The following is in no way the views of Glibs in General, but more a view from Glibville, IMO.
I met an Armenian customer today, inspecting his flooded furnace, and being a businessman himself, we got to talking. He explained that his very nice neighborhood was once run down, but the Armenians came in and fixed the place up, improved property values and generally made a nice place to live and have their kids grow up; not bad. We compared prices for similar homes, mine $295k. The equivalent house in his neighborhood? $760k. (Disclaimer: I live in the sticks, 46 miles East of Glendale.)
We did speak briefly of the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the the Turks (who still won’t cop to it, after over 100 years? and Germany?, Fuck the Turks). SoCal has a large Armenian Diaspora. Weather, maybe?
I told him stories of Chinese people who HAD to win, at any cost, and I just jack up the initial price, knowing I will win my price and they “save” face, which is important to them.
When I was growing up, I remember the whole “Jews are shysters and con artists”, banker thing. Try ANY culture from the Middle East, they’re all Jews when it comes to haggling. Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, it doesn’t matter, everything is “Too much, Lower price”. (I don’t adhere to the Jew Concept, it’s a Middle Eastern thing.)
So many of the immigrants I meet are so proud to be here and be able to haggle in peace, it’s no wonder they want to be here. I often wish they would “fix” their own homeland but I get that it can be hard, if not impossible to do, that’s why they left. Think about that for a moment, you have to leave the place where you were born, your culture, lifestyle, all of it, due to fear of a lack of freedom. I say FUCK YEAH!
I actually love these interactions, I learn a lot about other cultures, but the one thing I have learned in 30 years of Customer service is everyone is different, don’t assume anything. Cultures are different, but the melting pot still exists, is very powerful, and immigrants are very valuable to our country. And some I assume are good people. We at least need to remind people that neo nazis, antifa and all the others aren’t who we are. Hell, I can’t see ’em in my world, and I cover most of SoCal.
Most People living in the U.S. are too busy working to pay much attention, IMO, and the antifa/nazi thing is just so much hot air. If I am wrong, well, at least we are all armed. (You are armed, correct?)
Notice the use of the word immigrant. I refer to legal immigrants. I know too many illegals and they are a strain on our system, like dead voters, democrats, feral Dogs and STEVE SMITH.
P.S. I’m told that you Canucks are but redheaded stepchildren to us in the U.S. of A.
At least the Canadians get Caps!
/Canada!
Rush!
Celine Dion!
Kids in the Hall!
/Feel better?
Music,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWnFqpAtRT0
Wherein the mask in flung down and danced upon:
***
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has gained traction in recent weeks, but contrary to media reports, the group does not exist to “monitor hate groups” but to destroy groups that it targets for “strictly ideological” reasons. In light of large donations from Apple, J.P. Morgan, and George Clooney, and CNN’s favorable coverage of the SPLC, Americans should learn the real motivations behind this far-left organization.
In the words of SPLC former spokesman Mark Potok (who spent 20 years as a senior fellow at the SPLC and only retired this year, according to LinkedIn), the group does not exist to monitor hate groups.
“Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them,” Potok declared at an event in Michigan in 2007.
Potok reiterated this point at a Vermont school group in 2008. “You are able to destroy these groups sometimes by the things you publish,” he declared. “It’s not so much that they will bring down the police or the federal agents on their head, it’s that you can sometimes so mortally embarrass these groups that they will be destroyed” (emphasis added).
The SPLC “mortally embarrasses” groups by equating mainstream conservative, Christian, and other organizations with the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. Make no mistake, this is not a “hate group monitoring” organization, it’s a far-Left defamation racket that exists to target any group it disagrees with politically.
“We see this political struggle,” Potok added in his 2008 Vermont speech. “We’re not trying to change anybody’s mind. We’re trying to wreck the groups. We’re trying to destroy them. Not to send them to prison unfairly or to take their free speech rights away, but as a political matter to destroy them.”
In yet another 2008 speech, Potok explained the SPLC criteria for a “hate group.” The spokesman said, “Our criteria for a ‘hate group,’ first of all, have nothing to do with criminality, or violence, or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’ It’s strictly ideological” (emphasis added).
***
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/09/southern-poverty-law-center-our-aim-in-life-is-to-destroy-these-groups-completely
meanwhile
***
The leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center said the organization condemns the antifa movement but won’t brand it with the center’s often-cited “hate group” designation.
Richard Cohen, the president of the SPLC, told the Washington Examiner the loosely organized antifa movement, short for anti-fascism, is “wrongheaded” in opposing free speech and using violence.
“We oppose these groups and what they’re trying to do. We just don’t think anyone should be able to censor someone else’s speech,” Cohen said, echoing and endorsing recent statements from progressive scholar Noam Chomsky.
“We think they are contributing to the problem we are seeing,” Cohen said. “We think it’s likely to lead to other forms of retaliation. In Berkeley, antifa showed up and shut down speeches. The next time the white supremacists brought the Oath Keepers with them, they brought their own army.”
He said, however, the SPLC won’t label antifa a “hate group” because adherents do not discriminate against people on the basis of race, sexual orientation or other classes protected by antidiscrimination laws, such as religion.
“There might be forms of hate out there that you may consider hateful, but it’s not the type of hate we follow,” Cohen said.
***
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/09/southern-poverty-law-center-refuses-to-classify-antifa-as-a-hate-group
“capitalists are not a protected class!”
Nor whites, males, cisheterosexuals.
It’s just not the type of hate they want to follow. Don’t question their motives.
“There might be forms of hate out there that you may consider hateful, but it’s not the type of hate we follow,” Cohen said.
Because it is a hate the SPLC encourage and actively participates in. Hatred of free speech is right out of their playbook.
And if some shooter takes the SPLC seriously and murders some people at the FRC, well, that’s one way those groups will get “destroyed”.
large donations from Apple, J.P. Morgan
Well, at least they paid their indulgences.
My grandfather came over to this country after living for half a decade under the Nazis and being drafted to kill Indonesians, only to come back and find that his farmland had been taken by the government and there was a recession on. Oh, and the U.S. rejected his immigration application in the 30s. Suffice to say he appreciated his new country.
The other side of my family came over in the 1600s and can be traced to a Catholic priest who thought it was more fun to fuck the native ladies than convert them. So we’s pimpin’.
Try ANY culture from the Middle East, they’re all Jews when it comes to haggling. Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, it doesn’t matter, everything is “Too much, Lower price”.
One of the saddest things about Western culture is largely the death of haggling. It’s the best part of trying to buy shit in Chinatowns.
P.S. I’m told that you Canucks are but redheaded stepchildren to us in the U.S. of A.
Do not confuse the blatant anti-Canite attitudes here for reality.
John I actually have a great deal of respect for the Canadian People, including you 🙂
Well when you bring up Celine Dion it’s hard to tell.
But Rush Dude!
/Exhales SFV Og
Bring up Kim Mitchell. I mean, Rush actually had some good songs.
You mean most of them? Or are you a filthy Rush heretic like Riven, but without the excuse of having a vagina?
It’s true that Rush has some good songs. All of them are instrumentals.
Most of them from Permanent Waves to Signals. I also like a lot of their earlier stuff, although I can’t listen to most prog rock now.
Also: Kim Mitchell. 100% Can Con!
I listen to Max Webster pretty frequently. Kim Mitchell has some serious chops so good call, Friendo!
MS are you a Hamsterphobe?
“The preceding is in no way the views of Glibs in General”
I wrote that, not the Editors, Glibs are like Cats, Impossible to herd
Try buying a car on Craigslist. You’ll see that the haggling culture is alive and well, heh.
STEVE SMITH STRAIN YOUR SYSTEM!
STEVE SMITH WELCOME ALL, HE MELTING POT OF RAPE.
STRAAAAIIINNN!!!
When I was growing up, I remember the whole “Jews are shysters and con artists”, banker thing.
Question for you (((glibs))) who would know.
Where I live it’s pretty common to call someone a jew if they are tring to get the better of you in a deal. Also, bargaining is sometimes called jewing. Since I really don’t know any jews in the real world I’ll ask, do you take offense at this language or take it as a point of pride?
Don’t Jew me Down Dude, is common enough, everybody hates Da JOOOS right?
/SARC
If you only use the Jewish-demeaning idiom in this case, you’re really gypping yourself.
I love to fuck with people that try to rip me off by saying ‘look buddy, you can’t jew a jew, okay?’
I adopted Kinky Friedman’s phrase- I talk about Christianing people down.
Yes, I take offense.
I am also very careful to use Jury rig as opposed to nigger rig, big no no in this Day and Age
I work with a black guy who says nigger rig fairly often. I was kinda surprised the first time I heard it.
You’re an Industrial Mechanic I believe? it would stand to reason, especially older people, we grew up around these terms and it was no big deal.
Nowadays, not so much
My wife’s family (Americans) grew up calling brazil nuts “nigger toes”. When I was a sproutling it was common to call those little half-penny licorice candies “nigger-babies”. We’re not even that old, early middle aged.
I think I’ve told this story before- black SGT had one of his guys (white pvt) put something away in his ruck or buttpack that was overloaded. Asked him if he had secured, “Oh yeah SGT, I n- riggered it.”. And after the words were out of his mouth, the lightbulb went on as to what he just said and who he said it to. He was pushing before the the SGT finished gesturing to get down with a ‘are you a brain dead moron?’ look.
I always thought it was “jerry rig”.
No, Jerry was a Race car Driver
The absolute best bartering episode I ever saw was a fairly high end Kabul rug seller and a black woman from our task force coming together. Ol’ Haji Zabiullah was asked how much a rug cost, and her reaction was “Oh, HELL no!” with the talk-to-the-hand up and start to walk away….his look of confusion, “finally, something new and challenging!” and “I must sell her something!” was a sight I shan’t ever forget.
Seen that here, it looks like a shouting match, almost a fight, then a sale is made,
HZ was too delighted by something new (not the same old American white guys who want to sit, have tea and follow the cultural awareness lessons from pre-mobilization training) to shout – He kept objecting “madame!” to her denunciations his wicked overpricing, but he was hampered by the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Here in the US, the concept is kind of foreign to us, outside certain contexts. I remember going to Mexico as a kid, and seeing something I wanted at some tourist stall. I was sad because I only had about 1/3 of the stated price. I walked away with the item.
I don’t think shoplifting is very nice, BP!
I bet it was a switch blade knife and then he smuggled across the border too.
you forgot – “…after stabbing a border guard.”
Switchblades suck.
Not when you are a kid and visiting Mexico and see one for the first time. Nothing is cooler. At least that was my experience. I know I came back with one. It broke in about two weeks, but that was two weeks of awesome.
Now I feel like buying a butterfly knife again.
I absolutely hate bartering, it was basically the worst part about visiting Istanbul. Name the goddamn price and have at it. Bickering about price cannot be dignified.
I agree, state your price and I either buy or walk, simple, almost like,
Ebay? Amazon?
you should see it when they do it in boardrooms with lawyers on each side.
*raises hand to object….says nothing*
*walks out of room, quietly*
“We can circle back on that point later”
I once threatened bodily harm to someone who said that in a meeting.
“Look we can put a stake in the ground on the circling-back issue and table this for another time”
Aaaaaagh! You were there!!
Seriously, wtf is wrong with people who talk like that?
So a lawyer walks quietly out of a room, crosses the street and enters a bar…..
I got sicker and sicker of bartering when I went to Mexico. A cumulative hangover will do that to a feller after a few days of debauchery. Just one more headache to add to your tale of woe. I don’t want to dicker over your off-brand Pipto-Dismal, I just want the shit to stop running down my leg for a few hours.
I bartered for cocaine in Mexico once. I bought alot! Didn’t have to barter for beers, just kept buying those. Bartered with those ladies about how we spend our time together. Had a good time!
Then I bartered with the Ensenada police to not beat me up and throw me in jail. They took all of my money. Then i bartered with the toll booth operators to get back to the border. Bartered for a bowl of soup and some tacos along the way. Bartered for gasoline in Rosarito.
Finally made it back to the good ol USA. Stole a bottle of bourbon and a bunch of cans of whipped cream in San Diego. Got drunk and did whippets all the way back to Venice Beach.
Oh yeah, smuggled in 4 ounces of ketamine into the USA as well. Didn’t barter for that. Just bought it at the farmacia.
Hesus Christo, dude! I was on a group tour but your tale leaves mine in a burning pile of wreckage in some Kulak’s field in the Ukraine. I have passed out and awoke in a different city (twice) and I once woke up in some chick’s apartment without having known if I had slept with one girl or the other (or even their first names). Turned out it was both but I low-tailed outta there anyways. How I made it past 25 is a matter of signs and wonder.
in my limited experience, the worst barterers/hagglers in the world are Jamaican
during 2 trips i saw this pattern repeat itself over and over:
Tourist: “how much for this crap trinket (or weed)”
Jamaican seller: “$100 US mon”
Tourist: “I’ll give you $10 Jamaican”
Jamaican seller: “Ok mon”
they go big on their opener, but then fold immediately. they don’t have the patience to do any back-forth. it became a running joke when i was there with a group. people would brag about how they managed to get a bartender to cut their drink tab in half, or discount rentals after they returned them. It was constantly like, “Here’s your bill”. and they’d be like “and here’s the actual amount of money that i’m willing to give you”… and the seller would shrug and go, “ok mon”. etc.
Is it really dangerous outside of Kingston? with gangs and such, or is that a myth?
My experiences were in the 1990s and early 2000s, and yes.
but I think you have it backwards; it was super dangerous IN kingston. the safe places were the resort-towns and the hotels (Negril, Ocho Rios) Actual cities where jamaicans lived were off limits to tourists.
Towns like Montego Bay are/were sort of half-half. You were ok if you stayed on the strip and went to your tourist bars and your beach-clubs, it was ok. but if you wandered into the wrong area, you were guaranteed to get mugged, and then mugged again by the police. Literally. We faced robbery attempts by police on multiple occasions. But we got pretty good at playing dumb and forcing them to give up, because (as my above comment) we’d learned that jamaicans have absolutely no persistence.
I’d compare it to New Orleans in the 1990s. You were OK in the french quarter or on the St charles-Tulane strip, but if you wandered into the wards you’d be taking your own life in your hands. It may be different now.
The Clash wrote a song about it. I believe they were just starting to get into reggae, and they wanted to go record in Jamaica. Unfortunately for them, The Rolling Stones had just recorded there. To avoid being mugged, the Stones were handing out $100 US bills, giving the locals a very slanted idea of how much money rock bands had.
Safe European Home would be called racist today, I’m sure.
My favorite off that record. I had a t-shirt of that album cover, as well. Very stylish.
Second favorite:
https://youtu.be/eQrUXtrhRIY
My favorite, too. Though I’d probably go with “Tommy Gun” for second.
I saw the title and immediately thought “I am so not in the mood for this today.”
I was wrong. Very nice piece, Yusef. Thank you.
Thank You, Fine Sir!
/Tips Top Hat
“Our criteria for a ‘hate group,’ first of all, have nothing to do with criminality, or violence, or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’ It’s strictly ideological” (emphasis added).
Wrongthink must be eradicated.
Apologies in advance if this story has already been posted over the weekend but the overall lack of social signalling and brute honesty in a NYT piece of all places took me by surprise.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/colin-kaepernick.html?referer=https://t.co/iNmMX6ugxj?amp=1
He should thank Dom Capers for the fact he even had a career.
What is this? Earlier this week some on the left started pointing out Antifa might be violent thugs and now in the NYT it is written Kaepernick might just be a shitty QB? File those things under stuff I thought I would never see,
I enjoyed the piece a lot, Yusef. I’ve said it a bunch lately : want to know what’s really going on, get your ass out into the world and interact.
Way cooler than the doomsayers would have you think.
Very True Tundra, the World isn’t Quite as bad a s some want you to think,
And Thank You,
Bob
THANK YOU ALL FOR PLAYING, STEVE SMITH APPROVED!
Really, thanks all!
Thank you, Yusef! I love hearing about the offline lives of the Glibertariat.
(With a couple exceptions. I’ll let you all guess who those are.)
Christ, it’s just pineapple…
OMWC has also informed me that his home is a no poutine zone. Truly a nightmare.
The horror! The horror!
That’s like saying; It’s just herpes. Or it’s just cancer. Or it’s just nuclear armed North Korea. Or it’s just a naked picture of Hillary.
Without Canadians, America is just a garden. With Canadians it’s a botanical garden of splendid ehs.
/Feel better?
John Candy
The Shat
Though Bieber mitigates all that
SCTV , Hockey, Margot Kidder before she became a crazy old bag-lady, Yellowstone wolves, and a cozy hat to keep the chill off. You’re welcome.
You had me at hockey.
Wipes away a single, stoic tear.
Jordan Peterson, Neil Young, Superman (hey, Joe Shuster) and Sam Steele.
Aaaand the 2nd Canadian regiment who fought in the American Revolutionary War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Canadian_Regiment
The Tragically Hip and The Guess Who.
…and Canadian Bacon. Hahahahahah! Hell no, just kidding.
And Mike Plume. A very underrated talent.
“Canadian Bacon” is a misnomer that was made up by the Pizza Illuminati. Up here we call it sliced ham and bacon is the stuff that is smoked, cured, cut into strips and sold in vacuum packs, just like the bacon that one would buy in Bumfuck, Arkansas. I feel so triggered right now, I can’t even….
Doughboys, The Nils, Asexuals, DOA, nomeansno, Sheer Agony, Nap Eyes, Alvvays, King Khan & BBQ Show, SNFU and about a million other bands. I’ve been rocking the King Khan alot lately.
https://youtu.be/dvfnoqHuTFg
Nice write-up Yusef. Thanks for contributing.
Regarding the Turks and Armenian Genocide; I thought I read in the last couple years that there was some (small maybe) admission of guilt? Maybe I am thinking of a *different genocide that some country is finally admitting too?
*That I am even confused about “which genocide” is a very sad commentary on humanity.
Yes, I seem to have heard or read that but nothing *official* as I understand it. And it definitely won’t happen under the current retard running the country.
Same like how Russia never atoned for its blue caps – unless they did and I’m unaware of it.
Nice article. Good job.