Mike,

Everything in life is relative. When someone says apples from some
trees are rotten, that is one thing. But when someone says it's rotten
because they are probably from farmer John's tree because farmer
John's trees usually produce bad apples, that's a different story.

One day we are labelling apples. The next thing you know, a mob is
running to farmer John's orchard to chop down all his trees.

When parts installed in my Vanagon fail, I identify the source and
vote with my checkbook on the next purchase. Just because you get a
batch of bad parts from one country doesn't mean you should assume all
parts should be suspect when they come from that country. How about
them Wasserboxer headgaskets?

BenT

04/4/06, Mike Collum <collum@verizon.net> wrote:
> As you all know, I don't generally respond to these kinds of threads but
> in this case I feel impelled to.
>
> I'm pointing no fingers and not saying anything that intentionally
> derides anyone.  I'm just pointing out how I see things as a kibitzer.
>
> I'm basically Irish/Cherokee and my first wife is black.  We adopted two
> Japanese boys and one married a girl from the Philippines and the other
> one a girl of Chinese heritage.  I have multi ethnic ties and feel, like
> we used to say in Submarines, that we're all in the same boat.
>
> Anyway, I just wanted to say that I saw nothing derogatory in what Ron
> said.  Words just affect some folks differently I suppose.
>
> So ... lets just celebrate our differences and get on with the usual
> list traffic.
>
> Mike