Would you let Eli in?

[DMt.]

Home, I think, but you made me laugh anyway.

Haemophagic refreshment...

[sauvin]

Lacenaire, dude, nobody in the West in his right mind is going to play the game of "who's sicker" with a child who survived Communist Poland, or Communist Hungary, or Communist $any_other_country. There's no currency in having any "moral ascendancy" from having suffered demonstrably more, and the whole exercise is just a big waste of time.

In the '70's, I think, I read a book on the failed Hungarian revolt. Scary [deleted]. In the time since, I've read a few passages here and there about what life was like for the average Russian or Pole, and I remember thinking "what's to say that we're not being propagandised the way these books are claiming folks under Communist rule are?", but enough folks like YOU come out of the woodwork that I've been forced into believing that nearly half the d%#n world at one time lived for the longest time under a shadow even darker than that of the German Nazi.

I'm not discounting a single word you said. In fact, I fear you understate.

In the US, in the '60's, we were taught to be thankful for our country. We were taught that the Colonies shuffled off a tyrannical king in order to create a nation in which everybody had equal rights under the law, everybody had a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and we were taught these things from very early age. Most of it may even be true! - but in the time since, evidence has been popping up that the country isn't so pure as we were led to believe. Thomas Jefferson, for example, owned slaves.

We were taught "America: love it or leave it" and "my country, right or wrong!" at a time when black people were coming from the left, women were coming from the right, young men headed for an unwanted war were disappearing everywhere and the entire older generation seemed seemed [deleted]-bent for leather to break our younger spirits and our wills to bring us back into more traditional roles. Detroit took a real beating, with Chicago and other major cities being the stages on which scary dramas were unfolding.

The US at that time didn't consider me a "person".

"With liberty and justice for all", my a%#. I'm not saying that life in Eastern Europe wasn't a nightmare most Americans wouldn't understand; quite the opposite. What I am saying is that we're not what we say we are. If we were truly a free nation, we wouldn't have to be brainwashing our children into mouthing meaningless words in school; they'd grow up to have a strong sense of how lucky they are NOT to be living (for example) in '50's and '60's Poland all by themselves. I'm saying we wouldn't have feared Communism so much that we had to see evilly grinning little gnomes with sickles and hammers on their furry hats hiding under every bed or behind every theater screen. A land of the truly brave wouldn't have been sending young men off to prison for burning images of the flag or for suggesting that our leaders were lying to us.

I'm saying that there's a strong kernel of truth in the phrase the underground repeated a lot: "America: Change it or LOSE it". It seems prescient, actually, because we're already more than halfway there. I wonder, Lacenaire, dude, if you could remain your present age for another forty or fifty years and move into the US then, if things keep trending they way they seem, would you still be willing to move here and take such an oath?

... every Pole I new in my childhood and still most of those I know today was intensely patriotic - nobody would admit that they would hesitate to give up their life for their country.

People talk about how the end of the Cold War was signaled by the toppling of The Berlin Wall. No one ever seems to mention how the wave that pushed over that wall started as a ripple in a shipyard in Gdansk. That was where the first crack in The Warsaw Pact emerged. And that was no time or place for cowards.

Even so, what does all this have to do with letting a pale, large-eyed little waif into your home for some hemophagic refreshment?

Not one blessed little thing - unless we want to ramp up to the next level and discuss vampirism in general (and maybe Eli's brand of it in specific) as a metaphor for whole hosts of social ills.

Edit: 29 Octobre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

Edit: 5 Novembre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

[DMt.]

'Home is, when you have to go there, they have to let you in' - Robert Frost

Sauvin, you're on fire.

[lombano]

In the US, in the '60's, we were taught to be thankful for our country. We were taught that the Colonies shuffled off a tyrannical king in order to create a nation in which everybody had equal rights under the law, everybody had a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and we were taught these things from very early age. Most of it may even be true! - but in the time since, evidence has been popping up that the country isn't so pure as we were led to believe. Thomas Jefferson, for example, owned slaves.

Yet the Pledge of Allegiance was at least more nearly true than equivalent rhetoric in many other places, and something similar can be said for various other US symbols. It certainly lacks the farcical quality the equivalents from my childhood had; my point is, this sort of rhetoric never fully (if at all) reflects reality, but in terms of accuracy that of the US and other Western countries does relatively well.

[Wolfchild]

Well, I tried to bring this thread back on topic, but it stubbornly refuses to go there. I guess it is off the reservation for good.

There are a multitude of venues on the internet for discussing politics. This is not one of them. Here a discussion of politics must tie in directly to the story.

I've already had to clean up this thread once. Is it time to trigger the range safety package on this thread before some civilian gets hurt?

[PeteMork]

Lacenaire, dude, nobody in the West in his right mind is going to play the game of "who's sicker" with a child who survived Communist Poland, or Communist Hungary, or Communist $any_other_country. There's no currency in having any "moral ascendancy" from having suffered demonstrably more, and the whole exercise is just a big waste of time.

In the '70's, I think, I read a book on the failed Hungarian revolt. Scary stuff. In the time since, I've read a few passages here and there about what life was like for the average Russian or Pole, and I remember thinking "what's to say that we're not being propagandised the way these books are claiming folks under Communist rule are?", but enough folks like YOU come out of the woodwork that I've been forced into believing that nearly half the world at one time lived for the longest time under a shadow even darker than that of the German Nazi.

I'm not discounting a single word you said. In fact, I fear you understate.

In the US, in the '60's, we were taught to be thankful for our country. We were taught that the Colonies shuffled off a tyrannical king in order to create a nation in which everybody had equal rights under the law, everybody had a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and we were taught these things from very early age. Most of it may even be true! - but in the time since, evidence has been popping up that the country isn't so pure as we were led to believe. Thomas Jefferson, for example, owned slaves.

We were taught "America: love it or leave it" and "my country, right or wrong!" at a time when black people were coming from the left, women were coming from the right, young men headed for an unwanted war were disappearing everywhere and the entire older generation seemed seemed hell-bent for leather to break our younger spirits and our wills to bring us back into more traditional roles. Detroit took a real beating, with Chicago and other major cities being the stages on which scary dramas were unfolding.

The US at that time didn't consider me a "person".

"With liberty and justice for all", my ass. I'm not saying that life in Eastern Europe wasn't a nightmare most Americans wouldn't understand; quite the opposite. What I am saying is that we're not what we say we are. If we were truly a free nation, we wouldn't have to be brainwashing our children into mouthing meaningless words in school; they'd grow up to have a strong sense of how lucky they are NOT to be living (for example) in '50's and '60's Poland all by themselves. I'm saying we wouldn't have feared Communism so much that we had to see evilly grinning little gnomes with sickles and hammers on their furry hats hiding under every bed or behind every theater screen. A land of the truly brave wouldn't have been sending young men off to prison for burning images of the flag or for suggesting that our leaders were lying to us.

I'm saying that there's a strong kernel of truth in the phrase the underground repeated a lot: "America: Change it or LOSE it". It seems prescient, actually, because we're already more than halfway there. I wonder, Lacenaire, dude, if you could remain your present age for another forty or fifty years and move into the US then, if things keep trending they way they seem, would you still be willing to move here and take such an oath?

QFT!! Sauvin, in your usual inimitable way, you have once again hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head.

Apologies Wolfie, I posted before I saw yours. I hope this hasn't risen to a level yet that needs purging. No one so far seems particularly offended. But I leave it to your discretion.

[sauvin]

Well, I tried to bring this thread back on topic, but it stubbornly refuses to go there. I guess it is off the reservation for good.

There are a multitude of venues on the internet for discussing politics. This is not one of them. Here a discussion of politics must tie in directly to the story.

I've already had to clean up this thread once. Is it time to trigger the range safety package on this thread before some civilian gets hurt?

Nope. All my hypergolics are stored off-site somewhere. I'm all politicked out, now, and look! There's no grease or oil on the floor! (a bit of blood, maybe, but that's another story...)

Topic drift does seem to be a pretty consistent thing on this forum, and I'm actually usually grateful for it, but in this case, I think you're right. Bugs Bunny, in this case, really shouldn't have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

[ykeleven]

I was just wondering... A thought just popped in my head... If Eli was ever cured of her vampire infection...

How stable will Eli be? If Eli and Oskar was growing up together, could they maintain their relationship? Would you let your kids (or your favorite nephews and nieces) be friends with cured Eli?

[DMt.]

Is there any pleasure in life greater than being understood?

[Not that there aren't at least some equal to it, I hasten to add.]

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1199&p=32799#p32799

[LastDarkness]

Is there any pleasure in life greater than being understood?

[Not that there aren't at least some equal to it, I hasten to add.]

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1199&p=32799#p32799

I live in fear of the day I am no longer misunderstood.