Good to see that there is no thread subject too important to be be hijacked into yet another of Aldebaran’s patented multi-post “You’re all against me because I’m Arab/part-Belgian/my English is bad/I’m dyslexic/I only have one functioning brain cell/you don’t read my posts” rants.
Jeeziz, man, it’s not all about you, and the person with the highest word count doesn’t win the argument. You could learn something from Brutus, you know. Like you, he tends to come off as an unreasonable, hostile, pompous asshole in nearly every thread to which he posts, but he usually manages to do it in 25 words or less.
Me, I’m somewhere in between. Still learning, I guess.
If it is a demonstration that she is “not limited to speaking only one language” then my comment on her use of the language is even more justified because clumsy it is and giving the impression of being copied from Bablefish it is.
And yes, there are occasionally the usual attacks on my command of the English language but I am not the only one who was attacked by such idiots on this. So what? Everyone is entitled to have a hobby. (I think Milumin GD was the last exaple I recall).
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I will allow the occasional French post, if its use serves a clear purpose. Highly arbitrary, sure. But that’s the way it is.
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So I understand that moderators can make the rules bending over to their personal preferences. No problem. Does the same count for the members though?
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]There are two statements to be made here:[list][li]Attacking people in the Pit is allowed.[*]Posts need to be made in English, unless the use of another language serves a demonstrable purpose.[/li][/quote]
Tiens… I mussed have missed that … Ahd what if I claim that me using an other language serves a demonstrable purpose because I can’t express what I want to express in English, which is, as you know, not maong the languages I do master because I studied them.?
Do you say now that your command of your mother tongue is to poor to actually understand me when I use Dutch? There are several members who have Dutch as a first language. What if we choose to use it to post to eachother, serving the purpose to be able to be completely at ease expressing what we want to express ?
Sorry to disagree completely. My reading skills are 1000 times better then my possibility to write this language.
It has in fact not only to do with this particular language although it would be better if I had actually studied its grammar and if I had a larger vocabulary. Yet I face similar problems whenever I need to use a language that is written in Latin script. For the simple reason (well it is not that simple in reality) that Latin script seems to influence the impact of my dyslexia on language. When you read, you take more time then when you write, especially in direct conversatoin. Which is often the case on message boards like this.
I don’t think you are in a position to evaluate my skills in any language or to evaluate if yes or no I should decide that “this board might not be for me” to post on because of my language skills. I am completely able to decide for myself, thank you.
To me, being born with French as one of my first languages, she only managed to demonstrate that she can find Bablefish on the Net.
God, I do hope you can live with the burden of such an overwhelming feeling of power.
Guess what: The rules should be for all the same or they are not rules, they are tools for moderators to play with following their personal prejudices.
I am entitled to post my opinion. If you think that is a free invitation for others to including yourself to attack me… Why not, everyone is entitled to have a hobby.
Nevertheless the knowledge of one single language is indeed a factor that limits you in developping a decent worldview.
If you are not convinced of that, then why did you study English or any other language?
Of course it does. I know now that you and other moderators bend the rules according to your moodswings. Very helpful indeed and it explains one and an other very well.
One administrator already said that I was scum, yet that she indeed had seen greater scum.
Your very enlightening explanation about how and when rules are rules and how and when they become tools really makes me a bit curious as to what shall come next in my mailbox when one of the administrators or moderators decides to follow a simple innocent non-prejudiced non-bigotted moodswing.
Typical for people like you is to blame the one who responds to idiotic unjustified attacks for disrupting a thread, while in fact those who attack out of the blue for no reason other then what is in their non-functioning brain cell, are the ones who initially derail the whole conversation.
Yes, I agree that you have one and an other to learn. Like say: reading skills and impartial judgement.
Aldebaran, I have -either in public on the boards or in private among the staff- alternately stood up for you, or chastised you. For the longest time, I was convinced that your stumbles on this board were mostly caused by language barriers, and perhaps cultural ones. But if you continue this apparent quest to argue for the sake of fucking arguing, even when people are trying to the best of their might to explain their intentions to you, taking valuable time to stipulate that which miraculously seems completely obvious to everyone else, then yes - perhaps you one day WILL find yourself unable to post to the SDMB. And I’m sure you’ll be utterly convinced that it’s all because the SDMB staff and indeed its posters are a bunch of hypocritical, bigoted, arbitrary bastards.
You’re already so convinced that the deck is stacked against you that not even my most reasonable and detailed explanations trickle through somehow. Read what I posted. Then read your responses again.
You’re being an ass, and -if you’re smart- you know it. I’m telling you, stop walking that damn line if you value contributing to this board so much. You’re easily among the Top 5 Most Discussed Posters amongst the staff. And that’s hardly ever a good thing.
Oh, yeah, about the thread subject. Sorry, Alde; hope you’ll forgive me if I divert attention away from you for a moment.
When I lived in Paris back in the '90s, I rode the RER line ‘B’ to work every day, and as something of a railfan I rode the all the suburban (RER) lines extensively, including the RER line D between Louvres and Sarcelles, where the attack apparently took place. Robberies by gangs of youths aboard trains in the region have been a fact of life for a number of years; there are rarely any railroad personnel, other than the driver, aboard the trains; police presence is spotty (usually flying squads of 4-6 officers who patrol maybe 10-20% of the trains running on a given day) and many stations at the extremities of the suburban lines are unstaffed at least part of the day. It’s therefore potentially quite easy to be mugged while aboard. OTOH, although I saw plenty of gangs hanging out aboard trains, and read numerous news stories of muggers physically attacking passengers and even drivers I never actually witnessed any such cases, nor was I ever threatened myself abaord a train. I was once attacked elsewhere, as I’ll relate below.
Now, as for the actual case at hand, I wouldn’t necessarily reject the victim’s story out of hand, but the general time and place seems a bit odd for such a bold attack. The attack apparently occurred about 9:30 AM on a Friday, on a train inbound toward Paris. RER line D trains are double-deckers, with each carriage having a capacity of roughly 140 passengers, sitting and standing. This would have been just past rush-hour peak, and if there were only 20 people aboard the carriage in question, I’d be surprised. Also, there are at least three stations between Louvres and Sarcelles, and assuming the train was not an express that skipped these stops, I find it hard to believe that no one at all witnessing such an act would get off the train to report the incident (note that most Paris suburban stations have clearly-marked emergency phone kiosks that connect directly with security staff at a central location).
I will say I’d be somewhat less surprised by the passivity of any potential witnesses who stayed aboard, though. I was once attacked by a deranged individual who hit me over the head with a bottle in the Rue Saint Denis; more than a dozen people were in a position to see this, yet no one stepped forward to help, or made a move to call the police. OTOH (again) overe the course of several years I more than once saw passers-by intervene when a female appeared to be under threat, and have done so myself, so flip a coin, I guess.
Lastly, it seems pretty clear that this incident at least began as a simple mugging, and even if the facts turn out be precisely as initially reported, I’m a bit hesitant to buy into the idea that this is necessarily symbolic of a larger anti-semitism in France. I’m not saying that such does not exist there, just that this particular incident was clearly at bottom an act of common criminals, with any racist or semitic behavior something of an afterthought.
Actually, it seems more ands more unlikely that she told the truth. I was reading the paper which explained the reasons why the police is now doubting her story :
-She said that after the assault an employee of the train station advised her to go to the police, but none remember her.
-The cameras on the platform don’t show her, nor the asaulters leaving the train.
-She said she called a friend from the station after the attack, but it appear that the phone call was made from the station where she boarded the train, not from the station where she supposedly left it after the assault.
-No witness was found despite public calls and extensive investigations
-On the other hand, someone testified she had seen her in the station where she board the train, already in tears and with her clothes already torn.
-She made 5 complaints in the recent years for various assaults, including an attempted rape (with some similarities in the details with the recent alleged assault), and none were corroborated.
-In a previous hearing she had lied about having a professionnal job she didn’t have, and owning luxurious cars she didn’t own.
At this point, The most likely assumption seems to be that she lied.
That would be me, indeed, and I even remember having posted in the thread you’re refering to.
Also, though the “la 1979” part of youre nickname doesn’t ring a bell, the “anu” does.
I don’t post there anymore, either. Though I sometimes visit the board, or recommand it.
There’s no reason to apologize for making mistakes while using a foreign language. And concerning the accents, I generally don’t type them, either, despite them being on my keyboard.
An advice though : litteral translations of idiomatics (votre tete est dans votre derriere) are best avoided, since the meaning is generally lost in the process. For instance, if you mention you’re a “fence-sitter” in french, people will wonder what this weird habbit of yours has to do with the issue at hand.
Who cares? Your rant was not about her; it was about les stupide Americaines, n’est pas? Next time, why don’t you rant about your own native assholes like this one, or that one.
You must get your reading comprehension from the same crackerjack box Aldebaran does.
The post was a slam against idiots and bigots who are more than capable of seeing the viciousness of others while remaining blissfully unaware of their own prejudices.
Wow. It’s a shame when people use legitimate national problems to draw attention to themselves like this; sort of a political Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome. But it doesn’t say many good things about white men/French Arabs that everybody immediately believed these women either. What a mess.
But those defaced tombstones and all–they’re worth a march.
I was listening to Michael Savage last night (hey, Fresh Air was over and the topic on SportsTalk was “What are you going to do over the All Star break?”) and the hard-blowing one was throwing one of his usual Thaaaa Franch Are Allll Natzis tantrums over this very incident.
Well…The police announced she admitted to having lied and made up the story “partly or entirely”. In particular she drew the Swastikas with the help of her boyfriend (or husband, can’t remember).
They’re still investigating about her motives. In particular, since her boyfriend/husband was involved, it means it was premedited and can’t be blamed entirely on her apparently somehow disturbed mental state.
Also, they’re enquiring about the origin of the actual minor wounds the woman had. Which made me wondering : the reports mentionned that the toddler too had minor bruises. Would it mean that they hurt their own child in order to make the story appear more credible?
