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Tanzanian police arrested two men accused of killing a 9-year-old boy and selling his skin for 20,000 shillings ($18) to make sorcerers' get-rich-quick charms, a senior officer said Friday.

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Human skins are used by witch doctors to make charms or potions designed to make their users rich, especially in southern Tanzania, renowned as a center for traditional sorcery.

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I'm surprised the witch doctor didn't move to Florida and claim the kid was in a vegetative state. Then he wouldn't be having all these legal troubles.

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I doubt anyone would seriously attempt to justify the skinning of a nine year old child.

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I'm surprised the witch doctor didn't move to Florida and claim the kid was in a vegetative state. Then he wouldn't be having all these legal troubles.

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Can you be a troll on your own message board?

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sure, there are plenty of other right-wing bloggers who do it.


 

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Posted by Grisha (Member # 6871) on :
 
Why would the key component of household dust, also be the key component of potions to make people rich?

And why murder some one, does no one there die with skin already? I mean i know the idea of grave robbing to skin a corpse is sick, but not as sick as killing a child to skin to corpse.
 

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Posted by Grisha (Member # 6871) on :
 
also if the potions would make the user of them rich, why would the makers of them sell them, why wouldn't they just use the potions themselves?
 

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Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
 
Because the makers know that it doesn't really work, as such they are just ripping people off? I'm not sure.
 

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Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Orson Scott Card:
I'm surprised the witch doctor didn't move to Florida and claim the kid was in a vegetative state. Then he wouldn't be having all these legal troubles.

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defend the cultural practice of hacking a child to death with a machete in Things Fall Apart.

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But let it be TRUE and everybody's all multicultural and "who are we to judge other cultures' beliefs and customs" ...

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Um, aren't you jumping the gun just a little here? I mean, at least let the liberals on the board get around to defending other cultures on the basis of multiculturalism before you savage them for it. So far nobody here has done anything of the sort.

Anyway, could I just point out that it is not so long ago that Europeans burned children for being witches? (And it is an even shorter time since children of ten worked fourteen-hour days under horrible conditions, but that's another matter.) Assuming the colonial powers imposed Western civilisation at all, as opposed to just looting the place, that gives Africa about 150 years (on average, depends on the exact location) of exposure to Western ideas. Of that, about two-thirds (at least) has been spent either under foreign rule, struggling to get rid of foreign rule, or fighting bloody civil wars. Europe, on the other hand, has had a full three hundred years of Enlightenment thought, with a nice long period of peace in the nineteenth century to really digest the ideas. Of course Africa is going to be behind.

That aside, though, what is your suggested solution? Send in the Marines? Being tried in Iraq, and the US is running out of Marines. Score political points on message boards? Gosh, that's real helpful, that is. Especially when you score on non-existent strawmen. On the plus side, you really showed those guys who's who and what's which. Straw everywhere!
 

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Posted by Grisha (Member # 6871) on :
 
I don't think the whole defending another culture really would even apply here, i mean it is a crime there, and a neighbor who over heard reported it, the cops are working to stop this kind of thing. Is there any point to defending something that happens in another culture as a crime?
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Orson Scott Card,
Hello and welcome to Hatrack. We're a somewhat different forum than ones you may be used to and right now, your style doesn't exactly fit. You may find that people's interactions with you and what you take out of the board may be greatly enriched if you adopt a different tone. There are quite a few advice for newcomer (I've never liked the term newbie) threads out there that you may want to give a read. I'm sure people would be happy to bump them or link to them for you if you wnat. Another thing you might try is to lurk a little bit and read over some of the older threads to get a feel of how we interact with each other.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Squick
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 

quote:

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Because the makers know that it doesn't really work, as such they are just ripping people off? I'm not sure.

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If that's the case, why not use the skin of a mouse (or pick an animal) and say it's human skin?

*shiver*
 

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Posted by Zamphyr (Member # 6213) on :
 
That's just wasteful. An industrious native would have found good use for the entire 9 year old.
 

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Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
 
Well, they obviously don't have quite the same morals as to killing humans there, so maybe they didn't see too much of a difference between a mouse and a little boy? I don't know, I'm just trying to see it from a different point of view.

... Before someone else laughs at you MrSquicky, Mr. Card has been posting for some time now, mostly in the section that is about him.
 

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Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Just a regular ol' Welcome to the the Dark Side of the Fora.
MrSquicky
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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Originally posted by Vadon:

... Before someone else laughs at you MrSquicky

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If Squick was not posting tongue-in-cheek, I will eat a hat.
 

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Posted by Beanny (Member # 7109) on :
 
MrSquicky was joking, Vadon.
 

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Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
 
Though I'm sure Squick's joking, that's basically the response any other newbie would get if he came on here and pulled the same crap as our illustrious host.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Which is what makes it that much funnier to me.
 

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Posted by Beanny (Member # 7109) on :
 

 

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Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
 
Hehe, yeah.
 

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Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
I think a comparison to killing a fetus to get its stem cells would be more apt, if we wanted to go with right wing outrage.

I mean, there is just something icky about killing a little person to harvest their body parts.

I saw the Nova Science Now on embryonic stem cell research. I actually watched it with my 8 year old and explained to her at various points why their presentation was faulty. For instance, they split the screen and put a living child with Type I diabetes on one side and a cloned zygote image on the other.

Well, for one thing if a single zygote could solve her problems that would be accurate. But since they already have close to 100 zygotes to work with, obviously one isn't going to do it.

Also, they showed a clean little animation of the nucleus being extracted from a zygote and put the dna from the sick person in to show the value of therapeutic clone stem cells. Then they posed the question of whether this was a life. No mention that the nucleus that was extracted could never become a person now. Sure, a good many nuclei never become people just through the way things go. I guess that means if an animal is very endangered we should feel bad about killing the ones that remain, since so few were making it already.

P.S. I don't think embryonic stem cell use is murder, I just think it is as abhorrent as cutting down those 1,000 year old trees and skinning them to make cancer medications. Though what they are called escapes me at the moment.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Sequoias?
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
It's normally considered bad manners to condescend, even when you think it's funny.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Who are you addressing, Annie?
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
Mr. Squicky.
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I don't think it's condescending to gently point out that our esteemed host is, in fact, acting inappropriately.

I am reminded of Churchill's definition : "A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind, and won't change the subject." Surely it's possible to express disgust over this incident without trying to score cheap political points, and incidentally turning the thread into a discussion of trolling. Derailing is a fact of life, but on the third post? That has to be some kind of record.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
If OSC used an anonymous login, he would have gotten that message a long time ago. It's what we say to people who have been acting like OSC has.

My primary intent was neither to condescend nor to be funny, but rather to make it clear that I, at least, think that he is not living up to what I think the standards of the board should be and to give him some advice as to how he could both be more in tune with the board and likely have a more enjoyable, fulfilling experience here.

That second part is really important. We have plenty of reformed posters who after being rehabilitated have come to enjoy the board a lot more, not just because they were more openly accepted, but because the way they were interacting with people yielded more fruitful results.

I do want OSC to have a good time here. As it is, I recognize he takes a deal of crap from other places and is oriented towards a more defenesive, less respectful style than we strive to acheive here. I (and I think other posters, though obviously not all) have been deliberately non-confrontational with him so that he gets a chance to get a feel for things without feeling attacked. However, he hasn't gotten any better and looks to be getting worse.

I'm the bad guy on Hatrack. I say things that aren't necessarily nice when I think they ought to be said. I think this needed to be said and could possibly (although honestly I doubt it) make things better both for the board and for OSC.

edit: I did try to make what I said as low impact as I could. Maybe you feel that I could have expressed it even more gently, or perhaps you disagree with my belief that the only reason OSC hasn't gotten called on a lot of the things he has done is because of who he is. I'm comfortable with what I said. I'm also reasonably sure I speak for more than a few people here.

If you want to make it a thing, I'm sure people would be willing to make it a thing, but I don't think that would be productive. It's been said. I don't think it needs to be harped on.
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
I don't want to make anything "a thing." The hostility and anger around here lately make me sad.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Me too. That's why I wrote what I did. I'd love for OSC to be a maker here, but, from what I can see, he's mostly not. I can't be sure, but I feel like it's possible that some of our valuable but sensitive posters may have been driven off by his behavior. Certainly they've been posting a great deal less. I've found my own posting restrained amd my attitude towards Hatrack more negative because of OSC's postings.

I'm not angry and I'm trying not to be hostile, but as I've shown, I more concerned with both quality and long term social well-being than I am with short term social harmony. You found out before, I think, that just telling me I'm mean isn't going to affect me much. Yuo can try to convince me my words are wrong or poorly choosen, or to get me banned (hey, there's chance of that here) but I simply don't respond to you saying I make you feel bad.
 

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Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
Argh, some of that interview was okay but some of it argh, lacking words to express myself...
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
You are also not a maker, Mr. Squicky. Whatever your goals are, your methods are the same as those you decry. You are what you claim to despise.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
What interview?
 

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Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
the "crap" link that mrsquirky gave.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Ah, didn't see that (I mean in this thread - I've read it and commented on it before). Thanks.
 

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Posted by Peter (Member # 4373) on :
 
Gah!!! that interview made me want to both laugh and yell, it was completely outragous(sp?).



On a side note, I agree with Mr. squicky completely. Not that i want to tie my opinions to him or his to mine, but at least on this issue, i agree 100%.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Sid,
There's a discussion of that interview on the other side that's gone onto 4 pages. You might find some perspectives that would help crystalize your own there.

kat,
I can see how it may be important for you to believe so. Heck, you might even get five or six people to agree with you. So hey, good luck with that.
 

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