You'd think the BBC could afford some copyeditors.

http://www.rense.com/general63/iqdi.htm

Start some shit with any brown person with a bat, and she will straight up merk you.

Actually, as a more varied reading diet would confirm, [Dutch health authorities], not [the WHO], warned [tour operators] against arranging visits by [international tourists] to Ugandan bat caves. The [Ugandan health authority] already advises [locals] to "maximum precaution not to get into close contact with the bats" [if they must enter the caves at all].

In the world of CM's imagination all tourists are white, and there are no health authorities in Africa.

If you follow the link to the BBC piece, the word [white] does not appear; that's just Charles editorializing.

Of course, Charles' inference that there are no people of color in the Netherlands is inaccurate; about 13% of the population of the Netherlands is made up of people of color. Otherwise, Charles seems to be implying that the WHO should be warning Ugandans to stay out of Ugandan caves, and inferring, without proof, that this has not happened.

In other words, Charles is being pointlessly inflammatory and intellectually lazy.

The World Health Organization has warned people not to go into Ugandan caves with bats, after a Dutch tourist contracted the deadly Marburg virus.

Other media sources are carrying this:

Geneva - The World Health Organisation (WHO) urged Ugandans and tourists on Friday to avoid entering caves with bats in the East African country after a Dutch woman returned home with deadly Marburg haemorrhagic fever.

And the actual WHO press release reads:

No citizens of other countries were involved in this trip except for a local tour guide, but the cave in the Maramagambo Forrest is known to be a tourist attraction... WHO has informed the Ministry of Health Uganda which will take appropriate steps nationally to investigate these events, and WHO has recommended that the MoH advise all residents and travellers to avoid entering caves with bat populations.

C'mon Charlie, don't let people second guess you. Why did you do it?

Uh, no it wasn't.

I mean, that may be what it was in your mind, but nobody reading that -- including people who have read an obscure 1954 travelogue by a wayward Scot -- would have read the phrase you wrote and thought, "Oh, he's referring to Africa as a white man's grave."

When nobody understands most of what you say, I think you need to consider the possibility that it's not because they're stupid; it's because you're a terrible communicator.

Where are Seattle's bats? It's too damn bad and it makes me wonder what's wrong with our city that we have no bats.

If you are interested in observing the Arboretum's bats, we encourage you to come down to the Lagoons around dusk (July and August are best) and position yourself so that you can see a patch of sky and its reflection in the water. Against this backdrop, bats can easily be seen flying across the water's surface for about 30 minutes.

The schedule for Green Lake Bat Walks is here:
www.batsnorthwest.org/events.html

Anyway there were plenty of bats and they were totally awesome.

I didn't get bit though, so that helped.

I like how people take a few years of social sciences and sort of assume that a handful of sociologists' opinions are the last word on racism without bothering to engage the actual debate over the word. Sure, racism as a US instiution is white supremacist, but that doesn't mean that racists ideas can't trickle down.

You can be a victim of institutional or open racims and still hold racist beliefs. How else do you describe the Nation of Islam's belief that the white man was created by a mad scientis? Is that merely prejudiced, or does it cross the line into racist ideology? I'm going to have to go with the latter. And btw, if Charles happed to live somewhere where his ethnic or racial group was dominant, he could be racist in the sociological sense too.

So you might want to think your position over a bit more.

I think you're crazy.

Batshit crazy.