Google calls its employees "Googlers", and seeks their safety from sexual bias.
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe is the current head of Diversity and Inclusion at Google for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Some may recall a time when major corporations didn’t have Diversity and Inclusion offices, but the 21st century is a unique and colorful time.Palmer-Edgecumbe has a strong background in D&I, having been a chief executive at Ari Diversity Consulting practice, and before that having six years as Global Head of Diversity at Barclays Group. The enthusiastic Palmer-Edgecumbe writes prolifically on the subject in a D&I blog for the Online Guardian in the United Kingdom. Prior to his full time entry into the Diversity field, the Google spokesman had a solid background in economics, and was a Head of Industry Analysis.…
Article comments
76 - Christopher Rose
That is only strictly true for corporations with large public shareholdings, Cindy, and even then there is lots of wiggle room for enlightened management to do more than simply chase the bottom line.
As just two examples of other potentialities, privately owned companies have far more discretion as to what they do and there is a rapidly growing business sector of social entrepreneurialism that is interested in far more than just the bottom line.
As for the corporate form, as far as I understand it there needs to be some kind of legally recognised structure that allows an entity to make legally binding agreements.
If that was limited to natural persons, no business could last more than one person's lifetime or be transferable.
In my view, the nature of corporate activity is still evolving over time and it is not an inherent quality of a company to be impelled only towards negative outcomes from anything other than a purely commercial perspective.
77 - Cindy
What I see is that corporations are mostly evolving in more harmful directions and that they are gaining more and more global dominance.
Yes, that is true that private corporations can do as they wish with profitability. The most socially responsible people I know, who own a huge corporation (one of the fastest growing privately held corps in the US in the late 1980s according to USA today), and who are liberals, run their business as a sexist enterprise. They have zero female sales people because it is run in the typical 'old boys network' booze and golf style.
So, in my experience, and from what I see around me in the world, the corporate model and the associated laws re public corps encourage (in the latter case--require) bad thinking and bad acting excused by the pursuit of profits. Still, I don't doubt that there are a few people trying to be as socially responsible as they can be. If we are to survive as a species, your optimistic outlook had better be right.
Chevron's Toxic Legacy in Ecuador
Chevron is responsible for one of the largest environmental disasters in history--the deliberate dumping of a massive amount of oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon--for which it was found guilty in February 2011 and ordered to pay $18 billion to clean up. The judgment was upheld by an appeals court in January 2012. Rather than take responsibility for the impacts of its business operations, however, Chevron is waging unprecedented public relations and lobbying campaigns to avoid having to clean up Ecuador--as well as several other environmental and public health catastrophes it has created around the world.
78 - Christopher Rose
I know it is a horrible process at times but corporate culture, like human culture, learns by making mistakes.
That doesn't make it okay when they do such awful things as the example you gave of the Chevron situation in Ecuador - which I was unaware of and am angered by as Ecuador is top of my escape plan destinations short list.
I hope they will be held to the terms of the judgement and clean up their mess but also note that if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have heard about it at all. Nowadays it is getting harder and harder to hide away such things, whereas in the past it was much easier to do so, which is an example of how things can get better.
In your other example of the anonymous private corporation, I don't understand why you characterise the owners as liberals, because liberalism and sexism are not at all natural allies. Indeed, I can't actually make a connection between liberalism as I understand it and the type of "old boys network" you depict.
Perhaps your understandable and healthy alienation from these kinds of ugly corporate practices are obscuring your vision of more positive developments that I see happening at an increasing rate all around the world.
As to globalisation, in principle I think it is a good thing; humanity is still just one species and in some ways nationalist perspectives can be negative factors that serve to divide.
Even if it isn't their intention or purpose, the existence of globe spanning businesses clearly actually facilitates connections between previously more separate groups of people, which I think is a good thing.
Who knows where this is all going? Not me, that's for sure, but we are a very young species that is developing and learning all the time. Hopefully we will manage to significantly improve our world before the damage we have also done to it kills us all.
It is easier to take action towards or even just hope for a positive outcome when you believe it is possible, so I see positivity as a survivalist concept.
Overall, I think things are improving and that the process is speeding up as we as a species become more capable and informed.
79 - Igor
@70-roger: If we don't have a defined, structured, regulated way for people to invest their surplus we cutoff the major source of investment capital and we frustrate would-be investors, and so industrious people will Find A Way, and it will be below the radar, some kind of gray investment scheme, that harms people with fraud, lack of regs, etc.
What we need is a federally defined corporate charter and a federal corporate regulator.
"We need a reasonable way for large and small groups of people to invest arbitrary amounts of money into companies ..."
Who says?
80 - troll
...it is possible to 'do business' based on a handshake baked up by social norms rather than government coercion (see Graeber's discussion of business under Islam in his book Debt for example)
I suspect that our liberal legal system will not outlive capitalism - the economic system that it has evolved to support
81 - troll
...seems to be a missing 'c' as in backed up - gotta clean this keyboard as I'm dropping letters in every comment
82 - Christopher Rose
Sure, of course it is possible to make an agreement based on one's word, which is what a handshake is effectively but there are problems with that system too. How is it enforced when people are dishonest or corrupted by greed or become physically or mentally unwell? In the old days, before law and order was introduced for all, it was often settled by something violent, which doesn't seem a good way to go.
I always struggle to see capitalism as an actual source of systemic problems. Isn't money effectively just a store of energy? Hard to see that as fundamentally corrupt.
83 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
As I've said before, the only real protection the people have against the vagaries of Big Business...is government. That's all the protection we've had, all we'll ever have. Unfortunately - thanks to Our Boys in Republican Red (with an admitted bit of a helping hand from the Democratic Left) - it is now legal for Big Business to spend all they want to influence elections on the federal, state, and local levels.
Reagan said that government is broken...and it looks like the GOP wanted to make damned sure it stayed that way.
84 - roger nowosielski
@81
It's interesting how greed and human nature are always being invoked to defend a system which, for all intents and purposes, encourages greed, so as to shoot down alternative economic systems, such as one based on mutual aid and cooperation, which are based on other principles than mere self-enrichment. Also, the nature of money, as a store of potential value/energy, is not at issue: the use we make of it is.
As to the true effective nature of "law and order," I wouldn't put much store in it, as it tends to be geared to protect the ruling class - not unless we live in an ideal world. Of course, aspects of law, especially in liberal democracies, must reflect some concern with protecting the victim as well, so the illusion persist that law is fair and just. In any case, moral code precedes and trumps law, both chronologically and from the conceptual standpoint. There was a time when there used to be honor among men - a moral concept and a virtue. Legal contract is a poor substitute.
85 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
There's still honor - indeed, I believe that it was no more and no less present at any other time than now for the whole of humanity. It's just that we've learned not to assume that the other guy has honor, to be able to prove which side's telling the truth.
86 - troll
Chris #81 - as you so often point out the human species is young...perhaps we can develop a more civilized approach to conflict resolution than government thuggery (the legal/penal systems)
...and certainly there is more to capitalism than the use of money?
Glenn Contrarian #82 - forever is a really long time...I don't have the stomach that you do for such universals
as is often the case your argument is too steeped in the 'necessity of the real' for my tastes
and as for the partisan stuff - really je ne give a damn pas...neither party represents the least among us or even wage slaves worth squat imo
87 - Christopher Rose
troll, I think we are developing more civilized approaches to most things as we evolve. When we lived in caves most things were resolved with a good clubbing!
I'm not sure there is much more to capitalism than the use of money when you get down to it. The opening paragraph of the article on that term in Wikipedia says "Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit. Competitive markets, wage labor, capital accumulation, voluntary exchange, and personal finance are also considered capitalistic. There are multiple variants of capitalism, including laissez-faire, mixed economies, and state capitalism. Capitalism is considered to have applied in a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics, and culture. There is general agreement that capitalism became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism."
If you accept my point that money is just a store of energy, capitalism is also just the way that energy is channeled, processed, transferred, transformed and ultimately either put to work or stored.
What kind of usage that energy is put to is decided by people, not by capitalism, so I don't see how it can be bad per se.
As we develop better ways of doing things, we get better iterations of capitalism. There may be some other way of creating, processing and storing energy that will replace it, just as it replaced feudalism, but so far whatever that may be remains unclear.
Until it does become more apparent, it seems to make sense to keep working towards better capitalism, which increasing numbers of people are in fact doing...
88 - Glenn Contrarian
troll -
In an organized nation of laws, what other protection do we have against the vagaries of Big Business? I mean, short of gathering ourselves together to physically attack corporate greed (which, btw, was what really happened with the Boston Tea Party - colonists against the British East India Company).
To give you your due, though, I'm wrong - there is one other protection against Big Business: the press, and today that includes the blogosphere). But the press can hardly levy fines and criminal charges against Big Business - witness the almost total lack of prosecution of the fraudsters who caused the Great Recession, or of the BP's bean-counters and their bosses who decided that the risk of a blowout didn't justify the $500K cost of a blowout preventer.
troll, no political group stays evil or stays good forever, and the best example would be the almost total flip-flop of the GOP and Dems as to which one was liberal, which one conservative. But right now you've got one party that's sorta okay (but not all the time), and one that's gone absolutely bat-crap looney-tunes. Bar yourself up in your ivory tower and render judgement on all you see if you like, but that's your choice in the upcoming election.
89 - Dr Dreadful
When we lived in caves most things were resolved with a good clubbing!
A stereotype that I suspect is not entirely true. While there undoubtedly was a good deal of violence in paleohuman societies, casual violence wouldn't have made much sense since survival was already perilous enough without all that additional drama.
An overview of historical, archeological, paleontological and anthropological evidence makes it fairly obvious that generally speaking, the more sophisticated a human society or civilization becomes, the greater the capacity for and occurrence of unnecessary violence.
There are, as you've noted, signs that we're starting to turn this trend around, but violence as an undesirable way of resolving conflicts seems to be a concept that has only taken hold relatively recently.
90 - troll
Chris #86 - clearly any attempt to decide whether capitalism is 'bad per se' (assuming that that is a sensible question and a worthwhile project) in part would require analyzing its various features that differentiate it from other ways of organizing energy
91 - Cindy
Glenn,
I've got your gov't protection right here. ;-)
92 - Cindy
Christopher,
Smithfield Corporation is a company I mentioned above. Here is what they say on their web site.
Good food. Resposibly. (registered trademark)
About Smithfield Foods
Smithfield Foods is a global food company that goes above and beyond to provide good food in a responsible manner. We remain 100 percent committed to environmental leadership, community involvement, employee safety, animal care and high-quality food.
Our wholly owned independent operating companies and joint ventures:
Produce more than 50 brands of pork products and more than 200 gourmet foods
Employ more than 52,400 individuals globally
Make us the world's largest producer and processor of pork
Our Mission
To be a trusted, respected and ethical food industry leader that excels at bringing delicious and nutritious meat and specialty food products to millions every day while setting industry standards for corporate social responsibility.
Our Core Values
We will constantly strive:
To produce safe, high-quality, nutritious food.
To be an employer of choice.
To advance animal care.
To protect the environment.
To have a positive impact on our communities.
Now that sounds pretty good, right? Sounds like a company going along the positive road you are describing. Keep all those statements in mind as I will demostrate what their connection with reality is.
93 - troll
...why do I get the feeling that we might want to skip breakfast if we're going to view Cindy's evidence?
94 - Glenn Contrarian
Cindy -
Yeah, I knew about that. I didn't say that government was always good or trustworthy or in any way a friend...but a lot of the time it's one or all of the three. Of course, those proud in their cynicism will laugh at the notion, but government is made up of people, and people are usually good. It's the not-so-common misfits that make the rest of us look bad.
95 - Baronius
#79 - Troll says that it's possible to do business backed up by social norms rather than legal norms. That statement deserves a serious look.
Without social or legal norms, business is impossible. With both, business is possible. With only legal norms, business becomes legalism, with each side scheming to arrange the best possible advantage. The degree to which this happens is one of the main points of contention on this thread.
The fourth possibility, the one that Troll suggests, is social norms without legal norms. In theory it should work fine. But if you've done any international business, you know that societies without legal norms are ineffective and often corrupt. The theory doesn't translate to practice. I think one reason for this failure is that societies with social norms tend to develop legal norms. They maybe don't depend on them, but they recognize their value. Participation in a legal system becomes a gesture of social convention.
Politically, I think the American revolutionaries held the position that legal systems are founded on social systems. Modern anarchists seem to hold the position that legal systems are contrary to social systems, or are at best disconnected to them.
96 - Christopher Rose
RE #89 - have at it, troll; not sure there are other potentialities available right now but I'm up for some exploration...
Cindy, re your #91, maybe I'm more cynical but it just sounds like standard, generic, ass covering corporate bullshit to me. There are many companies that pay lip service to such notions but, unless it comes from and goes to the heart, it is just putting lipstick on a pig!
97 - Igor
@88-Dr D: I'm with you! Man is a gregarious animal. We would never have survived evolution if we were pre-disposed to social violence. Humans have weak claws and weak teeth, no fur covering, etc., and are utterly helpless without social support.
Disagreements among cave-dwelling humans were probably settled by reference to social norms, perhaps expressed in semi-religious 'norms'.
The human baby is so helpless and forlorn that EVERY human must respond with care-taking, and so it is. That caring and loving and tenderness are not easily thrown aside. "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" (as in the great song by Rodgers and Hammerstein from "South Pacific") to turn a normal human into a racist murderous sociopath.
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to Year
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught
To be Afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
No wonder that "South Pacific", enormously popular across the USA, whose songs were played all the time on popular radio was barred in The South, The Old Confederacy. "South Pacific" whose story and songs were of acceptance and tolerance.
98 - roger nowosielski
@94
Baronius and Troll appear to be raising an interesting question. The distinction between social and legal norms seems to be mainly about codification and formality (as regards the mechanisms of enforcement). Occasionally, an overarching legal system may work to correct the injustices and the inequities which are inherent in any (regional) system of social norms, and that should be its plus; on the minus side, there is the state-sanctioned coercion.
Still, neither legal nor social norms are guaranteed to serve the interests of justice, which should be the ultimate goal. Both must be examined, therefore, through the lenses of morality, again with the idea of transcending the regional and parochial and aiming at the universal.
99 - Glenn Contrarian
Igor -
That song brings up a lot of memories - South Pacific was the first stage play I performed in (playing a sailor, of course). I hadn't heard that the song was banned in the South, but I don't doubt it for a moment - I well remember how in 1984, the doctor's office in Shaw, MS had "White" and "Colored" entrances. Sure, the signs were all painted completely green, but paint doesn't cover up inch-deep chiseling in stone too well.
And yes, the people still went into the corresponding door.
In another thread you seemed to have thought that I was taking up for the South - nothing could be further from the truth, seeing as how if 46% of Mississippi Republicans had their way, interracial marriages like mine would be illegal.
Note - that 46% is just the Republicans who were willing to admit it.
100 - troll
Baronius #94 - quite so
I should not have introduced a category error in my #79 by juxtaposing social norms with government coercion...legal norms being a subset of social norms and all
the norms that I used as an example - Islamic business codes - are no less grounded in a social institution than are western legal contracts...just a different one
I should have said 'other than' not 'rather than'
101 - Igor
To say that "corporations only seek to maximize profits to their shareholders" is a misstatement.
There are many reasons for any given corp:
-to divvy up potential profits among founders
-to open investment to outsiders, eg., an IPO
-to insulate owners from company liability
-advantageous tax opportunities
-to partition profits from liabilities
-to gain a power advantage over a subsidiary
-to skim profits
-etc.
For example, a startup uses incorporation to begin allocating rewards among founders, and to create a base for outsider investment in an ongoing finance plan.
Sometimes corps are operated in pairs. For example, American Airlines (AA) is an operating company owned by a parent company (AMR) which skims profits every quarter leaving the operating company with no reserves (or, in another play, excess reserves to make some merger more plausible). Thus, AA is always on the edge of disaster while AMR shareholders get dividends.
If one corp is owned by another,it allows a de facto minority to control the money-maker. 51% of The Board dictates policy, so if 51% shares are held by a holding company, and, in turn, 51% of the holding company is held by the minority, the minority only has to hold 26% of the exposure to dictate policy. Of course, this can continue on just like facing mirrors, so that a vanishingly small number of investors control a big company. Abuse of this opportunity was severely restricted in the late 19th century because of abuse, but it seems to be making a comeback since regulation seems to have gone dormant.
102 - Cindy
Glenn,
I didn't say that government was always good or trustworthy or in any way a friend...but a lot of the time it's one or all of the three. Of course, those proud in their cynicism will laugh at the notion, but government is made up of people, and people are usually good. It's the not-so-common misfits that make the rest of us look bad.
The story revealed that the FDA is not what you say it is, Glenn. It is evidence of systemic malfunction. Those empowered by the agency are hiding evidence of harm against the population. What kind of organization designed to protect the citizenry HIDES information about how business enterprises are manufacturing equipment that can injure people?
It sound to me like their 'confidentiality' claims are nothing more than claims of authority. Who give the FDA a 'right' to such confidentiality?
Now, consider this point. These are scientists who are so concerned that the only way they feel they will be heard is by writing to Congress and the president! Does that set off any alarm bells for you, Glenn?
A system designed to protect us where the scientists who find problems are so gagged by the power structure in place that they have to resort to such extreme acts to be heard?
Your misfit theory is government propaganda. Hope you decide to question it some day.
103 - Cindy
Oh, one more thing, Glenn. Just to be clear. Nothing I have said addresses the 'goodness' of people. Actually, that is irrelevant to my point.
I'd like to use these two experiments, (each video is only a few minutes) to explain: The replicated Milgram experiment on authority. (Which, for a second time, demonstrated the same effect as the first time when Milgram did it, and supports the points I have been making.) and the Zimbardo prison experiment, which might clear up what I have been trying get across about culture. The video below presents Zimbardo's analysis that I find helpful.
Zimbardo says it this way (6 minute video): The problem of violence, evil, whatever you want to call it, comes about when people are able to give up personal responsibility for what they do and put the responsibility on something else--like their job, their corporate imperative to make profit, the military, their boss, the law, whatever. As soon as a person can say, I was/am only doing my job, those conditions can become an incubator for any pathology introduced into the system.
So, you see, it is not about good people. It is about systems and what makes a good systems.
In my view, we need to change the system. The people will easily adapt. People generally are, imo good--given the chance.
(My educational focus has mostly been about how we can give people that chance from infancy onward.)
104 - Igor
@102-Cindy: yes, people eagerly give up responsibility to hide behind group irresponsibility. I think it was Thorsten Veblen who called it "collective irresponsibility".
Of course, the primary idea of "Incorporating" is to achieve collective irresponsibility. All of the owners are excused from responsibility so no one is responsible.
105 - Cindy
Not that I am disagreeing, Igor, as there are plenty enough people eager to avoid responsibility. But the outcome of the two experiments indicates that, within our culture, at least, it does not seem to really matter whether we are eager to give up responsibility or not.
The culture we have created has made it so that this will happen whether or not the individuals actually want to give up responsibility or, in some cases, may not want to do so.
Thus, my point that participation is beyond the 'goodness' of the person involved. We are trained to do this by our culture.
(Except for everyone in my psychology class or anyone else I have ever talked to--none of us are subject to the effects of our social conditioning, because we are generally above such stuff or smarter than [insert whomever].)
;-)
106 - Cindy
Here is Part II in the Milgram experiment for those who wish it. As it says a the end of Part I, it is, indeed, even more disturbing.
107 - Cindy
Christopher,
Better late than never.
Part I
Good food. Responsibly.
Smithfield Foods is a global food company that goes above and beyond to provide good food in a responsible manner. We remain 100 percent committed to...animal care...
Our Core Values - We will constantly strive: To advance animal care.
My research indicates that Smithfield has zero concern about the welfare of its animals (beyond its own profit interest) and actually tortures them every single day of their lives. The Humane Society launched an undercover investigation and released its report and video in 2010. Below is a link to a snippet of that video which not only shows what gestation crates are, but details the outrageous inhumane treatment of hogs at Smithfield. The most basic needs of the animal are denied. The animal spends its entire life unable to walk or to even turn around. The undercover inspector witnessed still living and breathing, injured pigs piled into dumpsters among other intentionally inflicted cruelties.
Undercover at Smithfield Foods
In 2007 Smithfield created its own timeline for phasing out gestation crates. It gave itself a generous 10 years to cease its unconsciounably cruel practice. By 2009 it already renigged on its own committment citing the economy. Soon after, it had record profits and still did not recommit to end its gestation crate practice. Only after the HUmane society video and report did Smithfield agree to reinstate its 2017 deadline for ending the use of gestation crates.
I have recently read something by the CEO where, in 2012, he said over the next 10 years the hogs would be given more room.
Smithfield keeps evolving, Pope says. He claims that, over the next 10 years, the company will implement changes -- such as increasing the amount of space in pens...
So, I am confused. Is it 2017 or are they going to take another 10 years from the date of the comment in 2012. That would allow another 10 years to torture animals while saying they are great humanitarians committed to improvement.
This seems to be a typical corporate move. Hem, haw, and contine bad practices, then when pushed to the wall by bad press, recommit and play the humaitarian card all over again to get better publicity, then just do the bare minimum toward change or nothing at all--whatever you can get away with.
(This is what Cadbury, Nestle, and Hershey, among others, did in regards to child slavery in the chocolate industry. Their purchases of chocolate has created a conditionon the Ivory Coast of Africa, where children are kidnapped and/or sold into slavery to be abused, neglected, and murdered. When they got enough bad publicity, they committed to stop purchasing the chocolate (read cheaper) that endagers childrens' lives and to end child slavery in the chocolate industry. Like Smithfield, they gave themselves a generous timeframe and then--they just simply did not do what they said they would. They did absolutely nothing. They did not give a shit about anything beyond the publicity saying they would stop gave them.)
108 - Cindy
That should be Cadbury, Nestle, and Hershey continue to do, rather than 'did'.
109 - Christopher Rose
Cindy, not sure why you are posting that but I can only respond as I did the first time, that I don't see any connection between these company's PR lines (aka cynical fucking lies) and liberalism.
What I do see is a persistent trend on your part that is always looking for the negative, whilst either ignoring or dismissing the positive. Apart from the way that it will always be a self fulfilling exercise, I don't see how it helps to focus on a partial picture like that, particularly as it is apparently misleading you as to what is liberalism and what is tokenism. You seem to be in the rather odd position of being cynical but not cynical enough!
110 - Cindy
I am not sure what you mean about liberalism. I am speaking to the idea that corporations are evolving.
What I do see is a persistent trend on your part that is always looking for the negative...
Well, that is fair enough from a person who admittedly (aka Chevron) hasn't looked at the negative realities. I happened to actually have looked at them.
Reality is what informs my opinions. You seem to call reality negativism. Perhaps I should do like you--have faith in what the fuck ever I imagine to be the truth. Faith in the coming benevolence of corporations via optimism is what apparently informs yours.
It is always impossible for me to have a meaningful conversation with a faithist therefore this one is over.
111 - troll
...thank you for playing and remember every lucky contestant takes home a lovely smithfield smoked ham
112 - Christopher Rose
One of us, and it may be me, is slightly confused.
I believe I originally made the point that companies are evolving, to which you responded "What I see is that corporations are mostly evolving in more harmful directions" before moving on to a more substantive remark about "socially responsible people... who own a huge corporation... who are liberals, run their business as a sexist enterprise. They have zero female sales people because it is run in the typical 'old boys network' booze and golf style". That is what I was responding to today in not seeing your point about liberalism, which you frequently and, in my understanding of it, inaccurately criticise.
Nor do I see how posting one, two, three or even three hundred examples of companies behaving badly has anything to do with my point about corporate evolution; companies are clearly evolving, although not all companies are good or necessarily evolving in totally positive ways by any means.
You say that it is reality that informs your opinions but reality would require also noticing and acknowledging the good that is happening in the corporate world and I can't actually recall you ever having posted anything about that. As such, I do indeed think you are being negative and not realistic.
You are completely wrong to state that I have "faith in what the fuck ever I imagine to be the truth. Faith in the coming benevolence of corporations via optimism is what apparently informs yours" and I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop making shit up and pay attention to what I actually write.
Accusing me of being a faithist of any kind reveals either a total ignorance of my perspective, which would require you not to pay any heed to anything I write ever, or someone who is having a rather pathetic little baby tantrum. Either way, you do both of us a disservice. Having a meaningful conversation requires listening plus give and take, not making stuff up and attributing false views on people; I am frankly disappointed to see you being so feckless.
Apparently you require complete agreement with your dogma and can not tolerate any debate or difference; I can't actually reconcile that with your frequent propounding of anarchism, but maybe you can...
troll, apart from Cindy's vitriolic comments, I've never encountered the Smithfield brand anywhere, although I am partial to smoked ham. I am on a fairly strict calorie controlled diet at the moment and have been very surprised to learn that ham is much lower in calories than many vegetables!
113 - troll
...it should be little surprise that I - a troll - prefer the 'other other white meat'
114 - Christopher Rose
I have absolutely no idea what the "other other white meat" is a reference to!
115 - troll
...I see the futility of it all now - Cindy is trying to discuss things with someone unfamiliar with Dirty Bastard
116 - Christopher Rose
I think you must mean the late Ol' Dirty Bastard; heard some Wu Tang but am more of a Cypress Hill kind of guy...
117 - troll
gak sorry Chris - funny references only work when one gets them right...I meant Myers' Fat Bastard
118 - Christopher Rose
Umm, not really my thing; I've been in the same room when some of those spoofs have been on but not really paid too much attention so they aren't really part of my culture.
Must say, I thought Wu Tang references were a bit too hip for you!