Hello John!

How wonderful to hear from Singapore!

You said:
> It is amazing how easy it is to get a PhD these days....

Yes - in the United States you can get them through mail-order
services (without ever even setting foot in a school or talking with
a teacher).  And you can get them in some really kooky subjects,
too. Our academic standards are going downhill, I'm afraid. There's
a lot of worry about this.

> Please stop
> referring to a Western world and and Eastern one...  As someone who lives in
> the "East" I grow weary of such racism... There is not ONE eastern or western
> culture and how you choose to break these things down does not help anything.

THANK YOU!!! That is EXTREMELY well put.

I don't know how much you've thought about this subject - (and it's
off-topic for this list, other than how it might relate to physical
expressions of health) - but I will add that the idea of distinctly
separate races is not accurate, either.

In the United States the racism against Blacks in particular goes SO
deep that even if you appear entirely Caucasian in every discernible
way - if it becomes known that somewhere - even far, far in your
distant past - there was some relative that was Black - then YOU are
Black. There's thought to be Black "blood." It's a lot of very
vicious nonsense - which has Whites for the most part in a totally
confused fog.

>  In india there are hundreds of cultures represented with different eating
> habits, languages, etc...

Thank you again.

India is   H U G E.

And OLD.

> Racism is unacceptable on any list.  Please stop.

:D

My Kinda Guy.

Karen said:
> don't be ridiculous!  This has absolutely NOTHING to do with racism.

Actually it does, Karen. "Ethnocentrism" means seeing every other
culture in the world in terms of how it relates to you - yourself at
the center of everything. It also means seeing yourself - or your
kind - as superior.

Whether or not you intended to sound that way doesn't really matter
(lots of nasty things are said and done out of ignorance - that
doesn't excuse them). The fact is that your words are indeed
offensive.

> If you can't see the difference between cultures and regions,based
> on difference in eating habits etc, it is YOU who is short-sighed,
> sacrificing truth for liberal ideology.

I think you are confusing John's words - I hope not deliberately.

It was John that said that there ARE in fact many differences
between cultures and regions in India (let alone the entirety of
Asia - or what you called "the East"), and that referring to them as
a single entity is not only innacurate - but racist.

It was you, on the other hand, that said:

"it's not cute to be lopsided, which most people in the Western
world are."

And:

"Poor countries like India show much higher on the "thoroughbred"
("T") scale"

And:

"where the common food is constipating, for example, you might see a
whole culture with real wide noses"

And then a sarcastic, and hurtful:

"I hope this soma-typical viewpoint does not offend!"

As a matter of fact, your comments DO, in fact, offend. You are
making nasty comments about the way people look - about the way
whole cultures look, in fact. And you are making gigantic sweeping
statements about enormously wide and diverse populations (the
"West?" What in the world are you including in this meaningless
term? Which continents? Which types of peoples? Which phenotypes are
included, which are not? Who are you trying to say what about?).

> You don't want truth you want dogma,

Huh?? What?  ??? On what "truth" did you think you've provided
illumination?

> or the truncating of truth to suit your own sensitivities.

I have no idea what "truth" you think you're addressing.

Frankly, I'm not sure there's much - if any - thinking going on here
at all.

I will say that the only good use of the word "sensitive" here would
be in referring to your racist diatribes as thoughtlessly - it seems
intentionally - INsensitive.

>..makes YOU the one who is FASCISTIC AND PHARISITIC.

I think you'd better get a dictionary the next time you try using big
words.

The name-calling might sound cool if you were a teenager just
learning to throw around mean-sounding stuff.  However - judging
from those photos you directed us to on your webpage - you have long
since left the teen years far,  far,  far,  f - a - r  behind.

Fascistic refers to systems of government.

There IS no such word as that second thing you yelled in CAPS.  You
might have been groping around for the word "pharisaic" which means
hypocritical. Or maybe "parasitic" which means living off of other
people.

None of which have anything to do with anything that's been
discussed.

Love Liza