reamond
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posted on December 26, 2000 02:57:13 PM new
The headline reads " 7 killed in Boston massacre " regarding the tragedy near Boston today - see link. To make it worse, it is The Times of London, a subsidiary of CNN Time Warner. To compare this latest crazy killing spree to what our patriots encountered in Boston over 200 hundred years ago is DISGUSTING.
If you agree call CNN and Time Warner about it. I did !!
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
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jamesoblivion
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posted on December 26, 2000 02:59:31 PM new
I think you are reading into it. The word "massacre" is not capitalized as it would be, if it was a reference to the Boston Massacre. This is just a descriptive headline as far as I can see.
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reamond
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:05:38 PM new
So using this headline is OK if you don't capitalize the "m". Those folks at The Times knew exactly what they were doing. The capitalization is irrelevant to the association with the event names they have drawn.
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jamesoblivion
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:08:07 PM new
I truly think you are reading into it. Do you think anyone in Britain knows what the Boston Massacre is? I highly doubt that's taught in school there.
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reamond
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:12:58 PM new
Each and every English public school child knows exactly what the Boston Massacre was. Anyone working at The Times knows what it was. The Times was in existence and reported the Boston massacre when it happened.
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HJW
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:25:54 PM new
Massacres happen all over the world. Numerous massacres have happened
since 1770. Maybe it's a leap to assume that the writer of this
headline was thinking of the Boston Massacre
of 1770.
Helen
[ edited by HJW on Dec 26, 2000 03:30 PM ]
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njrazd
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:26:49 PM new
Seven people were killed by a co-worker who showed no previous signs of any mental problems.
Is there a better word to use? I think massacre fits rather well.
Edited for some spelling.
[ edited by njrazd on Dec 26, 2000 03:29 PM ]
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stockticker
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:28:46 PM new
Well, I don't know what the Boston Massacre was and I live in Canada. Was that something that I vaguely recall from my school days (grade 8 I think was the only time we covered American history) as being called the Boston Teaparty?
Irene
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jamesoblivion
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:29:46 PM new
Irene, my point exactly!
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stockticker
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:30:42 PM new
double post
[ edited by stockticker on Dec 26, 2000 03:31 PM ]
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RainyBear
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:32:12 PM new
It was a massacre... and it was in Boston. Makes sense to me.
I've never heard of the "Boston Massacre" from 200 years ago.
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toke
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:35:26 PM new
Actually, it wasn't in Boston. It was in Wakefield, Mass.
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RainyBear
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:40:22 PM new
But most of us don't know where Wakefield is. 
It's like when they film COPS in south King county, WA and call it Seattle.
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DWest
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:43:35 PM new
I'm not familiar with the Boston Massacre, but I do know about the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.
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toke
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posted on December 26, 2000 03:46:51 PM new
Wakefield is north of Boston, kinda between Woburn and Salem.
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krs
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posted on December 26, 2000 04:36:54 PM new
Anybody heard from Godzillatemple?
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stockticker
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posted on December 26, 2000 05:27:23 PM new
Ken: Try the eBay Outlook - he started a thread there yesterday. 
Irene
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bitsandbobs
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posted on December 26, 2000 05:45:11 PM new
Sorry Guys, What a strange mindset this thread has taken.
An argument over how a newspaper reported the tradgedy and yet not one expression of sympathy for the victims or their families.
Will say no more.
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HartCottageQuilts
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posted on December 26, 2000 05:50:26 PM new
The shooting today involved one apparently disgruntled employee shooting at close range 7 of his coworkers - an event that more properly fits the term "massacre" than the occurrences of 3/5/1770, which would more accurately be described as a "melee".
The short version, absent Mr. Adams's fulminating propaganda, is that the "Boston Massacre" was the bloody end of an ongoing brawl between Bostonians and British soldiers, who would essentially travel in packs looking for a bunch of their foes to beat to a pulp and make a lot of nasty threats betweentimes. Finally a barber's apprentice shouted obscenties at a sentry, who promptly bopped him in the head with the butt of his weapon. Kid runs away, brings back some bigger guys, and somebody rings the church bells to further inflame the public, resulting in a mob of 400 Bostonians assaulting 7 British soldiers. After the mob started beating on them, the soldiers fired. Five were killed and another 5 wounded.
The soldiers were tried for murder but acquitted - by a jury made of Bostonians. Interestingly, their defense attorney was radical John Adams, which role did not seem to affect his ability to be elected President a few years thence.
http://www.dell.homestead.com/revwar/files/BOSTON.HTM
But why take my word for it? Read three different http://www.history.pdx.edu/hst201/bosmassc.htm] accounts.
This was not Boston's most shining moment, although in creating propaganda that could inflame a city it pales in comparison to the anti-Catholic riots of a century later.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Dec 26, 2000 05:53 PM ]
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siggy
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posted on December 26, 2000 06:23:14 PM new
Yes, the Boston "Massacre" was hardly as the legend portrays.
The Times may be playing off the catchy phrase from our history, but also, no doubt, underscoring the usual portrayal of Americans as a whole as an especially violent people. (Although if Brit soccer fans were armed the Times might have something else to write about at home.) Other bloody events in the world are in The Times but did not get such headlines. A notable display of Tabloiditis at the venerable and righteous Times.
The events today were cold blooded murders to which I hope we don't get inured. I'm more concerned about those kind of horrifying events than posturing by the foreign press.
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bunnicula
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posted on December 26, 2000 10:06:36 PM new
HCQ: The soldiers were tried for murder but acquitted
Actually, two of the soldiers found guilty & were branded on the thumb. All of the others were acquitted.
Stockticker: No, the Boston Tea Party was a separate incident. It was a protest demonstration against the taxes on tea imposed by the British. These taxes were a way for Parliament to rub its power to tax the colonies in their faces. In November of 1773 Boston citizens refused to allow a large shipment of tea from Britain to be unloaded. The royal governor of Massachusetts refused to send the ships back until the duty had been paid on the tea (even if it *hadn't* been unloaded). So, the next month on December 16, Sam Adams & a bunch of others disguised as Indians boarded the ships & dumped the tea into the bay. When Boston's city government refused to pay for the tea that had been dumped, the British closed Boston Harbor. *This* led to the Boston Port Act (one of the Intolerable Acts) which had British soldiers occupying Boston, the blockading of the port, ripping the seat of government from Boston to Salem and replacing Boston as a port of entry with Marblehead.
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stockticker
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posted on December 26, 2000 10:19:42 PM new
O.K. so now I understand the historical significance of the Boston Tea Party. So what was so historically significant about the "Boston Massacre" that Each and every English public school child knows exactly what the Boston Massacre was?
Irene
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jamesoblivion
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posted on December 27, 2000 12:05:26 AM new
Sorry Guys, What a strange mindset this thread has taken. An argument over how a newspaper reported the tradgedy and yet not one expression of sympathy for the victims or their families. Will say no more.
I thought that went without saying. I'll try to remember; nothing goes without saying. Sheesh.
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siggy
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posted on December 27, 2000 12:13:03 AM new
Since I doubt that every American school age child knows exactly what the "Boston Massacre" was, I have greater doubt that each and every English child knows of this one specific event. And likely the Brits wouldn't term it a "massacre" by any means.
It's historical significance in itself is likely not that great except that it was used for propaganda purposes. The Declaration of Independence wasn't made until 6 years later so it's not as if this specific event was the trigger.
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bunnicula
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posted on December 27, 2000 02:10:33 AM new
As a librarian, I can say that the kids in *this* area anyway know about the Boston "masscare"--they must read about it as Crispus Attucks (a black man & the first to die) is covered during Revolutionary War study segments.
Actually, the event *was* rather important: it was the first major clash on the road to revolution & was instrumental in hardening colonial resentment of Britain, unfair taxes, and the practice of housing soldiers in towns & private homes (the latter was resented so much, there is an injunction against it in the Constitution).
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reamond
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posted on December 27, 2000 04:36:32 AM new
Bunnicula- alas someone who knows their history.
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HartCottageQuilts
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posted on December 27, 2000 05:00:40 AM new
reamond, nobody said the Boston "Massacre" wasn't significant politically. What we've been saying is that "what our patriots encoutered 200 yeras ago" wasn't by any stretch a massacre.
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toomanycomics
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posted on December 27, 2000 07:31:13 AM new
saw it in my Netscape news email
they called it the 'Rampage'
"A heavily armed
employee gunned down
seven co-workers at a
Boston-area Internet
consulting firm Tuesday.
Police called the incident
'work related.' "
note that it's right after the holiday? he didn't get his Christmas bonus? stress? laid-off?
AND the dot-com company is going to the toilet with the others? it's been in the flux for 18 months
it's gets worse every year...... 
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brighid868
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posted on December 27, 2000 08:15:15 AM new
Never heard of the Boston Massacre before this thread. Sorry!
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