Bruce E. Carpenter,
In my last posting regarding your reference to "brachycephalic" shapes of
the head, I tried to mute it with humor and a source of information.
This time, I will join those that may be offended because of the dark side
you are flirting with.
Your recent postings of head shapes, cranial measurements, and Jews bespeaks
of pseudoscience and the belief that one is more superior than another based
on certain physical measurements. Whether or not this is your intent, it has
caused a problem. This is not the first time you have made comments about
religion and Carpenters.
I think, what ever your intent, that continuing mentioning size, shapes and
religion, it would have been far better to state the conclusion of the
article on "Craniometry" you referenced after your "brachycephalic"
messages
to the list.
"The opinion that the Sephardim are dolichocephalic, while the Ashkenazim
are brachycephalic, is not supported by craniometrical research on European
Jews."
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=852&letter=C
http://skepdic.com/cranial.html
"Craniometry is the measurement of cranial features in order to classify
people according to race, criminal temperament, intelligence, etc. The
underlying assumption of craniometry is that skull size and shape determine
brain size which determines such things as intelligence and capacity for
moral behavior."
Craniometry has been used by racist groups to try to prove superiority over
other groups in society. This includes Adolph Hitler's NAZI party who
murdered millions, mostly Jews, between 1933 and 1945. This destruction or
slaughter of humans on such a massive scale was known as The Holocaust. Some
of our European ancestors, over the centuries, may have been involved in
such horrendous, but smaller, acts of outrage in the past.
My father was a US Army soldier at the end of World War II. He saw some of
the death camps. He helped bury the dead. He was a guard at Nuremburg for
the trials of Concentration Camp guards. He brought in bales of human hair
and wheel barrows full of gold rings and gold teeth taken from the victims
as evidence. He handled the human skin lampshades and watched some of the
bastards hang by the neck until they were dead.
My mother was a German national that grew up in Bamberg in Bavaria. She
participated in the required Hitler Youth programs for young women. Her
family bought a genealogist to prove their racial purity and to hide their
gypsy heritage. Many in her family fought for the German state and died
during the war. My two older sisters were born in Bamberg.
I was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, West Germany. Before we left
Germany as a family for the last time, my father took us to the cleaned up
version of the Concentration Camp called Dachau. He showed us the gas
chambers and the burial grounds. He told us of seeing boxcars with human
bodies stacked inside like cordwood on a railway siding. He told us of how
he watched human stick figures walk like ghosts.
He told us of an American Jewish soldier who survived Dachau but died the
night he was liberated. Before that American soldier died, he provided a
few of the names of other American Jewish soldiers who died at Dachau. My
father told us how the local Germans were forced to tour and help bury the
dead at that horrible place. He told us it was but one place of many, in
which millions of people died because they were different.
I'll never forget what he said the day we toured Dachau, "More inhumanity to
man has been done in the name of religion that any other cause." My father
saw Nazism as a twisted sick religious cult that should have died with its
mad fuehrer. Let us never forget!
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
and:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005214
See also: A more documented case of American Jewish POWs being put in
Concentration Camps at:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200605/ai_n16350911
and:
http://www.warfoto.com/concentr.htm
As many have posted, one can be a "Carpenter" regardless of head shape or
body size, intelligence or religion. There is enough diversity in those that
carry the surname "Carpenter" to cover every one.
In the USA, we should believe that all are created equal. Indeed, a similar
phrase is carried in the beginning of the Constitution of the United States
of America.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
It has taken us, as a people, many years to believe, practice and try to
live that concept. That concept is for everyone living in the USA,
regardless of sex, race, creed or color.
Those with the surname Carpenter, and similar surnames, have fought for the
freedom of this country and have served in every war and conflict. Many men
and women strive today to keep all of us free.
The freedom of expression is a right. However, there is a cost in society
when one comes close to or preaching/condoning hate speech. I suggest you
drop your current line of measuring Carpenters and their religions. You are
flirting with the dark side and many, including me, may take offense.
John R. Carpenter
La Mesa, CA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce E. Carpenter" <carp(a)tezukayama-u.ac.jp>
To: <Carpenter-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: [CARPENTER] craniometry
An interesting article on "craniometry" and Jews found at:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=852&letter=C
Bruce Carpenter