What happened to the thread about French sellers?

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Meh... it may have been rude, but sexist? Probably not 😉

I think she means the "drama queen" part of the followup explanation, and I tend to agree.
 
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@Syrte pertinent and eloquent reply to some, to put it lightly, ignorant and bigoted views deserves to be be reignited minus the crap.
 
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PS also.... if you value freedom of expression sometimes it’s more important to let debates stand, and everyone can see for themselves what responses can be made to prejudice. It’s a case by case analysis but in this instance I submit there was value in the fact there were a series of good replies — not just mine. Eliminating the thread is not eliminating the prejudices. keeping the thread means there is a response which remains available.
I remember that thread. Maybe the mods decided that the content wasn’t relevant enough to stand vis-a-vis the vitriol that it generated. I am all for freedom of expression but, like any fundamental right, it has to be checked from time to time for the benefit of the common good. Our signing up is a consent to the forums’ rules and a recognition of the mods’ authority which, unless previously shown to be arbitrary and oppressive (which does not appear to be the case), is presumed to have been exercised properly. Edit: IIRC, your post was only one of the many responses to a caustic thread? It made more sense to pull the entire thread which, I believe, had an ominous title anyway.

Nevertheless, I am sorry that you lost your post. I too love history, and it is a shame that it ended up as collateral damage in this case.
Edited:
 
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Nevertheless, I am sorry that you lost your post. I too love history, and it is a shame that it ended up as collateral damage in this case.

well luckily it's not the end-all. a new thread could be created addressing the interesting points of history the OP feels are salient. surely that's not so difficult. after all she did take the time to create this thread.
 
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That’s fine, the mods do a difficult job and I don’t want to make it more difficult for them.
 
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well luckily it's not the end-all. a new thread could be created addressing the interesting points of history the OP feels are salient. surely that's not so difficult. after all she did take the time to create this thread.
I think its more @Syrte feeling that a meaningful response which she took some time off her day to write was lost.
 
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I think its more @Syrte feeling that a meaningful response which she took some time off her day to write was lost.

That’s exactly right... not the end of the world but a good lesson perhaps to take into account.
Cheers to everyone who chimed in.
 
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Don’t be silly, everyone knows it’s the Swiss that eat babies


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:4377_-_Bern_-_Kindlifresserbrunnen_am_Kornhausplatz.JPG

Fun fact:
According to my former, enthusiastic history teacher, it is not clear why exactly this monster was put on top of the fountain right next to the Zytglogge in Bern.
But there are two main theories about what this monster represents:
1) A monster to scare off children in order to not go further to the (then) steep flank of the hill towards the Aare (a river)
2) An antisemitic symbol. The hat reminds of the hats Jews were wearing in the Middle Ages. Antisemitism was widely spread in medieval times throughout Europe, let's not forget about the Ghetto in Venice and how Jews were treated when the Black Death took its tolls.

Edit: I grew up in Bern, Switzerland, which is why our history teacher told us about the whole thing. I never googled nor verified his side of view though.

Ps: if anyone wants to google the story: the fountain is called Kindlifresserbrunnen
 
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@Syrte : I'm really sorry about the loss of your thread, especially as I'm really interested in the topic you wrote about. I'd love to read it!

The next time you'll write a time consuming (and well thought through) post, make sure to copy, paste and save the content before posting. I always do this and I also take screenshots of threads and answers which I want to preserve.
That proved to be useful a couple of times. 👍
 
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I hear we’re gonna have to start eating our babies just to circumvent global warming! Ee gad, the end is near. ☠️
 
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Many years ago a French hospital was caught selling unclaimed infant corpses to laboratories that stripped them of their fat for use in cosmetics and stem cells for medical research. The corpses were supposed to have been cremated. They were caught when a young mother had attempted to claim the corpse of her child for a proper burial.
More recently some Ukrainian hospitals have done the same.
A few years after the French incident a serial killer in South America was found to have been killing transients and selling their body fat for the same purposes. IIRC he was suspected of hundreds of killings.

Jonathan Swift in his "A Modest Proposal" suggested that the Irish save themselves from famine by selling their infants to the English as a food source.
There was a political cartoon of the time showing English nobles being served a baby on a platter with an apple in its mouth. The Caption was "English Lords eat Irish Babies".
This is a similar illustration, not the cartoon I mentioned which was B&W and much better drawn.
 
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Fun fact:
According to my former, enthusiastic history teacher, it is not clear why exactly this monster was put on top of the fountain right next to the Zytglogge in Bern.
But there are two main theories about what this monster represents:
1) A monster to scare off children in order to not go further to the (then) steep flank of the hill towards the Aare (a river)
2) An antisemitic symbol. The hat reminds of the hats Jews were wearing in the Middle Ages. Antisemitism was widely spread in medieval times throughout Europe, let's not forget about the Ghetto in Venice and how Jews were treated when the Black Death took its tolls.

Edit: I grew up in Bern, Switzerland, which is why our history teacher told us about the whole thing. I never googled nor verified his side of view though.

Ps: if anyone wants to google the story: the fountain is called Kindlifresserbrunnen
I’d heard option 1 was the genesis of the story. Option 2 is regrettable but likely I suppose
 
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I’d heard option 1 was the genesis of the story. Option 2 is regrettable but likely I suppose
I have to go with option 2 sadly.