Roots redux

[Lord Jim]

You must know what Channel A&E is on oldr...

It's the one that has that "What If The Clampetts Never Left Bug Tussle?" "reality" show you're so fond of...

Personally, I haven't watched A&E since they cancelled Longmire, but then my television viewing tastes are a bit more high brow...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I rarely pay attention to the call letters of a channel.
DD is on 46 on my cable box IIRC. I think that is A&E.

And this from a guy you designed the computers so that the stations could put their call letters in the bottom corner (aka "bugs").
And the ticker crawl across the bottom of the screen letting us know what the stocks were doing or what the latest news is.
And put up inning/score/out/strike/ball counts during the baseball And the batters name and stats.
And show/movie credits.
and......

I spent 24yrs, 11months and 2 1/2 weeks looking at and designing stuff for the broadcast tv/cable industry.

Here is where I worked
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chyron_Corporation

[Long Run]

Now we know who to blame.

[Bicycle Bill]

And this from a guy you designed the computers so that the stations could put their call letters in the bottom corner (aka "bugs").
And the ticker crawl across the bottom of the screen letting us know what the stocks were doing or what the latest news is.
I spent 24yrs, 11months and 2 1/2 weeks looking at and designing stuff for the broadcast tv/cable industry.

Does that also include the often animated little things that played in the bottom to promote the show after the one I was interested in?  
I often wondered who I could blame for all that extraneous and intrusive crap; now I know.

You're in some deep doo-doo now, fella.

-"BB"-

[oldr_n_wsr]

I stepped in it a long time ago. It's cleaned off now.

We only gave them the equipment, they (the networks) chose to do what they did with it.


Sorry.

[MGMcAnick]

Personally, I haven't watched A&E since they cancelled Longmire, but then my television viewing tastes are a bit more high brow...

If you have an internet capable (Roku) TV, you will find complete new seasons of Longmire available on demand on Netflix and (I think) Amazon TV. Amazon is free if you have Amazon Prime. You can also access either on your computer. Mrs Mc is a big Longmire fan, (I'm only an extra medium) and we often watch whatever she likes. That is with the exception of Law And Order SVU, The Special Perverts Unit. Ugh.

[liberty]

I saw most of the first episode of the remake of Roots. As entertainment it was pretty good, but as history it didn’t do as well. There were horses in tropical Africa two hundred years, give me break. Eurasians had a hard time in that part of Africa both human and animal. It is estimated in the early days half of the Europeans in the area died. The coastal region was known as the white man’s grave yard. Would horses have done any better?
To the north in the Sahel horses could have done better in that semiarid environment. But I don’t see them there either. Why would the Arabs go to the expense and difficulty of bring horses south when camels were better adapted to the region.

[Scooter]

The dumbass cracker now thinks he is an expert in African history.

Less than 10 seconds of Google:

The climate and terrain of West Africa do not lend themselves very easily to the breeding and maintenance of horses. Robin Law's excellent book shows that, though there was a local tradition of horsemanship in the region from very early times, it was only around the fourteenth century AD that the horse came to be used as a cavalry mount, and thus became an important element in military and political affairs. This medieval tradition was founded upon the importation of horses from the Arab north, horses much larger than the native breed, and on the development of more effective accoutrements and armour.

It was in the empire of Mali, according to Law's evidence, that this change may first be observed.

The Mali Empire, as can be seen on this map, includes the present day Gambia, the setting of Roots:



If one needed any more confirmation:

The Mali Empire (Manding: Nyeni; English: Niani), also historically referred to as the Manden Kurufaba, was a Mandinka/Bambara empire in West Africa

In Roots, Kunta Kinté is repeatedly referred to as being of the Mandinka people.

If the village idiot still wonders how he earned that title, this is a prime example. Shoots off his moron mouth without knowing what the fuck he is talking about, and pretending that he does.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Really, lib - what he said.

Adding to the complexity of the horse story in west and central Africa is the idea that the horses of this region – derived from north African, Barb-type animals – lived feral for a while and (1) became dwarfed as a consequence of natural selection, (2) evolved partial resistance to trypanosomiasis, and (3) became more adaptable as goes dietary requirements and feeding behaviour. A surprising amount has been written about these horses and several authors have implied or argued that they should be regarded as a distinct race, “quite distinct from the Oriental, Barb and Dongola horses” (Blench 1993, p. 89). They really can be very small, with shoulder heights of 90-110 cm in cases. Linguistic data, rock art and historical accounts indicate that these animals have been in west Africa for some considerable time, perhaps for 1000 years or more.

In fact, it’s obvious that “[t]he importance of ponies in west Africa has been seriously underestimated because the process of replacement by the larger and more prestigious horses brought across the desert was already advanced during the period when the first observers were writing” (Blench 1993, p. 103). Horses have been – and are – far more abundant, more diverse, and more important in tropical Africa than the majority of us think.

Plateau ponies of Nigeria, war ponies of Chad and Cameroon. Several groups of people in what is now Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and elsewhere in western and central Africa are recorded as using and breeding horses, and of using them extensively in battle. Indeed, there’s good evidence that the use of horses was key in the military and political patterns of the region (Blench 1993). The Chamba people of Cameroon and Nigeria used a horse – seemingly known only as the Chamba pony – in raids and attacks, while the Nigerian Irigwe people apparently exchanged their small, pony-type horses for larger, north African-type ones at some point during the 19th century and thereby improved their aggressive capabilities.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tet ... of-africa/

[liberty]

I can see that cooter pooter posted here, but I will not be responding. The W.S. is motivated by hatred; hatred is an ugly thing that I try to void. It would be foolishness for me to crawl in to a pit filled with poison; I could become as hateful as he is.

I think that his devil avatar is good a representation of what he is really like; it is the part that he hides from the world.

[Scooter]

For you to be claiming the high road when you openly admit that you refuse to read the evidence that proves you are talking out of your ass, as usual, just shows you for the pathetic dishonest weasel that everyone knows you are.

And you are clearly too much of a moron to be able to distinguish hatred from ridicule.

[Lord Jim]

The W.S. is motivated by hatred;

I know I'm going to regret asking this, lib...(I'm already regretting it,and I haven't even finished typing...)

But what does "W.S" mean?

Are you referring to the whole "Website"?

Is it some insulting acronym for a gay person that I am unfamiliar with?

Or is it something else?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, lib. You can try to hide from Scooter but you can't ignore the data that I added. He's right and you are wrong - re horses in West Africa

[Joe Guy]

But what does "W.S" mean?

The Whole Scooter?....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Weasel Smasher?

[Scooter]

I believe he is taken a swipe at my mother's character, which he has done before, not surprised that he is too chickenshit to come out and say what he means. That's what comes of being descended from an innumerable line of brothers and sisters fucking each other.

[liberty]

Well, lib. You can try to hide from Scooter but you can't ignore the data that I added. He's right and you are wrong - re horses in West Africa

Well, Mr. Meade I am not trying hide form Cooter; I just don’t want to have anything to do with him. I can see how an exchange of insults with him could degenerate into something very ugly; I don’t want to do that. My soul is already troubled enough.

I have no problem with facts if you can prove something to be so I am always willing to change my mind. Let me make it clear what we are talking about. We are talking horses running around the jungles of Africa during the early 1700s. I don’t believe they were in the area until much later. What did they eat? There is not a lot of grass in a jungle. Land could be cleared for grass, but have you ever tried to clear ground using only a machete. It is damn hard work and it would been even harder in an environment were trees grow like weeds. Why clear ground for grass when the same land could grow food for people. How could they have survive the local diseases? And if they did survive where are the herds of wild horses in tropical Africa. And with the horse as example why didn’t Africans domesticate the zebra?

I looked at your link; I don‘t have time to study it now, but I didn’t see a horse pictured in a jungle.

[Scooter]

Well, Mr. Meade I am not trying hide form Cooter; I just don’t want to have anything to do with him.

Bullshit. You pretend not to engage with me directly but you're happy to take sideswipes. Coward.

I can see how an exchange of insults with him could degenerate into something very ugly; I don’t want to do that.

So calling me the devil, making cracks about my mother is ok so long as you supposedly do it in conversation with someone else. Again, fucking coward.

I have no problem with facts if you can prove something to be so I am always willing to change my mind.

Horseshit. You were presented with facts that proved beyond any doubt that you were wrong, and here you are spouting the same line of crap.

I looked at your link; I don‘t have time to study it now, but I didn’t see a horse pictured in a jungle.

If you had time to post 10 lines of crap rationalizing why you couldn't read the link, then you had time to read the link. But you're too much of a lying weasel to admit that you were wrong.

And once again, it's obvious where this is coming from. If Africans were using horses at the time, it would mean that in some respects they were as advanced as Europeans of the same era, and your racism just cannot allow you to believe that to be true.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Lib. Let me remind you of your statement:

There were horses in tropical Africa two hundred years, give me break.

If you didn't read Scooter's post (which is an act of plain ignorance by you; even if he did insult you there is no reason not to learn data) then you remain unaware that the Mandingo area was around present-day Gabon, a place in which both he and I posted evidence that there were horses, perhaps as long as 1,000 years ago. They are found historically in "Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon and elsewhere in western and central Africa".

From: SAVAGE AFRICA: BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A TOUR IN EQUATORIAL SOUTHWESTERN AND NORTHWESTERN AFRICA (1864) BY
W. WINWOODE READE

Mollien also found that a donkey could endure the traveling better than the horse. And though the Mandingoes use horses for general purposes they prefer asses for their journeys into the interior

As to zebras, I believe it is established truth that zebras are undomesticable as a species, although individual animals may be broken. If you really want to know the answer to your question, I suggest this site which discusses why large mammals in Africa, not just zebras, are resistant to domestication:
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/zebra.html

[Guinevere]

Why bother with him. He is always wrong, always nasty, will never admit to either, and the only person he is fooling is himself. #notworthmytime

I recently cut the cable cord and so only got to stream the first episode for free. Amazon wants 5.99 an episode for the remainder. I will either wait, or log into the swede's account to watch the rest. He thought only the last episode was really worth it.