Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Yesterday, someone wrote
>OH for pity sake, get a life!  It was a joke, not a personal slam.  I am
>so sick and tired of people getting offended over a silly comment.
>Oriental people have slanted eyes, it's a fact of life, deal with it.
 
Actually, "Oriental" people, who are of Asian or "Mongol" extraction have
their eyes set straight in their skulls like everyone else.  They have
completely normal forward-looking binocular vision.  (Their lives would
be very complicated otherwise, methinks.)  They have what is called an
"epicanthic fold" in the skin over their eyes, giving the eye a "slanted"
appearence.  The fold itself is nothing more than an ordinary eyelid with
an extra little wedge-shaped inclusion of body fat that fills it out.  It
is thought that this keeps the eye warmer in cold weather, which would be
a big help if you lived in, say, Mongolia, as the far ancient ancestors
of the Japanese are believed to have done.
 
Alexandra the Russian in MA,
Brooding darkly over her cabbage
While reading War and Peace,
contemplating the destruction
of the Chechyen separatists
and drinking tea from a glass.
Wishing she had heat in her dingy flat.
 
Switch: "That's it!, I'm biting her."
Lily: "Hee-Hee Hee HEE Hee..." (singing the former Soviet national anthem)
[Posted in FML issue 4671]