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ethan (3163)
reversethis-{ed. ... rap.nov.olissat}
Being a 25-year old chap living in the western-most town of Germany. Stuying communication and information science and being a huge fan of XS-related things.
The Uprising of the Stupid and Retarded
Also known as Carnival. Boy, do I hate that!
Ahead of me lies almost one week of madness and - since I am living in Aachen -
I am in one of its epicentres. This Thursday (referred to as "Weiberfastnacht"
or "Fettdonnerstag" which is "mardi gras" in French) it all begins. At 10 in
the morning I already heard the first beer-corpses stumbling and yelling around
town. Each carnival session (and that's a scary figure), several hundred people
have to be reanimated by the ambulance due to excessive alcohol consumption. I
really hope this year's figures will hit a new all-time high. I have some hope
since temperatures are close to freezing so maybe that'll help a little.
Too bad I can't really escape it. My appartment is in the geographical centre
of Aachen, between the cathedral and the old town hall. The big carnival tent
is erected below my windows and in a couple of hours I'll be tormented by
carnival music.
If you think of Carnival as something happening in Venice or Rio, don't think
any farther. German Carnival bears no ressemblance to that. It's an event
without even a fraction of style or brain.
an endless discussion thread about what features to include.
-- Jarkko Hietaniemi
The word is Retarded (Score:1)
I'm sensitized to it because I my autistic son is also, technically, retarded. I see nothing about him that's worthy of being the archetype for a slur. He's perfectly wonderful, thank you very much.
Retarded means you have mental or physical development that lags relative to the norm. This would include just about everyone in some way. Einstein was reported to have poor language skills as a child, for example.
Re:The word is Retarded (Score:2)
It should have become obvious that I was not talking about the truly handicapped. I was talking about the phenomenon of mass degradation of brain that clearly manifests below my windows in this second.
So did I mean to insult autistics? No. Did I mean to insult those participants in carnival who crawl along the
Re:The word is Retarded (Score:1)
"Retarded" is an insult when it refers to people who show the behaviour of retarded people (in one way or the other) although they are totally ok from a medical point of view. Since this is unpardonable I am not going to take anything back.
Look, you can use whatever words you want, in whatever way you want. Don't "take it back", just keep being insensitive, if that's what you prefer. But, I don't have to like it.
There are parents I know who insist that their autistic children not be referred to as re