Kennywood sale makes fans nervous

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I should've known that considering the ass beating she handed me playing Scrabulous.

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You're not alone in the ass beating.

LG: My experience has been that most folks not-just-visiting in this country are more than accommodating in terms of adapting to the local culture. And I work with a lot of not-just-visiting folks.

But why should anyone have to adapt to "our" culture when they move here? Other than learning to speak English, which makes it a lot easier to find work, I'm fine with the infusion of different cultures. Without it, my neighborhood would be a lot more boring and there would be fewer choices when we went out to eat.

I don't speak a word of French short of the words Beer, Thank You, and Please. I've been to France thrice, everyone's been perfectly kind to me.

Regardless, nameless said:

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Ms. Rosemeyer's comment was a little off color. Was it racist? No. No company in their right mind (least of all one who just sold to a foreign company) would ever project that kind of image. I see her comment as a reflection of what people in the community were saying. I'll just bet that some moron made the comment in a letter or a phone call that Kennywood would now be a giant taco stand, and she used it for a reference.

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Bingo! Mary Lou is one of the kindest, open-minded people you'll ever meet. She found out one morning that the place that she and both of her parents have worked for is being sold to a Spanish group. She gets an inordinate amount of idiots questioning her about freakin' tacos all day long. Finally, someone makes a comment and her response is "We are NOT turning Kennywood in to a big taco stand!" What to you think made it on to TV? The barrage of questions, or just her one line response? Does that sound bigoted now? Did anyone even bother to think of any potential context, or did you just think that she mentioned tacos, so she must be stupid and bigoted?

Are Americans intolerant? Yeah. Is this an American trait? NO! Ever heard of Darfur? A guy named Milosevic? Ever vacationed on the Gaza Strip? How about the Sunnis and Shiites? Ever heard the French lash out about the recent influx of middle-eastern people? We are not alone. Intolerance, xenophobia, and bigotry are frustrating and just plain stupid. As Americans, sure we could get better, but we're far from the worst.

Man, where were you, like, a hundred posts ago??? ;)

*** This post was edited by janfrederick 12/13/2007 2:58:43 PM ***

I was building this giant taco stand. ;)

Here's my take:

I moved to Texas from New Jersey about 2 years ago, having lived in Boston, New Hampshire, New York and San Francisco. I have never seen the level of state pride in Texas anywhere else in the country. I couldn't even tell you what the state flag of Massachusetts was and it certainly wasn't painted on the roof of the station for S:RoS (yes, there's a Texas flag painted on the roof of Titan). I've never heard of a roller coaster called the "New Hampshire Giant" or the "New Jersey Cyclone" but we had the Texas Giant and the Texas Cyclone. Do other states have litter slogans along the lines of "Don't mess with North Dakota?" Our litter slogan is "Don't mess with Texas."

So basically having moved here, you're really forced into one of two camps - the camp that thinks Texas is the greatest place in the entire world and Jesus himself is a Texan, or the camp that thinks Texans are full of themselves, arrogant, insensitive, and intolerant. There's very little room for middle ground, which is almost certainly where the truth is.

Extend this to USA and world. Because of our level of "patriotism" or whatever you want to call it via politics, business, religion or any number of cultural dimensions, we are seen as the super-full-of-self-pride country in the world. (I have travelled to at least 25 other countries - can't count them all now) So basically that forces people in other countries into two camps - the camp that thinks America is the greatest place in the entire world and Jesus himself is an American, or the camp that thinks Americans are full of themselves, arrogant, insensitive, and intolerant. There's very little room for middle ground, which is almost certainly where the truth is.

What was giant--the tacos, the stand or both?

Wait. Are you implying that journalists were asking stupid questions? Come on...

Wouldn't you have to have a giant stand to handle the size of giant tacos?

But you can have a huge stand for average-sized tacos. Or even small ones! :)

Or a little stand that serves tacos made from giants.

Oh THAT'S appetizing. Giants taste gamey!

A giant taco would fit in an average sized stand. Unless your giant taco was more than 10' long.

Not the farm raised giants.

Or perhaps the stand was made out of giant tacos and was for selling something else...like potato patch fries.

So size does matter?

Don't farm-raised giants have higher mercury levels?

^^Only in America. ;)

^Yah, but they taste better. ;)

No, no, no... you're misinterpreting me. It's not a refreshment stand that sells tacos. It's a stand to put my tacos on. It will go next to my giant couch. It will also have a place for a giant beer, or "cerveza" as the French would say.