1 Let's be fair - northern Indians should have first dips on the Aryan name thing.

Personally, it looks Klingon to me. Maybe it should be debated at one of those TREK Conventions - now that would be a sight!

2 What to you think lil' ernie!
(I'm actually addressing he/she/it).
Your a Tribble - give us your 2 credits.

3 The ancient eastern swastika is also the symbol of the growing Falun Gong movement.

4 The eastern (Hindu, Japanese, etc) swastika is an important cultural symbol....I don't think we can deny the symbol to certain cultures because of what happened over 60 years ago. Let the past die. It's only through this Hollywood/Spielberg emphasis on "Aryan" and "Swastika" do we forget the true meanings of the terms and convolute them with our own unhealthy and disturbing over-sensitivities.

The Falun Gong symbol, however, is reversed....I don't understand how anyone could have a problem with it (except the ignorant).

5 What are they - er like - the flat-brow Klingons?

6 East Asians in general see the swastika as a religious symbol. Having lived in Japan I got used to seeing it (reversed from the Nazi form) used to mark the location of Buddhist temples on all the maps.

I went to training with an officer in the Taiwanese Navy and got to be on pretty good terms with him, so he often asked me about U.S. culture. He asked me once, totally deadpan, why Americans are so scared of the swastika. He's a pretty well-educated guy, so I guess Nazis just aren't the bugbear for the Taiwanese that they are for us in the West.

I don't know how far west you have to go in Asia for Nazis and all their iconography to loom large in cultural memory. I doubt Tajikistan is far enough though. What upset there is might have more to do with the feelings of the ethnic Russian minority than the true Tajiks. I might get to find out though. I'm trying to find work there.

7 This was posted on my blog and thought I would pass it along ..




December 25, 2005

A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER

It was Christmas eve day and all through the house Two little children ran around like a mouse. The excitement was building. The moment was near. It would not be long be fore St. Nick would be here.

Christmas is shared due to divorce, this was dads year, it sadly turned into remorse.

Granted they were being fresh, as most kids are, but as I see it dad took it a little to far.

They were told they were bad & the gifts would go back, if they didn’t behave & stop the crap. As children this is what we’ve all been told, but to actually have it happen is out of control.

Christmas for these kids is the same for you & me, they woke with excitement to see what’s under the tree.
Except for these kids who were told they were bad, awoke on Christmas morn & instead being happy, they were very , very sad.

These children awoke from their beds with excitement & glee, to find NOTHING at all, under the tree.

They were sad & disappointed as most of us would be, Imagine how you would have felt at age 9 & 13, to find a bare tree.

Ya see, to them, Santa was a very nice man who lived long ago, that’s the story that is said, but as far as this house believes , he is now dead. Presents come from me & what I say goes, if I say NO gifts then that’s the way it goes.


Later that day when they returned home, their was toys for the boy & a bible book for the girl, sadly but true, she was told, that if you didn’t open your mouth to the courts & start your stuff, you would have received more, I have to pay for an attorney now & he walked away in a huff.


PLEASE E- Post your comments @ www.itsyourtownus.blogspot.com or E- MAIL me at teenieh1@optonline.net My goal is to have as many emails & or letters to show this Judge the mental abuse that is going on and must be stopped!!!!!!!

PLEASE e mail everyone you know & ask them to do the same ( a chain if you will ) I know I will receive a lot & hope this will help.


Sincerely yours, MOTHER.

8 Agent Smith says Fox News is beaming a giant subliminal swastika into all your feeble minds.

Agent Brown says Fox News is misbehaving and their frontman is into power tools.

Agent Jones smacks the other two and says that there is high probability that ernie is a front for marilyn manson.

9 The swastika that became the symbol of the Nazis was an ancient symbol that was simply rotated through 45 degrees. The Tajiks say that there should be multiple interpretations of the symbol. However looking at their new, overly done swastika, it seems that they're not even so sure themselves. If no one told me that it was a swastika, it would probably take me a minute or so to realise it. It seems to be that they want a swastika, but are afraid to show it openly. If there's no reason to object, just use the original. Granted it is of ancient origins, but I think that the attrocities associated with it are still too great for it to be used once again as a national symbol. It's a shame that one culture has to be tainted by the actions of another, but that's the reality. There has to be some other Aryan symbol that could be used.

10 That's nothing. Did you know that the Graz, Austria city council which took Schwarzenegger's name off their stadium actually considered re-naming it "Crips Stadium" in honor of Tookie?

11 This was supposed to be a serious thread?

OK - Its an Eastern symbol - thousand of years old - appropriated by some Europeans for a few decades for their own purposes - none of which associated with its past symbolic inferences.

The Europeans are now "traumatized" by it.

Screw'em! Tell them to get over it and get some therapy - and stop looting the rest of the world's cultural heritage.

12 In a Catholic church near me, one that's about a hundred years old, there are tiles in the floor impressed with the images of swastikas and other things. The swastika is a sun-wheel and symbolizes life, power, and eternity, and just because it was used by bad people once doesn't make it a bad symbol, just highly recognizable.

DISCLAIMER: If you are not smart enough to understand rhtorical argument and critical comparison, STOP READING NOW!

If the swastika is to be judged evil for the actions of those that carried it, what of the ancient warlike Hebrews who basically raped and pillaged their way across the ME three thousand years ago? Shouldn't the Magen David be held in the same regard? Oh wait, that's right, it is, and by the very people who supported the Nazis in WW2 and who still read Mein Kampf like it's on the NYT Best Seller List. The swastika and the Magen David are both religious and political symbols, but not necessarily both things to all people. I take no offense at one more than the other, because symbols are ultimately meaningless anyway, because it's actions that count.
If the Tajiks just want to celebrate their heritage, then fine, but if they have nefarious intentions, then what does a symbol mean anyway? It might do more harm than good to come down on them for it, because they have been isolated from the modern world for a long time, and might not understand our outrage, so it's best to meet them halfway and give them more than one option in going forward, because if we pressure them, they will likely do something just to piss the rest of the world off.

13 It's my understanding that the svastika is a symbol for peace in India and was established as such long before the Nazis hijacked the symbol for themselves.

14 Here's a link to an image I uploaded to imageshack. This temple is about a block from my apartment in Sasebo Japan. It's the reverse swastika atop a Buddhist temple.

http://img375.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shrinestemples037iw.jpg

15 True some places the swatika is a religous simbol

16 The swastika was actually used by Buddhists long ago. It is many things to many people, although most people only know it for one thing alone.

17 Any liberal upset about it - tell them their being "Eurocentric" and SFTU - get therapy or sumthin'!

18 Typing too fast! It's STFU - don't want to confuse a liberal (more than they are).