Old man has embarrassing slip of tongue, then apologizes. Not a big deal.
SDMB poster mentions old man having embarrassing slip of tongue, is pilloried for “bothsidesism”. Apparently the new Democratic party line is that any facts even mildly inconvenient to Biden must be rigorously denied. These are the same people who think the NY Times obviously supports Trump, because it reports on polls showing Biden doing poorly. 
I think the OP was “pilloried” because it was really fucking unclear what his point was. Like I origianlly said, based on the link to the ATMB thread, I didn’t get the sense he was mad at Biden, I got the sense he was mad at the board for moderating usage of the term that Biden says so it must be fine.
I have to admit I thought it was funny that Biden said the, “Come to Jesus” thing. It just struck me as so ironic and ridiculous. It was sooo Biden.
I get the offense, and I’m sorry he said it, though I don’t think he meant to be offensive, but you know Biden is gaffe prone. I’m not a christian … anymore which I guess is the point. I will still use this phrase with my kids who are, as am I, Atheists. Perhaps a cultural thing?
Yeah, No.
SDMB poster called the old man a “scumbag and a racist” due to that “slip of tongue” and you’re okay with that?
This is a bit off topic but not worth a new thread and has a similar theme of the current president putting his foot in his mouth with regard to sensitivity.
Dear Mr. President, although it is undoubtedly the case that your uncle went down in New Guinea and his body was never found, it is highly unlikely that he was eaten by Cannibals, and saying so promotes a bad stereotype, and may hurt US reputation and diplomacy in an area of the world over which China is attempting to gain influence. I understand that that is probably part of your family’s oral history and that it makes a great story but from now on please keep it to yourself.
Well, it was worth an FQ thread attempting to confirm the historical accuracy of the story.
But if you wanted a thread to pit the President, I suppose that wouldn’t have been the right one.
The headline I saw yesterday was something like, “Papua New Guinea Ambassador offended after Biden suggests his uncle was eaten by cannibals,” and I thought it was the ambassador’s uncle that was the topic, not Biden’s.
So, could have been worse, I guess
Your mother was a hamster, your father smelt of elderberry, and your uncle was eaten by a cannibal.
Classic insult.
I’m pretty sure I heard Mr. Burns tell the same story. That’s probably where this came from.
No, Mr. Burns covered up the death of Smithers’ father in a nuclear accident by telling young Waylon his dad was brutally murdered by savage women in the Amazon.
We’ll never know if it had some psychological impact on him.
The story is untrue but there is some relevant context.
The Fore people of eastern PNG sometimes ritualistically consumed part of a recently-deceased family member as a funeral rites thing. It wasn’t for sustenance, and they weren’t chomping on random soldiers.
But it was still happening in the 1950s; indeed this was around the time that this practice was found to be the transmission mechanism of a neurological disease. Hence part of the perception on which stories are built.
I remember learning about them in my Cultural Anthropology class in college. It was as you said; it was a ritualistic thing, sort of like a funerary rite. Very different from the idea of killing an invader to turn that person into a stew.
Yes, it was included in a monograph I had to read for a class in uni called “One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Person.”
That would be kuru, basically mad cow disease only in humans. Nasty business.
Well humans can get mad cow disease (CJD), but I get what you mean.
Denny Crane: “I’m sorry your honor. I have mad cow disease. I think you do too.”