new conferences?

[Gregory Sager]

The Brits claimed the Frogs had it, and the Frogs claimed the Brits had it. Kind of like the OAC and the NCAC.

While the Brits called it the "French disease", I believe the French called it the "Italian disease" (and, if I recall correctly, the Germans called it the "Slavik disease").  Who gets blamed for which maladies could be quite a history lesson on international relations at various times!

Around here we call it "the D1 disease". 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'm not sure exactly which disease you're talking about, but I just read 1491, which, claiming some recent scholarship, reports that this disease may have been the price paid for the plundering of the "new world."  Apparently some of Columbus' men had some not so fun results from their pillaging related activities.  Although it in now way comes close to making up for all the attrocities, you'd think it gives the occasional native american pause for a wry smile now and then.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm not sure exactly which disease you're talking about, but I just read 1491, which, claiming some recent scholarship, reports that this disease may have been the price paid for the plundering of the "new world."  Apparently some of Columbus' men had some not so fun results from their pillaging related activities.  Although it in now way comes close to making up for all the attrocities, you'd think it gives the occasional native american pause for a wry smile now and then.

I suppose ... but then the American Indian's kid gets measles or chicken pox, and he's reminded all over again that the Atlantic Ocean was a viral two-way street -- and his side of the street was the one where people got run over the most.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Well yes, but until I read this book, I was never aware that there was a two-way street.  I was just glad that something got sent back across the Atlantic.

[diehardfan]

Although it in now way comes close to making up for all the attrocities, you'd think it gives the occasional native american pause for a wry smile now and then.

I suppose ... but then the American Indian's kid gets measles or chicken pox, and he's reminded all over again that the Atlantic Ocean was a viral two-way street -- and his side of the street was the one where people got run over the most.

And there's the fact that the white people weren't given intentionally infected blankets. 

Although it's not really my place to say this, I really don't think it's very likely that the average Native American would find any enjoyment out of something that vindictive. And though the individual stories of the relatively unknown, smaller tribes I work with out here in Cali constantly make me weep, I don't feel any pleasure in knowing that either. Let's face it, diseases know no boundaries... and they almost always affect innocent people! It doesn't make me happy that people in Europe were infected with a disease! The only things that make me smile in this genre of conversation is when I run across the occasional stories of white people who actually did something good.

Incidentally, regarding Columbus and Native Americans, my mom recently asked if she could come out to visit me for Columbus Day weekend... my response... uhm, I work for Native American tribes, I'm pretty sure we WE DON'T CELEBRATE THAT HOLIDAY!

[Gregory Sager]

And there's the fact that the white people weren't given intentionally infected blankets. 

A lot more heat than light has been spread by that infected-blankets story. There is documented evidence that it happened once -- in 1763, during the French & Indian War. The infamous Lord Jeffrey Amherst, military commander in Britain's American colonies, openly contemplated using the tactic against France's American Indian allies, but never actually implemented it. However, infected blankets were apparently distributed at Fort Pitt (modern-day Pittsburgh) by his subordinate, Captain Ecuyer (the fort's commander) without Amherst's knowledge. Amherst was a pretty disreputable character, but in this case he's usually accused of something that he never actually did.

Most people focus their accusation of whites infecting American Indians with smallpox via blankets upon the epidemic of 1837 that all but wiped out the Mandan tribe in present-day North Dakota. That genocidal charge has largely been the work of the notorious Ward Churchill. But scholars have thoroughly debunked the story that the spread of the smallpox epidemic among the Mandans was a deliberate attempt by whites to wipe them out. In fact, the opposite is true; the white traders in Mandan country (contra Churchill's assertion, there were no U.S. Army forces in the area at the time), all of whom had American Indian wives and children, did their best to quarantine the trading post and halt the spread of the epidemic. Furthermore, Congress had passed a law five years earlier that called for the inoculation of American Indians along the Mississippi and Missouri River trading routes -- hardly the act of a government that was supposedly seeking to wipe out the Plains tribes through viral warfare.

Whites did some pretty brutal things to the American Indians on the frontier -- and were in turn the victims of a lot of brutality at the hands of the border tribes -- but employing infected blankets as a means of genocide, aside from that one incident at Fort Pitt in 1763, wasn't one of them.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Wow, you make one little joke about Siphilis and it errupts into an all out debate on the history of genocide (intentional or otherwise) in North America.  You won't find that on the SEC football message boards, that's for sure.

[Warren Thompson]

Wow, you make one little joke about Siphilis and it errupts into an all out debate on the history of genocide (intentional or otherwise) in North America.  You won't find that on the SEC football message boards, that's for sure.

That's simply because some posters herein are the intellectual equivalents of Robin Williams (who can go off on a lengthy comic riff when given, say, a rock or a toothbrush). They pick up a thread, follow it, and add more threads ... until a virtual
scholarly mini-monograph results.

Per the SEC, and most D1, posters: they're likely more concerned with speculating on how many athletes will end up in police lineups .... 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Per the SEC, and most D1, posters: they're likely more concerned with speculating on how many athletes will end up in police lineups ....

No, I said, SEC, not Cincinnati Bengals.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Per the SEC, and most D1, posters: they're likely more concerned with speculating on how many athletes will end up in police lineups ....

No, I said, SEC, not Cincinnati Bengals.

Or, for those of us more into bball, the Portland Jailblazers.

[Pat Coleman]

The infamous Lord Jeffrey Amherst, military commander in Britain's American colonies, openly contemplated using the tactic against France's American Indian allies, but never actually implemented it.

Defector.

[frank uible]

Pat, a sophisticated d3 comment!

[Gregory Sager]

I was waiting for someone to pick up on that D3 connection. Gold star for Pat ... or should that be a purple star?

[frank uible]

A star with purple and white on one side and purple and gold on the other.

[Ralph Turner]

This "new planets debate" actually goes back to 1930 when the National Cosmological and Astronomical Association admitted Pluto as the ninth planet.

Over the next few decades, the National Cosmological Accreditation Commission began to object to Pluto's behavior.  They cited the fact that Pluto's orbit was elliptical, which sometimes brought the planet inside Neptune's orbit.  To you football fans, this is an infraction that is worse than "red-shirting".  Basically, the NCAC is trying to restrict the definition of a planet to such criteria that effectively places a moratorium on admitting new planets to the Planetoid Division of the NCAA.  

The opposite side of the argument comes from those astronomical bodies that are in the Kuiper Belt, and a few major asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.  These have been identified by the National Astronomical Investigative Association.  The current debate has been prompted by the desire to call 2003 UB313 a planet.  2003 UB313, affectionately known as Xena, has stronger criteria to be defined as a planet in the NCAA than Pluto.  Xena has a bigger, rounder shape than Pluto and has more gravity and a really neat orbit.

I guess that the real issue is emotional.  If the NCAA lets in bodies such as Xena, then the NCAA just won't be the same as what the NCAC and other factions would like it to be. 

Pluto Demoted to "Dwarf Planet" Status

This action by the International Astronomical Union, in which only 5% of the world's astronomers voted, will be quite contentious.  Pluto is currently getting its own unmanned probe, but whether Pluto will continue to recieve its own full share of research monies is uncertain at this time.

The advocates of the Big 8, (Mercury thru Neptune), say that Pluto had not fulfilled numerous requirements to be a planet of equal standing.  They have relegated Pluto, Ceres and 2003UB313 to another classification that some observers say is pejorative as well as inaccurate in its appellation, i.e., "Dwarf Planet".  There are already numerous other "dwarf planets" that have been assigned to this classification and hundreds more may be discovered.

The contentious vote was deplored because so few voted and the issue was not settled by using the option of electronic voting.  The results of the balloting have not been released, but since the vote occurred in Prague, Czech Republic, it is not certain that a case will be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The issue whether this will impact "global warming" was not discussed.