Muhahahaha!

[billybud]

Yeah...I can't defend her..she's a Gator. Talks that Gator talk. It's better left to Shands.

[billybud]

OK Fluid...let me play devil's advocate (it helps keep my mind working). And playing an advocate for a side is something I did professionally before retirement and now miss.

So...You say that Ms. Brown is incompetent as an educator because she speaks in a dialect of english (a dialect immediately familiar to most black folks regardless of education) that features different pronunciations than standard english and sentence structures that do not diagram in the standard english format. And you feel it is a travesty that she is employed by an institute of higher learning.

If she were a professor of german origin and was barely understandable, I wonder how strong would be the protest and ridicule? If she spoke like our dear professor from Glasgow, who is completely unintelligible to most ears, would we decry her in such a way? Is it our european prejudice? Is it because we fail to realize that there is a black culture with its own language and speech patterns? Is it because we demand that all cultures of non european origin conform to our language standard?

As an educator, the real requirement is that one be understood, be listened to, and that the lessons taught, be taught in such a way as to lead to learning. I assure you that at FSU, like most universities, Ms. Brown would be a much better communicator than some very learned and celebrated professors. LOL...I could challenge you to attempt to understand more than a few fragments of a sentence spoken by a professor hailing from the University of Glasgow or Edinburgh (I try to understand, but am still astounded that this, too, is called english). We, at FSU, have Chinese genuises in the math and physics fields who speak a pidgin english, along with Russians, Syrians, Nigerians, etc. who mightly mangle the king's english.

I think what is in play is the fact that Representative Brown's native language is that of an underclass, the uneducated black person. And that we think that, as an educated person, she should adopt the trappings and culture that go with that education. We want, as in Pygmalion, for education to be a Henry Higgins and erase that low class Cockney (street black) language and allow a person to acccept a position in a "higher class".

Ms. Brown, without seeming reticence, retains her Cockney language and still participates in a more learned setting. And that upsets us. But she is not an english teacher. She was hired as a Counselor at the college (and this college has had a smart habit of hiring its local state representative). She worked as a counselor at the Florida Community College in Jacksonville in the heart of one of Florida's largest black population districts. She speaks the language of the people that she works with. One need not sound like Barack Obama and have the Henry Higgins trappings of Yale University diction to be a black person working in education.

People of european ancestry do prefer the Colin Powells and Barack Obama's. They speak in "our language" and seem more like us. Henry Higgins would be proud.

I don't see Representative Brown any differently than I see my mother's father. A grand man who was a business leader, a regional director of a major Fortune 500 company, but a man who inherited his father's Alabama sharecropper accent and a penchant for the use of rural southern non standard english.

Ah do know dat dis dawg wone hunt fur ya...but that is the way it is.

[donovan]

Just to jump in. No one would dispute what you say. So if you are saying that what we heard on the floor of the United States congress is who she is, how she presents herself all the time, then that is who she is. The people of Florida have every right to have her as their representative. You know her, I do not. Is this who she is all the time?

This is from her web page:

Welcome! I hope you find this web page useful and informative. I have included several items that will help you access the services of my office, as well as other parts of the government. This page will be updated regularly with press releases, district information, and legislative information. If you have any suggestions, this web page is always under construction. Feel free to contact me with your ideas.

My office is always accessible to constituents, and I take my constituents concerns very seriously. If you have any questions about specific pieces of legislation, legislative suggestions or an opinion you would like to express about a specific issue, please feel free to contact me.

With kindest regards, I am
Sincerely,
Signature of Congresswoman Corrine Brown
Corrine Brown
Member of Congress

She either has a ghost writer...that is all right...or her speech about FSU was indulgent.

Though she does not appear to be the most eloquent speaker/reader...she is certainly not who I saw in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i4NOBUr4aU

So I pass off her Gator chant...an attempt an humor that was not so funny.

[billybud]

Donovan...She is Gator (not FSU)...graduated (pronounced gradj ee ated in the dialect) from Hogtown and wears that funkily hideous orange and blue.

Yeah...Representatives hire aides to do all the writing work, bill review, etc. I'm sure her web site was assisted by a congressional service office that provides that service to its congressmen/women.

[billybud]

And...reading from a script (with grammar and sentences in place) is much different than speaking off of the cuff.

[donovan]

Donovan...She is Gator (not FSU)...graduated (pronounced gradj ee ated in the dialect) from Hogtown and wears that funkily hideous orange and blue.

Yeah...Representatives hire aides to do all the writing work, bill review, etc. I'm sure her web site was assisted by a congressional service office that provides that service to its congressmen/women.

I deeply apologize for the slip on the school affiliation......Had she been from FSU..this conversation would not even be necessary.

[Dossenator]

And...reading from a script (with grammar and sentences in place) is much different than speaking off of the cuff.

Billybud...I just went back and watched the video about the Gators and she is reading from a script there as well. At least it looks like it. She is holding a paper and is looking at it often. Then I watched the video about our troops in Iraq...it is like she is a different person. Not sure what to make of her now. I did read your remarks...and like Donovan said, you can't dispute anything that you said.

[WoVeU]

Let I get dis skrait fo my fella boad memmas.

Watching only a minute and a half of the anti-surge video. (Note: I can only stomach that much because I can't stand the liberal agenda that spurs such a stance.) The congresswoman does better, but note her ability to conjugate and use participle is horrible and she is rather slow in delivery. She does better because 1) She is not attempting to be spirited and thus keeps better eye hold on where she is reading from 2) I'd submit this being a more serious matter has now read this thing 5 to 10 times at least 3) In and around those days her brain would have been immersed in many of the thoughts behind and likely exact lines she is reading on the floor, from fellow BHL's, lobbyists, groups, and people from her constituency.

Upon closing I submit that the woman is guilty as charged following the initial video, the Go-Gatuh video. What we do without preperation and coddling is much, much closer to who and what we are than when have rehearsed and prepared thoroughly and repeatedly. I can work on and prepare a car or machine for someone to inspect and try-out...and they will think it is of good quality even if it is a POS. If you get a hold of said POS without someone touching up, prepping, setting things, etc...you will quickly find that it is the POS that it is!

[Spence]

When it comes to language skills, I am afraid I have little room to criticize anyone. I do agree that someone that holds a federal office should be smarter then most of the people he or she represents or at the very least be able to convey an intelligent thought.

[billybud]

Uh huh...tell me. please, that you didn't vote for Dubya.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhbPVrb5KM&NR=1

[Dossenator]

Uh huh...tell me. please, that you didn't vote for Dubya.

I did...twice.

[WoVeU]

I think it is reasonable to be a person of faith. I think people of faith need to be reasonable.

That is so true. I believe in a creator. I also believe that the creator used nature (evolution, natural selection, or whatever anyone wants to call it) to his advantage. I do have a hard time believing that all of this - meaning the universe - just happened by accident. That is more of a stretch to me. To me faith means accepting the science according to the facts and believing the creator intended things to happen just this way. You will never find me denying that dinosaurs came before man or that the earth was created in seven of our days. You have science to discribe the process. Faith is accepting that you are subject to a higher power and his will without tangible evidence. If you need the evidence to believe, you don't have faith.

My sentiment exactly. Only a very poor Enginer designs a system that needs baby sitting.

[WoVeU]

Science is science...religion is religion.

Evolution is pretty much a non argument now days...from fossils to DNA evidence...we know that flora and fauna evolve. Religion starts with a premise and than must force everything to fit that premise.

And if you talk about science and reality, some people will start spouting about "Lucifer's work" if you move away from the theological line. Khomeini in a different guise but the sentiment is the same.

Well...I bet we all would be "gods" if we transported back a 1,000 years with our current technology (make that 200). Man is frightened and wants to make sense of the universe around him, man wants fears allayed about death and what lies beyond the grave. Man neads order. So man invents gods, and stories...man invents inducements like heaven and punshments like hell.

Mother told me not to talk about religion or politics...nobody is sane when discussing either subject. and here I've been hitting on both.

It is always the liberal arts/humanities/history types that would talk about sceince. I would be very surprised if you no more anout science than I do. You are an intelligent man, but in the arena of science...we can bet a good many digits and we'll roll down to FSU and challenge the finals acorss math, science, and engineering. Loser pays the fees and the wager!

Evolution seems very sound...except for human evolution. Old Neander was bigger, stronger, and smarter (the general argument for having a bigger brain) and yet ain't here. Oops...so much for SOF and evolution in the case of man!

[WoVeU]

Why people (heathen) should be glad I do believe in God!

Because man's laws are increasingly about protecting the bleeding heart (fear hearted)! If we are a product of SOF then I have the natural given right to kill whomever I would to push the supply and demand curve in my favor. Humanity and being humane and good have no meaning...I would then have the same obediences a Lion or Bear does.

And there is part of me that would like to see the heathen undoubtedly prove there is no God. Thus I would be free to go to work and make Hitler and Stalin look like fem-amateurs. Just being honest, I'll take my collection of intelligence, smarts, physical power and abilities over anyone I've personally met. (I honestly do not like the pomp that must ring with.) But I'd eat this world a new a _ _!

And that ain't evil or bad...that is a SOF stance if we were just dust in the wind! Then those actions and any others do not mean the first darn thing!

[donovan]

Science is science...religion is religion.

Evolution is pretty much a non argument now days...from fossils to DNA evidence...we know that flora and fauna evolve. Religion starts with a premise and than must force everything to fit that premise.

And if you talk about science and reality, some people will start spouting about "Lucifer's work" if you move away from the theological line. Khomeini in a different guise but the sentiment is the same.

Well...I bet we all would be "gods" if we transported back a 1,000 years with our current technology (make that 200). Man is frightened and wants to make sense of the universe around him, man wants fears allayed about death and what lies beyond the grave. Man neads order. So man invents gods, and stories...man invents inducements like heaven and punshments like hell.

Mother told me not to talk about religion or politics...nobody is sane when discussing either subject. and here I've been hitting on both.

It is all right...none of us make claim to being sane....