Now PADI gets involved in agency bashing

[bfw]

Having since found it no.
Firstly and most importantly it wasnt in Dive which is BSACs magazine. It was actually in "Diver" which isn't attached to any agency..

So end all illusions of equivalence and parity. Now any bashing is unilaterally on PADI's part.

Strangely, I'm not surprised.

 

[Diver Dennis]

I happen to know firsthand the effect a disabled person can have on one's life but this thread has pointed out one thing to me......why can't we have this same compassion for others on this board that we seem to have for someone disabled? Mr. Larson is drawing as we speak......

I do, check any of my posts.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Yes plenty. How many do you want?

Why not share them here? I think we forget this is a world wide public board. I'm certainly no prude, almost the opposite but I don't tell jokes like that in public. I know a lot of doctors and nurses who use dark humor to cope but they don't tell them in front of patients. Would you tell a joke like that in front of someone who is terminally ill if you didn't know them? That is analogous to what making jokes like that on SB is. I would never tell you could not say anything you want in private but this is a public forum.




Oh by the way, my father is deaf and I tell him deaf jokes but he understands where it is coming from.

 

[Diver Dennis]

As for the "retard" comment... I almost pulled it outright. But there were too many GREAT responses about how insensitive it was. You know, I almost didn't watch "The Ringer" with Johnny Knoxville because I figured it would be one long bash of the Special Olympics. While it had it's not so great moments, I really liked the film in that it showed those who compete as having the very same dreams and faults as the rest of us. To be certain, we view terms as "tard" and "retard" as patently offensive and worthy of moderation. We don't allow name calling here even when the egos show.
/QUOTE]

That's my kind of moderation. Thanks NetDoc.

 

[shotthebreeze]

I think PADI is the worst of all agencies...its like a scuba drive through...

 

[Diver Dennis]

Many, some of them told to me by terminally ill people.
I'm a Catholic, and I've laughed at and retold every conceivable joke about Catholics.
Same for being an engineer, and having Irish, German, Scotch and English ancestry.
The most astoundingly over the top racial jokes I've ever heard were told to me by a black friend, and my girlfriend knows and laughs at every joke about women there is.
When I got up from a chair and as she was turning around and caught her elbow in the eye, and people asked the next day about my shiner, she said "he just doesn't listen."

Jokes resonate because they cast what everyone is already thinking in an ironic way.
9 times out of 10, I've found people being defended by PC busybodies didn't think they needed defending.

Lighten up, Francis.

I agree that people who have afflictions can laugh at them and that's great. My Dad is deaf and he laughs at deaf jokes but the point here is that you were in private conversation and I have no problem whatsoever with that. I think it's good to laugh at yourself and I do frequently.

The other thing is you never mentioned sharing jokes with mentally handicapped people who might not understand what a joke is and I was just talking about them. In that case, you are just making fun of them.

So no, this is not something I will ever "lighten up" on.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Why? Don't parrot the party line, analyze your offense.
Did she pass moral judgment on the mentally disabled? No.
Did she say they were less than human? No.
Did she insult them personally? No.

She made an association that acknowledged that being mentally disabled is a sub-optimal status, one that no one desires to hold. Offense at this stems from not
wanting to acknowledge that reality, and guilt at being happy not to hold that status.
Guess what? It's not ideal; get over it. Until the day comes that people are lining up to consume mercury and lead, in order to attain that status, you're going to be stuck with the reality that it's sub-optimal.
Everyone is sub-optimal in some way - we're fat, or unattractive, or not geniuses, or clumsy, or wear glasses, or too short, or whatever. No one's perfect, and jokes about the less common imperfections simply reflect our regret at that, and a sense of consolation that our own imperfections aren't that bad. That awareness is never going away, and sometimes laughing at life's harshness makes it bearable.

Now this is garbage. A person with any of the afflictions you mention can use words to defend themselves or have the capacity to understand the statements or jokes being made. If the person can't defend themselves because of mental capacity or not even understanding what you are saying about them, then you are just making fun of them and to me that's cruel and displays true ignorance.

Tell you what, as an adult make some jokes about little kids and laugh in their faces. Many will not understand what is so funny and will be upset. Many mentally handicapped people have the same mentality as young children. Get the point?

 

[freediver]

I do, check any of my posts.

I will certainly take your word for the compassion you allude to. My post was merely a generalization based on the direction this thread had turned.

 

[Diver Dennis]

I will certainly take your word for the compassion you allude to. My post was merely a generalization based on the direction this thread had turned.

No worries...