Full Frontal Nerdity - Kids These Days

[Quadibloc]

"History repeats itself." - Proverb

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages
appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the
second time as farce." (Hegel bemerkte irgendwo, daß alle großen
weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen und Personen sich sozusagen zweimal ereignen. Er
hat vergessen, hinzuzufügen: das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als
Farce.) - Karl Marx

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Georges
Santayana

This comic had me laughing out loud, although some could question its taste:

http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1349

Here is another funny one from them:

http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1340

John Savard

[JRStern]

On Fri, 6 Feb 2015 10:03:57 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>"History repeats itself." - Proverb
>
>"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages
>appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the
>second time as farce." (Hegel bemerkte irgendwo, daß alle großen
>weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen und Personen sich sozusagen zweimal ereignen. Er
>hat vergessen, hinzuzufügen: das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als
>Farce.) - Karl Marx
>
>"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Georges
>Santayana
>
>This comic had me laughing out loud, although some could question its taste:
>
>http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1349

haha

J.

[Cryptoengineer]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:1729bf96-9040-48d4...@googlegroups.com:

> "History repeats itself." - Proverb
>
> "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and
> personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first
> time as tragedy, the second time as farce." (Hegel bemerkte irgendwo,
> daß alle großen weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen und Personen sich
> sozusagen zweimal ereignen. Er hat vergessen, hinzuzufügen: das eine
> Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce.) - Karl Marx
>
> "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -
> Georges Santayana
>
> This comic had me laughing out loud, although some could question its
> taste:
>
> http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1349

Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last December was
rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It was run by two white Texan
women who claimed utter ignorance of the name's significance.

ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before you go
public.

pt

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
<pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last
> December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It
> was run by two white Texan women who claimed utter
> ignorance of the name's significance.

> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
> you go public.

They did.

“We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR
firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in
1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness.
We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have
known better.”

I find this wholly believable. It’s possible that I’d heard
of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but
if so, I certainly don’t remember, and I’m not at all sure
that I’d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and
only one thing to so many people.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Cryptoengineer]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in news:1kl7xenos1ypr
$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net:

I knew of the song before this, but only because there was a
feature about it on BBC radio a couple years ago.

pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes she screams "Why don't
you ever listen to me?!?!?" while letting loose with a two by four.

--
Veni, vidi, snarki.

[Kurt Busiek]

Trouble is, their stories about the name have contradicted each other.
They claimed to have been inspired by the song, as well as to have come
up with the name without first knowing about the song.

They tried several approaches to covering it with a PR statement to
make the anger go away, until they figured out it wasn't going away.
But I don't have any reason to believe one of their stories over
another; I just figure they were saying whatever they thought would
pour oil on the troubled waters.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, February 6, 2015 at 5:47:45 PM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> It's possible that I'd heard
> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but
> if so, I certainly don't remember, and I'm not at all sure
> that I'd have guessed that the phrase would mean one and
> only one thing to so many people.

I'm surprised at that.

Basically, slavery and segregation, like the Holocaust, were very dramatic
effects, and _of course_ they have been burned indelibly on the minds of their
victim populations.

Given LeVar Burton's brush with the Law of Unintended Consequences, it's not as
if ths story has even ended.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, February 6, 2015 at 10:38:14 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> Basically, slavery and segregation, like the Holocaust, were very dramatic
> effects, and _of course_ they have been burned indelibly on the minds of their
> victim populations.

And yet, strange fruit is 305 gp on the GE as I write this. Worse yet, it's found
in Karamja, a tropical area whose population is dark-skinned.

John Savard

[Robert A. Woodward]

In article <1kl7xenos1ypr$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net>,

They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
anti-lynching protest song.

--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://robertaw.drizzlehosting.com>

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, February 6, 2015 at 11:27:20 PM UTC-7, Robert A. Woodward wrote:

> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
> a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
> the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
> anti-lynching protest song.

But that was back in 1939! Clearly it's ancient history that nobody remembers
any more! :)

The schools, of course, must be blamed; they're not teaching history well
enough so that when a child graduates from high school, he or she understands
the 1950s and 1960s as well as people who had lived through them - and the
immediately preceding history as well as those people did.

I mean, really; the whole trouble with television these days is that they're
making *new* shows to show to children, which means that they're growing up
ignorant of universal popular culture. We're surrounded by people who had never
seen "The Beverly Hillbillies" or "Mission: Impossible".

However, while we can't stop time in its flight, World War II and the tortured
history of black America are things that can hardly be considered trivia of a
bygone age, even if these days footnotes are helpful in appreciating the
Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

I also blame our failure to mount a massive research program into the conquest
of aging.

John Savard

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:27:17 -0800, "Robert A. Woodward"
<robe...@drizzle.com> wrote in
<news:robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> In article <1kl7xenos1ypr$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net>,
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> <news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last
>>> December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It
>>> was run by two white Texan women who claimed utter
>>> ignorance of the name's significance.
>>
>>> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
>>> you go public.
>>
>> They did.
>>

>> “We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR

>> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
>> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
>> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
>> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in

>> 1939 it wouldn’t be top of mind in the public consciousness.
>> We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have
>> known better.â€

>> I find this wholly believable. It’s possible that I’d heard

>> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but

>> if so, I certainly don’t remember, and I’m not at all sure
>> that I’d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and

>> only one thing to so many people.

> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
> a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
> the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
> anti-lynching protest song.

Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from my
comment that I’d had to search just to find out what the
problem was. And it’s entirely beside the point that I was
making. The question isn’t what the song is about; the
question is whether it’s so well known that it’s put an
indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people. As I
said, I’m not at all sure that I’d have guessed that it had.

[J. Clarke]

In article <f89980ac-f4f2-4854...@googlegroups.com>,
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

Would you be kind enough to translate that for those of us who don't
speak Canuck?

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <1njcpgjqpkszl$.1khfcc5h7c489$.d...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
>posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from my
>comment that I’d had to search just to find out what the
>problem was. And it’s entirely beside the point that I was
>making. The question isn’t what the song is about; the
>question is whether it’s so well known that it’s put an
>indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people. As I
>said, I’m not at all sure that I’d have guessed that it had.
>
>Brian

My guess is that very few people under 50 know who Billie Holiday was, and
not that high a percentage of the over 50s either. Even less will have
actually heard the song.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[J. Clarke]

In article <1njcpgjqpkszl$.1khfcc5h7c489$.d...@40tude.net>,
b.s...@csuohio.edu says...

>
> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:27:17 -0800, "Robert A. Woodward"
> <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote in
> <news:robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> > In article <1kl7xenos1ypr$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net>,
> > "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
> >> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
> >> <news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
> >> rec.arts.sf.written:
> >>
> >> [...]
> >>
> >>> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last
> >>> December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It
> >>> was run by two white Texan women who claimed utter
> >>> ignorance of the name's significance.
> >>
> >>> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
> >>> you go public.
> >>
> >> They did.
> >>

> >> â??We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR

> >> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
> >> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
> >> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
> >> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in

> >> 1939 it wouldnâ??t be top of mind in the public consciousness.

> >> We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have

> >> known better.â?
>
> >> I find this wholly believable. Itâ??s possible that Iâ??d heard

> >> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but

> >> if so, I certainly donâ??t remember, and Iâ??m not at all sure
> >> that Iâ??d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and

> >> only one thing to so many people.
>
> > They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
> > a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
> > the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
> > anti-lynching protest song.
>
> Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
> posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from my

> comment that I?d had to search just to find out what the
> problem was. And it?s entirely beside the point that I was
> making. The question isn?t what the song is about; the
> question is whether it?s so well known that it?s put an

> indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people. As I

> said, I?m not at all sure that I?d have guessed that it had.

I work with a lot of black people. I'd never heard the phrase before.
I think I've heard the song--Billie Holiday singing the phrase "burning
flesh" does stick in my mind but not the rest of it. On Monday just out
of curiosity I may do a poll.

[David Johnston]

It's utter gibberish to me, and it's not like I'm Canadian.

[David Johnston]

Not Canadian, that is.

[Brian M. Scott]

On 7 Feb 2015 07:56:26 GMT, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>"
<t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote in
<news:cjlupa...@mid.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> In article <1njcpgjqpkszl$.1khfcc5h7c489$.d...@40tude.net>,
> Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
>> posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from

>> my comment that I’d had to search just to find out
>> what the problem was. And it’s entirely beside the
>> point that I was making. The question isn’t what the
>> song is about; the question is whether it’s so well
>> known that it’s put an indelible stamp on the phrase
>> for too many people. As I said, I’m not at all sure
>> that I’d have guessed that it had.

> My guess is that very few people under 50 know who Billie
> Holiday was, and not that high a percentage of the over
> 50s either. Even less will have actually heard the song.

I do at least know who she was, which is actually a bit
surprising, given my taste in music; then again, it’s been
quite a while since I was 50.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 02:58:41 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:MPG.2f3f8fa21...@news.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

Has nothing to do with Canadian. A bit of Googling
discovers that it’s 305 gold pieces on the Grand Exchange in
the online RPG RuneScape.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:25:08 AM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:

> Has nothing to do with Canadian. A bit of Googling
> discovers that it's 305 gold pieces on the Grand Exchange in
> the online RPG RuneScape.

It was not my intention to annoy people; I thought that those who understood it
would understand it, and others would pass it by.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
in the United Kingdom.

The game has nice theme music; when they did a major graphical upgrade of the
program, they actually had enough money to go to Slovakia and have real
musicians record it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AgIKOy-AlI

and with background information,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HXcdohW620

John Savard

[Peter Huebner]

In article <XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131>,
pete...@gmail.com says...

>
> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last December was
> rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It was run by two white Texan
> women who claimed utter ignorance of the name's significance.
>
> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before you go
> public.
>
> pt
>
>

Find the Nina Simone rendition of "Strange Fruit". Billy Holiday doesn't
even come close.

Nina makes cold shivers run up and down my spine ....

-P.

[Bill Dugan]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 02:36:00 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"

<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:27:17 -0800, "Robert A. Woodward"
><robe...@drizzle.com> wrote in
><news:robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net> in
>rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> In article <1kl7xenos1ypr$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net>,
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
>>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
>>> <news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
>>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last
>>>> December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It
>>>> was run by two white Texan women who claimed utter
>>>> ignorance of the name's significance.
>>>
>>>> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
>>>> you go public.
>>>
>>> They did.
>>>

>>> â??We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR

>>> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
>>> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
>>> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
>>> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in

>>> 1939 it wouldnâ??t be top of mind in the public consciousness.

>>> We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have

>>> known better.â??
>
>>> I find this wholly believable. Itâ??s possible that Iâ??d heard

>>> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but

>>> if so, I certainly donâ??t remember, and Iâ??m not at all sure
>>> that Iâ??d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and

>>> only one thing to so many people.
>
>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
>> a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
>> the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
>> anti-lynching protest song.
>
>Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
>posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from my
>comment that I’d had to search just to find out what the
>problem was. And it’s entirely beside the point that I was
>making. The question isn’t what the song is about; the
>question is whether it’s so well known that it’s put an
>indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people. As I
>said, I’m not at all sure that I’d have guessed that it had.

But these people were going into the PR business. That level of
failure to do the research was complete incompetence.

>Brian

[William December Starr]

In article <x1wbqcohrkhe.1w6kq149x4o7e$.d...@40tude.net>,
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> said:

> "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote

>> Quadibloc wrote:
>>
>>> And yet, strange fruit is 305 gp on the GE as I write
>>> this. Worse yet, it's found in Karamja, a tropical area
>>> whose population is dark-skinned.
>>
>> Would you be kind enough to translate that for those of us
>> who don't speak Canuck?
>
> Has nothing to do with Canadian. A bit of Googling
> discovers that it's 305 gold pieces on the Grand Exchange in
> the online RPG RuneScape.

Or: "A bit of googling discovers that sometimes it really is better
to curse the darkness than light a single candle, where the candle
is googling on somebody's stupidly obscure reference and cursing the
darkness is bitching out loud about the guy's blithe assumption that
of _course_ everybody knows what he's talking about."

Okay that can probably be said a lot more pithily, but you get the
idea.

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net>,

"Robert A. Woodward" <robe...@drizzle.com> said:

> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
> a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
> the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
> anti-lynching protest song.

So they see that first entry and: "Oh, it's some song from
pre-history that can't possibly affect us; I'm not going to spend
three minutes listening to it and figuring out what the lyrics mean,
I mean my god it's in _black-and-white_," and they close the browser
window.

I can believe it. (It may not be true, but I can believe it.)

-- wds

[Cryptoengineer]

Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in news:mb47di$eph$1...@dont-email.me:

They thought they were clever PR people, who could talk their way
out of the problem.

They were wrong.

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

Peter Huebner <p.w.h...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:MPG.2f40b0567...@news.eternal-september.org:

> In article <XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131>,
> pete...@gmail.com says...
>>
>> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last December was
>> rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It was run by two white Texan
>> women who claimed utter ignorance of the name's significance.
>>
>> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before you go
>> public.
>>

> Find the Nina Simone rendition of "Strange Fruit". Billy Holiday doesn't
> even come close.
>
> Nina makes cold shivers run up and down my spine ....

Indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqbXOO3OiOs

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:513c2731-083a-4420...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, February 6, 2015 at 11:27:20 PM UTC-7, Robert A. Woodward
> wrote:
>
>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first entry is
>> a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it and the 2nd entry is
>> the wikipedia article which is quite upfront in describing as an
>> anti-lynching protest song.
>
> But that was back in 1939! Clearly it's ancient history that nobody
> remembers any more! :)

I predict that within 20 years a politician will be astonished
to find that people object to his calling some scheme "The Final
Solution"

pt

[JRStern]

Or just, "I told you so, <sigh>"

J.

[Cryptoengineer]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in

> History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes she screams "Why
> don't you ever listen to me?!?!?" while letting loose with a two by
> four.

That's good enough to save :-)
pt

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 07 Feb 2015 06:46:48 -0800, Bill Dugan
<wkd...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
<news:h39cdap3kqir7kk2n...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

I don’t buy it. First you have to have reason to think that
there might be a problem, and it’s not at all clear to me
that they did or should have done.

[Brian M. Scott]

On 7 Feb 2015 09:56:21 -0500, William December Starr
<wds...@panix.com> wrote in
<news:mb592l$4ff$1...@panix2.panix.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:

And so you, too, miss the point. The question isn’t what
the song is about; the question is whether a 75-year-old
song is so well known that it’s put an indelible stamp on

the phrase for too many people.

[Bill Dugan]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 14:27:46 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"

>>>>> ā??We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR

>>>>> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
>>>>> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
>>>>> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
>>>>> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in

>>>>> 1939 it wouldnā??t be top of mind in the public consciousness.
>>>>> We now know we were naĆÆve to think that, and should have
>>>>> known better.ā??
>
>>>>> I find this wholly believable. Itā??s possible that Iā??d heard

>>>>> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but

>>>>> if so, I certainly donā??t remember, and Iā??m not at all sure
>>>>> that Iā??d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and

>>>>> only one thing to so many people.
>
>>>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the
>>>> first entry is a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday
>>>> singing it and the 2nd entry is the wikipedia article
>>>> which is quite upfront in describing as an
>>>> anti-lynching protest song.
>
>>> Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
>>> posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from

>>> my comment that I?d had to search just to find out what
>>> the problem was. And it?s entirely beside the point
>>> that I was making. The question isn?t what the song is
>>> about; the question is whether it?s so well known that

>>> it?s put an indelible stamp on the phrase for too many
>>> people. As I said, I?m not at all sure that I?d have

>>> guessed that it had.
>
>> But these people were going into the PR business. That level of
>> failure to do the research was complete incompetence.
>
>I don’t buy it. First you have to have reason to think that
>there might be a problem, and it’s not at all clear to me
>that they did or should have done.

Researching such things to find out if there are problems is part of
the job for a PR firm. If they didn't do it for their own company
name, they were incompetent.

>Brian

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

>>>>>> â??We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR

>>>>>> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
>>>>>> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
>>>>>> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
>>>>>> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in

>>>>>> 1939 it wouldnâ??t be top of mind in the public consciousness.
>>>>>> We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have
>>>>>> known better.â??
>>
>>>>>> I find this wholly believable. Itâ??s possible that Iâ??d heard

>>>>>> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but

>>>>>> if so, I certainly donâ??t remember, and Iâ??m not at all sure
>>>>>> that Iâ??d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and

>>>>>> only one thing to so many people.
>>
>>>>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the
>>>>> first entry is a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday
>>>>> singing it and the 2nd entry is the wikipedia article
>>>>> which is quite upfront in describing as an
>>>>> anti-lynching protest song.
>>
>>>> Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
>>>> posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from
>>>> my comment that I?d had to search just to find out what
>>>> the problem was. And it?s entirely beside the point
>>>> that I was making. The question isn?t what the song is
>>>> about; the question is whether it?s so well known that
>>>> it?s put an indelible stamp on the phrase for too many
>>>> people. As I said, I?m not at all sure that I?d have
>>>> guessed that it had.
>>
>>> But these people were going into the PR business. That level of
>>> failure to do the research was complete incompetence.
>>
>> I don’t buy it. First you have to have reason to think that
>> there might be a problem, and it’s not at all clear to me
>> that they did or should have done.
>
> Researching such things to find out if there are problems is part of
> the job for a PR firm.

Yes, but even firms have limits. "It ain't what you don't know that
hurts you; it's what you do know that ain't so."




--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-02-07 20:29:23 +0000, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie Holiday music
won't impinge on the public consciousness -- in Dallas, no less --
suggests such a white-centric view of the world as to render them
tone-deaf beyond their limited outlook.

Which seems to be (a) exactly what happened* and (b) a very bad thing
for a PR firm.

"Strange Fruit," as it happens, was the #4 song of the year in 1939,
landing between "God Bless America" and "When the Saints Go Marching
In," two songs I doubt they'd have dismissed as unimportant because
they're, you know, old.

A little further research beyong "Oh, there's a song? Nobody's gonna
care about that" (an awful standard to take when clearing your company
name) might have turned up that the song's been covered dozens of
times, including very recently, and including by artists they might
have thought to be higher in "the public consciousness," that it's in
the Grammy Hall of Fame, been listed as "the song of the century" by
TIME, and more.

It's not merely that they didn't know the song. It's that they claim to
have researched it and then ignored the research, assuming that no one
would care. If that was their limit, then they deserve all the
criticism they got.

kdb

*if that story's even true. They also claimed they'd never ever have
used the name if they knew the connotations, which, if true, means they
can't have Googled very far, not clicking on any of the links or
looking at any of the images. But they were aware of the song's meaning
early on (they got backlash early in their company existence, and
dismissed it), so it's hard to feel any sympathy for them doing
half-assed research and then dismissing people pointing out the problem
until it snowballed into a huge black eye.
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 13:18:51 -0800, Kurt Busiek
<ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb5ven$jl6$1...@dont-email.me>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
> Holiday music won't impinge on the public consciousness
> -- in Dallas, no less -- suggests such a white-centric
> view of the world as to render them tone-deaf beyond
> their limited outlook.

Not to me. For me Billie Holiday music is like, oh, Bugsy
Siegel: ancient modern history. And I’m a lot older than
they are.

I don’t fault them for not realizing that there could be a
problem, assuming that in fact they did not. How they
reacted to the problem is another matter altogether.

[...]

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 7 February 2015 00:47:45 UTC, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
> <news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
> > Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that last
> > December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange Fruit'. It
> > was run by two white Texan women who claimed utter
> > ignorance of the name's significance.
>
> > ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
> > you go public.
>
> They did.

Google prioritises results of local significance.
If you're a white Texan in 2014, racial oppression
is something that happened to other people.

There are a few alternatives in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit_%28disambiguation%29>

The "Strange Fruit Records" label, in the United Kingdom,
intentionally used, and, I would say, diluted the
notoriety of the song.

In Britain we also regard racial discrimination
in America as something we aren't responsible for.
This seems to me short-sighted.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 12:27:48 PM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:

> I don't buy it. First you have to have reason to think that
> there might be a problem, and it's not at all clear to me
> that they did or should have done.

If they Googled the name, and made even a minimal effort to investigate the
links, they would have seen there might be a problem. And they claim to have
*done* just that, and yet somehow they missed the problem. How? Did they
imagine that no one was older than they were, or more sensitive to the history
of racial injustice than they were?

On top of that, the fact that no one knew of the problem without Googling means
a lack of diversity among their staff - not just a lack of black people or
older people, but a lack of people with wide-ranging interests.

I might never have heard of the Billie Holliday song, were it not for listening
to an FM radio jazz music show some years back.

And I know in high school, when a teacher suggested that I read "The Invisible
Man" by Ellison, my immediate response was that H. G. Wells wrote "The
Invisible Man", not Harlan Ellison, being utterly unaware of the book by Ralph
Ellison on the topic of race relations.

So I can't fault any _single individual_ for not knowing what the phrase
"Strange Fruit" means. And new product names are highly confidential, so
they're handled on a need-to-know basis, so it's likely not as if the *whole
agency* was consulted.

But I see a problem as the group size increases.

John Savard

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2015-02-07 14:41:16 -0500, Brian M. Scott said:

> On 7 Feb 2015 09:56:21 -0500, William December Starr
> <wds...@panix.com> wrote in
> <news:mb592l$4ff$1...@panix2.panix.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> In article <robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net>,
>> "Robert A. Woodward" <robe...@drizzle.com> said:
>
>>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first
>>> entry is a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it
>>> and the 2nd entry is the wikipedia article which is
>>> quite upfront in describing as an anti-lynching protest
>>> song.
>
>> So they see that first entry and: "Oh, it's some song from
>> pre-history that can't possibly affect us; I'm not going
>> to spend three minutes listening to it and figuring out
>> what the lyrics mean, I mean my god it's in
>> _black-and-white_," and they close the browser window.
>
>> I can believe it. (It may not be true, but I can believe
>> it.)
>
> And so you, too, miss the point. The question isn’t what
> the song is about; the question is whether a 75-year-old
> song is so well known that it’s put an indelible stamp on
> the phrase for too many people.

It certainly has for me.

And it was used just last year as the title of a graphic album about
black history, where the author clearly assumed that his readers would
recognize it.



--
Now available: Tom Derringer & the Aluminum Airship
http://www.amazon.com/Derringer-Aluminum-Airship-Lawrence-Watt-Evans/dp/1619910098/

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2015-02-07 16:38:57 -0500, Brian M. Scott said:

> On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 13:18:51 -0800, Kurt Busiek
> <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb5ven$jl6$1...@dont-email.me>
> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
>> Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
>> Holiday music won't impinge on the public consciousness
>> -- in Dallas, no less -- suggests such a white-centric
>> view of the world as to render them tone-deaf beyond
>> their limited outlook.
>
> Not to me. For me Billie Holiday music is like, oh, Bugsy
> Siegel: ancient modern history. And I’m a lot older than
> they are.

Are you white? Saying it doesn't suggest a white-centric view of the
world is pretty meaningless if you are, since your own view may well be
equally white-centric.

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-02-07 21:38:57 +0000, "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> said:

> On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 13:18:51 -0800, Kurt Busiek
> <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb5ven$jl6$1...@dont-email.me>
> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
>> Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
>> Holiday music won't impinge on the public consciousness
>> -- in Dallas, no less -- suggests such a white-centric
>> view of the world as to render them tone-deaf beyond
>> their limited outlook.
>
> Not to me. For me Billie Holiday music is like, oh, Bugsy
> Siegel: ancient modern history. And I’m a lot older than
> they are.

Business names aren't aimed merely at you, though. This is why I said

"Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie Holiday music
won't impinge on the public consciousness -- in Dallas, no less --"

rather than "Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
Holiday music won't impinge on Brian M. Scott..."

If your concern ends at "for me," then you're being even more
narrow-focused than they were. Which is perfectly appropriate when it
comes to your personal tastes, and far less so if you were naming a
company that was intended to interact with the public.

> I don’t fault them for not realizing that there could be a
> problem, assuming that in fact they did not.

Your reasoning for that is bizarre, though. You assume that because
you, who are neither a PR professional nor a representative selection
of the populace in which they were starting up a business, don't attach
any importance to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," that it is
therefore faultless to think about it no further than that.

It's actually a pretty glaring fault, because Brian M. Scott is neither
the target audience for the company nor the wider social context in
which the company will exist. Not considering those things is a fault.

Not to mention that reasoning that Billie Holliday music is like Bugsy
Siegel, and there's no reason to suspect that either have any modern
legacy is sort of like saying, "What, people recognize Las Vegas? But
it was first popularized by Bugsy Siegel! It must be forgotten by now!"

And if you see no reason to suspect that references to Bugsy Siegel and
his works might possibly impinge on a modern audience -- like, maybe
through the TV shows MOB CITY or BOARDWALK EMPIRE, just to pick two
recent examples -- then I wouldn't advise anyone to consult you on
naming PR firms.

Or to put it another way: Thinking about the effect of this sort of
thing isn't your job. It was, however, a part of theirs.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

And if that's the point, as Brian suggests, then the appropriate
response is to check and see whether the answer to that question is
"Yes."

After all, there are plenty of songs that old and older that are widely
known today; assuming that a song has had no life beyond its initial
recording would be a very weird assumption.

And it would take about three minutes' worth of Googling, maybe less,
to find out the answer to that question.

Not doing that tiny amount of work if you're just chatting is one
thing; not doing it if you're naming your PR company is a big ol'
mistake.

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-02-07 22:22:21 +0000, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:

> On 2015-02-07 16:38:57 -0500, Brian M. Scott said:
>
>> On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 13:18:51 -0800, Kurt Busiek
>> <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb5ven$jl6$1...@dont-email.me>
>> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
>>> Holiday music won't impinge on the public consciousness
>>> -- in Dallas, no less -- suggests such a white-centric
>>> view of the world as to render them tone-deaf beyond
>>> their limited outlook.
>>
>> Not to me. For me Billie Holiday music is like, oh, Bugsy
>> Siegel: ancient modern history. And I’m a lot older than
>> they are.
>
> Are you white? Saying it doesn't suggest a white-centric view of the
> world is pretty meaningless if you are, since your own view may well be
> equally white-centric.

Brian's not only limiting it to a (presumably) white-centric view, but
to a Brian-centric view.

And not even the general mass of Brians, either. Just the one specific Brian.

kdb

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 14:40:39 -0800, Kurt Busiek
<ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb6483$6oo$1...@dont-email.me>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 2015-02-07 21:38:57 +0000, "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> said:

>> On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 13:18:51 -0800, Kurt Busiek
>> <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in <news:mb5ven$jl6$1...@dont-email.me>
>> in rec.arts.sf.written:

>> [...]

>>> Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
>>> Holiday music won't impinge on the public consciousness
>>> -- in Dallas, no less -- suggests such a white-centric
>>> view of the world as to render them tone-deaf beyond
>>> their limited outlook.

>> Not to me. For me Billie Holiday music is like, oh,
>> Bugsy Siegel: ancient modern history. And I’m a lot
>> older than they are.

> Business names aren't aimed merely at you, though. This is
> why I said "Anyone figuring (even if that story is true)
> that Billie Holiday music won't impinge on the public
> consciousness -- in Dallas, no less --" rather than
> "Anyone figuring (even if that story is true) that Billie
> Holiday music won't impinge on Brian M. Scott..."

I give up. Whether business names are aimed at me (as in
general they most certainly are not) has nothing to do with
the point that I was trying -- obviously unsuccessfully --
to make.

> If your concern ends at "for me," [...]

It doesn’t.

The *only* thing that you’ve said that is at all relevant is
the claim that *in* *their* *business* they should have been
more aware of popular culture. That much I will grant,
albeit with some reservations -- but that doesn’t change the
fact that I find it entirely understandable that someone
could with the best of intentions miss this problem.

[Kurt Busiek]

I guess so. The thing is, you keep trying to make that point by saying
that you personally don't have reason to think of Billie Holiday or the
song as particularly resonant today. And that would only matter if the
business name was aimed only at you and people who share your opinions
or experience.

If it's aimed at other people, then your personal experience of Billie
Holiday's music is irrelevant.

>> If your concern ends at "for me," [...]
>
> It doesn’t.
>
> The *only* thing that you’ve said that is at all relevant is
> the claim that *in* *their* *business* they should have been
> more aware of popular culture. That much I will grant,
> albeit with some reservations -- but that doesn’t change the
> fact that I find it entirely understandable that someone
> could with the best of intentions miss this problem.

Best of intentions, maybe, but virtually no follow-through. In order to
miss the fact that the song has had a life beyond 1939, one has to
avoid clicking on the links once they've been Googled (as they claim to
have done), to choose not to learn anything. To choose not to answer
the question that, in another post, you said was the point -- whether a
75-year-old song is so well known that it’s put an indelible stamp on

the phrase for too many people.

All it takes is reading the Wikipedia entry to realize that hell, yes, it is.

So if that's the point, then they should have sought an answer to the
question rather than blowing it off.

It's not a matter of being already-aware of popular culture. They don't
have to know it beforehand. But they are supposed to check, rather than
rely on their own limited experience.

And this is aside from the fact that, regardless of whether (having
looked up the phrase and discovered the existence of TIME's "song of
the century") they think it's hugely well-known or not, it's incredibly
stupid to use a term that refers to lynching as the name of a
white-owned business in the Southern United States. Not super-smart to
do it elsewhere, but especially in the South. Even if you're only going
to piss off a small portion of the people around you, you're going to
seriously piss them off. And that's bad PR.

So even if they had the best of intentions, they didn't follow through
on them -- if they had, the information that would have warned them off
the name comes up with extremely minimal effort.

In naming a company, you gotta do some due diligence. In naming a PR
company, you're expected not to be tone-deaf about that due diligence.

[Cryptoengineer]

Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote in news:mb6bea$304$1...@dont-email.me:

This^. Even if they were correct in guessing that 'Our clients won't
care', the shitstorm that took place was entirely predictable. Its as
if they didn't know about the Internet.

pt

[John Halpenny]

Before the internet, would their clients have cared?

John

[hamis...@gmail.com]

I suspect that before or after the internet people who cared wouldn't have become their clients.
Of course it's possible they were aiming for the white supremest market

[Kurt Busiek]

Depends who their clients would be, I suppose.

It would have been harder for them to do the research, and harder for
objections to propagate publicly, so they'd have had more (or at least
longer) success with their dismissive responses.

Then again, they might not exist, since without the internet it would
be much harder for a boutique PR company to function, so less likely
for a couple of PR people to decide to go out on their own.

Interestingly, they're now working under another name (Perennial PR),
and are using the internet a lot, though they have next to know
internet presence themselves -- a homepage that's nothing but an e-mail
link, pretty much. There's a Twitter account in their company name, but
it's a parody account.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 8/02/2015 6:41 AM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2015 09:56:21 -0500, William December Starr
> <wds...@panix.com> wrote in
> <news:mb592l$4ff$1...@panix2.panix.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> In article <robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net>,
>> "Robert A. Woodward" <robe...@drizzle.com> said:
>
>>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the first
>>> entry is a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday singing it
>>> and the 2nd entry is the wikipedia article which is
>>> quite upfront in describing as an anti-lynching protest
>>> song.
>
>> So they see that first entry and: "Oh, it's some song from
>> pre-history that can't possibly affect us; I'm not going
>> to spend three minutes listening to it and figuring out
>> what the lyrics mean, I mean my god it's in
>> _black-and-white_," and they close the browser window.
>
>> I can believe it. (It may not be true, but I can believe
>> it.)
>
> And so you, too, miss the point. The question isn’t what
> the song is about; the question is whether a 75-year-old
> song is so well known that it’s put an indelible stamp on
> the phrase for too many people.
>

Well, I am not USian, and it jumped straight out at me - but I do have a
lot of Billie Holiday recordings (yes, including "Strange Fruit").

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 12:36:03 AM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> The question isn't what the song is about; the

> question is whether it's so well known that it's put an

> indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people.

Looking again at your precise wording, I see your point here. While black
Americans would be highly conscious of lynching as part of their history, your
hypothetical is consistent with that undeniable fact; you're only saying that
the specific song might have failed to create a well-known phrase associated
with that historical fact.

In *that* case, though, certain questions can be asked:

Was Billie Holliday popular or obscure? (Note that she could be popular among
blacks while being obscure among whites.)

Would the song "Strange Fruit" have stood out, because at that time few people
spoke out loud about lynchings in the South?

In *that* connection, it might be noted that the Hays Code, besides restricting
sexual content in movies, also essentially prevented movies in the United
States from serving as an instrument in raising public consciousness about
either racial injustice or about the unionized labor movement.

The problem isn't that you're some kind of racist. The reason that people are
having a hard time wrapping their heads around any expression of exculpation
for this PR firm on the basis you're using is, basically, that, to people who
lived through that era - even as white people, for whom, indeed, racial
discrimination was happening to somebody else - it just seems as though we're
not dealing simply with a lack of knowledge about one specific song or singer.

Instead, it seems like we're dealing with a lack of awareness of the realities
of those times - realities as pervasive as the fact that the Sun rises in the
East and sets in the West.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:42:21 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
> in the United Kingdom.

And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.

It seems strange to us that Americans have such gaps in their knowledge about Britain, and the British have such gaps in their knowledge about America. (Of course, the Brits are perhaps amazed at the depth of our ignorance about the European Union... and then there's the city of Birmingabad with its converted bingo halls, which a certain terrorism expert is unlikely to live down.)

John Savard

[Cryptoengineer]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:da74c4d0-f0eb-4927...@googlegroups.com:

> On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 12:36:03 AM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott
> wrote:
>> The question isn't what the song is about; the
>> question is whether it's so well known that it's put an
>> indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people.
>
> Looking again at your precise wording, I see your point here. While
> black Americans would be highly conscious of lynching as part of their
> history, your hypothetical is consistent with that undeniable fact;
> you're only saying that the specific song might have failed to create
> a well-known phrase associated with that historical fact.
>
> In *that* case, though, certain questions can be asked:
>
> Was Billie Holliday popular or obscure? (Note that she could be
> popular among blacks while being obscure among whites.)
>
> Would the song "Strange Fruit" have stood out, because at that time
> few people spoke out loud about lynchings in the South?
>
> In *that* connection, it might be noted that the Hays Code, besides
> restricting sexual content in movies, also essentially prevented
> movies in the United States from serving as an instrument in raising
> public consciousness about either racial injustice or about the
> unionized labor movement.

'Lady Sings the Blues' (1972) was nominated for 5 Oscars. It includes
'Strange Fruit'. The soundtrack was a number 1 selling album in 1973.

pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

Its not my work but I can't remember who I nicked it from.

--
Veni, vidi, snarki.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 7 February 2015 22:12:52 UTC, Quadibloc wrote:
> [Strange Fruit, your public relations disaster company]
> The fact that no one knew of the problem without

> Googling means a lack of diversity among their
> staff - not just a lack of black people or older
> people, but a lack of people with wide-ranging
> interests.

Some or all of that lack of diversity may have
been a goal, rather than a problem. Until it
was a problem.

I also kinda want to see their corporate artwork.
Stationery and so forth.

By the way, since it was also mentioned: people
communicating in public, or to the public, are
occasionally caught out by the tempting
convenient phrase "final solution".

[David Goldfarb]

In article <54d6e308$0$29599$742e...@news.sonic.net>,

John W. Campbell, Jr. He had it as "...and lets fly with a club",
though.

--
David Goldfarb |"I think hyperbole is the second greatest thing to
goldf...@gmail.com |come along since the invention of the mixing bowl."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Todd VerBeek, on rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh

[Alie...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 7:33:46 PM UTC-8, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 12:36:03 AM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> > The question isn't what the song is about; the
> > question is whether it's so well known that it's put an
> > indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people.

How many is "too many"?

> Looking again at your precise wording, I see your point here. While black
> Americans would be highly conscious of lynching as part of their history,
> your hypothetical is consistent with that undeniable fact; you're only
> saying that the specific song might have failed to create a well-known phrase
> associated with that historical fact.

Well known to whom? When I first read it, I thought it had something to do with sexuality.

> In *that* case, though, certain questions can be asked:
>
> Was Billie Holliday popular or obscure? (Note that she could be popular among
> blacks while being obscure among whites.)

In the 1930's? Quite popular across racial lines. Check her Wikipedia article.

> Would the song "Strange Fruit" have stood out, because at that time few
> people spoke out loud about lynchings in the South?
>
> In *that* connection, it might be noted that the Hays Code, besides
> restricting sexual content in movies, also essentially prevented movies in
> the United States from serving as an instrument in raising public
> consciousness about either racial injustice or about the unionized labor
> movement.

Jazz was very nearly as "un-American" as most of the things the Hays Code banned. The mere fact that she was black made her career, um, interesting.

> The problem isn't that you're some kind of racist. The reason that people are
> having a hard time wrapping their heads around any expression of exculpation
> for this PR firm on the basis you're using is, basically, that, to people who
> lived through that era - even as white people, for whom, indeed, racial
> discrimination was happening to somebody else - it just seems as though we're
> not dealing simply with a lack of knowledge about one specific song or singer.

Discrimination happened to white people too. You might be surprised how many whites had to be convinced that they shouldn't hang around with "those people". If you dared resist the indoctrination you were subject to the same coercions up to and including lynching, depending on location ("we gonna make a example of you, bwah"). I think I've told the story here of my (frankly) cracker father telling me not to write the numeral one "like a nigger", when I was four. Later in life, I was surprised by how many people shunned me for not hating Mexicans. Then again, I was raised in southern California, not Mississippi, under a different sun so to speak...

> Instead, it seems like we're dealing with a lack of awareness of the
> realities of those times - realities as pervasive as the fact that the Sun
> rises in the East and sets in the West.

I currently reside in Washington State, where for most of the year you don't see the sun at all.

I'm 62, more or less white, and never had any interest in jazz. Maybe being an Aspie makes (especially improvisational) jazz just too damn messy for my brain to cope with. I didn't find out about Billie Holiday until my Jewish stepfather married my mother, and my stepbrother introduced me to the blues and jazz in a way I could handle, as the foundations of the rock and roll I already liked. That doesn't mean I embraced her repertiore, I just knew who she was.

What I knew of racial tensions confused me immensely. I experienced the Watts riots first-hand at an aunt's home at age thirteen. The roots of that weren't something focused on in civics classes at the time, and the actions taken didn't seem to me to be particularly well aimed at remedying anything.

This reminds me of the word "cultured". To be considered cultured at one time in the past, you had to have read certain classical authors in their native languages, be able to identify certain pieces of music, wear certain clothing, have certain mannerisms, and hold certain social values. In public anyway, some cultured people got up to considerable uncultured behaviors in private.

These days I guess I'm uncultured because I didn't immediately associate the phrase "strange fruit" with Jim Crow. And you know something? I don't want to be that kind of cultured. I don't want to spend that much time thinking about, and looking for connotations of, racism, sexism, and all that crap in everything that goes by. I really wish the rest of the world felt the same way and would just kill it when it happens, and otherwise drop it and get on with life.

Does that mean I want to pretend none of it ever happened because I'm not a "victim"? No. It means that I'm not addicted to drama and don't hold grudges.

But I've also been to Texas, and if I had been asked if the name was a good idea, I'd have Googled it and said "who do you want to piss off today"?


Mark L. Fergerson

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2015-02-07 22:33:43 -0500, Quadibloc said:

> On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 12:36:03 AM UTC-7, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> The question isn't what the song is about; the
>> question is whether it's so well known that it's put an
>> indelible stamp on the phrase for too many people.
>
> Looking again at your precise wording, I see your point here. While black
> Americans would be highly conscious of lynching as part of their history, your
> hypothetical is consistent with that undeniable fact; you're only saying that
> the specific song might have failed to create a well-known phrase associated
> with that historical fact.
>
> In *that* case, though, certain questions can be asked:
>
> Was Billie Holliday popular or obscure? (Note that she could be popular among
> blacks while being obscure among whites.)

But she wasn't; she was a crossover artist, immensely popular with both
black and white audiences. This isn't Big Mama Thornton we're talking
about, it's Billie bloody Holliday.

She also, as several people have pointed out, not the only one to have
a serious hit with that song.

> Would the song "Strange Fruit" have stood out, because at that time few people
> spoke out loud about lynchings in the South?

I don't see that as relevant. The question is, "Is there a good chance
that people would recognize the phrase 'Strange Fruit' and object to
its use?"

Brian says it wouldn't upset HIM. He seems to think this indicates
something more than that he's surprisingly ignorant of American pop
culture and race relations. He's wrong.

> The problem isn't that you're some kind of racist. The reason that people are
> having a hard time wrapping their heads around any expression of exculpation
> for this PR firm on the basis you're using is, basically, that, to people who
> lived through that era - even as white people, for whom, indeed, racial
> discrimination was happening to somebody else - it just seems as though we're
> not dealing simply with a lack of knowledge about one specific song or singer.
>
> Instead, it seems like we're dealing with a lack of awareness of the realities
> of those times - realities as pervasive as the fact that the Sun rises in the
> East and sets in the West.

Pretty much.

I'd point out that I knew who Billie Holliday was by the time I was
twelve -- and I was a white kid growing up in a lily-white town in New
England. I knew about the song "Strange Fruit," and what it meant, by
the time I was sixteen. I didn't actually HEAR the song until I was in
my late twenties, though I think I'd seen the printed lyrics before
that, but I knew what it was about and why it was important. Brian's
ignorance on the subject, contrary to what he apparently believes, is
fairly remarkable in someone of our generation.

(At least, I assume he's roughly my generation. I'm sixty.)

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 01:12:38 -0500, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
wrote:

>I'd point out that I knew who Billie Holliday was by the time I was
>twelve -- and I was a white kid growing up in a lily-white town in New
>England. I knew about the song "Strange Fruit," and what it meant, by
>the time I was sixteen. I didn't actually HEAR the song until I was in
>my late twenties, though I think I'd seen the printed lyrics before
>that, but I knew what it was about and why it was important.

This pretty much exactly describes my experience of the song too, except
without the New in New England. And all about 20 years later, our age
difference being as it is.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Ford carried on counting quietly. This is about the most aggressive thing
you can do to a computer, the equivalent of going up to a human being and
saying "Blood... blood... blood... blood..." -- Douglas Adams

[J. Clarke]

In article <1thlftpl1tt9w.c...@40tude.net>,
b.s...@csuohio.edu says...

>
> On Sat, 07 Feb 2015 06:46:48 -0800, Bill Dugan
> <wkd...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
> <news:h39cdap3kqir7kk2n...@4ax.com> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> > On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 02:36:00 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:27:17 -0800, "Robert A. Woodward"
> >> <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote in
> >> <news:robertaw-0E8BAF...@news.individual.net>
> >> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> >>> In article <1kl7xenos1ypr$.qjrfwu1l...@40tude.net>,

> >>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >>>> On Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:27:33 -0600, Cryptoengineer
> >>>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
> >>>> <news:XnsA439C5EC33...@216.166.97.131> in
> >>>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> >>>> [...]
>
> >>>>> Inspired, perhaps, by the small Texas PR firm that
> >>>>> last December was rejoicing in the name 'Strange
> >>>>> Fruit'. It was run by two white Texan women who
> >>>>> claimed utter ignorance of the name's significance.
>
> >>>>> ProTip: Google the proposed name of your enterprise before
> >>>>> you go public.
>
> >>>> They did.
>

> >>>> â??We thought the name would be perfect for a hospitality PR
> >>>> firm that specializes in food and drink. We of course
> >>>> Googled to ensure that it was not taken elsewhere and found
> >>>> the Billie Holiday song online. Thinking it would have
> >>>> nothing to do with our firm, and since it was written in
> >>>> 1939 it wouldnâ??t be top of mind in the public consciousness.
> >>>> We now know we were naïve to think that, and should have
> >>>> known better.â??
>
> >>>> I find this wholly believable. Itâ??s possible that Iâ??d heard
> >>>> of the song (or the phrase in that context) before this, but
> >>>> if so, I certainly donâ??t remember, and Iâ??m not at all sure
> >>>> that Iâ??d have guessed that the phrase would mean one and
> >>>> only one thing to so many people.
>

> >>> They didn't use Google very well. When I do it, the
> >>> first entry is a You Tube clip of Billie Holiday
> >>> singing it and the 2nd entry is the wikipedia article
> >>> which is quite upfront in describing as an
> >>> anti-lynching protest song.
>

> >> Do you really imagine that I was unaware of that when I
> >> posted?! It should have been pretty damned obvious from
> >> my comment that I?d had to search just to find out what
> >> the problem was. And it?s entirely beside the point
> >> that I was making. The question isn?t what the song is
> >> about; the question is whether it?s so well known that
> >> it?s put an indelible stamp on the phrase for too many
> >> people. As I said, I?m not at all sure that I?d have
> >> guessed that it had.
>
> > But these people were going into the PR business. That level of
> > failure to do the research was complete incompetence.
>

> I don?t buy it. First you have to have reason to think that
> there might be a problem, and it?s not at all clear to me

> that they did or should have done.

A good PR person looks for the problems and averts them before they
happen, instead of waiting for one to present itself and then trying to
do damage control.

[J. Clarke]

In article <mb6unh$ggc$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@sff.net says...

Personally I don't care much about music but I listened to a lot of
Billie Holiday on the basis of Spider Robinson referring to her on
several occasions. And a generation younger than mine gets a big dose
of her in the Fallout games (although I don't believe that "Strange
Fruit" is on either the original or the modded soundtracks--it would be
fitting for that society that those games depict though.

[J. Clarke]

In article <be2efad7-d495-40d1...@googlegroups.com>,
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

>
> On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:42:21 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
>
> > The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
> > in the United Kingdom.
>
> And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.

I consider all the complaining about "Paki" to be failed PR. If the
bloody Pakis don't want to be called Pakis then they should change the
name of their bloody country to "Coolpeoplestan" or something (but that
would no doubt lead to "coolies" and another shitstorm).

By the way, when, exactly, did His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles
Albert David of Wales become "an American President".

[Kevrob]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 8:52:15 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article <be2efad7-d495-40d1...@googlegroups.com>,
> jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...
> >
> > On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:42:21 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> >
> > > The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
> > > in the United Kingdom.
> >
> > And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.
>
> I consider all the complaining about "Paki" to be failed PR. If the
> bloody Pakis don't want to be called Pakis then they should change the
> name of their bloody country to "Coolpeoplestan" or something (but that
> would no doubt lead to "coolies" and another shitstorm).

Pakistan isn't named after some mythical "Paki" tribe or
state. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#Etymology

Paki is an unloved back-formation.

"Land of the pure" is pretty creepy, though.

> By the way, when, exactly, did His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles
> Albert David of Wales become "an American President".

He's got at least one great-great-grandmother ho as an American, but
that's not enough to qualify as a natural born citizen.

Kevin R

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 9:09:49 PM UTC-7, Cryptoengineer wrote:

> 'Lady Sings the Blues' (1972) was nominated for 5 Oscars. It includes
> 'Strange Fruit'. The soundtrack was a number 1 selling album in 1973.

That was long after the passing of the Hays Code... but your point is, I
suppose, that I am conceding too much to the obscurity defence. My point was
different - I was saying that anyone with a feel for the 1950s and before would
not have been misled due to the fact that in those days, that song wouldn't
have gotten... airplay - and would have expected it to have a strong impact in
a time of deafening silence on such matters.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 11:08:36 PM UTC-7, nu...@bid.nes wrote:

> What I knew of racial tensions confused me immensely. I experienced the
> Watts riots first-hand at an aunt's home at age thirteen. The roots of that
> weren't something focused on in civics classes at the time, and the actions
> taken didn't seem to me to be particularly well aimed at remedying anything.

> These days I guess I'm uncultured because I didn't immediately associate
> the phrase "strange fruit" with Jim Crow. And you know something? I don't
> want to be that kind of cultured. I don't want to spend that much time
> thinking about, and looking for connotations of, racism, sexism, and all that
> crap in everything that goes by. I really wish the rest of the world felt the
> same way and would just kill it when it happens, and otherwise drop it and
> get on with life.
>
> Does that mean I want to pretend none of it ever happened because I'm not a
> "victim"? No. It means that I'm not addicted to drama and don't hold grudges.

I'm not a fan of political correctness myself, as my posting history bears out.

My memory is a magnet for trivia, so I think I might be good at "Jeopardy" -
although I have a weak spot, as I've never paid much attention to sports. (There is, though, plenty of stuff I don't know. Like most people, I knew the names of Henry Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, William Saroyan, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Tom Wolfe and Erskine Caldwell. But until just a few hours ago, when I glanced at a copy of "Winesburg, Ohio", I had never heard of Sherwood Anderson.)

As I can emotionally relate to innocent black people as human beings, and also
relate to white people adversely affected by progress, because their schools or
neighborhoods have become less safe, as human beings, I am confused and in
turmoil about how to justly resolve America's racial problems.

Unlike my apparent lack of turmoil about the terrorism issue.

I say "apparent" because "nuke 'em all" is not what I advocate - it's what I
warn against as an ever-present easy and convenient temptation.

I don't want American boys to march into conflict to make me "feel safe" - but
I do note that if conscription is *not an option* thanks to the effects of
Vietnam, or to the equality of women, then this limitation of potential options
has consequences. If the only tool you have left is a hammer...

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 6:52:15 AM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> By the way, when, exactly, did His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles
> Albert David of Wales become "an American President".

I'm not aware that he ever did. Unlike George W. Bush, who, I think you will find, was the President of the United States from 2000 to 2008.

John Savard

[Bill Dugan]

I was questioning their competence, not their intentions. It's quite
possible to do a bad job with the best of intentions.

[J. Clarke]

In article <7ae95c2d-df55-450a...@googlegroups.com>,
kev...@my-deja.com says...

>
> On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 8:52:15 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> > In article <be2efad7-d495-40d1...@googlegroups.com>,
> > jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...
> > >
> > > On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:42:21 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> > >
> > > > The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
> > > > in the United Kingdom.
> > >
> > > And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.
> >
> > I consider all the complaining about "Paki" to be failed PR. If the
> > bloody Pakis don't want to be called Pakis then they should change the
> > name of their bloody country to "Coolpeoplestan" or something (but that
> > would no doubt lead to "coolies" and another shitstorm).
>
> Pakistan isn't named after some mythical "Paki" tribe or
> state.

Doesn't matter what it's named after, if they don't want to be called
"Pakis" they shouldn't have a country named in such a manner that
"Paki" is the obvious short form.

> See:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#Etymology
>
> Paki is an unloved back-formation.
>
> "Land of the pure" is pretty creepy, though.

It's their country, if they don't like the name the should change it.
Nobody's stopping them.

Just a bunch of whiners.

> > By the way, when, exactly, did His Royal Highness Prince Henry
Charles
> > Albert David of Wales become "an American President".
>
> He's got at least one great-great-grandmother ho as an American, but
> that's not enough to qualify as a natural born citizen.

Being a natural born citizen doesn't make one President.

[J. Clarke]

In article <efe6be09-90bc-42cc...@googlegroups.com>,
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

I missed the Bush shitstorm, the only one I heard about was the Harry
shitstorm.

[Cryptoengineer]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:399a8253-eec8-4dc9...@googlegroups.com:

Its true that it did not get much radio play at the time, but
it sold a million copies in 1939, and was the #4 charted song that year,
and was #1 for two weeks. Billie Holiday was the #8 selling artist of
1939, and the recording became the star's biggest selling record.

So no, neither she nor the song were obscure, even in the 1930s.


The point, which people seem to be realizing, is that the song
remains well known and emotionally significant to a *lot* of people,
including those the long postdate it, as a crie de cour against racial
injustice.

Enough so that for two white Texans to recycle the title as the
name of their PR firm constitutes strong evidence of incompetence.

The name might not have offended them, but they should have been able
to figure out that it *would* offend others.

Myself, I certainly knew of BH from childhood, but wasn't a big fan.
This particular song I didn't really know until a few years ago.

[I note that there's a 'Strange Fruit' Internet radio channel, which
seems to be British run: http://radio.thinkbug.com/listen/strange-fruit]

pt

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, 8 February 2015 16:16:36 UTC, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article <7ae95c2d-df55-450a...@googlegroups.com>,
> kev...@my-deja.com says...
> >
> > On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 8:52:15 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> > > In article <be2efad7-d495-40d1...@googlegroups.com>,
> > > jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...
> > > >
> > > > On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 2:42:21 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > The significant thing, perhaps, is that RuneScape is the product of a company
> > > > > in the United Kingdom.
> > > >
> > > > And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.
> > >
> > > I consider all the complaining about "Paki" to be failed PR. If the
> > > bloody Pakis don't want to be called Pakis then they should change the
> > > name of their bloody country to "Coolpeoplestan" or something (but that
> > > would no doubt lead to "coolies" and another shitstorm).
> >
> > Pakistan isn't named after some mythical "Paki" tribe or
> > state.
>
> Doesn't matter what it's named after, if they don't want to be called
> "Pakis" they shouldn't have a country named in such a manner that
> "Paki" is the obvious short form.

Or perhaps they shouldn't accept insincere friendly
overtures and invitations to visit from a country
of boorish fat idiots who hold Pakistan, its people
and its religion in seldom concealed contempt.
And gunsights. I refer of course to The Merkins.

[Greg Goss]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.

I wouldn't have noticed "strange fruit". But Paki is in extensive use
in Western Canada.

I live in a neighborhood with a very high proportion of Sikhs. Not
only aren't they Pakistanis; they aren't even Muslim. But that's what
they are called by the bigots.

(The neighboring neighborhood has a high proportion of Muslims. But
the two areas are distinct.)
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Greg Goss]

"J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> wrote:
>kev...@my-deja.com says...
>> On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 8:52:15 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:

>> > jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...

>> > > And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a racial slur for East Indians in general.
>> >
>> > I consider all the complaining about "Paki" to be failed PR. If the
>> > bloody Pakis don't want to be called Pakis then they should change the
>> > name of their bloody country to "Coolpeoplestan" or something (but that
>> > would no doubt lead to "coolies" and another shitstorm).
>>
>> Pakistan isn't named after some mythical "Paki" tribe or
>> state.
>
>Doesn't matter what it's named after, if they don't want to be called
>"Pakis" they shouldn't have a country named in such a manner that
>"Paki" is the obvious short form.

Ah, but the term is applied far more widely than just to people from
that country. A large proportion of the people in my neighborhood are
from India and aren't even Muslim (or Hindu). But the bigots refer to
my corner of town as infested with Pakis (or Hindus). Bigots aren't
known for precision.

If they got the independence that some of them wanted, it would have
been called Khalistan, not Pakistan.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2015-02-08 10:21:26 -0500, Quadibloc said:

> As I can emotionally relate to innocent black people as human beings,

> and alsorelate to white people adversely affected by progress, because
> their schools orneighborhoods have become less safe, as human beings, I
> am confused and inturmoil about how to justly resolve America's racial
> problems.

It might be a start to not feel it necessary to specify "innocent" for
blacks but not for whites, you racist bastard.

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-02-08 13:55:26 +0000, "J. Clarke" <j.clark...@gmail.com> said:

> In article <be2efad7-d495-40d1...@googlegroups.com>,
> jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...
>>

>> And we Canadians, having close ties to both Britain and the United
>> States, *notice* when a British RPG innocently misuses the phrase
>> "strange fruit", just as we *notice* when an American President
>> innocently refers to someone in Pakistan as a "Paki" - in Britain, a
>> racial slur for East Indians in general.
>

> By the way, when, exactly, did His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles
> Albert David of Wales become "an American President".

I know I never voted for him.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Kurt Busiek]

Goodness. That seems a rude thing to say about his great great
grandmother, even if it's true.

[Kevrob]

"I never voted for him" describes every US president, where I=myself.

Kevrob

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2015-02-08 18:18:21 +0000, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:

> On 2015-02-08 10:21:26 -0500, Quadibloc said:
>
>> As I can emotionally relate to innocent black people as human beings,
>> and alsorelate to white people adversely affected by progress, because
>> their schools orneighborhoods have become less safe, as human beings, I
>> am confused and inturmoil about how to justly resolve America's racial
>> problems.
>
> It might be a start to not feel it necessary to specify "innocent" for
> blacks but not for whites, you racist bastard.

Well, he's a racist bastard. And as we know from years of his posts,
all of his ideas on resolving any problem involve stepping on the necks
of people who aren't like him in order to force the world into his
fantasy of TV-family life during the 1950s. In the name of "freedom."

[Kurt Busiek]

This is not a statement I can say.

But "I never voted for him" does describe all but two US presidents,
where I=myself.

Hopefully, not too long from now, it'll describe all but three.

[Greg Goss]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:

>I don't see that as relevant. The question is, "Is there a good chance
>that people would recognize the phrase 'Strange Fruit' and object to
>its use?"

Companies often have tightly focussed client aim. Perhaps they knew
the implications and thought that would be an "in" with a white Texas
target audience.

Until it blew up Internet meme style. Then even the target audience
couldn't be associated with them.

>> Instead, it seems like we're dealing with a lack of awareness of the realities
>> of those times - realities as pervasive as the fact that the Sun rises in the
>> East and sets in the West.

>

>I'd point out that I knew who Billie Holliday was by the time I was
>twelve -- and I was a white kid growing up in a lily-white town in New
>England. I knew about the song "Strange Fruit," and what it meant, by
>the time I was sixteen. I didn't actually HEAR the song until I was in
>my late twenties, though I think I'd seen the printed lyrics before
>that, but I knew what it was about and why it was important. Brian's
>ignorance on the subject, contrary to what he apparently believes, is
>fairly remarkable in someone of our generation.

I may or may not have heard the song. I recognize the artist's name,
but couldn't have told you anything that she sang.

I was 15 in 72 when the film (and best selling album) came out. I
might have been temporarily familiar with songs from the album at the
time, but none of it stuck with me. So I don't find it remarkable in
"our generation".

>(At least, I assume he's roughly my generation. I'm sixty.)

--

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 2/7/2015 9:37 PM, David Goldfarb wrote:
> In article <54d6e308$0$29599$742e...@news.sonic.net>,
> Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>> On 2/7/2015 11:06 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>> Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in
>>>
>>>> History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes she screams "Why
>>>> don't you ever listen to me?!?!?" while letting loose with a two by
>>>> four.
>>>
>>> That's good enough to save :-)
>>> pt
>>>
>> Its not my work but I can't remember who I nicked it from.
>
> John W. Campbell, Jr. He had it as "...and lets fly with a club",
> though.
>

Memory is fallible. Thank you.

--
Veni, vidi, snarki.

[lal_truckee]

On 2/8/15 7:21 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> As I can emotionally relate to innocent black people as human beings

and then Quadibloc added:

> I am confused and in
> turmoil about how to justly resolve America's racial problems.

Are you passing an inane joke? Or are you just ignorant?

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 11:18:23 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

> It might be a start to not feel it necessary to specify "innocent" for
> blacks but not for whites, you racist bastard.

It's not that I love white criminals.

But that black people are a group on the outside, that the white mainstream
core of the society has to be persuaded to let into its hearts -

that there is a crime problem among black people which serves as an obstacle to
this process -

those things I was recognizing.

John Savard

[Kurt Busiek]

He's a straight-up racist shithead.

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 12:16:15 PM UTC-7, lal_truckee wrote:

> Are you passing an inane joke?

No.

You see, there are two cases which would be very simple to resolve.

Case 1:
Black people are peaceful and law-abiding, just as much as white people, if not
more so. But they live under cruel injustice because whites who never
reconciled themselves to the end of slavery and/or who regard them as little
more than dumb animals exert a powerful influence on the society in which they
live.

This case is simple to resolve. Simply apply sufficient force. When people
recognize that engaging in racist behavior means that you will disappear and
not be seen again, they will stop doing it.

Case 2:
A peaceful and tolerant white community has had its peaceful existence
disrupted by migrants from other areas, who have brought disorderly and
criminal behavior to the area.

Here, it's more complicated. The migrants are internal to the political unit,
so they can't be deported. In any event, while they may all be poor, most of
them are likely law-abiding with just a few bad eggs getting all the attention.

Again, though, a fairly obvious path of solution seems visible.

Clamp down on criminal behavior until it is suppressed and peace is restored.

Address the poverty that is a root source of the problems.

Invoice the areas from which the migrants came for the cost of addressing their
poverty, since those areas were the ones that perpetuated the slavery and
discrimination that created their disadvantages.

The situation in the United States, though, at the present day, seems to be
rather a confusing one. It seems difficult to protect innocent people from
discrimination without providing an increased opportunity for the guilty ones
among them to cause problems.

Basically, there seems to be a conflict between providing black Americans with
the equality that is theirs by right, and winning the War on Drugs, thereby
providing all Americans with the peace and safety that is also theirs by right.

That is not to say that I think false charges of "driving while black" or
making innocent black people who live in the poorer areas liable to be
collateral damage in the War on Drugs is a good idea. No, these things must
stop. But even with a return to a common-sense legal system, that doesn't let
criminals walk free for reasons unrelated to their guilt, removing one of the
temptations to this kind of police misbehavior, it may be difficult to bring
adequate resources to bear to achieve victory in this conflict.

John Savard

[Cryptoengineer]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote in
news:cjppea...@mid.individual.net:

> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>>I don't see that as relevant. The question is, "Is there a good
>>chance that people would recognize the phrase 'Strange Fruit' and
>>object to its use?"
>
> Companies often have tightly focussed client aim. Perhaps they knew
> the implications and thought that would be an "in" with a white Texas
> target audience.
>
> Until it blew up Internet meme style. Then even the target audience
> couldn't be associated with them.

This is a possibility which a competent PR firm would have anticipated.

"You know, a John Buchan / Carol Wald election ticket is asking
for trouble..."


pt

[David Goldfarb]

In article <9cac4002-ce79-4fde...@googlegroups.com>,

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>Like most
>people, I knew the names of Henry Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, William
>Saroyan, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Tom Wolfe and Erskine Caldwell.

Other people have jumped on things in the preceding post that might
justly be jumped on. It is left to me to point at "Henry Faulkner"
and giggle.

--
David Goldfarb | "All love is unrequited."
goldf...@gmail.com |
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Babylon 5, "Rising Star"

[Moriarty]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 2:14:08 PM UTC+11, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:

<snip>

> Well, I am not USian, and it jumped straight out at me - but I do have a
> lot of Billie Holiday recordings (yes, including "Strange Fruit").

I'm also non-USAian, have heard of Billie Holliday, though to the best of my knowledge have never heard her sing, and up until I clicked on this thread had never heard of the term "strange fruit" or its repugnant origins.

If someone had mentioned "strange fruit" in this group I'd have guessed at a Lovecraft influenced story perhaps by Brian Lumley, ala "Fruiting Bodies".

Mind you, if I had thought of starting a business called "strange fruit", I'd have quickly found the Wikipedia link and the photo that inspired the term and re-thought things. It's not like it's hidden on page 4 of a google search.

-Moriarty

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

And while I've heard of Billie Holliday, I don't know of any song by
her. But then, I wouldn't know about Elvis or the Beatles if they hadn't
been pounded into my consciousness (after respective related deaths) to
the point that yes, I know of them, and no, I don't want to hear their
stuff ever again.



--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 08 Feb 2015 19:33:26 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:mb8v7i$9nh$1...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> But then, I wouldn't know about Elvis or the Beatles if
> they hadn't been pounded into my consciousness (after
> respective related deaths) to the point that yes, I know
> of them, and no, I don't want to hear their stuff ever
> again.

I’m enough older that I couldn’t entirely avoid either of
them, though the only Elvis song that I can actually recall
having heard is ‘Hound Dog’. In college from 1965 to 1969 I
inevitably heard rather a lot of the Beatles, though it was
some years before I realized that some of their music was
actually pretty good. (Finally hearing Joshua Rifkin’s
clever rearrangements on the Baroque Beatles Book didn’t
hurt!)

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[lal_truckee]

On 2/8/15 4:33 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
> And while I've heard of Billie Holliday, I don't know of any song
> by her. But then, I wouldn't know about Elvis or the Beatles if they
> hadn't been pounded into my consciousness (after respective related
> deaths) to the point that yes, I know of them, and no, I don't want to
> hear their stuff ever again.

Pounded, you say? I would have thought osmosed a more likely source of
cultural knowledge?.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

I consider "months of finding nothing else on the frickin' radio" to be
pounded. I mean, really, a week of Elvis and then a few years without
him, I could probably appreciate a few of his songs. A month of Elvis
and slow decline never going to zero, I wish he'd died much earlier. I
never liked the Beatles even before one of them died (I recognized that
I'd heard some of their music before, and that I hadn't liked it); after
the month long Beatlesfest after one of them died? Ugh.

Nowadays that's not a problem, since I don't listen to radio and can
select music at my whim, not that of some DJ.

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 4:00:05 PM UTC-7, David Goldfarb wrote:

> Other people have jumped on things in the preceding post that might
> justly be jumped on. It is left to me to point at "Henry Faulkner"
> and giggle.

Mea culpa. Google tells me it's William Faulkner.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

The news tells me that some American police are acting as if it is impossible
to treat black Americans with dignity, respect, and equality and also win the
War on Drugs.

A principled response would be to say that even if this were true, the War on
Drugs is not worth winning at such a price.

But another possible response is to conclude that they must be wrong, in the
sense of being mistaken, as opposed to morally wrong.

Now, if one believes the War on Drugs must be won, for the sake of all
Americans, black Americans included, the temptation to go to that second
response is strong.

But that sort of "thinking" is something I do not allow myself. That's like the
people who "reason" as follows: the economic costs of dealing adequately with
global warming (barring nuclear power) would be unacceptable, *therefore*
global warming is not real, but a hoax dreamed up by Al Gore, the People's
Republic of China, and so on.

Reality cannot be expected to align itself to our wishes.

In the case of global warming, nuclear power reconciles the conflicting
premises of a need for a healthy economy and a need to prevent a climate
disaster.

In the case of the drug war versus equality, I have no simple way to reconcile
the opposites. This causes tension... as viewers of the original Star Trek
series should know, as this was Kirk's favorite way to blow up computers.

However, I do have small proposals to reconcile matters.

- An absolute ban on racial profiling is going too far. Policing should be
reality-based. An appropriate middle ground can be found that does not deny
black people the ability to lead normal lives in dignity.

- The exclusionary principle is also an example of taking laudable concern for
individual rights to excess.

- Also, more liberal use of electronic eavesdropping to hunt down drug
traffickers would be a great help.

If we give the police these things, perhaps then when we take away "driving
while black" and put proper controls on no-knock searches so that they stop
resulting in tragedies for black families... it will still be possible to win
the War on Drugs.

Remember Angela Dawson. The War on Drugs must be won for the sake of black
people too.

John Savard

[David Johnston]

Don't be silly. It doesn't make a difference one way or the other
whether you restrict profiling or no-knock searches. The War on Drugs
will still remain as unwinnable as any other war which has no opponent.

[David DeLaney]

On 2015-02-07, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:
> But I don't have any reason to believe one of their stories over
> another; I just figure they were saying whatever they thought would
> pour oil on the troubled waters.

Until they found that people were lighting it on fire.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://gatekeeper.vic.com/~dbd/ -net.legends/Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[David DeLaney]

You don't VOTE for Kings. Er, Princes.

Dave, strange women brandishing swords is not a rational basis for a system
of government!

[David DeLaney]

On 2015-02-07, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> wrote:

> And if you see no reason to suspect that references to Bugsy Siegel and
> his works might possibly impinge on a modern audience -- like, maybe
> through the TV shows MOB CITY or BOARDWALK EMPIRE, just to pick two
> recent examples -- then I wouldn't advise anyone to consult you on
> naming PR firms.

ObSF: _Last Call_, Tim Powers.

Dave

[David DeLaney]

On 2015-02-08, John Halpenny <j.hal...@rogers.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 8:59:24 PM UTC-5, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> This^. Even if they were correct in guessing that 'Our clients won't
>> care', the shitstorm that took place was entirely predictable. Its as
>> if they didn't know about the Internet.
>
> Before the internet, would their clients have cared?

Quite probably. Remember that "before the Internet" is now more than 20 years
ago, and the song - and the memories - were around 50 years old, rather than
70. Middle-aged people would have had _direct_ experience of the source
material...

[David DeLaney]

and when lal_truckee can see the discrepancies among your views, and between
them and the mainstream, brother, you been dissed.

Dave, Andrew Beckwith also, probably ;pities you