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Author Topic: What do we owe our ancestors?
nonsuch
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posted 23 August 2003 11:04 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hypothetical situation:

There was once an island, inhabited by a people which called itself the K'ploh. The K'ploh had a unique culture, religion, body of laws, social mores, ritual and tradition.
One day, the island was invaded by a more powerful nation. Most of the K'ploh were killed; their homes, temples and public buildings destroyed.
A few thousand of the inhabitants managed to escape. Their boats were scattered by storm but eventually landed on several different continents.
Small groups of K'ploh had to start new lives in countries with cultures quite different from their own.
In some countries, the dominant religion was intolerant; in some, the K'ploh were regarded with suspicion; in some, they were welcome to join the majority. Isolated groups of K'ploh found it very difficult to maintain their own traditionas and beliefs.

As the great-grandchild of a K'ploh survivor, you know that every member of the group who becomes assimilated, marries into the dominant culture or changes religion makes it more likely that the K'ploh nation and culture will die out.

What is your obligation?


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DrConway
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posted 23 August 2003 01:48 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hroom.

I suppose if I take the view that the K'ploh culture should continue, then I should resist intermingling with the general population or at the very least marry only within the K'ploh and teach my children the K'ploh traditions.

On the other hand, were I an assimilationist, I might well conclude that preserving the K'ploh identity was a lost cause and retain what I felt comfortable with and simply marry whoever I pleased and so on and so forth.


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satana
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posted 23 August 2003 02:17 PM      Profile for satana     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Document the culture and educate the people. That is the only obligation.

As for those who leave the K'ploh nation they are no longer any of your business.
To increase your numbers you can make more children or prosylitize. But that is a personal choice.


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Zatamon
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posted 23 August 2003 03:41 PM      Profile for Zatamon        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No obligation whatsoever. I was born a human being with a mind that belongs to me (not to anyone else). The concept of 'Original sin' is obscene ('sin' meaning responsibility I did not voluntarily undertake).
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satana
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posted 23 August 2003 05:25 PM      Profile for satana     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You're right. There are no obligations as an individual.
But as a member of a group there would be certain responsibilities towards the group, wouldn't they? Of course, it should be completely up to each individual whether they choose to take on those responsibilities and continue being a member or not.

My ancestors are all dead.


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nonsuch
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posted 23 August 2003 06:04 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Dead ancestors sometimes wield more power than live ones. For some peoples, they present as guardians or judges or guides or advisors.
Dead ancestors may also have left us with siblings, to whom we owe alliegence, or on whom we depend for help.
Plus, it's just as possible to feel indebted by gratitude as by guilt.

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Piao
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posted 23 August 2003 08:04 PM      Profile for Piao     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Unfortunately, it is this allegiance to dead ancestors that perpetuates wars and feuds in many areas of the world.
If you drifted to an island where you were the only K'Poh amongst a village of your ancestors enemies, would you keep up the fight? That would be silly.

If 20 of you drifted to an island where only one of your enemy lived, would you use it as an excuse to take their island? That would be silly too.

Is maintaining culture an achievement? Would anyone here feel they have lived a rich and meaningful life just by being [insert culture here]?

If everyone kept their culture alive, would mankind make progress, or stagnate? "Well my ancestors used stone tools, and I feel obliged to keep it up, it's part of what makes me who I am."

Just some ideas


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Zatamon
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posted 23 August 2003 10:12 PM      Profile for Zatamon        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by satana:
You're right. There are no obligations as an individual. But as a member of a group there would be certain responsibilities towards the group, wouldn't they? Of course, it should be completely up to each individual whether they choose to take on those responsibilities and continue being a member or not.
Only if I voluntarily chose to join the group. While I am a child, my choices are made for me -- no personal obligation. Once an adult, I make my own choices. If I choose to stay/become a member/citizen of a group, I elect to share in the rewards. I have to share in the responsibilities as well.

The big, sticky question at this point is the following:

Do I have an obligation to follow the rules of the tribe, as they are written, or does my obligation demand that I follow my own judgement and do what I consider to be in the best interest of the tribe (the two may be in conflict)?

All my life I lived by the second choice. I never thought "I just followed orders" was ever a sufficient excuse.


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nonsuch
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posted 23 August 2003 10:44 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Of course, if you freely choose - at some point in life when you can make a free choice - to remain a member of the group, then presumably, you'd also have a voice, and could influence the decisions of the group from that time forward. The size of the voice would depend on how much respect you'd earned from other members, and that could depend on how well you uphold the laws they revere.

In any case, the culture can't be static: it must change and adapt - in a new environment, probably much faster than it would have changed on the home island. You might decide to be a motivating force in the process, or you might find the changes brought about by other members disagreeable, even unacceptable.


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badlydrawngirl
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posted 24 August 2003 10:09 PM      Profile for badlydrawngirl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
wow, i didn't realize till this moment i was K'ploh.

seriously, being of an armenian background, i almost feel as if what you wrote were about me. being a child of armenian immigrant parents, i just learned to 'adapt' and not only to the culture i find myself in, ie. in this case canada, but also to what 'armenian' is, ie. i was born and raised here so have to learn that as well.

the immigrant experience may be a bit different than what you're talking about, but i think it's all about how much, ultimately, a person adapts. this adaptation will mean trying to fit tradition in the new culture, and possibly giving up certain traditions when there's no way to pass them on or they don't make sense in the new culture.

ultimately, i don't think there's a way of keeping the traditions intact or pure without tension, conflict and wrenching of loyalties.

anyways, my 2 pennies worth.


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oldgoat
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posted 25 August 2003 01:02 AM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm not sure we owe our ancestors anything, but we may have a debt to the present, and to the maintenance of our own spiritual health and that of our families and descendents. I would argue that the K'ploh people would stand to gain a great deal of strength from adherence to, and preservation of their culture, at least as they are described in this scenario. It's our human nature to need to experience ourselves in some sort of a meaningful social context, one wherein we feel we belong, where we are really "home". These needs are seldom met by a dominant foreign culture, even a benign one. The aboriginal people of North America, and other parts of the world provide as good an example as any. The history of the Jewish people is also illustrative to the discussion.

As well as a loss to it's own members when a culture is lost, it also diminishes humanity as a whole. As the extinction of a species is a loss to the worldwide ecology, so the loss of a culture diminishes the collective wisdom of humanity. A particular culture embodies a specific worldview, and unique idiom for understanding the cosmos that can never be replicated once it's gone. This is especially true if the culture depended on an oral tradition as so many lost and threatened cultures do.

[ 25 August 2003: Message edited by: oldgoat ]


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Michelle
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posted 25 August 2003 09:02 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I agree with oldgoat. I don't owe my ancestors anything. I owe myself and my descendants. However, I believe I owe it to myself and my descendents to be as much "myself" as possible, and pass down to them memories and traditions that I believe in with my soul.

Which means that if I'm born into a tradition that I later cannot reconcile myself to believing, I feel it would be doing a disservice to myself and my offspring to go through the motions in the name of giving them an old tradition to follow.

I can think of one member of my family who would be heartbroken if I were to convert to another religion. About a year and a half ago, I was really quite interested in learning more about Judaism for various reasons. I think it's likely that my metaphysical and religious beliefs fit better with Judaism than with Christianity. I decided not to pursue it because I didn't feel I was ready to make a commitment to any religion, and I probably won't be for a good long time. But I have a feeling that if I ever "officially" changed religions, that would probably be my best "fit".

But as I said, I know at least one member of my family who would be heartbroken. He would tremble for the state of my eternal soul. He would feel it was a rejection of my culture (and yes, Christianity definitely DOES have a culture), my upbringing (even though we were only nominal Christians while I was growing up), and a rejection of "the right way".

Would I owe it to that person to remain a Christian if I sincerely believed in another religious tradition more? Absolutely not. One could argue that since there are billions of Christians but only 13 million Jews, that it's not the same thing if I leave Christianity that it would be if a Jew leaves Judaism. But I think individual religious freedom and integrity is more important than dedicating yourself to keeping a tradition in which you no longer believe alive. If too many people are leaving a religious tradition, then that might be a sign that something needs to happen within that tradition to help it evolve into something that meets the needs of the people in it.

I don't owe it to anyone to stay in a particular religious tradition. I owe it to myself to spend my life searching for my own truth, and to share those insights with friends and family - not in order to convert them, but in order to give them a deeper understanding of myself. I owe it to myself and my descendants to offer them my own insights and to listen to theirs, and to accept the path that they choose.


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skdadl
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posted 25 August 2003 12:00 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
As the extinction of a species is a loss to the worldwide ecology, so the loss of a culture diminishes the collective wisdom of humanity. A particular culture embodies a specific worldview, and unique idiom for understanding the cosmos that can never be replicated once it's gone.

I believe this deeply, and it is one of the deep assumptions of the discipline I've spent my life caring about (Poetics, or literature generally).

If some people are having trouble understanding why many of us, committed to the equal worth of every human life, are still committed at the same time to the life of particular cultures, then I think that the logical problem resides in setting up this sort of static conflict:

quote:
Which means that if I'm born into a tradition that I later cannot reconcile myself to believing, I feel it would be doing a disservice to myself and my offspring to go through the motions in the name of giving them an old tradition to follow.

(Michelle, I don't mean to pick on you: that opposition appears in most of the posts preceding yours -- yours was just handy.)

How does one "believe" in a tradition? It seems to me obvious that people pick up traditions in different ways, some of them critically, some of them literalist and prescriptive.

Students of history tend to run on the assumption that it is always worth running the known record of any culture or period through the critical mill one more time, to see whether "tradition" might have even more to offer us or, alternatively, might have been misleading us.

Historians have to assume that that is endlessly worth doing, of course, or they wouldn't have jobs any longer. But in a serious sense, they do us a favour. An example:

Many people here will have read one or another of John Prebble's marvellous re-tellings of Scottish history, or may have seen Culloden, Peter Watkins's brilliant film of Prebble's reconstruction of that battle.

Now, Prebble is partly a debunker, always an astringent ironist, and in a wide array of sentimentalized Scottish "traditions" he had a rich field to work in through the latter half of the C20. Curiously, though, his retelling of many of the harder truths about the conquest and Clearances in Scotland contributed to a revival of national pride and purpose rather than the reverse. Why focus on romantic throwbacks like Bonnie Prince Charlie when a careful historian can show that the genuine heroism resided in masses and masses of heretofore anonymous people? What better way to encourage a healthy renaissance among a people than to tell them the hardest truths about their past that you can, the good, the bad, the ugly, and to pare away the sentimental accretions?

It isn't history or tradition in itself that people should fight, just sentimentality, which often lies. We must fight lies. For me, truth always resides on the side of humanity, and we revivify any individual culture by finding how it has embodied the best of human culture. Wisdom, as oldgoat says.

Do I worship many of my ancestors? For sure -- and my ancestors include many people I'm not related to.


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nonsuch
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posted 25 August 2003 12:37 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I have to disagree with Michelle on one (and only one!) point.
Christianity isn’t a culture: it’s a global, all-inclusive religion, which has been grafted, quite successfully, onto a number of pre-existing cultures. The peoples who became Christian didn’t give up their original language, legends, music, family structure, economy and etiquette. That’s why there are so many Christian churches: each nation adapted the new religion to suit its own temperament.

A Chinese person who converts to Christianity doesn’t suddenly stop being Chinese. If s/he lives in another country, s/he still can remain entirely Chinese. If s/he takes up citizenship of another country, but retains the old customs, s/he becomes hyphenated-Chinese. If s/he raises hir children in another language, accepts the morals, manners and style of hir adopted country, then s/he stops being Chinese and becomes … (all right, German is hard to picture though theoretically possible; Canadian is more likely.)

So, whether changing religion is the same as abandoning the tribe or forsaking the ancestors would depend on how closely the religion is interwoven with tribal identity; whether the tribe’s language, folklore, economy, social structure and daily life had been built around its relationship with its god(s).


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paxamillion
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posted 25 August 2003 01:06 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Some of my ancestors were pretty abusive. I have a hard time with the idea that they are owed much.
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Lima Bean
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posted 25 August 2003 01:08 PM      Profile for Lima Bean   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
it’s a global, all-inclusive religion, which has been grafted, quite successfully, onto a number of pre-existing cultures. The peoples who became Christian didn’t give up their original language, legends, music, family structure, economy and etiquette.

Uh, what? Ever heard of residential schools? American slavery? I think you're romanticising a fair bit here.


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oldgoat
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posted 25 August 2003 01:44 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
it’s a global, all-inclusive religion, which has been grafted, quite successfully, onto a number of pre-existing cultures. The peoples who became Christian didn’t give up their original language, legends, music, family structure, economy and etiquette.

Christianity is a complex and many-faceted beast, but there is a strong element within Christianity, one which appears to be on the ascendency, which promotes an uncompromising orthodoxy and homogeniety of thought. It may very well tolerate cultures keeping some of their external and peripheral trappings, but it is still an instrument of cultural genocide. I see such religious movements as needing to be exposed and resisted at every turn.


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skdadl
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posted 25 August 2003 01:58 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Let me put it this way: as an average Canadian, I have certainly had these thoughts -- but I would never have put them in quite this way:

quote:

A Man's a Man for A' That


Robert Burns, 1795


Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an a' that!
Our toils obscure, an a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodding grey, an a' that?
Gie fools their skills, and knaves their wine -
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
Their tinsel show, an a' that,
The honest man, tho e'er sae poor,
Is king o men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
Wha struts, an stares, an a' that?
Tho hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
His ribband, star, an a' that,
The man o independent mind,
He looks an laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might -
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an a' that,
Their dignities, an a' that,
The pith o sense an pride o worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that),
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world, o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.



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nonsuch
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posted 25 August 2003 03:01 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lima Bean:
Uh, what? Ever heard of residential schools? American slavery? I think you're romanticising a fair bit here.


I was talking about the religion Jesus invented, not the political practice of the British, French and Spanish empires. These peoples were warlike and land-hungry, long before they ever heard of Christianity, and they didn't cease to be aggressive when Science came along.

In Christian teaching there is only one (as far as i recall) mention of a sword, and that was about internal conflict: conflict between traditionalists and new belivers. Nowhere in the body of Christ's teaching is there any call to violence or force - quite the reverse.

Certainly, the religion has been forced on peoples, but they didn't revert to paganism the day after the last Roman troop was withdrawn; didn't start worshipping Odin when the Vatican armies were engaged elsewhere. Many people like the idea of a loving God, who would give a sinner a second chance, and they took to the Virgin with enthusiasm.

Don't confuse a religion with the corrupt and vicious acts sometimes performed under its banner.


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Lima Bean
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posted 25 August 2003 03:10 PM      Profile for Lima Bean   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Don't confuse a religion with the corrupt and vicious acts sometimes performed under its banner.

I just don't think it's quite accurate to say that people have been able to maintain their own diverse cultures while also being Christian. It hasn't proven to be true for many, many people. And whether Jesus taught it or not, Christianity has been the mode and motivation for wiping out cultures in multiple contexts through history.

Sorry, but I don't think I'm confused in the least.


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oldgoat
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posted 25 August 2003 05:09 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I was talking about the religion Jesus invented, not the political practice of the British, French and Spanish empires. These peoples were warlike and land-hungry, long before they ever heard of Christianity, and they didn't cease to be aggressive when Science came along.


I can't think of anything attributed to Jesus that I would have any problem with, but things went downhill a lot sooner than the European Colonial Powers. The Christian Church that arose from the 1st century was more the product of St. Paul than Jesus. It was he who felt that a woman should not be suffered to speak in church. From roughly 325 AD, the church was a major and aggressive player in world politics, and joined with temporal powers in actively and forcefully converting other cultures. To some degree it absorbed some pagan trappings in the act of assimilation but the essence of the absorbed cultures was lost.

I'm not even casting blame, or saying that they were evil in doing this because I believe you can't judge the past by the yardstick of present standards, but that is none the less what happened.


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nonsuch
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posted 25 August 2003 05:35 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes. Yes to all of the above, but Christianity is still a free-floating religion, not organic to any one culture. Grafted, more and less successfully. Changed, adapted, adapting. Part of many cultures; not the the whole of any. A side-issue.
What people do with and to religions even the gods can't predict.

I haven’t told you about the K’ploh religion.
You’d think, since I created them, that they would worship Me. I made very few demands: good humour, good grammar, the odd libation of fermented fruit-juice and stop tormenting the poor stupid sharks.
Next thing I know, every First of Spring, they’re sending the pubescent with the longest skull out on a raft as sacrifice to The Great Hammerhead.
Whom does One have to strike tone-deaf to get a drink around here?

[ 25 August 2003: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


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Pogo
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posted 26 August 2003 01:11 AM      Profile for Pogo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was listening to an archeologist on a radio and the host was trying to get her to say that such and such a find must be saved at the cost of some development. She came back and said that not everything that is old needs to be preserved, that for us to move on we will need to reclaim and recycle relics from the past. Of course building our knowledge and keeping enough representatives that future generations will gain understanding of what occurred.

I think it is the same with culture. It is important to preserve the culture and maintain connections to the heritage. However, it isn't an end in itself. It is a good because it enriches us. If the costs of maintaining the culture outweigh the enrichment and the loss then effort shouldn't be wasted on maintaining it.

My wife is Canadian/Estonian. There are still a few thousand active members in the main groups. They have a history that is quite seperate from the Estonian experience, they are a distinct entity. Now that Estonia is again independant, the future of the Canadian group is very much in doubt, the dance troupe has is mostly non-Esti. I can't see them being a cohesive group in 200 years. I think it is important to ensure their presence is recorded, but I believe the blending of cultures is as natural as the development of new cultures.


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Pogo
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posted 26 August 2003 01:23 AM      Profile for Pogo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And there is a fiddler on my roof!
From: Richmond BC | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged

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