Sunday 5 August 2007

Look beyond the curtain, there's a whole world outside there!

Friends, readers. Let me bring forward to you a shocking (predictably) commentary from two presidential hopefuls. Obama, and Tancredo. They've said nasty stuffs, and its alarming to see what these two people have in their minds.

I first came to know this from an online bulletin board posted by one of my colleagues in friendster. This is the original message.

http://www.friendster.com/bulletin.php?statpos=bulletintable&bid=3217045&uid=12447158

I do respect her love and zeal for her religion, as much as I respect those who go to great lengths to protect their religion, professed by their love to the very principles that God has brought to them through His messengers. I make that clear to you.

Here are the sources which co-relates to the whole issue:

  1. http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/strange/news-article.aspx?storyid=88374
  2. http://www.azstarnet.com/news/194889

We all know that fighting fire with fire, in some cases don't work. In this, it goes for war. To fight hatred with hatred only infuses more hatred. Its simple logic. So, I guess I made my point clear. So, what's the issue then? Nothing much, but I felt that as individuals, whenever we read the news, or gain access to some information made known to us, CHECK IT OUT FIRST.

I'm dissapointed with the fact that the person who wrote about this is a colleauge. Alright, no personality bashing, (you know, one have to try to be as impartial as possible). I give the credits to her for speaking up and telling everyone of what is happening, however I am very doubtful over the choice of words used. In functional grammar, every word functions to a spesific meaning, hence even with two identical sentences, but either "changing a word in the sentence" or "misplacing the order of the words in that sentence" can result in a totally different meaning. Just for your benefit, I didn't make that word myself. Halliday (one of the leading think tanks for functional grammar) did. You just don't appeal to audiences if you're being biased!

You and I, everyone have their own biasness, however it is important to be aware of such individual biasness and be prepared for its consequences should one remain in that zone.

I feel that american food's good, I feel that Americans are innovative and have excellent risk-assessment abilities, and I like many things about America, and americans. However, I do have some grudges to voice out, per say, such as Americans have such individualistic mindsets, the government of america is very gullible and "blur" about what its supposed to do, the judiciary system is flawed to a certain extent in which it is abused to a point where people keep repeating crimes instead of going against it, etc. But do I go around and say, "hey dood. Americans = bullshitters" (just because one guy bullsh*tted arround?), or sweeping remarks?

I'm drawn to a statement where the poster had said that "Its evident then, Americans are composed of citizens with completely no (zero, nil, zilch,) ethics and values of respect for sovereignity of other countries." Please note, I'm literally translating this based on the assumptions of literal word by word with the functional aspects taken into account. Why I can do this? Because I am a linguist. Feel free to challenge or re-interpret, but that is not my idea of presentation here. I'm not here to bash someone. I'm here to appeal to everyone to use your senses given the the Almighty God, to listen with your own ears, see with your own eyes, speak with your own tongue, discern with your own understanding. Search for the truth. Your truth and my truth can never be identical, but it can have the same founding understatement.

Back to the highlighted sentence, can that be assumed as a libel-ious, malicious statement? It can. If it was to be written properly, perhaps so that it could be written in such a way that states "given the track record of America's external affairs policy to be actively participative (intrusive? maybe. use it if you feel like it) in the internal politics of other countries, it seems that america has done it again in this case" seems much better, much receptive even to the more hardliners.

If you want to win a war of words, choose your words. Getting hardlining without substantial "balls-grabbing" won't even bother people.

So look forward, people. There is something beautiful in that ugly situation.

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