lost a friend of 50 years!

we went to dancing school together when I was 5. Now you know how old I am. We kept in touch when we both moved, on and off penpals, and then one day; there was email and we started with Email.
Inevitably our communication changed to little news; but she continued to send me stuff; some good, some smarmy "send this to 10 girlfriends" and some horribly awful racist and conservative BS. I tended to over look the racist/conservative stuff; how many people can say they have a friend they've had for that long of a time, right?
well, the last month her emails went over the top; the one that I finally responded to was a series of photos of Muslims picketing with hate signs. She sent me a brief apology when I asked her why she was sending me such hateful stuff, but she also sent my letter to her older brother; a first class crank.
I am happy to share his drivel with you guys; but I am not writing to either of them again.

************************



Any woman who can defend Islam hasn't been paying attention. Those
sadistic, murderous, barbarian swine should be wiped off the face of the
Earth if for no other reason than their grotesquely cruel treatment of women
and girls -- and there's an abundance of other reasons. The "stupid
cartoon" were published by a newspaper in a democracy where all men and
women are equal. Several non-Muslims paid the price for them in their own
blood.

And you have the nerve to call Roberta naive! Talk about the pot and the
kettle.

Who are you planning to vote for next year? -- Ahdaminejad, no doubt? Or
perhaps Bin Laden?

Yours in peace and brotherhood.

Joe

************************************


When was the last time you were in England? My wife sometimes studies at
the Bodleian Library of Oxford University for three weeks or so at a time
during the summers. She no longer ventures into London because the city is
terrifying to her.

Ah, yes -- right on target. I'm "just like those uslims."

I, too, yearn to slowly saw off the heads of those who don't believe as I
do, with a videocam running to record the festivities.

Even better would be to convert everyone to my beliefs or kill them.

Best of all, of course, would be to become a martyr to my beliefs, take many
thousands of innocents with me out of this life, and immediately be
transported to my palace staffed with 72 nubile, submissive,
pulchritudinous, callipygian virgins. All well and good, of course, but
what -- I wonder -- will I do for the rest of eternity starting on day 73?

If those photos of peaceful Muslims showed them demonstrating against the
Danish cartoons, why are the cartoons not mentioned? All I see are calls
for mass murder and threats of another 9/11.

We should carpet-bomb the entire region with nukes, rename it the "Douglas
MacArthur Memorial Desert," and let the radioactivity die down. Then we
won't have to kowtow to those dirty-necked, rag-headed galoots in order to
get all the oil we need.

Even you should know better than to engage in debate on momentous and
potentially lethal issues with someone like me. I have seven years of
post-high school education and an IQ of 144. I've read, watched, and heard
a lot during my 61 years, and I've paid attention along the way. I've also
served in combat; my only regret is that I risked my like for the likes of
you. I'm a published author.

Read Jed Babbin's "In the Words of Our Enemies" (Regnery, 2007). He has
been one of my best friends since law school and is now the editor-in-chief
of "Human Events." It might just be for you the first step along the way
to clear thinking instead of spouting every knee-jerk, trendy, liberal bit
of drivel your mouth can accommodate.

Don't bother responding. You're now on my blocked senders' list because
you're not worth the calories I expend tapping these keys.

You're guilty of the two worst sins I know of: you're ignorant and boring.

Joe



ps I don't know why everything is crossed out on the page here!

Let me give you a :hug:

Say bye, bye to your old friend and her nasty ass brother. Better yet, never ever call or e-mail her again.

....HE is the one who is the loser in this situation.

You must be a very non-judgmental, kind, patient person to have taken that kind of bilge and abuse from him and still remained a friend.

IMO, I bet he will never realize that he really lost a good person in his life.

i was never HIS friend. I was his younger sister's friend; she a badly abused woman from a misogynistic father...

and you're right; i didn't lose anything.

the guy was an attorney general in Tennessee! SCARY!!

....I had a Senior moment when I read this and saw only the "Joe" signature. As usual...I got confused. Sorry. I think I need to go and do my grocery shopping...and maybe the fog I am in today will clear!

And, wow, the dad was an atty gen in Tenn? Yeah..that IS very scary!

You've unloaded a bunch of hatred.

...but what is you said is the exact feeling I had when I read that drivel.

They were in protest to a newspaper cartoon published in Belgium making fun of Mohammed. I also noted that all the signs have the same font in English. Made me go hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

This protest was like a year ago???

These people seem like they are terrified of anyone except white Americans. Must suck to live life in such isolation.

snopes said they are real!


http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp

Really. So some Muslims that protested are fanatics. That doesn't mean that they all are. If that was a valid rationale, we should firebomb Georgia to get rid of Forsyth county.

i said "not all Muslims yada yada yada"

and for that I got all this hate and invective.

Sorry if it came across that way. I meant to aim it at the people that point at a few protesters who are angry and try to claim that everyone on that entire side is violent.

This Joe sounds like a complete ass ("carpet bomb the entire region with nukes" "I have seven years of post-high school education and an IQ of 144", etc.).

He gets extra irony points for ending his first insulting missive with "Yours in peace and brotherhood." :eyes:

Yeah, that was the first thing that jumped out at me too.

and be the bigger person. Getting crossed off the brother's email list is a blessing, but too bad about your friend.

If you care about her, any way of leaving politics out of it? I did that with my uncle and it was a really good thing. I love him, and I'm never going to change his mind, but things are bringing him around. Our last political conversation:
"You really think you know more than the President Bush, with all his advisors?" (this about going into Iraq immediately pre-invasion.)
"If he really believes what he is saying, then yes, I do."

And after many heated words, that was it for politics between us.
He is the last living relative on my Dads side, and they were all Democrats. How he got sucked in is beyond me because he is a really smart man (otherwise). I love him and my life would be poorer without his humor, and our history together.

Hope you can find a way to preserve what matters, but if there is no way, then no regrets and keep the door open. Good luck.
Aloha.

since she THANKED him for blasting me; I guess I'm not going to preserve anything am I?

(shaking my head)

Party is made of (or should I say the rabid remaining 25%?). She most likely has raging low self-esteem issues (she runs to him to get him to blast you for her, she was abused as a child), he has probably spoon fed her with as many lies as he could. He is ruled by bigotry and hate and has found his place amongst a 'white is right' administration that is using his hatefulness and supposed white male superiority to help them along. How many of you know Republican couples who are like this? Worse is the Christian Fundamentalist couple that has this same dynamic because they're spewing hate and intolerance in the name of false Christianity.

She was definitely no friend if she thanked her brother for talking to you like this. He can take his hugh IQ and shove it, it's not doing him any good!

Truly in peace, SaveAmerica

:hug:

you have the obligation to laugh at them outright. for one, it's almost certainly bogus (whether he knows it or not). for another, nobody with an IQ that high would almost certainly never have had a need to have it tested. either it was a vanity test (and probably bogus), he was trying to get a diagnosis for a learning disability so he could score better on some entrance exam or another, or he's really trying hard to prove something to everybody. ("i'll show those bastards!") etc. if it's the last case, there would be little stopping him from doing a little research on the test beforehand, thus completely invalidating his score.

I did laugh, but he couldn't hear me. Poor fool thinks blocking my email address would actually
stop me if I actually wanted to communicate with him again!

if he actually believes that you can't get around that block with another address and answer his hate filled swill. :evilgrin:

please just mentally insert all the needed edits in the above post. i hate it when work distracts me from things that are truly important. (eg. talking shit on the internets.)

I especially liked this part:

Even you should know better than to engage in debate on momentous and
potentially lethal issues with someone like me. I have seven years of
post-high school education and an IQ of 144. I've read, watched, and heard
a lot during my 61 years, and I've paid attention along the way. I've also
served in combat; my only regret is that I risked my like for the likes of
you. I'm a published author.

WAAAAAAHHHH! I'm not getting the attention I deserve! I'm better than everybody and they don't suck up to me!

Lots of angry rhetoric but then he ends the email with. Yours in peace and brotherhood.


YIKES.

:sarcasm:

Why not send your ex-friend this link - she'll send it to Joe and he can see just how well liked he is here.

What I want Joe to know: A vote for Bush is a vote for bin Laden, evidently, since Bush "isn't too worried" about catching him.

I'm sorry you were answered so hatefully. I thought by your subject line that your friend had died. I recently lost a friend of 41 years (she died last year) and thought I could sympathize with your loss. Your situation is completely different, however, and I'm sorry for your loss.

emdee

the next thing I know I'll get a defamation of character suit. The SOB is lawyer!

He wouldn't be able to convince any judge or jury in this country that YOU defamed him by directly quoting HIS words. HE defamed HIMSELF with his astonishing idiocy.

ngt

Of course, you haven't lost a friend. You've lost someone who used to be a friend a very long time ago before she went crazy, probably led into it by her crazy brother.

Send her a "Get Well" card and block her email. Save your sanity.

You haven't lost anything. Why fill your email inbox with racist hate?

and in his work shop doing "projects". After a few years he got comfortable with me and began using the word "nigger" to describe people of color. I told him the word hadn't been acceptable outside a KKK rally for 40 years and that I found it offensive. Still he persisted with the lame excuse that it only applied to the very lazy shiftless blacks and he'd use it on white people too if he ever found one that it fit. Yeah, right. Finally, after the US used white phosphorous in Iraq he chimed in with "we should just burn them all!"

I looked at him and said I couldn't deal with the bigotry and ignorance anymore. Haven't spoken or seen him since.

It isn't right to let that behavior pass as if it's acceptable. You did the right thing.

Just be glad she wasn't a family member.

I am sorry you lost an old friend. That always hurts a lot. Maybe someday she will see the light. Her brother is an ignorant buffoon.

Lee

Be grateful it's not a family member. I have a few of those around. Equal opportunity bigots, you know? They hate everyone equally, regardless of race, creed or colour.

One of them died several years ago; they didn't have a funeral. To this day, I swear that it's because they were afraid of the traffic jams. Can you imagine all those people coming around to make sure he was really in his coffin? A logistical nightmare.......

The brother sounds like a first-class ASS, but your friend did apologize for sending you stuff that you find offensive. I hope that you will reconsider cutting off your friendship with her. The older I get, (and I'm not that much younger than you!) the more I appreciate my lifelong friends. Would it be possible for you to just focus on the stuff you have in common, and make the controversial stuff off-limits?

I'm sure you shared lots of chumminess over the years. It's too bad she doesn't understand how patient you've been and she crossed the last line.

she did apologize first, but then she thanked her bro for sending me all that spew.
go figure.

It sounds as though the sister has been browbeaten by her 'immensely superior' brother...you did say her father was rather awful too, I think? Sounds as though she is repeating old patterns of submission and hoping desperately for his approval.

I've known many a moron with a high IQ but as has been said in reference to other actions, it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it. A pity he's wasting intellect on such destructive thoughts. Do you suppose he's had some kind of medical event or has he always been this much of a pain? My IQ isn't anywhere near what he claims to have but there wasn't a word in his screed that I didn't know and not an argument I haven't heard ad infinitum. BS is BS, no matter how learned the presenter.

that's about the funniest thing he said. Who cares whether or not a 61 year old man got a high score on an IQ test in the 1950's? Is that relevant? Does that make him important or .. anything but pathetic?

As to whether he's had an event; I knew he was right wing by a correspondence (cordial) with my mother about 10 years ago; but he's gone from Stolid to Shrill.

If I did write him a letter; I'd say "I'd tell you to go to hell, but it looks like you're already there"

I'm sorry; this is a correction: he's still an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Tennessee.

he gets his jollies putting people of color away; how much do you want to bet?

Add another .75 for the newspaper. I have a high IQ too, which I discovered when they were testing after a head injury.

It's useless unless you can actually do the world some good with it.

Some are bigger, some are smaller, but until you put something into it, it's still just an empty measuring cup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

The Flynn effect is the rise of average Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test scores, an effect seen in most parts of the world, although at greatly varying rates. It is named after James R. Flynn, who did much to document it and promote awareness of its implications. This increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present. "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial," psychologist Ulric Neisser wrote in an article in 1997 in The American Scientist.<1> The Flynn effect may have ended in some developed nations starting in the mid 1990s although other studies, such as Black Americans reduce the racial IQ gap: Evidence from standardization samples (Dickens, Flynn;2006), still show gain between 1972 and 2002.

Something has scared him right out of his sanity, then. Could it be...being wrong about everything? That's got to be terrifying. To pride oneselves on one's utter understanding and clarity about everything little thing and suddenly find you are wrong to an infinite power of wrongosity must be terrifying. So naturally he's got to hold on ever more tightly to the little bit of reality that is familar and warm. "I'm right, I'm right, I'm right and there's something wrong with *you.*"

My fav part of the letter that you quoted is the 'even you should know better' than to challenge Mighty Me bit. How horrible of you not to worship at the altar of his wonderfulness, you heretic you.

Jeez, I hope he's up for re-election (if not an appointee) some time soon. If he's this open about 'them Muslims' with other people or the press, he might find himself with a fight. Nobody's too thrilled with these little tin despots anymore.

with these RW hatemongers that to prove they're so civilized and superior they have to resort to calling for other people to be exterminated!

I always think that this kind of thing has more to with self-loathing than anything outside in the real world. I'm sure this guy has never met and will never meet a muslim in his life.

7 years post high school education, oooh. I have 6 and Im only 24, and a 144 IQ is wasted when the only thing you can think about is hate. douche bag.

Since Mr. "I have seven years of post-high school education and an IQ of 144" likes to quote his credentials in justifying his hate speech, send him my e-mail address, and kindly inform him that there is someone with nine years of post-secondary education, an I.Q. of 170, a Bachelor's in History, a Masters in History, and a year (and counting) of doctoral studies who would like to make him look and feel like the stupid, racist, ignorant bastard that he so obviously is.

I'd immensely enjoy it, I can assure you. PM me if you'd like to give this a try! :)

EDIT: typo

hate makes you crazy. your poor friend! if i had a brother like that, i'd never claim him.

She must have known how he would respond to your letter. She sounds like a trouble maker to me.

I believe she sent my response to him because he was the originator of the bile spew that I objected to in the first place. And yes, she is a troublemaker. She knows what kind of creep he is and yet she
sicced him on me.

Well, I live in England. I work in Oxford. I go to London fairly often. I don't feel frightened there at all. Obviously, I wouldn't choose to walk on my own in a 'bad' area after dark - but it's probably still safer than many American cities.

I was a graduate student in London in the late 80s. There were 10 of us full-time graduate students in my unit. The majority were from overseas. 6 of my fellow-students were Muslims. Never occurred to me that I needed to be TERRIFIED. We were a happy bunch; and the only effect of there being a large Muslim contingent is that our student social activities were not based quite as much around alcohol as is typical for student groups. Probably a good thing on the whole!

I'm a university teacher now, with a very intelligent and hard-working bunch of students. About one-sixth of my students are Muslims; mostly British-born. I suppose I should be TERRIFIED of t them??? Perhaps this idiot's wife even worked next to some of them when visiting the Bodleian? If she needed to be terrified, it's only because all my students have ten times as many brains as she does. Also, if she insulted my Muslim (or any of my) students in front of me, I might have given her some reason to be scared - and I'm not even a Muslim!

If they think that Britain is a dangerous place, that's too bad and we can do without them. We have enough home-grown racists of our own; and they *are* frightening.

'Joe' spews. They probably have Fox on 24/7 at their house reminding them to be askeered of all the brown people!! You're going to London? BE AFRAID!! :scared:

off the face of the earth, so does that include the women?

These people don't care about Muslim women - they're just looking for an excuse to hate Muslims.

While it is an issue for the Muslim world, it is by no means a hopeless one and there has been progress in some of the countries at various times.