just up against a powerful gun lobby, they are up against our most durable myth, the exceptionalist notion that a man with a gun is a force powerful enough to defend against any danger.

For evidence of how completely this mythology has been metabolized into law, we need look no further than last week’s Supreme Court’s decision striking down a gun restriction implemented in New York State. In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas dismisses a history of public safety protections as burdening the right to “individual self-defense,” gesturing ultimately to the “enduring American tradition of permitting public carry.”

This “tradition” has caused guns to become integral to the identity of countless Americans, giving rise to a gun culture defined by fundamentalist zeal and sloganeering well suited for the social media age. In a world where so many people are asked to compress their personhood into succinct lines and images, it is little wonder that these often end up including guns — America’s most potent symbol of masculinity, power and self-determination.

In the United States, nearly 98 percent of mass shootings are committed by men, and increasingly, these assailants are younger, often acquiring their arms as a coming-of-age ritual. The assault rifle used to murder 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May was purchased by the shooter in celebration of his 18th birthday; the gun used in last year’s shooting at Michigan’s Oxford High School was a Christmas present given to the 15-year-old shooter by his parents; and the 20-year-old perpetrator of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn. reportedly grew up with a mother who often turned to guns as a way to bond with her difficult-to-reach son before he eventually murdered her at their home before slaughtering 20 young children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary.

I do not believe that violent stories, films and video games, popular all around the world, are the cause of America’s singular problem with gun violence — but they do help explain our relationship to it. Violence, after all, is shaped by what we see and understand as possible. But violence can also only be manifested with the tools that are available to us — and research shows that ours is a country where civilian-owned guns outnumber people.

Our national mythology has also clearly hampered our capacity to respond to gun violence — a favorite line of the N.R.A. is that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” This delusion, disproved in Uvalde and countless times before, flows directly from Hollywood fantasy and underlies arguments about arming teachers, expanding open-carry laws and ushering armed law enforcement into more and more public spaces.

The mythos of individual heroics is one that helped determine the course of my life. In the naïve and hopeful days after I first graduated from university, for example, I was drawn to join the U.S. Border Patrol by imagining that I could act as a force for compassion within the agency — a “good guy with a gun.” Obsessed with the border throughout my studies, I had come to understand the flaws in enforcement while also being subtly taught to accept its cruel realities as somehow inevitable — but my American upbringing also instilled in me the belief that I might be the one capable of finding ways to change them.

Instead, what I found was a place that absorbed individual ambitions into an institutional culture too often awash with cruelty and impunity, where acts of violence and dehumanization both big and small were normalized to the point of banality, carried out by agents who were often gleefully living out unburied boyhood fantasies of cowboy lawmen chasing criminals across a strange and foreboding frontier.

Growing up in West Texas and Arizona, I spent much of my childhood in the grip of fantasies like these. Some of my earliest heroes were Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and I would later watch and rewatch Westerns like “Tombstone” and “Wyatt Earp,” eagerly anticipating their climactic gunfights. Eventually, I developed a taste for the revisionist fare that sought to deromanticize old narratives of “good versus evil” by unflinchingly depicting long-sanitized frontier violence. But these films often ended up reveling in their bloodshed, and as Westerns became increasingly morally complex, their antihero archetypes were absorbed into countless other genres, influencing characters as diverse as Walter White, Batman and the Mandalorian.

Today, I recognize how fictional depictions of America’s “Wild West” have helped solidify real-world attitudes of hardening masculinity in the face of evermore soul-numbing violence. Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Blood Meridian,” for example, follows a band of scalp hunters as they unleash racialized terror across the borderlands. Its male protagonists, unconcerned with the trauma of bloodshed, come to represent the casual, totemic power of violence in America — a force so powerful that it produces its own gravitational pull, becoming an unavoidable black hole at the center of our history.

It could be said that American society has long responded to violence with Western-tinged hardness, moving through perpetual cycles of shock, resignation and calcification. But for so long, the reality of bloodshed has also been dampened by the idea that it is something taking place in the distance, at the fringes of our civilization.

In “The End of the Myth,” the historian Greg Grandin argues that the presence of a frontier “allowed the United States to avoid a true reckoning with its social problems, such as economic inequality, racism, crime and punishment, and violence.” Even as America closed in upon its territorial edges at the end of the 1800s, he writes, our leaders continued to gesture toward new frontiers where the figure of the lone American could be thrust outward to defeat new enemies — across the ocean, into outer space or through clouds of terror oriented around a globalized axis of evil.

As our country slouches deeper into the 21st century, Mr. Grandin posits that we are being made to reckon with a sputtering mythology that has finally run out of ways to divert the rage, resentment and extremism once allowed to fester at our country’s ever-expanding edges. In this respect, our myths have effectively been turned in upon themselves.

In recent decades the figure of the lone gunman has proceeded to bring the once remote-seeming specter of public violence into more familiar public places — schools, churches, grocery stores, hospitals — refiguring it into something that has become impossible to dismiss into the distance.

That, in turn, has led to the increasing militarization of our day-to-day lives under the guise of police-enforced safety. America is not unique in its attempt to maintain a state monopoly on violence, but in a country where most adults can legally acquire an arsenal of weapons with destructive power unimaginable to our founding fathers, law enforcement has found pretext to engage in eternal escalation, acquiring more sophisticated means for waging war even within our most sacred spaces.

It is not hard to imagine a path toward diminishing the presence of firearms in our society: Other countries, unburdened by our gun-soaked mythology, have responded to outbursts of mass violence with striking agility. In New Zealand, after a white supremacist gunned down 51 mosquegoers in Christchurch in 2019, the country’s prime minister promised to reform gun laws the very next day. A month later, Parliament voted 119 to 1 to ban assault weapons, and by year’s end, the country had bought back more than 56,000 firearms, created a national firearms registry, penalized illegal modifications and gun sales, and instituted a new mental health warning system.

In the wake of other mass shootings, Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Norway and other countries have acted decisively to restrict the reach of military-style firearms, dramatically stemming gun violence and transforming mass shootings into rare events. By contrast, the bipartisan gun bill signed into law by President Biden last month falls dismally short, serving ultimately as the impotent whimper of a filibuster-bogged legislative system.

In America, we are raised to believe ourselves capable of reinvention, of boldly venturing forth into new terrain. But all too often, our attempts to update and revise our most toxic mythology have ended up perpetuating some aspect of it all the same, almost as if abandoning its familiar narratives altogether might threaten our very sense of who we are.

When I finally quit the Border Patrol after three and a half years, I occasionally dreamed that I was back in uniform and that my old service weapon, a .40-caliber HK P2000, was somewhere just out of reach, rendering me unable to meet an obscure threat looming in the distance. Those dreams continued for years and were like phantom limb pains, evidence that my consciousness was struggling to let go of old stories.

In recent weeks, America has reached new depths in its long doom spiral of gun worship. The urgency of disentangling guns from our sense of individual and national identity has never been more clear. We can safely keep our exceptionalist myths, our cowboy archetypes, our notions of gun-toting good guys holding evil at bay, only as long as we also recognize them as nostalgic delusions at odds with the reality of what it means to live in community with others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/04/opinion/guns-america-western-mythology.html?referringSource=articleShare