This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly. How are you going to type with a baby bat snuggled up to your finger like that?
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Is that a bat? How is it that little things make me feel so funny inside?
This baby bat is even cuter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9nIIZS_9v0
Civility is the name of the Game Dr. Meyers. Bravo. Now let me see if I can get this little bat off my finger…. ;)
Beatrice,
It’s not a competition. All the cutes make me jiggly inside.
snottyroberts,
One part of civility is getting your host’s name right. Since you’ve already been corrected on this, you’re clearly using the wrong name deliberately.
I’m actually kind of surprised bats have never really caught on as pets.
I’ve personally known two people that have had them as pets, and they really liked it. I can’t recall ever seeing a negative experience from someone that has actually had one as a pet.
*shrug*
Bat pets? Sure, why not? It’s no dinosaur, but it can fly.
scottyroberts
What do you want here?
You have your very own thread.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/23/did-anyone-attend-the-paradigm-symposium/comment-page-1
Couldn’t you just stay there?
It looks as if the Sandy storm surge will be 14′ in Connecticut and 11′ in New York City. Plus waves which could be another 10 feet: Hurricane Sandy update, Sunday afternoon.
hmm. . . large scale summer melt-off in the north, coupled with more icing in the south, and higher global average temps.
Increased energy state, bigger, slower moving storm. messy.
I hope it doesn’t mess up election day much, but I’m worried it will. with this country’s fixation on instant results things could be a bit worrisome.
AAAAH! Portcullis’d!!
Luckily I copied the tl:dr comment before attempting to post! =^_^=
Maths and English:
It must be a cultural thing. My GP is Canadian and gets quite flustered when I point out her many and abyssmal spelling mistakes. She says that she doesn’t understand the emphasis on spelling as it wasn’t a requirement at school, whereas I think that it is absolutely vital in a GP! Just one letter wrongly placed or substituted can lead to a prescription for entirely the wrong drug, for instance.
Ditto mathematics. Growing up in the UK, it was just assumed that maths was a gender-neutral subject, like sciences, languages and art. The gendered subjects were textiles and cookery (girls) woodwork and metalwork (boys) and certain sports (football and cricket for boys, netball and hockey for girls; all other sports being gender-neutral and usually mixed).
I have heard from people raised in other European countries that maths is regarded as a female talent and boys expect to flunk it (and so usually, as is the way with such cultural expectations, succeed).
Certainly my all-girls secondary school expected us to do well in English, French, maths and biology, as all were compulsory subjects to O-level. At least half of the year group of 120 also did chemistry and physics. Girls who wanted to do woodwork or metalwork had to go to the local boys’ school for those lessons, as ours didn’t have the facilities.
However, I went to a Grammar School (the stream for academically-minded, intellectually-gifted kids; future lawyers, doctors and the like). I gather that it was the least gendered stream with regards to subjects taught, despite (or because of?) it being the stream most likely to be gender-segregated. Hubby went to a mixed-gender Technical High School (the stream for practically-minded, intellectually-gifted kids; future engineers, architects etc.).
We were the product of the old Eleven-Plus system that gave IQ tests to all children aged 10-11 in their last year of primary school and where ‘selective’ schools creamed off the top 5-10 percent.
All other children went to Secondary Modern Schools where, in theory at least, they got put through a less demanding (academically) curriculum but would be given the opportunity to take the same exams (GCSEs) as the ‘selected’ kids. Mostly, though, they were encouraged to take CSEs, a ‘lower-value’ (to future employers and further education) exam, because, in practice, the schools’ ranking depended on the exam pass rate and kicking the kids most likely to get low scores out of school and into apprenticeships at fifteen (the year before the first set of exams) and putting the rest through the lower-standard exams where they were more likely to score As reflected well on them.
Basically, the Eleven-Plus was regarded as a ‘Pass-or-Fail’ test and kids who didn’t get a high enough score for the selective schools often felt like failures and just gave up. At the age of 10/11. And were then further written off by the system.
Totally unfair.
And those of us for whom passing IQ tests just happened to be a doddle because of our particular brain-wiring were put into a high-pressure academic atmosphere, with the expectation that we would get to a ‘good’ university, which led to several of my peers getting burn-out before they could even take their exams. I came frighteningly close. I left school at 18 and went straight out to work instead of going to university. To this day, I have been unable to contemplate going back into full-time education without getting a stress reaction, even when merely reading a brochure.
Ah, the joys of living in the old part of town with small lots and good sidewalks. We had about 380 ghosties and ghoulies come begging in two hours (the cities/villages in the area limit the Trick or Treat times).
Baby bat!! Ahem. Bats are so neat. I’ve got a new book on my Kindle that is by a bat expert that I’m very excited to read. Bats are so beneficial in so many ways.
Sorry. His name is Merlyn Tuttle, which is just delightful. He’s written for National Geographic, including an article which detailed how he turned a potato farmer from a bat hater to an active bat lover by showing him the handfuls of potato bugs he’d scooped up from the cave where the local bats were nesting. A few years later, he discovered that the farmer had put an iron gate across the cave so people couldn’t get in to hurt the bats, but which allowed them to come and go, had all but stopped using chemical pesticides, and had put up numerous bat houses and bird houses. The bats were taking care of the bugs.
good to hear stories like that.
Hah! The whole of Norwood Primary was about the size of the junior primary at Magill and our sign in the school office had a list of 90+ languages. Of course, the fact that people came from all over the Eastern suburbs to use Norwood because it was ‘on the way’ for city workers had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“I was never any good at maths.” How I hated that. Parents bringing kids in for assessment for learning problems would happily announce this to me or the magnificent mr or to anyone in the room. Strangely enough, if those kids were still coming to us when the dreaded algebra had to be dealt with, these were the kids who told us vague stories about adults who claimed that algebra was useless, “what’ll you use that for when you grow up?”
Oh my goodness, that is the tiniest cutest little bat ever.
—
Re: People who brag about being bad at math or reading. (I know, I’m a little late.)
I am an English major, and I hear a lot of other English majors (and English professors) laughingly profess to being bad at math. It’s almost as if it’s a given that people who work with words all day should be bad with numbers. One of my old high school friends is an electrical engineering major, and he will gladly joke about how he doesn’t read. It makes perfect sense to him that someone who loves math and physics so much would be bad at understanding novels. I think the gleeful admittance of the lack of skill goes both ways. The problem, I think, comes from a false dichotomy. People see the math an science fields as being the opposite of the humanities. They are happy to admit being bad at the thing they perceive as being the opposite of their specialty, as if that somehow makes them better at said specialty. I, for one, pride myself on being an English major who loves math and science. I’m more of an analytical person than a creative one, and that personality trait fuels both my love of analyzing literature and my enjoyment of subjects like astronomy.
—
ginmar:
That is an awesome story. I love bats, and I always try to convince people who don’t like them that they are beneficial creatures. I’m glad to know that it can sometimes work.
Tigger_the_Wing:
I’m a perfect example of that whole high-IQ, education fast track, early burnout thing. I joined the Marines to get away from college and even though I’ve managed to go back and do at least a little more schooling, it still fills me with all sorts of stress and such.
I went to a very small high school though, so almost everyone who was good at anything was good at a lot of things. Math AND languages(not just English), academics AND sports, that sort of thing. I had the highest SAT score in the school’s history, varsity club AND science club, plus ham radio club and World League Bowling. :)
My voice sounds different to me “live” than it does “canned”. I hate the “canned” sound. I blame all the “additives and preservatives”.
–
And people masquerading as Plastic Surgeons.
–
Lynna, best wishes for your daughter’s safety.
–
Ah yes, Merlin Tuttle (note spelling). He’s a lot more prominent in the world of bat studies than that.
He’s the founder of Bat Conservation International and has done significant research, including at the University of Minnesota.
The magazine published by BCI is full of great photographs and stories, many of them his. We had a subscription for a while and the girls really looked forward to seeing it.
Not just one, but many farmers and other landowners have been convinced by his efforts to switch from negative to positive relations with bats.
We have Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus) and it’s always neat to see them fluttering about, high over the lawn in the summer. I still want to get one of those ultrasonic listening devices so I can tell when they are about.
Every time I read “note spelling” I immediately think of Magrat and her daughter in Discworld. The perils of spelling and naming.
I’ve noticed the voice thing too – I’ve always wondered if it is because we hear our own, live, voices through the bones in our jaw and skull as well as (or more than) through the air.
ginmar,
What an amazing bat story! Thank you for your conversion of the farmer. I love bats; one of the things that saddens me most about aging is that I can no longer hear them. I actually wanted a fruit bat as a pet when I was young; rather than telling me that they were far too expensive and to wait until I was an adult and could afford one, my parents instead put me off the notion for life by telling me they urinated all over themselves, stank and had rabies.
Improbable Joe,
It’s so sad when encouragement turns into pressure. It rapidly becomes unsustainable until total escape is the only option.
Zomney: He Needs Brains
YouTube is deeply strange. As of this moment, it has been viewed 301 times, has 9,798 likes and and 232 dislikes.
Are people just pushing buttons?
I hate teenagers, stating that she wants to start doing “all the nasty drugs” so she can see her rib cage. When I mildly suggests that she do crunches instead I was told “that takes to long” sigh, did I tell you I hate teenagers?
Way to hasty generalize. :P But seriously, that’s just… dangerous. I admit I’m lazy too though.
Fucking fat-shaming culture.
@22, oh, Tigger, it wasn’t me! Did you leave out the word ‘story’ perhaps? Bats get such a bad rap and yet they do so much good! I was gratified to find Tuttle had a book on Kindle—and has a magazine, apparently! Yeah, there goes my budget.
I believe it’s Finland that has the best non-gendered results by refusing to stream its students until far later in their careers.
Rain’s started. I’ve been told to stay away from work via email, phone, and text message. Guess I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.
@Dianne
LUCKY. I have to go in tomorrow night
dianne:
Good. Stay indoors, and stay safe!
Whut.
Ian McKellen. In a sitcom.
Oh, buckets outside is a great idea for flushing water! I hadn’t even thought of that. We’re not supposed to get flooded, just lots of high wind that might knock things out.
Good luck, Dianne and Ing!
Mrmagnificent tells me that a woman professor at Adelaide Uni had a pet bat *mumble* years ago. He couldn’t tell me any details of how or where it was kept or what species it was. All such trivia were obliterated from memory, if they ever registered, by the fact that the bat was male and was named ‘Balls’.
Education. Finland has the ‘best’ results because it uses an idiosyncratic system. All teachers are highly qualified (but not especially well paid). At primary level, and especially junior primary years, whenever a student doesn’t meet grade level standards, they put more resources in for that child. Still doesn’t meet standards? More resources again. And again. and again if needed.
The big difference shows up in high school. Those teachers simply never face a class of kids who can’t read the questions in the maths textbooks or the facts in a science book.
There will always be a very small minority of students who face nearly insurmountable learning difficulties. But Finland’s system ensures that the much larger number of kids who have a small (or big) problem getting started with reading or maths don’t have their whole education blighted by being forever behind – and further behind each successive challenge they face. Must be bliss. Mrmagnificent really didn’t want to hear about this when I excitedly conveyed this message a few years ago. We were in the process of creating times table/fraction practice sheets for his then Yr 10 maths class. Soul destroying stuff if you let it get to you.
I’m convinced Capitalism is out and out evil
#33 Ing thats not capitalism, that is marketing, propaganda if you will. Think about it.
No it is capitalism. It shows exactly how the invisible hand is jerking off.
Ing #33
It’s hard to argue with that…
#35
ok then greenpeace is a capitalist organization, thanks I thought it might be described as something else
They pick a discussion and make money from the gullible
Broboxly are you dedicated to being as fucking stupid and dense as possible?
Create a “problem” and sell the “cure”. Classic.
Reminds me of how the diamond industry marketed itself as the true means of showing love.
How fucking romantic.
@Janine
And note that a system that encourages people to con people via making problems, is going to solve all our problems….presumably including the frivolous ones it causes.
Ing, I don’t think you’re living up to the Lounge spirit… I feel where you’re coming from, but there are better places to take it. :)
@Improbable Joe
Concern is noted
Ing
“telling chinese women that they are are too hairy” as a method to make money
“telling gullible people that chlorine must be banned world wide” as a method to make money
seems to me that both entities are trying to pray on the credulous with marketing and propaganda.
Damn, I liked the old undead thread better. It was formed because people were argumentative.
blocking broboxley (cause duh). Just presume anything he says I respond with a very civic post explaining why he’s an idiot.
Janine, you example is correct, tell a story and get the money rolling in. Religions, wall street and a lot of non profits do exactly that. Susan G. Komen Foundation comes to mind as well as greenpeace.
That isn’t capitalism, thats marketing
Ing:
If you can show me how to do that blocking thingy in Chrome, I’ll owe you a whole twelver of beers.
Broboxley, I find it really difficult to reconcile your demeanor and rhetorical style with the heterogeneity of the positions you espouse.
Right, broboxley, breast cancer was “invented” and SGK is there to sell a cure.
Piss poor comparison.
Besides, my problem with the Susan G. Komen Foundation lies in an other place.
#45 Ing, too bad, I always get a kick out of you by pointing out a faulty binary thought process. You are really interesting once you get past the invective.
I just shoveled snow off my sidewalks.
I think I froze a finger.
#49 Janine
Right, broboxley, breast cancer was “invented” and SGK is there to sell a cure.
hairy chinese were invented and the big pharma is there to sell the cure.
Both conditions were present, one sells a cure, one promises to use ?% of every dollar raised to find a cure and has disreputable (in my mind) associations. Both have employee’s and CEO’s that make a buttload of money off of their
which was my point. Marketing isn’t capitalism unless we expand the definition of capitalism to include any
“premise, promise, function that an exchange of funds would make the person feel better about their personal condition”
You’re quoting Patrick Moore. Since he is an AGW denialist and thus a proven liar, you should provide some reliable links demonstrating that he is even characterizing Greenpeace’s position accurately.
They were. That was the point of Ing’s link.
#53 SGBM yes, I should do that. Since I need to crash will do so tomorrow.
Also improbable and monitors, When Ing starts swearing and hurling insults at me, that is the normal conversation between us, I don’t believe in that particular case it should be considered rude. I certainly don’t pay attention to it as long as its confined to me. A free pass in that case should be considered.
What is the icon for evil grin again?…..
#54 nms no that was not the point of Ing’s Link.
If hairy chinese were invented then it was marketing and propaganda that sold product not capitalism, why I pointed out that other economic models, not just capitalists do the same thing to secure funds. With a caveat on one, I owe SGBM a link first.
On a totally different topic, does anyone have a good, simple solution for turning a tailgating grill into a decent gas range? I’m afraid I’m going to be out of power soon, and I have a rusty old Coleman Road Trip grill.
Yet again, you show off why you are so vulnerable to the “tell both sides of a story” gambit. Those are not the same thing. SGK did not create a problem and is now profiting from the fear of the creation.
Once more, this is a piss poor comparison.
Great. See, there’s this pretty clear article right there on their website, calling not for a ban but regulation on chlorine gas plant safety:
So it’s apparent that Moore is lying again.
You haven’t pointed it out yet. You have one awful comparison (SGK) in which the problem wasn’t invented by marketing, and you have one conspiratorial comparison (Greenpeace’s ban on chlorine, which incidentally was denied by Greenpeace).
Broboxley, you whinging about how Greenpeace was trying to ban choline and how dare they try to ban an element falls into the same type of whine the Michele Bachmann gave about carbon dioxide.
@Janine
HA! Did not read you but made the same pt in Thunderdome…where I moved upon request.
Fucking, fucking typo! Why can’t I do a better job at this?
Joe
Do you have cast-iron cookware?
You can do almost anything with a Coleman and cast-iron.
Just something I noticed today, all resources on emotional abuse focus on what the victim can do. How to escape, how to move away, how to deal with the abuse and start their own recovery process.
In no way is the abuser ever called to take responsibility for their actions, they’re still there spewing their poision. The abused party loses their friends, possibly their family, access to places and things they loved previously. Their abuser retains control of those things and tries actively to control more, forcing the abused to retreat further and further away from harm.
Anyone else totally and utterly disgusted by this? It’s victim-blaming in an insidious disguise. Not so much blaming as ignoring – yeah, the things they do to you are horrible and all, but it’s your job to deal with it and you’ll get no help from legal channels or police, so… sorry. Just run away and disappear, that’s your only recourse.
Fuck that. I want people to PAY for crimes, not be able to hide behind the fact that it’s not an easily provable physical crime and get off scott-free. Everything about it is so frustratingly broken. GARGH.
Careful, Sophia. Some people seem to think that your style of rant has no place in this thread.
I am not one of them.
chigau:
Everything I have is stainless steel… pretty good quality, but I’m not sure of how to put it over a flame, and especially since the grill surface is sort of cruddy already.
@Janine
To be fair I think Joe was referring to me out right insulting someone. Though *muffle muffle muffle muffle*
I’m not attacking anyone except the justice system and societal assholery. As neither one of those are people (even in America, I believe), there’s no personal attack and anyone who doesn’t like ranting in this here safe space can bring it to my face.
My face will not be a happy face.
thanks SGBM appreciate the correction
#60 nms
please let me know what criteria you need
apparently pointing out that marketing as a tool to make money
mao’s red book
Karl Marx Communist Manifesto
Adolf’s little struggles
Hovind et al
Book of Mormon
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9046668/labour-party-plans-fundraising-blitz
http://www.fundraising-ideas.org/DIY/teaparty.htm
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/28/fundraising-to-defeat-marylands-dream-act-question/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/obama-democrats-fundraising_n_1944878.html
all of the above get people paid, are all of the above capitalist? That was what Ing’s link was about. Advertising making money for people.
lets make it simple, lie about shit, get paid.
That includes All religions, All politics and most non profits as well as every for profit company existing.
Ing was pointing out an odious practice but his href was over narrowing in my opinion
Just saw a godbot drag out a John 3:16 sign at the World Series game.
Giants sweep.
Sophia,
I’m with you on that. Done made that mistake myself when addressing victims both directly and in the abstract. “Why don’t you buy a gun? Why don’t you do XYZ to prevent bad things from happening to you?” It looks like victim-blaming, and it is certainly burden-shifting. It shouldn’t be the job of the victim to deal with abuse better, it should be on the perpetrator to fucking stop. It should be on the system to better help victims and better prosecute perpetrators, and on the society to stop making excuses for perpetrators and to stop blaming the victims.
And not just pay for crimes, but to suffer a social cost for creeping on the edge of criminal behavior while still causing harm to other people. I don’t accept the whole “call the cops or it didn’t happen” nonsense we see in these discussions. Maybe it doesn’t rise to the level of notifying the FBI, but abusive behavior should at least be met with the response of “not in our place, you’re no longer welcome here.”
Yeah, it is pretty fucking disgusting.
I guess the message of the big sky daddy is so important, someone had to make sure it is seen the the WS highlights.
Because we do not get enough of that shit in our real lives.
As it turns out, the original Rainbow Man(John 3:16)was a terrorist.
Look if you don’t want me to insult you just don’t talk when you clearly don’t at all understand things.
Focus on wording rather than the message, got it.
Marketing is one of the most powerful driving forces behind capitalism. It’s everywhere – not ONLY capitalism makes use of marketing strategies, but in this particular case the equivalency is apt.
The people behind Listerine invented the term halitosis to play on people’s insecurities. They then marketed their product as the cure to this heretofore unknown “condition”.
Create a perceived need where there isn’t one.
Convincing Asian women they’re too hairy – case in point. “Too hairy” is a highly subjective and unfair superficial value judgment, like “too-stinky breath”. To use societal pressure to conform as a marketing tool is doucheholery of the highest order.
Happens all the time, yes. The point is it shouldn’t.
The point is it is actually evil to consciously decide to make the world a worse place, ie manufacture a problem, to enrich yourself. Even something as small as actively seeking to lower self esteem needlessly (seriously if this was done to ONE person it would be bullying) should be unacceptable. It’s no where near the worst even, just here where they feel fine admitting they are horrible horrible assholes. Capitalism does not encourage someone to make a good product to sell it honest and fair and square, it encourages jackassery and con work.
My criteria are the ones you set out to provide with your SGK and Greenpeace examples.
You have completely misinterpreted that article.
Ing,
Yeah… just calling names is bad. *muffle muffle muffle muffle* right back at ya… :)
Yeah, I’m sort of tone-trolling I guess… but I’m also looking at what this place is supposed to be, which is a safe space where even when we disagree, we try to do it KINDLY. And I know I’ve failed sometimes, but I think it is a worthwhile thing to work towards.
Joe
Stainless steel on a Coleman just needs supervision (constant stirring).
(you will be eating soups and stews for a while)
You’re insufficiently precise here. Janine has it right: «Create a “problem” and sell the “cure”. Classic.»
Inventing a fake need and then advertising to encourage belief in that need is different from marketing per se. It’s possible for marketing to exist without this deception.
Now, you should also consider whether capitalism is especially reliant upon creating fake needs, since capitalism is especially reliant on producing excess profits for non-working investors.
And if that is the case, then it is valid to point to a symptom of this and complain about capitalism as responsible for the surfeit of fake needs.
chigau,
Are you sure? Don’t kill my dreams!! :(
Actually, I’ll have a mix of foods as long as the propane holds out. I’ve got some things I can grill like chicken breasts and chunks of lamb I can marinate. But I will need to be able to cook the frozen veggies I’ve got, and that really needs boiling water.
Bingo.
When the entire system has a goal that can be reached more easily at the expense of others, people will take that easy way out more often than not. Humans are like that.
Same problem with any societal management system to date – people can do better personally at the expense of others. Look how most of history’s communist regimes have fared – failed due to greed on the part of single or small groups of people in charge.
The problem is accountability. If people aren’t held responsible for shitty things they do, or don’t feel compelled to follow these accountability laws, they’ll end up doing those shitty things. Look at America’s corporations, or corrupt governments. Greece’s financial system comes to mind, according to my Greek relatives the main issue was that for some reason, Greek government officials were above the law. ABOVE the law. No accountability, no reason to act fairly. That’s hearsay, of course, but it’s telling if true.
Any large corporation in a capitalistic society has similar issues. they’ve got the means to buy off anyone who objects to things they do, they can afford all the perks like a crack legal squad and bought loyalties from lawmakers and all sorts of officials. If they’re hurting people, nobody can touch them unless they have the resources to combat all the caked-on layers of corrupt safety.
In short, it’s irrelevant what system you’re talking about, if people aren’t held accountable for doing awful things, people will continue suffering without recourse.
The [Lounge] rules concerning name-calling are about those present on the thread.
You may not call someone who is here a fucking asshole here.
You may point out the flaws in their argument.
And take the name-calling to the [Thunderdome].
Here is all about a nice, quiet, recipe for babies space.
Quiet except for the “strident” ranting, I assume ;)
chigau,
Yeah… the Lounge is mostly a happy place, but also a safe place to vent and rant about stuff, and about people who aren’t actually here. Plus a happy place!
Damn, I miss my happy place. 5 weeks from now, maybe I get to start being happy again?
Improbable Joe: I like to treat cooking on a barbeque just like cooking on a campfire with a grill over top. I don’t know if that’s helpful to you or not.
My mom doesn’t share the kitchen well, so I learned to cook over a campfire long before I was confident with a stove. When I was left to myself as a teenager, my meals were sometimes a little…unorthodox. Fortunately, several years in a molecular biology lab have given me the ability to follow a recipe, so I can now cook without imagining my kitchen as a backcountry campsite.
Boy, that linky thing went belly-up for me.
Nutmeg,
I’m just hoping to avoid damaging my cookware by throwing it on the grill. Like I said, it isn’t awesome but it is pretty decent quality and I got it as a wedding present almost… holy shit, has it been that long? Almost 8 years ago. So obviously not junk I can afford to throw away since my pots and pans don’t appear to be any different than they were after about the first 6 months of stains on the bottoms from the cheap electric ranges we’ve used.
Not other Pharyngula commenters. We’ve had problems before with people attacking people in TET when they weren’t around.
Joe’s happy place is clean and tidy.
(unnaturally, strangely tidy)
I want to see the floor.
(Joe. I like and live on soups and stews during the winter. Which is now, since I have already shoveled snow.)
(Go to garage sales and get some cast-iron. You can bake bread in an open fire with cast iron.)
ginmar,
Ooops! *Hangs head and goes off muttering something about needing a new brain/reading specs*
Joe:
Ah, I see. I didn’t think of that, because I don’t yet own any cookware that could be described as “decent”. Hopefully you can figure something out. I’m a big fan of wrapping food in aluminum foil and putting it on the grill, but that obviously doesn’t work for everything.
chigau,
That happy place is in the last house I lived in… and the floor was as clean and tidy as the desk. I was so so happy there!
If there’s still power tomorrow morning, I’ll try to hit the Big Lots and Goodwill store for a cast iron pan.
No, although they popularized it.
The term appears in The breath, and the diseases which give it a fetid odor. With directions for treatment by Joseph W. Howe in 1874, and he cites “Harvard” regarding the etymology; so presumably it was already in occasional use.
Ah, fair enough.
Fact checking – not a simple task, apparently :|
Still, makes you wonder if it was originally an earlier invented term. Snake-oil salespeople have been selling bogus “cures” since humans first discovered the concept of gullibility. I’d love to know if it was originally coined by a medical or marketing person.
Interesting to note now the line between medical and cosmetic blurring into obscurity. Look at all the crap you can buy at a pharmacy :|
Sophia, Improbable Joe
Alas I suspect the reasons that people give advice mostly for the victim to change their circumstances, is that the abuser doesn’t want to change the circumstances. What we really need is a way to increase the chances of the abusers to see what they are doing as wrong and to want to change. Or to have education early enough that such behaviors are not seen as normal.
*cant sleep*
Week long meetings starting early tomorrow. Which since my bosses boss will be in and out, dozing is not an option.
*wanders off to corners of the Internet unknown*
Ariaflame
Aye. That’s the ticket.
I’m working on it.
One incident at a time.
Me? I think the advice is along the lines of put your own oxygen mask on first. You’re no good to yourself or anyone else if you’re in immediate danger.
The places where things are getting better are the jurisdictions where police are obliged by law to get the abuser to leave premises rather than telling the abused to get away if they can. The problem with that is that the police have to be responding to an incident bad enough to make that happen.
Getting away and out of reach of an abusive partner before anything serious happens …… I dunno. Back to the oxygen mask probably.
I’m for bed.
More snow to shovel in the AM.
Joe. Get as much cast-iron as you can.
It’s ugly but the best cook-ware ever.
Ariaflame – yeah, that’s kinda what I was aiming for. Resources for people to use that get counsellors or some kind of legal person to sit the abuser down and show them exactly why their behaviour is abusive, and what they are not to do. Once they’ve been told, they have no excuse for doing anything that contravenes what they’ve been told, and any breach of that should be met with legal consequences.
A bit like a restraining order, but for behaviour. Also, actually enforced.
Pipe dreams, eh?
mildlymagnificent – true, and I’m not denying it’s good advice. The problem lies in that it NEVER goes any farther than that. You get the advice, then you’re out on your own. At no point does anyone mention legal options, criminal proceedings, even resources like counselling to educate people about their own destructive behaviour. These things don’t seem to even exist.
If they do, they’re not publicised, I’ve been searching for something – anything – that could help me, and there’s nothing but stuff that I should be doing that I can’t. Well, not without losing my entire family, my baby and being broke and homeless.
I could live without my family, money or a real place to live, but I’m not giving up my baby. He’s the only thing keeping me going.
I went to the local science museum (the fantastic California Academy of Science) and sketched specimens in the learning center. Thought folks here might be interested in today’s sketch, cuz of its cephalopod nature! Octopus in a Bottle
Good morning
Good news: toothache is gone. I still have fucking big hole in the tooth with open root canals, but it doesn’t hurt.
bats
We once found one in our liveing room in winter. Poor thing must have been disturbed and somehow made it into our flat.
maths
It was generally assumed that nobody apart from some very strange people could do it, but there were definetly more boys doing it in advanced classes.
Personally, I simply found it uninteresting. Too abstract for my liking.
BTW, white US-american girls are the ones hit hardest by gender expectations about maths.
re: Finland
They were quite shocked when they found out that Germany failed so badly in the PISA-evaluations, since they had copied their education system from Germany. Only they had copied it from eastern Germany and after the reunion everything that was socialist had to go!
The idea of selection, especially earyl selection is deeply engraied in the German mind.
broboxley
Have you suggested an X-ray? Shows ribcages nicely…
Sophia
The True Pooka just has a video up telling their story with a stalker (sadly, he hasn’t got over using gendered slurs much yet but has some decent insights otherwise). He tells how early in their story they themselves assumed that when another woman complained about the guy the problem was with her. And later, when they became the targets, everybody did the same with them.
I don’t want people to pay as much as I want them to stop.
+++
Yes, and making them would require efforts. And put yourself in the line of fire.
Part of me can actually understand people. I mean, would you want to put yourself in Rebecca’s or Amy’s place and go through what they’re going through?
Joe
Do you talk about a gas-powered camping grill? I use my normal cooking-stuff with them.
I did a quick search on http://captainawkward.com/ because I remembered I’d read something useful there, but I can’t find whatever it was. Have a look and use your own search terms.
Note: The heading need not be exactly like your problem. Many times the response from the blogger gives links to previous answers on these topics. Most importantly, some of the commenters give absolutely terrific links or advice.
I might add, Jennifer does give advice about remedies for the abuser, but her biggest focus is on physical health of the writer and any children involved as well as the mental health of the letter writer. The mental health or behaviour modification of abusers gets discussion, sometimes excellent, but the focus is first and foremost on welfare of letter writers.
(You might find the attitude of some commenters very dismissive about the abusers. Basically, their behaviour is theirs to acknowledge and modify, your responsibility is to yourself and your children and they should never, ever, be allowed to suffer for the sake of someone else.)
For folks that don’t already know, there’s a good anti-racist site / blog here :
https://theantibogan.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/dumb-drunk-racist-loses-keys
That captures moments like the one, well, there.
Sophia, I was just flipping through the cloud on captain awkward and finished up at http://www.lundybancroft.com/?page_id=294
I got to the home page from this one. http://www.lundybancroft.com/?page_id=294. Depends where your head is at whether you might like to get hold of the book – or just check out the various articles and extracts.
Protective Mothers Alliance (17/7) on that home page might find you some useful links or other resources. But …. I notice that the organisation itself requires screening and security clearances before you can sign up to their FB or other venues. When they say Protective Mother they mean it.
Thanks Stevo. Always proud to be Ostroiyyun. Groan.
btw, it was you talking about newsagents wasn’t it? I didn’t ask the staff at Norwood the other day, I just extracted the Creation ministries rubbish from the bottom of the science magazine display. (Very professionally presented rubbish, in fact.) They didn’t have a religion/barmy belief section, so I stuck them, back to front, at the bottom of a Current Affairs section. Clearly visible and identifiable to those who might be familiar with it and actively looking for it – but out of the way for the innocents (like mrmagnificent) who pick it up ‘cos of the supercute meerkats on the cover – along with some very, very misleading headlines for what’s inside.
Semi-threadrupt. Just curious if anyone had seen the story from the papers this weekend about the increase of racism against blacks and Hispanics in the US.
It makes a lot of people’s voting strategy this election very suspect.
Bats are totally wondersome. I’ve caught several in towels or gloves when they got lost inside a house. They seem to pause for a moment regarding me when I release them outside. Can’t help but wonder what goes on in their little furry mammal brains.
Something else that is pretty cool is renewable energy sources like windmills. After the initial expense, which is considerable, and with minimal maintainence, they just spin about and the juice comes out.
But, there is a sticky wicket and I find myself a bit at odds:
http://trib.com/news/updates/wind-turbine-pressure-change-kills-bats-research-may-help-prevent/article_24b620cf-9e69-58e1-b638-32499d9ef11f.html (*)
In all things there seems to be an imposition of compromise. Championing the extremes is easy. Finding the central point of balance is, well, challenging if not outright flusterclucking.
What, then, some kind of ultrasonic warning system? Specie specific?
*Used to be my daily paper when I lived in Wyoming. (delivered state wide every morning!) Damn! How I miss my mountains.
@109. mildlymagnificent :
Yep – and cheers.
mildlymagnificent – if the child in question wasn’t 7 months old, and the abuse coming from not only the party I -did- manage to mostly escape but from the people I had to run to, that might help.
Heh. Shitter of a situation. Out of a frying pan into another one. This one has people who want to help in it, but they do the same emotionally abusive and controlling things he did. Still, they’re family and it’s a roof over my head, so what can I do?
Hello? Insomniacs? Early risers? Eastern hemispherers?
—
I’m only now watching the first episode of season three of The Walking Dead. (no spoilers for this season, just the second)
I hate Rick. And Carl. And Lori.
I still haven’t forgiven Rick for the whole “Why don’t you just try staying pregnant?” She’s not a kid trying how she likes swimming, which she can quit anytime and go back to basketball! She should have gotten ridden of the zombie spawn when she wanted.
Not to mention all the guns that never miss and never get out of ammo.
I do like the new woman (haven’t caught the name yet). If she and/or Andrea get killed any time soon, I’m quitting this series.
riddenridAnd I even previewed.
Hello?
Haven’t watched the Walking Dead, so I can’t share my feelings for the characters. Sounds like most of them are unbearable, though. :)
And if ammo ran out, I think that plot twist would take too much attention away from the usual inter-personal-relationship stuff that is sooooo much more interesting… No?
“Adolf’s little struggles”
In the Benny Hill version we have him standing proudly next to his tent.
Headline: “mein camp”
If my personalities are quarreling is it OK to call myself an asshole? Yes, I have been reading the “A Million Gods” blog.
The recently laughed-out Sunday Roast has some ‘splaining to do… The mistral blew all fecking weekend, with lashings of rain, making it so cold I had to bring out the heavy jacket first time this season. And it’s not even November yet!
Not to mention the megastorm now(?) hitting the East Coast of USAlienland, and the Tsunami on the other side.
So which one of these is the bringer-of-eviiillll weather and stuff?
And you thought AGW was nasty…! It’s got nothing on Teh Dark—mumble—
It wasn’t Teh Dark Mother of All This Recent Evil that laughed, it was Teh Dark—mumble— going BRRAAAHAWHAAAAWWW!!!11!1111!
Just read that post, too.
rq,
They’re making head shot after head shot after head shot. And really, this show could do a lot better at inter-personal relationships. Like, at least pretend someone’s making an effort at character development.
TV shows going bad after season 1 frustrate me.
Sorry, Beatrice, I’ve never seen the show either; and your review hasn’t persuaded me to try it, either!
At the moment, my favourite channel is ‘off’.
@113. Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallion
From my pov, Jennifer at captain awkward responds to many more abusive parents/family questions than she does with the standard get-away-from-violent-bloke situation. Given how young your littlie is, you might have to follow one of her ‘long-term’ plans for creating a “Team You” for support while you’re in the process of finding a way out. Have a look anyway.
And from me …. best wishes to Chef you and baby Apprentice. You will get through one way or another. The mantra about raising babies sometimes applies also to living through bad situations.
“The days and weeks may drag, but the months and years can fly.”
Beatrice
It seems to be a common affliction. Season 1 – fantastic! Glorious! Avant-garde and entertaining as hell! Season 2 – Meh, we have them hooked… Kind of like reading long strings of novels. After about the fourth or fifth one (sometimes even earlier) the novelty wears off, and sometimes I think the writers/authors get tired of trying to think of new things. Can’t really think of any particular exceptions at the moment…
About the weather, well, if everyone’s complaining (in a spirit of solidarity with those in the path of Sandy), then might I say that, unusually for this latitude, we had a (admittedly) minor fall of snow back on Thursday night, and contrary to ALL expectations, it has LASTED UNTIL TODAY and isn’t likely to disappear until, oooh, say, this coming Thursday. And it’s only October. Best we usually do around this time of year is a few random flakes that don’t even make landfall. First semi-stable snow is in November, and even that melts within a day or two. December is REAL snow time… So yes, all that lovely sunny late-fall weather we had? It is now winter. (Generally speaking I love winter but this year we have been caught unawares and somewhat unprepared.)
Hah, mine too.
I haven’t watched anything since Doctor Who made the half-season pause. There just isn’t anything that can keep my concentration. I might keep watching The Walking Dead just to pass some time.
Turkish soaps are currently popular here and mum watches one every evening. Dad hates it, so she watches on “my” tv. Urgh. It’s enough to put a person off television forever.
I refer to it as “those suckers will watch/read it anyway” syndrome.
Beatrice
“those suckers will watch/read it anyway” syndrome
And it works, to a certain point. Eventually I can’t take the bullshit anymore and I manage to stop reading, but admittedly only after I’ve invested a significant amount of time. Oh well. Better late than never, right?
I am totally bored by zombie movies. After all, how many times can you watch a rotting corpse bite the arm off a willowy youngster? That many? Damn.
On the other hand, I can watch old movies featuring stop-motion by Ray Harryhausen all night long. Like I did last night courtesy of Turner Classic Movies. They also ran the original silent version of Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney. (did you know he was born to deaf parents?)
Did you know that there are at least thirty (count ’em!) movies featuring zombies before Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_movies
Ah, well. There’s no accounting for taste, is there? Especially when it comes to . . . BRAINS!!!
Hi folks
Well, Sandy reminded me at least to get some canned food stocked up for winter. Not that there’s much risk of “being snowed in so I can’t leave the house”, but it came close to “you shouldn’t leave the house unless you have to” some times over the last winters. As long as there’s electricity we’re fine.
re: TV
I hardly ever watch anything except the kiddies’ TV with them. If my brain’s still able to follow a movie it’s usually on DVD. So I’m totally innocent of TV pop-culture.
Sophia
Loads of hugs for you
Just a small sub plot in a larger story is this news of a tall ship adrift in the seas whipped up by Sandy:
AAaaar! Surely these hearties will weather the blow. Unless the Kraken rises to add to their woes.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121029/DA2757P80.html
My wife was joking that the zombie routine has become a tired cliché. Instead of moaning ‘BraAaAaAins’, she recommended they moan ‘BoOoOoOgerrRRrrs’ just to change it up a little. The idea had definite appeal to my inner 10 year old.
I’m not a big fan of zombie movies (I think I’ve seen 2) mostly due to the sameness factor.
Children’s movies are lovely for the nice, straightforward story-lines and nice, colourful pictures. Somewhat afflicted by sameness, too, but the variations in presentation tend to make up for that (in my opinion). Also, children’s movies are more obvious about messages within the movie. I like that. I DO like complicated, thoughtful movies, too, but I don’t like those movies which pretend to (or attempt to) be wise and message-ful simply because they’re for the over-18 category of people. Recently watched ‘John Carter’ for the fun of it, knowing it would be mostly trash, but by the end I couldn’t help but thinking that it was too much trash in one movie for my taste…
rq
The only one that leapt to mind was Harry Potter. I really enjoyed each book even more than the preceding one.
I expect that any series that was planned as such from the beginning, with a known finite number of iterations, will be much better than one which just grew because of demand.
YMMV and all that.
Tigger_the_Wing
Yes, Harry Potter does break the trend, probably for the reason you mention.
The only other trilogy/series that didn’t bore me was the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake. Part of what keeps that one fresh is the fact that he was unable to finish his (planned) series due to unexpected death. I am constantly left wondering what would have been, if… But the three books written are certainly a journey into strange, strange lands, and some wonderful (and terrifying) English.
Two book series which I really enjoy are Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and Glen Cook’s Garrett P.I. Each book is refreshingly different from the others albeit with some continuity, but neither authour worries too much about being completely consistent from book-to-book. The discrepancies between books aren’t distracting (says someone who is a bit of a pedant at times…).
As far as I know, there are no Garrett movies or plays?
There are a number of Discworld movies, all made-for-TV by Sky in the UK, of varying quality (all of which have had Terry’s input, so I tend to overlook the glaring discrepancies from the books…). There’s also a few freelance / unauthorised Discworld fan-made “movies” / cartoons, which I think can all be described as shite. And there are several (both authorised and, I think, unauthorised), Discworld plays, some productions of which Terry has praised. However, I’ve never seen any of the plays…
Douglas Adams wrote one of the best trilogies I’ve ever read. I bought all five volumes.
Asimov’s Galactic Empire series had me in thrall as a youngster and it is on my re-read list.
Some ideas can be expanded with plot and characters and surprises that a thoughtful author can put to paper. Rare, but oh, so engaging.
That reminds me, I’ve haven’t haunted any used book stores or garage sales lately. I better get after it. For my own enjoyment, of course, but also for the edification of the grandspawns who are now old enough to absorb and entertain new thought patterns.
Did my comment just disappear?
I’m confused.
Anyway, I wanted to add that I’ve just begun a series (read the first two books), but I have also discovered that it has about 10 installments at hte moment, which predisposes me to disappointment.
Anyone heard of/read/know Shadow of the Apt series, by Adrian Tchaikovsky? So far, it’s been very engaging, lots of characters (lots of memory work…), decent story lines and a lot of action. I’m just worried about the author’s imagination in future installments.
Oh and Douglas Adams, I find, is also very well-enjoyed as BBC radio plays (those people do wonderful stuff – personal favourite, The Hobbit). I haven’t read all his books (did the trilogy, though), but I did listen to several of his books in radio-play version while working the evening shift, and it passed the time extremely well.
Discworld on paper – brilliant!!! Some of my favouritest stuff there is in the whole wide world.
Discworld on screen – surprisingly disappointing, especially considering some parts were overtly written with visuals in mind :(
I suppose it’s partly because what’s brilliant about it is the verbal humour and Pterry’s principles, which don’t necessarily lend themselves to being conveyed in visual form.
correcting brain fart in my #136, Asimov’s series is more properly called the Foundation series which is comprised of seven novels which, in proper chronological order, is comprised of:
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation’s Edge
Foundation and Earth
If you haven’t, you should read the whole whopping deal. Beginning in the Golden Age of Sci Fi and extending into the 1980s, Asimov’s concepts also encompass themes from several of his other novels, including Pebble in the Sky as well as his Robot series. Taken together, this amounts to a million and a half words and covers a time span of about twenty thousand years.
One (I) can only hope that our species can not only last so long but also accomplish our business on such a grand scale.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series#Foundation_and_Earth
Most of his Robot stories are also cracking good detective stories, for those of you who like a good who-dunnit.
Oh yeah, Discworld series. Brilliant.
Absolutely. Nothing is as good as in your head, and for Discworld, that goes quadruple. It’s interesting to watch just for the novelty of it being on screen, (and Sean Astin is cute no matter what), but in general? Meh. And I hated the tooth fairy depictions altogether. NOT what was in my head.
Abusers know they are abusive and know they are doing wrong. They still do it, and still will do it. Hence shoving everyone around the victim away and lying about what’s going on.
For every kind of abuse, I think that’s true. For emotional abusive, if you go to a therapist/counselor, ask them if they can suggest help/resources/counselors for the abusers. They would probably know more since they tend to study abusers and such behavior. Your local shelter or case worker focuses on the one person who doesn’t get believed or focused on – the victim. Interacting at all with an abuser puts the victims they take care of at risk because the abusers have a legitimate reason for going to those places of help. Especially since victims struggle accepting that it isn’t their fault and that it isn’t going to get better, putting out those resources for the abuser most likely will just make things worse. The abuser will never go, but the victim will think “If only I could be good enough to get him to go…” etc.
Update to my #130:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-strengthens-to-85-mph/?iref=allsearch
Those who go down to the sea in ships . . .
Serious weather, folks. I hope that all seventeen are seaworthy and well prepared and that they reach shore again walking upon their own legs. Keep them in mind as well as those who are ashore awaiting their return even as they await the teeth of the storm.
Crudely Wrott @ #143:
That doesn’t sound particularly encouraging… I hope that particular story ends very happily, indeed – meaning, all safe and found and on dry land.
Looks like I’ll actually have to read Discworld. While I have only heard good things about it, I don’t think I’ve even read a single book from the series (although I may have – and if I did, then I didn’t read the others because it’s a series; I think I just tend not to like anything in a large series).
Which brings me to Asimov, whose short stories I’ve managed just fine, but never really liked his longer works. Oh, except for the non-fiction, accessible science. But novels? Maybe I should give those another try, too.
Oh, and I just received a reminder about an up-coming three-day deadline. Need some votes to make the top 5. All you choir fans who are in Europe (doesn’t work outside of Europe, even though the US is on the list), please read this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/2012/10/15/monday-music-help-a-choir-out/ and if you have the time or the desire to push through all the buttons, please help out! We have until Halloween.
CNN just now reports that communication has been established with the crew and that rescue aircraft are en route.
SGBM
Smelling breath for signs of disease go back a long way
http://www.therabreath.com/articles/news/oral-care-industry-news/from-antiquity-to-today-the-authorities-on-bad-breath-were-rarely-shy-about-it-6122.asp
rq: Part of Asimov’s writing style in his fiction was a relative dearth of descriptive prose and a reliance on dialogue to create the stage and the progress of his stories. For those who have read Steven King or, say, H. P. Lovecraft or Tolkien and are used to long paragraphs and pages of expository prose, Asimov’s novels do seem sparse and dry.
My experience is similar but I’ve discovered that on re-reading that clarity blossoms, especially when considering the roles of the various characters. I mentioned above how many of the Robot stories were dialog driven and I see a parallel with classic detective stories (think, if you will, of Nick Danger) in which the protagonist is the narrator and the basic view is first person. I find it engaging and exciting. Of course, as in all things, your mileage may vary.
If you would like to read the Good Doctor at his best I would recommend his collection of essays, Only a Trillion (1956), with special emphasis on the chapter entitled, The Hemoglobin Number. Also the intro. Pure delight and enlightenment!
Good reading to you.
Sounds like a Pharyngula bloke.
“NYC cannibal case tests lines of fantasy, threat” http://phys.org/news/2012-10-nyc-cannibal-case-lines-fantasy.html
— — — — — — — —
“Biology and ideology: The anatomy of politics” http://www.nature.com/news/biology-and-ideology-the-anatomy-of-politics-1.11645
— — — — — — — —
Factoid: “28 days Later” is not a zombie film, but a clever re-make of “Day Of The Triffids”.
— — — — — — — —
“Asimov’s novels do seem sparse and dry”
Also a feature of Arthur C. Clarke. Both relied on the “sense of wonder” to make the stories succeed. You can only get away with this if you have very good ideas.
Crudely Wrott
Thank you. I’ll make a note of all of that, but I’m not big on lengthy descriptions, either. Besides The Hobbit, I’ve only managed to slog through one other Tolkien book (Fellowship etc.). Also why I find Tolstoy a tedious slog, as well. I’m all for sparse narrative, in fact I tend to prefer it… Which is why Asimov fiction might be due a re-read. But back when I did (attempt to) read him, I think it was other things (fairly non-specific in memory) within his story-lines that didn’t sit well. (I DO enjoy quite a bit of older Stephen King; I would NOT, however, put him in the same lengthy-description category as Tolkien, also different language style, which makes a huge difference to me.)
Factoid: “28 days Later” is not a zombie film, but a clever re-make of “Day Of The Triffids”.
Very interesting!
CBS is reporting some crew members have been winched onboard a USGS helicopter, but that there is confusion as to how many crew there are in total: The USGS is reporting 16 have been detected but the roster apparently lists 17. The tall ship itself, the “HMS Bounty” (not absolutely certain that’s the true name of the ship), has apparently sunk.
(I’m impressed the USGS has managed to get a pair of helicopters, in addition to a C-130 (now relieved by another Hercules) out there…)
Every hurricane visualised since 1851: “With a new projection of the globe and data on every hurricane for the last 161 years, developer John Nelson has visualised every one on record”.
Yeah, it cannot have been properly called HMS anything.
You’re a step ahead of me, blf, in reporting the good news that the crew of the Bounty has been rescued. This from MSNBC:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/29/14775512-helicopter-sent-to-rescue-17-people-who-abandoned-hms-bounty-off-nc-coast?lite
From what I gather, the good ship is still afloat, though taking on water but without propulsion and without her good crew, she may go right on down. (paging Dr. Ballard, Dr. Robert Ballard, please pick up a white paging phone)
And, to put a fine point on it, I think you meant USCG. United States Coast Guard. USGS is, of course, the United States Geological Survey and while it provides invaluable services with reference to the geology of the earth’s surface and its evolution, is poorly equipped for rescues at sea during a hurricane. ;^>
I just talked to my uncle who lives in New Jersey just west of NYC. He assured me that his house is high enough to avoid flooding and his generator is already tied into the house electric system and has plenty of fuel. I was concerned for him. He’s the patriarch of the family now and if he were to become a victim of the storm that station would become mine. Honestly, he’s much more qualified.
You are not the first to wonder.
Oops! Yes, I did mean USCG. I probably tpyoed USGS out of habit, since the geology department at university had rather more contact with them (not that I had anything to do with any of the three organizations…). The geology department did have an amazing four-wheel drive bus which we borrowed once to go total solar eclispe watching…
Oh, my. Perhaps two crew members have been lost.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/10/29/ns-hms-bounty-hurricane-sandy.html
This is a developing story and some facts may not be clear.
Nice find, Owlmirror. Did you echolocate it?
I remember when we worked with (upon) planaria in biology class back in high school daze. We made them choose between turning left or right.
I could not escape the idea that inside that tiny brain was an awareness of a wider world. Obviously they perceived and reacted and learned. Surely, I kept thinking, and still do, that there must have been some ghostly notion of self in relation to not self.
Unfortunately, there existed a language barrier so I could never know for certain. Still . . .
The Google doodle today…
Oooo!! Libby Anne lays the smackdown on the argument that birth control is a zygote massacre.
Oh for feck’s sake! I also got the site wrong, it’s CBC not CBS. Can I blame the geology department for that tpoy also, please? Or is this the not-so-benign influence of the Laughing Dark Weathermistress?
Does anyone have advice on how to address the use of “retard” as quickly and efficiently as possible? Working in a restaurant environment doesn’t afford me the ability to discuss issues at length, but on a daily basis, I hear a server or bartender use that word to describe undesirable actions. I cringe each time I hear it, but I have the feeling that I would need time to sit and talk to the individuals that use the word.
I was thinking the way to attack it might be:
“There are individuals with varying degrees of mental disability. They are people too and many of them are hurt by the use of that word. To associate that word with a negative outcome can have the effect of dehumanizing these individuals. One can never know if someone they work with is mentally disabled, so avoiding such a hurtful word is prudent.”
****
rq @124:
Not Buffy or Angel. I’d argue that both shows had a weak first season (largely dominated by Monster of the Week) and became quite stronger in their second seasons (Buffy staying consistently strong through season 3, dipping somewhat in Season 4, rising again somewhat in Season 5, and declining-though not necessarily in quality-with Season 6 and 7; Angel was more erratic. IIRC, Season 2 was strong, as was much of Season3; Season 4 went off the rails a bit though, while Season 5 had a great concept, but was hampered by cancellation.)
****
Crudely Wrott @128:
Are they referred to as zombies in the movie title or within the movies themselves? I ask because I thought it was a no-no to mention the word until Romero’s movie came out (and even then it wasn’t universally accepted).
****
Wikipedia also has this to say about zombies:
Update on HMS Bounty:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49596412
It’s said that at the time the ship was still “upright”. I certainly hope so. Even more, I hope that there are two more people winched up from the waters.
Not in Europe (nor, it seems from a random sample of other non-USAlien domains, the rest of the world). I assume this is it.
Tony @ 162:
I pulled my info from the Great Pfft which listed movies that featured lurching corpse-like entities that shuffled and slowly perused their hapless wictims. The research is not my own. Still, having seen several of the listed titles that predate DOTLD I would say that they did, in fact, have zombies in them even if not specifically identified as such.
If it shuffles like a zombie, grunts and whimpers like a zombie and eats like a zombie, it’s probably a zombie.
–Crudely Wrott’s Rules of Thumbs.
Here is the farcebork page on the “HMS Bounty“. Nothing really to add to the previous reports. Apparently 14 of either 16 or 17 are aboard a USCG helicopter, and the ship either is or isn’t still afloat.
I have a question about those areas in the path of Sandy that the authorities have ordered people to evacuate.
Did they provide transport for those without their own transport, or did they follow the New Orleans model of leaving the poor and elderly to die ?
Faux News is reporting on the Bounty story:
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2012/10/29/coast-guard-monitoring-tall-ship-in-distress-off-north-carolina-with-17-aboard/
Pretty tough sailing considering that Sandy is one thousand miles wide.
I keep hearing lyrics from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The conditions in the North Atlantic this time of year are not good as the best of times.
Matt, according to news reports that I have read yesterday and overnight there has been great effort by many communities to provide transportation to higher ground for those in areas that are subject to evacuation.
Since I’m getting pretty sleepy now I offer no citations other than to mention that I was heartened to see that efforts are being made to help those who need assistance to find shelter.
For those who will not leave their homes there are apparently no strong arm tactics to force them to do so. As it should be even though some may die or wish they had gotten on the bus when it came by.
If you are in the path of the storm I hope you weather it in one piece.
We’ve come a long way since Katrina. We have learned.
As an aside, I think it was on Ed Brayton’s blog where it was mentioned that someone predicted that people left to fend for themselves would soon be fighting in the streets over food and fuel.
I really don’t think so. People are (mostly) better than that and when faced with a common threat are (mostly) apt to help each other for mutual benefit.
Not that there will be no struggles for basic needs should the situation drag on. Some will inevitably think that their own needs outweigh the needs of others. That is, I think, unavoidable in times of extreme (read: extreme) duress.
Spock nailed it when he observed that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. I think that something similar is part of our culture and can be demonstrated by watching what happens when a community is struck by sudden calamity in this (USA) country. There are, unfortunately, exceptions to every generality.
Well that is good to hear.
Hurricane Sandy: 10 statistics that place this powerful storm in perspective:
Matt at 169:
To the best of my understanding, the Bounty began taking water about a hundred miles off the North Carolina coast. Not quite the North Atlantic, but still, the Atlantic. One tough and unforgiving body of water from Newfoundland to the Straights of Magellan.
Assuming that the ship had an experienced captain I wonder why she left Connecticut in the first place given that this storm has been brewing for at least two weeks.
Someone will write a book about this, I’m sure.
And if she was heading for St Petersburg, why was she off the Carolinas ? She should have been going the otherway, following the coast to Newfoundland before heading east.
Rain. Some wind. Not much else here yet. But apparently, Brooklyn has already flooded on pure storm surge. If a genie appeared and offered me one wish right now it would be to transport all the climate change deniers in the country to the flooded parts of Brooklyn and see if they still didn’t believe in global warming.
Royal Horticultural Society photographic competition 2012 — winning pictures.
I rather like #6 (which is where the link should be pointing…).
blf at 172:
Like you, I’m wondering if future storms might more often than not take this unusual track. This storm is highly unusual in that it’s turning west in the higher latitudes. True, there is a major high pressure system hovering in the North Atlantic and the jet stream is taking an unusually deep dip to the south and is lingering there. These conditions amount to steering mechanisms that are controlling Sandy’s course. The cold front trending ESE from Canada is playing a supporting role but! Conditions like this are novel and are not reflected in the historical record of Atlantic storms.
It is really daunting to think that large storms could be changing their habits and posing a threat to a part of the country that has historically been isolated from the ravages that are all to familiar in Gulf of Mexico coasts. The northeast coast has an overwhelming amount of resource and influence, not to mention little experience with major storms, especially one that may linger for several days. Most Gulf storms show up and blow through in less than one day. We’re damn sure gonna learn where our weak points lie during the next few days.
Just this moment Faux News (don’t dis me, bro, I’m channel surfing) reports that sixteen are safe and the ship has foundered and is observed to be awash but not sunk. We’ll know more this afternoon, I suppose.
Threadrupt!
I picked a hell of a day for my umbrella to snap in half. ಠ_ಠ
Matt at 174:
Shirley you jest. :|
I’ve been awake for nearly a full earth rotation and I’m getting silly and weak and I’m out of beer.
I go sleep now.
Ya’ll keep watch for me, eh?
See ya later.
Crudely Wrott@177, Just for clarity, that “Whether I agree with it or not, this will lead to discussion over whether we’re witnessing the first impacts of climate change” (in @172) was part of the quoted article (not my added comment). The blockquoting is correct.
Having said that, I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but am loathe to attribute any one particular weather event to AGW. However, I have no clear idea at what point a repeating / predictable series of weather events can be plausibly attributabled to AGW.
You wanted to be carried away on the winds Mary Poppins style?
(What the feck are you doing outdoors anyways?)
It is called “work.”
And in any case, the storm isn’t going to hit here until tomorrow. Today is just heavy rain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Jersey_hurricanes#Deadliest_storms
a bigger problem is that the coast has been built out with crap housing in the last couple of decades that will cause some issues.
the housing statement in post #181 is anecdotal from a NJite friend
181 dammit! bash scripting and posting dont mix
I fink you mean @170…
Actually, @184 would make more sense in context re “housing statement”…
thanks blf
Well unless St Petersburg, Russia has moved, no.
To get there from the East Coast of the US, head up to Newfoundland, turn right and head east across the North Atlantic, pass between Iceland and Scotland, and once clear of Scotland, head south-west and thence into the Skagerrak and then the Kattegat, heading up the Baltic to the Gulf of Boethia.
The typical arc of TV show quality
Everybody go read Libby Anne.
vid from the last frankenstorm 1938
Tony–Queer Duck Overlord of The Bronze– @162
I’ll take your word on Buffy and Angel. Never got a chance to get into the shows: being under the Great TV Ban until I moved out of my parents’, and subsequent efforts to try to get into it failed miserably (I think it’s the monsters and vampires and stuff – for all of delving into the paranormal and supernatural, I never quite found the appeal of them as life-like story elements; now dragons, on the other hand…).
Friends who did follow the shows seem to be more or less unanimous in their positive reviews over all seasons (more for Buffy than for Angel).
Rey Fox @191
Thanks for that! :D
jose
Did that. Brilliant work, that.
Still keeping all my good wishes up and running for those in the path of Sandy! Not much on the news over here, but I hope all is well and that things have been wildly exaggerated. (I know that things are already pretty crazy in places, but still…)
vampires in New England
http://theweek.com/article/index/235398/new-englands-vampire-panic
My Thailand holiday hasn’t quite panned out the way I planned it. Last night I found myself translating missives to the Finnish government until 1am. Although the whole “being driven around town in an E class Merc by the nicest woman on the planet” thing I could really get used to.
Needs more Corona…
I’m going to watch Once More With Feeling (since we’re talking Buffy) tonight and then go to bed early. I’m already in too bad mood to deal with sexist shits half the night.
Too bad it’s only quarter past 6pm. I’d rather just go to sleep.
…I think this line is mostly filler…
Have to saw having gone back to review Buffy and Angel the difference between Buffy at prime and early Buffy is startling. I think if Buffy came out now with me as I currently am I would have not watched beyond the first 4 episodes. It really catches its pace in second season and reaches an apex in 3rd for me. 4th and 5th start to show a slide downward as they drift away from the original tone but still had some memorable moments. 6 and 7 were a needed shot in the arm of the original juice, but I think the series died a natural death there with anything beyond that going to just be a march towards disappointment (ie the comics)
Oh, come on, that’s just been sitting there?
*ahem*
DON’T CALL HIM SHIRLEY.
Does anyone know if the islands off the coast of NJ were evacuated? They’re predicted to go under water.
Roger, Roger.
test
Well, crap dammit. My county has issued a state of emergency.
*hunkers down!*
Stay safe, Audley.
Audley, safe wishes for you and yours.
And everyone else in the path.
Joe, I like your Happy Place. Bobble heads!
*squee!*
Also, Army surplus places sometimes have lots of cast iron cookware, for cheap.
–
Oh Joy getting ready to loot on hurricane day
https://twitter.com/Call_me_WORM/status/262916688905895936
TRIGGER WARNING! THE RESPONSES ARE HORRIBLE!!!
https://twitter.com/LucasEmil_10/status/262915295956574208
https://twitter.com/Adoo_S/status/262873391290281984
ARGH
Cat puked on the bedspread.
Took bedspread into bathroom, shook puke into toilet, stuck stained bit of bedspread in the sink, turned cold water on to run over stain.
Went into kitchen to resume working on cookies, turned on mixer.
Ran mixer for nearly 10 minutes straight.
Turned mixer off.
Put cookie dough in fridge.
Put away baking equipment.
Sipped tea.
Wondered idly what the running water noise was.
Remembered bathroom sink.
… yup.
Flooded the fucking bathroom.
FUCK
Time to panic? Hurricane to the east of me, blizzards to the west of me! Woo!
ROFL
http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-distances-self-from-christian-right,30087/
Beatrice re:Walking Dead
Her name is Michonne, and she’ll be around. I do get annoyed with the perfect aim of all shooters, Carl included. The ammo thing is also a problem but I think they’ve done a fairly good job with story so far. Plus the story is about to get really crazy with the Prison and the Governor.
Hoping all of you in the affected areas are well-prepared and safe.
There’s a great big throbbing-with-rage arsepimple on the Buffy thread frothing at the mouth over people not finding his sexist “humour” funny. Quite the textbook example, really – got almost straight to the point of accusing people of being humourless hivemind feminazis who need to get laid … ’cause imma make any joke I like, and lotsa Real Men all over the place think it’s real funny, so tough!
No, really, you’d think it was reading from a script except it was so frothily, spontaneously indignant.
Popcorn.
kristinc
One day a few years back I was at home filling the sink to thaw something. My phone rang and I went upstairs to get on the company VPN and help out the caller.
20 mins later I remembered the sink
and the water
and the wood floors in the kitchen.
no bueno
kristinc – can you claim it as hurricane damage?
I woke up once in the middle of the night and heard a sound. It took a minute or two to wake up and realize that it was the sound of spraying water. I followed it out, and as soon as I got to the bedroom door, stepped in water. The filler tube on the toilet had sprung a leak, and had covered the bathroom and adjacent hallway. Fun times.
The town I am adjacent to has just shut down all non-emergency travel. The college, however, has not yet announced any shutdown. I am this close to calling the president and telling him he’s out of his freaking mind.
Joe:
Just repeat after Tiffany:
I just finished reading Issue 257 of Electronic Gaming Monthly. I think it’s relevant to this community because it talks about women in video games, both as video game characters and the actual women who work in the industry. Here’s a brief summary:
-Press Start has an article on women in the industry and the struggles they’ve had with sexism, making special mention of Anita Sarkeesian and the disgraceful treatment she got. After that is an article about the Frag Dolls and the way they’ve risen to become more than just an all-female gaming clan.
-5 Lives featured Meggan Scavio, general manager of the Game Developers’ Conference. She doesn’t do well.
-The EGM Roundtable discusses the subject of well-rounded characters in video games, touching briefly on the difficulties of writing strong female characters.
-The EGM Interview is with Amy Hennig, who’s worked on the Legacy of Kain and Uncharted series.
-There’s a list of the 20 best female characters in video games. I think the number one choice may be a little controversial, though…
-The cover feature is on the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, and how the developers are trying to make Lara Croft a more realistically defined character.
-Next Wave showcases two games with female protagonists: Beyond: Two Souls and Remember Me.
-Two of the editorials deal with sexism among gamers: Abbie Heppe writes a painful column about the experiences she’d had with misogynists and how difficult but necessary it is to keep fighting, and Eric Patterson writes about the need to stop being passive towards bigotry among fellow gamers and speak out against it.
-To end on a more lighthearted note, Seanbaby gives a list of the 5 worst female characters in video games.
I recommend you seek out this issue on the newsstands if you’re not a subscriber. Reading Abbie Heppe’s column, I had to keep glacing at the date on my iPhone to make sure it really was 2012. How is that shit still going on?!
Good evening
Today I learned how privileged I am compared to some other students. The girl in the row behind me complained loudly to her neighbour that tonight her mum will cook something that’s not exactly her favourite meal while I got exactly the can of Ravioli I bought and cooked myself…
I also hate daylight saving time
++++
Hope all the Horde-members are warm and dry
++++
kristin
Damn, I hope no greater damage was done.
Wrong end of the country, alas.
Ooooh.
This is the THIRD flood we’ve had, but at least it’s the only one that was my fault. Once the soap tray clogged in a washing machine that routed the water flow through the soap tray to fill the machine. Once the toilet backed up while we were out for several hours. Now this. Fortunately, it wasn’t a major flood and every towel in the house was enough to mop it up.
Giliell, does Europe do canned ravioli better than the US? Because here, it’s a barely-edible single mass of blech.
There’s a good side to arguing with fuckwits on internet. I’m now drained enough that I can’t be bothered to argue with my father. He can be insulting, I’ll keep my mouth shut and at least won’t get accused of making his life miserable with my arguing.
(Yes, a real life version of “I can insult you, but if you get angry it means you’re crazy/mean/evil”)
Beatrice, I am sorry that you live with a Troll.
Thanks, Beatrice and chigau.
We should be fine. Since this part of the world is mostly getting wind and not rain, the likelihood of my neighborhood being evacuated is pretty low*. We have everything we need if we lose power for several days and I’ve got family who live within walking distance, so I’ve also got plenty of support should I need it.
According to Wunderground.com, we’re not supposed to start seeing Sandy until late tonight, so for now I’m getting some odds and ends done and snuggling with DarkInfant on the couch.
*We were evaced during Irene. That was… surreal.
Word.
The consistency of the “noodles”, in particular, sucks on toast.
In fact, I recommend throwing out the “noodles” and just eating the toast.
–
Hehe, thanks
I forgot we’re out of cat food. I have to go get some this afternoon. It’s in the same shopping plaza with walmart, and there’s only one entrance. *whimper*
Once I forgot I was boiling eggs and locked myself out of the house. Haven’t managed to flood anything yet, though. Enough of that happening on its own!
kristin
Hmmm, I would have to have sampled US canned Ravioli to say anything concrete. At least you can clearly distinguish noodles, meat-filling and sauce and they have a comfort-food component.
beatrice
Hugses
+++
Flooding
My bathroom-radiator once flooded two floors when a rubber gasket gave way. Funny thing was that it was in the early days when we had rented this flat and were actually not sleeping here usually because the house was being renovated and horribly loud. It was only pure chance that I was there and heard the neighbours ring the doorbell.
I never caused a flood either, but had a couple of minor ones in the kitchen during heavy rain. Some genius made rain water from the roof drain into the same pipes that are used for waste water in the kitchen. Debris gets them clogged and some apartments have a fun kitchen experience every now and then. We’re near the top, so that’s usually either us or ap. above.
trade in can of ravioli for a can of baked beans heat and put them on the toast.
Years back, The Husband and I lived in a first floor (of three) apartment. Things from somewhere else in the system—we suspect from upstairs—would wash up in our bathroom sink.
We never did find out what the red, rigid plastic thingies were (sized about right for a shotgun shell, but plainly not), but the condoms were pretty self-explanatory.
–
By far the best plan that doesn’t involve a bucket of wet cement!
:)
–
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2012/10/tweet-of-day_29.html
And thinking of using cans of ravioli in a stocking to stun rabbits, has anybody seen/heard from TLC, lately?
–
kristinc, carlie,
The flood I caused was much bigger than yours! I was living in a rented house, went away for a few days around Christmas, and didn’t drain the system, or leave the heating on. Came back, switched the heating on, went to bed. Woke in the night to the sound of dripping water and assumed it had been raining. Looked out, saw that it was dry. Dripping seemed to be coming from above. Went up to the attic – AAARRGGHHH! Water jetting out of a burst pipe, everything soaked. Couldn’t find the stopcock. By the time I found it, water was cascading down the stairs. Bloody thing was frozen or rusted in place. Tried ringing my then partner (now wife) for advice. No reply. Tried ringing the landlady. She answered, but had nothing to suggest. By the time I eventually managed to turn the thing, water damage was so extensive I had to move out. Landlady was not pleased. Fortunately, I was able to get my insurance to pay.
“If you do not have a second or third home, go stay at your parents’ second or third home until after the looting and cannibalism by the 47% have abated.”
–
Stupid question time? In the US, can we finally drop the singing of at sporting events?
Man Men/Doctor Who mash up: Mad Man With A Box.
Am I the only one who liked Angel more than Buffy?
I mean I loved Angel all the way through so much I own all the DVDS. Though I can see some of its issues.
I can’t stand Buffy, thought it was hit or miss episode wise and then watched enough to hate her. I didn’t bother to watch more or see how it ended.
Somebody I lived with managed to burn boiled potatoes.
Apparently, you have to put the potatoes on to boil, then watch something really interesting on TV. After a while, once the water’s gone …
#238 Janine they dont sing that around here, we use star spangled banner
It’s an old tradition to sing or play the national anthem at sporting events, even other countries do it.
Nice opinion piece about abortion.
JAL:
I liked Angel a lot, but I reeeeeeaaaaly disliked Connor. I felt season 4 with jasmine never clicked with me. Season five was quite good until the end when they rushed things.
The intro music though…? I LOVE the moody score.
@broboxley
That Onion article is not a great fanfiction of Yahweh. He is totally OOC in it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9640920/Moscow-police-discover-brothel-on-monastery-premises.html
timing your poots into a revolving door, priceless
makes the workday go faster
Oh, yes that intro! It’s so good I could imagine tracking it down just to listen to it. Not that have or anything. *shifty eyes*
Yeah, Connor was…terrible to be nice about it. It felt like they came up with Angel’s child and the kidnapping, then didn’t know what else to do with it. I was really happy when that was all over but kept thinking that him posing as a normal mortal isn’t going to work. Lo and behold, it didn’t and they went that way anyway…Oh god, what if he comes back as like a Super Hero Douche? I could totally see Connor doing that. Ugh. (The show is over obviously but I mean later in other works or some fanfiction.)
Jasmine worked for me because I loved Angel’s struggle with humans being evil too and that Earth was the home office of Teh Evil Dudes. The whole Jasmine thing,saving everyone from mind control was ending world peace. I’m a humanist but cynical. I think it worked so well because of my own struggle with how much humans suck at the time. I connected well with the series. I loved how Cornelia grew and changed. The last episode with her left me bawling and still does. Fred’s readjustment to the world hit home for me so much.
I could go on and on about this.
I love and hate season 5 because it was the end. Maybe it’s because I didn’t see it when it aired, only saw it on DVD later but it worked for me. I hate the cliff hanger but really can’t see it ending any other way so I love it too.
I never connected with Buffy that way. I like Angel, thought Spike was entertaining in a guilty pleasure way and like Willow. Then there was Faith. Her story arch in Angel was awesome.
The biggest hurtle for me liking Buffy was Buffy herself. She was so annoying, self-centered and came off as stupid. I also kept wondering where were anyone’s parents and why did her sister mysterious appear out of nowhere. You know that episode where Buffy’s sister gets them all trapped inside Buffy’s house because they all kept ditching her and Buffy was all self-centered? I remembering thinking at the time, this perfectly demonstrates everything I hate about this show. I’ve only seen it the once but that probably still holds true. That’s really the only episode I remember now.
Rev BDC:
theyre doing the prison? Damn. I hate that I can’t watch the show. The prison arc in the comic was great.
JAL:
What artist created the ANGEL score? I’d love to have that as a ringtone.
Sandy is blowing through just north of us about now. Amazingly, we still have power. I made a big batch of Peruvian deviled potatoes just in case we lost power.
Sandy is a pretty impressive phenomenon so far, but we will hope the luck–and the house–hold out.
It says it was Holly Knight/Darling Violetta
That’s where I got my version from, though admittedly I had to get the info from Wiki since I couldn’t remember the names. I got it so long ago and it still has an effect on me. Little One even recognizes it. lol.
Tony and JAL – The Hoodlum and I really enjoyed watching ANGEL. Especially the intro music.
Now I have to check out the link to the intro. : )
I got this cute little key chain thing that has a picture place in it. I was going to put Little One’s picture in it only to discover I didn’t get any wallet sized pictures from her picture day. =(
Of course, now my inner paranoia is rejoicing. Yep, I’m paranoid about putting my daughter’s picture on a key chain because what if I lose my keys?, what if someone targets her?, what if I run into my abusive ex?
Ugh. Baggage is heavy.
Oh, that link was just to the Wiki. Here’s a quick link to it on youtube though.
Angel intro, full song.
Godless Teen wants you to know he was lucky enough to introduce Richard Dawkins at his school!
http://www.godlessteens.com/2012/10/presenting-richard-dawkins-by-godless-teen-2/
I’m tired and I need to go to bed, and I have no homework done, but I feel somehow like I have to keep paying attention to all the storm coverage because somehow it’s disrespectful not to. This makes absolutely no sense, but I still can’t go to sleep.
Tony
What worked for me was a person I liked and respected immediately looking me in the eye and saying “Please don’t use that word around me. I don’t like it.” Of course, there was a headstart in the sense that I was sensitive in a lot of other areas and had that blind spot remaining. YMMV and all that.
Not climate change. The End Times.
carlie
Thank you. It was getting unseemly just sitting out there like that.
Audley
It occurs to me to be very glad that there’s no danger of you going into labor while stranded or out of power, etc.
Janine
: ( Sorry you have to worry about those sorts of things. *hugs* if you want ‘em.
-+=+-
I hope all the Hordelings are safe and warm and healthy.
-+=+-
Tomorrow I have to give a talk at the Rotary meeting. Hoping it drums up some new business when I show off all the knowledge I have about the one law I beefed up on in order to present on it. Bonus, it’s a new law so if I don’t know an answer, it’s probably because it hasn’t been interpreted yet!
Holy fuck, is DDMFM in New York??? Did he cancel on going??? I think he was supposed to be there, like, now.
Carlie – yes, David is in NYC. He’s checked in on PET though and seemed to be fine at last report.
Portia, that was not me. That was JAL. I do not have a child nor an ex I need to avoid.
Sorry, Janine. My brain thought “J” and my fingers went wild.
(Just to be clear, I did know you weren’t the one describing the photo key chain, it was just in the typing that I had the issue).
hi.
I got a perfect score on the GRE verbal section. [/pointless bragging]
Congrats Jadehawk!
*doublechecks that it’s the right “J” name*
Yes, congrats! :D
Bet that eases some worry about your application.
Jadehawk, that’s not pointless bragging that is a true achievement!
dunno. how important do you think the math section* is for getting into a sociology program? cuz that one didn’t go nearly as well (ok, but nothing to write home about)
*i typoed that as sextion at least 3 times before it finally came out right :-p
JAL – Thanks for both links. Very cool. Beautiful music.
*thumbsup*
#267 Janine,
I went all the way thru the eighth grade. I know how hard tests are. I respect those who achieve academic goals. Unfortunately I’m serious.
Thank (insert deity of your choice here or Carnegie) for public libraries and the tech revolution. In a revolution you need people who can do the work and pay them accordingly without asking for credentials, just experience.
Still waiting on the storm. So far, we’ve had some gusty winds and drizzle.
But the good news is, we’ve discovered that the heat in our apartment doesn’t work, yay! Add that to our grand total of zero storm windows, and tonight’s gonna be great. >:(
JAL @ 254 – (Sorry, I’m out of order.)
I’m sorry. The see-saw of emotions sucks. Hugs if you want them.
cicely @237:
Ah, that tweet and those following were hilarious (in that “I can almost believe this is true” kind of way).
****
Janine @238:
I’m ready when you are.
I’m still waiting to hear when God is going to start blessing America (that’s a great segue to the following link):
#270 Audley
You already know this but just in case :-) cuddling under heavy blankets are fine for you but not for the little one. A very warm head covering and very warm foot covering and a light cover in layers is what keeps the little one warm. Speaking from sub arctic experience with newborns with a woodstove in the main room and sleeping in the 35-40F bedrooms
Hey all. Threadrupt, have a teenage friend of my son’s here. Apparently his father hit him and left bruises 2 days ago, he doesn’t want to go home, we’re willing to let him stay here tonight, does anyone have any general tips on our legal position, liabilities and so on? I think as far as I know right now his mom is okay with him staying, but I’m not absolutely sure about the outcome of that discussion yet.
kristinc
Remind me, sorry, are you in the U.S.? What state, if you’re comfortable saying.
Oh sorry, meant to say I’m in the US. In WA.
We did get Mom’s approval for one night, but no more. She has another side to the story, which I don’t know and I’m not interested in. I’m interested in advocating for the kid in whatever conflict it is, because the kid is always the under-represented one, and I was an abused teen with no one to advocate for me.
Broboxely:
Got it covered. She’s in warm one-piece pjs (with a matching hat!) and swaddled up tight (in one of those Velcro-able “Swaddle Me” blankets) and she’s in her own crib– not with us.
:D
kristinc
Ok, thanks. I’m gonna look a little and think a little and let you know what I think in just a minute.
JAL @248:
I loved Cordy’s development as well. Watching her from the beginning of Buffy when she was self absorbed, vacuous, and pretentious until her death in Angel, when she was a compassionate, courageous, self sacrificing heroine was amazing. I liked Wesley’s growth as well.
Don’t let me stop you. I’m all ears.
Ah, the rogue Slayer.
Faith Lehane.
Played by Eliza Dushku.
A character with layers.
A character who was one of the *most* human of all those on Buffy or Angel.
Of all the characters on either show, she is by far my absolute favorite.
Did you ever learn why (it was an interesting how they pulled it off)?
@252:
Oh thank you!
@254:
:( ::Hugs::
****
ednaz@253:
The intro really fit the show, given the noirish feel they were going for.
Minor update to my 274 & 276: his mom reported him as a runaway when he didn’t come home from school today. When Misterc talked to her on the phone a few minutes ago, she agreed to contact the police and tell them he wasn’t a “runaway” any longer because she knew where he was. Well, she called back about 5 minutes later to say that the cops won’t un-runaway him until he’s actually home, so there’s a slim chance the police may show up at our door for a chat (pretty slim though). In which case we’ll advocate for him as best we can, I guess.
I did offer to call the police myself and try to get him in contact with social services if he would rather go to a foster home than go home, but he didn’t want that. He seems to plan on sleeping on friend’s couches indefinitely, which, obviously concerns me. I wish I could help him have some kind of coherent longterm plan, or at least resources to make one himself when he’s ready.
He’s not the kind of kid who cries, or hugs or is demonstrative, but he has just closed up like a limpet. He’s obviously really, really upset and it breaks my heart.
kristinc
Based on what’s in the Washington statutes, it looks like if you gave the friend’s parents the required notice of his whereabouts, you are immune from civil liability. Mom knowing he’s at your house means the notice is satisfied, I think. (IANAWSLL-I am not a Washington State licensed lawyer).
I recommend reading the comments to the statute, as well.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=13.32A.010
There is potentional criminal liability. It says that “unlawful harboring of a minor” is a “gross misdemeanor.” That’s not a classification I’m familiar with, but I suppose at that point it becomes a question of how far out you’re willing to stick your neck. It look like you have to refuse to turn the kid over to the cops in order to be charged. Proceed with caution.
I ran errands this morning. 8 people smiled and said ‘Hi’ to me. I smiled and said ‘Hi’ back. It was great. Maybe I am not so ugly and fat and so hated by everyone that I can’t leave the house.
I have become a hermit in these last few years. Between being laid off my job and health issues my confidence has disappeared.
I remember the young woman, unafraid, standing in the spotlight – soaking it up. I remember she was full of empathy for her family and friends – and they felt comfortable talking things over with her.
Now there are days I don’t even leave the house. I don’t answer the door when someone knocks. I wait as they walk away to see if I know them. (Thanks to the thug who “works” for the landlord who tried to force his way into our home. My Hoodlum had to literally push him back out of our home.)
It’s time for me to go back to work. I let my fear keep me from doing the things I wanted to for too long.
First I’ll get a job, then we’ll save, then we’ll move. And I will be so happy to leave this awful place.
TL;DR – This is my rebuilding year and I have a lot of work to do.
Jadehawk @264:
Awesome!
Happy dance time!
****
Sometimes I like hearing stories from guests at work.
Sometimes I don’t.
Tonight I waited on a married couple. The guy did *a lot* of talking, even though I kept trying to initiate something with his wife (who, for the most part, seemed comfortable being silent). The guy had some interesting stories to tell, but he said two things that made me cringe mildly. One-he complained about The Affordable Care Act, saying he was going to have to pay $250,000 for his business because of the ACA. He also mentioned that he thinks it’s disrespectful to wear a blazer, dress shirt and jeans in a fine dining establishment. He feels that if there’s white linen, one should dress for that.
Personally, I do not like dressing up. One of my last jobs, I had to wear a dress shirt with a tie, and slacks. I don’t like ties. I don’t really care to dress up with long sleeved, starched shirts. I’m a jeans and tee shirt kinda guy (obviously with some variation-I do like turtle necks, for instance). It just rubs me the wrong way that there’ s perception that your appearance is more important than eating. And who is disrespected if you wear blue jeans in a 5 star restaurant?
****
I had to kick myself for being an idiot earlier. I had to buy cat and dog food on the way home and returned to my car, I saw a guy park his car in the disabled parking spot. I noted his license plate stated that he was a disabled veteran. As I watched him get out of his car (this was taking place over a few seconds) he seemed to be walking fine, with a possible limp. My knee-jerk thought was “This guy is walking fine. Why does he have a disabled tag on his plate?” Within seconds I was berating myself. There I was judging another person whom I knew *nothing* about, and thinking he was faking or being a liar; neither of which I had any evidence of.
kristinc
Taking off my analytical hat, I’d like to say I think this kid is lucky he has you to advocate for him. It’s definitely heartbreaking. Poor kid. No kid should have to deal with the cops because of this sort of a circumstance. I hope it all works out in the long run.
Tony @ 279
Exactly! : )
ednaz:
Best of luck to you with rebuilding and moving forward with your life.
I completely understand becoming a hermit. I have too. Being fired twice in one year for B.S. makes it so frustrating. Being broke all the time means I can’t socialize with my friends much. There are days I don’t leave the house, so that I can save gas. I haven’t been to the gym in 2 months because I can’t afford the monthly fees. Between missing K earlier (really I was missing the *idea* of having a boyfriend you know? Just having someone to kiss) and being frustrated at not making enough money to live on, I was really in a mood (still am to a small extent).
Hi folks, and hi PZ — just to let you know, check your email, I’ll be writing to you in a minute or two. :-)
Thanks Portia. Doesn’t look like I’ll be able to do a lot for him — I’d love to have the resources to say “sure, pack a bag, we’ve got lots of space” but … yeah. I don’t. I’ll do what I can.
Best of luck, kristinc.
Re: hermitage. I do that sometimes, because going out means being social, which can feel risky. And expensive. So some weekends I just don’t leave my house. The downside of a home office is I’m not always forced out into the world, and I end up wallowing in hermitude even when I’m working.
Anyhow, goodnight all, I’m turning in. Take care out there.
Tony @ 283 – My sister’s mother-in-law had a handicap sign for her car. She wore braces on her legs – which noone could see as they were under her pants. People would yell at her. She would lift the cuff of her jeans and show them the braces!
It was a real eye-opener for me.
I also tell myself, when I see someone with a sign who seems to be “walking just fine” that it could be a family member who is handicapped and that person is the one who does the driving. : )
Tony – I hear you. You have my ear and *hugs* if you want them. And thanks for your kind words.
Portia – Thanks for your understanding. I appreciate it. And *hugs to you too. : )
kristinc – You are a good person. I hope you can help your son’s friend with very little (or no) grief.
If you live in the midwest of the U.S.A. go outside right now and look at the moon!!
It has two HUGE circles around it that connect. It is amazing!
: )
Hope I didn’t miss too much, and everyone is OK! I’ve been ill with Exorcist scene vomiting, headaches, weakness, and diarrhea that gave a whole new context to Johnny Cash’s song Burning Ring of Fire. Ugh. Better finally, tonight. My doctor doesn’t know if it is the drugs I quit or not. (That’s so fucking helpful)
The news out here is reporting New York is getting pounded, so I am worried about the Darkheart family especially because of the new baby.
I hope all the Horde is safe. *begins hand wringing of a jewish grandmother*
Regarding handicapped permits, we have a lot of veterans that come into our office that have them. Sometimes it isn’t a walking issue for legs, sometimes it’s breathing issues. Another cause, M has a permit and it isn’t for breathing or legs, it’s for 4F flat feet that can only walk so far. He simply cannot walk from the furthest edge of a parking lot into a store or pharmacy.
In Oregon he was able to get a sticker for his bike & sidecar, making him able to ride for another year to the store. :D
It’s coldish here.
About -4°C.
Best hopes for all in the path.
and hugses for everyone else.
Oh. and
we stopped at the convenience store on the way home … bought smokes, chocolate, chips, milk, cat food and aspirin.
(but not bread (I won’t be baking until Wednesday or Thursday))
bread is the reason we stopped at the convenience store.
John Scalzi knocks one out of the park. Trigger Warning.
Patricia O.M. – Sending tea and warm slippers and what else can I send?
Patricia @296:
Thank you for the added perspective.
****
I feel kinda bad complaining about the chilly 50º F we have here when chigau is dealing with -4ºC.
ednaz:
Thank you for the hugs and concern :)
chigau –
Oh no! Aaaarrgghh!
Good morning
Where has the night gone?
Oh, I remember…
Seems like the littel one picked up a Croup and I’m debating myself whether to take her to the doc this morning. Everything I read on the internet says yes.
+++
Hope all Hordlings are safe and dry and the worst is over.
+++
kristinc
Fuck.
Maybe a night of peace and some sympathetic people, i.e. you can at least help jim to figure out realistic options, because just staying with friends obviously isn’t one.
Damn. Following up on my last post, is another one requiring a Trigger Warning (again, about rape).
The statistics are horrifying.
Ah Tony, just wait until chigau has an actually cold day. I used to live in the same city and the minus 20c’s are not far off and it’s likely to get down to the mid minus 30c’s at some point. Refreshing! :)
Oh, that’s not good. Respiratory distress is one of those things they take seriously in the very young. I’d go to be on the safe side. I had a peditrician tell me that for the first child she spent most of her time reassuring parents that they probably wouldn’t kill their child. For the second she spent most of her time pointing out that it was indeed possible to kill their child. Her point was that we can get a bit too casual because with the second child we now have a sample size of one feeding our availability heuristic.
I had “The” croup as a child and ended up in an oxygen tent. Mind you, this was in the early seventies, here’s hoping they have better treatments now. As a sign of just how different times were: I remember being back at home after the hospital stay. My parents put me in my room with one of those old steam vaporisers. I was having trouble sleeping and was scared and restless until I noticed that there was a parent watching over me in the dark room. How did I know? By the glow of their cigarette. Oi.
Tony
FossilFishy has it correct.
Tonight is put on a hoody.
Later is put a cat under the hoody (while wearing said hoody).
—
ednaz
I’m making biscuits for breakfast.
ednaz & Tony – I know that there are some folks that are less than honest with the permits, but as we transition from the WWII generation into the Korean and Viet Nam veterans you will see more and more people that you may not understand their disability. Some PTSD sufferers simply cannot cross the wide open space of a large parking lot. So thanks for taking a second look at the permit system. :)
FossilFishy
I did laugh aloud.
My General Practitioner used to conduct an exam whilst smoking.
Ah. The good old days.
*cough*
ednaz – Thanks for the warm fuzzies! Three of us can’t figger out what happened to me. Was it suddenly stopping the drugs my doctor proscribed, was it a bug I caught, was it some wine I drank that tasted like Dow dumped the dregs of every vat in it?
Who knows, but I’m sure happy to be better!
And I laughed out loud at the ‘eh’ correction. I’ve been away too long it seems.
I also fear that I’ve become so weak from antipodal living that should I return I would be culled by wolves the second I stepped off the plane.
The news reports from back East are scaring me. I’m worried as hell about y’all.
I wanna show up with every pot I own full of hot bubbling soups, and every baking dish full of hot buttered biscuts.
Oh dear, oh dear! :((((
FossilFishy
Should you return, do it in Northern Hemisphere Summer.
The shorts and
thongsflipflops will fit right in.The wolves will be in some basement-bar, wearing sunglasses and howling under their breath.
(probably at a table with Brownian)
Sandy seems intent on causing trouble. Flying signs killing people? That’s windy.
In other news, the news reporters here can’t seem to decide whether ‘Sandy’ is masculine or feminine (it’s important because it’s a strictly gendered language with no neuter option and according to the language laws they can’t just write ‘Sandy’, it has to follow local grammar rules). One news outlet is saying ‘Sendijs’ and the other is saying ‘Sendija’. :P Useless trivia.
Seconding love for Angel intro music. I haven’t heard it in years (listening to the linked video right now).
I’ve been watching some Buffy episodes lately, but I think I’ll have to download Angel too. I didn’t watch the series to the end. Considering some spoilers I’ve read here, it seems I’ve stopped watching quite a bit before the end.
I’ve read the thread before going to the store, so now I’m not sure any more who were the people I wanted to address, so I’ll just offer *hugs* for everyone who needs them.
ednaz @294:
Is what you are seeing the optical ‘halo’ effect? I have seen a double one on a few occasions in Alberta. Not so much here in SoCal :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_%28optical_phenomenon%29
Well, my area is ok. A few hundred without power in the county, and some trees down here and there in town, and there was one power line that went down and caught fire. There was a no-drive order last night that does not appear to have been rescinded, but they also haven’t closed the school district, so I assume that means it’s no longer in effect.
Finally! A use for forty-foot high killer rats. We already have about two dozen, so just a few dozen more, point them at South Africa, and voilà, a free phone: South Africans offered free phone for every 60 rats caught.
I wonder how long it will be before the Patrician’s advice (“tax the rat farms”) will be sought…
So, there and back again.
Even managed to spend half an hour in college to tell everybody I’m not there.
And I got homeopathic bullshit, even though I told the guy I don’t believe in that stupid (German doctors are a riddle wrapped in an enigma in that respect.)
And I got real medicine.
+++
I hope everybody on the East coast is safe. The pictures look scary (although there are always a few idiots who should have put “stupidity” on their death certificate in case they die, I’m angry that they also endanger rescue personel and take up resources urgently needed)
A poll!
http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/awards/shonky-awards/shonkys/shonkys-2012-poll.aspx
Vote for the homeopathy (“Nature’s Way Kids Smart Natural Medicines”) to win the shonkiest of the shonkies product award.
Wait, they get upset because Toblerone bars have not-easily-to-divide-servings? Seriously, there must be some bigger problems in the world…
I’ve never had a problem dividing a Toberlone into equal shares, since I do not share my Toberlones with anyone!
Hope all the East USA coastal Pharyngulites & other FTBers are well and safe from the Storm.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
From the old “somebody-give-that-man-a-geography-lesson” thread on Mitt Romney’s geographical cluelessness posted here because the people I wish to thank are more likely to see it here :
@107. Nepenthe [Answering the doublely landlocked nation question.]
Cheers. Much appreciated.
@76. Ogvorbis: broken and cynical :
No worries. Thanks.
@126. JohnnieCanuck
23 October 2012 at 6:20 pm
Hey, I’ve actually got that map myself somewhere! Its a good one I reckon.
@258. Portia :
See :
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4341984.html
An article on The Drum (Aussie news) website already covering that possible set of implications from Sandy.
Horrible if it takes disasters like this to wake people up to the reality of Global Overheating and consequent climatic change. But perhaps true?
Not than anybody deserves the suffering here which no doubt will hit those least responsible for causing the problem and worst off and least able to cope with such catastrophes hardest. As is so often the case with Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating.
[Flying in yet again]
1) ‘Rupt.
2) ‘Ello all.
3) Moving day soon I think!
Louis
Kristinc
around here there are a lot of 15-17yo boys living on friends couches. Usually due to step parentitus. Best you can do is offer to feed em and let them stay over one or two nights then rotate out. My son and his peer group are now 18+ so that phase of liability is over. Now to get them to clearly understand that there is no imbibing of booze on my property until the youngest peer is 21.
Hello, Louis
kristinc, I’m glad the boy has you to help with this. I’ve been where he is. My advice comes from my experience, though.
My mother was on drugs at the time and our house basically became a crackhouse. I ran away. When the woman I was staying with, who had gotten out the system herself and was a distantly connected friend, had called to find out how to keep me from having to go back we didn’t get much help. I don’t actually remember what they said but then the cops showed up even though my mother honestly didn’t know where I was. I had to go back home. They made me and threatened to arrest the woman helping me and me.
I couldn’t stay home, not around drug addicts smoking that crap and I was pregnant. So I ran away again. The cops came out and I hid around til they went away. I found a program that helps teenagers and dealt with a social worker there. She told me I was still listed as a runaway and told me she had called to get that removed. She got me into a program for pregnant teens who actually had a space available. I go to sign into the program, only to find out I’m still listed as a runaway and that they can’t sign me in without my mother’s signature. Well, shit. The case workers there didn’t give up though. They told my mother to sign me in or they were going to open a neglect case with CPS and get me in that way. They weren’t going to send me back to her since I’d just runaway again and be in danger. My mother signed me in. I stayed in programs. Some suck, some rock but at least it wasn’t home.
I’ve known kids to run from couch to couch. The parent’s remain in control and can yank him back with cops anytime and threaten any person who helps him. The abuse will most likely get worse. He’ll have a hard time going to school, since his parents will know where he is, which leads to the high drop out rate. Without parents, social workers or a program, he won’t be able to get back into a school by himself.
Look for programs for him and if all else fails call CPS. I know that’s not a happy prospect and he isn’t going to want to do it but anything else long term will most likely end badly for everyone If you and your family are willing, and the boy wants too, CPS might even let him stay with you. Less upheaval, with people that cares about him and the sheer lack of places for kids like him to go would factor in to sway in your favor. Of course, if you do that and the parents know, I don’t expect it to go pleasantly. At the very least, you can call anonymously to CPS and get information directly from them for your state and specifics before you guys make the next decision.
If he’s extremely resistant and you worry he’ll bot at the mere mention of these things, I don’t know what else to do but give him a reality check. The statistics. The risks to him and you. I’m sure he’s a good kid and won’t want to get you guys or anyone else in trouble. Let him know though you’ll go to bat for him, you guys just need to do it in a legally responsible way so your family doesn’t get wrecked in the process. Tell him my story, or find other stories. It’s a hard reality. No one thinks that this will happen. Every teenager assumes they’d be the one to make it work all on their own. I have yet to meet a single one. I only know bad, bad stories that don’t end well. All the kids I know in programs complained and said it sucked but most of them survived at least.
(It’s not so bad usually, just the usual teenage complaining. )
Sounds like the internet is the perfect place for us hermits to huddle together and drink.
Seriously, I’m right where you are and man does it suck. I hope it gets better. Or more precisely, that it changes for the better.
.
Hmm. Looks like the main difference between broboxly’s experience and mine, is abusive parents and how bad they are.
So determining how bad his home situation is and how bad the parents are going to react would be a good starting point, I think. And how this kid is going to react as well obviously.
this guy was seriously pissed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225061/Church-pastor-killed-Rev-Danny-Kirk-Sr-beaten-death-electric-guitar.html
Superstorm Sandy: every verified event mapped and detailed. I don’t see the cause of it all, the Laughing Dark One, listed…
Or just took “axe” a bit too literally.
ednaz
Anytime. *hugs* : )
What?! Damn, I always go to bed a couple minutes too early. Or a couple hours too late, depending on how you look at it.
Freakonomics did a podcast about exactly that. Except phones weren’t the reward. But it’s an interesting podcast.
Giliell @321:
I notice commercials for homeopathic products a lot more than I used to (must be from hanging out here). Yesterday at work, I watched one about some product designed to eliminate some sort of tiny skin lesions (I can’t remember the exact name). I rolled my eyes when they mentioned the “active ingredient”.
****
blf:
The penguin is standing right there—>.<—
How can you miss the lil' guy?
Chilly Willy did it!
teh cuteness
http://www.slothsanctuary.com/
Did I fuck up a really easy dessert? Yes, yes I have.
Argh
(the custard is lumpy)
Either you’re desperate or you’re really into kinky stuff…
*high five* for Jadehawk!
–
*hug* for ednaz.
–
Patricia, glad to hear you’re better. Symptoms sound…un-fun.
–
:(
–
Possibly the one I saw just last night, that claims to remove skin tags. Eye-rolly indeed!
–
Have y’all seen this?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/29/fair-warning-to-convention-attendees/comment-page-1/#comment-482236
—–
Beatrice
Is it too late for raisins?
blf, ha ha ha
(it was, as I said, easy. asking for it, one could say)
—
chigau,
raisins don’t go into this one. It’s just thick custard between two thin pieces of puff pastry (Samoborska kremšnita)
Well, I totally dodged the Sandy bullet. I’m going to attribute it to my taking Lindsay Lohan’s advice. I stopped projecting negativity and I prayed for peace. That totally changed the path of the storm, right?
This link (from @334) suggests its been wobbling left and right. Someone is preying in the opposite direction. Or being negative.
Most likely, Teh Great Sky Faerie is as shite at driving a superstorm as it is at everything else (except being shite at things…), and didn’t even notice your preying. Or misinterpreted it as a request to put The Grateful Dead on the CD (and then probably tried to turn the superstorm over to the B-side, being shite at doing stuff…).
Joe
Glad you’re OK
I wished we knew of the Darkhearts…
Yep.
Been walking around the office with my fly down all morning.
Awesome.
Yay! Joe. Good preying.
—-
re Darkhearts
yeah.
It’s almost 12 hours since Audley’s last comment.
Rev
Have you zipped it up?
I got an email from Audley about 90 minutes ago.
Not yet. Going to ride it out for a few more hours.
Yay! for Audley email (assuming it was good news).
—
Rev.
har
It was good news, and I’m reminded I should answer her, ha. Cute cute picture of DI with her mama, to boot.
Huzzah!
–
+1
–
More huzzah!
–
huh, wasnt sky pixies that caused the storm but President Obama
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/10/29/conspiracy-theorists-say-obama-engineered-hurricane-sandy
Chrysler corrects Romney
more at linky
I just got a pro bono file. Client speaks only Swahili. This will be interesting. Luckily the legal aid agency provides interpreters when necessary.
I maded a meme thingy…
–
Asshole capitalism:
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/iconic-us-retailer-slammed-cyclone-sandy-sale-5177029
(via JoeMyGod)
cicely
har
Sorry for not checking in sooner, guys! I got to sleep in this morning, then my mom stopped by to check up on us* and drop off new, clean, non-pooped Onesies. We are all fine– Sandy was pretty much a non-event up this way. We had (and continue to have) gusty winds, but we never lost power and barely got any rain.
*Our neighborhood is whoa prone to flooding.
Hi Audley.
Ummm… yay Audley?
chigau – Oh no! I missed the biscuits! I haz a sad. : (
Patricia OM – Thanks for another perspective. Always appreciate that.
McC2lhu @ 318 – Yes. It was the ‘halo’ effect. The second ring intersected the ‘halo’. So beautiful.
Thanks for the knowledge! I love learning.
Yay Audley!
JAL @ 331
The more the merrier! Thanks for your kindness. Thank Science for the Internet – we’re less isolated. : )
cicely @341- Thanks for the hug. Sending one back to you. : )
Beatrice – no worries. You just invented a new dessert. All it needs is a name. *thumbsup*
Rev. BDC @ 357 – Thanks for the link. Enjoyed this so much.
Yay! Joe is safe!
Yay! The Darkhearts are safe!
cicely @ 359 – I LIKE this!!
ednaz,
Heh, that’s a good way of looking at it. *thumbsup*
Portia
Bahati nzuri!
:)
(I human translator is probably a good idea. Gooogle Translate can have … issues.)
Hooray, and thanks to everyone that has checked in to say they are OK! The pictures we’re seeing out here are terrifying.
cant we all just get along?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/eagle-fox-cats-hang-out_n_1389438.html
ednaz,
Thanks for the concern. :)
I did 8 years in Florida facing those storms, so I think I was a little over-prepared this time. Now I’ve got a whole lot of canned crap ravioli I have to eat.
We got my son’s friend off to school this morning. I still don’t know what’s going to happen with him in the future. Broboxley, I forgot that one of his parents is a step until you brought that up, but right now I can’t remember if the stepparent is the dad who actually hit him, or the mom who told Misterc on the phone “We are allowed, by law, to lay hands on him”. Ugh.
Anyway, his mom wanted him to come home tonight, but it didn’t sound like he planned to do that. He’s pretty cagey about his plans but it sounds like it’ll be someone else’s couch tonight.
For now my strategy is to try and stay open to him. He doesn’t live in our neighborhood but rather in the neighborhood where my son goes to school. I’m going to pass the word through my son — if I don’t see the friend himself soon — that if he needs a hot meal he should come to our house, and if he’s really in a bind with nowhere to stay the night that he feels is safe, he should come over but tell us that his parents totally know where he is. I hope if we remain available to offer what help we can, he’ll come to us when he needs something we can give.
I’m still not sure if I should call protective services myself. Did I already say that he talked to his counselor at school about being hit and she contacted the authorities? According to him, they went to talk to his parents, but did not come to talk to him at school to record the bruises he had. Dumbshits. I was thinking that if I registered a report too, it might make intervention on his behalf more likely, but then I don’t really know whether calling attention to him will actually result in attention to what’s best for him, or rather how best to keep him (as a brown, teenage “runaway”) in line.
So, talking about Sandy and the elections, German media think that Obama is profiting from the catastrophy politically as he’S all present and so far doing a good job.
Do they get it right?
kristin
Can’t offer much advice (basically systems are just too different), but I remembered some general advice given to people who might face some legal investigations (like being a witness) etc in the future:
Write down everything as precisely as you can NOW. Legal matters take ages and in three or five months your memory of some details or timelines will invariably be gone.
*sigh*
That’s an all too common story, unfortunately. It’s why I don’t have much trust in CPS. They didn’t help me when my mother and her boyfriend were addicts and there wasn’t any food in the house. Yet I have a dirty room in a shelter and CPS is up my ass threatening me because I hadn’t yet taken out the trash that day.
I hope he finds a solution that works for him and that everything turns out okay. I’m glad he has at least one family to turn to.
Well, Chris Christie went from lambasting the POTUS to lauding him. For whatever that’s worth. It’s great PR to have an notoriously acerbic GOP figure come out in such unequivocal praise. I haven’t heard any negatives about how he’s handling it, only positives.
Well, shit, JAL, maybe you should tell them your kid came home late a couple times and sometimes she yells at you. Then they’ll decide she’s a delinquent getting what she deserves. *bitter laugh*
Here is The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.
Do not ever say I never gave you anything.
Ratzafrassin’ English Lit instructor decided, tyranically and arbitrarily, that our papers may not use any blockquotes. Only quotes of 3 lines or less, in-line with the text.
But my 4-line blockquotes were so goooooddd … *sniffle*
chigau
I think you’re quite right. I’m thinking there’d be serious liability issues if i relied on google : )
Joe
Dang, Joe, I’m sorry to hear that.
I was looking forward to your cooking adventures on the campstove.
So, one little batty-wing done, one to go!
But google translate tells me to say “Thank you” to you, too : )
ednaz,
Well, my grill is bigger than a camp stove so not as much of an adventure as it could have been. More like just trying to figure out how to boil water and heat cans of soup and such. I’m way more looking forward to the current crop of cooking adventures… shrimp fra diavolo, crab spring rolls, cottage pie.
Hi, I hope everyone of our US denizens is fine Sandy-wise. I had the surreal experience of watching CNN in my Bangkok hotel room earlier today, where Richard Quest was explaining while LaGuardia airport was flooded, while pointing out the 3000 odd planes currently in US airspace.
Off to the Gulf of Thailand tomorrow.
Rev @ 213,
Fuck yeah, if the book is anything to go by!
rorschach,
You’re in Bangkok? I expect you’ll be enjoying the thing that the city is most famous for? Try not to drop too much money, and try to have fun!
I’m glad to hear those in the path checking in safe.
kristinc – How very unfair. I always took a special delight in using blockquotes, because sometimes you just can’t say it in three lines or less.
Giliell – How are you doing batwings? I remember how my mother did them and I did bird wings recently, but I’m curious about your method.
Smog? Sweltering heat? You got that right.
Here we go.
http://www.examiner.com/article/christian-leader-blames-homosexual-agenda-for-hurricane-sandy
I thought this time it would be the fault of the abortion loving democratic pagans stirring up Poseidon.
rorschach… I was talking about chess!
Should be a semi-treat for all the Buffy/Angel fans too.
And you’re enjoying that???
–
All that storm nesting talk makes me weirdly jealous. I got to go out and buy some provisions for the big huge snowstorm in early ’11, it was kinda fun. And I have a little backpacking stove that I’ve only used once.
Inorite? And this is a verse play, so being able to include blockquotes really made a difference in being able to capture the flavor of the work I’m analyzing (the characters of Creon and Iocaste versus Oedipus in Oedipus Rex: my thesis is that Creon lacks a desire to take matters into his own hands, and Iocaste is gunshy about knowledge in general, so neither of them has the complete recipe for trainwreck that Oedipus has).
His reasoning was that too often students turn in 1200 words of mostly blockquote and not enough analysis. But, but, I don’t have that problem! Can’t I be a special snowflake? Now I’ve had to chop and butcher segments of beautifully eloquent verse.
Improbable Joe: Buffy fan, love that song, watched the video a dozen times and never once noticed that the Head brothers, well, look like brothers. Doh.
rq
Fabric and thick cord. They aren’t very glamorous, but given that tomorrow is Halloween already, they’ll do.
Rey Fox
Shopping… my motto has always been that where other people see problems, I see opportunities. Opportunities to buy high-priced solutions to tiny little problems, which is why I have a $250 pocket knife that I use to open my mail. :)
kristinc – Then he should mark according to analysis, and if someone has stuffed their essay full of quotes, well, too bad for them! And he could tell people not to use too may quotes – you know, teach people how to use them properly and all that teacherly stuff… I know some will hand in a block-quote essay anyway, but… sucks for those who have to butcher and chop. I HATE doing that to delicious, delicious quotes – because they’re supposed to be read together, not in pieces or by parts. :( Good luck chopping and butchering, though! I hope your argument doesn’t disappear.
+++
Personal rant. I do some translating on the side. Current work: which horoscope signs are most accident and injury prone. Commented by a certified astrologer. I’m sorry, can I just translate the whole thing as ‘wrong’? (Although, for those women born under Pisces, Aries, or Taurus, or men under Cancer, don’t be surprised if you start paying higher insurance premiums – apparently we’re accident prone!) Gah. At least it’s a short article.
Joe – Ah, it’s a grill. Thanks for the clarification. MUCH better than what I thought you would have to work with.
Here’s to more cooking adventures. : )
kristin, I’m sort of an trivia savant is how I know that link, and why when I read “Bangkok” I think of that song. I’m not even a Buffy fan, I couldn’t get through the first 4-5 episodes, but I might try again thanks to Netflix.
Giliell – I think for Halloween, not glamourous should do even better than glamorous. :) Filing away for future reference (the fabric and thick cord).
rq: as an old lady (all of 33) in my first year of college, I’m consistently boggled-to-shocked at how work-avoidant many of my younger classmates are. Like, why do you even want to be there if you’re not the slightest bit interested in interpreting literature more effectively? or writing better? I fully realize, though, that this is a function of me being one of those bizarre specimens who’s going to college voluntarily.
The Xtian smackasses blaming Sandy of teh gays just 2 months after Stephen Colbert satirized this very position is proof that satire is not merely redundant, it’s prescient.
And then there’s Brownie chastising Obama for responding to rapidly to Sandy.
Help! I’m trapped inside The Onion!
kristinc – Haha, college voluntarily… Oh wait. In a couple of years, that will be me, too (probably around the ripe old of 33 as well, by the time I get around to it).
Reminds me of the time I took second-year physiology while in fourth year, and wrote up (to my mind) one of the crappiest, most-rushed lab write-ups ever, and got an 86% (to my surprise). I asked the TA about it (who happened to be in one of my fourth-year classes), and she explained that for a second-year level course, it was an excellent write-up. Left me wondering where, along the whole line, my lab-writing abilities had actually improved… Well, at least the experience of a couple of years taught me SOMEthing! And I suppose my point is that at least a few of those younguns will also learn to be more interested in actual interpretation rather than word-count. Eventually. In the meantime, enjoy being the wise one! ;)
It’s easy, too. And oh so repetitive. For fuck’s sake, superstition peddlers, give us some new material. The whole blame-the-gays-then-get-caught-with-an-underage-male-prostitute thing is SO PLAYED OUT.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My step-dad passed out drunk with their door open music blasting. A friend of my parents notified me since mom had left like 10 mins before to pick up the Little One and all was normal. All three animals got out roaming the property and the adopted dog almost ran into the street. Their cat ran back inside their house, I unplugged the music and shut the door on my step-dad’s head so the cat wouldn’t get back out. I have both dogs inside my house because attempting to put them back in their house is futile without leashing and not being their owner. Our adopted kitty is going crazy trying to get away from the dogs because they are trying to sniff his butt like a little train. Then I had to call my mother to tell her where the animals are to and to bring Little One home the long way so she wouldn’t see fuckface passed out.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Hi.
No outages here. Heavy wind (especially up high) and moderate rain. My wireless router, however, decided this would be a good time to reprogramme itself. Hope all are in good shape — not too much Sandy in your shorts.
JAL,
Gosh, you’re a better person than me. If I could send you magical pet-keeping and idiot-tolerating energy, I really would.
JAL
Oh shit.
I really, really wish for a large amount of god luck to come your way.
*hugses*
kristinc
Well, I had both, the young college student-life and the, let’s call it mature for the lack of a better word, student-life.
I enjoyed being young and doing tons of stuff and well, not being as straightforward as I should have been* and even with all my troubles I’m not saying it was that bad.
Apart from some real spoiled brat problems (which I couldn’t stand back in my youthfull days either, cause if your biggest problem is to find somebody to take care of your horse while you’re flying to the States for a holiday, you don’t have problems), the only thing that annoys me now is when the “kids” actually disrupt classes. It’s OK if you don’t want to listen, but I do.
Which reminds me that I still have a mail to write
*Former German system really wasn’t for me. Nobody gave a shit if you lived or died, so, duh, I can still do that next semester.
Omg, could I use that energy or any energy at all right now.
Mom brought Little One home and took the dogs back in separate trips. Little One threw a fit over not being able to go to Grandma’s as planned. Mom came back over to help explain and calm the Little One down. Fuckface woke up, opened the door and let all the animals out. Then started yelling and chasing them. Did I mention the dogs are little furballs of energy? Little One hears him and runs over. Hugs him and asks him if he really is sick and she can’t come over. He said of course you can come over! Oh. Great. Thanks. He’s still drunk, slurring, stumbling and yelling in normal conversation. Little One proceeds to throw a fit again since the Almighty Grandad said it was okay.
Now I let Little One watch this god aweful Monster High show crap because I just don’t have the energy or strength to deal with her high pitched, kicky screaming hair pulling scaring the neighbors fit.
I hate that show. It’s like the Winx Club but with monsters like Frankie Stein in full make-up, ultra-unrealistic skinny and heals in high school.
*collapse & cry*
Oh, god another episode of Monster High. It’s animated differently but it’s still terrible. At least the Zombie nerd isn’t drooling like a fool and being treated like a pet. That was just cruel.
And now it’s a lecture about how Valentines day was started and made for a Vampire at their school. Why if their 1600 years old are they in high school? Seriously, they called it a sweet 1600 party.
It just gets worse and worse.
JAL, hugs if you want them.
— — — — — — — — — —
One reason why there is so much good music in Scandinavia?
“Legatum prosperity index” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-30/u-s-prosperity-slides-in-index-that-ranks-norway-no-1.html
Norway, Denmark & Sweden tops the new list. I don’t buy that you have to suffer to be creative, in that case Bangladesh or Haiti would have the world’s greatest artists.
The morons who thinks suffering is ennobling are jerks. And normally I would be into schadenfreude over USA falling off the top ten list, but with the hurricane and eveything I just feel sad.
— — — — — —
Copied some flyers about a missing cat today and mailed them to the cat owner.
— — — —
We had our first snowfall yesterday afternoon, 29 October. Unfortunately, it changed into rain and now it is just the usual late autumn misery.
JAL
*Big hugs*
Can you set boundaries and make it clear that he’s not welcome when he’s drunk? I know I have those problems with #1 and her grandma, too (although I’m, of course, 1000 times better off not living next doors), she knows that something is wrong and she wants to get her life back as it used to be, with frequent stays and slumber-parties and everything. And it’s simply mean that you have to be the asshole and tell them no and set the boundaries.
My talk with the Little One about how Monster High is a terrible show has failed. No matter where I started or what angle I used, she just kept saying,”But they’re pretty!”.
Fuuuuuuck.
I have bargained a special treat of strawberry milk to change the channel. I’m just so full of fail today.
Why couldn’t have Ninja Turtles, Batman, My Little Pony, Spongebob, or anything, anything else have been on right now?
/headdesk
JAL:
Hugs and sympathy.
I missed out on the joys of parenthood, can’t say I’m even slightly wistful.
(Better others than I)
I would favour dosing up far-gone alcoholics with antabuse every day, whether they consent or not. Regarding “freedom of choice” the addiction has hijacked their brains and *already* deprived them of freedom.
If we ever get some narcotics-blocking drugs they should also be administrated to far-gone addicts regardless of consent.
.
Just as we prevent clinically depressed people from committing suicide*, we should prevent the slower self-destruction of addicts and alcoholics.
As I have mentioned above, the addiction has already taken away the freedom to choose.
*not the same thing as terminally ill people wanting to end it.
— — — — — — — — —
SF authors; The Polish author Stanislaw Lem and the Russians Boris and Arkady Strugatsky have a much different style from western authors. Plus, their ideas are very good.
Weird SF: I have just finished reading “Empty Space” by a British Sf author that is lauded by reviewers. I did not get it, nor did I get his previous novels. I feel like a rube that goes to a museum and sees a painting by Pollock.
JAL.
I was in your little one’s situation as a child except it was my dad who was the alcoholic. It was so very hard because I didn’t understand why he acted the way he did. Sober Dad I loved as children do, unconditionally, absolutely. Drunk Dad frightened me beyond all reason. It was scary and confusing and my solution was to withdraw, while my brother’s was to act out.
Now as a parent I can see just how hard it must have been for my Mum, trying to keep it all together in the midst of an uncontrollable situation. She had to ride the storm of his sodden and misshapen emotions, sheltering us as best she could. No easy task that, being an umbrella in the gale.
So I say that the occasional collapse and cry and some crappy TV to keep the peace is no bad thing at all. Do what you have to do to keep yourself sane, and remember that there is no shame in taking a little time out.
I wish I had more to offer than crappy advice from the other side of the world. Hang in there and hugs if you want them.
Oh, trust me he knows this. He decided to get drunk knowing the plans for Little One to come over because he thought he’d be sober in time. He knows this is stupid but he’s also an alcoholic. So he gets to be drunk and detox and feel like shit. I’m, frankly, out of sympathy for him. He doesn’t treat my mother well at all and I find his behavior at the very least emotional abusive. We’ve had this discussion. I’ve kept Little One home because of his stupidity and drunkenness before.
We just in the same apartment complex and his drunkenness outside is what caused the problem this time. My mother knows I will cut him out completely because seriously this shit isn’t right. Just last week he got arrested because he was being drunk and stupid. My mom’s just in the terrible position of not having any income since her disability claim was denied and is being appealed. Going on 4 or 5 years now. With me not working either (fuck is it hard trying to get a job) and relying on Roomie for support the only way to cut out step-dad without cutting out Grandma would be for her to move in with us, bringing her 3 pets along. All surviving on Roomie. And it’s not like we could move so he’d still be nearby no matter what.
But he knows how I feel about him. Roomie feels the same way. Step dad also has other problems making him a terrible person while not drunk, like saying the n-word like it’s nothing. *sigh* He’s not allowed at our house and he knows to stay the fuck away from Roomie. He’s allowed to see the Little One while sober and supervised. I prefer to be there because I’m scared he’s going to berate Mom into submission. However, I’ve seen Mom step up and stand up for Little One. Step dad has admittedly been mostly co-operative about what’s allowed and what’s not like no spanking, stay firm on the time out, no sugars late, don’t say racist shit like the n-word, etc. He hasn’t broken those and my other rules. He’s just also an alcoholic fuckhead who goes through this about once a month. Then sober for awhile and things are good. Then back to drunken stupidity. It’s a terrible cycle, though we’ve been good about protecting Little One. She’s knows he’s sick but doesn’t quite get that you can’t always see people’s sickness by looking at them.
Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
JAL
More hugs
There’s one series where I stomp my foot and that is “Chi Rho The Secret”, a TV series telling Bible stories as an adventure trail back through time and I’m not letting them get the idea that there was a guy called Noah who built an ark.
I’m the MUM!
With the other stuff I try to watch it with them and talk about it, make remarks and such. Oh yes, I dare to *scary music* judge and don’t let my kids develop their “own tastes” carefully formed with the aid of a multi-billion dollar budget.
Maybe you can talk about the monsters being pretty but also that women can’t look like that and whether there isn’t actually something more important about the characters? Like they’re good friends, or smart and so on…
JAL
Shit. You’re really betwee a rock and a hard place. I know that stuff is hard to deal with when you have solid middle-class privilege and you’re just basically stuck.
Fingers crossed for finding a job.
+++
Now off to bed. Seems like the little one might actually let me get some sleep…
JAL,
shit, I have no useful advice. It sucks.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
I actually prefer the very dry SF of Asimov or Clarke over this.
Empty Space: A Haunting (Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy 3) by M. John Harrison http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empty-Space-Haunting-Kefahuchi-Trilogy/dp/0575096314/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
John Harrison’s books have been compared to films by Lynch or Tarkovsky.
I actually like Tarkovsky but liking John Harrison is too much of a culture shock.
I’m sorry, that really, really sucks. My father was an alcoholic and drug addict and abusive. That’s what terrifies me and breaks my heart about Little One. I’ve kind of been there and I hated how my mother wasn’t there to protect me. I thought she left me, when in reality it was my Golden Boy father and his family that shoved her out and took me. That’s what my father wanted and he simply used my mother’s absence to emotional abuse me, to make me feel alone, worthless and like it was all my fault. It wasn’t til later that I reconnected with my mother and understood. Then she got addicted to drugs and I had to cut her out of our lives. I don’t like this. I don’t want this. I don’t want the cycle to keep going.
My father was a terrible person who should be behind bars to protect society even when he was sober. My step father isn’t like that but if he’s drunk, he’s dangerous and stupid. She’s so attached to him and it’s so, so sad. We’ve never let her see him like that so she doesn’t get it. She sees him as the funny, playful guy that loves her and taught her how to ride a bike. But even sober he has to been watched and on leash, so to speak because if he was allowed he’d be spouting bullshit about Satan, the endtimes, racism, and oh the list goes on. His good qualities are short so the leash is short. But when he’s good, he’s good. Which makes it all that much harder. If he gets worse, then I will leave to a shelter if I have to. I really can’t stand addicts around Little One and I’m terrified if he escalates. It will be the right thing to do, but she’ll be heartbroken, confused and hate me for it.
Poll people may probably / possibly be pleased to pharyngulate :
http://ninemsn.com.au/
VOTE :
Do you think hurricanes and climate change are linked?
Latest figures :
Yes = 5751
No = 7605
++++++++++++++
Note Ninemsn web polls tend to only be up for a day or so so get in quick.
419# birgerjohansson let me guess, you have the patent for antibuse in Russia :-)
Addiction isn’t that simple. Addicts when deprived often compensate in switching addiction to something else equally destructive.
Plus here’s :
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4343312.html
another new Drum item on Global Overhetaing and hurricane Sandy.
Er, sorry everyone that was a lot of heavy stuff to dump all at one time.
Thank you for everything. It does help. It’s a relief to get it off my chest and have people who get it. I don’t have really anyone to talk about this stuff besides here. I can’t talk to Roomie, he does the withdraw, hold in and ignore coping that I do.But for those times I need to let it out or explode I have to tell someone. I have no idea how he doesn’t burst sometimes because he refuses to talk emotions. Talking about anything bad that happened to me makes him rage with nothing to target so he shuts down and gets quiet. There’s my mom who will talk and listen but she blames everything on herself and it breaks my heart to see her so miserable. I can’t do that to her. I haven’t told her much about living with my father because I don’t want to push her over the edge.
So, thank you. It means more to me than I can express.
Oh, that’s good. I’ll have to remember that next time. Admittedly, I wasn’t in a good frame of mind to have that conversation with her so it’s no wonder it didn’t go well. Hearing her repeat in her sweet, little voice “But they’re pretty…” just broke me.
The United States congress:
http://www.xkcd.com/1127/
Click on the diagram to see large-scale diagram.
Incidentally, the diagram is the perfect answer to those who would cast their votes on a third party.
— — — — — — — —
broboxley,
Yes, I was thinking of winning time, preventing them from dying from liver failure. If they switch to meth or sniffing glue it is obviously time to take them off antabuse, hopefully the liver has had time to self-repair enough to handle the renewed influx.
— — — — — — — —
The Russian security apparatus has apparently kidnapped an opposition politician that had fled to Ukraine, brought him to the Lefertovo prison and subjected him to psychological torture to make him sign a confession implicating himself and two other politicians.
Now, now. “Do not lecture, blame, or scold me; you will only confirm my bad opinion of myself.”
*spits*
JAL: All you can do is try your best to break the cycle. It is possible, you are proof of that, as am I. In the face of all the other crap you have to deal with allowing a little gender-stereotyping TV is no great issue. All parents pick their battles and let some things slide just to get some peace. You have to take care of yourself too after all. There will be time enough to sort out sexist issues in the future. Do you have a copy of The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch? It stands the usual helpless princess trope from children’s books on it’s head.
#431 I was thinking more along the lines of degenerate gambling or other extremely risky behavior.
Wow!
An atheist ad on the front page of FtB.
I’m not sure it fits in here though.
This site loves some religious ads (yes, I know about the third party advertisers and the fact that none of the bloggers has any control over the ads; it’s just jarring to come here and consistently see religious ads).
cicely @341:
Yes! That was the commercial.
Skin tags. I still don’t know exactly what they are. Wikipedia, here I come.
****
Joe:
If you took her advice, then you’re *still* drunk and grinding your teeth.
The Bad Astronomer has this item :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/30/a-wind-is-rising/
on the link between HIRGO and Hurricane Sandy if folks are interested.
Reckon its worth a read and could probably do with a hand fighting the deniers in the comments there too.
Heckava whine, Brownie.
ednaz:
QFT!
This is my primary social outlet at the moment and without it…I shudder to think. I love the diversity of people here. At any given time, almost every single day, there’s a new perspective on a subject or a new piece of information I learn from someone (or several someones) here.
JAL:
Damn.
I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that shit from your step father. Is getting shit faced his normal pattern of behavior?
****
Joe:
Feel free to swap places with me. I don’t like Pensacola (wait, where in the U.S. do you live again? Up north?)
As for the ravioli-it could be worse.
You could be eating canned ASSparagus (that has to be one of the most disgusting items I’ve tried to eat. Asparagus in no good mushy.) or canned peas.
Giliell:
I’m not sure this would be beneficial.
Tony,
Currently drunk but not grinding teeth or planning to drive… I’m not actually influenced by Lindsay Lohan. :)
I was in Daytona, currently in Virginia, about a month from moving to New Mexico. We still have power, obviously. And I don’t/can’t eat canned veggies, but I love fresh asparagus. I toss it on the grill for a few minutes, and then toss it with olive oil and Parmesan cheese and sea salt.
*hugs* for JAL. Wish there was something….
–
They’re little (usually) sticky-outy bits of skin, not like a wart, and easily mistaken at first for a pimple. I’ve got ’em; the only ones that are a problem are the ones that are badly located, and big enough to catch on things. A nuisance, but hardly Epic Tragedy.
–
*sign of aversion*
–
Mmmmm…fresh asparagus with olive oil, parmasan cheese, and almond slivers, roasted in the oven.
–
Joe:
Grilled asparagus is amazing.
I like it exactly the way you described.
Funny thing-I don’t like the ends of asparagus (or broccoli). I *always* chop off the upper half of asparagus (inevitably, someone will eat it; or my dogs will); same with broccoli.
I also prefer thin asparagus. Those mutant ones that you could thump someone with just don’t look right.
****
cicely:
re: skin tags-
I see. Many thanks for the information.
(were you watching Food Network when that commercial came on?)
cicely:
I’ve done pine nuts and sunflower seeds, but never almonds… I’ll try that next time around. :)
Not as far as I know. The Husband had control of the remote, and I was trying to ignore the noise.
Unsuccessfully.
–
Pine nuts…I’ll have to try that.
–
cicely, Pine nuts are actually really really yummy. I stumbled across them mostly by accident, and so so good.
A while back I read a fantasy novel set in a world (similar to Australia in many ways) with something called bunya pines. Turns out they’re real — they drop life-endangering cones the size of a human head, containing what looks like giant pine nuts.
I know they’re awesome on salads.
–
this is pissing me off. I keep trying to submit a comment on the Screw those women… thread, and even though it’s only *one* link, it just disappears.
Let me try it here:
There are a great number of physiological changes women’s bodies undergo during pregnancy. I can imagine countless women do not enjoy *being* pregnant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_symptoms#Physiological_changes
Fuck.
What’s wrong with this post? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_symptoms#Physiological_changes
Parmesan AND salt? *cringe*
Sounds good otherwise.
Mmmmm… asparagus…
One of the few things I miss about living in Sussex is the proximity of asparagus farms where I could stop on my way home from dropping someone off at the airport and buy a huge bunch, picked that hour, for less than half the retail price. And the apple orchards just over the border in Kent, with fresh apples of dozens of varieties and bottles of their respective juices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JAL
I don’t have anything but e-hugs and praise to offer, I’m afraid.
I think you’re doing an amazingly good mothering job anyway; the circumstances that you have to do that job in, make that accomplishment even more impressive.
It is oh-so-easy to be made to feel a failure as a parent. Allowing Little One to watch a favourite (if meh) TV programme, especially when she has had a great disappointment, isn’t a bad thing to do. My kids watched some junk amongst the better programmes (and I think they’ve all turned out OK) because kids pay attention to what you say about advertising, sexism, racism, bullying, unrealistic expectations etc. between TV-watching sessions. Which means that you can tell Little One once in a while “You know what? You’re right. They are pretty!” without the sky falling in. She’ll learn soon enough to discriminate between good programming and rubbish, with your guidance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mature students:
I spoke with my daughter again this morning because we’re both worried that neither of us has been able to contact my sister in Long Island since Friday. During the conversation she mentioned that she really feels rather the odd-one-out in her course (BA in French and Politics at University). She has returned, after a long gap due to health reasons, to complete her final year. She’s 28; the other mature students are between ten and twenty years older than her. The ‘standard’ students are around five years younger but, she says, due to having absolutely nothing in common with them they might as well be ten or twenty years younger! However, the other mature students haven’t been incuding her in their group because she looks young for her age and they see her as one of the others.
Ah well; as she said, she didn’t go there to socialise! She did that first time round and still has her good friends from that earlier era.
Fuck.
I’ve tried *four* times now to post a link to a wikipedia page about the complaints women have about being pregnant. One link. I even reduced my comments down to 2 simple sentences.
Re: salads-
Do I have a recipe for the *ULTIMATE* salad:
Iceberg and romaine lettuce
Mixed greens
Carrots
Boiled Eggs
Red Onions
Leeks
Scallions
Crumbled Bacon (the real thing)
Sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds)
Seaweed Salad (just a small portion)
Blue Cheese Crumbles
Masago
Edamame
and whatever dressing you want (I typically use balsamic vinegar and olive oil)
I fixed this at a restaurant I used to work at (it had a sushi bar), and fell in *love* with it.
Tigger:
Ah apple juice. Neck and neck with grape juice for me.
I love any kind of apple juice, though it has to be 100% juice. I love warm/hot apple *cider* during the winter, especially with a honey flavored whiskey added to it. Yum Yum!
honey … flavored … whiskey?
I am enchanted.
Tell me more.
Tony, heretic!
boiled eggs cold are good for
egg salad
pickled eggs
It’s about the eggs not the garnish!
Isn’t it illegal for a political party to train their poll watchers with false information about voting regulations?
Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
kristinc:
Jack Daniel’s Honey
Evan Williams Honey
and
Seagram’sHoney
My rule of thumb:
If you like bourbon whiskey, you’re not likely to like honey flavored.
If you do NOT like bourbon whisky, you’re likely to enjoy honey whiskey.
I fit in the latter group. I don’t like any kind of whiskey (scotch or bourbon), but I enjoy the Jack Daniel’s Honey. I wanted to combine a Hot Toddy with Apple Cider (an Apple Toddy) and it worked.
broboxley:
Sorry, I’m not much of an egg salad fan and I *really* don’t like pickled eggs.
For me, boiled is the way to go. A little salt and pepper after they’re done and down the hatch they go, minus the yolk (yuck)
And boiled, they’re eggcellent on salads. Don’t care what you say NYAH NYAH.
JAL @429
Wow. This describes the primary relationships in my life. And my step dad sounds a lot like yours. I am so sorry to say I understand so much of what you’re talking about. [With the exception that my dad is not so terrible, just…immature].*hugs* and good wishes for getting a job and having more control over your circumstances.
-============-
I handled an extremely emotionally draining case today. Well, this evening. I am so wiped out. Do you ever feel so worried and upset, but you have to be the one holding it together, so by the time you can allow yourself to experience your emotions, they’re sort of…on vacation? That’s how I feel right now. Like my feelings are on vacation. And I’m not sure I want them to come back wrt this issue. It’s too overwhelming right now.
I’m also physically exhausted, but that was totally worth it because I got lots of apple cider out of all the cranking and pressing and apple washing and funneling. Josh is right, fall is nice.
Tony, what was particularly
nicedelicious about the apple juice was that the bottles came from a single, named variety of apple and so were all different. Pink Lady juice, Crispin juice, Cox’s Orange Pippin juice, Granny Smith juice…We always got in a crate of 12 different juices for Midwinter. One year, one of the younger boys opened a bottle and drank some, then put the re-sealed and partly-consumed bottle back in the crate under our bed. Over the place where hot water pipes ran under the floor. By the time the theft was discovered, the remaining juice had turned into what his big brothers termed “A very nice cider indeed!”
That salad sounds delicious; I’ll have to see if I can make it for this year’s Midsummer celebrations in December.
Portia:
I’m am highly intrigued by how you make apple cider. I’d love to see such a process.
Tony:
My aunt and uncle’s press is very similar to this one. That wheel on the side cranks a crushing mechanism to shred the apples before pressing. The difference is my uncle hooked that up to electricity so it’s a much easier process. Once the apples are shredded, you fold the sides of the mesh bag over top, put the wooden plate (I don’t know the names of the pieces, but this part in the above link is leaning against the front corner of the machine, it’s big round and wooden) on top, then crank the press down on it by screwing it down. If that makes sense, I’m a little brain dead. Then, where the end of the tray tapers, you put a container to catch the cider as it pours out. We used the same method when I was a kid to make cider out of concord grapes. Mmmm a vinyard was a delicious place to live.
(Aunt and Uncle are so environmentally friendly that they dry the pressed apple remains and add it to the feed for their organic beef.)
The press in this video is obviously quite a bit different, but it gives you the general idea of the mechanics of pressing. (And it taught me that the shredded apples are called “mulch”)
Portia:
Thank you for the video. I rather want to try that out one day. To the bucket list you go!
(minus any mention of golden showers).
…yeah as I clicked “submit” I heard that comment in the other tab of my browser…and it was too late haha. *facepalm*
Tigger:
I must be No True Apple Juice Fan, because I haven’t heard of those. Damn I must try them some day. Maybe I can try them as I’m making cider…
I offer hugs to everyone.
and I also offer my deep appreciation to all the people with difficult lives sharing with us their
storiesnarrativeslives..
[I had a pretty Normal™* childhood.
One moderately alcoholic and one moderately religious parent.
Nothing that could be remotely defined as abuse for me or any of my cohort.
No racism (everybody was white, racism was on TV).
I am not naive or sheltered but most people in meatspace don’t express themselves as freely as they can here.]
.
I am grateful to everyone who is helping me to kick-to-the-kerb my racism, genderism, transism, fatism, and all the Otherisms.
—
*Normal™ as shown by 1960s TV shows eg. Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver.
WRT things Bangkok is (in)famous for, funny thing happened last night. Sitting with friend in open sky bar on 24th floor, table next to us had a 65yo fat white guy pouring red wine into the glass of what sure looked like a very young Thai hooker, and the female DJ just so happened to play a song called “Tonight I’m fucking you”. Coincidence or very very cheeky, I really don’t know!
This is the one thing that really makes me cringe in this place, the frequent display of this kind of exploitation. These girls are not independent free agents who do what they want to do, many of them get bought from their parents in the rural north to work in the sex industry, and when their time is up and the bills paid they go back home and resume their previous life somehow, all very sad.
It’s raining here, so off to the beach….
Salad
O cool in the summer is salad,
And warm in the winter is love;
And a poet shall sing you a ballad
Delicious thereon and thereof.
A singer am I, if no sinner,
My muse has a marvellous wing,
And I willingly worship at dinner
The Sirens of Spring.
Take endive – like love it is bitter,
Take beet – for love it is red:
Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter,
And cress from the rivulet’s bed:
Anchovies, foam-born, like the lady
Whose beauty has maddened this bard;
And olives, from groves that are shady;
And eggs – boil’em hard.
MORTIMER COLLINS
Now back to Lurkington. All the best to the Horde.
Good morning.
JAL – Can I offer hugs, at least? And a great deal of respect? My husband’s father is alcoholic (along the lines of ‘of COURSE I’ll be sober in time!’), but we don’t live even remotely nearby, and sadly so, he has improved since the death of his wife… Never had to deal with your amount of stress, though. Respect.
birgerjohansson @419 – Stanislaw Lem and the Strugatskys are awesome. Particularly the nonsense of Lem’s ‘Memoirs Found in a Bathtub’, but his ‘Solaris’ is one of my all-time re-readable favourite books. The old Russian movie in black-and-white is just… so good.
FossilFishy @433 – Thanks for the reminder about the book! I’ve been looking for ways to teach the boys that girls can also do things besides dress up, since the kindergarten the eldest goes to is, unfortunately, quite segregating in the opportunities children have to play with all of the toys together (there’s a pink girls’ corner with kitchens and dolls and a multi-coloured boys’ corner with blocks and cars…). And they’re already showing signs of not wanting to associate with girls by default. (And here I thought raising a girl would be difficult.)
kristinc @450 – Similar to Australia in the sense that everything is trying to kill you?? :D Sounds scary in real life; is the book any good?
Tony @460 – Thanks for those recommendations. Next year when apple season rolls around again, I’ll have to try this out. Don’t know what varieties will be doing well next year, but this year we had a fantastic, fantastic one giving giant, delicious apples and fantastic juice. I have no idea what any of our varieties are called in English, but we have about 10 (I think). This year the rk and I have attempted an apple wine (currently still fermenting) (not a cider, a wine). It should be ready around apple season next year. Oh, and if the harvest is any good, everyone’s welcome to help with the picking. :P Extra hands are always useful. What you do with the afterwards is also up to you – usually pies, juice, preserves happen, and then by Christmas most of us are a little bit sick of fresh delicious apples.
The only thing we need is something better than a small-scale manual press.
+++
Still some snow on the ground. Last night went out for a bit, and the frost in the air had the distinct, crispy flavour of winter about to arrive. That being said, it’s supposed to go up to +9 today. I wish we could have more snow.
Good morning
I wished you could have seen the view I got from my kitchen window: A small hill floating in mist bathed in golden sunlight
JAL
You’re doing an amazing job as a mum.
I know it hurts so much knowing that it’ll break their hearts and there’s nothing we can do against it and it’s so totally unnecessary.
Yes, alcoholism is a disease just like cancer is, but we would be equally bitter if a cancer patient just refused treatment, ignored the visible tumors and became angry at us for pointing it out.
birger
Although I sympathize with the sentiment of “make them stop and help them even if they don’t want to”, I also understand that it’s not going to help those people much anyway and that it’s Pandora’s box to open. There has been more than one occasion when I was seriously contemplating to call an ambulance against her will. My sister told me that she was seriously tempted to do what other children of alcoholics have done: To fake a suicide attempt by throwing all her pills and medication into the toilet and placing the bottles and strips around the passed out alcoholic.
BUt in the end it’s not going to help. Willing alcoholoics take an average of 10(!) attempts, so by forcing an attempt on an alcoholic there won’t be much good done therapy-wise, but you’re taking away resources from the alcoholic which is a sense of trust and being able to rely on people.
In my experience, the alcoholic has to decide for themselves (a) that they have a problem and (b) that they want to do something about it. If anyone tries to influence them, the alcoholic blames their ‘nagging’ for ‘driving them to drink’; if no-one says anything, then “obviously there isn’t a problem with the drinking, is there?”
My maternal grandmother’s frequent blackouts were whispered to be ‘epilepsy’. My paternal grandfather “only drank at the pub, in company, so where was the problem?” Both my parents were largely teetotal as a result. But my husband’s family were all hard-drinking Scots. It took my brother-in-law hitting rock bottom for my husband to recognise his whole family had a problem with alcohol (except for his sister; who, with her husband, owned and ran a very successful pub. Go figure).
Hubby and I had a weird conversation one night, following a phone call from his sister about their brother. Hubby was all for intervention. Every time he suggested a tactic, I kept pointing out all the things his brother would say to deny he had a problem. After a while, hubby went very quiet. I apologised if I had upset him “by sounding like his brother”. “No,” he said, “It’s because you sound like me.” I asked him where else did he think I’d learned all those evasive responses? He gave up drinking that night and hasn’t touched alcohol in the 12 years since.
Tigger
Judging from your story, I think I’ve lucked out, as well. Although I can’t be sure. My side of the family is big on the (heavy-ish) social drinking, but my husband’s side has the predisposition for what is usually called alcoholism.
Even just a few years ago, his sister came right out and said that she doesn’t mind alcoholism, that it suits a man to be an alcoholic… Thankfully, Husband himself has come to a lot of personal conclusions about his drinking habits and is also taking steps to avoid falling into the same situation as his father. It does actually involve me refraining from nagging (which is oh-so-difficult sometimes) but the reasoning is sound: if I nag, I drive him to drink, and in that way, he can excuse it to himself and to those around him (especially his friends). If I don’t nag, then he can’t justify it (apparently being ‘forced’ to do housework isn’t enough to drive a man to drink ;) ).
I think one of the main reasons it came to this (for a long time he resisted the idea that he could ever have a drinking problem) is when his older brother lost his license for driving under the influence, and, once not inhibited by the steering wheel, took to drinking more seriously. Out of nothing better to do. And I think it made him realize that he can’t afford to take any kind of drinking lightly, because he has a lot more riding on his sobriety than his brother.
I still worry about the future because we’re both still young, but I think his self-awareness in this matter is the most important thing at the moment. And, you know, the not-nagging. :P :)
JAL, your little one and the pretty-as-a-princess stuff made me think of a book my girls loved 20+ years ago. Their godmother got it for them. http://childrensbooksguide.com/general/the-princess-and-the-dragon
Fabulous stuff about the dragon turning out to be better at being a princess than the princess herself was. I couldn’t save it for the family bookcase ‘cos the girls absolutely wrecked the thing (pretending to “read” it for themselves). The paperback looks to be pretty cheap on Amazon.
I think you’re doing pretty well. Circumstances are combining to test your resolve and your reserves. Just keep on keeping on. And get support wherever you can.
Seconding the recommendation for The Princess and the Dragon. All my five, boys and girl, loved it. As did my grandson when I read it to him.
Yes, rq. The not-nagging. Ugh. Sounds like a similar situation to mine – hubby’s older brother lost his license (drink-driving) for the THIRD time, has lost his marriage, has lost his employability (long-term contractor in IT, after his contract wasn’t renewed (probably drink-related) would turn up for interviews already under the influence) can’t see any reason not to drink.
Even at the time he gave up, Hubby was nowhere near that level of drinking (he never, ever drove after having a drink, for instance). If it hadn’t been for big bro’s bad example, hubby may well have gone down the same path. Hubby’s drinking, he realised, was more of a crutch for social anxiety. He stopped going to pubs and joined chess clubs instead (the venue for the socially-anxious), deliberately choosing, for his first club, one that met in a temperance hall. =^_^=
Oh, and he did it all by himself, which makes me very proud of him. He did make a couple of visits to AA but decided that AA was weird and not for him.
It is very easy for an alcoholic to deny they have a drinking problem so long as the cultural depiction of an alcoholic is someone unemployed, dishevelled, permanently drunk, homeless…
Anyone who is employed, married, clean, tidy, keeping their life on track will use all those facts to deny that their drinking is a problem. Even if they never, ever go out for the evening without coming home smashed, if they are sober and on time for work the next morning they’ll deny there’s a problem; even if that happens several times a week, every week, year round. It’ll be the ‘nagging’ partner who has the problem; sheesh, why can’t they just relax?!!! No wonder the drinker has to get out of the house for the evening!
Azkyroth, Giliell
Yes; I am aware of this paradox. The question is, how do we keep the substance abuse victims alive until they are ready to quit? The liver is able to regenerate itself to an amazing degree, but it has limits. Dying from liver failure is a bad way to go, this is why I may sound “militant”.
The nagging is how the Husband’s father has excused himself for this long, I think. And which is why things seem to have improved since his wife died (cancer). I think those first few weeks after her death, when he drank even more than usual, and NONE of his four children expressed greater sympathy (if anything, even less) because his state of grief was no better than his everyday state – that made him think, a little bit. The self-pity card was no longer working, and nobody was nagging at him to stop.
My goal is to have Husband not descend that far. Don’t know about any chess clubs in the area, but we certainly are trying to look into hobbies (a bit difficult, with the three kids current and a house hopefully on the way), and (in my opinion) some new friends. That being said, the alcohol=masculinity of this society is pretty… overbearing. So far, though, my Husband seems to be resisting the general idea about men (that they don’t stay home with any children, never mind 3 at once!!!), and I’m hoping that we can put the drinking in that cart, as well.
But the misogyny in general (and the whole ‘guys gotta stick together!’) is very deeply entrenched, even among his current friends (who, as I have grown older, have lost their appeal as fun-loving, hard-drinking rowdy men-folk simply out for a good time… especially as, more often, even at weddings, the wives sit at their own quiet table in the corner, having dejecting conversations about the hopelessness of their men, while the husbands prance around the dance floor with their shirts half-open, acting like the ordinary frat-boy). But it’s shocking how obivious it is, if you know how to see it – an article I read this morning (about why women avoid sex – yes, I know I shouldn’t) finished with the sentence, ‘Men, basically the main reason women avoid and run from sex is because you let them.’ So, apparently women can’t just not-want sex. And when women nag about drinking, it’s because they’re trying to emasculate their men. And they’re constantly manipulating their men in order to trap them in various situations where they end up doing only what the woman wants.
Sorry, but my Husband enjoys being with his kids, and we enjoy our time together, and we enjoy being not-too-drunk together (having an actual dance, for example). But it’s hard, when his entire family thinks I have him whipped and obedient, simply because we don’t conform to the accepted in society. And my friends are always surprised that I’m able to leave the kids with him for an evening. Shocking, I know…
Anyway, about the alcoholism, I’m very glad that he’s actually made a conscious decision to control it, even though I’m sad it has to happen at his brother’s expense. Now to find some alternate activities…
Oh, and speaking of stories about unconventional princesses, does anyone remember a story about the princess who wanted to be a knight, and dressed up as a knight. But the king wanted to find out which knight was the princess, and so he laid out several traps (I think a jousting tournament (because girls cry), fancy clothing and jewellery (because girls love that stuff) and a drinking contest), but they all failed (the ‘manly’ knights cried more than the princess, the knights all dressed up in fancy clothes while the princess looked on in disdain) except for the drinking, because while drinking the full goblet down, her throat stayed smooth while the knights all had giant adam’s apples… Anyone remember it? Title? Author? Or has it already been listed here?
Not heard of that one, rq; sounds like one for the shopping list if anyone can tell us what it is called!
Ah, google, how I love thee – let me count the ways!
The book is here . And it’s about a princess trying to avoid marriage because she’s too smart for it.
Also there seems to be a play on the same theme. Haven’t read through it so I don’t know if it ends well for the princess, but a pdf of it can be found here . Might be useful to someone out there who enjoys putting on interesting school plays for children. (I’m assuming it’s for children, or at least teenagers, since the language is pretty straightforward.)
birger
The sad truth is that you cannot do that. You have to watch helplessly as they slowly kill themsleves. I know it sounds cruel, but don’t think I haven’t considered the alternatives.
+++
Oh denial is so easy.
I think that part of my dad’s denial (and his resignation now) are motivated by the fact that he would have to change things, too, if this situation changes. You can’t live with a “dry” alcoholic and continue to have your beer, wine and home-made apple-schnaps as you used to have.
Frankly, my family’s attitude towards alcohol was always problematic. I grew up thinking that beer is what adults drink. I never occurred to me that it was a choice adults could make, you know, like watching horror movies or driving a motorbike, which are certainly things you can do as an adult but not as a child but that you don’t have to do.
Don’t know how much beer which I actually don’t like I drank just to prove that I was no longer a child.
And even though I recognized that my mum’s drinking habbits were critical, it still took me a long time to make the obvious connections between her drinking and her being ill. I won’t say that I was denying it, I just didn’t connect the dots.
We were famous for throwing parties. We would spend two days together in the kitchen and make tons of food and a dozen cakes. Or bake 16 different varieties of christmas cookies. And I would notice and point out that she was having her second beer and first schnaps at 11am but I didn’t realize the fact that I was always making the final dish alone, doing the cleaning up alone and her never ever being actually present at the party was due to her being drunk.
Because duh, alcoholics aren’t able to do the stuff she did before!
Also, alcoholics all have to drink all the time. People who can go for weeks without alcohol can’t be alcoholics!
As for the nagging:
I’m over the emotional blackmail. Her drinking doesn’t depend on me saying or doing X, Y and Z.
She will tell my sister that my dad was the problem, me that it was my sister, our dad that it was me and her psychiatrist that it’s her job. It’s them rationalizing, not something you actually do.
I’m not putting on that shoe anymore. After the second suicide threat you realize that you can’t let them run your life because you must never ever do anything they disapprove of because that’s driving them to drink.
I always have a bit of a problem with that kind of stories (well, could of course be that this one is the exception where the message is that it’s ok to be who you are) is that they usually end up with the message that some girls can be just as good as the guys or even better!
They often still paint those “girly” things as inferior and bad. There’s nothing bad about crying when you’re hurt or sad, liking jewellery and fancy stuff isn’t vain and a weakness.
When I bought #1 a set for making jewellery I was kind of sad because I knew she would love it while I would much rather buy her some mechanical construction set.
But working with her on the pretty necklaces showed me how educational this actually was: how she learned about symetry and how her fine motor skills were trained.
The way I got out of feeling guilty for nagging was one time when I asked what I should do instead of nagging (or, in my opinion, gently asking him if he really needs that next beer). And he said, Do nothing.
And then it came to me that, when he’s been drinking, anything I say is nagging. And if I say nothing, then I don’t care enough to say anything. And if I act angry, then I’m causing negativity and being obvious about my feelings. If I act happy, then I’m faking it and lying to him about how I feel about things. So yes, I can’t win – and I explained it to him. I asked him outright, what I should say if I think he should not have any more. And he said – Say nothing. So I asked him what happens when he goes past his limit, and he said Remind me not to have anymore before I reach that limit. So then I asked him about what I should do – should I or shouldn’t I remind him? Since either choice would land me in an argumentative situation with him. He didn’t have a good answer for it, but I believe he thought about it for a while, and now he accepts gentle commentary for what it is – gentle commentary. Also, he’s become much better at actually monitoring his own state and number of drinks. And no, he never drives if he’s been drinking.
Also, I haven’t read the book in a long time… I don’t remember if it had a particularly girls-are-as-good-or-better sort of message. The girly things (if I remember correctly) aren’t necessarily put down, they’re just not what the princess wants to be doing. But I could be wrong, it was back in elementary school that the librarian read it to my class (grade 3?), and my memory of it may be very skewed. But it was still a nice story, and what I remember very well is the utter delight that the brothers took in dressing up in jewellery and fancy dresses! They may have gotten put down for it, though. Well, I guess it’s another book due for a re-read.
As for the boys, I don’t mind them playing with cars – I mind the fact that they haven’t had much opportunity to play with other toys. We bought LEGO (as gender-neutral a set as possible), and we read all kinds of books, and the eldest does enjoy dressing up… But sometimes I wonder if they’re being too cornered, by not having access to the ‘girls” toys in kindergarten and the like. I may be worrying too much. :P They don’t watch a lot of TV yet, but they still get a lot of boys = robots, cars, mechanical sets, and all their (boy) friends are the same way.
Also I’m afraid that if we end up having a girl at some point in the future, we’ll be inundated with pink prams and kitchen sets and dolls… And I cringe at the idea – not so much that it’s ‘girly’, but that it is SO PINK and that it’s everyone’s AUTOMATIC reaction. No nice LEGO sets or coloured crayons, PINK OVENS.
rq, a simple syllogism, a nasty realisation, a good result.
(Life, eh?)
um. @488 above, which should be obvious.
(I shoulda refreshed)
I think that’s a freaking point where lots of conversation just goes wrong: Mixing different levels of it, or understanding something to mean another.
Not just about drinking.
“Honey, the traffic light is red” can mean “factual information”. It can mean “you’Re really to dumb to drive, you need me for doing it.”
Which means that you have 4 possible combinations of intended message and received message and only one of them isn’t going to end in a fight or traffic accident.
Because Mr. and I both loathed it about our parents (and initially read the same book about communication that seperates the different levels of communication) we worked at communicating at the information level in information language and at the personal level using personal language. So if I tell him “the traffic light is red” or “there are children playing over there” I get a “yes thank you, I have/haven’t seen it”
+++
My friend babysits two kids once a week in the evening. During the week the kids are in an after-school programm.It’s St. Martin’s day here in 2 weeks time so everybody is making lanterns. There the girls could make a horse-lantern, the boys a UFO lantern. No mixing allowed.
And yes, you do get swamped in pink. Everybody thinks that a pink onesie for a girl is so original.
It doesn’t need to be either one or the other. Our girls quite happily made decorative plastic flowery things in the morning and got out the trainset or other mechanical type activities in the afternoon. The younger one was seriously into Barbies for a while and my husband eventually relented and allowed the ‘rotten’ things into the household. (He never told her he hated them.) It was just a phase and she moved abandoned them after three or so years.
When they were in their teens they happily took up bead crafts all on their own. It was something they could do quietly at home when not running from choir to sport or music lessons.
John Morales @490 – Indeed. And yes, I understood for which post. :)
Giliell – We have also talked about the factual information idea, too. Sometimes I take things too personally, sometimes he does, but quite often we tend to prefix our statements with ‘This is a factual statement’ or ‘This is just a general comment that may apply as equally to me as to you’ or ‘Just so you know…’ It seems to work. That, or phrasing it as a question.
And yes, I have also made the effort to make my gentle commentary actually SOUND like gentle commentary. No negative inflections (I have a tendency towards sarcasm even in my best moments).
I wish teachers in kindergartens would be a lot more open to mixing toys up, or giving children a choice. At least most activities for my eldest are done by everyone, but their Christmas presents are segregated (princess bags for the girls, Cars bags for the boys). And what was really sad was that one of his friends likes to play with dolls, and he regularly borrows dolls from the girls in his group, and he said he wanted a doll for his birthday. And his mother told the teacher not to buy him any dolls (apparently it’s enough that he can play with his sister’s dolls). I felt sad for him, but I didn’t know what to say, especially when one of the other parents (parent-teacher meeting) said that it’s better for him to play with the dolls now and get it out of his system rather than do it when an adult. It made me so sad. How do I educate these people?
And – a UFO lantern for St Martin’s? Here, we still get songs about roosters and goat costumes. No one has modernized to UFOs yet. :D
Anyways I’ve got to get off the computer, I’ve been talking a lot – it’s been nice (it’s been a while), and I’ll check in from time to time, but I have to put the two youngest down for a nap now…
Before I go, is there anyone out there in Europe who could help out until midnight (GMT+2 time) tonight? Sort of like Pharyngulating a poll, but it would help me out a lot?
Oh, our kindergarten is pretty good in that respect. The boys are often in the kitchen/doll-corner and all the costumes in the dress-up chest are for all the kids, so you occsionally you get a boy in a frilly princess dress.
mildlymagnificent
Sure, but you can’t just buy everything for one birthday ;)
What I would really love to get them are Magformers, they’re just soooo coooooooool.
But also equally expensive…
rq
the traditions must be very different.
Here the children walk the street with a lantern and at the end there’s a big bonfire. Our kindergarten offered a pirate, a frog-king on the moon (don’t ask me) and a chestnut-figure lantern. #1 picked the froggy and the little one the pirate.
My friend offered the girl tp make a UFO lantern with her that would be 10X better than the other one.
Sorry about your request. Tomorrow’s a holiday which means that Mr. will be here and demand I talk to him ;)
Oh, btw, a series I quite like is Chloe’s Closet
I can even forgive the notorieouly blonde and blue-eyed main-character. They explore different things every day and all things are presented as fun option of equal value: dancing ballet as well as being a pilot.
Holy fucking shit