Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Your loss! I know the middle is boring, but after the family bit, the pace really picks up!

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I totally loved Annihilation (although I am having a hard time getting into Authority, but think that is more because I want to go back to the biologist narrating). ..."

...then I hold some hope! Just btw, there are already threads if you're interested, but I suspect you might want tot start reading a bit first of course.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "My library's webpage says my hold for COSAM has arrived! World record time. I am all squee and giggles. So now I know what to read next :)"

Oh dear, but you might not like it. I admit the beginning (of the first story) seems rather boring, but it definitely picks up towards the end! ...and at the end, you see a lot of things that you probably missed at the beginning! Jeff Vandermeer is like that. He lulls you, and then, BAM! Most of the 'history' story is boring though, unless you are a po-mo geek. (view spoiler)[ ( I admit that I'm one) Don't tell Derek. (hide spoiler)]

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I could have sworn we already did that… except that I found "Dradin in Love" to be excruciating, and bowed out."

We started but never finished. It's a pity, because I love that ending! Different strokes, of course.

I really like no's. 4, 12, 16 and no. 20.

Imagine, no more: "Dingingdingdingding! This library will close in 15 minutes." Don't you just hate hearing that?

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I need to check availability, but even if I need to find it, I should be able to catch up. Monday is fine for me. (Are we still doing The King in Yellow as well?)"

Hmm, I thought you might have it already. The thing with Magdelanye is that she has limited access to books and the internet, and she has been waiting months for it. Yes, the King in Yellow has not been removed - it seems that only 2 "to read" books appears on the group home page at a time.

Since our Halloween reads are quite loosely timed, we can maybe change the dates of Yellow King/ City of Saints a few days forward or backward as it suits everyone?

Just by the way, COSAM has a lot of creepiness in it, -it's not ghostly, but weird enough to be not entirely unfitting for around Halloween time. :)

@ Ruth and Amy: Oh good, oh good. Ruth, I think you had mentioned long ago that you do have it?

So it's a date for this coming week Monday then? ...or is that too soon?

Magdelanye has reminded me that we were going to do City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer. She is rearing to go because she finally got the book from her library. Anybody else in on that? I can do it anytime after Monday October 20.

If anyone is interested, we can start here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Magdelanye has reminded me that we were going to do City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer. She is rearing to go because she finally got the book from her library. Anybody else in on that? I can do it anytime after Monday October 20.

If you're interested, we can start here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Magdelanye nudged me on this one, which fell by the wayside due to too much else going on, and I am so glad! I've really been wanting to discuss this book.

I will only have time to resume it on Tuesday, October 20. I hope some of the members here might have the time and inclination to jump in !

Bill wrote: "Traveller wrote: "We can always do a different Le Guin right here, like The Lathe of Heaven, for example."

Love this book! A short read, and I'm game to read it again."

A friend recommended it to me ages ago, and I've been looking for an excuse...

Cecily wrote: "And more important than the financial cost was the risk to lives of others - even though they chose to do so. If they all died, think of the recriminations!"

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Final quibble (at least from my notes): "The cost for my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars." I think he's off by a couple of orders of magnitude. Tens of billions, I'd think. ..."

It's staggering to think of the financial cost. Common sense would say that it would be best in this regard if space travel was a world enterprise, but currently there are of course too many politics involved. (...and previously the control of space was of course closely with a country's military might)...which makes me really like the fact that The US and China eventually decided to work together in this story. it's such an optimistic story, and i love it for that.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "You yourself say that Indigenous Americans identify with particular ethnic groups - why not stick to that? "

Because the ones Puddin' and I know are not Americans, either, and it..."

Yes, I listened to that vid, and I noticed he says that he goes with whatever name floats people's boats. I just find it rather tragic that there are nations who don't even have a name that identifies them as their "own" group, and that people never, historically, seemed sensitive enough to consider what they would like to be called.

But then, I read an account the other day, of when the Caribbean islands were being discovered, which made me cringe: The Europeans were looking at the natives there through the lens of how well they would do as servants... :P If you look at people the way you look at tools, I guess you don't much care what those tools would like to be called, much less whether they would like to be left alone to live their own lives in peace.... :P :(

You mean Americans as in USians? Well, Canada is still part of North-America, isn't it, so how about the term Original North-Americans? Just a thought. :)

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "Just FYI: According to dictionary.com and Wiktionary, the word "Indian" has been in use to describe a person from the far east since the 14th Century. The New World usage of course dates from the 1..."

The point is that when I talk about my "Indian friends" those are Asians, and THEY themselves identify themselves as Indians. ...and these consist of two separate groups: the Hindus I met at College, and the Muslims I met through work. Can you see the potential for confusion there if we were to throw Native Americans into the mix? You yourself say that Indigenous Americans identify with particular ethnic groups - why not stick to that?

Anyway, it is obvious that neither of us are going to concede, so I will bow out now.

Anyway, I suppose I understand what you are trying to say, being that many American Indians grew up being called Indians, and that it has therefore become part of their identity.

I know there is a lot of rage coming through in what I've been saying, and I suppose I must come clean: Being from partly British extraction but also identifying to some extent with the colonized Northern Americas, I find myself rather torn between post-colonial accusations being bandied about; the brunt of it seems to be aimed against Britain and I have always found that unfair - all of Europe scrambled to colonize the world, after all, and Empire-building is a very human thing and not always a bad thing.

...but then I have recently also been reminded how very very arrogant the British aristocracy can be, and no doubt was with those they colonized. I am also reading a book written from an Italian/Portuguese POV written in the late 19th century, and even to THEM the British were arrogant, so... argh.

And long story how that relates back to the "Indian" name problem, but suffice it to say that i feel that of all the colonies, to me the American Indians - whatever you like to call them, were, bar the original natives of the Caribbean, the most short-changed of all the colonized peoples.

Anyways, this discussion is becoming far too political, I suspect. I will let the name thing be, and try not to... I will try to work through my issues in private, rather..

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "But "Indian" is them, and has been for centuries. It's an odd quirk of history, I agree, but it's perfectly legitimate in my mind."

Also, Indians from India have been called Indians for milennia, not just a few centuries, and that is also "them". So which them is the real them?

In addition, tribal peoples were called "savages" for centuries and centuries - so, do "savages" still want to be called "savages"? Hmmm, I wonder.

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "But "Indian" is them, and has been for centuries. It's an odd quirk of history, I agree, but it's perfectly legitimate in my mind."

Yes but now we live in the 21st century, and not only have our names for many things changed, but we're all closer together, and now it is much more likely to find an Indian indigenous to America, next to an Indian from Asia. It's time to adapt and move on - we've made great strides in gender "correct" language - i must admit that i feel very, very, happy and pleased to often, these days, read about s/he in stead of the previous exclusive he, and about inclusive humanity instead of exclusive man. Do we still need to remain silly where we don't have to be? Sure, we all have childhood memories of playing cowboys and Indians, but we're not children anymore, after all, and children of today tend to play cops and robbers instead.

There's nothing wrong with being PC, it can actually be pretty cool. To me, the important thing is to be considerate to all parties involved. Before you think or say say something, one should consider how likely you are to hurt someone. It's not cool to hurt people - well, that's just how I feel about things.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Part is because they themselves are not a single nation, so they've never had words of their own to describe all-North-Americans-who-are-not-European-African-or-Asian. I have a problem with "First Nations", because our First Nations are separate from Inuit: who were also here long before my ancestors. But, politically, they need some way to refer to themselves. For our First Nations, "American Indian" is obviously problematic—most don't even consider themselves Canadian, they're not going to identify as American. On the other hand, "native" and "aboriginal" (both common terms) don't identify the most important part of their self-identification—the land. Ironically, Indian comes closer because it at least narrows the location to the Americas or India..."

Well, then how about Canadian Canadians and American-Americans? To me, the word "native" means "first" or "belonging to". Maybe they feel America does not belong to then anymore? "My native language is English" means "English is the language my mother spoke and which I was taught first." I am a native of Alaska, means: "Alaska is where my ancestors lived and where I was born". So, I don't get what is wrong with the "native" label.

Per the dictionary: na·tive
ˈnādiv/
noun
noun: native; plural noun: natives

1.
a person born in a specified place or associated with a place by birth, whether subsequently resident there or not.
"a native of Montreal"
a local inhabitant.
"New York in the summer was too hot even for the natives"
synonyms: inhabitant, resident, local; More
citizen, national;
aborigine, autochthon;
formaldweller
"a native of Rome, New York"
antonyms: foreigner
datedoffensive
one of the original inhabitants of a country, especially a nonwhite as regarded by European colonists or travelers.
an animal or plant indigenous to a place.
"the marigold is a native of southern Europe"

adjective
adjective: native

1.
associated with the country, region, or circumstances of a person's birth.
"he's a native New Yorker"
synonyms: mother, vernacular, first
"her native tongue"
of the indigenous inhabitants of a place.
"a ceremonial native dance from Fiji"
synonyms: indigenous, original, first, earliest, aboriginal, autochthonous
"the native peoples"
antonyms: immigrant
2.
(of a plant or animal) of indigenous origin or growth.

Alternatively "indigenous" would also accurately describe them, - but who talks about indigenous Italians or indigenous Britons? We say native Italian or native Briton, don't we?

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "Can there not be two kinds of Indians, living in harmony? ;)
[...] Traveller, I suspect the psychology is at least in part a rejection of political correctness, just as some who are politely labelled "African American" will instead opt to call themselves black, or even niggers.
..."

Lots to reply to, but the point has absolutely NOTHING to do with political correctness and a lot to do with plain courtesy and considerateness. Just because they want to try to be anti-PC, the rest of us have to struggle with clumsiness like every single time we are referring to either Indians or Indians, thus being forced to accompany the terms with qualifiers like "American Indians" "Asian Indians" or the big clunker: "American-Asian Indians". It's just totally ridiculous. Indians from India were called "Indian" first, is my personal stance. I don't care what you call yourself, just don't call yourself by a name of a group that is not you! Imagine Africans started insisting to be called Germans. It may sound a bit weird to you, but it comes down to the same thing!

[Name Redacted] wrote: "Er...just chiming in to say that that particular characterization of Hindus is more a product of orientalisation and subsequent assimilation in the West than reality - the current waves of Hindu nationalist violence are under reported but in no way exceptional..."

I was speaking from my personal experience of Baptists and Hindus - I happen to know quite a lot of people from both sides, and granted, some of the Hindus that I personally know do tend to be.... er.... less than complimentary toward Muslims, but the Baptists that I personally know are way, way worse. ...sorry, I should have stressed that the observation is based in my personal experience, and what I had actually meant was, that I can see some resistance against such a marriage from both communities that these people belonged to- though more from the Baptists than from the Muslims.

Regarding Hindu Nationalism: remember, we are talking America here, not Asia.

Yes, I know many Americans originally indigenous to America prefer to be called Indians, but that's a bit unfair towards Asian Indians, wouldn't you say?

Surely they don't expect us to start calling Asian Indians something else than “Indians”, and surely they don't expect India to change its name just because they have also now become partial to the name.... India was called India long before America was discovered by the West, and the peoples indigenous to America at the time, were not calling themselves Indians before the Western peoples who found them started calling them that.

I can't help wondering why they themselves prefer to be called that. What would the psychology behind it be, I wonder?