Anyone heard this one?

[Morella]

When I worked nights, I worked with a guy named OT - who is, hands down, one of the smartest, funniest, and most articulate people I know and one of my best friends. I've been giving him shit for years as being caramel and not really black because of a more medium complexion, but he's still black. He grew up in a fairly poor part of Brooklyn New York, dad is a bus driver for the city, etc...

This brings back memories. When I was going to school for the first time, I worked for a landscape company, which is an eloquent way of saying "Groups of illegals pushing lawn mowers." I'll never forget the one who killed some old lady's purebred cat with a weedeater, but anyway...

We had a crew leader whom everyone called "Nigger Jerry". In Texas, where I have spent most of my life, the dreaded N-word is not an insult but a term of endearment, as long as it is said with a smile. I'm sure you've noticed that semantics don't bother me much. Although Tony looked like he was ready to pound a certain person into the ground for calling me a cunt, it reflected more on the user's background, to me. I prefer to insult people in a more civilized manner

Anyway, one day I needed something from Nigger Jerry, and right after I said, "Hey, Jerry...", he interrupted me with,

"Oh, it's Jerry now, huh? Every time somebody wants something from me it's 'Hey, Jerry? in this sweet little voice, and the rest of the time it's, HEY NIGGER!"

We both laughed our asses off over it. Jerry loved to fight, and I was always up for it...one of those things that I can't do anymore. He usually pounded everyone's ass, but the little retarded guy who cleaned mowers knocked him out cold with a right hook one day, and he never heard the end of it. I could have broken his knee cap one day...I used a move from Hung Gar Kung Fu...he threw a kick at me, and I hooked his leg with mine and kicked his kneecap with all of his weight on it. I pulled back so that I didn't hurt him, though, and he returned the favor by pounding my ass into the ground. For a minute, I wish I had broken his knee, but the boss would have fired me for taking out a needed employee, and he was already helping me up and laughing about it with me anyway.

One day I asked Nigger Jerry if he would like to see a black president, and his reply was, "What the fuck difference would it make? He'd still be doing what the white folks told him to do." It appears that his theory may be put to the test, if Osama makes it into the "White" House without being assassinated. Tony has faith in the Secret Service, but I'm not so sure. When they closed BOI so that George Bush Sr. could land, I was out on the ramp, right underneath one of the sniper rifles, in fact. I had work to do, which was more important to me than any Republican politician's arrival. I used to be a hard-core liberal, but I grew out of it.

We all do come from different backgrounds, some of us from many of them, and there are many different types, and perhaps levels, of intelligence here. Of course we're going to disagree, but I believe that most of our disagreements are based on a lack of empathy, and, as it has been said, understanding of each other.

-denise

[EvilManor]

In Texas, where I have spent most of my life, the dreaded N-word is not an insult but a term of endearment, as long as it is said with a smile.

I don't what part of Texas you lived, but the only way that I've seen that word is used (in Texas) in a way that it didn't practically start a riot was when it was used by one African American addressing another.

[Psychoholic]

This brings back memories. When I was going to school for the first time, I worked for a landscape company

So to be fair, this I assume was in the mid-late 80's?

One day I asked Nigger Jerry if he would like to see a black president, and his reply was, "What the fuck difference would it make? He'd still be doing what the white folks told him to do."

-denise

With the same time period for reference - if you asked him if he thought that oil would get over $50 a barrel I'm sure he would have thought you were crazy - and lets be fair, this guy was a landscaper, so perhaps the overall understanding of the world on a grander scale than a pack of smokes and another day running mower while working for a white dude would lend ones view to a life of working for the man no matter how far up in society you got.

[Morella]

Early 80's, in Dallas, actually, and your last point was well taken, Chris. He may have seen a ceiling that he no longer sees, or he may have passed it on to his offspring...who knows?

There was, at the last funeral races, just a couple of years ago, a black guy there telling nigger jokes. Perhaps one of the Trocars can tell us who he was. To tell you the truth, although I used to sit at the bar at KC North and tell nigger jokes with the black guys, I felt a little uncomfortable with the goings-on at the race. I guess I've been away too long.

The only joke I can remember him telling was...

Why are aspirin white?

You want 'em to work, don't you?

Oh well, different times, different places, different backgrounds, no reason to get upset. I remember the original Star Trek episode when Abe Lincoln looks at Uhura and says, "What a charming negress", then catches himself and apologizes. She asks him why he apologized, because humans had long since evolved past being offended by words. Maybe a little evolution needs to take place, but it always takes its own sweet time. I suppose that I couldn't make a comment about some people evolving more quickly than others without puckering some more sphincters.

-denise

[Morella]

Go ahead, ask me your questions again without tainting them with derogatory laced "isms" and out and out racial insults. Then, and only then, will you get any type of desired results or satisfactory answers.

I haven't looked back to see if there were other subjects covered in the message, nor do I care. As I recall, I asked whether or not you had any information about this HUMVEE engine that would run on anything flammable, and you flamed me into next week as if that were an insult. A simple "no" would have sufficed.

My knowledge of diesels has nothing to do with Google searches or degrees. I just happen to know that a diesel engine has an extremely high compression ratio, much higher than any gasoline engine, and I was curious to know how gasoline (which is a flammable liquid) could run in such an engine. 11:1 is about as high as you can go on pump gas without tearing the engine apart, and diesels usually run in the 15-22 range. I built my Magnum repro at approximately 10.8:1, which would not ignite diesel because it burns too slowly, but nor could I raise the CR and still run it on pump gas.

I'm not the slightest bit embarassed to say that I am ignorant of this issue. There is a big difference between ignorance and stupidity...stupid people never seek the answer to that which they are ignorant of.

May I have my results and/or satisfactory answers now?

-denise