question the first
So to answer everyones question, no i am not going to put up the bulletin board/sarasas/whatever you want to call it. I do not have a copy of it in my possesion, so that will have to wait until then end of lietuviu when me and or vytenis, and or gintas, if he's done, bring a copy of it back.
on to new business-what if anything worthwhile happened at studentu. we had a mock trial, but the proceedings of that trial are hazy, like the moores of scotland. The first not we were supposed to watch a movie, no dice, the god of technology was mad at us for letting the nun in, and punished us by not allowing our equipment to work, so we started in on the mock trials. I had to defend the idea that the russians deporting lithuanians to siberia, along with other similiar acts, were not commiting genocide. A daunting task, but luckily we had a great team! Well, actually, the last half is a real garbage dump. Anyway simas kristina jonas aistis and i hunker down in the basement to try to do a little research. Why the the basement you ask, instead of the library which is full of books. It turns out there a surprisingly few books in neringa's library that support the position that the russians did not commit genocide against the lithuanians. Also it was a few degrees colder down there, and for some reason you can't set the ovens in neringa to hot. So long story short, despite long research sessions by me and kristina, and a well thought out and argued debate we lost. 2 things to point out though, there is no way any of the other teams would have won that debate, and on a slightly more humorous note, the idea behind the mock trials was to come into it with a clean slate, unbiased. Because the other members of the stovykla were the jury. This was however beyond the capabilities of the nun. In fact at the first trials, are partisanai war criminials, she burst out, i don't see why they need to defend themselves. Equally unbiased at the first debate was aistcio and kovo mom's sister, reda, who continually tried to force the petitioners (russians) to defend themselves against crimes with which they were not charged, and went as far as to assume they were guilty, and wanted them to come up with proof that they were not. Happily she was not their for our debate, but in here place came three lietuviai fresh from lietuva. well they also had trouble being unbiased.
All in all it was a fun experience, and i did learn some new things through the research so huzzah for the mock trials.
more after i dig myself out of this avalanche
on to new business-what if anything worthwhile happened at studentu. we had a mock trial, but the proceedings of that trial are hazy, like the moores of scotland. The first not we were supposed to watch a movie, no dice, the god of technology was mad at us for letting the nun in, and punished us by not allowing our equipment to work, so we started in on the mock trials. I had to defend the idea that the russians deporting lithuanians to siberia, along with other similiar acts, were not commiting genocide. A daunting task, but luckily we had a great team! Well, actually, the last half is a real garbage dump. Anyway simas kristina jonas aistis and i hunker down in the basement to try to do a little research. Why the the basement you ask, instead of the library which is full of books. It turns out there a surprisingly few books in neringa's library that support the position that the russians did not commit genocide against the lithuanians. Also it was a few degrees colder down there, and for some reason you can't set the ovens in neringa to hot. So long story short, despite long research sessions by me and kristina, and a well thought out and argued debate we lost. 2 things to point out though, there is no way any of the other teams would have won that debate, and on a slightly more humorous note, the idea behind the mock trials was to come into it with a clean slate, unbiased. Because the other members of the stovykla were the jury. This was however beyond the capabilities of the nun. In fact at the first trials, are partisanai war criminials, she burst out, i don't see why they need to defend themselves. Equally unbiased at the first debate was aistcio and kovo mom's sister, reda, who continually tried to force the petitioners (russians) to defend themselves against crimes with which they were not charged, and went as far as to assume they were guilty, and wanted them to come up with proof that they were not. Happily she was not their for our debate, but in here place came three lietuviai fresh from lietuva. well they also had trouble being unbiased.
All in all it was a fun experience, and i did learn some new things through the research so huzzah for the mock trials.
more after i dig myself out of this avalanche
posted by Trashcan at 6/27/2006 09:41:00 PM
6 Comments:
yeah that sucks when people mess up the plan by not getting the premise. that happens sometimes in my classes when we're doing an activity, but that's because of a language barrier.
Yes, i agree about hte nun not having the capabilites to be unbiased. I swear she actually thought that we believed all that we said!
well i kind of would have expected it from the nun. she is after all old, and a nun, convents are not exactly factories for independant thought. It was quite clear that with her senelity and all she believed we were actually a UN council and would through this trial define future lithuanian-russian relations. I hoped for better from the other's though, they really don't have any excuse for their failures. also, which is which hoped and hopped? did i use the correct one? if not, i blame george bush, he didn't teach me proper grammar
you used the correct one you blunderbuss. wait which is the correct one, blunderbuss or blockhead?
so in they're attempt to vilify the russians, who weren't even on trial (is that right?), all they proved is that american-lithuanians are as incapable of rational, calm, objective discourse as local lithuanians. {sigh}
i would have like to be in your place, loky. i totally like being devil's advocate. i heard that the more obviously wrong a position is, the more often it wins in amateur debate, because the other side is never prepared for things traditionally unacceptable but logically correct. pro-slavery, for example, i heard, consistently wins such debates on its economic merit.
Well most of the lithuanian americans did manage to be unbiased. The only problems were with the nun, who was not born in US, Reda, and the lithuanians who came over to work at neringa for the summer. In one case the russians were on trial (my case) for genocide, in the other the lithuanains were on trial for war crimes by the partisanai.
well then it seems i may have been to harsh...i'm sorry you had to see my ass cheeks...and my bulge...and my kibbles and bits...but don't forget this...never forget this: the u.s. of a. is the best country on this planet, and for that--i make no apologies!
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