Audley, you should get a FB event ping. If you don’t, let me know.
Silisays
Chas:
You’re mistaken. There are plenty of zealous internet descriptivists (I consider Sili one) who will come down like a ton of bricks on nearly any claim that some example of usage is ‘wrong’.
The smaller the stakes, the stronger the rhetoric. It’s not like I’d ever kick you as in the standard joke about prescriptivists, if I met you in real life. But it’s fun to shout on the Internet.
(For example, it’s really pretty funny that Sili is projecting anger onto me when he’s shouted FUCK YOU at me for prescriptive-y pedantic comments in the past.)(I don’t get the ‘sour grapes’ claim either–I can’t get what I want so I claim I don’t want it? No.)
Your chainyanking against descriptivism come across as “if I can’t have my idiosyncratic prejudices accepted, then obviously anything goes.”
Like, I imagine, most pedants, I see it as a matter of defending language against decay caused by the ignorant or thoughtless.
See, this is what makes me spit venom. Language does not need saving. The desire to keep language pure somehow is usually a marker of wanting to keep the riff-raff in its place (not that that is what you’re doing – you just like to kvetch).
But, hey, “actual language usage”, you mean, such as the extremely common use of the Latin term ‘ad hominem to mean insult or personal attack instead of the logical fallacy known by that name?
Seriously, now, I’m not kidding at all: How many more years of such ‘incorrect’ but common usage will be necessary before it’s considered standard? Do you guys have criteria for shit like that, or is it all subjective whim and personal preference and informal backroom convention?
As many as are enough. You can shout at tides all you want, but they’ll still come in. If “ad hominem” switches to mean just “insult, then we’ll eventually come up with a new word for the logical fallacy. Or we’ll just accept polysemy, and judge depending upon context. “Begs the question” means “raises the question” in common parlance, but can still be used formally. But since BtQ was a poor choice of translation in the first place due to its opacity, I suspect that formal discussion of the logical fallacy will use the Latin in future. Conversely for ad hominem, I can easily see the transparent English expression “going the man rather than the ball” will take over.
I can understand where you’re coming from. When I was a child I hated people who couldn’t use the proper reflexive possessive, and I agreed that double passives sounded wrong. Now that I have put away childish things, I realise that there rarely is any real room for ambiguity (and double passives sound increasingly ‘right’ to me).
Jimsays
Yes, _I_ am doing science. It involves “Whiskey on a Sunday”.
Silisays
I was wont to sally forth against the usage of ‘data’ as a singular. This is apparently a cause celebre for internet descriptivists, who fought back hard. At the end I retreated to the position that although I will never use the word in anything but a plural sense, I would also stop accusing people of being ‘wrong’ for using it in that other way
Good on you!
All we say is that you can not judge the usage of others solely on your own preferences. Noöne has said that you personally needed to use data as singular &c. Likewise I’m not gonna blast you for pronouncing it with the FACE diphthong in place of the PALM vowel.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Esteleth:
Got it. :)
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Well, the second batch of corn bread rose all lop-sided. I think my oven has cold spots.
WHATEVER. CORN BREAD IS DELICIOUS.
Estelethsays
Well, today, I performed an experiment. I studied the effects of oral application of an aqueous suspension of Camellia sinensis on attentiveness and alertness in H. sapiens.
I conclude that attentiveness and alertness rise (p > 0.05).
Yesterday I experimented with the effects on concentration modification of oils of Engraulis encrasicolus in sauces.
Bishop Harry Jackson… once described same-sex marriage as a satanic plot to destroy the family, called on Republicans to get “political Viagra” and said African-Americans needed to abandon what he called the Gospel of Victimization.
Jackson is not shy about stirring up controversy, but he stops short when it comes to preaching about greed. The Maryland bishop said he encourages his congregation to get through the Great Recession by saving and sharing. But he doesn’t want to alienate well-off members by talking about what’s behind the nation’s economic woes.
“I’ve got to watch it,” said Jackson, pastor at Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland. “I could get into some big teaching on greed, but the reality is that a lot of that teaching may wind up creating anti-economic-growth and anti-capitalism concepts (in people’s minds). … I always talk about personal responsibility so we don’t get into the blame game.”
The Great Recession is more than an economic crisis. It has become a spiritual dilemma for some of the nation’s pastors and their parishioners, religious leaders say….
Though millions of Americans are angry over the economy, little moral outrage seems to be coming from the nation’s pulpit, they say. Too many pastors opt for offering pulpit platitudes because they are afraid parishioners will stop giving money if they hear teachings against greed, said the Rev. Robin R. Meyers, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.
“Money is the last taboo in church. It’s much easier to talk about sex than money,” said Meyers, who wrote about greed and the other seven deadly sins in his book, “The Virtue in the Vice.”
If anyone cares to skim the article, you’ll be entertained to see that they quote an apologist for capitalist saying this:
“Denouncing a presumed gap between rich and poor is, more often than not, a symptom of economic confusion, not prophetic wisdom,” he said. “It can also mask envy, and is usually invoked just before someone calls for the state to coercively confiscate the wealth of some and give to others.”
Thanks for the psychoanalysis, asshole. Oh, the depths they will sink to in order to defend inequality.
The rest of the article contains a few pastors daring to make sense, such as one noting: “We’ll send an African-American teenager off to the slammer who robs a 7-Eleven, but we won’t do anything to a banker who helped cause the collapse of the entire banking system,”. And it also contains such “insights” as this caption: “Bishop Harry Jackson says Americans can experience a miraculous economic recovery if they return to God.”
Oh, Christian economics…
changeable monikersays
Walton, try deleting cookies from independent.co.uk?
Greener Grasssays
Nooo… sitting by the fire making pomanders while watching Jeremy Bretts exquisite execution of Sherlock Holmes.
Therrinsays
Found a video of the anti-snoring bear that was mentioned on Wait Wait yesterday. I was hoping it really would be a giant robot bear that flipped you over.
Estelethsays
OFFS.
I love how we must get through hard times by taking care of each other and shared sacrifice – except, of course, for the rich. They don’t need to sacrifice anything because that’s mean or something. Oh, and ZOMG SOCIALISM.
I saw that video yesterday. It’s pretty fucked up.
All of this police violence against peaceful occupy protesters makes me seriously disappointed. How can I just live in a country that allows (and encourages) its police force to be violent against peaceful citizens just because they’re protesting inequality? And how can I just live in a country were other citizens see this happening and accept (or even embrace) it?
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
You aren’t in church right now, are you?
Many years ago, I was heading for a fire in Oregon. My first flight was on a Delta Embraear Regional Jet (comfortable, fast, and don’t take forever to load or unload) which left at 0600. The plane was almost full. The five seats behind and to my right were occupied by a family of five — Mom, Dad, and three little girls.
About an hour into our flight, the oldest of the three little girls (age about 6(?)) spoke up:
“Daddy. We’re missing church!” she said, loudly.
Dad answered, “I know, honey, but God understands.”
“But Daddy, we’re missing church!”
“I know, honey, but our airplane ride is today.”
“But Daddy, you said God hates people who don’t go to church!” she answered in a louder voice. (By this time, I was fighting a case of the giggles.)
Dad sighed and said, “He does, but we were at church last night, and Friday night, and Wednesday night, and Monday night. So God won’t be mad that we missed church today.” (Okay, why would someone go to church four or five times a week? I really do not understand.)
She persisted, getting louder and louder. “Daddy! You told me that only Sunday counts! God’s gonna punish us!”
Dad tried one more time: “God knows that we fear Him and love Him. He will forgive us this one day.”
“Okay, Daddy. But what if God makes the airplane crash?” (I could hear the sense of desperation in her voice.)
“He won’t.”
“But what if God blows up the airplane to punish us?”
“He won’t” (I heard a snigger from someone near the front of the plane.)
“But what if God . . . .”
“He won’t.”
“But what if God lets . . . .”
“He won’t.”
“But wha . . . .”
“He won’t!”
She finally got the hint and stopped talking. Then her little sister (about 4(?)) pipes up and asks, “Daddy, are we going to church today?”
Mom finally joined the conversation: “Honey, don’t. Daddy’s having a mood.”
The third one (in diapers) did not try to join in the conversation.
As we got off the airplane, the family paused at the end of the hall to await their gate-checked stroller. As they stood there, an older gentleman walked past and asked of the older girl, soto voce, “Are you going to church today?” and walked away.
Dad snarled, “Fucking asshole!”
So God loves this little girl. She fears Him and loves Him. Yet she is terrified that if she misses one day of Sunday church, He will kill everyone on the airplane (all 48 of us) just to punish her for missing church.
I love how we must get through hard times by taking care of each other and shared sacrifice – except, of course, for the rich. They don’t need to sacrifice anything because that’s mean or something.
It’s the same rule as applied to bitches. Can’t have the poor gettin’ all uppity, it makes the rich people all sniffy and uncomfortable.
Estelethsays
Caine:
Yep. The economy’s sucking? Well, obviously I need to drop out of school, get married, and lovingly support my husband (who cares that I’m a lesbian) in his attempts to find a job to support his growing family.
The solution to all our problems is to prop up the kyriarchy!
Stardrakesays
Waste time in church? When there is SNOW to be shoveled? Barbaric misuse of time!
Besides, there wasn’t much snow–but those preachers just drone on and on and on and on without letting anyone else get a word in edgewise until they start to froth at the mouth and fall over backwards waaauuugghhhh….
ahs ॐsays
Alethea, if you’re using FF, would you please see if it works in full-screen mode (F11)?
John, if you’re asking about RequestPolicy, it does work easily in fullscreen.
It adds its complete menus to the right-click context menu, so you can use it from anywhere on the page.
Carliesays
Ogvorb – and it was all her dad’s fault. Hopefully he eased up on all the “God hates people who don’t go to church on Sunday” routine after that.
Stardrake – instead of snow, we have a glorious 63 degrees outside. (the snow was a few days ago) Makes me want to go do things that are not the things I should be doing.
Shovel snow or go to church? One is inside and one is outside in -19C air. One is useful and needed, one is useless.
Solution: stay at home with a rum and eggnog and send the kids out to shovel.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Shit. Sorry. I forgot the obligatory WARNING: FIRE STORY!! Won’t happen again.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
theophontes:
Sourdough cornbread?
I was going to make a couple of sourdough loaves for dinner with Mr Darkheart’s fam tonight, but I just don’t have the time*. I made Southern-style, batter corn bread and it’s taking all of my willpower not to eat it right now.
*I suppose I could have made bread last night, but I spent the entire day playing Assassin’s Creed, which is why I’m running behind schedule today.
changeable monikersays
Ten bucks says it will. ;)
changeable monikersays
@Father Ogvorbis, obviously.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Some might say I’m in church, worshiping at the altar of iMac, making offerings to Tpyos by posting here. Or not.
Today is my fucking birthday. So of course I’m not in church. I’m supposed to be able to do pleasant stuff on my birthday, right?
I’m going to walk my neighbor’s dog, because my neighbor is on vacation and I’m helping her out. I don’t get to count that as a good deed because an atheist walking a dog doesn’t get religious points. I do get to count it as pleasant. Except for the picking up the poop part, which nobody else in my mormon neighborhood does. The mormon God doesn’t care about dog poop, I guess — or he doesn’t give points for picking it up. And what’s the point if you don’t get points?
I’ll rake a few leaves because raking leaves is a good excuse to be outdoors, and being outdoors reminds me that I live on planet earth. Perspective.
I had two cups of coffee instead of one this morning, so there’s that hedonistic sin racked up here in the morridor.
So many things are a sin here. Which is actually quite helpful. If you feel like sinning, there are multiple choices. The only option not really open to me is ripping off the little people with my big bad pyramid scheme. Oh, wait, that’s not a sin. That’s enjoying God’s blessings.
I could do real work on Sunday (apart from networking at church in the service of my big bad pyramid scheme); working is a sin when it involves any work other than the very hard job of suffering through 3 hours of church … so maybe that’s what I’ll do. It would be best if I could be seen to be working, so maybe I’ll move the leaf-raking operation to the front yard. I want maximum response for my sins.
Language does not need saving. The desire to keep language pure somehow is usually a marker of wanting to keep the riff-raff in its place (not that that is what you’re doing – you just like to kvetch).
I like to kvetch that language evolution doesn’t need my help. It’s going to happen whether I like it or not (mostly not). In the meantime, I feel more inclined to try to maintain fine points like the distinction between “flaunt” and “flout” and even “reluctant” and “reticent” (although that last one is almost certainly a lost cause by now).
But I also try to avoid getting my panties in a twist over non-mistakes like split infinitives — a shibboleth that is a clear indicator of not having a life.
waltonsays
pelamun,
the problem with the stranded prepositions is that it is rule someone just pulled out of their arse, and a rule that many of the most famous writers of English have ignored for centuries.
I don’t doubt that you’re right. But, leaving aside the question of “correctness”, I find that one’s writing looks so much more elegant when one follows the rule. Aesthetically, “The people to whom I have spoken” is a far more pleasing construction than “The people I have spoken to”. The latter is fine in conversation, but doesn’t look good in writing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the latter is “wrong” in any objective sense; rather, I simply happen to find it an ugly usage. It’s purely a matter of subjective personal taste.
(I’ve often seen critics of the rule quoting the famous witticism which is, probably wrongly, attributed to Winston Churchill: “The use of a preposition at the end of a sentence is something up with which I will not put.” This is wrong, of course; in my understanding, “to put up” is a phrasal verb, so “up” in this context is part of the verb, not a preposition.)
Split infinitives are another construction I personally prefer to avoid – not because they’re “wrong”, but simply because they’re ugly. Again, it’s an aesthetic thing. I just don’t like the way split infinitives look and sound, as a matter of personal taste. Hence why I prefer not to use them.
(It’s purely arbitrary, of course, and has to do with aesthetic preferences and fastidiousness rather than communication. But so is saying “bathroom” or “lavatory” instead of “bog” or “shitter” – after all, all these options communicate one’s meaning equally effectively – yet I don’t think anyone would question that there are many circumstances in which the former terms are appropriate while the latter terms would be considered distasteful.)
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
changeable moniker says:
20 November 2011 at 11:31 am
Ten bucks says it will. ;)
changeable moniker says:
20 November 2011 at 11:32 am
@Father Ogvorbis, obviously.
Huh?
======
Happy Unmormon Birthday to you, Lynna!
ahs ॐsays
Seriously, now, I’m not kidding at all: How many more years of such ‘incorrect’ but common usage will be necessary before it’s considered standard?
I’ve already routed from one front in this war.
If someone is determined to use ad hominem to mean insult, I concede this ground but insist that they make a distinction between ad hominem and ad hominem fallacy. Then I mock them for using Latin pretentiously when all they really mean is “bawwwwwwww!”
Pretty sure it was here at Pharyngula, someone made the argument that all insults, whether technically fallacious or not, will amount to poisoning the well from a psychological standpoint. I suppose this is probably correct. All the more reason to use them!
Estelethsays
I was born on a Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact.
It’s a good thing, I guess, that neither of my parents like either the Dolphins or the 49ers.
Regarding split infinitives, have a look at this blog entry and test yourself on the various examples they discuss. I wouldn’t be surprised that you would actually produce split infinitives when not paying attention to it, especially when speaking.
When I was in Catholic school, this was the only acceptable word. If a request was made to visit the bathroom, washroom or restroom, the request (and the person making it) would be summarily ignored. If that person couldn’t wait until recess, well, that was just too damn bad, they should have used the correct word.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Caine:
Conga rat ululations to you! (I love that, thank you for spreading that on the evil intertubethingies). May you have many more revolutions.
Does this mean I have to share contact dermatitis or whatever else is going around?
Oh hell no! I’ve put in a cranky demand to the great Atheismo for an itch free day. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Thanks, Esteleth!
SteveVsays
Well, I was in church an hour ago, and a most enjoyable concert it was too, with pieces by Handel, Arnel, John Garth and Mozart.
However, the orchestra outnumbered the audience 24/16.
Ze Madmaxsays
Happy Birthday Caine and Lynna!
*throws confetti*
Also: I went to a Tim Wise talk last week. He’s a terrific speaker, and it really showed during the Q&A (which was a pretty good chunk of the evening). I’ve seen some of his stuff online before, but the Q&A really shows his ability to communicate. (Or he keeps getting the same sort of questions and has some sort of mental or written template). Either way, good stuff.
-We got our new car. Shiny-shiny.
-Been to the counsellor. It was bad, and it was good, and we decided we’re going to enlist Mr.
Since I obviously need a nanny to hold my hand while I get back on track, he’s going to do it.
Happy Birthday, Caine and Lynna!
Ogvorbis
God may not catch you cheating, but your kids always do :)
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
We got our new car. Shiny-shiny.
Speaking as someone who is still finding new things in our car, whadja get?
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Happy birthday Caine and Lynna!
*squeezes chocolate cake and itch ointment into the ‘tubes*
Silisays
walton says:
Split infinitives are another construction I personally prefer to avoid – not because they’re “wrong”, but simply because they’re ugly. Again, it’s an aesthetic thing. I just don’t like the way split infinitives look and sound, as a matter of personal taste. Hence why I prefer not to use them.
*squeezes chocolate cake and itch ointment into the ‘tubes*
Arrrggghh! Some of Caine’s itch ointment iced the chocolate cake. These squeezings of goodies through the innertubes need to be separated in time by a few more nanoseconds.
Estelethsays
Lynna,
A batch of double chocolate cookies should come flying out of your USB any minute now.
Enjoy!
A batch of double chocolate cookies should come flying out of your USB any minute now.
[ducks, and then gathers the debris] Oh, yeah! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Double chocolate is adequate chocolate. Regular chocolate chip cookies are chocolate deficient.
changeable monikersays
Won’t happen again.
Ten bucks says it will. ;)
It would have worked had #s 33 and 34 not got in the way. :-/
Silisays
a shibboleth that is a clear indicator of not having a life.
Sibboleth.
Ms. Daisy Cuttersays
Josh, #717, old thread: “I strongly suspect some of us release olfactory chemicals that are attractive to certain kinds of insects.” I do, too. I am a mosquito target. I recall one time I was at a state park with friends and friends-of-friends. All of us had been doused in the same repellent (I think it was Skin So Soft), and I was drawing more mosquitoes than anyone else.
Caine, #725, old thread: The videos and photos I’ve seen of monster wasp hives are terrifying. There was one hive that took up the inside of a very old car.
Also, your photo “A Trick of the Light” is beautiful. And happy birthday to both you and Lynna.
Estelethsays
Double chocolate is adequate chocolate.
There’s some chocolate frosting and a can of sprinkles coming through now.
There’s some chocolate frosting and a can of sprinkles coming through now.
I have decided to use some of the frosting and sprinkles to decorate the conga rats. They are looking good.
Now, if I can just keep them from eating each other.
Estelethsays
I need to be whapped upside the head.
For some unknown reason, I decided to go back and read the EG threads. I got about 300 comments into the first one before I stopped. WTF is wrong with me?
Brother Ogvorbis
We got this pretty thing in black.
Definetly more gimmicks than anybody ever needs, especially the built in ham-grill (seat heating), but the giant glass roof is coooool.
And now I’m taking bets how long it will take for the little one to cry herself hoarse.
No, I’m not cruel, but the rule says that first we brush our teeth and then I read a bedtime story. And since she refused A she isn’t going to get B.
Poor thing.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Lynna,
Well, at least you mouth won’t be itchy. :)
waltonsays
Actually… on my way to the grocery store today, I was thinking about the way my own linguistic aesthetic sensibilities, and my instincts as to which forms of language are “right” and “polite” and sound “good”, may be shaped unconsciously by classism. The issue of classism in British society is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, since leaving Britain and viewing it through an external lens for the first time.
After all, language and class have traditionally been very closely interrelated in Britain. For most of the twentieth century, the Received Pronounciation and mannerisms of the upper class were held up to everyone as the “right” way to speak, while regional working-class accents and dialects were disparaged as the “wrong” way to speak. It makes me wonder how much my own linguistic sensibilities are shaped unconsciously by a desire to emulate my perceived social betters, and/or by unconsciously looking down on the accents and slang of some of the people with whom I grew up (I went to a state school in a mainly lower-middle-class area).
It got me thinking about how pervasive class still is in British culture. Unlike the Marxian understanding of “class”, the British conception of social class isn’t just about wealth, property and economic privilege, but about culture, ancestry, education, mannerisms and a whole host of other inherited status-markers. After all, in the British sense, the likes of the Beckhams and their progeny will never be perceived as “upper-class”, despite having immense amounts of money; indeed, I’ve often heard the ostentatious consumption-driven behaviour of nouveau-riche celebrities labelled as “classless” and “trashy”.
In point of fact, it struck me that class sensibilities are built into the words we use; in British colloquial usage, people might describe someone’s behaviour as “classy” as a compliment, or conversely as “classless” or “trashy” as an insult, for instance. It had never occurred to me until recently to connect this kind of usage with the concept of social class.
I guess we’re still a much more class-stratified society than most British people would be able to recognize or acknowledge. In subtle ways, classism seems to be built into the way we view the world, so pervasively that we’re not even aware of it.
(This carries the caveat that this is all based on my own anecdotal experience and personal reactions, of course. The other Brits here are welcome to say so if they think I’m talking nonsense.)
ahs ॐsays
*drowns Sili in the river*
waltonsays
The implication of my ramble at #83 is that perhaps I need to be more aware of the way that the internalized classism of British society is unconsciously expressed through my own sensibilities, attitudes and behaviour, when it comes to language and a whole host of other things. Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things? What does everyone think?
Walton, classism and language isn’t completely dead in the U.S., but I think it’s on its last legs, so to speak. When I was growing up in a fairly wealthy situation, it was standard to have penmanship classes, classes in proper letter writing, and so on. The way you spoke and the way you treated the written word said a great deal about your class status.
Walton, I think you over-analyze everything. I’ve come to expect that from you, and to find it charming.
As long as I don’t have to live with you.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
For everyone who ever claims atheism is not a civil rights issue in the US, or who questions the idea that religion has a ridiculous and sinister level of societal privilege, this:
The fact that there’s even psychological space in US culture for such a sign to even be considered. . .
Tethyssays
I can think of endless ways my time would better spent than attending church. For instance, procrastinating about shoveling the sidewalks by hanging out on the interwebs.
Bed+coffee+laptop+purring cat= much nicer than 24 degrees F.
——-
Happy solar return to Caine and Lynna. May your wishes for being itch-free and publicly sinful (respectively) come true.
——
Starstuff
Nice job on your first crochet project. I am inspired to try and locate my crochet hooks.
shouldbeworkingsays
Happy orbit day. I have a new car too. The best feature last week was the sound system. This week it’s the heated seats.
ahs ॐsays
After all, language and class have traditionally been very closely interrelated in Britain.
So too here. My family until very recently were all lower-class Northerners, whose claim to status was not being lower-class Southerners. This manifests as mockery of Southern speech. I’ve done it much of my life, and there are some Southern accents which still incite my prejudices, though I keep that to myself now.
I understand the political necessity of humiliating the losers of that war, but we’ve been too half-assed about it. We should simply outlaw all displays of Confederate flags, execute by firing squad anyone who says “the South will rise again,” and then accept any surviving Southerners as loyal Unionists, regardless of their speech patterns. For too long the correlations between dialect and treason have been allowed to fester; if we would just execute the treasonous, no correlation would remain.
chigau (む)says
Happy Birthdays to Lynna and Caine!
We made lamb/sage/garlic sausages yesterday.
Want some?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Language use as a marker of class is never going to die out, no matter how much one might want it to.
But permit me to observe it is also a marker of education, region, disposition, and lots of other things. Despite the blockheadedness of some uber-descriptivists (those of you who insist you’re not, all the while castigating the fuck out of those of us with the temerity to complain about ambiguous or stupid usage mistakes. Um, yeah, you do do that.) we get to call out incorrect usage, we get to complain about it—especially when it confuses an important and legitimate usage—and we get to have purely aesthetic preferences.
waltonsays
For everyone who ever claims atheism is not a civil rights issue in the US, or who questions the idea that religion has a ridiculous and sinister level of societal privilege, this:
The fact that there’s even psychological space in US culture for such a sign to even be considered. . .
Text of the sign: “Skepticon is NOT welcomed to my Christian Business” (in scrawled handwriting)
*mouth hangs open in disbelief*
That’s… almost surreal. It’s like something out of the McCarthy era.
Such a sign would be unimaginable in Britain. For all the other failings of British society, we have far less inter-religious bigotry than America does (except for bigotry against Muslims, which is rampant).
Although I’m consciously aware of it, it’s hard to get my head round the extent of open religious prejudice in the US – both against atheists and against those who are of the “wrong” religion or sect. It’s just something that’s so alien to me. (Even though I now live in the US, I’m aware that this particular area is far more liberal and cosmopolitan than most places, and the churches round here – the Unitarian Universalists, Harvard-Epworth United Methodist, and so on – are mostly very liberal. I haven’t travelled widely out of the Boston area, thus far, but I’m expecting a much greater culture shock when I go to Texas this winter.)
ahs ॐsays
Unlike the Marxian understanding of “class”, the British conception of social class isn’t just about wealth, property and economic privilege, but about culture, ancestry, education, mannerisms and a whole host of other inherited status-markers.
I expect you’ll find the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England was not unaware of this, and it is not as though Britain is the only place where such concepts of class occur.
What you just said about Britain applies also to the North-South and urban-suburban-rural distinctions in the USA. The typically Marxist thing is to identify economics as the primary driver of these distinctions which then erupt in social divisions that are not obviously economic at first glance.
waltonsays
I understand the political necessity of humiliating the losers of that war, but we’ve been too half-assed about it. We should simply outlaw all displays of Confederate flags, execute by firing squad anyone who says “the South will rise again,” and then accept any surviving Southerners as loyal Unionists, regardless of their speech patterns. For too long the correlations between dialect and treason have been allowed to fester; if we would just execute the treasonous, no correlation would remain.
I know you’re not serious, but that kind of hyperbole really isn’t in good taste.
The fact that there’s even psychological space in US culture for such a sign to even be considered. . .
Oh, you know Christians have that persecution complex which needs to be fed, along with their need to feel self-righteous and special. All he did in actuality was to cut off his nose to spite his face. Silliness.
However, Ophelia made the point that matters – if it was an openly atheist business with a similar sign (Believers not welcome!), there would be a story in every frigging news outlet, every blog, etc.
Silisays
What does everyone think?
Congrats on discovering one of the primary reasons prescriptivism is baaaad, mmkay. I’m surprised that this can come as a surprise to anyone. Have you really never heard of the discrediting of Black Vernacular English with it’s negative concord (‘double negatives’).
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Is pepper spray a vegetable yet?
*totally stolen
waltonsays
It shouldn’t need saying that no one should be “executed”*, ever, for any reason, by firing squad or any other means. (The only circumstance in which I can ever envision it being morally acceptable to kill someone is if xe is actively engaged in trying to kill you or others, and it is not possible in the circumstances to disarm hir.) Nor should anyone ever be deliberately humiliated in order to achieve political goals; nor should the display of any flag or the peaceful expression of a political opinion, however toxic, be outlawed. Repression is not good.
(*A term I dislike, because it reinforces the statist meme that there is a moral difference between acts of homicide committed by lawful agents of the state and those committed by private individuals. There isn’t.)
We made lamb/sage/garlic sausages yesterday. Want some?
Fucking A, I want some.
I have my molecular reassembly module set up and connected. Where I do go for the download?
And now, if you’ll excuse me for just a little while, I am going to quietly blaspheme in a public place, having decided that will be one of my counts-twice sins for the day.
ahs ॐsays
After all, in the British sense, the likes of the Beckhams and their progeny will never be perceived as “upper-class”, despite having immense amounts of money; indeed, I’ve often heard the ostentatious consumption-driven behaviour of nouveau-riche celebrities labelled as “classless” and “trashy”.
Cf The Great Gatsby, still assigned reading in many US schools.
Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things? What does everyone think?
As my comments imply, I think you’re under-analyzing ;) but I agree with you that this is all worth keeping in mind.
Silisays
and we get to have purely aesthetic preferences.
That you do – until, of course, you start lecturing us about how ABBA is better than the Bee Gees.
we get to complain about it—especially when it confuses an important and legitimate usage
Trouble is that in most cases that confusion is potential at best, and non-existent at worst.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Trouble is that in most cases that confusion is potential at best, and non-existent at worst.
For you it doesn’t matter, Sili – you’ll complain and call the point of view invalid even if there isn’t actual confusion, but an objection to any level of ambiguity. Or an objection to losing the subtleties of meaning one phrase has over another because the usage is getting blurry. You strawman the hell out of those of us who don’t eschew prescriptivism in toto. It’s extremely irritating; you practice no charity whatsoever to your opponents in this issue.
Stardrakesays
shouldbeworking@31:
Shovel snow or go to church? One is inside and one is outside in -19C air. One is useful and needed, one is useless.
Solution: stay at home with a rum and eggnog and send the kids out to shovel.
Well, it was only like -5C here (23F). And I couldn’t send the cats out to shovel–there’s that whole lack of opposable thumbs thing. Besides, they’re cats–WE are the servants!
Tethyssays
Tethys, shouldbeworking & Chigau, thanks
Fine, I will evict the snuggly purring cat and find my boots and gloves and get those sidewalks cleared.
Then I will get to work. ;D
chigau (む)says
We have a mouse in the house.
The kitteh is currently engaged in trying to catch it.
I’m leaving her to that task.
I know you’re not serious, but that kind of hyperbole really isn’t in good taste.
My words may be in poor taste, but they are not hyperbole, and I am serious.
It was the gentlemen’s agreements between upper-class Northerners and Southerners which betrayed our future. If advocacy of the Lost Cause had been violently suppressed, and if Reconstruction had been more forceful in disenfranchising the traitors, there might have been no legacy of Jim Crow.
One damnable shame is now that Southern whites still receive the contempt of Northern whites because less effective social ostracism has been substituted where a truly radical Republican violence feared to tread.
Tethys, I was replying to someone with the nym shouldbeworking, not telling you to evict cats and work!
waltonsays
It was the gentlemen’s agreements between upper-class Northerners and Southerners which betrayed our future. If advocacy of the Lost Cause had been violently suppressed, and if Reconstruction had been more forceful in disenfranchising the traitors, there might have been no legacy of Jim Crow.
One damnable shame is now that Southern whites still receive the contempt of Northern whites because less effective social ostracism has been substituted where a truly radical Republican violence feared to tread.
You’re seriously arguing that the killing of unarmed political opponents as “traitors” by the state, and the violent suppression of political dissent, would have been a good idea?
You’re scaring me.
Estelethsays
Walton,
Have fun in Texas! Where are you going? Texas is a big place – twice as big in area as England – and very culturally diverse. If you’re going to Austin, it is similar to a slightly more conservative New England transplanted geographically. But if you’re going out to West Texas, well, their problem with Dubya was that he was too leftist. West Texas is the kind of place where you’ll meet people who will in all seriousness tell you that they were getting on just fine with their women and their [racist slur] (could be both Hispanics and blacks, but mostly the latter) before those damn Yankees showed and got them all riled up.
Which, of course, brings me to the point that in Boston, you are in Yankee country. Not the sports team, of course – rooting for the Yankees in Boston can be hazardous to your health – but culturally. In American parlance, a “Yankee” is someone from New England. I understand that to non-Americans, the term is more expansive. Many southerners, even those with leftist political leanings, have a near-pathological dislike of Yankees. They do not appreciate being called that.
WRT class and language: this is alive and well in the US. I think it varies by geography and urban vs. rural, but it is definitely there. Accent is particularly powerful and important. Anecdotally speaking, I definitely noticed more than a little snobbishness growing up (in a small town in the rural Midwest) of people who spoke with the Cumberland accent towards people with more Southern or Western accents. The north Midwestern accent was tolerated, but grudgingly. I remember in grade school the merciless mocking of a student by a teacher after said student referred to his need to go to the “ly-berry” to return some books. Proper Cumberland speech, you see, is firmly rhotic, and this kid was talking like a hick.
It’s hard to imagine the appeal of Mormonism working on anybody except Americans. It’s up there with scientology imo, probably all religions really, except that its recentness allows anybody with two neurons to see through the bullshit level of the claims. /non-diplomatic
waltonsays
Have fun in Texas! Where are you going? Texas is a big place – twice as big in area as England – and very culturally diverse. If you’re going to Austin, it is similar to a slightly more conservative New England transplanted geographically. But if you’re going out to West Texas, well, their problem with Dubya was that he was too leftist.
I’m visiting both Dallas and Austin. (I have no plans to go to West Texas.)
Silisays
It’s extremely irritating
That’s an understatement.
Really?
–o–
you practice no charity whatsoever to your opponents in this issue.
You take my kvetching that serious?
ahs ॐsays
You’re seriously arguing that the killing of unarmed political opponents as “traitors” by the state, and the violent suppression of political dissent, would have been a good idea?
As a secondary measure, yes. As a first option, I think Jefferson Davis et al should have been given the chance to undergo reeducation, followed by public repentance including apologizing to Southerners for misleading them morally, militarily and economically.
You’re seriously arguing that the killing of unarmed political opponents as “traitors” by the state, and the violent suppression of political dissent, would have been a good idea?
You’re scaring me.
The Southern opposition was hardly unarmed, nor wedded to non-violent resistance.
And “the South will rise again” is not necessarily mere dissent, but is a declaration of insubordination and enmity of society itself. Killing is certainly an unwelcome solution, but I see how a much less accommodating attitude to the South could have been a societal good.
changeable monikersays
Oh, and re. Skepticon, did the Kansas Trolls show up with their Chick tracts?
ahs ॐsays
Recall it was the violent suppression of political dissent—for that is what the Reconstruction was—which allowed Hiram Rhodes Revels to take office.
The counter-Reconstruction efforts which ultimately prevailed were also implemented by violence, and could have been suppressed by violence.
Estelethsays
ahs,
I agree with you WRT Reconstruction.
The ending of Reconstruction enabled the reestablishment of the hegemony of upper-class whites in the South and the beginning of a reign of terror that lasted almost a century. It is worth noting what happened to voter rolls, land ownership, etc of blacks after the end of Reconstruction.
Reconstruction was messy and not carried out particularly well, but anyone who allows themself to see the post-Reconstruction pre-Civil Rights South as anything other than what it was – state-sponsored terrorism against former slaves and their descendants by former slave owners and their descendants is deluded. The gentleman’s agreement between rich and poor whites in the South that said that poor whites wouldn’t get jack shit in the way of social services and would be crapped on every day by the rich whites – but they were better than blacks – held back the economic development of the South drastically. The culpability of the North and the federal government in this is inexcusable. They stopped upholding the law and basic decency because it was difficult. I’m reminded of something that M.L. King said once (paraphrasing): “The law cannot make a white man love me, but it can make him not lynch me.” The North and the federal government decided that stopping outright terrorism against black people was too much and stopped.
The Civil Rights movement may not have changed people’s minds much (racism is alive and well in many parts of the US – and the South is not unique in this), but it DID staunch the violence in a major way.
Rounding up and shooting upper-class rich Southern whites wasn’t – and isn’t – the answer. Making them stop violently oppressing others is.
You’re not that old, are you?
====
Caine and Lynna, congratulations conga rat ululations (what?)! BTW, your quote
Today is my fucking birthday.
got me thinking. If life begins at conception, why aren’t christians celebrating their fuckday?
====
Benjamin, I’m totally bankrupt (again) on TET, but IIRC I saw you writing something about your current medication actually doing something for you, so hurray for that too!
And your current ‘nym made me think up the following:
∀ (m ∈ minutes) ∃ (s ∈ suckers): minuteOfBirth(s) = m
chigau (む)says
Has anyone written any “alternate history” fiction about what it would be like if the South had been permitted to secede?
Estelethsays
Chigau, The Guns of the South is an alternate history SF that, uh, involves the South getting AK-47s from time travelers. They proceed to successfully secede.
There’s also The Confederate States of America, which looks at the effects of the South seceding would look like by the time of the late 20th century.
Mr. Firesays
where a truly radical Republican violence feared to tread.
Ah. This was an actual political movement, if I’m understanding right.
The shit I don’t know about is depressing.
Mr. Firesays
I am not thread bankrupt.
I am thread 2009 financial crisis.
ahs ॐsays
Has anyone written any “alternate history” fiction about what it would be like if the South had been permitted to secede?
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Has anyone written any “alternate history” fiction about what it would be like if the South had been permitted to secede?
Harry Turtledove has done Guns of the South which is pretty readable. He also has an alternate history series in which the Confederacy wins at Gettysburg and the USA and CSA have repeated wars through the equivalent of WWII. His ideas are well thought out, his inclusion of historic figures is seamless, and the books become unspeakably boring as they descend into a multi-generational soap opera.
Ze Madmaxsays
chigau @ #124:
Has anyone written any “alternate history” fiction about what it would be like if the South had been permitted to secede?
Check the Timeline-191/Southern Victory series by Harry Turtledove. It’s an interesting read, if you can get past some overuse of alt-history tropes (such as historical figures maintaining relevant positions or showing up on slightly different situations).
Word of warning: It’s long. Like, 13 books long. It covers a span of time from the 1880s to 1946.
(As a side note, while I enjoyed this series, Turtledove’s more recent work is terrible. The Man With The Iron Heart seemed (to me) essentially an argument for the maintenance of American military presence in Iraq indefinitely.)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I have to know, what does everyone think of Jean M Auel’s writing?
Because I can’t decide. On the one hand, she gives us this wonderful prehistoric world, well researched, and undeniably interesting.
On the other hand, Ayla domesticated both horse and dog, and invented the sewing needle, the atlatl, making fire with flint and iron pyrite, and figured out where babies come from, all while being both incredibly hot AND an accomplished medicine woman. Forget Mary Sues, we should just call them Aylas.
That said though, I’d still be lying if I said I didn’t find them enjoyable.
Estelethsays
TLC,
Not only has Ayla done all that, she can also handle Jondalar. All of Jondalar.
Ayla is VERY Sue-ish. The world is interesting, but many of the characters…
chigau (む)says
Thanks,everyone (so far) for the alternative history suggestions.
(I know I could google but I really like personal reviews.)
—
TLC
I only ever managed to read the first Ayla book. I found it such unmitigated, irredeemable drek, that I never even considered reading the rest.
yeah the “prententious Latin” defence works in my opinion too.
Walton,
certainly RP is a class issue. But other than that, I think it’s more an issue of acquiring the High register language, which is correlated with the level of education, which again gives the upper class an advantage.
The High Low register difference is inevitable, but I think a standard language should allow for a wider variety of pronunciation, because pronunciation is acquired at a very young age and thus harder to unlearn later.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Esteleth: Yeah, that too. I like sex, I’m not a prude, I don’t like censorship, but I found myself skipping many of the lovingly detailed three-page sex scenes. It’s just not that interesting the fifteenth time around.
Also, absolutely EVERYONE who meets Ayla wants to have sex with her. Everyone.
But I did enjoy taking a look at how people may have lived back then. I guess you could say I enjoyed everything except the main characters. Some of the side characters were definitely fun. I liked the descriptions of the various tools and techniques they may have used.
juliansays
Forget Mary Sues, we should just call them Aylas.
Don’t forget she can’t sing. What’s a Sue without an entirely pointless flaw?
That said though, I’d still be lying if I said I didn’t find them enjoyable.
Cave sex is great sex.
ahs ॐsays
Following Mr. Fire’s link, I wonder: had the Wade-Davis bill passed, would I now even think to complain?
Most All I’m aware of
Ze Madmaxsays
TLC (and others):
On the subject of prehistoric fiction, I liked Stephen Baxter’s Evolution. Of course, it only deals with “prehistory” for part of the book. Also, it’s the only book I could think of that I’ve read involving that particular time.
Pretty good book though.
waltonsays
I know history is complex, but I’m just very uncomfortable with discussing armed violence in a favourable light. It’s because of this that, as much as I like the melody of L’Internationale, I’m very much uncomfortable with its most militant verse:
Les rois nos soulaient des fumées / Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
(The kings make us drunk with smoke / Peace among us, war to tyrants!) Appliquons la grève aux armées / Crosse en l’air et rompons les rangs!
(We bring the strike to the armies. Stick* [?] in the air and let us break ranks!) Et si s’obstinent, ces cannibales / A faire de nous des héros
(And if they insist, those cannibals, on making us into heroes,) Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles / Sont pour nos propres généraux!
(They soon will know that our bullets are for our own generals!)
(*Wiktionary says crosse means “stick”, as in “lacrosse stick”, which doesn’t appear to make much sense in context. The not-always-reliable Wikipedia translation has “stock” – presumably the stock of a rifle – which makes a little more sense, though I can’t attest to its accuracy. I’m sure the French-speakers here will correct me, since I haven’t studied French since high school.)
In the traditional British English version, The Internationale (pronounced to rhyme with “rally”), this is rendered as:
“No more deluded by reaction,
On tyrants only we’ll make war;
The soldiers too will take strike action;
They’ll break ranks and fight no more!
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying;
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side!”
As a leftist anthem, Solidarity Forever is probably preferable, though that too has a very militant verse:
“Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
The union makes us strong!”
Clan of the Cave Bear and all that – well, it started out well enough and quickly turned into idiot soap opera. I finished it, but refused to read the rest, which seemed to descend even deeper into soap opera territory. No thanks.
Interesting, I never knew the original had six stanzas. I only know the first three, because the most popular German translation only has the three. I’ve always liked this line
Es rettet uns kein höh’res Wesen,
kein Gott, kein Kaiser noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlösen
können wir nur selber tun!
(Original: Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun; the last two lines have been altered to: We can be saved from misery only by ourselves)
chigau (む)says
Caine
Lovely pictures.
I hope you wore a warm hat.
Thank you, Chigau. I did wear a warm hat – a plaid hunter cap, complete with earflaps.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Happy birthday darlings!
I laughed so hard so fast at “fuckday” I scared the cat right off the couch.
ahs ॐsays
It’s not just a matter of moral aesthetics, though. There is a practical question in there:
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
The answer, I think, is: ultimately no, but let’s not underestimate the amount of organization that still must be done. At this point in time, total war would be suicide.
As to the tactics of the peace movement, I think there are very strong reasons in favor of nonviolence. The first reason — which Professor Hans Morgenthau described quite eloquently — is that the government happens to have a monopoly of terror. Therefore violence is simply suicidal. There is no way of combatting the terror, the violence that the government can use in response to any use of violence that the peace movement might adopt. And the situation is clearly getting worse. As some of you may know, the major universities are participating quite actively now in developing new techniques of control of demonstrations and crowds. The Institute of Defense Analysis which is run by a consortium of ten major Eastern universities — Columbia, Princeton, MIT, and so on — has been working on crowd control, which means control of blacks, students, peace demonstrators. And the technology for doing this is extrememly efficacious and will only improve. So that’s one reason for nonviolence.
The second reason for nonviolence, I think, is that clearly violence antagonizes the uncommitted. And what we want to do is not antagonize them, but attract them to, involve them in, the resistance to the War. We want to get them to take part in active resistance to this and whatever future war the United States will attempt to conduct. Toward this end, violence carried out by peace demonstrators would be a serious “counterproductive” tactical error. And, as I mentioned before, I think that these tactical considerations are not in the least to be disparaged, but are actually the only considerations that have, ultimately, any moral charcter to them, because they are the considerations that involve the human costs.
Lynna, seems to me celebrating the parental fuckday is no fun at all. Celebrating with a personal fuckday, um yeah, that would be good. :D
Celebrating the parental fuckday with a personal fuckday is traditional. Right?
The people cry out their willingness and joy to do her service.
waltonsays
pelamun: There are two different versions in English, the British and the American. (I’m not counting Billy Bragg’s hideous modern reworking, which, sadly, accounts for the great majority of all the English performances on YouTube.)
Arise, you prisoners of starvation,
Arise, you wretched of the earth;
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us;
Arise you slaves, no more in thrall,
The earth shall rise on new foundations,
We have been nought, we shall be all!
(Chorus) ‘Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in [his] place,
The international soviet [or “the international working class”]
Shall be the human race. (Repeat)
The traditional British version, now rarely sung, is:
Arise, you workers from your slumber,
Arise, you prisoners of want;
For reason in revolt now thunders,
And at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise;
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!
(Chorus) So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face;
The Internationale [rhymes with “rally”]
Unites the human race. (Repeat)
Likewise, there are two Spanish versions that I’ve come across; the version sung in Spain, particularly by the Civil-War-era republicans (Arriba, parias de la tierra) and that sung in Latin America (Arriba, los pobres del mundo). The former is both a better translation and more poetic.
Ich spreche kein Deutsch, so I can’t comment on the German version, although I have heard it before.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Dang, finally got in to the Pharyngula Saloon and Spanking Parlor™ to send out birthday swill and grog to Lynna and Caine, but it may take a while. Looks like a small pack of foxes tried to raid the Pullet Palace last night, and the Lilac Berets chased them into here and did their mop-up as far as live foxes go. Not quite as bad as when they chased a hawk in, as the ceiling lights are still in place. No grog or swill moves until the place is detoxed. *heads for the biohazard suits*
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
(I know we should not advertise trolls, but Coco finally answered a question. And he either denied that atheists exist, or denied that atheists are human. Not sure which.)
I laughed so hard so fast at “fuckday” I scared the cat right off the couch.
Be nice to your felines. They keep you warm at night (I think Dust produces about 3.5 FTUs).
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I’m jealous Caine. Your snow is prettier than our snow.
Though…. The wind is coming in from the northeast and it’s clouding over. So maybe we’ll be getting a real snowfall soon.
The chickens don’t seem to mind it much- yet. We bought a bale of hay and loaded up their coop with it, so they should be able to keep warm at night, but I’m worried about their water needs. Right now they’re eating snow despite having fresh unfrozen water, but I can’t imagine that’d be good for them for too long.
Celebrating the parental fuckday with a personal fuckday is traditional. Right?
Absolutely. We’re setting that tradition in cement, right now, may it never be broken.
TLC:
Your snow is prettier than our snow.
There’s very little of it, which is surprising. Most of it melted off. Usually, we’re good and buried already this time of year. Not that I’m complaining, mind. It’s a beautiful day, blue skies, sun, about 20F, but that fucking wind…aargh. It freezes the fingers off. (I *hate* wearing gloves.)
Caine: Whoops! I meant the photo of the feeding bee, of course.
The whole debate about the South… I agree with AHS, actually, that the Union should have executed the leaders of the Confederacy and “de-Nazified” the region. However, that was 150 years ago, and in the aftermath of an exceedingly destructive war. I don’t consider the execution of any modern-day Americans who say “The South shall rise again” as morally or legally tenable, or remotely politically possible.
I haven’t read Harry Turtledove or other writers speculating how else the Civil War could have turned out. I’ve seen it claimed repeatedly over the years that the cotton gin would have ultimately made slavery unprofitable for the South. However, they could have limped along in alliance with authoritarian nations such as Prussia, and we’d have had a hostile nation on our southern doorstep, which eventually would have obtained nukes.
Mr. Fire: I hadn’t known about the Radical Republicans as a party, either. It’s depressing, if logical, how much history isn’t taught in public schools. I really need to finish Zinn’s A History of the American People.
The Laughing Coyote: Ayla is the ultimate Mary Sue. Auel’s books are awful, and hilariously so at times.
“Fuckday” is my favorite neologism this week. Well, next to “gayspace.” Which sounds like a bar. Or a sketch written by Mel Brooks, Nathan Lane, and Jim Henson. GAAAAAAYYYS IIIIINNNNN SPAAAAAACE!!!
waltonsays
(Original: Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun; the last two lines have been altered to: We can be saved from misery only by ourselves)
Oh, yes… anti-monarchism and anti-theism rolled into one. :-)
Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes / Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
(There are no supreme saviours / No God, no Caesar, no tribune) Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes / Décrétons le salut commun
(Producers, let us save ourselves / We command the common sslvation)
In the British version, that verse is rendered very loosely as:
No saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer;
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear!
Ere the thieves will out with their booty,
And to all give a happier lot;
Each at his forge must do his duty*
And strike the iron while it’s hot.
(*Gendered, of course, but the British lyrics are early-twentieth-century.)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Caine: That’s why I prefer to have a winter hoodie that’s at least a size too big (two sizes is better). The overly long sleeves can function like built in gloves, while still allowing my fingers freedom of movement when I need them.
Everyone here’s saying we’re supposed to get a really nasty winter this year.
it just so happens that the verse in questions expresses my distaste of theism, monarchy and populism ;).. Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun..
chigau (む)says
Hi Gyeong Hwa.
Moggiesays
Caine:
I did wear a warm hat – a plaid hunter cap, complete with earflaps.
So chic!
The Internationale always makes me cry. Now more than ever, with the future looking bleak.
waltonsays
I agree with AHS, actually, that the Union should have executed the leaders of the Confederacy
I don’t. And I find it frightening that you think so.
The deliberate killing of anyone, unless xe is armed and actively trying to kill you and cannot be safely disarmed through less forceful means, is morally unconscionable. I believe that the killing of Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg was morally wrong. (Not to mention a grotesque form of victors’ justice, considering that, by the very same international standards that were applied by the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allied bombings of Dresden and Tokyo were also culpable war crimes.) So, too, the Israeli government’s kidnapping and killing of Eichmann was unconscionable.
If you don’t agree with this, fine; I’ll admit that my blanket opposition to the death penalty boils down to an emotional matter of empathy, compassion and decency for me. (It’s my position that all moral convictions boil down to such emotional reactions, whether one is prepared to admit it or not.) All I can say is that I will continue to work against the death penalty and for peace, nonviolence and reconciliation in all circumstances, because I do not want to live in a society in which “executions” happen, ever.
(Also, I refuse to use the word “execution” without quote-marks, because the distinction between “execution” and “murder” is a form of statist propaganda: pretending that there is some moral or practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals. Killing is killing is killing, and the victim is equally as dead either way.)
Don’t worry, it snows in SoCal about once every hundred years and lasts about 11 minutes.
Well that’s the thing. The last time it snowed (5 years ago I think) it was only about 10 minutes, but it was cold enough and lasted long enough to damage the citrus industry here causing us to go under a state of emergency. I’ve been hearing frequent snow reports in the western portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area.
I made oatmeal cookies with dried blueberries and white chocolate chips – cramming some in a USB port now for the birthday girls.
Social class in the UK? No shit, Sherlock! It’s hilariously, and occasionally horrifyingly, strong. Much more in England than the rest of the UK. All Australians are, of course, lower class oiks in this system.
Violent anthems: how’s this one?
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
… and maybe a dash of …
May he sedition hush,
and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush
Estelethsays
Walton,
Largely, I agree with you with regards to the death penalty.
What I think – and I believe that ahs is getting at – is that the fact that the leaders of the Confederacy largely speaking received no lasting punishment is horribly problematic.
The utter failure of TPTB to de-Nazify (for lack of a better term) the post-Civil War South is a blot, and a major one at that, on American history. And it’s not like the unreconstructed were coy about their beliefs and what they intended to do upon retaking power – they trumpeted it, bragged about it. What happened after the end of Reconstruction was completely predictable – and preventable.
I don’t think that high-ranking Confederates should have been lined up and shot, but damn. They were some fucked up people who upheld a horrific system as glorious. I don’t know what was practical, what would have been practical, but I’m struggling to think of a worse outcome than what actually happened after the war.
Part of me thinks that if you’re willing to accept killing in self-defense or in defense of people who can’t defend themselves, can this be applied broadly? Is the wanton destruction and oppression of a group and flagrant extra-judicial terrorism enough to justify violent resistance? The unreconstructed blatantly said (and say) that black people aren’t people and need to be put in their (subservient) place by force if necessary.
Does someone have to be literally holding a gun to someone else’s head for it to be justified for another person to act on their behalf?
waltonsays
I find that I’m more and more instinctively Tolstoyan in my ethics.
waltonsays
Cath: Don’t forget the second verse. (Which is now rarely sung, though it does appear in Hymns Ancient and Modern.)
O Lord our God, arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix;
God save us all.
(As I’m sure you surmised, it originally referred to the French.)
Silisays
Oh, yes… anti-monarchism and anti-theism rolled into one. :-)
Like when the last king is hanged in the entrails of the last priest.
I’m assuming this time by nasty, Everyone(tm) means ‘Really really cold’.
I don’t. We had this crap in April of ’10. 1100 hundred towers down.
Antiochus Epiphanessays
I have to know, what does everyone think of Jean M Auel’s writing?
I thought it was a hoot when I was twelve. I’m not sure why an adult with access to other books would ever bother with Jane Auel, though.
Caine and Lynna ;)
Silisays
I made oatmeal cookies with dried blueberries and white chocolate chips
Recipe, please.
As for violence nothing beats the Danish royal hymn.
ahs ॐsays
Well, Walton, we already know the results of letting the moderate Republicans do Reconstruction half-assed: the worst of the white supremacists regained power and delayed the civil rights movement for nearly a century.
If we build a time machine and rig the election of 1868 (and ’72, ’76, and so on; there are no term limits yet) to install President Walton, inheriting the newly expanded powers of the presidency, what will you do differently?
Carliesays
I’m not a prude, I don’t like censorship, but I found myself skipping many of the lovingly detailed three-page sex scenes.
I discovered those books when I was but a preteen. I’m pretty sure the bindings of my paperback copies now naturally fall open to those scenes.
waltonsays
hm strange, why would the British version omit both God and the tribune..
I’m have no idea. Of course “tribune” wouldn’t have meant much to most British people, except for those with a classical education (which would not have included most of the working classes at whom the song was aimed). By contrast, I’m guessing that, in nineteenth-century France when Pottier was writing the original French lyrics, it would have conjured memories of the then-recent Napoleonic period and Napoleon’s resurrection of Roman imperial titles. This is all pure speculation on my part, however.
The closest counterpart in the American version (which doesn’t mention God either) is the second verse, though it isn’t anything like a translation of the French:
We need no condescending saviours
To rule us from their judgment-hall.
We workers ask not for their favours;
Let us consult for all!
To make the thief disgorge his booty,
To free the prisoner from his cell;
We must ourselves decide our duty,
We must decide, and do it well.
waltonsays
Sili: Of course I speak no Danish, so I can’t attest to its accuracy, but Longfellow’s translation has:
King Christian stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;
His sword was hammering so fast,
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,
In mist and smoke.
“Fly!” shouted they, “fly, he who can!
Who braves of Denmark’s Christian,
Who braves of Denmark’s Christian,
In battle?”
Wow. Now that makes the Marseillaise seem like a peacenik folk song in comparison.
My idea of reverence for the day was to be lazy until around 3:30, when I went out for 35 minutes of running. Now downloading some stuff and will then check out where to find some other music I want. Also need to do some research on a good AM/FM clock radio (ideally one with a dock to charge my Fuze, but such things don’t seem to exist).
So now I’ll have The Internationale stuck in my head for like ages.
But for some non-violent workers’ songs, how about the Einheitsfrontlied (Brecht / Eisel)
Und weil der Mensch ein Mensch ist,
drum braucht er was zum Essen bitte sehr.
Es macht ihn ein Geschwätz nicht satt,
das schafft kein Essen her.
Drum links, zwei, drei! Drum links, zwei, drei!
Wo dein Platz, Genosse, ist!
Reih dich ein in die Arbeitereinheitsfront,
weil du auch ein Arbeiter bist.
Und weil der Mensch ein Mensch ist,
Drum braucht er auch noch Kleider und Schuh’.
Es macht ihn ein Geschwätz nicht warm
Und auch kein Trommeln dazu.
Drum links, zwei, drei! Drum links, zwei, drei!
Wo dein Platz, Genosse, ist!
Reih dich ein in die Arbeitereinheitsfront,
weil du auch ein Arbeiter bist.
Un weil der Mensch auch ein Mensch ist,
Drum hat er Stiefel im Gesicht nicht gern,
Er will unter sich keinen Sklaven sehn
Und über sich keinen Herren.
Chorus
Un weil der Prolet ein Prolet ist,
Drum wird ihnkein anderer befrein,
Es kann die Befreiung der Arbeiter nur
Das Werk der Arbeiter sein!
Chorus
UNITED FRONT SONG
As man is only human,
He must eat before he can think.
Fine words are only empty air
And not his meat and drink.
Then, Left! Right! Left! Then, Left! Right! Left!
There’s a place, Comrade for you,
March with us in the workers’ united front;
For you are a worker too.
As man is only human,
He’d rather not have boots in face.
He wants no slaves at his beck and call,
Nor life by a master’s grace.
Chorus
And since a worker’s a worker,
No class can free him but his own;
“The emancipation of the working-class
Is the task of the workers alone”.
Chorus
You can feel the marching rhythm while reading, but it doesn’t talk of killing. nd my favourite stance is highlighted
If we build a time machine and rig the election of 1868 (and ’72, ’76, and so on; there are no term limits yet) to install President Walton, inheriting the newly expanded powers of the presidency, what will you do differently?
Ha. I only wish I knew.
ahs ॐsays
Or we run the Lincoln-Walton ticket in 1864, with the caveat that you can’t interfere with the assassination. Take your pick.
John Moralessays
ahs,
John, if you’re asking about RequestPolicy, it does work easily in fullscreen.
It adds its complete menus to the right-click context menu, so you can use it from anywhere on the page.
Thanks! I should’ve considered that.
(Trying it now, because it sounds pretty good)
Cannabinaceaesays
We got our 19 pound turkey at Springfield Farm last night. We have totally forgotten whether it was free range, organic, pastured, or whatever. About all we remember is that it is not heritage.
It will be butterflied, brined, surface-dried, trussed, and cooked at 500F over a bed of thinly sliced russet potatoes, which will prevent the drippings from smoking, while simultaneously becoming saturated with drippings and roasting along with the turkey. Most of said taterthins will be eaten by the cook and anyone who happens to wander into the kitchen while the turkey is resting, prior to dinner per se.
ahs ॐsays
Ha. I only wish I knew.
Not much good your hand-wringing does, then. At least I’ve got a plan.
Vote Baines in ’68!
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
As I get older and mature, I find myself thinking more peacefully.
However, I can remember a time when I was just a little outcast. Being incredibly violent and reactive probably saved me from a worse fate. They may have been willing to taunt me from a distance, but when I ran in their direction, they suddenly found themselves to be not so brave.
The authority figures (Especially Principal McGowan) wouldn’t protect me. They knew damn well what was going on, but of course in little old Gibsons it was all about your parents’ status. Especially with the churches. Only I could protect myself, and I did it by any means necessary, with teeth, with claws, with rocks, with clubs, absolutely anything.
Though I find myself looking more and more at peaceful solutions as I age and ‘grow up’, I’ll never forget what it was like to be a little outcast. And my instinctive reaction to those who would bully, intimidate, and threaten remains the same. Bite their fucking faces off.
I know it’s immature and a tiny bit scary. I know Walton is gonna have plenty to say about it. To be fair, I find myself outgrowing it. But I still believe violence is part of the primate toolkit for a reason.
I also firmly believe that if I hadn’t learned to be terrifying, I would have been dead. At my own hand, or another’s. It happens all the time in those little church-riddled small towns. The outcast must suffer so the in crowd can maintain their smug sense of superiority. When the outcast dies, it’s their own fault. For being the designated outcast.
I’m really not trying to sound like an internet tough guy or anything (even though I sound exactly like one right now). I’m really sorry if this post bothers, freaks out, disturbs, or annoys anyone. My perspective on it is probably a bit warped by bad experiences.
Also nowadays life is better. I don’t have many IRL friends, but the friends and connections I do have are all meaningful. I’m not alone anymore. Best of all, I’m miles away from that pretty little seaside shithole.
But I’ll always remember what it felt like to be alone.
waltonsays
I don’t know why it is that the two political ideologies with the greatest musical traditions are socialists and monarchists. On the socialist side, one has Solidarity Forever, L’Internationale, Bread and Roses, the Hymn of the Soviet Union, labour songs like those of Joe Hill and Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, and so on.
On the monarchist side, one has Handel’s Zadok the Priest, Parry’s I was glad, Haydn’s Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, the Tsarist Russian anthem Боже, Царя храни!, and so on. (Admittedly, God Save The Queen, and the Liechtenstein anthem set to the same tune, aren’t up to much.)
Liberals and moderates, on the other hand, seem to have no great anthems.
waltonsays
Now I’d better stop rambling about music and do something productive. (Like work, or perhaps a trip to the gym.)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
They may have been willing to taunt me from a distance, but when I ran in their direction, they suddenly found themselves to be not so brave.
For clarity’s sake, there should be an ‘eventually’ in there somewhere.
I declare thread bankruptcy. Based on the last thread, I went out and got Flowers for Algernon. I just finished, and I think i’ll be ok in a few hours. Maybe. Is FTB blurrynfor anyone else?
I know it’s immature and a tiny bit scary. I know Walton is gonna have plenty to say about it.
No, I’m not. It’s not up to me to judge you, and if I were to do so, I’d be something of an asshole.
(Indeed, judging and blaming people for things they’ve done in the past is an inherently useless exercise. The reason I specifically criticize the Nuremberg trials and the killing of Eichmann is not because I’m interested in judging or condemning historical figures for its own sake – I’m not – but, rather, because they are useful as illustrations of why I oppose victors’ justice and the state-sanctioned killing of prisoners, an issue which is relevant in the present day.)
If you were advocating violence as a political strategy, or arguing that the state should use violence on your behalf against people you don’t like, I’d have something to say about it. But that’s not what you’re doing.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
MikeG: I’m glad to hear it affected you. My old aforementioned biology teacher who mentioned it to me told me that his measure of a good story, movie, or comic book is if it makes you FEEL something. Whether anger, sadness, joy, etc.
waltonsays
*sigh*. I cant type so good. Hail Tpyos.
*genuflects* May His Holy Wrod never be spellchecked.
Antiochus Epiphanessays
I discovered those books when I was but a preteen. I’m pretty sure the bindings of my paperback copies now naturally fall open to those scenes.
My sister, brother and I read very little else in those books. A freaking giggle-fest every time.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Ah I see, thanks Walton. I was nervous as hell typing that out. Pharyngula has been uncommonly kind to me. I don’t want to ruin that.
John Moralessays
Walton,
Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things? What does everyone think?
No, and good on you, respectively.
(Also, I think you’re on the right track with those musings)
@Sili: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/02/thick-chewy-oatmeal-raisin-cookies/
Instead of 3/4 cup raisins & 1/2 cup walnuts, use dried blueberries and white chocolate chips.
Also, I already cut the sugar to 1/2 cup, but if I make them again I’ll use a smidge less. Loose packed instead of tight packed, perhaps.
@Gyeong Hwa:
A non-violent anthem for you – official lyrics:
Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history’s page let every stage
Advance Australia fair,
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We’ll toil with hearts and hands,
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.
The second verse is especially good to sing loudly and with emphasis to annoy certain politicians :) Even the old full version of the song (not official) is pretty peaceful, though it does have a reference to fighting in self-defense. Its main flaw is in grossly sucking up to the Brits.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: The Baloneys and I are +Hangouting with Kevin Kelly the day after TG, to riff together on his book, What Technology Wants.
changeable monikersays
@Caine, your clothespegs are awesome. (I have, it must be said, clothespegs on my mind, because I’m seeing lots of posters for this.)
I un-eagerly await the colder weather and the usual influx of Redwings. They’re awesome, too, but if they’re here, it means it’s cold as fuck out. Brrr.
ahs ॐsays
Proposed necessary criteria for considering a song as a liberal anthem:
Liberals must enthusiastically embrace it.
It must not be written or popularized by a red.
It must not advocate the abolition of property (Imagine would otherwise qualify).
John Moralessays
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
“Fuckday” is my favorite neologism this week. Well, next to “gayspace.” Which sounds like a bar. Or a sketch written by Mel Brooks, Nathan Lane, and Jim Henson. GAAAAAAYYYS IIIIINNNNN SPAAAAAACE!!!
I’m mightily impressed with Paul Anderson’s open letter and scathing critique.
(Were it in my nature, I would be envious)
Forellesays
Gilliel @186:
But for some non-violent workers’ songs, how about the Einheitsfrontlied (Brecht / Eisel)
Hanns Eisler. A very fine composer. Thanks for reminding me of this song.
@Caine, your clothespegs are awesome. (I have, it must be said, clothespegs on my mind, because I’m seeing lots of posters for this.)
Thank you! Oooh, cool. If that was turned into a book, I’d buy it. The clothespegs in my shot are from my neighbour’s clothesline (his house has been empty 3 years now) and the clothesline and pegs have been in a wild state for some time. They get more interesting each year.
Snowshoe the Canucksays
The French national anthem has rather bloodthirsty words. My favourite monarchist-type anthem is The Maple Leaf Forever, especially when it is played by a pipe and drum band(no, I’m NOT a Toronto fan).
There is always the best anthem to home: Alberta Bounnd!
John Moralessays
Walton:
Also, I refuse to use the word “execution” without quote-marks, because the distinction between “execution” and “murder” is a form of statist propaganda: pretending that there is some moral or practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals. Killing is killing is killing, and the victim is equally as dead either way.
Not all distinctions need be moral, but that is the basis upon which you decry and repudiate this one.
Also, I note that there is a practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals — in the former, the killers are not prosecuted by the state.
(Do you realise when you write “Killing is killing is killing”, you’re stating that you find voluntary euthanasia to be no different from murder?)
SteveVsays
Proposed necessary criteria for considering a song as a liberal anthem:
Liberals must enthusiastically embrace it.
It must not be written or popularized by a red.
It must not advocate the abolition of property (Imagine would otherwise qualify).
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
Anyone know where Classical Cipher went? Imma getting worried.
waltonsays
Alethea: I’ve always found Advance Australia Fair to be an incredibly dull anthem. It strikes me as designedly bland and inoffensive; the nationalist equivalent of some of the more aimless Unitarian hymns.*
(*I say this as a big fan of UUism in general. But many of their hymns leave something to be desired.)
Of course, Waltzing Matilda is the song much more strongly associated with the Australian national identity. And it’s a great piece of music. But I suppose it’s too anti-authoritarian for the liking of those in power, and it doesn’t quite have the expected musical style for a national anthem.
I found the recent controversy about the Christian schools’ invented religious verse quite interesting, given that Advance Australia Fair is one of the very few national anthems in Oceania that isn’t explicitly religious. The New Zealand anthem, for instance, runs:
God of Nations, at Thy feet,
In the bonds of love we meet;
Hear our voices, we entreat;
God defend our free land.
Guard Pacific’s triple star
From the shards of strife and war;
Make her praises heard afar;
God defend New Zealand.
(Don’t ask me to recite the Maori version; my memory isn’t that good.)
Then there’s the Fijian anthem, which is sung to the tune of the gospel hymn Dwelling in Beulah Land:
Blessing grant, O God of Nations, on the isles of Fiji,
As we stand united under noble banner blue;
And we honour and defend the cause of freedom ever,
Onward march together; God bless Fiji!
For Fiji, ever Fiji, may our voices ring with pride,
For Fiji, ever Fiji, her name hail far and wide;
A land of freedom, hope and glory, to endure whate’er befall;
May God bless Fiji for evermore.
Or Tuvalu, which is the most explicitly religious national anthem I’ve ever heard:
“Tuvalu for the Almighty” are the words we hold most dear,
For as people or as leaders of Tuvalu we all share
In the knowledge that God ever rules in heaven above,
And that we in this land are united in His love.
We build on a firm foundation when we trust in God’s great law;
“Tuvalu for the Almighty” be our song for evermore!
(Tuvalu is also the only Commonwealth country outside the UK to have an established state church, the Church of Tuvalu.)
As I said, peacefulness, not musical quality. (With added bonus of welcoming immigrants.)
I wish we’d had the guts to go for Waltzing Matilda. A folk song about a sheep-stealing suicide for an anthem? Now that would be some awesome establishment nose-tweaking.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Caine: Damn, now that you mention it, CC is conspicuously absent. Wasn’t there something involving a hospital stay last I saw of her?
Wasn’t there something involving a hospital stay last I saw of her?
Not that I remember. Shit, I hope I didn’t miss anything important.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
So, with all of the talk of snow should I not mention that it hit 70 here and it’s still in the 50’s? *ducks!*
Anyway, the corn bread was meh (although other people seemed to like it). I need to find a sweeter recipe, I think. But on the good news side, I’m only on the hook for two loaves of bread for Thanxgiving, boo yeah!
And yes, it would have been nice to be published alongside our own Stephanie Szvan someday, as I’d figured any publication wise enough to choose one of her stories might prove an attractive market for my own fiction, should I be fortunate enough to make the cut.
I hadn’t been aware that Threadcop was interested in publishing her fiction in Nature. Interesting facet.
Of course, not such a quill in a writer’s cap now…
***
Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things?
It’s all relative. Compare Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction.
***
A non-violent anthem for you – official lyrics:
I’m sorry, but the word “girt” should never be sung. I’m going to believe the lyrics were originally in French and that this was a bad nineteenth-century translation.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Ahs: Ah, thank you. That’s a bit of a relief.
waltonsays
(Do you realise when you write “Killing is killing is killing”, you’re stating that you find voluntary euthanasia to be no different from murder?)
No. The fact that killing can be justified in some circumstances (which most of us agree that it can) does not mean it ceases to be killing. I have never said that all killing is wrong; but we should be honest about what it is. (FWIW, although I am entirely in favour of giving individuals the right to assisted suicide, I’m not keen on the term “euthanasia” in general; it’s certainly been used inappropriately in a great many contexts.)
My fundamental point was that the identity of the actor as a state agent, as opposed to a private citizen, does not make any moral difference to the legitimacy of a killing. Contrary to classical liberal theory, I would contend that a killing does not become more morally legitimate merely because it was authorized by a duly-enacted act of a democratically-elected legislature, and ordered by a court after a trial. To pretend that this makes any difference, and to act as though judicial and extrajudicial killings are qualitatively different, is to lend credence to the nation-state’s assertion that it has a sovereign right to decide to kill its subjects, and that the collective gets to decide whether the individual should live or die.
For this reason, I would advocate that we use the words “murder” and “execution”, with the attendant implication that there is a difference between the two, only when discussing law and legal process. When we’re talking about morality and philosophy, I don’t find it useful to distinguish between the two concepts, and prefer to refer to them both simply as killings.
First Approximationsays
In American parlance, a “Yankee” is someone from New England.
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
So, with all of the talk of snow should I not mention that it hit 70 here and it’s still in the 50′s?
Shoot, enjoy it while you can! When it comes to cornbread, this cornbread is a major pain in the ass to make, but it is so delicious:
Mary Ann’s Cheese Cornbread
Note that the prep can be done at convenient times and the results saved til you’re ready to bake the Corn bread. It’s a fair amount of work, but the mixing is simple, and it makes a huge amount – about 20 servings. It travels well when cold and heats up beautifully in the microwave in a minute.
Prep:
Cut the kernels off three ears of fresh sweet corn (do not use
old corn or starchy field corn) with a sharp knife. Put
the kernels into a pyrex container and microwave for 4 minutes.
Allow to cool. Reverse the knife and use the dull side to
scrape the remains of the kernels off the cob. Gather up this
material and set aside.
Chop 12 slices of bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Fry til crisp.
Fire roast one chili of whatever spiciness you please. I like
a nice red Hungarian chili. Skin, seed and chop into the smallest possible pieces.
Chop 3/4 lb of monterey jack cheese or cheddar cheese
into cubes of approx 2/3″ by 1/2″.
Recipe:
Grease a 13×9 baking pan well or spray with PAM.
Mix in bowl:
1.5 cups flour
1.5 cups cornmeal, white or yellow
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix in another bowl:
3 eggs, beaten
2.25 cups buttermilk
3 Tbsp maple syrup or sugar
Melt 8 TBSP butter and stir into liquid ingredients: The butter gives the cornbread its flavor so don’t use margarine.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Add
corn scrapings. Stir gently to mix. Fold in kernels, bacon, cheese and chilis.
Bake at 375 degrees F. for 20 mins/30 mins or until knife comes out clean. Cut in small pieces and serve warm. We eat this with vegetables for dinner.
What kind of mixed berries do you like, ahs? I find a 1:1:1 mix of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries is nice (and an overall 1:1 mix of berries and rhubarb).
But yes, please don’t fuck the pie. You’ll give yourself a UTI.
John Moralessays
Walton,
My fundamental point was that the identity of the actor as a state agent, as opposed to a private citizen, does not make any moral difference to the legitimacy of a killing.
That’s arguable, but you also stated that there is no practical difference via logical disjunction (“pretending that there is some moral or practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals.”)
For this reason, I would advocate that we use the words “murder” and “execution”, with the attendant implication that there is a difference between the two, only when discussing law and legal process.
Your contention has merit, I grant.
(I think you should learn to avoid the mealy-mouthed ‘would’ when you mean ‘do’, since I know you value clarity)
—
PS
I’m not keen on the term “euthanasia” in general
Nor am I, but it’s useful and unambiguous; its meaning is clearly ‘mercy killing’.
Pie is good. Girt by creme anglaise* in winter, icecream in summer. (*Proper custard, that is, not packet.)
Girt is a hilarious word. If I ever have a beach house, I shall name it Girt.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Caine:
Thank you! I’ll have to give that one a shot when corn’s in season again.
Ingsays
out of no where rant
Is it so horrible to ask companies to make sure their video games are actually flipping playable? I’d love to make use of everything in New Vegas and finish it if it hasn’t already fucked me out of one possible path I want by a glitch and keeps locking up. It baffles me, work was clearly put into the product. It’s not like ET Atari or most shitty games when I was a kid that were just unplayable garbage from the start. It’s even more annoying when a game lures you in with promise only to take a shit on you and be unplayable. What a waste of my money. i don’t even know why I bother.
John Moralessays
[addendum]
I’m a foolish hypocrite sometimes; by my own intent that should have been “I think you should learn to avoid the mealy-mouthed ‘would’ when you mean ‘do’, since I know you value clarity”.
[totally thread bankrupt]
Happy Sunday everyone! We attended a worship service today. Ushers, people sitting in rows speaking in whispers, passionate speeches from a raised platform, songs about good and evil, life and death, and meat pies, and a barber chair connected to a trap door.
Pretty good for a local theater group production, although the trap door started malfunctioning toward the end and you could see the corpses helping it out.
It’s fine, Walton. I just wanted to know if she was okay, and she is, just taking a Pharyngubreak. Thanks for the offer. :)
waltonsays
This thread is such a vortex of depravity. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss the possibility of having intimate relations with pastry-based foods before.
changeable monikersays
Distantly, geese honk
Sleep eludes them; not so me
Night all, tuck up warm
And check the picture @#219, it’s uncanny. ;)
Therrinsays
I thought apple was the preferred pie to fuck.
Estelethsays
Walton, you’ve never had a good rhubarb pie, have you.
It’s a great way to get the ol’ juices flowin’ if you follow my meanin’
;)
Of course, you’ll need to have your gyno on speed-dial.
Therrinsays
Ing,
QA is probably an easy target for cutting payroll.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
My wheelchair sprung a leak. My knees were (and remain) unamused.
I’m trying to decide just how annoyed I am with the management of the Gillioz Theatre. After all, I did email them an inquiry in advance, asking whether/how navigable their premises were to someone driving a manual wheelchair, and they assured me that that water was just fine, and that “We are very handicap accessible with plenty of space for wheelchairs!” Am I wrong in feeling that the Managing Director somewhat mislead me? I don’t know….
–
–
Old Thread
TLC, sorry to hear about your ex’s abdominal pain problem. Let us know how it comes out, ‘kay?
Later:
Update: The ex just called. It’s a cyst on her ovary the size of a friggin golf ball.
Sympathies offered. Options?
–
I had one of those once, about the size of a peach. The pain was insane, beyond description. Then the damn thing broke and I had all kinds of fun with a period that lasted over 3 months.
O.O
*gesture of aversion*
–
Getting old fucking well sucks.
Sing it!
Sorry about your hand, chigau.
Used to be, if I hit something hard enough for it to bruise, or a mosquito was driving its nasty little proboscis into me, I damned well knew it. These days, I’m forever coming up with unexplained bruises, and I have to see the mosquito land. (And I want them to stay offa my lawn.)
–
The cat is purring.
The cat always purrs when she wants something.
The cat always purrs.
Re-casting it slightly:
The wanting cat purrs.
The cat is always purring.
The cat always wants.
–
Since there seems to be a Travelers Advisory on long posts….
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss the possibility of having intimate relations with pastry-based foods before.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself you’re real. :D So, you haven’t seen American Pie, then?
chigau (む)says
“mixed” berries.
Go out to the garden (or freezer) to discover what is there.
This will henceforth (for this recipe) be known as “mixed” berries.
—
awesome
I hope this question makes sense (and is not too stupid).
Was The South™ really considered “traitors”?
(I have most of my info on that period in USA history from movies)
Weren’t they just wanting to have their own country?
Estelethsays
Chigau, the South were definitely considered traitors. The fact that they just wanted to have their own country was that they wanted to break the country in half and denied the authority of the elected federal government because they were outvoted.
OT: The roommate is playing her violin. I has a happy.
If it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked it. If you remember that, you won’t be so shocked by human depravity, I promise. Whatever you do, don’t get drunk with a bunch of ER doctors and nurses. The stories would kill ya.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
If it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked it
Oh girl, I know thas’ right!
waltonsays
Er, I was being flippant… I guess the snarky grin didn’t come across. :-) I’m not so easily shocked by the diversity and weirdness of people’s sexual fetishes as you might think, honestly.
I’ve had the same fave for years now – a man came into the ER, um, attached to a vacuum cleaner hose. It was fucking hilarious.
Squigitsays
*nervously* I’ve decided to learn Spanish. *gulp* Anyone have any recommendations regarding self-teaching resources that are more affordable than Rossetta Stone?
ahs ॐsays
Was The South™ really considered “traitors”?
By most of the Union, yes. And the Confederacy said the same of the Union.
Lincoln was “fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism” and a “worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero…. The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor and murderer…. And if he is elected to misgovern for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”
Estelethsays
I’ve had the same fave for years now – a man came into the ER, um, attached to a vacuum cleaner hose.
A nurse friend told me of a man who came into the ER and presented with:
1: a pair of nail scissors,
2: a pair of pliers
and
3: a teaspoon
Whatever you do, don’t get drunk with a bunch of ER doctors and nurses. The stories would kill ya.
My mother (a nurse in a large ER) has lots of stories about what people choose to stick up their asses. Just a public service announcement: Think before you stick something up your ass.
chigau (む)says
[trite alert]
Isn’t one person’s traitor always another person’s freedom fighter?
[/trite]
—–
My roommate is not playing the guitar. I feel something is missing.
——
I would include in Caine’s warning about ER personnel, EMTs.
(whatever they are called where you are, those people who occupy ambulances)
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
If it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked it
Rule 34ish
Estelethsays
Isn’t one person’s traitor always another person’s freedom fighter?
Well, yes. True enough. And they did see themselves as exercising their rights for freedom and all that.
It is also true that they seceded only after it was made clear to them that they weren’t going to be able to have their (pro-slavery) views dominate the country despite being outvoted by anti-slavery views.
Oh, it’s not just asses. The variety of things men will stick their penis into is utterly amazing. It’s not always men, either, and sometimes it’s fairly innocent. Back in my counseling days at PP, there was a panicked call from a teenage girl who had been masturbating with a cucumber. No problem with that, except when she noticed the time and realized her mother was due back shortly, she panicked and her muscles locked…that cucumber wasn’t coming out. That was an interesting call.
That sounds more like a specific disorder, akin to those who repeatedly swallow inappropriate objects.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Inserted into his urethra.
Ok
i’m done
if you need me I’ll be curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the darkest room on earth
John Moralessays
If Whether or not it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked tried to fuck it
For the sake of completeness.
Carliesays
A nurse friend told me of a man who came into the ER and presented with:
Was that a “he swallowed the spider to catch the fly” kind of situation?
Estelethsays
And not just inserting either! I saw an entry in the honorable mentions on the Darwin Awards that made me cringe like nothing else.
Protip: when performing cunnilingus, NO BITING. Just because the slang term is “eating out,” that does NOT mean you should literally eat her labia.
The things people do…
Estelethsays
That sounds more like a specific disorder, akin to those who repeatedly swallow inappropriate objects.
Was that a “he swallowed the spider to catch the fly” kind of situation?
Apparently, this was how he pleasured himself. Apparently, one item got, uh, lost, and he tried to fish it out. That got lost too…
RevBDC, I’m having a camera up mine on Thursday. Hey, why are you screaming?
ahs ॐsays
When I was a young man, I did not know how to pack for vacation, and I ended up having to use a
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
When I was a young man, I did not know how to pack for vacation, and I ended up having to use a
Armadillo?
Estelethsays
When I was a young man, I did not know how to pack for vacation, and I ended up having to use a
Don’t say porcupine don’t say porcupine don’t say porcupine
I’m gonna go with “RotoRooter” just for flair.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
As for violence nothing beats the Danish royal hymn.
Well, there is the Betelgusian National Anthem.
Then, of course, on the other end of the spectrum is Canada’s national anthem. Kind of an afterthought. “Oh. Canada.”
For a liberal anthem, how about Last Night I had the Strangest Dream”?
Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things?
Er, isn’t that part of the point of TET?
I really like mixed berries and rhubarb pie.
And why would you sully innocent berries with `shudder` rhubarb?
Just don’t fuck the pie.
er. . .
We made two apple pies last week. One with a Dutch crumb topping and one with a lattice top. One pie to our neighbor, one for us. We may need to make another one for Thanksgiving (and we already have our Thanksgiving Day chicken and a tofurkey for Girl).
If it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked it.
Hell, I once completely and totally fucked a VW 1100cc Type II engine.
Carliesays
Think before you stick something up your ass.
Word of the day: flange. Be sure your object has one.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Word of the day: flange. Be sure your object has one
Or a string. Or cord.
And why has no one mentioneda Leica rangefinder yet?
Ze Madmaxsays
Esteleth:
Protip: when performing cunnilingus, NO BITING. Just because the slang term is “eating out,” that does NOT mean you should literally eat her labia.,/blockquote>
Is there some extra space for a third person to cower?
Carliesays
When I was a young man, I did not know how to pack for vacation, and I ended up having to use a
larger suitcase than I ought to have needed?
Estelethsays
Carlie:
larger suitcase than I ought to have needed?
Given the context of the current state of the TET, my brain went “…WHAT!?” at that.
I spent my Sunday asleep. I tend to stress when I meet people, and this past week involved meeting a bunch of folks. So I stressed and ended up sleeping the day away
In the meantime a dead right whale (I think) washed up on a Point Loma beach. THe authorities are talking about towing away to a better place for a necropsy.
thanks for that link. I can’t seem to find any reports on Mormon billboards in Brisbane, do you have any other source for that by any chance ?
A. Rsays
Speaking of strange things inserted into orifices, when I was doing an internship with an E.R. doctor last year, a patient came in with thirteen black walnuts in his rectum. I was concerned.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
A.R.
I would be too. Those things can stain something awful.
First Approximationsays
My mother (a nurse in a large ER) has lots of stories about what people choose to stick up their asses.
My mistake, the animal is a fin whale, according to the San Diego Union/Tribune. Sorry for the error.
chigau (む)says
Do all your interesting ER stories involve {the parts that are covered by a bathing suit}?
What about my FoaF story about the guy with a severe head injury who was still “alive” when he had maggots in half of his brain?
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
What about my FoaF story about the guy with a severe head injury who was still “alive” when he had maggots in half of his brain?
Ah, a potato is a popular one. My mother had one of those. Had to have a minor procedure to get it out. He was married and had to called his wife. He told her that he was in the hospital for “stomach problems”.
First Approximationsays
Whatever you do, don’t get drunk with a bunch of ER doctors and nurses. The stories would kill ya.
“You meet a proctologist at a party, don’t walk away. *Plant* yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories you’ve ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they *stuck* something up there. Never! It’s always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way: “It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one.”” – Kramer (aka, Assman)
Estelethsays
At Arisa one year there was a panel discussion on “How to Buy BDSM Gear at the Grocery Store (Outside of Produce).” It was great!
Learned a lot.
But yes. Flanges. Are. Your. FRIEND.
Also – don’t insert breakables!
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
My mother (a nurse in a large ER) has lots of stories about what people choose to stick up their asses. .
Starstuff, I read this as “My mother (a large nurse in the ER).”
Just a public service announcement: Think before you stick something up your ass
Needs more flange.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
Am I the only one who finds it condescending when someone calls women ladies, in the middle of a sexism discussion? For me, it always has a whiff of “Now, now, calm down, I didn’t mean to upset your little ladybrains”.
No; and I see it with a side-order of “remember, you are supposed to be ladies, proper, well-mannered, all-but-mute ladies, who don’t ever speak out of turn”. Reminding us of our place.
–
mythusmage, I got the impression that this woman simply doesn’t like you, personally, and was acting accordingly. What type of bigotry on her part did I miss?
–
Sympathy and *hugs* for Lee Picton. It it ain’t one damned thing….
–
Criminal Mimes
*snortle*
How is this not already a TV series?
–
Well O)g, a mime is a terrible thing to waste.
And they should be stopped.
In our lifetime.
(Think of the children….)
–
Benjamin, I’m glad to hear that your medication is helping. Less-stabby is good.
–
What’s everyone reading these days?
John Dies at the End, by David Wong. I just finished Snuff.
–
The clergyman, in his 50s, told nurses he had been hanging curtains when he fell backwards on to his kitchen table.
He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap, said the vicar, who insisted he had not been playing a sex game.
chigau (む)says
Rev #303
Sometimes one has a party that goes on too long.
That book would send all those late-stayers home.
(especially when accompanied by my actual anthropologist recording of a throat-singing granny (90+yrs) who must stop occasionally to hork some phlegm)
Estelethsays
Alright, I have to work tomorrow.
Bedtime.
Keep it out of the gutter, everyone. Most unhygienic. I scrubbed the spanking parlor earlier today and oiled all the floggers and paddles.
John Moralessays
chigau,
What about my FoaF story about the guy with a severe head injury who was still “alive” when he had maggots in half of his brain?
Keep it out of the gutter, everyone. Most unhygienic. I scrubbed the spanking parlor earlier today and oiled all the floggers and paddles.
*blushes and giggles*
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
I have received birthday loot*.
*It’s a Le Crueset kettle. I love Mister. ♥
oh cool, we have a green one of those.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
I scrubbed the spanking parlor earlier today and oiled all the floggers and paddles.
That’s all well and good, but the Whimper Corner may need some neatening up tommorrow morning.
And now, I’m heading off to bed. Why? Because I put in a full week of work today.
No, really, I did. My lieu days are Monday and Tuesday (normal colendar) and I took off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Which means that Sunday was my Monday (beginning of the week), Wednesday (middle of the week) and Friday (end of the week).
Battlefield surgeons in the U.S. Civil War and other conflicts around that time noticed that soldiers who were not attended to immediately had a better survival rate, apparently because fly maggots would eat away dead flesh and leave living flesh. Very very clean maggots are sometimes used to clean wounds even now.
I love Le Creuset. Their Doufou is one of the best pieces of kitchenware I have ever bought.
Audley:
Are you sure the ratties don’t think that it was for them?
They had to check it out. They have to check everything out. Doubly so if it comes in a box. :D
Cannabinaceaesays
Our Le Crueset is a blue 5 quart oval. We got it at their Atlantic Avenue store in Brooklyn, half off during a sale, after loading ourselves down with goodies from Sahadi’s.
Yeah, still not 100% un-stabby, but definitely better than I would have been before.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Caine:
Doubly so if it comes in a box. :D
There’s fun times to be had in a box. Rat fort!
And now my lovelies, since it seems like I’ve fucked up my back pretty good today, I’m going to take some painkillers and go to bed early.
Sweet dreams, all.
chigau (む)says
John Morales
Snopes link, eeww.
My FoaF story was just about the paramedics finding an almost-dead street-person and taking him to the ER until he died.
Cannabinaceae, this is the Doufeu. That thing was worth every frigging penny. We’ve had ours for about 5 years now and I wouldn’t cook a roastbeast in anything else.
Caine, did anyone teach you kids
“Oh, dear, what can the matter be,
Three old ladies locked in the lava-tree!
They’ve been there from Monday to Saturday–
Nobody seems to care.”
“Conga rats” reminds me of another list where, long before, “Thanks in advance” had evolved through “TIA” into “Spanish Aunts,” which it took me a while to decode. I guess that “tia” means “aunts” in Spanish.
My neighbour was building a garden shed. He was on a ladder with a 4×8 sheet of plywood for the roof, all alone, when he fell off. The bit from his cordless screwdriver embedded itself in the posterior. He had to drive himself to the emergency ward where all of the on duty staff were female and according to him, barely out of school. His wife picked him up at the hospital and the nurses and doctors were still giggling.
I don’t want to keep language pure but I do want to keep useful distinctions such as interested vs. disinterested and meter (the gadget) vs. metre (the measurement) and cheque (the financial instrument) vs. check (verification or stoppage).
ChasCPetersonsays
I hadn’t been aware that Threadcop was interested in publishing her fiction in Nature.
Has anybody addressed this?
She did publish a story there. Already.
(btw did you know that she banned me? I might have accused her of “reflexive sidekicking”.)
chigau (む)says
Monado #342
Given the nature of the current discussion that was either brilliant or annoying.
ChasCPetersonsays
meter (the gadget) vs. metre (the measurement)
that’s regional, you know.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
Total, sudden, hive death.
:(
Sad to hear it, Rev.
–
–
(Finally!) New Thread:
Esteleth, congrats on PhD-ing! *confetti and champagne*
–
Happy birthdays, Lynna and Caine! *chocolate cake*, *rum punch* and, of course, *hugs*
–
We have a mouse in the house.
The kitteh is currently engaged in trying to catch it.
I’m leaving her to that task.
If kitteh doesn’t eat the evidence, be sure that you know what she did with the body. A mousie buried under a rug and trod flat is…an experience, when found.
–
Also, absolutely EVERYONE who meets Ayla wants to have sex with her. Everyone.
So…you’re saying that Ayla is Anita Blake?
–
Classical Cypher is accounted for, and I’m glad of it, but blf remains missing, and no-one has spoken up (to my knowledge) with any info about his well-being. And the peas are getting restless, dammit!
–
Has anybody addressed this?
She did publish a story there. Already.
I knew the tenses would be confusing. I meant that at the time of the Gee blow-up she must have had that in mind, or possibly already submitted something.
(btw did you know that she banned me?
Ha! No, I didn’t.
I might have accused her of “reflexive sidekicking”.)
Re: suppressing the South. OK, you’re talking about going back in history and avoiding the mistakes that were made back then. It’s true that winning the war and then abandoning the people who need help putting their society back together in a healthier configuration has a long tradition in the U.S. But you could make a new set: what is repressed tends to gather adherents and pop back up again.
You’re right that the die-hard secessionists were violent: Lincoln wasn’t killed by a random out-of-work actor but by a member of a secessionist conspiracy.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Keep it out of the gutter, everyone. Most unhygienic. I scrubbed the spanking parlor earlier today and oiled all the floggers and paddles.
Ah, somebody who transported in and out without going downstairs, where the carn(ivor)age was. All cleaned up now (thanks to Pharyngula Labs Predator Sterilizer™), and catching up with the internet orders.
*Yikes, the Pullets look mean and hungry…Where is the grog soaked corn…*
Probably the latter! Sorry, I’m just starting at the top of the thread and working my way down.
chigau (む)says
I, too, want to know if blf is OK.
—
The mouse-in-the-house has been resolved.
The kitteh was not very helpful.
I, myself, alone, me, caught the mouse and moved him (generic) outdoors.
It is VERY cold out there but I put him in the compost bin, which is full of food and litter and … stuff.
Why I am this concerned I just can’t understand.
Father Ogvorbis, OM, if you feel like making pies and have freezer space, they freeze wonderfully, with only a couple of minor modifications. We coat the inside bottom pastry with a bit of vegetable oil so it won’t get soggy. And, for all fruit pies, we sprinkle maybe a teaspoon of tapioca balls in the bottom so they’ll absorb juice and the pie won’t boil over from the steam slits. Just make the pie and freeze it raw. A bushel? Half a bushel? at maybe three apples per pie, supplies one pie per weekend throughout the winter. Just slip the frozen pie into a moderate oven and bake for about 45 minutes. Heavenly!
For you fans of John Dies At The End who may not know – There’s a movie in the works: http://johndies.com/
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Whew! Got lucky, Patricia and Nasty came in, she clucked and he pointed, and Pullet Patrol™ cleared the place out in less than a minute to the Pullet Palace™. And Patricia and Nasty returned to who knows what (pie making from the aroma you dirty minded people). Orders are on the way to all those who are backordered, including our birthday celebrants.
Laughing Coyote, I got a lot of shunning, and a little bit of bullying, when I was small and I still remember how the bullying stopped when I stood up to it and declared I was eager to have someone “wait for me after school.” My child went through a bit of the same thing, being bullied because it was right to “turn the other cheek”–I had to explain that one has to show enough deterrence to scare them off.
chigau (む)says
If I were to make a passionate plea for everyone here to go to SI for recipes, would it work?
I still cook in cups and tablespoons but I can accommodate.
I don’t know what is a “stick” of butter.
A “stick” is 4 ounces by weight. Butter here is often sold in a pound box, subdivided into quarters.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I am depressed. And angry.
Everyone always asks me if I’m working. I know they’re trying to be friendly, but as soon as I tell them I’m on disability, that same look crosses their fucking faces. “Hmm.” they’re thinking, “He’s not wearing a diaper or in a wheelchair, and he has two arms and two legs…. must just be gaming the system, the lazy fuck.”
Is this really why I was born? So I can devote my entire youth to working for some rich privileged asshole who gets to act like he owns me and tosses me his leftovers while keeping the majority of the profits? This is life as a human?
I’d rather be a fucking dung beetle. At least then I’d get to actually, you know, get what I work for. Even if it is shit.
I DO want to work. I’m not lazy. I’ve worked before. But having a job isn’t REALLY about working. It’s about sucking up and playing the stupid social games. Climb that ladder, monkey! so one day you too can pick fleas off the alpha chimp’s ass. I don’t do that. I could blame asperger’s syndrome, but honestly I don’t think I’d be able to stand it even if I was neurotypical.
Know how I lost my last job? There I was, in the pouring rain, trying to cut a hole in a piece of concrete with a diamond bladed concrete saw. No water for lubrication except for what fell out of the sky. The saw weighed half as much as me and was skipping and bouncing all over the fucking place. I got fired because I didn’t want to cut my own legs off. I wasn’t going fast enough. I didn’t realize at the time I could report him to the better business bureau, so the fucker got away with it.
I don’t even think I could survive the job interview at this point. I’d tell him “I’m here to work. Not lick your ass. Not to climb the ladder. I work, you pay me for work.” And then the interview would be over, because I’m not ‘Company Material’. Because rich people are used to having people suck up, and they likes it just fine that way.
My first job spoiled me. I had ethical bosses who worked as hard as their employees and were concerned about my health, safety, and general happiness. Stupid fucking me, here I thought they were all like that! Nope.
And whenever I try to talk about these frustrations to anyone, I’m just being a whiner. I’m just a selfish lazy fuck who thinks society (the same society that’s made me feel like a little crustie they pick out of their butthole since I was small) owes me a living or something.
I -WANT- to work. I’m bored all the fucking time and never have enough money. But this is 2011, and I will not spit in burgers at mcdonalds or serve timmy coffees to type-A assholes. I also don’t drive.
In other words, I am unemployable.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Laughing Coyote, I got a lot of shunning, and a little bit of bullying, when I was small and I still remember how the bullying stopped when I stood up to it and declared I was eager to have someone “wait for me after school.” My child went through a bit of the same thing, being bullied because it was right to “turn the other cheek”–I had to explain that one has to show enough deterrence to scare them off.
Right on.
I was never willing to wait for after school or ‘take it outside’. I went for them on the spot. RAWR!
First Approximationsays
TLC,
I hear ya. People complain about government “tyranny”, but when I look around it seems like businesses are issuing more orders, treating most of their employees like wage slaves. Yet, they rarely get called out for it. It’s just accepted by most.
Laughing Coyote: I do sympathize, fwiw. I get annoyed with the judgmental neo-Victorian attitude that’s prevalent in our society towards those who are out of work. (This is something that seems to be common to both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, that kind of attitude reared its ugly head briefly in a Facebook debate I had today about the Occupy movement and the right to protest.)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
FA: That’s what pisses me off the most about it. Everyone seems to just ‘accept it’. If everyone decided to refuse to work for unethical scumbags today, then the economy would grind to a halt until the system changed. But no one’s gonna do that. The wealthy are ‘Job creators’. And they worked hard to inherit that million dollar business from daddy. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to treat us like pack donkeys, right?
“Stick of butter” = 1/2 cup. A pound of butter is 2 cups. Unwrap it, put a mark in the middle, then another mark half-way to the end and that’s your lump of butter.
ahs ॐsays
But you could make a new set: what is repressed tends to gather adherents and pop back up again.
This has only barely happened in Germany. It sure looks like denazification worked, was better than the probable alternative. Every German and every Austrian at Pharyngula who I’ve noticed commenting on denazification over the years has indicated that the banning of Nazi symbols, for instance, has been a good (or least bad) thing.
Part of the problem in the South now is that organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans have been allowed to promote the Lost Cause, which includes lies about the reason the Confederacy fought, such that these lies are now being taught in public schools in the South. There are kids growing up now who genuinely believe that slavery was not the primary reason why the South seceded. They seriously think it’s some nebulous concept of “states’ rights”, some vague disagreements about the originalist scope of federal power.
I believe this part of the reason this happened was because the leaders of the Confederacy were treated as gentlemen instead of traitors and scoundrels after the war. As gentlemen, they were permitted to promote their own versions of history. Allowing the states of the Confederacy to keep their myths as “heritage” has been a total mess. It really is hard to imagine a worse outcome.
+++++
At the very least, what we could still do today is enforce a national curriculum on the Civil War, which all schools, public and private, must teach: the Confederacy seceded for the primary purpose of perpetuating slavery.
I present this for discussion, not because I regard it as a counterargument to anything anyone’s said. Indeed, I suspect everyone here will agree it’s a reasonable approach.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Walton: I have never felt so much in common with any protest or movement as I do with the Occupy movement. This is shit that needs to happen.
I can’t watch the clips though. It makes me want to chuck a spear through my computer screen, seriously.
BTW, I do accept that there is a difference between those who don’t like how it works but reluctantly accept a job where they’re ordered around all day because they have to make ends meet and those who think there’s nothing wrong with how the system operates or will even defend it. In the real world you sometimes have to make tough choices. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to try to change things for the better.
I hear ya. People complain about government “tyranny”, but when I look around it seems like businesses are issuing more orders, treating most of their employees like wage slaves. Yet, they rarely get called out for it. It’s just accepted by most.
Well, employer tyranny is, in one sense, state-tyranny-by-proxy. After all, the inequality of power between the employer and the employee results from the fact that the former controls property, whereas the latter does not. (As Marx would put it, the employers have power because they own the means of production.) By creating and enforcing property rights, the state grants the capitalists the power to control certain resources and to exclude others forcibly from using them. And that control is ultimately backed by the coercive power of the state: after all, the property-owner can rely on the police to use force to prevent others from occupying hir property. (As we’ve seen this week with the violent suppression of peaceful occupations.) Hence, the non-owners are forced to bargain with the owners on the latter’s terms, in order to access the resources they need to survive.
This is the point that right-wing libertarians ignore. Contractual relations between the rich and the poor are not “free” or “uncoerced”, because, in a private-property-based society, the rich control the resources that the poor need to survive; a control which is granted by the state in the form of property rights, and which is ultimately backed by the use or threat of violence. For a good analysis of this, see Hale’s Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State, criticizing the libertarian notion of “freedom of contract”.
This is why I actually think an anti-statist worldview and a critique of capitalism are eminently compatible with one another. Modern industrial capitalism is a creature of state violence, and corporate power is intimately intertwined with state power. This doesn’t mean that we should abolish either capitalism or the state – I don’t think either is feasible – but it means that conservative pseudo-libertarian arguments about the need to set business free from state interference are, ultimately, bullshit.
chigau (む)says
awesome
I’m Canadian.
How much do you think I need to fret about the USA?
(I usually don’t fret at all. But we have that “bigest undefended border”.)
Should I start defending?
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Chigau: I’ve been fretting about the USA since Bush took office. I thought I’d stop fretting once he was gone, but I haven’t.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Walton: Great point, I hadn’t thought about it quite that deeply before.
I can’t sleep at all and I have class at 8 am (which is in about 7 hours). Ugh, I’m tempted to just stay up all night.
chigau (む)says
I know what is a “stick” of butter (lard, margarine).
I just think it is a totally dumb-ass unit of measurement.
The unit “stick” exists only in the USA.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Starstuff: I find, sometimes, if I have something to do at a certain time the next day, there comes a point where it would actually be more difficult to go to sleep and then get up an hour or two later, than to just stay up.
YMMV, depending on how much sleep you actually need. I can survive a night or two without, but if I go too long I start hallucinatin’. Especially if I just drink coffee and don’t eat enough during that time.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I’m completely losing my shit on the “vileness” thread about the unprovoked pepper spray assault on UC Davis students. I cannot believe how many commenters are coming out to describe the students as (yes, in these terms) “perps” who were “breaking the law” and who should have seen their assault coming.
chigau (む)says
TLC
I`ve been fretting about the USA since Kennedy.
But that`s just `cause I`m too young to fret farther back.
@chigau: I feel your pain, but I have learned to adapt. I am now capable of using a US recipe, as well as European style metric, Imperial British, and modern Australian metric – all different. And if you do go to SI ingredients, please do it sensibly. Don’t ask for 113.5g butter!
And my FSM, US Americans collectively have the most horrendous sweet tooth! I made a Pioneer Woman recipe recently, halved the sugar, and it still came out severely sweet. You have to be careful just cutting down on sugar in baked goods – too much reduction will make a cake dryer and heavier. A third reduction is usually OK for a cake, but you can usually cut more for biscuits (US cookies).
First Approximationsays
I’m completely losing my shit on the “vileness” thread about the unprovoked pepper spray assault on UC Davis students. I cannot believe how many commenters are coming out to describe the students as (yes, in these terms) “perps” who were “breaking the law” and who should have seen their assault coming.
Yeah, it’s disgusting.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
If what we call ‘cookies’ in north america are biscuits in Britain, then what are ‘cookies’ in Britain?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Yeah, it’s disgusting.
It sure is. I’m so angry right now. . .I can’t remember the last time I was this worked up. So much so that I’m having fantasies about punching the shit out of some of those commenters. I really don’t like that. It’s not cool. It’s also perverse.
It takes a lot to provoke me to that kind of anger, and I don’t like being there.
chigau (む)says
Alethea H. Claw (once and future Cook)
Yes!
Hard conversions are stooopid.
Most of my measuring cups and spoons have alternative measures.
And I`m old, I know when is too much butter.
@Monado, you do realise that someone complaining about the “stick” of butter as a measurement is unlikely to be able to buy butter in pounds, right? Also, your “cups” and theirs are almost certainly different. So your solution is not going to be very helpful.
@Coyote: “cookies” in the UK and Australia are understood as the American word for biscuits. There’s no native English product called a “cookie”. It comes from the Dutch “koekje”, btw. Even old New York was once New Amsterdam…
We tend to use “cookie” here for a giant sized biscuit, often with chips of something – the chocolate chip cookie being a US invention. Unlike the apple pie – you lot really should change that saying. “As American as chocolate chip cookies” makes more sense. As an Aussie, I’m more prone to say “bickie” than biscuit, though.
I find, sometimes, if I have something to do at a certain time the next day, there comes a point where it would actually be more difficult to go to sleep and then get up an hour or two later, than to just stay up.
YMMV, depending on how much sleep you actually need. I can survive a night or two without, but if I go too long I start hallucinatin’. Especially if I just drink coffee and don’t eat enough during that time.
Yeah, I might just stay up. I don’t have anything important to do tomorrow and I only have a few classes and I only have two days of classes this week anyway (yay Thanksgiving!).
Josh, calm down man, not worth having a heart attack over ! Most of the commenters there seem to have no concept of civil disobedience, and also seem to have no clue that other countries can control such protests without resorting to violence.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I just read the vileness thread.
There’s nothing useful I can possibly contribute. I just want to chuck a spear at something. WHAM.
I was peacefully unaware of the existence of those awful people. Now I’m reading those comments D:
Why? I blame you (I’m just kidding. But seriously, those guys suck).
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Josh, calm down man, not worth having a heart attack over ! Most of the commenters there seem to have no concept of civil disobedience, and also seem to have no clue that other countries can control such protests without resorting to violence.
I dunno, Rorschach. .it may well be worth having a heart attack over. It’s fucking disturbing that so many of them not only don’t understand civil disobedience, but that they’re willing to sell their own kith and kin to the fucking police over it! If anything’s worth getting righteously mad over, I’d say this is it. These people are dangerous. Not just in a figurative sense. They’re dangerous for the body politic. They’re part of the rot. I want to stop them. I want to call them out. I want to marginalize them.
Oy. Yeah, I know. Don’t kill myself over it:) But damn it, no. It’s not OK.
Time for another glass of wine. . .lol.
ahs ॐsays
I cannot believe how many commenters are coming out to describe the students as (yes, in these terms) “perps” who were “breaking the law” and who should have seen their assault coming.
Gaaaaawd bless Aaaaaamerica
my hoooooome
sweeeeeeet
hoooooooome
ahs ॐsays
it may well be worth having a heart attack over.
Thanks heavens you said it. I bit my tongue as I figured it wouldn’t go over well.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
ahs, I’m about ready to buy a ticket to any political train you’re running. Seriously. .
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
It’s not even near fucking OK Josh.
I look like I stepped right out of the 60s. I’ve been profiled once or twice. It’s a good thing I know how to Pigspeak.
But it makes me feel sick every time. As I said earlier tonight, my first instinct when faced with bullies trying to intimidate me is BITE THEIR FUCKING FACES OFF. But the rules are different with cops.
An instinctive part of me wishes that the OWS movement WOULD turn violent. But the smart thinking reasoning part of me knows who’d win that battle.
I’m only at comment #32 and I’m ready to ball up and cry in a dark corner. This just makes me sad for humanity.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Yeah, Coyote, I wanna bite their fucking faces off too. Lucky it wasn’t me sitting in that line of students because I’d have gone fucknuts berserk on those motherfuckers. Errrrrg. . .even try to get your fucking pepper spray out.
If everyone decided to refuse to work for unethical scumbags today, then the economy would grind to a halt until the system changed. But no one’s gonna do that.
That’s because most people are living paycheck to paycheck and like having a roof over their heads, food and being able to provide for their family.
This is going to sound snarky, but I don’t mean it that way – most people are, unlike yourself, unable to claim disability in order to have a small amount of money in which to scrape by, enabling them to tell the boss to fuck off. It’s notoriously difficult for people to get disability here, the hoops you have to jump through are myriad and even then, people get turned down left and right. I know people who have been fighting for disability for years as it is increasingly difficult for them to work and have even been fired for not being able to handle the job physically. They have documentation, doctor’s statements, all that stuff. Even so, no go.
Here, it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not you can get disability. It’s a crapshoot when it comes to getting any sort of help whatsoever. No one likes a shit job, but you have to do that sometimes.
And yes, it goes without saying (or should) that some people game the system, however, that’s not the majority.
ahs ॐsays
ahs, I’m about ready to buy a ticket to any political train you’re running. Seriously. .
I split my support between the DSA and the CPUSA these days, depending on my mood in any given week.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Thanks for the links, ahs.
Ariaflamesays
Mind you, even what the UK/Australia call biscuits aren’t what the original biscuit was. The name coming from words meaning twice-cooked. Some, especially those for long sea-voyages were cooked or baked up to 4 times to make sure they were nice and hard and didn’t deteriorate. Of course you usually needed something liquid to dunk them in to make them edible.
But no, although in the UK and here in Australia we understand that ‘cookie’ is a word for what we know as biscuits, and will sometimes even use it such for the choc-chip ones Althea mentioned (mostly I suspect for the alliteration – chocolate chip cookie sounds so much better than chocolate chip biscuit). For the most part we use biscuits or bickies.
I have this vague memory that the USA doesn’t have self-raising flour. Is that correct?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I have this vague memory that the USA doesn’t have self-raising flour. Is that correct?
Not correct. We do have it, in the form of various quick-pancake/biscuit(in the American sense) mixes. Flour with the fat and baking powder already added in. Is that what you mean?
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
This is going to sound snarky, but I don’t mean it that way
I didn’t take it as ‘snarky’. You’re absolutely right. Another fucked up aspect of the system.
I speak mostly from depression and frustration.
I am NOT lazy. I am capable of working my ass off on something for days straight, only eating and sleeping the minimum amount to keep myself alive, if I’m ‘into it’ enough. I want to work. I want to get paid for my work. It seems so simple in my head. But out there in the real world, it’s clearly not. If only work was actually about WORK, and not about making some kind of impression on the boss.
Most job interviews seem to be more about small talk and jibber jabber and bullshit, otherwise they’d be exactly this long: “I want work. I can do *blank* *blank* and *Blank*. Hire me, Y/N?”
The fact that there’s even psychological space in US culture for such a sign to even be considered. . .
The guy is obviously gagging for someone to take the piss. I would be tempted to go into a long pythonesque discussion with the guy, complain about non-believers (ie those not believing in multiple gods … as would gradually become clear), and checking that the food really does meet God’s (ie Wotan’s) strict dietary requirements, etc. Instantly viral…
@ SQB 123
If life begins at conception, why aren’t christians celebrating their fuckday?
*chuckles*
I have wondered something similar about the “birthers” – they should, if they believe their own “baby at conception” logic, rather be called “fuckers”. Checking republicans country of conception seems appropriate by their standards. “Perry, where is your Fuck Certificate?”
@ ahs ॐ 364
denazification
Towards the end of apartheid, there where still many malgn right-wingers and warlords who did not want to give up their political positions. This came to a very graphic end when the armed AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) sent its militia into one of the defunct homelands to prop up a local strongman. A carload where photographed being shot to death by a member of the “homeland” defence force. That was essentially the death knell for right wing militancy.
Hey sgbm, since you’re around, a work collegue (yes, a doctor) helpfully printed me out “evidence” from google that black Africans have lower IQ and brain volumes, after she whinged about the difficulties she was having to teach a Sudanese mother how to syringe fluids into her sick kid the other day. This is an otherwise very intelligent and educated collegue, and I think one could get her onto the right track. I tried to explain the flawed concept that is “race” to her, but there is work to do. Does anyone have any good links to references to IQ tests and culture, for example ?
Crudely Wrottsays
Not caught up to the thread, as usual, so this may be redundant. Hope not.
For those of you who enjoy stories about our early ancestors such as Clan of the Cave Bear and Jean M Auel’s books, may I suggest the series written by Michael and Kathy Gear?
Both Michael and Kathy are archaeologists and have degrees in related areas. Each also have titles under their own names. They also used to drink beer at the same place I did. Interesting conversations were enjoyed.
Do check these books out. You’ll be glad you did. I promise. ;^>
My head feels like it’s going to explode. It was already hurting before, but reading the comments from the “vileness on display” thread just makes it worse.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Most job interviews seem to be more about small talk and jibber jabber and bullshit, otherwise they’d be exactly this long:“I want work. I can do *blank* *blank* and *Blank*. Hire me, Y/N?”
So true. Instead we get companies refusing to hire people because they’re “overqualified.” Which means, of course, that they’re mortally terrified of telling the truth: “We pay shit wages and we know you’ll leave us for a better position when it comes up. Accordingly, go starve.”
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Starstuff, I’m sorry, but misery does love company, darling. If I have to suffer, well then, so do you all.
I know, I know. It’s ugly. I can’t help myself. :)
It’s ok, Josh. I’ve yelled at a few idiots over there, so I feel a little less angry and hopeless now.
ahs ॐsays
rorschach:
(From my memory.) The father of the Nisbett we don’t like around here published a study purporting to show that genetic differences could at most account for 1/6 of academic achievement.
Having given a hint to whomever else might find it, now I’ll go look for it.
ahs ॐsays
1/6 of [differences in] academic achievement.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
The father of the Nisbett we don’t like around here
Oh, surely not — you’ve actually found a citation from Perfect Hair’s father? Too delicious. Share, please.
Ariaflamesays
I have this vague memory that the USA doesn’t have self-raising flour. Is that correct?
Not correct. We do have it, in the form of various quick-pancake/biscuit(in the American sense) mixes. Flour with the fat and baking powder already added in. Is that what you mean?
Cake mixes? No, we do have those but self-raising flour over here doesn’t have fat in it. Just the baking powder/tartaric acid stuff.
I can report that the GAC in Melbourne 2012 has a Dinner Committee. Now, I remember the hours of work that the Bride of Shrek put into having Pharyngula tables at the GAC last year, with the end result of one table with PZ, BoS, me, Kel, Wowbagger, Alathea and a few others, while the other 8 or so tables when we walked around seemed to hold people who had no clue who we or PZ were, so I’m not doing that again for 2012. Here’s a suggestion. Email me, or message me on FB, if you want us to put in for tables at the GAC. I need names and ticket confirmation numbers. If I dont hear, I will just ask for a table with the usual suspects (tables are 10 max).
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
No, we do have those but self-raising flour over here doesn’t have fat in it. Just the baking powder/tartaric acid stuff.
Oh, yeah, we have that too. Flour with baking powder in it. In the US it’s called “self-rising” flour. I admit I have no idea what it’s used for, or who’d buy it.
ahs ॐsays
(Is Richard Nisbett the father of Matt? Or did I dream that up by accident? I’m not sure now.)
What I’m thinking of was apparently “Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count”
but that PDF seems to be broken for me. Well, it works right up to page 15. Then page 16 is borked. Anybody else seeing that?
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Very nice Caine.
I encountered a rat in my backyard today. I was standing still and he wandered really close to me, before I turned to him and said “Hey, rat, how goes?”
He looked up at me like “Oh, SHIT!” and ran under some wood. He looked a little weak and hungry, so I dumped some chickenfeed in front of his bolt-hole.
‘Tis the season.
BTW he was gorgeous as far as wild rats go. He had this dark silvery sorta color to him.
Speaking of rats, Esme got her first snow experience today. She found it interesting, ate a bit of it, decided it was not nice to walk in and prefers it in a snowball.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I haz a kitteh on the couch snoring contentedly next to me. That counts for something.
ahs ॐsays
Somewhat dated now, but there was an updated version Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man in 1996.
I haz a kitteh on the couch snoring contentedly next to me. That counts for something.
Yes it does. Chas & Esme are all curled up, sleeping. I think I should take a hint and join them. I’ll leave you all with Ash, our first rat, stealing snow.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les poucessays
I believe this is known as being Thread bankrupt, though I shall pop back up the page to read later if I get half a chance.
Did something very out of character last night. Was in a large public space waiting to meet sonspawn, when I noticed someone had dropped a paperback on the floor. No realistic chance of getting it back to its owner (100s of people criss-crossing the space all the time) so having time to kill I thought I’d have a look and see if I liked it (and I’ll read cereal packets if there’s nothing else around). Hmm, something called “The Average American Male: a Novel”. Title not hugely promising, but who knows, it could be something really incisive and insightful … Open book at random; read for approximately 5 seconds. One last hope – must be satire, surely, or maybe it could be deliberate flawed narrator pov: let’s look at the last few paragraphs and see. So I gave the book far more than it deserved: a good 30 seconds reading the last three pages. Felt very slightly nauseous, as if I’d stepped in some elderly dog excrement left on the pavement by a dog-owner too shite to clean up after their pet. Took the book to the nearest rubbish bin and dropped it in; happily it was an opaque bin with a flip-top so no-one was going to be tempted to fish it out again out of curiosity.
Normally I can hardly bear to be separated from any book in my possession and will hoard anything – for this dreary, self-indulgent sexist dreck I had to make an exception. Yeuch.
ahs ॐsays
It’s getting late here though. That’s all for now. BTW, rorschach, in long threads I’m only doing the Ctrl-F thing for ahs, so I won’t usually notice sgbm unless I’m really reading the whole thing.
*sigh*
And just when I thought I was getting things back on track again my mum starts another episode. She’s too “sick” today to come to the trip we promised the kids (and I’m not going to cancel postpone it. I did that too many times. I’m not going to break any promises I made the kids for her sake again), but I’m so mean because I’ll take them to my mum in law tomorrow while I’m at work.
Yeah, it would be totally OK to treat my wonderful, sober, loving and caring mum in law like shit who’s only good enough at her best to take care of the kids when my mother is at her worst.
And now we’re off to IKea (yes, that’s a family trip in our house ;))
TLC
I understand your position and sentiment. But it’s also one that’s only affordable if you’re the only one depending on you.
Best wishes for the Ex
Beatricesays
And now we’re off to IKea (yes, that’s a family trip in our house ;))
I understand. IKEA is fun!
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
TLC
I understand your position and sentiment. But it’s also one that’s only affordable if you’re the only one depending on you.
I am supposed to be working right now and that is probably the reason I have gone googling for reviews of that book. A few tidbits off amazon:
It’s worth your time to examine the quality of the spelling in the positive reviews of this book in order to form an opinion of what marketers like to call “the target demographic.” Ask yourself: do I fit into this group? Do I want to? … Under no circumstances, however, should you read this book.
…I suddenly was bored with it. I realized that this guy is a pretty serious scum bag, and it was just no longer funny. …Women who find themselves reading this: I’m sorry. Do not associate this man as being the Average American Male. We’re better than this.
This book offers little in terms of literary merit or entertainment value. A chore to read, a lack of humor, a bland plot, one-dimensional characters. If satire is the author’s intended goal, he does a very poor job accomplishing said goal.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Theophontes: Damn, why didn’t I come across that review? Probably because I’m not looking very hard.
It’s OK Opposablethumbs. Once, I thought I found a chunk of hash on my floor. Turns out it was a rat turd.
Look for “Most helpful customer reviews”. People looking for reviews on amazon can rate who they think the best reviewers are. Try this linky. (holds thumbs it works)
I wanted to link you to some very funny reviews of the babble ™ but it seems amazon have censored these. I haz a sad :'(
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
This one’s from publisher’s weekly, and possibly my favorite:
But I love this one just for the sheer stupidity of it.
“[A] brilliant send-up of the way …the male point of view has been misrepresented by militant feminists.” (Toby Young, New York Times bestselling author of HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE )
“[B]uy Chad’s book. It’s a blueprint of how the mind–and penis–of a typical American male works.” (Maddox, New York Times bestselling author of THE ALPHABET OF MANLINESS )
Silly Maddox, thinking anyone gives a shit what you have to say in 2011.
Anyway, I’m a bit late, but I hope things are improving. I’ll squeeze some antihistamines through the intertubez for you.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les poucessays
theophontes I was curious enough to google it myself when I got home, and I was so relieved to see those reviews – thank dog there were plenty of people who thought it was a steaming pile of monkey droppings.
The funny thing was, it immediately made me think of Pharyngula – it was as if one of the MRA trolls had suddenly stepped out of my computer screen and manifested an actual paper-and-ink excrescence right in front of me. All I could think of was how the horde would have shredded him.
Now that would have made good reading.
Once, I thought I found a chunk of hash on my floor. Turns out it was a rat turd.
TLC
Yes, that’s pretty much what it was like!
.
Also, belated happy circumnavigation of the sun to Lynna and Caine
Beatricesays
I just got mail from AllOut.org, about a petition against this:
We’ve been talking all weekend with our friend Sasha – a teacher and mom in Russia – and what we’re hearing is horrifying. On Wednesday, political leaders in St. Petersburg are voting on a new law that will make it illegal to speak in public about being gay, lesbian or transgender.
Please someone tell me this is not true.
One of the articles linked in the mail:link
It doesn’t sound promissing.
Esme + snow … Where those her little pawprints in the snow below the birds (The pic you posted)?
Goodness, no! Those bird prints would look gigantic next to hers. She’s still too much the skitterbiscuit to take outside, I haven’t even thought to start hood training her. Next Spring is soon enough.
Tielserrath:
Anyway, I’m a bit late, but I hope things are improving.
Thank you! I won’t be dyeing my hair again. I don’t have much gray at all, and what is gray is very silvery, it doesn’t worry me. I dye my hair for a change more than anything to do with the gray. I guess I’ll just have to live with no more colour change.
Some of my strongest memories of my mother are the ‘oh fuck, she’s done it again’ ones where I believed her promises and she let me down.
Usually it would happen in relation to something that was enormously important to me but of no personal value to her. Like promising to drive me to my MRI (when it was thought I had a brain tumour) and then phoning me on the morning of the scan to say she felt a bit dizzy and would drive over later (after I’d driven myself the 40 mile round trip to the hospital – and nearly crashed the car thanks to overwhelming panic).
I dealt with her in the end by not just having a backup plan, but making the ‘backup’ the main plan, so that I didn’t feel so miserable when she let me down again.
I never figured out if it was game playing or if she genuinely didn’t want to help me out.
Carliesays
Josh – Pixelfish posted a great article on Twitter discussing the way campus police are treating protesters compared to how they’ve been treated in the past.
How about this for another option: three years ago there was a very similar occupation of the quad at Columbia University in New York City by students protesting the way the expansion of the university was displacing residents in the neighborhood. There was a core group of twenty or thirty students there around the clock. At the high points there were 200-300. The administration met with the students and held serious discussions about their concerns. And after a couple of weeks the protest had run its course and the students took the tents down. The most severe action that was even contemplated on the part of the university was to expel students who were hunger striking, under a rule that allows the school to expel students who are considered a threat to themselves. But no one was actually expelled.
Remember when universities used to expel students instead of spray them with chemical agents?
…
Now fast forward to today. Last week, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued a statement justifying the brutal use of police batons on student protesters like this:[students with arms linked]
It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience… the police were forced to use their batons.
Perhaps the Chancellors of Davis and Berkeley have never seen this photo of people with linked arms [MLK marching]. It is an iconic image of non-violent civil disobedience in this country.
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau thus joins the likes of Bull Connor, the notorious segregationist and architect of the violent repression of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, as some of the very few people who view the non-violent tactics of Martin Luther King as violent
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrelsays
Theophontes,
I wasn’t thrilled with how the cornbread turned out (too salty, not sweet enough), so I’m not going to post the recipe. When I find a good one, I will.
Re self rising flour: I have one cook book that has a couple of batter bread recipes that calls for it, but that’s it. I have no idea why you’d even bother with the stuff.
Squigitsays
Crudely Wrott @407:
For those of you who enjoy stories about our early ancestors such as Clan of the Cave Bear and Jean M Auel’s books, may I suggest the series written by Michael and Kathy Gear?
The series begins with People of the Wolf.
Both Michael and Kathy are archaeologists and have degrees in related areas. Each also have titles under their own names. They also used to drink beer at the same place I did. Interesting conversations were enjoyed.
Added to wish list. :) Wish they were available on the Kindle so I could read it now (the library here is out of the question for various reasons…and they probably wouldn’t have it anyways).
Caine – the formatting got lost; that was a quote internally that author was responding to. I didn’t mean to make it look like part of the piece if it did.
Moggiesays
This is not non-violent civil disobedience… the police were forced to use their batons.
Shame on those students for brutally assaulting peaceful police batons with their violent heads and bodies!
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Father Ogvorbis, OM, if you feel like making pies and have freezer space, they freeze wonderfully, with only a couple of minor modifications.
Right now, one of the pies is in the freezer. I mix in about two tablespoons of corn starch in with the sugar to cut down on the soupyness. Unfortunately, we have limited freezer space. When the kids were young, we had a large freezer but hadn’t used it for years so we donated it to a food pantry.
I tell them I’m on disability, that same look crosses their fucking faces. “Hmm.” they’re thinking, “He’s not wearing a diaper or in a wheelchair, and he has two arms and two legs…. must just be gaming the system, the lazy fuck.”
I know how you feel. I have a disability placard for my car which I use when my knee is really acting up. Of course, others see a 45-year old man, no obvious disability, get out of a car and, well, about 1/3 of the time, someone will make a comment. My reply? My disability is none of your business.
I just think it is a totally dumb-ass unit of measurement.
The unit “stick” exists only in the USA.
American exceptionalism strikes again. Or stupidity. Or both.
I’m completely losing my shit on the “vileness” thread about the unprovoked pepper spray assault on UC Davis students. I cannot believe how many commenters are coming out to describe the students as (yes, in these terms) “perps” who were “breaking the law” and who should have seen their assault coming.
I’m reluctant even to read the thread. I can’t deal with that crap this morning. (I’m used to getting enough of these reactions from friends acquaintances of mine in discussions about police brutality.)
But this is why I really dislike and distrust cops in general. Not that all of them are bad; but the problem is that the role and institutional culture of the police give those who are bad plenty of opportunities, and strong incentives, to be violent and abusive with total impunity. I really think there’s a serious problem with the whole modern, militarized, armed, uniformed concept of policing.
Uff, there and back again.
I think kid #1 is in for a cold, but I had to drag #2 kicking and screaming out of there.
tielserrath
I would just think “fuck you, too, mum” if it were about me and just not plan with her anymore.
But I’ll not let her ruin the kids’ christmas-time again. I won’t plan for making cookies with her, or crafting things, or all those wonderful things you do with kids this time of year.
And I will not treat my mum in law like second class because she definetly is first class.
Blarg… I need to buy compressed air and a dust-filter mask next time I have to get the dust out of my computer! My computer was getting overheated so I blew the dust out, but not having a can of compressed air, I just blew it out…
Bad idea – being allergic to dust and breathing in in order to blow outwards after. I was coughing (still kind of am) and sneezing all night because of it. I’m itchy and it sucks!
Weed Monkeysays
Definetly more gimmicks than anybody ever needs, especially the built in ham-grill (seat heating)
-Giliell
Maybe seat heaters aren’t exactly absolutely necessary, but they are damn comfortable! :P
Anyway, they have been pretty much basic equipment in every new car sold in Finland for decades. Like block heaters. Importers install that stuff if it’s not taken care of in factory.
Ariaflamesays
Re self rising flour: I have one cook book that has a couple of batter bread recipes that calls for it, but that’s it. I have no idea why you’d even bother with the stuff.
It’s pretty ubiquitous in Australia, and as far as I remember the UK. Use the self raising for most baking things that would normally use baking powder or similar. Things that you want to rise. Plain flour for those that don’t.
I usually have some of both. Actually I usually have some of both in both standard and GF varieties as I have some gluten intolerant friends. With the SR flour I don’t have to worry about getting the right amount of baking powder into the mix, though I will occasionally use it if I run out of the SR.
“Stick of butter” = 1/2 cup. A pound of butter is 2 cups.
Does the Discovery Institute know about this? Because that’s the best evidence I’ve ever seen for ID.
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The vileness thread started off tragicomic with the bizarre argument over the definition of “cowardly”, but then became too horrific to read on a full stomach.
aladegorrionsays
ANGRY ANGRY. People at a party making rape jokes. I’m too timid to say, “Not funny, dudes”. Some of us were protesting their digustingness, but they are just “Oh, guys just trade these jokes when we’re by oursleves”. Heavens I hope not. Please tell me not all guys do this. UGH. Some had even seemed fairly decent before. Now I rather wonder. And even if I explained why it’s wrong and they agreed to stop, I think I’d still wonder about them.
I recall an very early christian document (papal edict maybe?) specifically mentioning that priests having sex with children is wrong.
Who cares? If your friend needs a cathlick christian document to figure out that raping kids is wrong, that person is not safe to be around.
Oh, and no, don’t know that document.
Hokay, prepared 2.5 kg of cinnamon-waffer dough according grandma’s recipe. I could have used my great-grandma’s recipe, but nobody’d like to eat them, she was a poor woman.
Estelethsays
I haven’t been over to the vileness thread yet, but if it’s anything like others I’ve seen elsewhere online, I should bookmark it for any time I need to induce vomiting.
On a completely unrelated note, I am having problems with a co-author on a paper we’re writing. This person outranks me and is a gifted scientist but cannot write for anything. And yet – insists on the inclusion of his shitty, unclear, garbled language in the paper instead of the clearer language prepared by others. ARGH. WTF am I supposed to do?! I don’t want my name on something that badly written.
ahs ॐsays
Not unless Matt randomly decided to drop a ‘t’.
Well that sure settles it. Thanks, SC. What made me suspicious about the memory is that I had a source monitoring problem; I couldn’t recall any hint of where I’d gotten the notion.
Not all guys do this. I promise. The ones who do are assholes.
ahs ॐsays
Oh, and I should apologize to Josh for getting his hopes up. ;)
Forbidden Snowflakesays
Hi, everybody!
The strangest things has happened: my computer displays a pre-server-update view of Pharyngul – a message on top announcing the update, no comments visible on any of the threads, and the “Going Down” post announcing the down-time is displayed as the most recent. (I’m posting this from work, and so don’t have time to browse the thread to see whether the problem has come up before.)
I have no idea how to fix this, and googling hasn’t been helping. Any thoughts?
Estelethsays
OFFS.
I’ve gotten as far as comment #49 on the vileness thread and already I feel sick.
WTF is wrong with people? Seriously, what the fuck?!
Q.E.Dsays
Gilliel said
“Who cares? If your friend needs a cathlick christian document to figure out that raping kids is wrong, that person is not safe to be around. Oh, and no, don’t know that document.” – Gilliel
I don’t have friends who need a catholic doc to tell them raping kids is wrong. I have a catholic friend with a blind spot and is buying the church’s line. The early christian doc might help him see that 1) this has been a problem in the church since the beggining 2) it was recognized as a problem then 3) the RCC has been covering up ever since.
Back when FTB was first getting set up, there were some problems with the domain. Many of us put in an exception in our ‘hosts’ files to get things working. If you put a line for FTB in your hosts file, it will keep you from being able to access the new server.
WARNING: Thanks to an idiot with too much time on his hands who decide to flood a thread with copy-pasted German song lyrics, it looks like I’m going to have to implement some form of comment registration in the next few days. Don’t blame me, blame it on the existence of world-wide assholes.
The practice of individual confession of sins to a priest started in the Irish monasteries in the latter sixth century. With individual confession came the Penitential Books, another valuable source for church history. These were unofficial manuals drawn up by various monks to assist in their private counseling with penitents in confession. These books listed the various and sundry acts which the church considered sinful and provided guidance on the acceptable penance to be imposed. The Penitentials provide a vivid glimpse into the darker side of Christian life at the time. Though it is not known exactly how many such books were written, the more prominent ones have been preserved, studied and translated. Several of these refer to sexual crimes committed by clerics against young boys and girls.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
New wheelchair! Yay! It only cost us $50 at the local ReStore (Habitat for Humanity), which is about 1/2 what we spent on my first one, and if we’d sent away for replacement parts to fix it ourselves, it would have been $49 plus shipping. Can’t beat that with a stick!
Still no jet propulsion option, but hey, for $50, what can ya expect?
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Nice pics, Benjamin. Ariana is a cutey.
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Dr. Audley, I hope your back is better today. Any idea what happened?
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Why I am this concerned I just can’t understand.
At least you can be sure that you won’t be finding a mousie pancake under your rug. :)
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By the way, Skepticon rocked. Though I’m not sure if the best part was the presentations, or the partying Saturday night.
And I had to miss the party. :(
–
Yeeeeeah. So not going over to the vileness thread.
–
Q.E.D.
Good to hear. You know, the other kind of catholics is around, too. :(
But why wouldn’t the recent documents that prove them covering up do the job, too?
Personally, I find them much worse than any “ancient” document could ever be. I judge christians as humans and as such we weren’t terribly concerned with the rights of children until quite recently.
ahs ॐsays
Aw. Boo.
Don’t blame me, blame it on the existence of world-wide assholes.
I like the conga rats. I do think they could do with a few more sequins. And sunglasses.
Somebody needs to take that little animation and make it Pharyngula-worthy.
Walton could turn them into a royal procession.
Noble conga rats in ermine, with tiny coronets? And an Archbishop Hamster in a tiny mitre. While the Gerbil Chapel Choir squeaks out Zadok the Priest, conducted by Sir Cecil Harvest-Mouse and accompanied by Zelda Bankvole on the organ.
I’m now imagining someone creating an entire coronation scene using Sylvanian Families figurines. Anyone who actually did that, and photographed it, would win the Walton’s undying adoration.)
Dhorvath, OMsays
PZ, You do what you have to , we will our end out Hope this makes for less clean up calls.
ahs ॐsays
I note that the link I just provided clearly indicates that consensual sex with adult men, and less clearly consensual sex with adult women, is a sin or a crime like raping a man, woman, or child.
It was, after all, written by a priest.
Dhorvath, OMsays
Wow, I lost a whole word in there. We will figure our end out.
KGsays
“Oh, guys just trade these jokes when we’re by oursleves”. Heavens I hope not. Please tell me not all guys do this. – aladegorrion
I can assure you they don’t. I can’t remember the last time I heard such a joke; and if one was told me by a friend, they wouldn’t be my friend any longer.
Janine, Clueless And Reactionary As Ever, OM,says
(Sorry. I’m being very silly today.
I’m now imagining someone creating an entire coronation scene using Sylvanian Families figurines. Anyone who actually did that, and photographed it, would win the Walton’s undying adoration.)
Only if at the end, the entrails of the last priest is used.
Take your frog pills.
waltonsays
Only if at the end, the entrails of the last priest is used.
Er… I don’t think Sylvanian Families figurines come with entrails included. (But I suppose one could make some. Perhaps by filling some small plastic tubes with oddly-coloured goo. It would be rather tasteless, however.)
Walton, this is the deal, you are free to bring up all of your fetishist monarchy minutia. And I am free to point out that the concept of royalty is the antithesis of civil rights.
So I tried to stay up all night because I couldn’t go to sleep at a decent time. I really should never try to do that, because I ended up falling asleep at about 5 am and I missed all of my classes.
@ Walton
I hope you decided to not go into the “vileness” thread. It’s not worth it.
What does PZ mean by “comment registration”?
janinesays
StarStuff, at the time I am posting this, PZ has comment registration in place. The fact that you have made your comment and that this comment is here means that we are in compliance.
carliesays
StarStuff – I think you’re already registered, since info is attached to your name? If you’re still able to comment, you’re already registered. Registration-averse people such as myself have been commenting by putting our name and email into a series of boxes under the “leave a reply” section; now there is no series of boxes and it just says “YOU MUST LOG IN TO REPLY”, and there must be a loginnable account to do so with (which looks like is through WordPress).
carliesays
jinx, Janine !
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les poucessays
Noble conga rats in ermine, with tiny coronets? And an Archbishop Hamster in a tiny mitre. While the Gerbil Chapel Choir squeaks out Zadok the Priest, conducted by Sir Cecil Harvest-Mouse and accompanied by Zelda Bankvole on the organ.
You gave Sir Cecil a double-barreled surname! I would hereby like to apply for the position of your Internet Distant Cousin (I assume you already have a surfeit of Internet Aunts, Uncles, Fake Consorts, Siblings, Uncle Tom Cobley and All, so I’ll be lucky if there’s an opening). And who could forget the inimitable Zelda Bankvole … her cadenzas are utterly exquisite.
Oh, ok. So nothing about that part will change. Well, I guess it’ll make it more difficult for people to sockpuppet.
waltonsays
Walton, this is the deal, you are free to bring up all of your fetishist monarchy minutia. And I am free to point out that the concept of royalty is the antithesis of civil rights.
Er… Janine, I was being silly and frivolous. I wasn’t intending to have a serious discussion about anything political (I’ve done far too much of that lately, here and elsewhere, and I need to get some work done). Sorry if that didn’t come across. :-/
No, I’m not. I’m wasting my time far more enjoyably.
Nope. Just got back.
Of course, it wasn’t really “church.”
Like making corn bread.
:)
Police douse protesters in pepper spray at UC Davis:
There are people who are wrong on the internet … !!
Oh! Audley!
Next weekend (the 3rd) I’m having a yay-Ph.D. party. You should come and bring the Mr.
There will be cake!
Esteleth:
Shoot me an email with the details– that weekend’s already pretty full up, but if we can squeeze you in, we will! :)
PS: Yay! PhD!
Or sorting through 624 photos to find the good ones, then enhancing them (and waiting for Aperture to finish beachballing all the bloody time.)
It’s really kind of weird to say “science is real,” since “theology is real” is also true.
Of course I know what they mean, that science is about real things, and implicitly that theology is about unreal things. It’s put badly, however.
Glen Davidson
Audley, you should get a FB event ping. If you don’t, let me know.
Chas:
The smaller the stakes, the stronger the rhetoric. It’s not like I’d ever kick you as in the standard joke about prescriptivists, if I met you in real life. But it’s fun to shout on the Internet.
Your chainyanking against descriptivism come across as “if I can’t have my idiosyncratic prejudices accepted, then obviously anything goes.”
See, this is what makes me spit venom. Language does not need saving. The desire to keep language pure somehow is usually a marker of wanting to keep the riff-raff in its place (not that that is what you’re doing – you just like to kvetch).
As many as are enough. You can shout at tides all you want, but they’ll still come in. If “ad hominem” switches to mean just “insult, then we’ll eventually come up with a new word for the logical fallacy. Or we’ll just accept polysemy, and judge depending upon context. “Begs the question” means “raises the question” in common parlance, but can still be used formally. But since BtQ was a poor choice of translation in the first place due to its opacity, I suspect that formal discussion of the logical fallacy will use the Latin in future. Conversely for ad hominem, I can easily see the transparent English expression “going the man rather than the ball” will take over.
I can understand where you’re coming from. When I was a child I hated people who couldn’t use the proper reflexive possessive, and I agreed that double passives sounded wrong. Now that I have put away childish things, I realise that there rarely is any real room for ambiguity (and double passives sound increasingly ‘right’ to me).
Yes, _I_ am doing science. It involves “Whiskey on a Sunday”.
Good on you!
All we say is that you can not judge the usage of others solely on your own preferences. Noöne has said that you personally needed to use data as singular &c. Likewise I’m not gonna blast you for pronouncing it with the FACE diphthong in place of the PALM vowel.
Esteleth:
Got it. :)
Well, the second batch of corn bread rose all lop-sided. I think my oven has cold spots.
WHATEVER. CORN BREAD IS DELICIOUS.
Well, today, I performed an experiment. I studied the effects of oral application of an aqueous suspension of Camellia sinensis on attentiveness and alertness in H. sapiens.
I conclude that attentiveness and alertness rise (p > 0.05).
Yesterday I experimented with the effects on concentration modification of oils of Engraulis encrasicolus in sauces.
YAY SCIENCE!
I thought that this was entertaining…
If anyone cares to skim the article, you’ll be entertained to see that they quote an apologist for capitalist saying this:
Thanks for the psychoanalysis, asshole. Oh, the depths they will sink to in order to defend inequality.
The rest of the article contains a few pastors daring to make sense, such as one noting: “We’ll send an African-American teenager off to the slammer who robs a 7-Eleven, but we won’t do anything to a banker who helped cause the collapse of the entire banking system,”. And it also contains such “insights” as this caption: “Bishop Harry Jackson says Americans can experience a miraculous economic recovery if they return to God.”
Oh, Christian economics…
Walton, try deleting cookies from independent.co.uk?
Nooo… sitting by the fire making pomanders while watching Jeremy Bretts exquisite execution of Sherlock Holmes.
Found a video of the anti-snoring bear that was mentioned on Wait Wait yesterday. I was hoping it really would be a giant robot bear that flipped you over.
OFFS.
I love how we must get through hard times by taking care of each other and shared sacrifice – except, of course, for the rich. They don’t need to sacrifice anything because that’s mean or something. Oh, and ZOMG SOCIALISM.
Grar.
@ alkaloid
I saw that video yesterday. It’s pretty fucked up.
All of this police violence against peaceful occupy protesters makes me seriously disappointed. How can I just live in a country that allows (and encourages) its police force to be violent against peaceful citizens just because they’re protesting inequality? And how can I just live in a country were other citizens see this happening and accept (or even embrace) it?
Many years ago, I was heading for a fire in Oregon. My first flight was on a Delta Embraear Regional Jet (comfortable, fast, and don’t take forever to load or unload) which left at 0600. The plane was almost full. The five seats behind and to my right were occupied by a family of five — Mom, Dad, and three little girls.
About an hour into our flight, the oldest of the three little girls (age about 6(?)) spoke up:
“Daddy. We’re missing church!” she said, loudly.
Dad answered, “I know, honey, but God understands.”
“But Daddy, we’re missing church!”
“I know, honey, but our airplane ride is today.”
“But Daddy, you said God hates people who don’t go to church!” she answered in a louder voice. (By this time, I was fighting a case of the giggles.)
Dad sighed and said, “He does, but we were at church last night, and Friday night, and Wednesday night, and Monday night. So God won’t be mad that we missed church today.” (Okay, why would someone go to church four or five times a week? I really do not understand.)
She persisted, getting louder and louder. “Daddy! You told me that only Sunday counts! God’s gonna punish us!”
Dad tried one more time: “God knows that we fear Him and love Him. He will forgive us this one day.”
“Okay, Daddy. But what if God makes the airplane crash?” (I could hear the sense of desperation in her voice.)
“He won’t.”
“But what if God blows up the airplane to punish us?”
“He won’t” (I heard a snigger from someone near the front of the plane.)
“But what if God . . . .”
“He won’t.”
“But what if God lets . . . .”
“He won’t.”
“But wha . . . .”
“He won’t!”
She finally got the hint and stopped talking. Then her little sister (about 4(?)) pipes up and asks, “Daddy, are we going to church today?”
Mom finally joined the conversation: “Honey, don’t. Daddy’s having a mood.”
The third one (in diapers) did not try to join in the conversation.
As we got off the airplane, the family paused at the end of the hall to await their gate-checked stroller. As they stood there, an older gentleman walked past and asked of the older girl, soto voce, “Are you going to church today?” and walked away.
Dad snarled, “Fucking asshole!”
So God loves this little girl. She fears Him and loves Him. Yet she is terrified that if she misses one day of Sunday church, He will kill everyone on the airplane (all 48 of us) just to punish her for missing church.
Apparently her God is a sociopath.
Esteleth:
It’s the same rule as applied to bitches. Can’t have the poor gettin’ all uppity, it makes the rich people all sniffy and uncomfortable.
Caine:
Yep. The economy’s sucking? Well, obviously I need to drop out of school, get married, and lovingly support my husband (who cares that I’m a lesbian) in his attempts to find a job to support his growing family.
The solution to all our problems is to prop up the kyriarchy!
Waste time in church? When there is SNOW to be shoveled? Barbaric misuse of time!
Besides, there wasn’t much snow–but those preachers just drone on and on and on and on without letting anyone else get a word in edgewise until they start to froth at the mouth and fall over backwards waaauuugghhhh….
John, if you’re asking about RequestPolicy, it does work easily in fullscreen.
It adds its complete menus to the right-click context menu, so you can use it from anywhere on the page.
Ogvorb – and it was all her dad’s fault. Hopefully he eased up on all the “God hates people who don’t go to church on Sunday” routine after that.
Stardrake – instead of snow, we have a glorious 63 degrees outside. (the snow was a few days ago) Makes me want to go do things that are not the things I should be doing.
@ Dr Audley
Sourdough cornbread? Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom….!
Shovel snow or go to church? One is inside and one is outside in -19C air. One is useful and needed, one is useless.
Solution: stay at home with a rum and eggnog and send the kids out to shovel.
Shit. Sorry. I forgot the obligatory WARNING: FIRE STORY!! Won’t happen again.
theophontes:
I was going to make a couple of sourdough loaves for dinner with Mr Darkheart’s fam tonight, but I just don’t have the time*. I made Southern-style, batter corn bread and it’s taking all of my willpower not to eat it right now.
*I suppose I could have made bread last night, but I spent the entire day playing Assassin’s Creed, which is why I’m running behind schedule today.
Ten bucks says it will. ;)
@Father Ogvorbis, obviously.
Some might say I’m in church, worshiping at the altar of iMac, making offerings to Tpyos by posting here. Or not.
Today is my fucking birthday. So of course I’m not in church. I’m supposed to be able to do pleasant stuff on my birthday, right?
I’m going to walk my neighbor’s dog, because my neighbor is on vacation and I’m helping her out. I don’t get to count that as a good deed because an atheist walking a dog doesn’t get religious points. I do get to count it as pleasant. Except for the picking up the poop part, which nobody else in my mormon neighborhood does. The mormon God doesn’t care about dog poop, I guess — or he doesn’t give points for picking it up. And what’s the point if you don’t get points?
I’ll rake a few leaves because raking leaves is a good excuse to be outdoors, and being outdoors reminds me that I live on planet earth. Perspective.
I had two cups of coffee instead of one this morning, so there’s that hedonistic sin racked up here in the morridor.
So many things are a sin here. Which is actually quite helpful. If you feel like sinning, there are multiple choices. The only option not really open to me is ripping off the little people with my big bad pyramid scheme. Oh, wait, that’s not a sin. That’s enjoying God’s blessings.
I could do real work on Sunday (apart from networking at church in the service of my big bad pyramid scheme); working is a sin when it involves any work other than the very hard job of suffering through 3 hours of church … so maybe that’s what I’ll do. It would be best if I could be seen to be working, so maybe I’ll move the leaf-raking operation to the front yard. I want maximum response for my sins.
I like to kvetch that language evolution doesn’t need my help. It’s going to happen whether I like it or not (mostly not). In the meantime, I feel more inclined to try to maintain fine points like the distinction between “flaunt” and “flout” and even “reluctant” and “reticent” (although that last one is almost certainly a lost cause by now).
But I also try to avoid getting my panties in a twist over non-mistakes like split infinitives — a shibboleth that is a clear indicator of not having a life.
pelamun,
I don’t doubt that you’re right. But, leaving aside the question of “correctness”, I find that one’s writing looks so much more elegant when one follows the rule. Aesthetically, “The people to whom I have spoken” is a far more pleasing construction than “The people I have spoken to”. The latter is fine in conversation, but doesn’t look good in writing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the latter is “wrong” in any objective sense; rather, I simply happen to find it an ugly usage. It’s purely a matter of subjective personal taste.
(I’ve often seen critics of the rule quoting the famous witticism which is, probably wrongly, attributed to Winston Churchill: “The use of a preposition at the end of a sentence is something up with which I will not put.” This is wrong, of course; in my understanding, “to put up” is a phrasal verb, so “up” in this context is part of the verb, not a preposition.)
Happy Birthday, Lynna!
Is celebrating your birthday on Sunday a sin?
You know, I think it might be! Oh happy thought.
Split infinitives are another construction I personally prefer to avoid – not because they’re “wrong”, but simply because they’re ugly. Again, it’s an aesthetic thing. I just don’t like the way split infinitives look and sound, as a matter of personal taste. Hence why I prefer not to use them.
(It’s purely arbitrary, of course, and has to do with aesthetic preferences and fastidiousness rather than communication. But so is saying “bathroom” or “lavatory” instead of “bog” or “shitter” – after all, all these options communicate one’s meaning equally effectively – yet I don’t think anyone would question that there are many circumstances in which the former terms are appropriate while the latter terms would be considered distasteful.)
Huh?
======
Happy Unmormon Birthday to you, Lynna!
I’ve already routed from one front in this war.
If someone is determined to use ad hominem to mean insult, I concede this ground but insist that they make a distinction between ad hominem and ad hominem fallacy. Then I mock them for using Latin pretentiously when all they really mean is “bawwwwwwww!”
Pretty sure it was here at Pharyngula, someone made the argument that all insults, whether technically fallacious or not, will amount to poisoning the well from a psychological standpoint. I suppose this is probably correct. All the more reason to use them!
I was born on a Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact.
It’s a good thing, I guess, that neither of my parents like either the Dolphins or the 49ers.
Oh, that’s right, I share a birthday with you, Lynna. Happy Sun Revolution to you! :)
I’m 54 today and I feel every inch of it, too.
Walton,
you’re right about the Churchill example.
Regarding split infinitives, have a look at this blog entry and test yourself on the various examples they discuss. I wouldn’t be surprised that you would actually produce split infinitives when not paying attention to it, especially when speaking.
Walton:
When I was in Catholic school, this was the only acceptable word. If a request was made to visit the bathroom, washroom or restroom, the request (and the person making it) would be summarily ignored. If that person couldn’t wait until recess, well, that was just too damn bad, they should have used the correct word.
Caine:
Conga rat ululations to you! (I love that, thank you for spreading that on the evil intertubethingies). May you have many more revolutions.
Ah, Caine. I had forgotten that we share a birthday.
Does this mean I have to share contact dermatitis or whatever else is going around?
One of my Facebook friends reminded me that the Happy Sun Revolution amounts to a 585.6 million mile loopy-loop.
Confetti and birthday cake for Caine and Lynna!
Thanks, Ogvorbis! I really should get to work. Maybe in an hour. :)
Conga rats to Esteleth!
Lynna:
Oh hell no! I’ve put in a cranky demand to the great Atheismo for an itch free day. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Thanks, Esteleth!
Well, I was in church an hour ago, and a most enjoyable concert it was too, with pieces by Handel, Arnel, John Garth and Mozart.
However, the orchestra outnumbered the audience 24/16.
Happy Birthday Caine and Lynna!
*throws confetti*
Also: I went to a Tim Wise talk last week. He’s a terrific speaker, and it really showed during the Q&A (which was a pretty good chunk of the evening). I’ve seen some of his stuff online before, but the Q&A really shows his ability to communicate. (Or he keeps getting the same sort of questions and has some sort of mental or written template). Either way, good stuff.
Happy Birthday to Caine too!
Happy orbit day Caine and Lynna, and many more of ’em!
And conga rats to both too!
(I’m doing this just to hop on the conga rats bandwagon. Or is it a… *puts on sunglasses* conga line?)
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Hi there
Completely bancrupt
But some good news:
-We got our new car. Shiny-shiny.
-Been to the counsellor. It was bad, and it was good, and we decided we’re going to enlist Mr.
Since I obviously need a nanny to hold my hand while I get back on track, he’s going to do it.
Happy Birthday, Caine and Lynna!
Ogvorbis
God may not catch you cheating, but your kids always do :)
Speaking as someone who is still finding new things in our car, whadja get?
Conga Rats. (This has been around forever, I’m surprised there are folks who hadn’t heard it.)
Thanks Ze Madmax, SteveV and Starstuff. :)
Giliell, thanks!
Yay! I’m glad you had the counseling session.
Happy birthday Caine and Lynna!
*squeezes chocolate cake and itch ointment into the ‘tubes*
walton says:
This from Star Trek fan?!
Arrrggghh! Some of Caine’s itch ointment iced the chocolate cake. These squeezings of goodies through the innertubes need to be separated in time by a few more nanoseconds.
Lynna,
A batch of double chocolate cookies should come flying out of your USB any minute now.
Enjoy!
Audley, thank you!
I like the conga rats. I do think they could do with a few more sequins. And sunglasses.
Somebody needs to take that little animation and make it Pharyngula-worthy.
Walton could turn them into a royal procession.
[ducks, and then gathers the debris] Oh, yeah! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Double chocolate is adequate chocolate. Regular chocolate chip cookies are chocolate deficient.
Sibboleth.
Josh, #717, old thread: “I strongly suspect some of us release olfactory chemicals that are attractive to certain kinds of insects.” I do, too. I am a mosquito target. I recall one time I was at a state park with friends and friends-of-friends. All of us had been doused in the same repellent (I think it was Skin So Soft), and I was drawing more mosquitoes than anyone else.
Caine, #725, old thread: The videos and photos I’ve seen of monster wasp hives are terrifying. There was one hive that took up the inside of a very old car.
Also, your photo “A Trick of the Light” is beautiful. And happy birthday to both you and Lynna.
There’s some chocolate frosting and a can of sprinkles coming through now.
I’ll just leave this here.
Ms Daisy Cutter:
A Trick of the Light is the name of my moblog. I have over 4,000 photos there. :)
Thanks!
What is this “church” you speak of?
I have decided to use some of the frosting and sprinkles to decorate the conga rats. They are looking good.
Now, if I can just keep them from eating each other.
I need to be whapped upside the head.
For some unknown reason, I decided to go back and read the EG threads. I got about 300 comments into the first one before I stopped. WTF is wrong with me?
Brother Ogvorbis
We got this pretty thing in black.
Definetly more gimmicks than anybody ever needs, especially the built in ham-grill (seat heating), but the giant glass roof is coooool.
And now I’m taking bets how long it will take for the little one to cry herself hoarse.
No, I’m not cruel, but the rule says that first we brush our teeth and then I read a bedtime story. And since she refused A she isn’t going to get B.
Poor thing.
Lynna,
Well, at least you mouth won’t be itchy. :)
Actually… on my way to the grocery store today, I was thinking about the way my own linguistic aesthetic sensibilities, and my instincts as to which forms of language are “right” and “polite” and sound “good”, may be shaped unconsciously by classism. The issue of classism in British society is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, since leaving Britain and viewing it through an external lens for the first time.
After all, language and class have traditionally been very closely interrelated in Britain. For most of the twentieth century, the Received Pronounciation and mannerisms of the upper class were held up to everyone as the “right” way to speak, while regional working-class accents and dialects were disparaged as the “wrong” way to speak. It makes me wonder how much my own linguistic sensibilities are shaped unconsciously by a desire to emulate my perceived social betters, and/or by unconsciously looking down on the accents and slang of some of the people with whom I grew up (I went to a state school in a mainly lower-middle-class area).
It got me thinking about how pervasive class still is in British culture. Unlike the Marxian understanding of “class”, the British conception of social class isn’t just about wealth, property and economic privilege, but about culture, ancestry, education, mannerisms and a whole host of other inherited status-markers. After all, in the British sense, the likes of the Beckhams and their progeny will never be perceived as “upper-class”, despite having immense amounts of money; indeed, I’ve often heard the ostentatious consumption-driven behaviour of nouveau-riche celebrities labelled as “classless” and “trashy”.
In point of fact, it struck me that class sensibilities are built into the words we use; in British colloquial usage, people might describe someone’s behaviour as “classy” as a compliment, or conversely as “classless” or “trashy” as an insult, for instance. It had never occurred to me until recently to connect this kind of usage with the concept of social class.
I guess we’re still a much more class-stratified society than most British people would be able to recognize or acknowledge. In subtle ways, classism seems to be built into the way we view the world, so pervasively that we’re not even aware of it.
(This carries the caveat that this is all based on my own anecdotal experience and personal reactions, of course. The other Brits here are welcome to say so if they think I’m talking nonsense.)
*drowns Sili in the river*
The implication of my ramble at #83 is that perhaps I need to be more aware of the way that the internalized classism of British society is unconsciously expressed through my own sensibilities, attitudes and behaviour, when it comes to language and a whole host of other things. Or perhaps I’m just over-analyzing these things? What does everyone think?
Walton, classism and language isn’t completely dead in the U.S., but I think it’s on its last legs, so to speak. When I was growing up in a fairly wealthy situation, it was standard to have penmanship classes, classes in proper letter writing, and so on. The way you spoke and the way you treated the written word said a great deal about your class status.
Walton, I think you over-analyze everything. I’ve come to expect that from you, and to find it charming.
As long as I don’t have to live with you.
For everyone who ever claims atheism is not a civil rights issue in the US, or who questions the idea that religion has a ridiculous and sinister level of societal privilege, this:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2011/11/20/boy-he-sure-showed-skepticon/
The fact that there’s even psychological space in US culture for such a sign to even be considered. . .
I can think of endless ways my time would better spent than attending church. For instance, procrastinating about shoveling the sidewalks by hanging out on the interwebs.
Bed+coffee+laptop+purring cat= much nicer than 24 degrees F.
——-
Happy solar return to Caine and Lynna. May your wishes for being itch-free and publicly sinful (respectively) come true.
——
Starstuff
Nice job on your first crochet project. I am inspired to try and locate my crochet hooks.
Happy orbit day. I have a new car too. The best feature last week was the sound system. This week it’s the heated seats.
So too here. My family until very recently were all lower-class Northerners, whose claim to status was not being lower-class Southerners. This manifests as mockery of Southern speech. I’ve done it much of my life, and there are some Southern accents which still incite my prejudices, though I keep that to myself now.
I understand the political necessity of humiliating the losers of that war, but we’ve been too half-assed about it. We should simply outlaw all displays of Confederate flags, execute by firing squad anyone who says “the South will rise again,” and then accept any surviving Southerners as loyal Unionists, regardless of their speech patterns. For too long the correlations between dialect and treason have been allowed to fester; if we would just execute the treasonous, no correlation would remain.
Happy Birthdays to Lynna and Caine!
We made lamb/sage/garlic sausages yesterday.
Want some?
Language use as a marker of class is never going to die out, no matter how much one might want it to.
But permit me to observe it is also a marker of education, region, disposition, and lots of other things. Despite the blockheadedness of some uber-descriptivists (those of you who insist you’re not, all the while castigating the fuck out of those of us with the temerity to complain about ambiguous or stupid usage mistakes. Um, yeah, you do do that.) we get to call out incorrect usage, we get to complain about it—especially when it confuses an important and legitimate usage—and we get to have purely aesthetic preferences.
Text of the sign: “Skepticon is NOT welcomed to my Christian Business” (in scrawled handwriting)
*mouth hangs open in disbelief*
That’s… almost surreal. It’s like something out of the McCarthy era.
Such a sign would be unimaginable in Britain. For all the other failings of British society, we have far less inter-religious bigotry than America does (except for bigotry against Muslims, which is rampant).
Although I’m consciously aware of it, it’s hard to get my head round the extent of open religious prejudice in the US – both against atheists and against those who are of the “wrong” religion or sect. It’s just something that’s so alien to me. (Even though I now live in the US, I’m aware that this particular area is far more liberal and cosmopolitan than most places, and the churches round here – the Unitarian Universalists, Harvard-Epworth United Methodist, and so on – are mostly very liberal. I haven’t travelled widely out of the Boston area, thus far, but I’m expecting a much greater culture shock when I go to Texas this winter.)
I expect you’ll find the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England was not unaware of this, and it is not as though Britain is the only place where such concepts of class occur.
What you just said about Britain applies also to the North-South and urban-suburban-rural distinctions in the USA. The typically Marxist thing is to identify economics as the primary driver of these distinctions which then erupt in social divisions that are not obviously economic at first glance.
I know you’re not serious, but that kind of hyperbole really isn’t in good taste.
Tethys, shouldbeworking & Chigau, thanks!
Josh:
Oh, you know Christians have that persecution complex which needs to be fed, along with their need to feel self-righteous and special. All he did in actuality was to cut off his nose to spite his face. Silliness.
However, Ophelia made the point that matters – if it was an openly atheist business with a similar sign (Believers not welcome!), there would be a story in every frigging news outlet, every blog, etc.
Congrats on discovering one of the primary reasons prescriptivism is baaaad, mmkay. I’m surprised that this can come as a surprise to anyone. Have you really never heard of the discrediting of Black Vernacular English with it’s negative concord (‘double negatives’).
Is pepper spray a vegetable yet?
*totally stolen
It shouldn’t need saying that no one should be “executed”*, ever, for any reason, by firing squad or any other means. (The only circumstance in which I can ever envision it being morally acceptable to kill someone is if xe is actively engaged in trying to kill you or others, and it is not possible in the circumstances to disarm hir.) Nor should anyone ever be deliberately humiliated in order to achieve political goals; nor should the display of any flag or the peaceful expression of a political opinion, however toxic, be outlawed. Repression is not good.
(*A term I dislike, because it reinforces the statist meme that there is a moral difference between acts of homicide committed by lawful agents of the state and those committed by private individuals. There isn’t.)
Fucking A, I want some.
I have my molecular reassembly module set up and connected. Where I do go for the download?
And now, if you’ll excuse me for just a little while, I am going to quietly blaspheme in a public place, having decided that will be one of my counts-twice sins for the day.
Cf The Great Gatsby, still assigned reading in many US schools.
As my comments imply, I think you’re under-analyzing ;) but I agree with you that this is all worth keeping in mind.
That you do – until, of course, you start lecturing us about how ABBA is better than the Bee Gees.
Trouble is that in most cases that confusion is potential at best, and non-existent at worst.
For you it doesn’t matter, Sili – you’ll complain and call the point of view invalid even if there isn’t actual confusion, but an objection to any level of ambiguity. Or an objection to losing the subtleties of meaning one phrase has over another because the usage is getting blurry. You strawman the hell out of those of us who don’t eschew prescriptivism in toto. It’s extremely irritating; you practice no charity whatsoever to your opponents in this issue.
shouldbeworking@31:
Well, it was only like -5C here (23F). And I couldn’t send the cats out to shovel–there’s that whole lack of opposable thumbs thing. Besides, they’re cats–WE are the servants!
Fine, I will evict the snuggly purring cat and find my boots and gloves and get those sidewalks cleared.
Then I will get to work. ;D
We have a mouse in the house.
The kitteh is currently engaged in trying to catch it.
I’m leaving her to that task.
Josh:
That’s an understatement.
My words may be in poor taste, but they are not hyperbole, and I am serious.
It was the gentlemen’s agreements between upper-class Northerners and Southerners which betrayed our future. If advocacy of the Lost Cause had been violently suppressed, and if Reconstruction had been more forceful in disenfranchising the traitors, there might have been no legacy of Jim Crow.
One damnable shame is now that Southern whites still receive the contempt of Northern whites because less effective social ostracism has been substituted where a truly radical Republican violence feared to tread.
Tethys, I was replying to someone with the nym shouldbeworking, not telling you to evict cats and work!
You’re seriously arguing that the killing of unarmed political opponents as “traitors” by the state, and the violent suppression of political dissent, would have been a good idea?
You’re scaring me.
Walton,
Have fun in Texas! Where are you going? Texas is a big place – twice as big in area as England – and very culturally diverse. If you’re going to Austin, it is similar to a slightly more conservative New England transplanted geographically. But if you’re going out to West Texas, well, their problem with Dubya was that he was too leftist. West Texas is the kind of place where you’ll meet people who will in all seriousness tell you that they were getting on just fine with their women and their [racist slur] (could be both Hispanics and blacks, but mostly the latter) before those damn Yankees showed and got them all riled up.
Which, of course, brings me to the point that in Boston, you are in Yankee country. Not the sports team, of course – rooting for the Yankees in Boston can be hazardous to your health – but culturally. In American parlance, a “Yankee” is someone from New England. I understand that to non-Americans, the term is more expansive. Many southerners, even those with leftist political leanings, have a near-pathological dislike of Yankees. They do not appreciate being called that.
WRT class and language: this is alive and well in the US. I think it varies by geography and urban vs. rural, but it is definitely there. Accent is particularly powerful and important. Anecdotally speaking, I definitely noticed more than a little snobbishness growing up (in a small town in the rural Midwest) of people who spoke with the Cumberland accent towards people with more Southern or Western accents. The north Midwestern accent was tolerated, but grudgingly. I remember in grade school the merciless mocking of a student by a teacher after said student referred to his need to go to the “ly-berry” to return some books. Proper Cumberland speech, you see, is firmly rhotic, and this kid was talking like a hick.
A whole bunch of Aussies are seeing right through the latest “I am a Mormon” ad campaign.
http://www.ausgamers.com/forums/general/thread.php/3137223
Excerpt, from Brisbane:
I’m visiting both Dallas and Austin. (I have no plans to go to West Texas.)
Really?
–o–
You take my kvetching that serious?
As a secondary measure, yes. As a first option, I think Jefferson Davis et al should have been given the chance to undergo reeducation, followed by public repentance including apologizing to Southerners for misleading them morally, militarily and economically.
Sili:
Yes.
The Southern opposition was hardly unarmed, nor wedded to non-violent resistance.
And “the South will rise again” is not necessarily mere dissent, but is a declaration of insubordination and enmity of society itself. Killing is certainly an unwelcome solution, but I see how a much less accommodating attitude to the South could have been a societal good.
Oh, and re. Skepticon, did the Kansas Trolls show up with their Chick tracts?
Recall it was the violent suppression of political dissent—for that is what the Reconstruction was—which allowed Hiram Rhodes Revels to take office.
The counter-Reconstruction efforts which ultimately prevailed were also implemented by violence, and could have been suppressed by violence.
ahs,
I agree with you WRT Reconstruction.
The ending of Reconstruction enabled the reestablishment of the hegemony of upper-class whites in the South and the beginning of a reign of terror that lasted almost a century. It is worth noting what happened to voter rolls, land ownership, etc of blacks after the end of Reconstruction.
Reconstruction was messy and not carried out particularly well, but anyone who allows themself to see the post-Reconstruction pre-Civil Rights South as anything other than what it was – state-sponsored terrorism against former slaves and their descendants by former slave owners and their descendants is deluded. The gentleman’s agreement between rich and poor whites in the South that said that poor whites wouldn’t get jack shit in the way of social services and would be crapped on every day by the rich whites – but they were better than blacks – held back the economic development of the South drastically. The culpability of the North and the federal government in this is inexcusable. They stopped upholding the law and basic decency because it was difficult. I’m reminded of something that M.L. King said once (paraphrasing): “The law cannot make a white man love me, but it can make him not lynch me.” The North and the federal government decided that stopping outright terrorism against black people was too much and stopped.
The Civil Rights movement may not have changed people’s minds much (racism is alive and well in many parts of the US – and the South is not unique in this), but it DID staunch the violence in a major way.
Rounding up and shooting upper-class rich Southern whites wasn’t – and isn’t – the answer. Making them stop violently oppressing others is.
Ouch.
You’re not that old, are you?
====
Caine and Lynna,
congratulationsconga rat ululations (what?)! BTW, your quotegot me thinking. If life begins at conception, why aren’t christians celebrating their fuckday?
====
Benjamin, I’m totally bankrupt (again) on TET, but IIRC I saw you writing something about your current medication actually doing something for you, so hurray for that too!
And your current ‘nym made me think up the following:
∀ (m ∈ minutes) ∃ (s ∈ suckers): minuteOfBirth(s) = m
Has anyone written any “alternate history” fiction about what it would be like if the South had been permitted to secede?
Chigau,
The Guns of the South is an alternate history SF that, uh, involves the South getting AK-47s from time travelers. They proceed to successfully secede.
There’s also The Confederate States of America, which looks at the effects of the South seceding would look like by the time of the late 20th century.
Ah. This was an actual political movement, if I’m understanding right.
The shit I don’t know about is depressing.
I am not thread bankrupt.
I am thread 2009 financial crisis.
Some of these might fit that scenario. Most I’m aware of have the CSA winning the war, rather than avoiding war in the first place.
Harry Turtledove has done Guns of the South which is pretty readable. He also has an alternate history series in which the Confederacy wins at Gettysburg and the USA and CSA have repeated wars through the equivalent of WWII. His ideas are well thought out, his inclusion of historic figures is seamless, and the books become unspeakably boring as they descend into a multi-generational soap opera.
chigau @ #124:
Check the Timeline-191/Southern Victory series by Harry Turtledove. It’s an interesting read, if you can get past some overuse of alt-history tropes (such as historical figures maintaining relevant positions or showing up on slightly different situations).
Word of warning: It’s long. Like, 13 books long. It covers a span of time from the 1880s to 1946.
Linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_191
(As a side note, while I enjoyed this series, Turtledove’s more recent work is terrible. The Man With The Iron Heart seemed (to me) essentially an argument for the maintenance of American military presence in Iraq indefinitely.)
I have to know, what does everyone think of Jean M Auel’s writing?
Because I can’t decide. On the one hand, she gives us this wonderful prehistoric world, well researched, and undeniably interesting.
On the other hand, Ayla domesticated both horse and dog, and invented the sewing needle, the atlatl, making fire with flint and iron pyrite, and figured out where babies come from, all while being both incredibly hot AND an accomplished medicine woman. Forget Mary Sues, we should just call them Aylas.
That said though, I’d still be lying if I said I didn’t find them enjoyable.
TLC,
Not only has Ayla done all that, she can also handle Jondalar. All of Jondalar.
Ayla is VERY Sue-ish. The world is interesting, but many of the characters…
Thanks,everyone (so far) for the alternative history suggestions.
(I know I could google but I really like personal reviews.)
—
TLC
I only ever managed to read the first Ayla book. I found it such unmitigated, irredeemable drek, that I never even considered reading the rest.
Happy Birthday Caine and Lynna!
Lynna and Caine,
Happy Birthday!
ahs,
yeah the “prententious Latin” defence works in my opinion too.
Walton,
certainly RP is a class issue. But other than that, I think it’s more an issue of acquiring the High register language, which is correlated with the level of education, which again gives the upper class an advantage.
The High Low register difference is inevitable, but I think a standard language should allow for a wider variety of pronunciation, because pronunciation is acquired at a very young age and thus harder to unlearn later.
Esteleth: Yeah, that too. I like sex, I’m not a prude, I don’t like censorship, but I found myself skipping many of the lovingly detailed three-page sex scenes. It’s just not that interesting the fifteenth time around.
Also, absolutely EVERYONE who meets Ayla wants to have sex with her. Everyone.
But I did enjoy taking a look at how people may have lived back then. I guess you could say I enjoyed everything except the main characters. Some of the side characters were definitely fun. I liked the descriptions of the various tools and techniques they may have used.
Don’t forget she can’t sing. What’s a Sue without an entirely pointless flaw?
Cave sex is great sex.
Following Mr. Fire’s link, I wonder: had the Wade-Davis bill passed, would I now even think to complain?
TLC (and others):
On the subject of prehistoric fiction, I liked Stephen Baxter’s Evolution. Of course, it only deals with “prehistory” for part of the book. Also, it’s the only book I could think of that I’ve read involving that particular time.
Pretty good book though.
I know history is complex, but I’m just very uncomfortable with discussing armed violence in a favourable light. It’s because of this that, as much as I like the melody of L’Internationale, I’m very much uncomfortable with its most militant verse:
Les rois nos soulaient des fumées / Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
(The kings make us drunk with smoke / Peace among us, war to tyrants!)
Appliquons la grève aux armées / Crosse en l’air et rompons les rangs!
(We bring the strike to the armies. Stick* [?] in the air and let us break ranks!)
Et si s’obstinent, ces cannibales / A faire de nous des héros
(And if they insist, those cannibals, on making us into heroes,)
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles / Sont pour nos propres généraux!
(They soon will know that our bullets are for our own generals!)
(*Wiktionary says crosse means “stick”, as in “lacrosse stick”, which doesn’t appear to make much sense in context. The not-always-reliable Wikipedia translation has “stock” – presumably the stock of a rifle – which makes a little more sense, though I can’t attest to its accuracy. I’m sure the French-speakers here will correct me, since I haven’t studied French since high school.)
In the traditional British English version, The Internationale (pronounced to rhyme with “rally”), this is rendered as:
“No more deluded by reaction,
On tyrants only we’ll make war;
The soldiers too will take strike action;
They’ll break ranks and fight no more!
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying;
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side!”
As a leftist anthem, Solidarity Forever is probably preferable, though that too has a very militant verse:
“Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
The union makes us strong!”
(Sorry. Rambling tangent there.)
Thanks for the good wishes, everyone!
Clan of the Cave Bear and all that – well, it started out well enough and quickly turned into idiot soap opera. I finished it, but refused to read the rest, which seemed to descend even deeper into soap opera territory. No thanks.
I went for a walk. A very short walk, it’s windy out.
Good point. I hereby celebrate my parent’s fucking day, during which I was conceived.
Happy FuckDay to me, (nine months ago -oh-oh-oh baby oh!)
And to Caine, aine, aine, aine, oh.
Happy Birthday, birthday-people!
Happy birthday, Caine and Lynna!
Re Internationale
Interesting, I never knew the original had six stanzas. I only know the first three, because the most popular German translation only has the three. I’ve always liked this line
Es rettet uns kein höh’res Wesen,
kein Gott, kein Kaiser noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlösen
können wir nur selber tun!
(Original: Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun; the last two lines have been altered to: We can be saved from misery only by ourselves)
Caine
Lovely pictures.
I hope you wore a warm hat.
Thanks, Walton and aladegorrion!
Lynna, seems to me celebrating the parental fuckday is no fun at all. Celebrating with a personal fuckday, um yeah, that would be good. :D
Thank you, Chigau. I did wear a warm hat – a plaid hunter cap, complete with earflaps.
Happy birthday darlings!
I laughed so hard so fast at “fuckday” I scared the cat right off the couch.
It’s not just a matter of moral aesthetics, though. There is a practical question in there:
The answer, I think, is: ultimately no, but let’s not underestimate the amount of organization that still must be done. At this point in time, total war would be suicide.
Celebrating the parental fuckday with a personal fuckday is traditional. Right?
The people cry out their willingness and joy to do her service.
pelamun: There are two different versions in English, the British and the American. (I’m not counting Billy Bragg’s hideous modern reworking, which, sadly, accounts for the great majority of all the English performances on YouTube.)
The American version runs (from memory: here’s a very old recording)
Arise, you prisoners of starvation,
Arise, you wretched of the earth;
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in birth!
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us;
Arise you slaves, no more in thrall,
The earth shall rise on new foundations,
We have been nought, we shall be all!
(Chorus) ‘Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in [his] place,
The international soviet [or “the international working class”]
Shall be the human race. (Repeat)
The traditional British version, now rarely sung, is:
Arise, you workers from your slumber,
Arise, you prisoners of want;
For reason in revolt now thunders,
And at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise;
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!
(Chorus) So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face;
The Internationale [rhymes with “rally”]
Unites the human race. (Repeat)
Likewise, there are two Spanish versions that I’ve come across; the version sung in Spain, particularly by the Civil-War-era republicans (Arriba, parias de la tierra) and that sung in Latin America (Arriba, los pobres del mundo). The former is both a better translation and more poetic.
Ich spreche kein Deutsch, so I can’t comment on the German version, although I have heard it before.
Dang, finally got in to the Pharyngula Saloon and Spanking Parlor™ to send out birthday swill and grog to Lynna and Caine, but it may take a while. Looks like a small pack of foxes tried to raid the Pullet Palace last night, and the Lilac Berets chased them into here and did their mop-up as far as live foxes go. Not quite as bad as when they chased a hawk in, as the ceiling lights are still in place. No grog or swill moves until the place is detoxed. *heads for the biohazard suits*
(I know we should not advertise trolls, but Coco finally answered a question. And he either denied that atheists exist, or denied that atheists are human. Not sure which.)
Be nice to your felines. They keep you warm at night (I think Dust produces about 3.5 FTUs).
I’m jealous Caine. Your snow is prettier than our snow.
Though…. The wind is coming in from the northeast and it’s clouding over. So maybe we’ll be getting a real snowfall soon.
The chickens don’t seem to mind it much- yet. We bought a bale of hay and loaded up their coop with it, so they should be able to keep warm at night, but I’m worried about their water needs. Right now they’re eating snow despite having fresh unfrozen water, but I can’t imagine that’d be good for them for too long.
Happy Birthday, Caine.
Hi thread!
Lynna:
Absolutely. We’re setting that tradition in cement, right now, may it never be broken.
TLC:
There’s very little of it, which is surprising. Most of it melted off. Usually, we’re good and buried already this time of year. Not that I’m complaining, mind. It’s a beautiful day, blue skies, sun, about 20F, but that fucking wind…aargh. It freezes the fingers off. (I *hate* wearing gloves.)
Hi Gyeong! Thank you. :)
Caine: Whoops! I meant the photo of the feeding bee, of course.
The whole debate about the South… I agree with AHS, actually, that the Union should have executed the leaders of the Confederacy and “de-Nazified” the region. However, that was 150 years ago, and in the aftermath of an exceedingly destructive war. I don’t consider the execution of any modern-day Americans who say “The South shall rise again” as morally or legally tenable, or remotely politically possible.
I haven’t read Harry Turtledove or other writers speculating how else the Civil War could have turned out. I’ve seen it claimed repeatedly over the years that the cotton gin would have ultimately made slavery unprofitable for the South. However, they could have limped along in alliance with authoritarian nations such as Prussia, and we’d have had a hostile nation on our southern doorstep, which eventually would have obtained nukes.
Mr. Fire: I hadn’t known about the Radical Republicans as a party, either. It’s depressing, if logical, how much history isn’t taught in public schools. I really need to finish Zinn’s A History of the American People.
The Laughing Coyote: Ayla is the ultimate Mary Sue. Auel’s books are awful, and hilariously so at times.
“Fuckday” is my favorite neologism this week. Well, next to “gayspace.” Which sounds like a bar. Or a sketch written by Mel Brooks, Nathan Lane, and Jim Henson. GAAAAAAYYYS IIIIINNNNN SPAAAAAACE!!!
Oh, yes… anti-monarchism and anti-theism rolled into one. :-)
Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes / Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
(There are no supreme saviours / No God, no Caesar, no tribune)
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes / Décrétons le salut commun
(Producers, let us save ourselves / We command the common sslvation)
In the British version, that verse is rendered very loosely as:
No saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer;
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear!
Ere the thieves will out with their booty,
And to all give a happier lot;
Each at his forge must do his duty*
And strike the iron while it’s hot.
(*Gendered, of course, but the British lyrics are early-twentieth-century.)
Caine: That’s why I prefer to have a winter hoodie that’s at least a size too big (two sizes is better). The overly long sleeves can function like built in gloves, while still allowing my fingers freedom of movement when I need them.
Everyone here’s saying we’re supposed to get a really nasty winter this year.
walton,
it just so happens that the verse in questions expresses my distaste of theism, monarchy and populism ;).. Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun..
Hi Gyeong Hwa.
Caine:
So chic!
The Internationale always makes me cry. Now more than ever, with the future looking bleak.
I don’t. And I find it frightening that you think so.
The deliberate killing of anyone, unless xe is armed and actively trying to kill you and cannot be safely disarmed through less forceful means, is morally unconscionable. I believe that the killing of Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg was morally wrong. (Not to mention a grotesque form of victors’ justice, considering that, by the very same international standards that were applied by the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allied bombings of Dresden and Tokyo were also culpable war crimes.) So, too, the Israeli government’s kidnapping and killing of Eichmann was unconscionable.
If you don’t agree with this, fine; I’ll admit that my blanket opposition to the death penalty boils down to an emotional matter of empathy, compassion and decency for me. (It’s my position that all moral convictions boil down to such emotional reactions, whether one is prepared to admit it or not.) All I can say is that I will continue to work against the death penalty and for peace, nonviolence and reconciliation in all circumstances, because I do not want to live in a society in which “executions” happen, ever.
(Also, I refuse to use the word “execution” without quote-marks, because the distinction between “execution” and “murder” is a form of statist propaganda: pretending that there is some moral or practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals. Killing is killing is killing, and the victim is equally as dead either way.)
That is what I am hearing too. People are saying it might snow here, which is a bad thing since we aren’t suppose to get significant snow fall here.
hm strange, why would the British version omit both God and the tribune..
With the way my Armyknee responds to cold weather, anything below 50F is a nasty winter.
Coyote, I do the same thing with hoodies & sweatshirts.
It’s a really nasty winter every single year here.
Gyeong:
Don’t worry, it snows in SoCal about once every hundred years and lasts about 11 minutes.
Our last winter was nasty. But that’s because it was sopping wet and lasted till about mid june.
I’m assuming this time by nasty, Everyone(tm) means ‘Really really cold’.
Caine,
Well that’s the thing. The last time it snowed (5 years ago I think) it was only about 10 minutes, but it was cold enough and lasted long enough to damage the citrus industry here causing us to go under a state of emergency. I’ve been hearing frequent snow reports in the western portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area.
Hi Chigau!
I made oatmeal cookies with dried blueberries and white chocolate chips – cramming some in a USB port now for the birthday girls.
Social class in the UK? No shit, Sherlock! It’s hilariously, and occasionally horrifyingly, strong. Much more in England than the rest of the UK. All Australians are, of course, lower class oiks in this system.
Violent anthems: how’s this one?
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
… and maybe a dash of …
May he sedition hush,
and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush
Walton,
Largely, I agree with you with regards to the death penalty.
What I think – and I believe that ahs is getting at – is that the fact that the leaders of the Confederacy largely speaking received no lasting punishment is horribly problematic.
The utter failure of TPTB to de-Nazify (for lack of a better term) the post-Civil War South is a blot, and a major one at that, on American history. And it’s not like the unreconstructed were coy about their beliefs and what they intended to do upon retaking power – they trumpeted it, bragged about it. What happened after the end of Reconstruction was completely predictable – and preventable.
I don’t think that high-ranking Confederates should have been lined up and shot, but damn. They were some fucked up people who upheld a horrific system as glorious. I don’t know what was practical, what would have been practical, but I’m struggling to think of a worse outcome than what actually happened after the war.
Part of me thinks that if you’re willing to accept killing in self-defense or in defense of people who can’t defend themselves, can this be applied broadly? Is the wanton destruction and oppression of a group and flagrant extra-judicial terrorism enough to justify violent resistance? The unreconstructed blatantly said (and say) that black people aren’t people and need to be put in their (subservient) place by force if necessary.
Does someone have to be literally holding a gun to someone else’s head for it to be justified for another person to act on their behalf?
I find that I’m more and more instinctively Tolstoyan in my ethics.
Cath: Don’t forget the second verse. (Which is now rarely sung, though it does appear in Hymns Ancient and Modern.)
O Lord our God, arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix;
God save us all.
(As I’m sure you surmised, it originally referred to the French.)
Like when the last king is hanged in the entrails of the last priest.
–o–
Pikachuuuuuuu!!
Coyote:
I don’t. We had this crap in April of ’10. 1100 hundred towers down.
I thought it was a hoot when I was twelve. I’m not sure why an adult with access to other books would ever bother with Jane Auel, though.
Caine and Lynna ;)
Recipe, please.
As for violence nothing beats the Danish royal hymn.
Well, Walton, we already know the results of letting the moderate Republicans do Reconstruction half-assed: the worst of the white supremacists regained power and delayed the civil rights movement for nearly a century.
If we build a time machine and rig the election of 1868 (and ’72, ’76, and so on; there are no term limits yet) to install President Walton, inheriting the newly expanded powers of the presidency, what will you do differently?
I discovered those books when I was but a preteen. I’m pretty sure the bindings of my paperback copies now naturally fall open to those scenes.
I’m have no idea. Of course “tribune” wouldn’t have meant much to most British people, except for those with a classical education (which would not have included most of the working classes at whom the song was aimed). By contrast, I’m guessing that, in nineteenth-century France when Pottier was writing the original French lyrics, it would have conjured memories of the then-recent Napoleonic period and Napoleon’s resurrection of Roman imperial titles. This is all pure speculation on my part, however.
The closest counterpart in the American version (which doesn’t mention God either) is the second verse, though it isn’t anything like a translation of the French:
We need no condescending saviours
To rule us from their judgment-hall.
We workers ask not for their favours;
Let us consult for all!
To make the thief disgorge his booty,
To free the prisoner from his cell;
We must ourselves decide our duty,
We must decide, and do it well.
Sili: Of course I speak no Danish, so I can’t attest to its accuracy, but Longfellow’s translation has:
King Christian stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;
His sword was hammering so fast,
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,
In mist and smoke.
“Fly!” shouted they, “fly, he who can!
Who braves of Denmark’s Christian,
Who braves of Denmark’s Christian,
In battle?”
Wow. Now that makes the Marseillaise seem like a peacenik folk song in comparison.
Sili :D
To be fair, most patriotic song, hymn or anthem will have hints of violence to them.
My idea of reverence for the day was to be lazy until around 3:30, when I went out for 35 minutes of running. Now downloading some stuff and will then check out where to find some other music I want. Also need to do some research on a good AM/FM clock radio (ideally one with a dock to charge my Fuze, but such things don’t seem to exist).
So now I’ll have The Internationale stuck in my head for like ages.
But for some non-violent workers’ songs, how about the Einheitsfrontlied (Brecht / Eisel)
Und weil der Mensch ein Mensch ist,
drum braucht er was zum Essen bitte sehr.
Es macht ihn ein Geschwätz nicht satt,
das schafft kein Essen her.
Drum links, zwei, drei! Drum links, zwei, drei!
Wo dein Platz, Genosse, ist!
Reih dich ein in die Arbeitereinheitsfront,
weil du auch ein Arbeiter bist.
Und weil der Mensch ein Mensch ist,
Drum braucht er auch noch Kleider und Schuh’.
Es macht ihn ein Geschwätz nicht warm
Und auch kein Trommeln dazu.
Drum links, zwei, drei! Drum links, zwei, drei!
Wo dein Platz, Genosse, ist!
Reih dich ein in die Arbeitereinheitsfront,
weil du auch ein Arbeiter bist.
Un weil der Mensch auch ein Mensch ist,
Drum hat er Stiefel im Gesicht nicht gern,
Er will unter sich keinen Sklaven sehn
Und über sich keinen Herren.
Chorus
Un weil der Prolet ein Prolet ist,
Drum wird ihnkein anderer befrein,
Es kann die Befreiung der Arbeiter nur
Das Werk der Arbeiter sein!
Chorus
UNITED FRONT SONG
As man is only human,
He must eat before he can think.
Fine words are only empty air
And not his meat and drink.
Then, Left! Right! Left! Then, Left! Right! Left!
There’s a place, Comrade for you,
March with us in the workers’ united front;
For you are a worker too.
As man is only human,
He’d rather not have boots in face.
He wants no slaves at his beck and call,
Nor life by a master’s grace.
Chorus
And since a worker’s a worker,
No class can free him but his own;
“The emancipation of the working-class
Is the task of the workers alone”.
Chorus
You can feel the marching rhythm while reading, but it doesn’t talk of killing. nd my favourite stance is highlighted
Oh, and I haven’t been idle either
Ha. I only wish I knew.
Or we run the Lincoln-Walton ticket in 1864, with the caveat that you can’t interfere with the assassination. Take your pick.
ahs,
Thanks! I should’ve considered that.
(Trying it now, because it sounds pretty good)
We got our 19 pound turkey at Springfield Farm last night. We have totally forgotten whether it was free range, organic, pastured, or whatever. About all we remember is that it is not heritage.
It will be butterflied, brined, surface-dried, trussed, and cooked at 500F over a bed of thinly sliced russet potatoes, which will prevent the drippings from smoking, while simultaneously becoming saturated with drippings and roasting along with the turkey. Most of said taterthins will be eaten by the cook and anyone who happens to wander into the kitchen while the turkey is resting, prior to dinner per se.
Not much good your hand-wringing does, then. At least I’ve got a plan.
Vote Baines in ’68!
As I get older and mature, I find myself thinking more peacefully.
However, I can remember a time when I was just a little outcast. Being incredibly violent and reactive probably saved me from a worse fate. They may have been willing to taunt me from a distance, but when I ran in their direction, they suddenly found themselves to be not so brave.
The authority figures (Especially Principal McGowan) wouldn’t protect me. They knew damn well what was going on, but of course in little old Gibsons it was all about your parents’ status. Especially with the churches. Only I could protect myself, and I did it by any means necessary, with teeth, with claws, with rocks, with clubs, absolutely anything.
Though I find myself looking more and more at peaceful solutions as I age and ‘grow up’, I’ll never forget what it was like to be a little outcast. And my instinctive reaction to those who would bully, intimidate, and threaten remains the same. Bite their fucking faces off.
I know it’s immature and a tiny bit scary. I know Walton is gonna have plenty to say about it. To be fair, I find myself outgrowing it. But I still believe violence is part of the primate toolkit for a reason.
I also firmly believe that if I hadn’t learned to be terrifying, I would have been dead. At my own hand, or another’s. It happens all the time in those little church-riddled small towns. The outcast must suffer so the in crowd can maintain their smug sense of superiority. When the outcast dies, it’s their own fault. For being the designated outcast.
I’m really not trying to sound like an internet tough guy or anything (even though I sound exactly like one right now). I’m really sorry if this post bothers, freaks out, disturbs, or annoys anyone. My perspective on it is probably a bit warped by bad experiences.
Also nowadays life is better. I don’t have many IRL friends, but the friends and connections I do have are all meaningful. I’m not alone anymore. Best of all, I’m miles away from that pretty little seaside shithole.
But I’ll always remember what it felt like to be alone.
I don’t know why it is that the two political ideologies with the greatest musical traditions are socialists and monarchists. On the socialist side, one has Solidarity Forever, L’Internationale, Bread and Roses, the Hymn of the Soviet Union, labour songs like those of Joe Hill and Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, and so on.
On the monarchist side, one has Handel’s Zadok the Priest, Parry’s I was glad, Haydn’s Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, the Tsarist Russian anthem Боже, Царя храни!, and so on. (Admittedly, God Save The Queen, and the Liechtenstein anthem set to the same tune, aren’t up to much.)
Liberals and moderates, on the other hand, seem to have no great anthems.
Now I’d better stop rambling about music and do something productive. (Like work, or perhaps a trip to the gym.)
For clarity’s sake, there should be an ‘eventually’ in there somewhere.
I declare thread bankruptcy. Based on the last thread, I went out and got Flowers for Algernon. I just finished, and I think i’ll be ok in a few hours. Maybe. Is FTB blurrynfor anyone else?
Stands to reason: How do you want to sing passionately about being moderately in between?
And I’ll go to bed now.
That’s productive, too.
*sigh*. I cant type so good. Hail Tpyos.
No, I’m not. It’s not up to me to judge you, and if I were to do so, I’d be something of an asshole.
(Indeed, judging and blaming people for things they’ve done in the past is an inherently useless exercise. The reason I specifically criticize the Nuremberg trials and the killing of Eichmann is not because I’m interested in judging or condemning historical figures for its own sake – I’m not – but, rather, because they are useful as illustrations of why I oppose victors’ justice and the state-sanctioned killing of prisoners, an issue which is relevant in the present day.)
If you were advocating violence as a political strategy, or arguing that the state should use violence on your behalf against people you don’t like, I’d have something to say about it. But that’s not what you’re doing.
MikeG: I’m glad to hear it affected you. My old aforementioned biology teacher who mentioned it to me told me that his measure of a good story, movie, or comic book is if it makes you FEEL something. Whether anger, sadness, joy, etc.
*genuflects* May His Holy Wrod never be spellchecked.
My sister, brother and I read very little else in those books. A freaking giggle-fest every time.
Ah I see, thanks Walton. I was nervous as hell typing that out. Pharyngula has been uncommonly kind to me. I don’t want to ruin that.
Walton,
No, and good on you, respectively.
(Also, I think you’re on the right track with those musings)
@Sili: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/02/thick-chewy-oatmeal-raisin-cookies/
Instead of 3/4 cup raisins & 1/2 cup walnuts, use dried blueberries and white chocolate chips.
Also, I already cut the sugar to 1/2 cup, but if I make them again I’ll use a smidge less. Loose packed instead of tight packed, perhaps.
@Gyeong Hwa:
A non-violent anthem for you – official lyrics:
Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history’s page let every stage
Advance Australia fair,
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair.
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We’ll toil with hearts and hands,
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands,
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.
The second verse is especially good to sing loudly and with emphasis to annoy certain politicians :) Even the old full version of the song (not official) is pretty peaceful, though it does have a reference to fighting in self-defense. Its main flaw is in grossly sucking up to the Brits.
(It’s a pretty boring song, though, musically. Posted for peacefulness, not for quality.)
*reading all the anthems*
……………………….
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH CANADA…
Plausibly liberal anthems:
America the Beautiful
This Little Light of Mine
As far as canada’s national anthem goes, I actually prefer this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBd4nCFqsNs
apologies for echo and swivel.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: The Baloneys and I are +Hangouting with Kevin Kelly the day after TG, to riff together on his book, What Technology Wants.
@Caine, your clothespegs are awesome. (I have, it must be said, clothespegs on my mind, because I’m seeing lots of posters for this.)
I un-eagerly await the colder weather and the usual influx of Redwings. They’re awesome, too, but if they’re here, it means it’s cold as fuck out. Brrr.
Proposed necessary criteria for considering a song as a liberal anthem:
Liberals must enthusiastically embrace it.
It must not be written or popularized by a red.
It must not advocate the abolition of property (Imagine would otherwise qualify).
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
I’m mightily impressed with Paul Anderson’s open letter and scathing critique.
(Were it in my nature, I would be envious)
Gilliel @186:
Hanns Eisler. A very fine composer. Thanks for reminding me of this song.
changeable moniker:
Thank you! Oooh, cool. If that was turned into a book, I’d buy it. The clothespegs in my shot are from my neighbour’s clothesline (his house has been empty 3 years now) and the clothesline and pegs have been in a wild state for some time. They get more interesting each year.
The French national anthem has rather bloodthirsty words. My favourite monarchist-type anthem is The Maple Leaf Forever, especially when it is played by a pipe and drum band(no, I’m NOT a Toronto fan).
There is always the best anthem to home: Alberta Bounnd!
Walton:
Not all distinctions need be moral, but that is the basis upon which you decry and repudiate this one.
Also, I note that there is a practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals — in the former, the killers are not prosecuted by the state.
(Do you realise when you write “Killing is killing is killing”, you’re stating that you find voluntary euthanasia to be no different from murder?)
Candidate 1
No point complaining, I’m for bed.
Hmmm.
But it was the picture that made me LOL.
Anyone know where Classical Cipher went? Imma getting worried.
Alethea: I’ve always found Advance Australia Fair to be an incredibly dull anthem. It strikes me as designedly bland and inoffensive; the nationalist equivalent of some of the more aimless Unitarian hymns.*
(*I say this as a big fan of UUism in general. But many of their hymns leave something to be desired.)
Of course, Waltzing Matilda is the song much more strongly associated with the Australian national identity. And it’s a great piece of music. But I suppose it’s too anti-authoritarian for the liking of those in power, and it doesn’t quite have the expected musical style for a national anthem.
I found the recent controversy about the Christian schools’ invented religious verse quite interesting, given that Advance Australia Fair is one of the very few national anthems in Oceania that isn’t explicitly religious. The New Zealand anthem, for instance, runs:
God of Nations, at Thy feet,
In the bonds of love we meet;
Hear our voices, we entreat;
God defend our free land.
Guard Pacific’s triple star
From the shards of strife and war;
Make her praises heard afar;
God defend New Zealand.
(Don’t ask me to recite the Maori version; my memory isn’t that good.)
Then there’s the Fijian anthem, which is sung to the tune of the gospel hymn Dwelling in Beulah Land:
Blessing grant, O God of Nations, on the isles of Fiji,
As we stand united under noble banner blue;
And we honour and defend the cause of freedom ever,
Onward march together; God bless Fiji!
For Fiji, ever Fiji, may our voices ring with pride,
For Fiji, ever Fiji, her name hail far and wide;
A land of freedom, hope and glory, to endure whate’er befall;
May God bless Fiji for evermore.
Or Tuvalu, which is the most explicitly religious national anthem I’ve ever heard:
“Tuvalu for the Almighty” are the words we hold most dear,
For as people or as leaders of Tuvalu we all share
In the knowledge that God ever rules in heaven above,
And that we in this land are united in His love.
We build on a firm foundation when we trust in God’s great law;
“Tuvalu for the Almighty” be our song for evermore!
(Tuvalu is also the only Commonwealth country outside the UK to have an established state church, the Church of Tuvalu.)
Also plausible:
Born in the U.S.A
The Land
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
As I said, peacefulness, not musical quality. (With added bonus of welcoming immigrants.)
I wish we’d had the guts to go for Waltzing Matilda. A folk song about a sheep-stealing suicide for an anthem? Now that would be some awesome establishment nose-tweaking.
Caine: Damn, now that you mention it, CC is conspicuously absent. Wasn’t there something involving a hospital stay last I saw of her?
I do not. My bet is “busy as hell”.
ahs:
Ugh. I’d take If I Had a Hammer over that mess.
TLC:
Not that I remember. Shit, I hope I didn’t miss anything important.
So, with all of the talk of snow should I not mention that it hit 70 here and it’s still in the 50’s? *ducks!*
Anyway, the corn bread was meh (although other people seemed to like it). I need to find a sweeter recipe, I think. But on the good news side, I’m only on the hook for two loaves of bread for Thanxgiving, boo yeah!
https://twitter.com/ClassicalCipher
Last tweet two days ago. Nothing to worry about.
I may be remembering wrong Caine… but I do seem to remember something about the hospital.
I found this from Dana Hunter’s post interesting:
I hadn’t been aware that Threadcop was interested in publishing her fiction in Nature. Interesting facet.
Of course, not such a quill in a writer’s cap now…
***
It’s all relative. Compare Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction.
***
I’m sorry, but the word “girt” should never be sung. I’m going to believe the lyrics were originally in French and that this was a bad nineteenth-century translation.
Ahs: Ah, thank you. That’s a bit of a relief.
No. The fact that killing can be justified in some circumstances (which most of us agree that it can) does not mean it ceases to be killing. I have never said that all killing is wrong; but we should be honest about what it is. (FWIW, although I am entirely in favour of giving individuals the right to assisted suicide, I’m not keen on the term “euthanasia” in general; it’s certainly been used inappropriately in a great many contexts.)
My fundamental point was that the identity of the actor as a state agent, as opposed to a private citizen, does not make any moral difference to the legitimacy of a killing. Contrary to classical liberal theory, I would contend that a killing does not become more morally legitimate merely because it was authorized by a duly-enacted act of a democratically-elected legislature, and ordered by a court after a trial. To pretend that this makes any difference, and to act as though judicial and extrajudicial killings are qualitatively different, is to lend credence to the nation-state’s assertion that it has a sovereign right to decide to kill its subjects, and that the collective gets to decide whether the individual should live or die.
For this reason, I would advocate that we use the words “murder” and “execution”, with the attendant implication that there is a difference between the two, only when discussing law and legal process. When we’re talking about morality and philosophy, I don’t find it useful to distinguish between the two concepts, and prefer to refer to them both simply as killings.
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
– E. B. White
Audley:
Shoot, enjoy it while you can! When it comes to cornbread, this cornbread is a major pain in the ass to make, but it is so delicious:
Mary Ann’s Cheese Cornbread
Note that the prep can be done at convenient times and the results saved til you’re ready to bake the Corn bread. It’s a fair amount of work, but the mixing is simple, and it makes a huge amount – about 20 servings. It travels well when cold and heats up beautifully in the microwave in a minute.
Prep:
Cut the kernels off three ears of fresh sweet corn (do not use
old corn or starchy field corn) with a sharp knife. Put
the kernels into a pyrex container and microwave for 4 minutes.
Allow to cool. Reverse the knife and use the dull side to
scrape the remains of the kernels off the cob. Gather up this
material and set aside.
Chop 12 slices of bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Fry til crisp.
Fire roast one chili of whatever spiciness you please. I like
a nice red Hungarian chili. Skin, seed and chop into the smallest possible pieces.
Chop 3/4 lb of monterey jack cheese or cheddar cheese
into cubes of approx 2/3″ by 1/2″.
Recipe:
Grease a 13×9 baking pan well or spray with PAM.
Mix in bowl:
1.5 cups flour
1.5 cups cornmeal, white or yellow
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix in another bowl:
3 eggs, beaten
2.25 cups buttermilk
3 Tbsp maple syrup or sugar
Melt 8 TBSP butter and stir into liquid ingredients: The butter gives the cornbread its flavor so don’t use margarine.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Add
corn scrapings. Stir gently to mix. Fold in kernels, bacon, cheese and chilis.
Bake at 375 degrees F. for 20 mins/30 mins or until knife comes out clean. Cut in small pieces and serve warm. We eat this with vegetables for dinner.
Courtesy of Mary Ann.
ahs:
That’s a relief, thank you very much.
One more liberal anthem:
Aheb Aisht Al Huriya
With cheddar. :)
As I’ve mentioned before, my father always called us Swamp Yankees.
Mmmmm, pie for breakfast.
Mmmmm, pie in general.
I really like mixed berries and rhubarb pie. The sweetness and tartness go so well together.
I never get birthday cakes. I always prefer a birthday pie.
Fuck yes.
ahs:
Just don’t fuck the pie.
Pecan…
What kind of mixed berries do you like, ahs? I find a 1:1:1 mix of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries is nice (and an overall 1:1 mix of berries and rhubarb).
But yes, please don’t fuck the pie. You’ll give yourself a UTI.
Walton,
That’s arguable, but you also stated that there is no practical difference via logical disjunction (“pretending that there is some moral or practical difference between killings carried out by agents of the state and killings carried out by private individuals.”)
Your contention has merit, I grant.
(I think you should learn to avoid the mealy-mouthed ‘would’ when you mean ‘do’, since I know you value clarity)
—
PS
Nor am I, but it’s useful and unambiguous; its meaning is clearly ‘mercy killing’.
Pie is good. Girt by creme anglaise* in winter, icecream in summer. (*Proper custard, that is, not packet.)
Girt is a hilarious word. If I ever have a beach house, I shall name it Girt.
Caine:
Thank you! I’ll have to give that one a shot when corn’s in season again.
out of no where rant
Is it so horrible to ask companies to make sure their video games are actually flipping playable? I’d love to make use of everything in New Vegas and finish it if it hasn’t already fucked me out of one possible path I want by a glitch and keeps locking up. It baffles me, work was clearly put into the product. It’s not like ET Atari or most shitty games when I was a kid that were just unplayable garbage from the start. It’s even more annoying when a game lures you in with promise only to take a shit on you and be unplayable. What a waste of my money. i don’t even know why I bother.
[addendum]
I’m a foolish hypocrite sometimes; by my own intent that should have been “I think you should
learn toavoid the mealy-mouthed ‘would’ when you mean ‘do’, since I know you value clarity”.Anthem?
Malvina Reynolds – Little Boxes
Girt-by-Sea. Love.
I’m not real particular about it, but I’m accustomed to raspberry and blackberry without strawberry.
I contend that it is only necessary to piss immediately afterward, then a UTI is unlikely.
I’ve seen her posting on Facebook today, and haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary. I can message her if you like?
[totally thread bankrupt]
Happy Sunday everyone! We attended a worship service today. Ushers, people sitting in rows speaking in whispers, passionate speeches from a raised platform, songs about good and evil, life and death, and meat pies, and a barber chair connected to a trap door.
Pretty good for a local theater group production, although the trap door started malfunctioning toward the end and you could see the corpses helping it out.
Walton:
It’s fine, Walton. I just wanted to know if she was okay, and she is, just taking a Pharyngubreak. Thanks for the offer. :)
This thread is such a vortex of depravity. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss the possibility of having intimate relations with pastry-based foods before.
Distantly, geese honk
Sleep eludes them; not so me
Night all, tuck up warm
And check the picture @#219, it’s uncanny. ;)
I thought apple was the preferred pie to fuck.
Walton, you’ve never had a good rhubarb pie, have you.
It’s a great way to get the ol’ juices flowin’ if you follow my meanin’
;)
Of course, you’ll need to have your gyno on speed-dial.
Ing,
QA is probably an easy target for cutting payroll.
My wheelchair sprung a leak. My knees were (and remain) unamused.
I’m trying to decide just how annoyed I am with the management of the Gillioz Theatre. After all, I did email them an inquiry in advance, asking whether/how navigable their premises were to someone driving a manual wheelchair, and they assured me that that water was just fine, and that “We are very handicap accessible with plenty of space for wheelchairs!” Am I wrong in feeling that the Managing Director somewhat mislead me? I don’t know….
–
–
Old Thread
TLC, sorry to hear about your ex’s abdominal pain problem. Let us know how it comes out, ‘kay?
Later:
Sympathies offered. Options?
–
O.O
*gesture of aversion*
–
Sing it!
Sorry about your hand, chigau.
Used to be, if I hit something hard enough for it to bruise, or a mosquito was driving its nasty little proboscis into me, I damned well knew it. These days, I’m forever coming up with unexplained bruises, and I have to see the mosquito land. (And I want them to stay offa my lawn.)
–
Re-casting it slightly:
The wanting cat purrs.
The cat is always purring.
The cat always wants.
–
Since there seems to be a Travelers Advisory on long posts….
Walton:
Sometimes, I have to remind myself you’re real. :D So, you haven’t seen American Pie, then?
“mixed” berries.
Go out to the garden (or freezer) to discover what is there.
This will henceforth (for this recipe) be known as “mixed” berries.
—
awesome
I hope this question makes sense (and is not too stupid).
Was The South™ really considered “traitors”?
(I have most of my info on that period in USA history from movies)
Weren’t they just wanting to have their own country?
Chigau, the South were definitely considered traitors. The fact that they just wanted to have their own country was that they wanted to break the country in half and denied the authority of the elected federal government because they were outvoted.
OT: The roommate is playing her violin. I has a happy.
Also, to Walton, an addendum:
If it’s possible to fuck something, someone, somewhere in the world has fucked it. If you remember that, you won’t be so shocked by human depravity, I promise. Whatever you do, don’t get drunk with a bunch of ER doctors and nurses. The stories would kill ya.
Oh girl, I know thas’ right!
Er, I was being flippant… I guess the snarky grin didn’t come across. :-) I’m not so easily shocked by the diversity and weirdness of people’s sexual fetishes as you might think, honestly.
Sorry, Walton!
Josh:
I’ve had the same fave for years now – a man came into the ER, um, attached to a vacuum cleaner hose. It was fucking hilarious.
*nervously* I’ve decided to learn Spanish. *gulp* Anyone have any recommendations regarding self-teaching resources that are more affordable than Rossetta Stone?
By most of the Union, yes. And the Confederacy said the same of the Union.
As did the Copperheads:
Lincoln was “fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism” and a “worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero…. The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor and murderer…. And if he is elected to misgovern for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”
A nurse friend told me of a man who came into the ER and presented with:
1: a pair of nail scissors,
2: a pair of pliers
and
3: a teaspoon
Inserted into his urethra.
Yeah.
My mother (a nurse in a large ER) has lots of stories about what people choose to stick up their asses. Just a public service announcement: Think before you stick something up your ass.
[trite alert]
Isn’t one person’s traitor always another person’s freedom fighter?
[/trite]
—–
My roommate is not playing the guitar. I feel something is missing.
——
I would include in Caine’s warning about ER personnel, EMTs.
(whatever they are called where you are, those people who occupy ambulances)
Rule 34ish
Well, yes. True enough. And they did see themselves as exercising their rights for freedom and all that.
It is also true that they seceded only after it was made clear to them that they weren’t going to be able to have their (pro-slavery) views dominate the country despite being outvoted by anti-slavery views.
Oh, it’s not just asses. The variety of things men will stick their penis into is utterly amazing. It’s not always men, either, and sometimes it’s fairly innocent. Back in my counseling days at PP, there was a panicked call from a teenage girl who had been masturbating with a cucumber. No problem with that, except when she noticed the time and realized her mother was due back shortly, she panicked and her muscles locked…that cucumber wasn’t coming out. That was an interesting call.
Esteleth:
That sounds more like a specific disorder, akin to those who repeatedly swallow inappropriate objects.
Ok
i’m done
if you need me I’ll be curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the darkest room on earth
For the sake of completeness.
Was that a “he swallowed the spider to catch the fly” kind of situation?
And not just inserting either! I saw an entry in the honorable mentions on the Darwin Awards that made me cringe like nothing else.
Protip: when performing cunnilingus, NO BITING. Just because the slang term is “eating out,” that does NOT mean you should literally eat her labia.
The things people do…
Apparently, this was how he pleasured himself. Apparently, one item got, uh, lost, and he tried to fish it out. That got lost too…
Move over RBDC, I need to cower next to you.
RevBDC, I’m having a camera up mine on Thursday. Hey, why are you screaming?
When I was a young man, I did not know how to pack for vacation, and I ended up having to use a
Armadillo?
Don’t say porcupine don’t say porcupine don’t say porcupine
I’m gonna go with “RotoRooter” just for flair.
Well, there is the Betelgusian National Anthem.
Then, of course, on the other end of the spectrum is Canada’s national anthem. Kind of an afterthought. “Oh. Canada.”
For a liberal anthem, how about Last Night I had the Strangest Dream”?
Er, isn’t that part of the point of TET?
And why would you sully innocent berries with `shudder` rhubarb?
er. . .
We made two apple pies last week. One with a Dutch crumb topping and one with a lattice top. One pie to our neighbor, one for us. We may need to make another one for Thanksgiving (and we already have our Thanksgiving Day chicken and a tofurkey for Girl).
Hell, I once completely and totally fucked a VW 1100cc Type II engine.
Word of the day: flange. Be sure your object has one.
Or a string. Or cord.
And why has no one mentioneda Leica rangefinder yet?
Esteleth:
larger suitcase than I ought to have needed?
Carlie:
Given the context of the current state of the TET, my brain went “…WHAT!?” at that.
*applause*
I spent my Sunday asleep. I tend to stress when I meet people, and this past week involved meeting a bunch of folks. So I stressed and ended up sleeping the day away
In the meantime a dead right whale (I think) washed up on a Point Loma beach. THe authorities are talking about towing away to a better place for a necropsy.
Lynna @ 113,
thanks for that link. I can’t seem to find any reports on Mormon billboards in Brisbane, do you have any other source for that by any chance ?
Speaking of strange things inserted into orifices, when I was doing an internship with an E.R. doctor last year, a patient came in with thirteen black walnuts in his rectum. I was concerned.
A.R.
I would be too. Those things can stain something awful.
She’s probably heard some pretty bad cover stories too.
“It was a million to one shot, doc. Million to one.”
My mistake, the animal is a fin whale, according to the San Diego Union/Tribune. Sorry for the error.
Do all your interesting ER stories involve {the parts that are covered by a bathing suit}?
What about my FoaF story about the guy with a severe head injury who was still “alive” when he had maggots in half of his brain?
Make room for me in the Whimper Corner.
New Book Looks At X-Rays Of Objects Stuck In Patients’ Orifices
She’s around in the FB group discussions/chat.
Much to my surprise, she actually had an article in SciAm the other day.
and re: Sourthern traitors
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
I am sad.
Ah, a potato is a popular one. My mother had one of those. Had to have a minor procedure to get it out. He was married and had to called his wife. He told her that he was in the hospital for “stomach problems”.
“You meet a proctologist at a party, don’t walk away. *Plant* yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories you’ve ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they *stuck* something up there. Never! It’s always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way: “It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one.”” – Kramer (aka, Assman)
At Arisa one year there was a panel discussion on “How to Buy BDSM Gear at the Grocery Store (Outside of Produce).” It was great!
Learned a lot.
But yes. Flanges. Are. Your. FRIEND.
Also – don’t insert breakables!
Starstuff, I read this as “My mother (a large nurse in the ER).”
Needs more flange.
No; and I see it with a side-order of “remember, you are supposed to be ladies, proper, well-mannered, all-but-mute ladies, who don’t ever speak out of turn”.
Reminding us of our place.
–
mythusmage, I got the impression that this woman simply doesn’t like you, personally, and was acting accordingly. What type of bigotry on her part did I miss?
–
Sympathy and *hugs* for Lee Picton. It it ain’t one damned thing….
–
*snortle*
How is this not already a TV series?
–
And they should be stopped.
In our lifetime.
(Think of the children….)
–
Benjamin, I’m glad to hear that your medication is helping. Less-stabby is good.
–
John Dies at the End, by David Wong. I just finished Snuff.
–
This had to be done: http://www.collegehumor.com/picture/6537705/ostrich-in-colon (May have been done already, not sure)
Carlie –
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. . ..
(breathe)
. . .HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Perhaps I’ll die from anoxia.
Carlie,
I now have hiccups.
What he said.
From the linked article:
Rev #303
Sometimes one has a party that goes on too long.
That book would send all those late-stayers home.
(especially when accompanied by my actual anthropologist recording of a throat-singing granny (90+yrs) who must stop occasionally to hork some phlegm)
Alright, I have to work tomorrow.
Bedtime.
Keep it out of the gutter, everyone. Most unhygienic. I scrubbed the spanking parlor earlier today and oiled all the floggers and paddles.
chigau,
If only that had been ‘severed’!
—
PS http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/maggots.asp
(Not safe for the queasy)
I have received birthday loot*.
*It’s a Le Crueset kettle. I love Mister. ♥
*blushes and giggles*
oh cool, we have a green one of those.
That’s all well and good, but the Whimper Corner may need some neatening up tommorrow morning.
And now, I’m heading off to bed. Why? Because I put in a full week of work today.
No, really, I did. My lieu days are Monday and Tuesday (normal colendar) and I took off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Which means that Sunday was my Monday (beginning of the week), Wednesday (middle of the week) and Friday (end of the week).
Cicely, 310
Before even getting to know me she prejudged me. She might know someone who looks like me, so she assumes I’m like him.
This troll again?
cicely:
Ooooo, I enjoyed that one.
I’m reading True Grit, which is pretty freaking incredible. I’m still working on the books I bought during Borders going out-of-business sale.
Caine:
Sweet birthday gift! Are you sure the ratties don’t think that it was for them?
Happy birthday, Caine!
Battlefield surgeons in the U.S. Civil War and other conflicts around that time noticed that soldiers who were not attended to immediately had a better survival rate, apparently because fly maggots would eat away dead flesh and leave living flesh. Very very clean maggots are sometimes used to clean wounds even now.
Rev. BDC:
I love Le Creuset. Their Doufou is one of the best pieces of kitchenware I have ever bought.
Audley:
They had to check it out. They have to check everything out. Doubly so if it comes in a box. :D
Our Le Crueset is a blue 5 quart oval. We got it at their Atlantic Avenue store in Brooklyn, half off during a sale, after loading ourselves down with goodies from Sahadi’s.
Thanks, Monado. :)
Yeah.
Don’t stick anything not intended for ass play into your ass.
Or this could happen to you.
####
A few more photos.
Yeah, still not 100% un-stabby, but definitely better than I would have been before.
Caine:
There’s fun times to be had in a box. Rat fort!
And now my lovelies, since it seems like I’ve fucked up my back pretty good today, I’m going to take some painkillers and go to bed early.
Sweet dreams, all.
John Morales
Snopes link, eeww.
My FoaF story was just about the paramedics finding an almost-dead street-person and taking him to the ER until he died.
Cannabinaceae, this is the Doufeu. That thing was worth every frigging penny. We’ve had ours for about 5 years now and I wouldn’t cook a roastbeast in anything else.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/385212_2458701281215_1662654569_2288667_1671722920_n.jpg
Audley:
Oh no. I hope it isn’t bad. Rest, rest, rest!
Caine, did anyone teach you kids
“Oh, dear, what can the matter be,
Three old ladies locked in the lava-tree!
They’ve been there from Monday to Saturday–
Nobody seems to care.”
“Conga rats” reminds me of another list where, long before, “Thanks in advance” had evolved through “TIA” into “Spanish Aunts,” which it took me a while to decode. I guess that “tia” means “aunts” in Spanish.
I mean, “aunt” in Spanish.
Caine:
Thanks. Me too.
And now I’m really off to bed!
Monado:
It does. :)
My neighbour was building a garden shed. He was on a ladder with a 4×8 sheet of plywood for the roof, all alone, when he fell off. The bit from his cordless screwdriver embedded itself in the posterior. He had to drive himself to the emergency ward where all of the on duty staff were female and according to him, barely out of school. His wife picked him up at the hospital and the nurses and doctors were still giggling.
I don’t want to keep language pure but I do want to keep useful distinctions such as interested vs. disinterested and meter (the gadget) vs. metre (the measurement) and cheque (the financial instrument) vs. check (verification or stoppage).
Has anybody addressed this?
She did publish a story there. Already.
(btw did you know that she banned me? I might have accused her of “reflexive sidekicking”.)
Monado #342
Given the nature of the current discussion that was either brilliant or annoying.
that’s regional, you know.
:(
Sad to hear it, Rev.
–
–
(Finally!) New Thread:
Esteleth, congrats on PhD-ing! *confetti and champagne*
–
Happy birthdays, Lynna and Caine! *chocolate cake*, *rum punch* and, of course, *hugs*
–
If kitteh doesn’t eat the evidence, be sure that you know what she did with the body. A mousie buried under a rug and trod flat is…an experience, when found.
–
So…you’re saying that Ayla is Anita Blake?
–
Classical Cypher is accounted for, and I’m glad of it, but blf remains missing, and no-one has spoken up (to my knowledge) with any info about his well-being. And the peas are getting restless, dammit!
–
I knew the tenses would be confusing. I meant that at the time of the Gee blow-up she must have had that in mind, or possibly already submitted something.
Ha! No, I didn’t.
:)
Re: suppressing the South. OK, you’re talking about going back in history and avoiding the mistakes that were made back then. It’s true that winning the war and then abandoning the people who need help putting their society back together in a healthier configuration has a long tradition in the U.S. But you could make a new set: what is repressed tends to gather adherents and pop back up again.
You’re right that the die-hard secessionists were violent: Lincoln wasn’t killed by a random out-of-work actor but by a member of a secessionist conspiracy.
Ah, somebody who transported in and out without going downstairs, where the carn(ivor)age was. All cleaned up now (thanks to Pharyngula Labs Predator Sterilizer™), and catching up with the internet orders.
*Yikes, the Pullets look mean and hungry…Where is the grog soaked corn…*
Probably the latter! Sorry, I’m just starting at the top of the thread and working my way down.
I, too, want to know if blf is OK.
—
The mouse-in-the-house has been resolved.
The kitteh was not very helpful.
I, myself, alone, me, caught the mouse and moved him (generic) outdoors.
It is VERY cold out there but I put him in the compost bin, which is full of food and litter and … stuff.
Why I am this concerned I just can’t understand.
Father Ogvorbis, OM, if you feel like making pies and have freezer space, they freeze wonderfully, with only a couple of minor modifications. We coat the inside bottom pastry with a bit of vegetable oil so it won’t get soggy. And, for all fruit pies, we sprinkle maybe a teaspoon of tapioca balls in the bottom so they’ll absorb juice and the pie won’t boil over from the steam slits. Just make the pie and freeze it raw. A bushel? Half a bushel? at maybe three apples per pie, supplies one pie per weekend throughout the winter. Just slip the frozen pie into a moderate oven and bake for about 45 minutes. Heavenly!
For you fans of John Dies At The End who may not know – There’s a movie in the works: http://johndies.com/
Whew! Got lucky, Patricia and Nasty came in, she clucked and he pointed, and Pullet Patrol™ cleared the place out in less than a minute to the Pullet Palace™. And Patricia and Nasty returned to who knows what (pie making from the aroma you dirty minded people). Orders are on the way to all those who are backordered, including our birthday celebrants.
Laughing Coyote, I got a lot of shunning, and a little bit of bullying, when I was small and I still remember how the bullying stopped when I stood up to it and declared I was eager to have someone “wait for me after school.” My child went through a bit of the same thing, being bullied because it was right to “turn the other cheek”–I had to explain that one has to show enough deterrence to scare them off.
If I were to make a passionate plea for everyone here to go to SI for recipes, would it work?
I still cook in cups and tablespoons but I can accommodate.
I don’t know what is a “stick” of butter.
A “stick” is 4 ounces by weight. Butter here is often sold in a pound box, subdivided into quarters.
I am depressed. And angry.
Everyone always asks me if I’m working. I know they’re trying to be friendly, but as soon as I tell them I’m on disability, that same look crosses their fucking faces. “Hmm.” they’re thinking, “He’s not wearing a diaper or in a wheelchair, and he has two arms and two legs…. must just be gaming the system, the lazy fuck.”
Is this really why I was born? So I can devote my entire youth to working for some rich privileged asshole who gets to act like he owns me and tosses me his leftovers while keeping the majority of the profits? This is life as a human?
I’d rather be a fucking dung beetle. At least then I’d get to actually, you know, get what I work for. Even if it is shit.
I DO want to work. I’m not lazy. I’ve worked before. But having a job isn’t REALLY about working. It’s about sucking up and playing the stupid social games. Climb that ladder, monkey! so one day you too can pick fleas off the alpha chimp’s ass. I don’t do that. I could blame asperger’s syndrome, but honestly I don’t think I’d be able to stand it even if I was neurotypical.
Know how I lost my last job? There I was, in the pouring rain, trying to cut a hole in a piece of concrete with a diamond bladed concrete saw. No water for lubrication except for what fell out of the sky. The saw weighed half as much as me and was skipping and bouncing all over the fucking place. I got fired because I didn’t want to cut my own legs off. I wasn’t going fast enough. I didn’t realize at the time I could report him to the better business bureau, so the fucker got away with it.
I don’t even think I could survive the job interview at this point. I’d tell him “I’m here to work. Not lick your ass. Not to climb the ladder. I work, you pay me for work.” And then the interview would be over, because I’m not ‘Company Material’. Because rich people are used to having people suck up, and they likes it just fine that way.
My first job spoiled me. I had ethical bosses who worked as hard as their employees and were concerned about my health, safety, and general happiness. Stupid fucking me, here I thought they were all like that! Nope.
And whenever I try to talk about these frustrations to anyone, I’m just being a whiner. I’m just a selfish lazy fuck who thinks society (the same society that’s made me feel like a little crustie they pick out of their butthole since I was small) owes me a living or something.
I -WANT- to work. I’m bored all the fucking time and never have enough money. But this is 2011, and I will not spit in burgers at mcdonalds or serve timmy coffees to type-A assholes. I also don’t drive.
In other words, I am unemployable.
Right on.
I was never willing to wait for after school or ‘take it outside’. I went for them on the spot. RAWR!
TLC,
I hear ya. People complain about government “tyranny”, but when I look around it seems like businesses are issuing more orders, treating most of their employees like wage slaves. Yet, they rarely get called out for it. It’s just accepted by most.
Laughing Coyote: I do sympathize, fwiw. I get annoyed with the judgmental neo-Victorian attitude that’s prevalent in our society towards those who are out of work. (This is something that seems to be common to both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, that kind of attitude reared its ugly head briefly in a Facebook debate I had today about the Occupy movement and the right to protest.)
FA: That’s what pisses me off the most about it. Everyone seems to just ‘accept it’. If everyone decided to refuse to work for unethical scumbags today, then the economy would grind to a halt until the system changed. But no one’s gonna do that. The wealthy are ‘Job creators’. And they worked hard to inherit that million dollar business from daddy. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to treat us like pack donkeys, right?
“Stick of butter” = 1/2 cup. A pound of butter is 2 cups. Unwrap it, put a mark in the middle, then another mark half-way to the end and that’s your lump of butter.
This has only barely happened in Germany. It sure looks like denazification worked, was better than the probable alternative. Every German and every Austrian at Pharyngula who I’ve noticed commenting on denazification over the years has indicated that the banning of Nazi symbols, for instance, has been a good (or least bad) thing.
Part of the problem in the South now is that organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans have been allowed to promote the Lost Cause, which includes lies about the reason the Confederacy fought, such that these lies are now being taught in public schools in the South. There are kids growing up now who genuinely believe that slavery was not the primary reason why the South seceded. They seriously think it’s some nebulous concept of “states’ rights”, some vague disagreements about the originalist scope of federal power.
I believe this part of the reason this happened was because the leaders of the Confederacy were treated as gentlemen instead of traitors and scoundrels after the war. As gentlemen, they were permitted to promote their own versions of history. Allowing the states of the Confederacy to keep their myths as “heritage” has been a total mess. It really is hard to imagine a worse outcome.
+++++
At the very least, what we could still do today is enforce a national curriculum on the Civil War, which all schools, public and private, must teach: the Confederacy seceded for the primary purpose of perpetuating slavery.
I present this for discussion, not because I regard it as a counterargument to anything anyone’s said. Indeed, I suspect everyone here will agree it’s a reasonable approach.
Walton: I have never felt so much in common with any protest or movement as I do with the Occupy movement. This is shit that needs to happen.
I can’t watch the clips though. It makes me want to chuck a spear through my computer screen, seriously.
@ Dr Audley
Sounds absolutely scrumptious. Post the recipe soon …
Rev. BigDumbChimp–hive death? Oh, noes! What did I miss?
Marx on wage slavery
Me,
BTW, I do accept that there is a difference between those who don’t like how it works but reluctantly accept a job where they’re ordered around all day because they have to make ends meet and those who think there’s nothing wrong with how the system operates or will even defend it. In the real world you sometimes have to make tough choices. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to try to change things for the better.
Well, employer tyranny is, in one sense, state-tyranny-by-proxy. After all, the inequality of power between the employer and the employee results from the fact that the former controls property, whereas the latter does not. (As Marx would put it, the employers have power because they own the means of production.) By creating and enforcing property rights, the state grants the capitalists the power to control certain resources and to exclude others forcibly from using them. And that control is ultimately backed by the coercive power of the state: after all, the property-owner can rely on the police to use force to prevent others from occupying hir property. (As we’ve seen this week with the violent suppression of peaceful occupations.) Hence, the non-owners are forced to bargain with the owners on the latter’s terms, in order to access the resources they need to survive.
This is the point that right-wing libertarians ignore. Contractual relations between the rich and the poor are not “free” or “uncoerced”, because, in a private-property-based society, the rich control the resources that the poor need to survive; a control which is granted by the state in the form of property rights, and which is ultimately backed by the use or threat of violence. For a good analysis of this, see Hale’s Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State, criticizing the libertarian notion of “freedom of contract”.
This is why I actually think an anti-statist worldview and a critique of capitalism are eminently compatible with one another. Modern industrial capitalism is a creature of state violence, and corporate power is intimately intertwined with state power. This doesn’t mean that we should abolish either capitalism or the state – I don’t think either is feasible – but it means that conservative pseudo-libertarian arguments about the need to set business free from state interference are, ultimately, bullshit.
awesome
I’m Canadian.
How much do you think I need to fret about the USA?
(I usually don’t fret at all. But we have that “bigest undefended border”.)
Should I start defending?
Chigau: I’ve been fretting about the USA since Bush took office. I thought I’d stop fretting once he was gone, but I haven’t.
Walton: Great point, I hadn’t thought about it quite that deeply before.
I can’t sleep at all and I have class at 8 am (which is in about 7 hours). Ugh, I’m tempted to just stay up all night.
I know what is a “stick” of butter (lard, margarine).
I just think it is a totally dumb-ass unit of measurement.
The unit “stick” exists only in the USA.
Starstuff: I find, sometimes, if I have something to do at a certain time the next day, there comes a point where it would actually be more difficult to go to sleep and then get up an hour or two later, than to just stay up.
YMMV, depending on how much sleep you actually need. I can survive a night or two without, but if I go too long I start hallucinatin’. Especially if I just drink coffee and don’t eat enough during that time.
I’m completely losing my shit on the “vileness” thread about the unprovoked pepper spray assault on UC Davis students. I cannot believe how many commenters are coming out to describe the students as (yes, in these terms) “perps” who were “breaking the law” and who should have seen their assault coming.
TLC
I`ve been fretting about the USA since Kennedy.
But that`s just `cause I`m too young to fret farther back.
@chigau: I feel your pain, but I have learned to adapt. I am now capable of using a US recipe, as well as European style metric, Imperial British, and modern Australian metric – all different. And if you do go to SI ingredients, please do it sensibly. Don’t ask for 113.5g butter!
And my FSM, US Americans collectively have the most horrendous sweet tooth! I made a Pioneer Woman recipe recently, halved the sugar, and it still came out severely sweet. You have to be careful just cutting down on sugar in baked goods – too much reduction will make a cake dryer and heavier. A third reduction is usually OK for a cake, but you can usually cut more for biscuits (US cookies).
Yeah, it’s disgusting.
If what we call ‘cookies’ in north america are biscuits in Britain, then what are ‘cookies’ in Britain?
It sure is. I’m so angry right now. . .I can’t remember the last time I was this worked up. So much so that I’m having fantasies about punching the shit out of some of those commenters. I really don’t like that. It’s not cool. It’s also perverse.
It takes a lot to provoke me to that kind of anger, and I don’t like being there.
Alethea H. Claw (once and future Cook)
Yes!
Hard conversions are stooopid.
Most of my measuring cups and spoons have alternative measures.
And I`m old, I know when is too much butter.
@Monado, you do realise that someone complaining about the “stick” of butter as a measurement is unlikely to be able to buy butter in pounds, right? Also, your “cups” and theirs are almost certainly different. So your solution is not going to be very helpful.
@Coyote: “cookies” in the UK and Australia are understood as the American word for biscuits. There’s no native English product called a “cookie”. It comes from the Dutch “koekje”, btw. Even old New York was once New Amsterdam…
We tend to use “cookie” here for a giant sized biscuit, often with chips of something – the chocolate chip cookie being a US invention. Unlike the apple pie – you lot really should change that saying. “As American as chocolate chip cookies” makes more sense. As an Aussie, I’m more prone to say “bickie” than biscuit, though.
/ramble
Yeah, I might just stay up. I don’t have anything important to do tomorrow and I only have a few classes and I only have two days of classes this week anyway (yay Thanksgiving!).
Re butter: Right, I should have gone to 125 grams. I, too think that “stick of butter” is a stupid unit of measurement.
Josh, calm down man, not worth having a heart attack over ! Most of the commenters there seem to have no concept of civil disobedience, and also seem to have no clue that other countries can control such protests without resorting to violence.
I just read the vileness thread.
There’s nothing useful I can possibly contribute. I just want to chuck a spear at something. WHAM.
Josh, I stand with you.
@ Josh
I was peacefully unaware of the existence of those awful people. Now I’m reading those comments D:
Why? I blame you (I’m just kidding. But seriously, those guys suck).
I dunno, Rorschach. .it may well be worth having a heart attack over. It’s fucking disturbing that so many of them not only don’t understand civil disobedience, but that they’re willing to sell their own kith and kin to the fucking police over it! If anything’s worth getting righteously mad over, I’d say this is it. These people are dangerous. Not just in a figurative sense. They’re dangerous for the body politic. They’re part of the rot. I want to stop them. I want to call them out. I want to marginalize them.
Oy. Yeah, I know. Don’t kill myself over it:) But damn it, no. It’s not OK.
Time for another glass of wine. . .lol.
Gaaaaawd bless Aaaaaamerica
my hoooooome
sweeeeeeet
hoooooooome
Thanks heavens you said it. I bit my tongue as I figured it wouldn’t go over well.
ahs, I’m about ready to buy a ticket to any political train you’re running. Seriously. .
It’s not even near fucking OK Josh.
I look like I stepped right out of the 60s. I’ve been profiled once or twice. It’s a good thing I know how to Pigspeak.
But it makes me feel sick every time. As I said earlier tonight, my first instinct when faced with bullies trying to intimidate me is BITE THEIR FUCKING FACES OFF. But the rules are different with cops.
An instinctive part of me wishes that the OWS movement WOULD turn violent. But the smart thinking reasoning part of me knows who’d win that battle.
I’m only at comment #32 and I’m ready to ball up and cry in a dark corner. This just makes me sad for humanity.
Yeah, Coyote, I wanna bite their fucking faces off too. Lucky it wasn’t me sitting in that line of students because I’d have gone fucknuts berserk on those motherfuckers. Errrrrg. . .even try to get your fucking pepper spray out.
Hoo-boy. Breathe.
Josh, you rock. Have some e-cookies. Or e-biscuits. Whatevs.
TLC:
That’s because most people are living paycheck to paycheck and like having a roof over their heads, food and being able to provide for their family.
This is going to sound snarky, but I don’t mean it that way – most people are, unlike yourself, unable to claim disability in order to have a small amount of money in which to scrape by, enabling them to tell the boss to fuck off. It’s notoriously difficult for people to get disability here, the hoops you have to jump through are myriad and even then, people get turned down left and right. I know people who have been fighting for disability for years as it is increasingly difficult for them to work and have even been fired for not being able to handle the job physically. They have documentation, doctor’s statements, all that stuff. Even so, no go.
Here, it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not you can get disability. It’s a crapshoot when it comes to getting any sort of help whatsoever. No one likes a shit job, but you have to do that sometimes.
And yes, it goes without saying (or should) that some people game the system, however, that’s not the majority.
I split my support between the DSA and the CPUSA these days, depending on my mood in any given week.
Thanks for the links, ahs.
Mind you, even what the UK/Australia call biscuits aren’t what the original biscuit was. The name coming from words meaning twice-cooked. Some, especially those for long sea-voyages were cooked or baked up to 4 times to make sure they were nice and hard and didn’t deteriorate. Of course you usually needed something liquid to dunk them in to make them edible.
But no, although in the UK and here in Australia we understand that ‘cookie’ is a word for what we know as biscuits, and will sometimes even use it such for the choc-chip ones Althea mentioned (mostly I suspect for the alliteration – chocolate chip cookie sounds so much better than chocolate chip biscuit). For the most part we use biscuits or bickies.
I have this vague memory that the USA doesn’t have self-raising flour. Is that correct?
Not correct. We do have it, in the form of various quick-pancake/biscuit(in the American sense) mixes. Flour with the fat and baking powder already added in. Is that what you mean?
I didn’t take it as ‘snarky’. You’re absolutely right. Another fucked up aspect of the system.
I speak mostly from depression and frustration.
I am NOT lazy. I am capable of working my ass off on something for days straight, only eating and sleeping the minimum amount to keep myself alive, if I’m ‘into it’ enough. I want to work. I want to get paid for my work. It seems so simple in my head. But out there in the real world, it’s clearly not. If only work was actually about WORK, and not about making some kind of impression on the boss.
Most job interviews seem to be more about small talk and jibber jabber and bullshit, otherwise they’d be exactly this long: “I want work. I can do *blank* *blank* and *Blank*. Hire me, Y/N?”
Lynna, OM 38
Viva la revolutione…
@ Caine 47
Conga Rat Elations!
@ Josh 88
The guy is obviously gagging for someone to take the piss. I would be tempted to go into a long pythonesque discussion with the guy, complain about non-believers (ie those not believing in multiple gods … as would gradually become clear), and checking that the food really does meet God’s (ie Wotan’s) strict dietary requirements, etc. Instantly viral…
@ SQB 123
*chuckles*
I have wondered something similar about the “birthers” – they should, if they believe their own “baby at conception” logic, rather be called “fuckers”. Checking republicans country of conception seems appropriate by their standards. “Perry, where is your Fuck Certificate?”
@ ahs ॐ 364
Towards the end of apartheid, there where still many malgn right-wingers and warlords who did not want to give up their political positions. This came to a very graphic end when the armed AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) sent its militia into one of the defunct homelands to prop up a local strongman. A carload where photographed being shot to death by a member of the “homeland” defence force. That was essentially the death knell for right wing militancy.
Hey sgbm, since you’re around, a work collegue (yes, a doctor) helpfully printed me out “evidence” from google that black Africans have lower IQ and brain volumes, after she whinged about the difficulties she was having to teach a Sudanese mother how to syringe fluids into her sick kid the other day. This is an otherwise very intelligent and educated collegue, and I think one could get her onto the right track. I tried to explain the flawed concept that is “race” to her, but there is work to do. Does anyone have any good links to references to IQ tests and culture, for example ?
Not caught up to the thread, as usual, so this may be redundant. Hope not.
For those of you who enjoy stories about our early ancestors such as Clan of the Cave Bear and Jean M Auel’s books, may I suggest the series written by Michael and Kathy Gear?
The series begins with People of the Wolf.
Both Michael and Kathy are archaeologists and have degrees in related areas. Each also have titles under their own names. They also used to drink beer at the same place I did. Interesting conversations were enjoyed.
Do check these books out. You’ll be glad you did. I promise. ;^>
My head feels like it’s going to explode. It was already hurting before, but reading the comments from the “vileness on display” thread just makes it worse.
So true. Instead we get companies refusing to hire people because they’re “overqualified.” Which means, of course, that they’re mortally terrified of telling the truth: “We pay shit wages and we know you’ll leave us for a better position when it comes up. Accordingly, go starve.”
Starstuff, I’m sorry, but misery does love company, darling. If I have to suffer, well then, so do you all.
I know, I know. It’s ugly. I can’t help myself. :)
It’s ok, Josh. I’ve yelled at a few idiots over there, so I feel a little less angry and hopeless now.
rorschach:
(From my memory.) The father of the Nisbett we don’t like around here published a study purporting to show that genetic differences could at most account for 1/6 of academic achievement.
Having given a hint to whomever else might find it, now I’ll go look for it.
1/6 of [differences in] academic achievement.
Oh, surely not — you’ve actually found a citation from Perfect Hair’s father? Too delicious. Share, please.
Cake mixes? No, we do have those but self-raising flour over here doesn’t have fat in it. Just the baking powder/tartaric acid stuff.
Thank you, Theophontes! Oh, new rodent pics here.
Me:
Ooops, you saw them! That’s what I get for not checking my email.
Thanks, sg !
I can report that the GAC in Melbourne 2012 has a Dinner Committee. Now, I remember the hours of work that the Bride of Shrek put into having Pharyngula tables at the GAC last year, with the end result of one table with PZ, BoS, me, Kel, Wowbagger, Alathea and a few others, while the other 8 or so tables when we walked around seemed to hold people who had no clue who we or PZ were, so I’m not doing that again for 2012. Here’s a suggestion. Email me, or message me on FB, if you want us to put in for tables at the GAC. I need names and ticket confirmation numbers. If I dont hear, I will just ask for a table with the usual suspects (tables are 10 max).
Oh, yeah, we have that too. Flour with baking powder in it. In the US it’s called “self-rising” flour. I admit I have no idea what it’s used for, or who’d buy it.
(Is Richard Nisbett the father of Matt? Or did I dream that up by accident? I’m not sure now.)
What I’m thinking of was apparently “Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count”
from his page at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/selected.html
there’s http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/racegen.pdf
but that PDF seems to be broken for me. Well, it works right up to page 15. Then page 16 is borked. Anybody else seeing that?
Very nice Caine.
I encountered a rat in my backyard today. I was standing still and he wandered really close to me, before I turned to him and said “Hey, rat, how goes?”
He looked up at me like “Oh, SHIT!” and ran under some wood. He looked a little weak and hungry, so I dumped some chickenfeed in front of his bolt-hole.
‘Tis the season.
BTW he was gorgeous as far as wild rats go. He had this dark silvery sorta color to him.
Findings that require a significant cultural component to explain: http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/dickens2006a.pdf
Thanks, sgbm, I was looking for something like that Nisbett study !
Don’t worry, I am really bad myself.
Boxes: Have you tried the “fill box with strips of newspaper” trick. Molly the cat goes absolutely crazy for this.
Coyote:
Unusual. He sounds beautiful.
Theophontes:
Oh yes. The cats love those; the rats, not so much. They prefer boxes of dirt. They love to dig.
Speaking of rats, Esme got her first snow experience today. She found it interesting, ate a bit of it, decided it was not nice to walk in and prefers it in a snowball.
I haz a kitteh on the couch snoring contentedly next to me. That counts for something.
Somewhat dated now, but there was an updated version Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man in 1996.
all 15 year old stuff:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Correlation/Intelligence.pdf
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdf
Good man, ahs, thank you !
Josh:
Yes it does. Chas & Esme are all curled up, sleeping. I think I should take a hint and join them. I’ll leave you all with Ash, our first rat, stealing snow.
I believe this is known as being Thread bankrupt, though I shall pop back up the page to read later if I get half a chance.
Did something very out of character last night. Was in a large public space waiting to meet sonspawn, when I noticed someone had dropped a paperback on the floor. No realistic chance of getting it back to its owner (100s of people criss-crossing the space all the time) so having time to kill I thought I’d have a look and see if I liked it (and I’ll read cereal packets if there’s nothing else around). Hmm, something called “The Average American Male: a Novel”. Title not hugely promising, but who knows, it could be something really incisive and insightful … Open book at random; read for approximately 5 seconds. One last hope – must be satire, surely, or maybe it could be deliberate flawed narrator pov: let’s look at the last few paragraphs and see. So I gave the book far more than it deserved: a good 30 seconds reading the last three pages. Felt very slightly nauseous, as if I’d stepped in some elderly dog excrement left on the pavement by a dog-owner too shite to clean up after their pet. Took the book to the nearest rubbish bin and dropped it in; happily it was an opaque bin with a flip-top so no-one was going to be tempted to fish it out again out of curiosity.
Normally I can hardly bear to be separated from any book in my possession and will hoard anything – for this dreary, self-indulgent sexist dreck I had to make an exception. Yeuch.
It’s getting late here though. That’s all for now. BTW, rorschach, in long threads I’m only doing the Ctrl-F thing for ahs, so I won’t usually notice sgbm unless I’m really reading the whole thing.
rorschach @296
I’ll look.
I’ll also ask a couple of ex-mormons from Australia.
Will let you know if I find anything, or if the ex-mormons can steer us to something.
opposablethumbs: I googled the title, just out of curiousity. Appears to be what I expected, a book written for the ‘Bro’ set.
*barf*
*sigh*
And just when I thought I was getting things back on track again my mum starts another episode. She’s too “sick” today to come to the trip we promised the kids (and I’m not going to
cancelpostpone it. I did that too many times. I’m not going to break any promises I made the kids for her sake again), but I’m so mean because I’ll take them to my mum in law tomorrow while I’m at work.Yeah, it would be totally OK to treat my wonderful, sober, loving and caring mum in law like shit who’s only good enough at her best to take care of the kids when my mother is at her worst.
And now we’re off to IKea (yes, that’s a family trip in our house ;))
TLC
I understand your position and sentiment. But it’s also one that’s only affordable if you’re the only one depending on you.
Best wishes for the Ex
I see what you’re saying.
@ Caine
Esme + snow … Where those her little pawprints in the snow below the birds (The pic you posted)?
@ Josh
That is the very definition of heaven itself.
(Unfortunately two of our cats won’t go near me. I know not why. They all look blissfully happy snoozing next to Spawnphontes though.)
@ opposablethumbs
I am supposed to be working right now and that is probably the reason I have gone googling for reviews of that book. A few tidbits off amazon:
Theophontes: Damn, why didn’t I come across that review? Probably because I’m not looking very hard.
It’s OK Opposablethumbs. Once, I thought I found a chunk of hash on my floor. Turns out it was a rat turd.
I know how you feel.
@ TLC
Look for “Most helpful customer reviews”. People looking for reviews on amazon can rate who they think the best reviewers are. Try this linky. (holds thumbs it works)
I wanted to link you to some very funny reviews of the babble ™ but it seems amazon have censored these. I haz a sad :'(
This one’s from publisher’s weekly, and possibly my favorite:
But I love this one just for the sheer stupidity of it.
Silly Maddox, thinking anyone gives a shit what you have to say in 2011.
Hells bells, Caine, be careful with that stuff:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/882335-hair-dye-allergy-puts-mum-in-coma-and-leaves-her-with-brain-damage
Perhaps you should go for the silver cougar look?
Anyway, I’m a bit late, but I hope things are improving. I’ll squeeze some antihistamines through the intertubez for you.
theophontes I was curious enough to google it myself when I got home, and I was so relieved to see those reviews – thank dog there were plenty of people who thought it was a steaming pile of monkey droppings.
The funny thing was, it immediately made me think of Pharyngula – it was as if one of the MRA trolls had suddenly stepped out of my computer screen and manifested an actual paper-and-ink excrescence right in front of me. All I could think of was how the horde would have shredded him.
Now that would have made good reading.
TLC
Yes, that’s pretty much what it was like!
.
Also, belated happy circumnavigation of the sun to Lynna and Caine
I just got mail from AllOut.org, about a petition against this:
Please someone tell me this is not true.
One of the articles linked in the mail:link
It doesn’t sound promissing.
Theophontes:
Goodness, no! Those bird prints would look gigantic next to hers. She’s still too much the skitterbiscuit to take outside, I haven’t even thought to start hood training her. Next Spring is soon enough.
Tielserrath:
Thank you! I won’t be dyeing my hair again. I don’t have much gray at all, and what is gray is very silvery, it doesn’t worry me. I dye my hair for a change more than anything to do with the gray. I guess I’ll just have to live with no more colour change.
I buy self-raising flour, because it’s cheaper than buying plain flour plus baking powder, and most Australian recipes assume you have it.
I’m going to GAC. Posted re dinner on FB TET.
Giliell #435
Some of my strongest memories of my mother are the ‘oh fuck, she’s done it again’ ones where I believed her promises and she let me down.
Usually it would happen in relation to something that was enormously important to me but of no personal value to her. Like promising to drive me to my MRI (when it was thought I had a brain tumour) and then phoning me on the morning of the scan to say she felt a bit dizzy and would drive over later (after I’d driven myself the 40 mile round trip to the hospital – and nearly crashed the car thanks to overwhelming panic).
I dealt with her in the end by not just having a backup plan, but making the ‘backup’ the main plan, so that I didn’t feel so miserable when she let me down again.
I never figured out if it was game playing or if she genuinely didn’t want to help me out.
Josh – Pixelfish posted a great article on Twitter discussing the way campus police are treating protesters compared to how they’ve been treated in the past.
…
Theophontes,
I wasn’t thrilled with how the cornbread turned out (too salty, not sweet enough), so I’m not going to post the recipe. When I find a good one, I will.
Re self rising flour: I have one cook book that has a couple of batter bread recipes that calls for it, but that’s it. I have no idea why you’d even bother with the stuff.
Crudely Wrott @407:
Added to wish list. :) Wish they were available on the Kindle so I could read it now (the library here is out of the question for various reasons…and they probably wouldn’t have it anyways).
Carlie:
Gee, thanks Carlie, I almost choked to death, drinking my tea while reading this. I don’t even know what to say.
I am not related to the Birgeneau id…chancellor. The names are another example of evolutionary convergence
— — — —
“When Despots and Bullies Run The Government (VIDEO)” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/congressman-don-young_b_1102848.html?ref=politics
Assholes in state senate harass scientist giving testimony.
Not unless Matt randomly decided to drop a ‘t’.
Caine – the formatting got lost; that was a quote internally that author was responding to. I didn’t mean to make it look like part of the piece if it did.
Shame on those students for brutally assaulting peaceful police batons with their violent heads and bodies!
Right now, one of the pies is in the freezer. I mix in about two tablespoons of corn starch in with the sugar to cut down on the soupyness. Unfortunately, we have limited freezer space. When the kids were young, we had a large freezer but hadn’t used it for years so we donated it to a food pantry.
I know how you feel. I have a disability placard for my car which I use when my knee is really acting up. Of course, others see a 45-year old man, no obvious disability, get out of a car and, well, about 1/3 of the time, someone will make a comment. My reply? My disability is none of your business.
American exceptionalism strikes again. Or stupidity. Or both.
I’m reluctant even to read the thread. I can’t deal with that crap this morning. (I’m used to getting enough of these reactions from friends acquaintances of mine in discussions about police brutality.)
But this is why I really dislike and distrust cops in general. Not that all of them are bad; but the problem is that the role and institutional culture of the police give those who are bad plenty of opportunities, and strong incentives, to be violent and abusive with total impunity. I really think there’s a serious problem with the whole modern, militarized, armed, uniformed concept of policing.
Uff, there and back again.
I think kid #1 is in for a cold, but I had to drag #2 kicking and screaming out of there.
tielserrath
I would just think “fuck you, too, mum” if it were about me and just not plan with her anymore.
But I’ll not let her ruin the kids’ christmas-time again. I won’t plan for making cookies with her, or crafting things, or all those wonderful things you do with kids this time of year.
And I will not treat my mum in law like second class because she definetly is first class.
Blarg… I need to buy compressed air and a dust-filter mask next time I have to get the dust out of my computer! My computer was getting overheated so I blew the dust out, but not having a can of compressed air, I just blew it out…
Bad idea – being allergic to dust and breathing in in order to blow outwards after. I was coughing (still kind of am) and sneezing all night because of it. I’m itchy and it sucks!
Maybe seat heaters aren’t exactly absolutely necessary, but they are damn comfortable! :P
Anyway, they have been pretty much basic equipment in every new car sold in Finland for decades. Like block heaters. Importers install that stuff if it’s not taken care of in factory.
It’s pretty ubiquitous in Australia, and as far as I remember the UK. Use the self raising for most baking things that would normally use baking powder or similar. Things that you want to rise. Plain flour for those that don’t.
I usually have some of both. Actually I usually have some of both in both standard and GF varieties as I have some gluten intolerant friends. With the SR flour I don’t have to worry about getting the right amount of baking powder into the mix, though I will occasionally use it if I run out of the SR.
Test post. Made a change to my profile that doesn’t seem to be sticking.
Never mind. All is well.
By the way, Skepticon rocked. Though I’m not sure if the best part was the presentations, or the partying Saturday night.
OT: Request for Horde Hivemind assistance:
I am arguing with a catholic friend who is doing the apologist bit for the Catlick’s handling of the paedophile priest scandal.
I recall an very early christian document (papal edict maybe?) specifically mentioning that priests having sex with children is wrong.
My google fu is not coming up with the doc. Does anyone know what I am talking about?
cheers,
Q.E.D
UC Davis cops sound like the type charge a mugging victim with littering the sidewalk with blood.
Monado, Deployer of Precision F-Strikes #363
Does the Discovery Institute know about this? Because that’s the best evidence I’ve ever seen for ID.
–
The vileness thread started off tragicomic with the bizarre argument over the definition of “cowardly”, but then became too horrific to read on a full stomach.
ANGRY ANGRY. People at a party making rape jokes. I’m too timid to say, “Not funny, dudes”. Some of us were protesting their digustingness, but they are just “Oh, guys just trade these jokes when we’re by oursleves”. Heavens I hope not. Please tell me not all guys do this. UGH. Some had even seemed fairly decent before. Now I rather wonder. And even if I explained why it’s wrong and they agreed to stop, I think I’d still wonder about them.
Who cares? If your friend needs a cathlick christian document to figure out that raping kids is wrong, that person is not safe to be around.
Oh, and no, don’t know that document.
Hokay, prepared 2.5 kg of cinnamon-waffer dough according grandma’s recipe. I could have used my great-grandma’s recipe, but nobody’d like to eat them, she was a poor woman.
I haven’t been over to the vileness thread yet, but if it’s anything like others I’ve seen elsewhere online, I should bookmark it for any time I need to induce vomiting.
On a completely unrelated note, I am having problems with a co-author on a paper we’re writing. This person outranks me and is a gifted scientist but cannot write for anything. And yet – insists on the inclusion of his shitty, unclear, garbled language in the paper instead of the clearer language prepared by others. ARGH. WTF am I supposed to do?! I don’t want my name on something that badly written.
Well that sure settles it. Thanks, SC. What made me suspicious about the memory is that I had a source monitoring problem; I couldn’t recall any hint of where I’d gotten the notion.
Not all guys do this. I promise. The ones who do are assholes.
Oh, and I should apologize to Josh for getting his hopes up. ;)
Hi, everybody!
The strangest things has happened: my computer displays a pre-server-update view of Pharyngul – a message on top announcing the update, no comments visible on any of the threads, and the “Going Down” post announcing the down-time is displayed as the most recent. (I’m posting this from work, and so don’t have time to browse the thread to see whether the problem has come up before.)
I have no idea how to fix this, and googling hasn’t been helping. Any thoughts?
OFFS.
I’ve gotten as far as comment #49 on the vileness thread and already I feel sick.
WTF is wrong with people? Seriously, what the fuck?!
Gilliel said
“Who cares? If your friend needs a cathlick christian document to figure out that raping kids is wrong, that person is not safe to be around. Oh, and no, don’t know that document.” – Gilliel
I don’t have friends who need a catholic doc to tell them raping kids is wrong. I have a catholic friend with a blind spot and is buying the church’s line. The early christian doc might help him see that 1) this has been a problem in the church since the beggining 2) it was recognized as a problem then 3) the RCC has been covering up ever since.
Forbidden Snowflake,
Back when FTB was first getting set up, there were some problems with the domain. Many of us put in an exception in our ‘hosts’ files to get things working. If you put a line for FTB in your hosts file, it will keep you from being able to access the new server.
WARNING: Thanks to an idiot with too much time on his hands who decide to flood a thread with copy-pasted German song lyrics, it looks like I’m going to have to implement some form of comment registration in the next few days. Don’t blame me, blame it on the existence of world-wide assholes.
Q.E.D: this should help: http://www.crusadeagainstclergyabuse.com/htm/AShortHistory.htm
New wheelchair! Yay! It only cost us $50 at the local ReStore (Habitat for Humanity), which is about 1/2 what we spent on my first one, and if we’d sent away for replacement parts to fix it ourselves, it would have been $49 plus shipping. Can’t beat that with a stick!
Still no jet propulsion option, but hey, for $50, what can ya expect?
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Nice pics, Benjamin. Ariana is a cutey.
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Dr. Audley, I hope your back is better today. Any idea what happened?
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At least you can be sure that you won’t be finding a mousie pancake under your rug. :)
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And I had to miss the party. :(
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Yeeeeeah. So not going over to the vileness thread.
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Q.E.D.
Good to hear. You know, the other kind of catholics is around, too. :(
But why wouldn’t the recent documents that prove them covering up do the job, too?
Personally, I find them much worse than any “ancient” document could ever be. I judge christians as humans and as such we weren’t terribly concerned with the rights of children until quite recently.
Aw. Boo.
I’ll blame the pope, if that’s OK.
Noble conga rats in ermine, with tiny coronets? And an Archbishop Hamster in a tiny mitre. While the Gerbil Chapel Choir squeaks out Zadok the Priest, conducted by Sir Cecil Harvest-Mouse and accompanied by Zelda Bankvole on the organ.
(And by “organ”, I mean “kazoo”.)
(Sorry. I’m being very silly today.
I’m now imagining someone creating an entire coronation scene using Sylvanian Families figurines. Anyone who actually did that, and photographed it, would win the Walton’s undying adoration.)
PZ, You do what you have to , we will our end out Hope this makes for less clean up calls.
I note that the link I just provided clearly indicates that consensual sex with adult men, and less clearly consensual sex with adult women, is a sin or a crime like raping a man, woman, or child.
It was, after all, written by a priest.
Wow, I lost a whole word in there. We will figure our end out.
I can assure you they don’t. I can’t remember the last time I heard such a joke; and if one was told me by a friend, they wouldn’t be my friend any longer.
Only if at the end, the entrails of the last priest is used.
Take your frog pills.
Er… I don’t think Sylvanian Families figurines come with entrails included. (But I suppose one could make some. Perhaps by filling some small plastic tubes with oddly-coloured goo. It would be rather tasteless, however.)
LOTS OF DRYD FRORG PILLS
ahs ॐ
Did you see this message from PZ?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/21/why-i-am-an-atheist-natasha-krasle/comment-page-1/#comment-178980
Walton, this is the deal, you are free to bring up all of your fetishist monarchy minutia. And I am free to point out that the concept of royalty is the antithesis of civil rights.
Good
morningafternoon everyone!So I tried to stay up all night because I couldn’t go to sleep at a decent time. I really should never try to do that, because I ended up falling asleep at about 5 am and I missed all of my classes.
@ Walton
I hope you decided to not go into the “vileness” thread. It’s not worth it.
What does PZ mean by “comment registration”?
StarStuff, at the time I am posting this, PZ has comment registration in place. The fact that you have made your comment and that this comment is here means that we are in compliance.
StarStuff – I think you’re already registered, since info is attached to your name? If you’re still able to comment, you’re already registered. Registration-averse people such as myself have been commenting by putting our name and email into a series of boxes under the “leave a reply” section; now there is no series of boxes and it just says “YOU MUST LOG IN TO REPLY”, and there must be a loginnable account to do so with (which looks like is through WordPress).
jinx, Janine !
You gave Sir Cecil a double-barreled surname! I would hereby like to apply for the position of your Internet Distant Cousin (I assume you already have a surfeit of Internet Aunts, Uncles, Fake Consorts, Siblings, Uncle Tom Cobley and All, so I’ll be lucky if there’s an opening). And who could forget the inimitable Zelda Bankvole … her cadenzas are utterly exquisite.
Oh, ok. So nothing about that part will change. Well, I guess it’ll make it more difficult for people to sockpuppet.
Er… Janine, I was being silly and frivolous. I wasn’t intending to have a serious discussion about anything political (I’ve done far too much of that lately, here and elsewhere, and I need to get some work done). Sorry if that didn’t come across. :-/