Posted on 08/24/2013 11:40:16 AM PDT by EveningStar
Tom Christian, known as the Voice of Pitcairn for his half-century-long role in keeping his tiny South Pacific island, famed as the refuge of the Bounty mutineers, connected to the world, died at his home there on July 7. Mr. Christian, Pitcairn’s chief radio officer and a great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, the mutiny’s leader, was 77.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tom was also VR6TC to the ham radio world. He was extremely active and gave a rare country contact to many of us.
RIP VR6TC! It was indeed a pleasure knowing you. Still have the awesome handmade basket he sent after a bunch of us sent him gasoline many years ago.
“Of course, the Pitcairn Island culture is probably as much Polynesian as English, and maybe child rape is a cherished part of their culture.”
No, there is nothing but some DNA that is really Polynesian about their “culture”. Their language, clothing, religion, laws, customs - all are Western.
“Who are we to impose our values on them?”
Relativism is Liberal disease. Don’t get infected.
It has long been the norm that you are invited to the island to stay but you must contribute your assets to the island to get citizenship. Have been tempted many times.
Wow that’s just like me, I could not believe any of that stuff was true but it was. The last party always blew my mind, how the one guy started making the booze out of the roots and it drove one guy nuts, they caught him eating animals raw like he turned into an animal. The absolute best though is when they see the ship coming and they had to hide everything. First the one guy saw the ship on the horizon, how it broke the line of the horizon then it was panic city, hiding everything then waiting it out in the bushes.
Was intended as sarcasm.
But it constantly amazes me how people who claim to believe in relativism get all bent out of shape when some culture handles one of their pet issues differently, such as the recent uproar over Russia and gays.
“Relativists” don’t really believe in relativism. Nobody does. They believe our values are relative, and their’s are absolute. That is the root principle of PC.
Actually, the two Tahitiian girls known by name in the 1935 film, Tehani and Maimiti, were portrayed by a Mexican and a Hawaiian.
It was casting William Bambridge as Chief Hitihiti that was woefully inaccurate ethnically.
RIP.
Much of the internal conflicts among the earliest settlers was related to the fact that the Bounty’s decision to sail was made on the spur of the moment in the middle of the night. Many of the Tahitian “brides” were young women who happened to be visiting their boyfriends aboard ship that night. Imagine a community where most of the women are ticked off because they went aboard for an overnighter and woke up in the middle of the ocean headed for arts unknown. Not a happy beginning.
*parts
William Bligh has a record that has never been repeated, let alone 'bettered'. He has the distinction of having been the target of no less than three separate mutinies, in three separate places.
He was cleared of having done anything to encourage the mutinies on each incident, and the 'cruel Captain' depicted by Charles Laughton and Trevor Howard is total Hollywood fantasy, with no basis in reality. No, William Bligh's problems in holding command stemmed not from sadism, but from being inconsistent.
During times of extreme stress on his crew, he demonstrated a command style that could border on masterful, as evidenced by the boat crossing on thousands of miles of empty Pacific Ocean after the Bounty mutiny. It was absent extreme stress where his command skills faltered, and the better things were, the more they would falter.
He was a complex man, and a good case study in command skills under various circumstances that professional leaders should study in both what to do, and what to avoid like the plague...
the infowarrior
Actually, four. Otherwise I agree.
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