You aren’t saying that that you WANT them to die, just that if they die as collateral damage, it’s ok. Is this an accurate summary of your opinion? Because it’s a pretty accurate summary of what you have communicated to me.
To repost my analogy for it: Hitch had to burn his finger before he believed that the plate was as hot as the server had warned. I don’t see this as a sign of integrity. It feels more like something Philip J Fry or Homer Simpson would do than one of the great skeptical thinkers.
Patricia, OMsays
Staggers in… finally able to get auntie home. She didn’t “fall” on the curb outside the office, she was having another stroke. This was my first attempt to try to care for a stroke victim. Kudos to those doing it!
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
So, I’m done for a while.
I planned on doing this last night and got sucked in again immediately this morning. It has become apparent to me that I badly need a break from this shit. I’ll stick around TZT and TET, but I have to lay off the sexual harassment threads. I knew I did before I snapped in one just now, and I’m kicking myself for it.
For now, I’m going to take a walk with my camera, then come back and eat some food. I have been writing poetry, which is a new thing, and I’m hoping I can do some of that today too. Sigh.
Mattirsays
Cipher – please take care of yourself. There are a lot of us to handle threads populated by the maliciously ignorant. (I almost typed “moron,” but realized that what I wanted was an expression that captured that one was cultivating a lack of knowledge and understanding out of ill will, rather than mere congenital lack of intellectual ability. Another way Pharyngula has changed my language for the better.)
Rey Foxsays
Cipher: Take all the break you need. You deserve better than that asshole on that thread.
I’m horribly depressed today and wasting it ranting here…maybe I should take a break to
Waltonsays
If I take this last month as a sample set and judge JUST based on behavior and empathy, I would never EVER EVER choose the skeptic community over my old church.
I feel the same way; I’m often very disappointed in the atheist/skeptic community when it comes to race and immigrants’ rights, and I definitely feel much more common ground with a liberal anti-racist theist than with a racist atheist. When I was in the US and went to immigrants’ rights rallies, I often encountered people from various liberal churches (UU, UCC, Quaker and so on) who were standing up for social justice and anti-racism. By contrast, on many atheist blogs I’ve encountered horrendous Islamophobia (as above), warmongering, and anti-immigrant sentiment.
@Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg
That description of your spawn could have been me at that age, save for the gender. I grew up just fine, although I’m still not terribly sociable.
Re: Israel
I personally don’t care at all about the existence of Israel qua Israel. I would like to see a stable, peaceful, and equitable nation in that area, operated democratically by all of the residents there, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity. The idea of a ‘Jewish State’ is in no meaningful way distinct from the idea of a ‘Muslim State’ or ‘Christian State’ if organized on a religious basis, and not meaningfully different from an ‘Afrikaner State’, if it’s done on an ethnic basis. I cannot support a ‘Jewish State’ in any way, for that reason, but I see no reason for the current Jewish inhabitants of Israel to leave, most of them were born there, after all. Only that non-Jews who live there must have equal treatment before the law and an equal say in government before I would be willing to even provisionally support the current government of Israel.
@StevoR
Just shut the fuck up already, will you? Your threadshitting takes time away from intersting, intelligent people with worthwhile things to say, whereas your blitherings would only be of any value if you printed them out; then they could be used for toilet paper or compost.
@Pteryxx #484
Heck, even the people we loathe with every fibre of our being, like StevoR, count as people.
Re: Hitchens and waterboarding
Yeah, he gets basically no credit from me on that score.
Silisays
Amusing.
JREF are desperately spamming me to come to TAM.
Two emails in as many days are a bit over the top, so of course I reply
Dear DJ,
Please stop. I really don’t like you that way.
I’d much rather spend my money on “Women in Skepticism.
Comes the reply:
James Randi is no longer receiving mail sent to this address (randi@randi.org).
Thank you very much for your email! Due to the large number of
requests and messages from all over the world, Mr. Randi’s email has
been moved to an unpublished address.
If this is a message related to the James Randi Educational
Foundation, or you have a message for Mr. Randi you would like
forwarded to him, please re-send your email to jref@randi.org.
Thank you again for your message and your support for skepticism and
critical thinking!
and I’m sure that crap is found in some churchs. The problem is that Churches unlike skeptic don’t have this view that ethics is off limits. They are fine with establishing what they think are fundamental axioms of morality. Skepticism says that’s off limits, if someone wants to be a Nazi well we have to tolerate the diversity of their opinion.
Tony... therefore Godsays
Is it too idealistic to hope that one day a headline will read: “Child Sexual Abuse, A Thing of the Past”?
I read this today, which sounds hopeful:
…
Overall cases of child sexual abuse fell more than 60 percent from 1992 to 2010, according to David Finkelhor, a leading expert on sexual abuse who, with a colleague, Lisa Jones, has tracked the trend. The evidence for this decline comes from a variety of indicators, including national surveys of child abuse and crime victimization, crime statistics compiled by the F.B.I., analyses of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect and annual surveys of grade school students in Minnesota, all pointing in the same direction…
From 1990 to 2010, for example, substantiated cases of sexual abuse dropped from 23 per 10,000 children under 18 to 8.6 per 10,000, a 62 percent decrease, with a 3 percent drop from 2009 to 2010, according to the researchers’ analysis of government data. The Minnesota Student Survey charted a 29 percent decline in reports of sexual abuse by an adult who was not a family member from 1992 to 2010 and a 28 percent drop in reports of sexual abuse by a family member. The majority of sexual abuse cases involve family members or acquaintances rather than strangers, studies have found.
At the same time, the willingness of children to report sexual abuse has increased. In a 2008 survey, Dr. Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, found that in 50 percent of sexual abuse cases, the child’s victimization had been reported to an authority, compared with 25 percent in 1992. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/rate-of-child-sexual-abuse-on-the-decline.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
That last bit is also hopeful, but it makes me wonder…
Why is it that children are dismissed so readily in sexual abuse cases?
Vilém Saptarsays
Now about the thing I wanted to ask you all about :
I’m currently in a decently paying, full time job. I want to go back to University to get a second bachelor’s degree in a field I’m passionate about and then on to a doctoral program and then hopefully, a research career in academia, or if things dont work out, then in the industry.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical
Vilém Saptarsays
Ooops hit submit too early, sorry.
Patricia, OMsays
Walton – Do you know of any hate group in America that isn’t tied to or supported by some church or faith based group? I can’t think of one.
Vilém Saptarsays
Now about the thing I wanted to ask you all about :
I’m currently in a decently paying, full time job. I want to go back to University to get a second bachelor’s degree in a field I’m passionate about and then on to a doctoral program and then hopefully, a research career in academia, or if things dont work out, then in the industry.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical dilemma is between choosing what I’ve always wanted to do, what I think gives most meaning to my life and what I literally, cannot do.
I’ve been extremely unhappy at my job for atleast an entire year now. I always keep going back to how I would like to live my life and pursue my dreams and how I’m unable to do so.
I really have reached my breaking point thinking about this, but I want to do the right thing. I hold in high regard, any advice from you people on how I must proceed.
Thanks.
Vilém Saptarsays
Tony @ 384,
Thank you! I’ll see Louis when he shows up and ask to get in the line ASAP.
About the people here, I know, right? Thats why I felt emboldened to post and ask for help, seeing how wonderful everyone is to people sharing and asking help here.
Also, I think you’re an amazing person for all you’ve been through and all you do.
.
(And hey, I also figured out how to add a double line break like space : add an empty blockquote tag where you want spacing between lines, if you did not already know that. True line breaks, I dunno)
opposablethumbs @ 384,
Thanks! Ah, I’m Indian. And even though I do get many things, I also find many things about which I’m quite clueless. I’ll take your advice and ask whenever I can’t fathom what is being talked about. I know its not a huge barrier, but sometimes you feel a little amount of unbelonging.
ImaginesABeach @ 386,
Yes, I know! Thanks!
pentatomid @ 388,
Thank you for the welcome!
Vilém Saptarsays
I’ll be danged for the major blockquote fail, sorry.
Silisays
Josh dear,
Please remind me of your email before I regret having money.
Tony... therefore Godsays
Dr. Elementary @463:
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but….really?
I say the same thing frequently, and then I realize I am surprised. Respect for others and basic human decency should be the norm, but far too often it isn’t.
That blogger is a sexist pig and a moron (Mattir’s comment upthread makes me wonder if this word best describes this guy) Our society not-so-subtly teaches that the only value women have is:
A-decided by men
and
B-lies in their appearance
People like him eat and regurgitate that shit.
~~
Ing:
Am I the only one baffled at the praise Hitch gets for the waterboarding thing?
I was unfamiliar with Hitch’s position on that, but empathy for others, combined with a basic understanding of waterboarding should lead most anyone to conclude that it’s torture (unless you’re Michelle Bachmann…’enhanced interrogation technique’ my ass).
~~
Cipher:
For now, I’m going to take a walk with my camera, then come back and eat some food. I have been writing poetry, which is a new thing, and I’m hoping I can do some of that today too. Sigh.
Take care of yourself.
Perhaps you’ll find some inspiration for poetry while you’re walking.
Tony... therefore Godsays
Vilem Saptar:
Also, I think you’re an amazing person for all you’ve been through and all you do.
Thank you so much.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical dilemma is between choosing what I’ve always wanted to do, what I think gives most meaning to my life and what I literally, cannot do.
Is there a possibility that another career field (one that doesn’t have the horror stories you’ve heard of) could work?
Also, assuming you decide to go to graduate school in the future, would it be possible for you to save sufficient money between now and then so that you could assist your parents when you do {go to grad school]?
I wish I had more experience to offer (I’m 36 and still bartending. Took a break from college back in ’97 b/c I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money going to school without any clear idea what I wanted to do. I have a clearer idea now–aided tremendously by my growing interest in social justice, which has developed from my experiences here at FtB–but timing and money are a factor. I have to admit I find the prospect of going back to school rather scary. Not sure why.)
P.S. I tried the blockquote trick for spacing. It works. Thanks.
Also, how do you get the little accent over the ‘e’ in your first nym?
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
I would have you know that – according to someone ranting on some corner of Facebook or another – that I am (1) a raging misogynist and (2) Orwellian.
Patricia:
Good luck to your aunt and *hugs* for you.
Cipher:
Remember, you matter more than all of the internet doucheholes combined. We* definitely understand that you need a break.
Vilém:
Oof, I don’t know what advice to give. But I can offer to listen every time you need to complain/vent/etc.
Since it appears that you’re new: hello! Welcome in!
And [warning] a DarkFetus update!
I’ve gotten past the “bubbly feeling” stage and now she’s kicking me so hard that I can actually see my tummy move. On one hand, it’s pretty freaking awesome and on the other it’s a little O.o
*Royal we or hivemind?
Waltonsays
Ing,
and I’m sure that crap is found in some churchs.
Oh, obviously – there’s no shortage of racist right-wing religious people out there. That goes without saying. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
All I was saying (as an atheist) is that the atheist/skeptic community could be, and should be, doing better than it is, with regard to race and immigrants’ rights. I find it really disturbing that bigots like Pat Condell are still listened to and welcomed in atheist circles.
The problem is that Churches unlike skeptic don’t have this view that ethics is off limits. They are fine with establishing what they think are fundamental axioms of morality. Skepticism says that’s off limits, if someone wants to be a Nazi well we have to tolerate the diversity of their opinion.
Indeed.
Walton – Do you know of any hate group in America that isn’t tied to or supported by some church or faith based group? I can’t think of one.
I can think of a few hate groups that aren’t explicitly faith-based. Anti-immigrant groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, for instance, which is in the business of spewing racism and dressing it up in “respectable” language. And fascist and white nationalist groups like St*rmfront and VDARE. Of course there’s plenty of faith-based hate groups as well, like pretty much anything with “Family” or “Values” in its name.
But, in any case, I certainly wasn’t trying to deny or minimize the huge problem with religious bigotry. Rather, my point was that there is, unfortunately, bigotry in the atheist/skeptic community too – particularly anti-Muslim bigotry – and that, as an atheist, I’m very worried about it.
Waltonsays
I know I’m not explaining myself well. In my defence, I’m sleepy and had too much wine.
thunk = ∫ SQRRAWK! d(MQG)says
Tony; my technique is to find some text that uses the symbol and copy it into your nym space on wordpress.
thunk = ∫ SQRRAWK! d(MQG)says
How I got the integral sign.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
Not really disagreeing with you, Walton, but if you dig past the first layer of the white supremacy groups, you find a lot of Christian nationalism and Dominionism.
Waltonsays
Tomorrow morning I’m going to a protest, to call for the release of two Sudanese people being held in immigration detention who are currently on hunger strike.
Tarik Adam Rhama and Ali Abdullah Ahmed began their strike on 22 May in Campsfield IRC (Kidlington, nr. Oxford) but have since been moved to Harmondsworth. Tarik reports that he was subject to torture while imprisoned in Sudan, while a medical examination could not show conclusively that Ali is over 18…
Both men are non-Arab Darfuris and are therefore classed by current case law as being at risk of persecution should they be returned to Darfur; Tarik was arrested in 2008 in Khartoum and believes he would be killed if he were to be returned to Sudan. His father is from the Tunjur tribe and his mother is from the Nuba mountains, a region whose inhabitants are currently the target of considerable persecution at the hands of the Sudanese government; upon his arrival in Dover in March 2012, he was immediately detained, then moved to Campsfield, where he began his strike after being in detention without indication of when he might be released for over two months.
There are further complaints relating to inhumane treatment and lack of medical care in detention; an independent doctor’s report described observations of Ali’s vital signs taken by the detention centre during his strike as “sporadic.” At one point, staff at Harmondsworth ignored Tarik’s request for a lower bed when he complained that after 30 days of only water he was too weak to climb up to the top bunk bed he was allocated. He is not receiving regular attention from a doctor, but only from a nurse, despite extreme stomach pain and stabbing pains in his chest, as well as back pain from a pre-existing condition. He cannot walk without difficulty or speak loudly. He is not kept informed of what will happen to him.
Waltonsays
Not really disagreeing with you, Walton, but if you dig past the first layer of the white supremacy groups, you find a lot of Christian nationalism and Dominionism.
Of course, yes.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Ok I’m an admitted asshole.
I know this
But I have some schadenfreude knowing that Scientology couldn’t save Tom Cruise’s third marriage.
A planned event to celebrate the mass resignation of mormons from the LDS church is getting some national coverage. So glad to see this kind of organization and PR!
Troubled by issues ranging from polygamy to gay marriage, several dozen Mormons plan to resign this weekend from the church en masse in an unusual public show of defiance in Salt Lake City.
Many years ago, I went to law school because I was raised to believe that after high school was college, after college was graduate or professional school. While in law school, I realized that law school was fun, but that I would be very unhappy as a lawyer. I found work that I enjoy, although the pay is not great (not bad, but not great). I have to watch my budget a lot more closely than I would as a lawyer, but I’m generally happy with my life.
However, I have the luxury of making this choice because I have a very priveleged life. Straight, cis, white, raised upper middle class, married to someone who makes about the same as I do, and living in the US.
I cannot advise you, I can only tell you I am happy with my choice. The law degree was an expensive way to learn about myself, though.
I was unfamiliar with Hitch’s position on that, but empathy for others, combined with a basic understanding of waterboarding should lead most anyone to conclude that it’s torture (unless you’re Michelle Bachmann…’enhanced interrogation technique’ my ass).
Oh it’s hilarious. He was in the “it’s not torture” camp and stood his ground against all evidence until a TV show offered to let him test that by water boarding him. After that it’s now torture. I wasn’t kidding when I said he had to touch the plate and burn himself to decide it was hot. He’s praised for his courage and integrity for this. I criticize him for being so stupid that he needed torture to figure out the obvious.
what I, and I think Walton, was getting at is that there are small churches and that where you can find firm dedication to social justice and an intolerance of bigotry. We don’t see that in the skeptic community as issues of values and ethics are off limits. We balk at the idea of the organization laying down ground rules; hell look at the clusterfluff over simple harassment regulations. This promotion of free thought allows some fairly fierce and frightening racism, mysogony and violence to boil under the surface with very little anyone can do about it. While many religions are harmful you can find an actual mission statement of wanting to promote decency in people that I don’t see being promoted in skeptic community.
Josh, Official SpokesSimperersays
Thunderfoot’s quadruple-downed on the stupid. Get your bingo cards out: His latest post is titled Is it Freethought Blogs or Group-Think Blogs?
He’s just aksing the question.
Patricia, OMsays
Group-Think Blogs?
WTF?
Rey Foxsays
Thunderfoot’s quadruple-downed on the stupid. Get your bingo cards out: His latest post is titled “Is it Freethought Blogs or Group-Think Blogs?”
Complete with graphics! And I see that aside from his introductory post, this is the only subject he’s written about. Is this guy less of a wanker in his Youtube videos?
It’s nice to see honesty from the usual gang of fucks.
I hope everyone understands that burden of responsibility is now on them to report harassment. And if they don’t report it, it didn’t happen. Sorry. –EveryMan
I mean, they could’ve gone on about how concerned they are for people who are harassed but they didn’t. They bluntly and matter o factly declared any case not reported as none issue.
Blackford, Smith, the rest must be so proud. They’re finally getting to see their message out there in the public without all the troublesome political correctness.
Well I think PZ learned a valuable lesson about vetting and requesting writing samples. Now we know and knowing is half the battle….GI JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOE!
I’m not mad that thunderf00t disagrees. I’m mad that he’s acting like a pompous 18 year old who thinks he has the whole world figured out and everything would be fantastic if everyone just shut up and did he told them too.
So Thunderfoot’s latest is “people who like me, like me better than PZ.”
My BoyChild is 11 and reasons better than that.
juliansays
Still better than Spiderman: Turn off the Dark.
I had been blissfully unaware of this.
—
Complete change of pace…
Skyrim: Dawnguard looks epic. The vampires look more like predators of the night than they have in other Elder Scrolls which, if nothing else, is a stylistic change I appreciate. (Hoping some dlc will include much needed fixes for the Werewolf who is next to worthless unless you have a very specific target in mind you just need to close the gap with) My only issue is that it looks like more of Bethesda’s a or b quests where there’s no middle ground for you to choose from.
(Hoping some dlc will include much needed fixes for the Werewolf who is next to worthless unless you have a very specific target in mind you just need to close the gap with
I heard promises of a skill tree for wolves as well…also mounted combat
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
I’m starting to wonder if people getting together through online dating is just a fluke. I haven’t seriously dated anyone for like five years (age 20 to 25, so I’m burning away my youth!11!11!!!11) but all during this time I’ve had online ads up, and I really have that “last girl who never gets asked to dance at the ball” kinda feeling, like I haven’t been picked up yet, I’ve just been “picked over” and I’m old newz.
Mattirsays
I am turning off the ipad and doing something besides watching the ThunderF00t trainwreck all night.
Thunderf00t depresses me. He uses an online poll on fucking youtube to show that he’s more reasonable than I am? Madness. Utter freaking madness. And stupid, too.
Thunderf00t depresses me. He uses an online poll on fucking youtube to show that he’s more reasonable than I am? Madness. Utter freaking madness. And stupid, too.
I thought better of him.
I am reading a book on personality theory right now, and there is a lot of material associated with various tactics for denying problems or incongruent information. He seems unwilling to entertain the idea that he is wrong so he is doing all kinds of weird shit to try and retain his sense of being correct (or superior maybe). It is strange to watch.
I just wanted to check in. I have been away – mostly due to personal reasons, but also because I can’t just keep up with the volume of traffic going on here. I’m not sure what to do about this…
But to put things in a more positive light, I have decided to stop sulking behind my desk and get involved politically in my community, reactivating my 15-year party membership that had been dormant for years. I might even run for city councillor next year.
Locally, our hottest issues are renewable energy infrastructure (“Energiewende”) and social housing.
On a state and national level, I want to work on issues relating to minorities mostly, affecting me personally, that is people with an “migration background” (basically foreigners and citizens of foreign descent), and LGBT issues (if we’re lucky, marriage equality will come next year).
I’ve noticed that religious privilege is very much entrenched in this country and for various reasons I will leave it be for the moment (feel free to email me if you do want to discuss the issue). Right now the time is ripe for bringing minority issues to the fore, as within the party there is a growing awareness of them and willingness to pay attention to them.
I didn’t make it to the Cologne meeting, which I regretted, but I did spend a nice day with David M. in the capital the week prior. I do have pictures of the great museum of his, might share them on PET if someone lets me in.
Also, I wanted to call your attention to a horrible ad McDonald’s Germany has been running, which offended me as a person of partially Asian descent. The only thing McDonald’s has offered was a lame notpology on Twitter, and it’s been a bit frustrating to me that the public at large did not seem to care much. (Though in light of the incidents aorund the Euro Cup, I do realise the problems with racism are probably more severe in this area)
what kind of person, in your opinion, is happy as a lawyer?
I have a friend who works for an environmental advocacy firm, and I believe she is quite happy.
ibyeasays
Having watched Thunderfoot’s videos on creationism, like PZ, I too expected better. I guess his true color is really one of an idiot.
John Moralessays
WB, Pelamun.
Pteryxxsays
Some respected people just turn out to be Schroedinger’s raving asshole. *sad headshake*
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
what kind of person, in your opinion, is happy as a lawyer?
I know a number of happy lawyers. All good people.
juliansays
Some respected people just turn out to be Schroedinger’s raving asshole.
Oh boy and have they been coming out lately!
Wowbagger, Vile Demagoguesays
I never watched Thunderfoot’s videos before – I don’t really watch YouTube much at all, and when I do it’s for music – and I’m certainly not going to now after such a cringeworthy display of stubborn idiocy and point-blank refusal to actually listen to what anyone is saying.
As several people have pointed out, when your cheer squad consists almost entirely of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club from ERV’s slimepit, you should be thinking very seriously about your position.
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
Like most libertarians (if TF’s a libertarian, which may or may not be something he wants to admit), Thunderchrist has that problem where everyone got to know him on one single issue: pwning creationists. We love seeing creationists get pwned, and he was reasonably good at it. However, that’s all we ever saw of him. Then he started posting really shitty “biblical criticism” videos and I started getting nervous. Then he posted his interview with Richard Dawkins after which he tried to argue that looking like a hiker that just pulled himself out of a landslide was appropriate professional wear. Then he posted his “debates” with Roy Comfort and Shirley Phelps and showed what an intellectual embarrassment he was outside of the carefully-structured setting of his own Youtube videos. Then he posted his “you mooslems have awakened the sleeping giant of the West” racist bilge and I had to dump him.
I saw the same thing happen with a few people and Ron Paul. They liked his anti-war stance, his pro-weed stance, but then they finally started to learn more about him and had to abandon it. The ones who felt too invested or really were that shitwitted double-, triple-, quadrupled down on it like TF’s doing right now.
ImaginesABeachsays
My sister-in-law seems happy as a lawyer. I have issues with people- I miss a lot of body language and social signals and people in real life are stressful. So I think the only answer is, “people who are not me.”
Josh, Official SpokesSimperersays
The important question to me is: Can the shit heads like Thunderfoot not live here at FtB? Must we have the slimepit here? Really?
Pteryxxsays
Well, he’s yelling “groupthink” and “free speech” BEFORE any potential removal of his blog from FTB takes place, so it’s not like it would be a surprise or anything.
Pteryxxsays
Oh, and this is as close to an answer as I’m likely to get about whether Thunderfoot moderates comments:
The thunderf00t channel is essentially a 100 % free speech zone, with no conformational bias due to blocking/ banning people. People can express themselves in whatever fashion they see fit.
Right. Which means instead of any possible bias due to moderating, instead the channel and comments have bias due to hostile environment. Lovely.
ImaginesABeachsays
I do have to agree with tf that people who like PZ and Greta and Ophelia are likely to NOT like tf’s disregard of women, so in that respect there is likely to a certain uniformity of thought.
Mattirsays
I think I’m almost at the point where I abandon organizations like JREF and American Atheists in favor of CFI (at least for the Women in Secularism conference), AAH and SecularWoman. And if I go to other conferences, I’m going to be exceedingly wary of the ERV fanbois and their ilk.
Sigh.
consciousness razorsays
The important question to me is: Can the shit heads like Thunderfoot not live here at FtB? Must we have the slimepit here? Really?
Well you know, let a thousand flowers bloom, and all that.
Then you take the diseased ones and bulldoze the fuck out of them.
Pteryxxsays
Sure, but if uniformity of thought is such a problem, why do all these harassment deniers keep making the same. old. arguments that have been debunked over and over for months? Sheesh.
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
Thunderchrist needs to learn that consensus based on evidence and experience != “group-think”.
ImaginesABeachsays
Pteryxx
They make the same arguments so they don’t have to admit they are jerks.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
Giliell
The one “worry” that I have is that she’s not showing off in kindergarten, which made the teacher a bit doubtfull about letting her start the preschool-program after the holidays.
That sucks. I’m no expert, but your daughter really sounds like she’s in the normal range of human behaviour. If it were my daughter, I would insist that they not hold her back unless they could demonstrate some actual learning disability. Being content with one’s own company is not a disability if one can interact within society’s norms given the need.
Mattirsays
I hate people.
consciousness razorsays
To avoid teh group-think, we need a few FTBloggers who are flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers. I mean, just think about it. We can’t have everyone agreeing about that shit, if we’re going to call ourselves a bunch of freethinkers.
pelamun,
If you want to join PET, we’d be happy to have you. Either email me or search for me on fb via ourdeadselves (at) gmail and I’ll invite you to join.
A. Rsays
You know, I wonder if, in all of this, Thunderfap has ever considered that he just may be wrong. Nah, he seems to arrogant for that.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
Sigh, just unsubbed Tfoot. I’d like to think that a drop in his subscriptions would cause him to at least consider that he may be wrong. Unfortunately, I suspect that the few of us leaving are going to be matched and more by the slimemoulds signing up.
For a guy who’s tag line is “Science and education FTW.” he’s astoundingly resistant to educating himself about feminism, privilege and the patriarchy.
Pteryxxsays
I hate people.
srsly. Being surprise exploded by digital creepers in Minecraft sounds a lot more inviting than dealing with online human creepers right now; and that damn game gave me nightmares. (They were still preferable nightmares to those the haters gave.)
chigau (違う)says
pelamun
Welcome back.
I don’t get too bogged-down in Pharyngula because I don’t read every thread.
It’s not easy.
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
I know a number of happy lawyers. All good people.
do they have anything in common personality wise? I was trying to find out what kind of traits happy laywers have.
MissElasays
I got a nice sciency boost to my morning today by nearly walking into this neato butterfly! Even better, it was still there when I got home from work, so I got to take a couple of pictures (that pic, and resting w/ folded wings). It finally flew away (bummer), but it was so neat to get a close-up view of it like that. It was HUGE–it had *at least* a 5-inch wingspan. I’ve never seen one that big around here before. *happydance*
But do it relatively soon ‘cos I am sleepy and headachey.
>:(
consciousness razorsays
do they have anything in common personality wise? I was trying to find out what kind of traits happy laywers have.
There are lots of different kinds of lawyers. I don’t think being happy doing one kind of law needs to have much in common with being happy doing another. Besides, people can have different reasons for being happy about doing the same thing.
chigau (違う)says
Googling suggests that the High Park fire is “contained”.
That’s where Ogvorbis is, right?
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
My houseplants have come down with spider mites. :( :(
Have sprayed them with anti-mite spray. Also, have cleaned off the crap as well as I could.
Argh! Fucking spider mites!
A. Rsays
Esteleth: Have you acquired a new plant recently?
ImaginesABeachsays
NPR told me that half the federal firefighting force is in Colorado. Even if his fire is contained, he may be sticking around a while.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
Not in a few months, no.
I did buy a packet of seeds and planted them, though.
I’m not sure if mites can travel that way, though.
A. Rsays
Esteleth: I’m not sure, let me look online.
ImaginesABeachsays
I am on my Nook and just looked at the barnes and noble shop. It recommends a book called How to Argue “just for me”. What do they know about me that I don’t know?
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
I also bought a new bag of potting soil.
That’s probably it.
A. Rsays
Esteleth: [Game show “Ding!”] Yep, that sound about right.
I’m dead fucking serious. It’s basically the same thing. That which is taboo to the tribe and MUST NOT BE TOUCHED!
These assholes seem to fear social sciences like vampires fear crosses
ambleburysays
So against my better judgement I went and looked at Thunderf00t’s most recent disgorgement. My diagnosis? That’s not digging a hole; that’s living in a crater. Jeez. It’s an embarrassment.
Wowbagger you’re right. If Justicar and his ilk are your cheering squad, what does that tell you?!
<
I hope I'll wake up one morning and find it gone.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
I hate to ask, PZ, but is there any discussion about booting TF?
Because I do think that having him here is damaging the FTB brand.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
I knew you were serious Ing. And I meant it about the stench.
Tfoot is a shining example of how a smart person can use their smarts to rationalise their way to a fucked up conclusion.
A. Rsays
Estleth: Last I heard, kicking Tfap (hmm sounds rather like a bizarre rapper name…) out wasn’t being considered, but I might be now.
A. Rsays
*it not I
Also, this quote from PZ on the Changing Focus thread:
The problem of course is that booting Tfoot will play right into his sort of persecution complex. He’ll crow about how *he’s* all about free speech and just how mean and nasty anyone who disagrees with him is.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountainsays
FossilFishy, you have a borked link.
Mattirsays
ATTENTION FIBER ARTS PEOPLE
We need to get on the ball and make PZ a whole bunch of knitted, crocheted, stitched, felted, kumihimo’d, shibori’d, shibari’d, handspun, tatted, and quilted sammiches pronto. Maybe a couple of beers as well.
Yes yes freespeech is all well and good, but to honestly expect people to follow your freespeech wank for getting booted when you spent the last dozen posts talking about how everyone of your cohabitant’s shit stinks but your own seems…well actually it seems like exactly what will happen and that people will lap it up because they’re idiots.
Hell, I’ve seen in the last week people defend a 30 year old man who gets suspended for making rape jokes to coworkers, then fired for throwing a temper tantrum and screaming at fans over it…and people still defending him as the persecuted poor victim of politics.
consciousness razorsays
Tfoot is a shining example of how a smart person can use their smarts to rationalise their way to a fucked up conclusion.
I think people give him way too much credit for creationist-bashing and promoting science. He’s not the stupidest person out there, but seriously, how much intelligence does that really take? Why should we be surprised when that’s pretty much the only thing you know about him?
I cynically said earlier that a lot of skeptic ‘culture’ seems to be setting a really low bar and then praising yourself for clearing it.
ibyeasays
@Ing
Yeah, like debunking stuff that is acceptable to debunk, like psychics and creationism. If it is things like religion and sexism, oh no, we can’t get near that because it is society’s precious baby that needs to be protected.
We, well I at any rate, know that his real name is Phil Mason and he’s a molecular biology researcher who’s reasonably well published. See here skip ahead to 5 minutes or so for the relevant part. He ain’t stupid, he’s just willfully blinded by his privilege.
consciousness razorsays
I cynically said earlier that a lot of skeptic ‘culture’ seems to be setting a really low bar and then praising yourself for clearing it.
Which is ironic, given that all sorts of wooists and creationists do the same fucking thing. I think Dennett described it as “playing tennis without a net.” If all you can do is score points against people who do that, there’s not much reason to think you’re a lot better.
Hell, I’ve seen in the last week people defend a 30 year old man who gets suspended for making rape jokes to coworkers, then fired for throwing a temper tantrum and screaming at fans over it…and people still defending him as the persecuted poor victim of politics.
I assume that would be Spoony from TGWTG? I’ve been wondering what the deal was there. Damn shame, I thought he was better than that. Schroedinger’s Asshole, I guess.
consciousness razorsays
We, well I at any rate, know that his real name is Phil Mason and he’s a molecular biology researcher who’s reasonably well published.
You can be stupid and do all of that. Not a mindless, drooling, village idiot, but still pretty fucking stupid about a lot of fucking things.
I assume that would be Spoony from TGWTG? I’ve been wondering what the deal was there. Damn shame, I thought he was better than that. Schroedinger’s Asshole, I guess.
Okay, I see this isn’t thread-wise currently. You can skip right over if you don’t want to read this….
Tony,
Is there a possibility that another career field (one that doesn’t have the horror stories you’ve heard of) could work?
Also, assuming you decide to go to graduate school in the future, would it be possible for you to save sufficient money between now and then so that you could assist your parents when you do {go to grad school]?
I wish I had more experience to offer (I’m 36 and still bartending. Took a break from college back in ’97 b/c I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money going to school without any clear idea what I wanted to do.
I wish there was another field I’d be just as happy to go into, but there isn’t. I have a decently paying job, but I also have a couple of bank loans I’m paying off. So I dont save much right now. If I stayed the course for a few more years, I might be able to save a little that could help my parents. But I feel I’m already too late for grad school; a few more years, I’m not sure I’d even be able to do it.
.
The accent, its what Thunk said. I copy-pasted it from somewhere else.
Also good luck with your own quest. Thank you for listening and offering advice.
ImaginesABeach,
I’m pleased it worked out for you and you’re happy now. Yeah I’m privileged in many ways to compared to mmost folk in my region of the world. I’m lower middle class here, cis, straight, ethnic non-minority, non-disabled etc. But apparently not enough to be able to switch careers midway, relatively easily. Also, thanks for your support.
Cicely,
Thanks for the welcome!
Audley,
Thanks for your offer to listen and support. Thank you so much.
Also, I’ve a long list of errands to run, so I haven’t been able to check in regularly. I hope to keep up more often after I’m done. And thanks to anyone else who welcomed, offered support or advice that I may have missed to acknowledge. Sorry I’m in a bit of a hurry and will catch up more thoroughly later.
So I go away for a few days to work night shifts, and Thunderdolt solves the matter of sexism by conducting a Youtube poll among his subscribers ? Amazing.
Fossil Fishy
Oh, no worries, they’re not holding her back. I talked with her teacher and she well believed me (they are used to extreme “switches” in her behaviour when she’s in kindergarten alone vs. when I’m present). She based her judgement on the data she had and I can’t fault her for that, but I guess that will be the problem we’ll run into: people constantly underestimating her. I can only hope that this will change once she can go from oral to written tasks.
I’m hestitant to use “normal” in that sense. There’s a broad range of behaviour, just we take the typical as normal and build society around it.
Vilém Saptar
Is there a way to do this part-time or alongside working?
I understand your conflict, but it#s not fair that you should have to sacrifice your happiness for the wellbeing of others.
I know, life isn’t fair, but sometimes there are possibilities to make it possible for all.
Cipher
Hugs are coming
Take all the break you need.
pelamun
Good to see you back!
++++
Re: TF
Well, his creationist videos were OK, but I admit to having been guilty of cutting him a lot of slack there. And the moment he stopped doing science things went wahoonie-shaped. IMO he’s one of those scientists who heavily and justifiably criticise and mock people without a decent science education for talking bullshit but thinks that for social and cultural sciences it’s enough if you have an opinion.
MissElasays
Oooo, it wasn’t a butterfly! Looks like it was a Polyphemus Moth instead. Still pretty, tho. :)
Hi Vilém Saptar! What career are you wanting to pursue?
If you need more time to get financially ready, that may not be an insurmountable problem. I have seen people get their PhDs even at the age of 50 or 60. Perhaps you could get a start on that second bachelor’s degree right away, but at a low-level part-time rate. Get a few subjects cleared away while you save up. Or at least get some informal prep study done, so you don’t feel you’re going nowhere, and when you do start, you’ll ace it. There’s lots of stuff online these days – proper academic lectures, courses, distance education.
*barges through the doors with a grim look on her face*
Hi guys. I’m so upset right now. See, my ex, you remember him–I’m gonna call him CT since those are his initials and his nickname–he was supposed to come visit. He was supposed to arrive this morning, in time for my niece’s birthday party. But he’s in Washington DC and… I don’t know exactly what happened, but with the storms and the electricity outages and traffic lights being gone, he missed the bus. And he lost his ticket, and apparently this means he’s shit out of luck, Greyhound does not care if he already purchased a ticket, if he lost it it’s on him. So he called me in the middle of the night to ask if I or my parents could refund him the cost of a new ticket and I was like, I definitely can’t and I can’t speak for my mom, so I can’t guarantee you anything. It wasn’t until after I hung up (and now the window of time for the 4 am bus has passed) that I realized I probably could with the help of the Horde. Should I tell him to get on the next bus so we can see each other–and he can see my family too–for at least a day?? Could the Horde’s fundraising abilities make that happen? I’m on a bit of an emotional roller coaster here, I was looking forward to seeing him and he was me and we’re both a little shook up by now. I’m sorry this is so rambling and strange. What say you, friends? Can I raise $200 to get him out of the sweltering city for a day? God, I hate being poor.
AHHHHHHHH never mind he found his tickets!! He is coming after all. Wow, what an emotional roller coaster. Damn.
StevoRsays
@ 493. “We Are Ing The Matrimonial Collective” – 29th June 2012 at 12:42 pm
You know what. I’ll throw you a bone StevoR. They treat me like shit. There. That’s what you want to hear.
No it isnt.
Also I think that’s sarcasm and not how they actually do treat you because you wouldn’t be friends with them if that were true surely.
I apologise for upsetting you and I do respect you as a person and a commenter here.
StevoRsays
@494. pentatomid :
StevoR, Answer please: Why is having christian friends different from having muslim friends to you? Why are you so baffled with people having muslim friends? I’d really like you to answer me, honestly and directly.
Because the Islamic religion seems to me to be just so extreme and misognyistic and horrible in its ideas and its treatment of women and non-Muslims. Worse even than all the other religions and yes, there’s plenty that’s really bad about Christianity etc … I find it hard to think that someone who is a feminist and politically left-wing can be friends with those whose ideas and practices that are so diametrically opposite.
I’m going to lurk and maybe take a night or two off this blog / thread now if that helps. Planning to come back and read this full thread again later.
Pteryxxsays
ooh, SamStrange, congratz on the impending happy visit. (Now with extra emotional whiplash!)
You put this here, so I will tell you honestly what I think…Are you sure he really wants to be there ?
Sorry to hear you’re having a shitty time.
John Moralessays
Vilém Saptar,
(And hey, I also figured out how to add a double line break like space : add an empty blockquote tag where you want spacing between lines, if you did not already know that. True line breaks, I dunno)
You can use a non-breaking space, if you want.
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nationsays
Because the Islamic religion seems to me to be just so extreme and misognyistic and horrible in its ideas and its treatment of women and non-Muslims.
I haven’t recalled seeing the little bigots name in any of the misogynist-threads. At all.
Which is better than being on the side of evil in them I suppose, but:
Why is it all the bigots only care for women when misogyny can be used as a bludgeon against the brown?
Bloody idiot. Bloody dangerous idiot.
He kinda reminds me of a certain right-wing terrorist. He too thought Islam was terribly misogynist. And wanting force-breeding camps for white women so the brown don’t out-breed us.
Rorschach, I think he’s conflicted about it, as am I. But the desire to see each other is sincere, and facing the prospect of not having it happen highlighted that.
I got myself some Justicar-interaction down in foot-in-mouth-alley. And I must say: Yuck!
I knew he was bad, but never paid attention to the d000d in the way you need to when you are writing to him.
I feel I need a bath now.
opposablethumbssays
Only partly caught up again, a bit!
Cipher – hope you have (had) a good break. Sounds like you are looking after yourself – good to hear it!
Giliell,
I wouldn’t presume to guesstimate how things are coming along with your no.1, but as (I think it was FossilFishy) said if you have any concerns it’s always worth chatting about it to any good teachers she’s got if only because they have such a big pool of individuals of similar age to give them a comparison.
If she’s ahead and may get bored with classwork, there’s maybe some scope for variation within the classroom (I remember getting sent off to older yeargroups’ classrooms for more reading books when I ran out, and feeling quite happy to do so – none of the teachers ever made any fuss, so no-one felt awkward about it). And of course you’re giving them a headstart in languages, which is always great!
Gnumann, look, these people have an agenda, they want to fuck over the people they hate, PZ, Ophelia Benson, Rebecca. It’s a group of maybe 10 internet losers who have spent the past year lobbying, harbored by Abbie Smith, they now have found some FtB blogs who will entertain their hatred, bigotry, misogyny and sophistry, and some FtB bloggers also have kept the fracas going by commenting on comments about comments etc…
I think this is the Bill Donahue phenomenon. You have one angry dimwit, in a basement, with a typewriter, who manages to conjure up a lot of publicity and controversy, but if you take a long hard look, it’s just a guy with a typewriter, powerless and without any arguments. The same goes for the Australian Christian Lobby, and the same also applies to those few obsessed internet losers like Justicar, John Greg, Welch or Gray. Entirely irrelevant, entirely hateful bigoted wankers, noone cares, but they manage to make a lot of noise through sheer perseverance.
They are not our movement. Let’s not forget that.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Ugh, Justicar. I’ve seen him trolling feminist blogs for YONKS and he never gets any better. EEEWWWWW. *shudder* Even before joining the skeptical “community” myself and seeing him JAQ off here, this is someone I would avoid meeting at all costs, to the point of if I ever hear he’d be in the same vicinity of something I planned to attend, I’d cancel every plan I had of going.
*shudder*
Shrodinger’s raving asshole indeed. I’m trying to stay positive about it (my boss would be so proud! I’m always so negative, anticipating problems and trying to make plan B, C and D and whatnot!) and think that well at least now I know who else I can’t trust to have my back, but right now, it’s kind of difficult.
____________________________________________
I other news, I kind of need some help/advice.
I know, you’re all shocked!
One of my kid’s friends talked to me this morning – she’s 11 and it’s clear she has a history of sexual and physical abuse. She’s staying with her grandparents right now and was visiting here. So this morning her mom pitched up and demanded the girl go with her to some guy’s house.
The girl like *immediately* went into fear-mode and tried to resist going with her mom. The mom said something about some toys the girl left there and how they’re just going to pick those up. The girl still didn’t want to go so the mom, since this interaction happened in front of me, I guess, left it at that. The girl was very, very upset because she told me that the toys were really, really cool and she’d hate to loose them, but she really doesn’t want to go to this guy’s place. So she asked could she call the mom and just ask her to bring the toys with her when she comes back.
Long story short, the mom said “no, you kind of messed up your chances of getting those toys, kid”.
Which in itself is creepy.
I talked to the kid a bit and found out that she’s run away before and plans on doing it again. Either that, she says, or running in front of a train or a bus.
This girl is ELEVEN.
I don’t know what to do with this, other than be here for her (her grandparents live next door).
Kind of freaking out, actually. Any thoughts?
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nationsays
Kind of freaking out, actually. Any thoughts?
“Child Services – now!” was kinda my first thought, but I don’t know how they work in your neck of the woods.
Not a good solution, but kinda the least bad of the bad ones.
Tony... therefore Godsays
julian:
Skyrim: Dawnguard looks epic. The vampires look more like predators of the night than they have in other Elder Scrolls which, if nothing else, is a stylistic change I appreciate.
No sparkling then?
Bummer. The totally teen angst-wannabe, mormon mating message (by way of sinister sparkling stalker) has much more melodramatic mileage…
ambleburysays
Jebus christ, Gen, where do you live? In the US?
Pteryxxsays
Gen – could you talk to the grandparents? Maybe describe this interaction and say you’re worried about the kid being so scared of this guy?
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
I live in SOoth Africa – where Social Services are swamped with literally millions of kids in child-headed families and worse. I don’t think that “Yeah, I got a really, really bad vibe and this girl may be in serious trouble” will be enough to ensure action.
Also, she begged me not to talk to anyone, said the grandparents were part of the problem and that she’d get in horrible trouble if anyone ever started asking questions or investigating, because then they’d know she’d told.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Just to add – it’s the maternal grandparents, the mom lives very nearby and very often visits. Apparently during school time (it’s school vacation now), she lives with the mom.
Pteryxxsays
Also, she begged me not to talk to anyone, said the grandparents were part of the problem and that she’d get in horrible trouble if anyone ever started asking questions or investigating, because then they’d know she’d told.
Fuck fuck fuckety fuck…
That’s the trap, right there. Running away WOULD be her best option if she had anywhere safe to go – she could only get away with a clean break.
Hi there
I think I need to do a permanent installment on my blog: your daily dose of sexism…
Just for all those people who think it’s not that bad.
Gen
What about the grandparents?
Do you think you could talk to them, ask them about the situation, tell them you’re worried. Probably they know the reasons why the kid is with them and are lacking support, too?
I mean, this really sounds like trying to lure the kid to a place where she’ll be abused.
*hugs for you and the kid*
opposablethumbs
Yeah that’s what we’ll have to do when she actually starts school. Preschool and kindergarten in Germany are very different, they’re much more like fun and play daycare with the preschool-part being interwoven.
Tony... therefore Godsays
Giliell:
Well, his creationist videos were OK, but I admit to having been guilty of cutting him a lot of slack there.
I found some of the videos mildly entertaining, but nothing like the QualiaSoup vids.
~~
StevoR:
Because the Islamic religion seems to me to be just so extreme and misognyistic and horrible in its ideas and its treatment of women and non-Muslims.
Assuming this is true, does that mean every Muslim is deserving of your outrage?
I agree [to a point] that the religion of Islam has adherents who are extreme misogynists and horrible people, but there are many people who are not like that. Moreover, the United States has a great many religious hate groups that spew the same bile as Muslim extremists. If one were to condemn all Muslims for the actions of *some* Muslims, shouldn’t one do the same for *all* Christians?
Also, why the focus on Islam and Muslims? Have you always held the same opinions on the religion and its followers? Do you know someone who’s Muslim?
I am unaware if anyone I know of (or have met) is Muslim. For all intents and purposes, I’ve never met a Muslim so it would be unfair for me to negatively judge one based on what I know of Islamic terrorists.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
It’s weird to explain, but I recognized the way she looked, even the way she talked.
She was saying things like “And sometimes I would get so frustrated and think bad thoughts, like “doesn’t my mom love me” and then I’d realize what a bad girl I am. I really owe my mom an apology, I shouldn’t have gotten so upset”… etc. Like “I don’t know what to do to resolve this situation”. Using words like that. She’s ELEVEN.
Like I said, difficult to explain. She talked in a way and with a maturity that most grown ups wouldn’t be able to emulate and I recognized that. Because I used to do the same.
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nationsays
I live in SOoth Africa – where Social Services are swamped with literally millions of kids in child-headed families and worse. I don’t think that “Yeah, I got a really, really bad vibe and this girl may be in serious trouble” will be enough to ensure action.
Fuck! It’s so fucking quick to forget how privileged we are in my neck of the woods (and we complain heaps about the ills of our child services).
I wish I could give you better advice, but I see no good options that doesn’t involve you eventually getting charged for kidnapping.
On a lighter note:
Kevin-the-rat has just moved in with me for the summer (I’m rat-sitting for a colleague). He seems very shy at the moment. Rats are territorial right? How long should I wait before encouraging him to explore the apartment?
Pteryxxsays
Gen: I don’t know that this is helpful at all, but when I was ten and rationally considering running away and/or suicide, it would have meant the world to me to have an adult nearby I could trust to understand.
Tony... therefore Godsays
John:
You can use a non-breaking space, if you want.
You are my unofficial official tech hero.
I have TET updates sent to my phone via Email, and so often I get that   and have *no* clue what it’s for.
First it was blockquote.
Now nbsp.
I’m meant to do this podcast now, right ? Let me go and read about this creationism thing first.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
I don’t know that this is helpful at all, but when I was ten and rationally considering running away and/or suicide, it would have meant the world to me to have an adult nearby I could trust to understand.
It is helpful. I used to feel the same. I’m hoping that will be enough. I assured the girl, when we talked, that she mattered, that grown-ups are NOT always right, that I used to feel like she did, also ran away, tried to commit suicide but she won’t be dependent on other people for the rest of her life, and I’m always here if she needs anything or just wants to talk.
I just hope it’s enough.
ambleburysays
Hell, Gen. The best thing I can think of – if there’s no chance child services will be any good – is talking directly to the mother, (I take it the other parent is out of the picture.)
It’s going to take an incredible amount of diplomacy, but if the kid is being abused, and the mother is complicit in some way, it might mean they knock it off, for fear of being caught.
Long shot I know.
juliansays
@Gen
I have no real advice to give but, if it isn’t to far out of your way, you could start recording and keeping a memory of bruises, cuts and other issues with the child. It might help give child services the information and incentive to act should you decide to contact them.
@Gen, random idea: a pre-paid cellphone with your number on it? (And any others that might be useful.)
I don’t know about SA but I could get one here for less than £10.
Pteryxxsays
cm: the kid would have to have an excellent excuse for why she suddenly has a cellphone. This ‘family’ hates lines of communication. (And they might go through her belongings; mine did.)
Pteryxxsays
@Gen
I have no real advice to give but, if it isn’t to far out of your way, you could start recording and keeping a memory of bruises, cuts and other issues with the child. It might help give child services the information and incentive to act should you decide to contact them.
elaborating on julian’s idea: if she’s willing to keep a journal, maybe you could guard it for her. Journals can be evidence AND self-affirmation.
Maybe you could investigate if there are any shelters for abused kids/women in the area–somewhere that could take her in if she can run away. It’s harder to run if you don’t have a place to go. In fact, it might be better if you could find a place in a nearby city. Close enough that you could get to her if necessary, but not someplace she’d be easily found?
{Sorry, teal dear ahead. Long, rambling and not well written. I want be helpful here but it’s hard to talk/explain for me}
Gen,
I agree with Pteryxx here.
Be her friend and keep evidence of what’s going on. Pictures, her journal, make your own recording of goings on. The cellphone, just like the authorities, would most likely just backfire. Her memorizing your number helps so she can use it when she can instead of having proof she’s talking about stuff outside the family like with the cellphone.
I’ve been there, done that. I don’t trust authorities to help in these situations. In the US, from MI to AZ I’ve had nothing but trouble and hindrance from cops and CPS instead of help.
I ran away and got away. But I was older. It’s very situational if running away is going to work.
I ran away to my abusive partner’s parents and from there went to shelters to get away from my abuser. I’d look up any information on the nearby children’s shelters (if there is any) and what needs to be done in case she needs and can get away. I had to bide my time, waiting til the right moment to go. I was ready to leave my ex almost a year before I left, it just takes time and planing. Last minute or spotty plans will likely fall through. If getting away is the end goal, help her plan and cope until the time is right. Just up and leaving often end in being back home getting beat for leaving and it makes it harder to try again.
It was hard but I was lucky. If if was up to CPS and the cops, I would have been stuck with my drug addicted mother in a crack house til I was 18 being beat on. Who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed.
Does she have things to help her cope? Like music or books? I think no matter what happens she’ll need something to help her deal with her shitty family. Having you listen helps but she’ll need something to do at home as well. If there’s anyway or anything to help her out to emotional deal all this shit, do it, just talk to her and make sure it won’t backfire on her.
For instance, if she has an mp3 player already, outfit her with some tunes Maybe if an occasion comes up you can get her something like that. Of course, ask her in case her family would flip out and take it.
Does she have a hiding spot for her personal stuff? From what you said about the toys, it feels like her family would take stuff she gets attached to. Maybe helping her with a hiding spot or holding it for her would help. If it ever come up just say she forgot it. Plus her “forgetting” stuff at your house is a good excuse to use if she can get away when she’s in trouble.
I’m sorry, all this is stuff that worked for me but I don’t know this girl and her situation so I don’t know what would help her best. It really depends on what she can get away with from her family.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitternesssays
Basically, what I was trying to say was this stuff worked for me, but I’m stressing the fact that you need to talk to the girl, assess the situation and try to help in ways that don’t backfire into making it worse. I can’t stress enough how important that is. I’m sure you know it, I’m not trying to make it sound like you don’t, I’m just really worried that it will backfire. I’ve had things backfire on me. Going to the cops because everyone said they protect us? HAHA bring you straight back home and don’t turn around when they hear your father smack you. Your dog growls at your father and trys to protect you? Tossed out of the house and ends up dead. Best friend’s parents talk to your father? Never allowed to go over their house again or call them.
Which is why I react violently against this suggestion:
Hell, Gen. The best thing I can think of – if there’s no chance child services will be any good – is talking directly to the mother, (I take it the other parent is out of the picture.)
It’s going to take an incredible amount of diplomacy, but if the kid is being abused, and the mother is complicit in some way, it might mean they knock it off, for fear of being caught.
Long shot I know.’
Wait what? I don’t think this has ever worked. It might cause the abuse cycle to go into the “honeymoon” period, but it will not stop. It will be worse when the next beating comes.
The girl could get punished and never allowed to see Gen again if Gen goes asking and the family freaks out.
If the girl is being abused, there is no way for the mother not to know. The parent’s that claim ignorance are in denial, know whats going on but don’t do shit. The mother is compliant in this situation, denial or not, whether she strikes her or just pretends not to notice.
Too often going to the abusers is more bad than good and only serves to make you feel better because hey you tried to talk to the parents but it didn’t work. While the girl gets beaten for you sniffing around. If the girl says don’t call CPS or talk to her parents, don’t because she knows it’s going to backfire on her. She will bear the consequences, not you.
I’m biased from what happened to me but I really do not like this idea at all. All I see happening is more pain for the girl.
There really is no good solution here. Just helping her to cope, collect evidence and information for if/when she can get away. Getting away and never dealing with her family again is probably the only way out.
I assume that would be Spoony from TGWTG? I’ve been wondering what the deal was there. Damn shame, I thought he was better than that. Schroedinger’s Asshole, I guess.
If the girl is being abused, there is no way for the mother not to know.
There’s a convicted pedophile living in the street I grew up. Long standing member of the city council, still respected head of a local charity division, pillar of society. Well, after his conviction became partly public people understood why his adult daughters never came for a visit. You can all guess where his wife lives…
Something positive:
During my internet abstinence I had a little more time for reading books and read the Russian Night Watch pentalogy. And right there in the second book it was: The protagonist (magician) meets the girl-friend of a murder victim (suspected to have been killed by a vampire). She drinks heavily to get over it. He sobers her up and also tells her that she might want to stop drinking that much since she’s pregnant. And then, there it is, the clear message from the protagonist that neither he, nor anybody else can tell her what to do, whether to have the baby or have an abortion, it’s her decision alone.
Beautiful.
I don’t think that “Yeah, I got a really, really bad vibe and this girl may be in serious trouble” will be enough to ensure action.
don’t put it that way then. Say that her mother was trying to coerce her into visiting an adult man’s house with toys and candy and that the girl was clearly afraid of the man. Its what happened.
If you report and nothing is done then you can’t really control that. But if you don’t report and something could have been done you will be haunted by it for a long time.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate.says
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I’m going to be working with my psychologist (who also does a lot of work in the community with runaway kids and battered families) to set up some sort of a safety net for her both physically and psychologically speaking in a safe way.
I’m also going to be making sure she has the escape she needs – she looked really interested in reading this morning, and luckily, that’s one thing I excel in! Finding the right book for the right person!
I totally should have been a librarian. I have no idea why I’m not, actually. *puzzled*
Bryan Fischer has figured out what’s wrong with liberals. The average liberal, according to Fischer, has been duped by Satan. Liberals have no common sense, and they believe stuff that any reasonable person would reject.
If you’ve been wondering about the afflictions that bedevil liberals, wonder no more.
Fox News can whip up an hysterical firestorm over faux facts, but one thing we know just elicits a yawn or a chuckle from them is a threat to “pistol whip” a bus full of nuns.
An Iowa radio talk show host recently made headlines and provoked outrage when he suggested Catholic nuns who were traveling the country engaging in political activism ought to be pulled over and pistol-whipped. Not helping matters was the fact the radio show’s guest, an Iowa Congressman, laughed at the “pistol whip” comment.
But at Fox News there was virtually no discussion about the disturbing incident. The infamous Fox outrage machine was definitely not cranked up this week, and hosts did not invite on a bevy of guests to express their shock and dismay at such wildly anti-Catholic rhetoric filling the airwaves and being laughed at by a politician.
In fact, the ugly incident wasn’t mentioned once on Fox’s primetime programs. And this from an outlet that at times this year has sounded like the in-house news channel for the Archdiocese of New York.
Why did Fox pass on what should have been low-hanging fruit for a channel that has spent so much of 2012 obsessing over supposed political slights directed at Catholics, and claiming Democrats have declared war on the church?
Three reasons. First, the traveling nuns are protesting deep budget cuts advocated by Republican Paul Ryan; cuts the nuns say will adversely affect the poor, disabled and elderly. Second, the Iowa host who made the violent “pistol whip” crack is a right-wing talker. And third, the guest who chuckled at the comment was a Republican, Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA).
As we all know, evangelicals have been working hard to push the Air Force and other military establishments into the arms of their whacko god for some time. They took over the chaplain officers for the most part.
Since there are still a few atheists and practitioners of minority religions in the armed forces, evangelical Republican politicians are looking for ways to put more pressure on troops to worship the Right Sky Daddy.
A group of 66 Republican lawmakers is accusing the Air Force of creating “a culture that is hostile toward religion.”
The House members wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking him to investigate whether recent indicents at the Air Force are having a “chilling effect” on people of faith.
The lawmakers outlined several instances where they had problems with Air Force policy, particularly a memo last year from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, which said that “chaplains, not commanders” should notify airmen about chaplains’ religious programs. The lawmakers wrote the memo was “suggesting that the mere mention of these programs is impermissible.”
They also took issue with the suspension of a briefing that discussed Bible references, the changing of a Latin office motto that included God and removing Bibles from Air Force Inn checklists.
They wrote the policy of “complete separation” between church and state is having a “chilling effect” down the chain of command.
“The changes lend credence to the notion that the Air Force will remove any reference to God or faith that an outside organization brings to its attention,” the lawmakers wrote…..
opposablethumbssays
Gen, I think you’re doing the right thing. I am not experienced in dealing with a problem like this – hell, I am lucky; the only time I’ve ever been even remotely involved in a possible abuse situation was just providing overnight shelter for the kid sister of Spawn’s friend while the police were investigating the possible abuse by one of the (separated) parents. But for what little it’s worth, it sounds to me like those who are saying beware above all of inadvertently making it worse are in the right here. Sounds like listening, providing books, offering a safe hiding-place for her journal or her most precious stuff, researching refuges for when she has a chance to escape, keeping records – all those are hugely valuable things that hopefully won’t have any chance of backfiring on her. I hope so much that you are able to help, and at least she will have one adult somewhere in her life who listens to her and cares what happens to her.
Ugh. If she’s going to throw herself a boring-ass party and expect expensive gifts every time she has a kid (this is her second), I’m staying the hell home.
A.R.
Not really. Tortellini with some veggies and fried calamari rings.
Audley
Hmmm, I like the idea of a baby shower. German superstition says that if you buy anything before the baby is born something bad will happen. Some people will follow that religiously and don’t even put up the crib or cot before birth with the result that the poor puppet has to sleep in the unhealthy vapours of new furniture.
Pattern from 75 Seashells, Fish, Coral & Colorful Marine LIfe to Knit & Crochet by Jessica Polk, reproduced with permission on the LIon Brand website.
Lion Brand yarns are often kinda tacky, but I’m grateful to them that they supply a lot of information about yarn crafts, including hundreds of free patterns. I can’t remember if you have to set up an account to access all the free patterns, but if so, it’s no big deal. They don’t send spam. Of course you don’t need to actually buy any of their products.
Baby showers in-and-of themselves are fine– it’s a nice thing to help soon-to-be parents out with the necessities and usually there’s cake! BUT, having a baby shower for your second pregnancy is, I’m sorry, tacky. It’s a blatant gift grab at that point.
Also, I had no idea how much I should spend on the gift. The general advice was between a quarter and a third of what I spent on the gift for the first shower ($100), so I spent $30. Yeah, I looked like a cheap asshole because everyone else spent around a $100 and several people bought my SiL new pieces of furniture.
I’m just frustrated with the whole situation and that side of the family in general, so sorry for the vent.
Also, brace yourselves everyone, DarkFetus is nekkid, too!
*gasp!*
A. Rsays
Audley: Shock! Horror! Shouldn’t DarkFetus know that it has to cover its totes disgustingz gurltype body?
diannesays
Hmm, where is everyone?
Sleeping late, brunch, discussing nature of the universe with boyfriend, saving same from being run over by car when he walks out into traffic. The absent minded professor stereotype has some validity. I probably shouldn’t have asked him about dark matter at an intersection.
cm's changeable monikersays
Pteryxx, I did say “random”. :-/
You couldn’t do it as a secret thing, but I could find a spare right now (it’s in a cupboard over there), and for about £7.50, I could “find” some more spares at short notice.
Gen: do teach her your phone # and how to call reverse-charges (“collect” for the Americans).
Silisays
Josh,
Your email/Paypal?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Sili—my email is spokesgay at gmail. Is there a fundraiser going on that I don’t know about?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Note that the spokesgay email is NOT connected to PayPal. That email address doesn’t get posted publicly.
Shouldn’t DarkFetus know that it has to cover its totes disgustingz gurltype body?
To be fair, DarkFetus is still pretty horrific looking at this point. Which is why I haven’t been flashing around the sonogram pics. :-/
Silisays
No, I just wanted to contribute to the Pharyngufond, since I’ve just been paid.
Thanks.
cm's changeable monikersays
S-ingTFU about that now, though.
—
Hmm, where is everyone?
I was at the kids’ school fair. I came back with Stranger in a strange land, a book on the Highland clearances, a two-foot-tall cactus, and three globe artichoke plants, all for free!
Hmmm…Mobile version of the site has TET comments shoved into a obscenely small space
cm's changeable monikersays
DarkFetus is still pretty horrific looking
When the first pictures of child-the-tiny came in, she appeared to be a fuzzy blob, so she became known as “fuzzy blob”. Later, she was “fuzzy bump”. Once she was born, she was–for a while–just “fuzzy”.
Kids #1 and #2 have similarly-silly nicknames.
One of their friends came over one time and, after a while, asked innocently: “why don’t you use real names?” ;)
I don’t usually expect magazines in a hair salon to provoke deep thought, but today was different. In an issue of Smithsonian (the food issue – I swear the article about how chicken became so ubiquitous made me hungry), there an interview with Roseanne Cash (I also didn’t know Johnny Cash had a daughter, but I blame that on just not being very interested in anything to do with him). You’ll have to read the full article, I doubt I could give a summary to do it justice, but here’s the part htat made me go “Wait, what?”
“What a question, Ron!” she exclaims in mock alarm. “The real question is, Did art create love? There is a woman who just wrote about this—I was talking to her at a dinner party—she found that songs about love existed in every culture.”
The woman turns out be Helen Fisher, a well-known anthropological writer and researcher. She represents one pole of an interesting, ongoing debate. There are those who believe romantic love is “natural” in some way, with all the torrents of jealousy, aggression and madness that go along with it. On the other side of the debate are, for instance, the authors of Sex at Dawn, who think that our closest primate ancestors were more like the bonobo chimps, who have lots of sex but little of the partnering associated in humans with love—and crimes of love too. So we should behave more like loveless bonobos, I guess. It makes for less drama. But don’t we love the drama?
I don’t think she’s correct about bonobos being “loveless.” It strikes me as a very one-dimensional way of seeing love, that it can only mean something if there’s all sorts of madness and pettiness attached. Of course if you love someone, romantically or otherwise, there will be times of conflict and disagreement, but damn! Does there really need to be so much of this drama we’re all supposed to just relish?
And I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who reconsidered dating at all if it meant putting up with all that.
Vilém Saptarsays
Gilliel ,
Hello! Thanks for listening and offering advice.
It is possible to go part-time and work my way through the second bachelor’s and grad school. But things being how they are here right now, I probably won’t be able to make enough to send my parents any money. I’ve tried looking at alternatives such as are available, but it seems to’ve come down to this intractable either/or.
I can try to risk it, hoping I’ll manage to pull through by luck, until I’m able to go back to work full time. But that ,I feel, is a larger risk than I can morally afford to take. I’d be lying to myself if I let myself think I wouldn’t have to face some eventuality in the intervening period for which I’ll have neither money saved nor the creditworthiness to borrow.
Alethea,
Hi! Thanks for the listen and advice.
I have a thing for geology, which maybe sounds rather *ahem* fancy, but it is what it is. I could maybe part-time study instead of part-time work like you said and wait till later to start grad school, but I don’t want to wait till I’m that old to get a PhD- I want to have a research career. Also, i think, field work would get difficult as one gets older, esp in geology.
I know that sounds like asking for too much, but I can’t help myself wanting that. Wish I could.
John Morales,
Oh thank you! Using them.
Ing,
Wtf happened to comments?
*cringeface* I guess that would be me.
I borked a blockquote or two in my prematurely submitted comment at # 516 (# 16 on this page), which, I’m guessing, seems to have screwed with the markup nastily and also restarted the comment count. I’m not certain though.
This will probably fix when PZ spawns a new sub-thread.
Gen,
Good on you for what you’re doing. Hope things get better for the poor kid.
I’ve got some chores left over, will do a thorougher catch up soon.
Thanks everyone for listening and supporting.
Silisays
Hmmm…Mobile version of the site has TET comments shoved into a obscenely small space
Yeah. I assumed it was a botched “blockquote” somewhere, but I couldn’t be arsed to find out at which comment it began.
I don’t think she’s correct about bonobos being “loveless.” It strikes me as a very one-dimensional way of seeing love, that it can only mean something if there’s all sorts of madness and pettiness attached. Of course if you love someone, romantically or otherwise, there will be times of conflict and disagreement, but damn! Does there really need to be so much of this drama we’re all supposed to just relish?
Open relationships are not loveless relationships.
When the first pictures of child-the-tiny came in, she appeared to be a fuzzy blob, so she became known as “fuzzy blob”. Later, she was “fuzzy bump”. Once she was born, she was–for a while–just “fuzzy”.
:D
At my first ultrasound (at 7 weeks– we though there was a problem), DarkFetus wasn’t human shaped at all and very very tiny. We’ve come to call her “the bean”.
“The banana” is a close second simply because my pregnancy book loves to compare the size of the fetus to food.
A. Rsays
my pregnancy book loves to compare the size of the fetus to food.
Hmm does it include a reference to 9 month old fetuses as babby BBQ?
I must say that while I normally wouldn’t trust Wal-Mart as a grocer, I rather liked their buns the last time I bought them. (Yes, Wal-Mart Supercentres have finally come to Canada, though not of the 24-hour variety…yet.)
Ing: words right out of my mouth.
StevoR –
You aren’t saying that that you WANT them to die, just that if they die as collateral damage, it’s ok. Is this an accurate summary of your opinion? Because it’s a pretty accurate summary of what you have communicated to me.
@ImaginesABeach
And that if they’re standing next to a terrorist it’s their own damn fault.
Re. Hitchens and waterboarding,
I’ve always seen that as nothing more than a publicity stunt on his part. I’ve never understood people praising the guy for that.
And now I really have to go. Goodnight everyone.
To repost my analogy for it: Hitch had to burn his finger before he believed that the plate was as hot as the server had warned. I don’t see this as a sign of integrity. It feels more like something Philip J Fry or Homer Simpson would do than one of the great skeptical thinkers.
Staggers in… finally able to get auntie home. She didn’t “fall” on the curb outside the office, she was having another stroke. This was my first attempt to try to care for a stroke victim. Kudos to those doing it!
So, I’m done for a while.
I planned on doing this last night and got sucked in again immediately this morning. It has become apparent to me that I badly need a break from this shit. I’ll stick around TZT and TET, but I have to lay off the sexual harassment threads. I knew I did before I snapped in one just now, and I’m kicking myself for it.
For now, I’m going to take a walk with my camera, then come back and eat some food. I have been writing poetry, which is a new thing, and I’m hoping I can do some of that today too. Sigh.
Cipher – please take care of yourself. There are a lot of us to handle threads populated by the maliciously ignorant. (I almost typed “moron,” but realized that what I wanted was an expression that captured that one was cultivating a lack of knowledge and understanding out of ill will, rather than mere congenital lack of intellectual ability. Another way Pharyngula has changed my language for the better.)
Cipher: Take all the break you need. You deserve better than that asshole on that thread.
I’m horribly depressed today and wasting it ranting here…maybe I should take a break to
I feel the same way; I’m often very disappointed in the atheist/skeptic community when it comes to race and immigrants’ rights, and I definitely feel much more common ground with a liberal anti-racist theist than with a racist atheist. When I was in the US and went to immigrants’ rights rallies, I often encountered people from various liberal churches (UU, UCC, Quaker and so on) who were standing up for social justice and anti-racism. By contrast, on many atheist blogs I’ve encountered horrendous Islamophobia (as above), warmongering, and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Trying to catch up…
@Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg
That description of your spawn could have been me at that age, save for the gender. I grew up just fine, although I’m still not terribly sociable.
Re: Israel
I personally don’t care at all about the existence of Israel qua Israel. I would like to see a stable, peaceful, and equitable nation in that area, operated democratically by all of the residents there, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity. The idea of a ‘Jewish State’ is in no meaningful way distinct from the idea of a ‘Muslim State’ or ‘Christian State’ if organized on a religious basis, and not meaningfully different from an ‘Afrikaner State’, if it’s done on an ethnic basis. I cannot support a ‘Jewish State’ in any way, for that reason, but I see no reason for the current Jewish inhabitants of Israel to leave, most of them were born there, after all. Only that non-Jews who live there must have equal treatment before the law and an equal say in government before I would be willing to even provisionally support the current government of Israel.
@StevoR
Just shut the fuck up already, will you? Your threadshitting takes time away from intersting, intelligent people with worthwhile things to say, whereas your blitherings would only be of any value if you printed them out; then they could be used for toilet paper or compost.
@Pteryxx #484
Heck, even the people we loathe with every fibre of our being, like StevoR, count as people.
Re: Hitchens and waterboarding
Yeah, he gets basically no credit from me on that score.
Amusing.
JREF are desperately spamming me to come to TAM.
Two emails in as many days are a bit over the top, so of course I reply
Comes the reply:
@Walton
and I’m sure that crap is found in some churchs. The problem is that Churches unlike skeptic don’t have this view that ethics is off limits. They are fine with establishing what they think are fundamental axioms of morality. Skepticism says that’s off limits, if someone wants to be a Nazi well we have to tolerate the diversity of their opinion.
Is it too idealistic to hope that one day a headline will read: “Child Sexual Abuse, A Thing of the Past”?
I read this today, which sounds hopeful:
…
That last bit is also hopeful, but it makes me wonder…
Why is it that children are dismissed so readily in sexual abuse cases?
Now about the thing I wanted to ask you all about :
I’m currently in a decently paying, full time job. I want to go back to University to get a second bachelor’s degree in a field I’m passionate about and then on to a doctoral program and then hopefully, a research career in academia, or if things dont work out, then in the industry.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical
Ooops hit submit too early, sorry.
Walton – Do you know of any hate group in America that isn’t tied to or supported by some church or faith based group? I can’t think of one.
Now about the thing I wanted to ask you all about :
I’m currently in a decently paying, full time job. I want to go back to University to get a second bachelor’s degree in a field I’m passionate about and then on to a doctoral program and then hopefully, a research career in academia, or if things dont work out, then in the industry.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical dilemma is between choosing what I’ve always wanted to do, what I think gives most meaning to my life and what I literally, cannot do.
I’ve been extremely unhappy at my job for atleast an entire year now. I always keep going back to how I would like to live my life and pursue my dreams and how I’m unable to do so.
I really have reached my breaking point thinking about this, but I want to do the right thing. I hold in high regard, any advice from you people on how I must proceed.
Thanks.
Tony @ 384,
Thank you! I’ll see Louis when he shows up and ask to get in the line ASAP.
About the people here, I know, right? Thats why I felt emboldened to post and ask for help, seeing how wonderful everyone is to people sharing and asking help here.
Also, I think you’re an amazing person for all you’ve been through and all you do.
.
(And hey, I also figured out how to add a double line break like space : add an empty blockquote tag where you want spacing between lines, if you did not already know that. True line breaks, I dunno)
opposablethumbs @ 384,
Thanks! Ah, I’m Indian. And even though I do get many things, I also find many things about which I’m quite clueless. I’ll take your advice and ask whenever I can’t fathom what is being talked about. I know its not a huge barrier, but sometimes you feel a little amount of unbelonging.
ImaginesABeach @ 386,
Yes, I know! Thanks!
pentatomid @ 388,
Thank you for the welcome!
I’ll be danged for the major blockquote fail, sorry.
Josh dear,
Please remind me of your email before I regret having money.
Dr. Elementary @463:
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but….really?
I say the same thing frequently, and then I realize I am surprised. Respect for others and basic human decency should be the norm, but far too often it isn’t.
That blogger is a sexist pig and a moron (Mattir’s comment upthread makes me wonder if this word best describes this guy) Our society not-so-subtly teaches that the only value women have is:
A-decided by men
and
B-lies in their appearance
People like him eat and regurgitate that shit.
~~
Ing:
Am I the only one baffled at the praise Hitch gets for the waterboarding thing?
I was unfamiliar with Hitch’s position on that, but empathy for others, combined with a basic understanding of waterboarding should lead most anyone to conclude that it’s torture (unless you’re Michelle Bachmann…’enhanced interrogation technique’ my ass).
~~
Cipher:
For now, I’m going to take a walk with my camera, then come back and eat some food. I have been writing poetry, which is a new thing, and I’m hoping I can do some of that today too. Sigh.
Take care of yourself.
Perhaps you’ll find some inspiration for poetry while you’re walking.
Vilem Saptar:
Also, I think you’re an amazing person for all you’ve been through and all you do.
Thank you so much.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never be truly happy doing what I’m doing now, though I have a comfortable life. I know how bad the situation is for graduate school and research careers in academia; I’ve heard the horror stories.
Also its expected of me to take care/help out my parents financially and otherwise, and I’d only be glad to meet that expectation, except I won’t be able to if I go back to college. My parents aren’t that well-off and would need some help at least from me to get along.
Slightly complicating the situation further is the fact that I’m not as young as I’d like to be at this point in my life. How I wish I had been wiser younger and done this a long time ago :(
So now for me, the ethical dilemma is between choosing what I’ve always wanted to do, what I think gives most meaning to my life and what I literally, cannot do.
Is there a possibility that another career field (one that doesn’t have the horror stories you’ve heard of) could work?
Also, assuming you decide to go to graduate school in the future, would it be possible for you to save sufficient money between now and then so that you could assist your parents when you do {go to grad school]?
I wish I had more experience to offer (I’m 36 and still bartending. Took a break from college back in ’97 b/c I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money going to school without any clear idea what I wanted to do. I have a clearer idea now–aided tremendously by my growing interest in social justice, which has developed from my experiences here at FtB–but timing and money are a factor. I have to admit I find the prospect of going back to school rather scary. Not sure why.)
P.S. I tried the blockquote trick for spacing. It works. Thanks.
Also, how do you get the little accent over the ‘e’ in your first nym?
I would have you know that – according to someone ranting on some corner of Facebook or another – that I am (1) a raging misogynist and (2) Orwellian.
:D :D
I am moving up in the world!
Mostly threadrupt!
Patricia:
Good luck to your aunt and *hugs* for you.
Cipher:
Remember, you matter more than all of the internet doucheholes combined. We* definitely understand that you need a break.
Vilém:
Oof, I don’t know what advice to give. But I can offer to listen every time you need to complain/vent/etc.
Since it appears that you’re new: hello! Welcome in!
And [warning] a DarkFetus update!
I’ve gotten past the “bubbly feeling” stage and now she’s kicking me so hard that I can actually see my tummy move. On one hand, it’s pretty freaking awesome and on the other it’s a little O.o
*Royal we or hivemind?
Ing,
Oh, obviously – there’s no shortage of racist right-wing religious people out there. That goes without saying. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
All I was saying (as an atheist) is that the atheist/skeptic community could be, and should be, doing better than it is, with regard to race and immigrants’ rights. I find it really disturbing that bigots like Pat Condell are still listened to and welcomed in atheist circles.
Indeed.
I can think of a few hate groups that aren’t explicitly faith-based. Anti-immigrant groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, for instance, which is in the business of spewing racism and dressing it up in “respectable” language. And fascist and white nationalist groups like St*rmfront and VDARE. Of course there’s plenty of faith-based hate groups as well, like pretty much anything with “Family” or “Values” in its name.
But, in any case, I certainly wasn’t trying to deny or minimize the huge problem with religious bigotry. Rather, my point was that there is, unfortunately, bigotry in the atheist/skeptic community too – particularly anti-Muslim bigotry – and that, as an atheist, I’m very worried about it.
I know I’m not explaining myself well. In my defence, I’m sleepy and had too much wine.
Tony; my technique is to find some text that uses the symbol and copy it into your nym space on wordpress.
How I got the integral sign.
Not really disagreeing with you, Walton, but if you dig past the first layer of the white supremacy groups, you find a lot of Christian nationalism and Dominionism.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to a protest, to call for the release of two Sudanese people being held in immigration detention who are currently on hunger strike.
Of course, yes.
Ok I’m an admitted asshole.
I know this
But I have some schadenfreude knowing that Scientology couldn’t save Tom Cruise’s third marriage.
My nigel is gone for a whole friggin week. :( I’ll probably be hanging around here a lot more.
test
I am fucking terrible at taking breaks.
I’m going to have to block FTB or I won’t be able to do it.
A planned event to celebrate the mass resignation of mormons from the LDS church is getting some national coverage. So glad to see this kind of organization and PR!
Thanks for the support, everybody. See you in a few days.
Audley – Thanks! She’s doing much better now. It sure scared the crap out of me. She’s my last living auntie, so I’m super watchful over her.
Walton – Thanks for the reply. I hoped you would see that point.
(Did someone leave on the italics button?)
Have a good break Cipher!
@ Tony… therefore God
A useful quick reference…http://www.escapecodes.info/
The whole enchilada…http://www.unicode.org
Vilem-
Many years ago, I went to law school because I was raised to believe that after high school was college, after college was graduate or professional school. While in law school, I realized that law school was fun, but that I would be very unhappy as a lawyer. I found work that I enjoy, although the pay is not great (not bad, but not great). I have to watch my budget a lot more closely than I would as a lawyer, but I’m generally happy with my life.
However, I have the luxury of making this choice because I have a very priveleged life. Straight, cis, white, raised upper middle class, married to someone who makes about the same as I do, and living in the US.
I cannot advise you, I can only tell you I am happy with my choice. The law degree was an expensive way to learn about myself, though.
Oh it’s hilarious. He was in the “it’s not torture” camp and stood his ground against all evidence until a TV show offered to let him test that by water boarding him. After that it’s now torture. I wasn’t kidding when I said he had to touch the plate and burn himself to decide it was hot. He’s praised for his courage and integrity for this. I criticize him for being so stupid that he needed torture to figure out the obvious.
what I, and I think Walton, was getting at is that there are small churches and that where you can find firm dedication to social justice and an intolerance of bigotry. We don’t see that in the skeptic community as issues of values and ethics are off limits. We balk at the idea of the organization laying down ground rules; hell look at the clusterfluff over simple harassment regulations. This promotion of free thought allows some fairly fierce and frightening racism, mysogony and violence to boil under the surface with very little anyone can do about it. While many religions are harmful you can find an actual mission statement of wanting to promote decency in people that I don’t see being promoted in skeptic community.
Thunderfoot’s quadruple-downed on the stupid. Get your bingo cards out: His latest post is titled
He’s just aksing the question.
WTF?
Complete with graphics! And I see that aside from his introductory post, this is the only subject he’s written about. Is this guy less of a wanker in his Youtube videos?
Scientology going backwards in Australia:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-29/scientology-numbers-going-backwards/4101958
It’s nice to see honesty from the usual gang of fucks.
Well I think PZ learned a valuable lesson about vetting and requesting writing samples. Now we know and knowing is half the battle….GI JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOE!
COBRA-LALALALALALALA!
Why have they never made a G.I. Joe musical?
I’m not mad that thunderf00t disagrees. I’m mad that he’s acting like a pompous 18 year old who thinks he has the whole world figured out and everything would be fantastic if everyone just shut up and did he told them too.
Gah!
What an ass!
@Julian
well to be fair that’s how I act. I just have the virtue of being right. *puffs on pipe*
Because it would look like this only with West Side Story fight scenes.
@Julian
Still better than Spiderman: Turn off the Dark.
If we can get Hasslehoff for it I’d see it.
So Thunderfoot’s latest is “people who like me, like me better than PZ.”
My BoyChild is 11 and reasons better than that.
I had been blissfully unaware of this.
—
Complete change of pace…
Skyrim: Dawnguard looks epic. The vampires look more like predators of the night than they have in other Elder Scrolls which, if nothing else, is a stylistic change I appreciate. (Hoping some dlc will include much needed fixes for the Werewolf who is next to worthless unless you have a very specific target in mind you just need to close the gap with) My only issue is that it looks like more of Bethesda’s a or b quests where there’s no middle ground for you to choose from.
Anyone play it yet?
I heard promises of a skill tree for wolves as well…also mounted combat
I’m starting to wonder if people getting together through online dating is just a fluke. I haven’t seriously dated anyone for like five years (age 20 to 25, so I’m burning away my youth!11!11!!!11) but all during this time I’ve had online ads up, and I really have that “last girl who never gets asked to dance at the ball” kinda feeling, like I haven’t been picked up yet, I’ve just been “picked over” and I’m old newz.
I am turning off the ipad and doing something besides watching the ThunderF00t trainwreck all night.
Aquaria – check your FB messages please.
I’m tuning out, too.
Thunderf00t depresses me. He uses an online poll on fucking youtube to show that he’s more reasonable than I am? Madness. Utter freaking madness. And stupid, too.
I thought better of him.
@imagines a beach
what kind of person, in your opinion, is happy as a lawyer?
Since joining FtB, TF, aside from his intro post, has made 4 blog posts, all on this one topic.
He has literally not blogged about anything else.
Vilem Saptar, welcome in!
–
*hug* and :)
–
*hug* for Cipher. Ya gotta take care of yourself, hear?
–
What’s up with all the italics?
–
I am reading a book on personality theory right now, and there is a lot of material associated with various tactics for denying problems or incongruent information. He seems unwilling to entertain the idea that he is wrong so he is doing all kinds of weird shit to try and retain his sense of being correct (or superior maybe). It is strange to watch.
Hi,
I just wanted to check in. I have been away – mostly due to personal reasons, but also because I can’t just keep up with the volume of traffic going on here. I’m not sure what to do about this…
But to put things in a more positive light, I have decided to stop sulking behind my desk and get involved politically in my community, reactivating my 15-year party membership that had been dormant for years. I might even run for city councillor next year.
Locally, our hottest issues are renewable energy infrastructure (“Energiewende”) and social housing.
On a state and national level, I want to work on issues relating to minorities mostly, affecting me personally, that is people with an “migration background” (basically foreigners and citizens of foreign descent), and LGBT issues (if we’re lucky, marriage equality will come next year).
I’ve noticed that religious privilege is very much entrenched in this country and for various reasons I will leave it be for the moment (feel free to email me if you do want to discuss the issue). Right now the time is ripe for bringing minority issues to the fore, as within the party there is a growing awareness of them and willingness to pay attention to them.
I didn’t make it to the Cologne meeting, which I regretted, but I did spend a nice day with David M. in the capital the week prior. I do have pictures of the great museum of his, might share them on PET if someone lets me in.
Also, I wanted to call your attention to a horrible ad McDonald’s Germany has been running, which offended me as a person of partially Asian descent. The only thing McDonald’s has offered was a lame notpology on Twitter, and it’s been a bit frustrating to me that the public at large did not seem to care much. (Though in light of the incidents aorund the Euro Cup, I do realise the problems with racism are probably more severe in this area)
http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-racist-anti-asian-ad-in-germany-2012-6
I have a friend who works for an environmental advocacy firm, and I believe she is quite happy.
Having watched Thunderfoot’s videos on creationism, like PZ, I too expected better. I guess his true color is really one of an idiot.
WB, Pelamun.
Some respected people just turn out to be Schroedinger’s raving asshole. *sad headshake*
I know a number of happy lawyers. All good people.
Oh boy and have they been coming out lately!
I never watched Thunderfoot’s videos before – I don’t really watch YouTube much at all, and when I do it’s for music – and I’m certainly not going to now after such a cringeworthy display of stubborn idiocy and point-blank refusal to actually listen to what anyone is saying.
As several people have pointed out, when your cheer squad consists almost entirely of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club from ERV’s slimepit, you should be thinking very seriously about your position.
Like most libertarians (if TF’s a libertarian, which may or may not be something he wants to admit), Thunderchrist has that problem where everyone got to know him on one single issue: pwning creationists. We love seeing creationists get pwned, and he was reasonably good at it. However, that’s all we ever saw of him. Then he started posting really shitty “biblical criticism” videos and I started getting nervous. Then he posted his interview with Richard Dawkins after which he tried to argue that looking like a hiker that just pulled himself out of a landslide was appropriate professional wear. Then he posted his “debates” with Roy Comfort and Shirley Phelps and showed what an intellectual embarrassment he was outside of the carefully-structured setting of his own Youtube videos. Then he posted his “you mooslems have awakened the sleeping giant of the West” racist bilge and I had to dump him.
I saw the same thing happen with a few people and Ron Paul. They liked his anti-war stance, his pro-weed stance, but then they finally started to learn more about him and had to abandon it. The ones who felt too invested or really were that shitwitted double-, triple-, quadrupled down on it like TF’s doing right now.
My sister-in-law seems happy as a lawyer. I have issues with people- I miss a lot of body language and social signals and people in real life are stressful. So I think the only answer is, “people who are not me.”
The important question to me is: Can the shit heads like Thunderfoot not live here at FtB? Must we have the slimepit here? Really?
Well, he’s yelling “groupthink” and “free speech” BEFORE any potential removal of his blog from FTB takes place, so it’s not like it would be a surprise or anything.
Oh, and this is as close to an answer as I’m likely to get about whether Thunderfoot moderates comments:
Right. Which means instead of any possible bias due to moderating, instead the channel and comments have bias due to hostile environment. Lovely.
I do have to agree with tf that people who like PZ and Greta and Ophelia are likely to NOT like tf’s disregard of women, so in that respect there is likely to a certain uniformity of thought.
I think I’m almost at the point where I abandon organizations like JREF and American Atheists in favor of CFI (at least for the Women in Secularism conference), AAH and SecularWoman. And if I go to other conferences, I’m going to be exceedingly wary of the ERV fanbois and their ilk.
Sigh.
Well you know, let a thousand flowers bloom, and all that.
Then you take the diseased ones and bulldoze the fuck out of them.
Sure, but if uniformity of thought is such a problem, why do all these harassment deniers keep making the same. old. arguments that have been debunked over and over for months? Sheesh.
Thunderchrist needs to learn that consensus based on evidence and experience != “group-think”.
Pteryxx
They make the same arguments so they don’t have to admit they are jerks.
Giliell
That sucks. I’m no expert, but your daughter really sounds like she’s in the normal range of human behaviour. If it were my daughter, I would insist that they not hold her back unless they could demonstrate some actual learning disability. Being content with one’s own company is not a disability if one can interact within society’s norms given the need.
I hate people.
To avoid teh group-think, we need a few FTBloggers who are flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers. I mean, just think about it. We can’t have everyone agreeing about that shit, if we’re going to call ourselves a bunch of freethinkers.
pelamun,
If you want to join PET, we’d be happy to have you. Either email me or search for me on fb via ourdeadselves (at) gmail and I’ll invite you to join.
You know, I wonder if, in all of this, Thunderfap has ever considered that he just may be wrong. Nah, he seems to arrogant for that.
Sigh, just unsubbed Tfoot. I’d like to think that a drop in his subscriptions would cause him to at least consider that he may be wrong. Unfortunately, I suspect that the few of us leaving are going to be matched and more by the slimemoulds signing up.
For a guy who’s tag line is “Science and education FTW.” he’s astoundingly resistant to educating himself about feminism, privilege and the patriarchy.
srsly. Being surprise exploded by digital creepers in Minecraft sounds a lot more inviting than dealing with online human creepers right now; and that damn game gave me nightmares. (They were still preferable nightmares to those the haters gave.)
pelamun
Welcome back.
I don’t get too bogged-down in Pharyngula because I don’t read every thread.
It’s not easy.
@Audley
I’d like to join PET, if I can.
Willkommen zurück pelamun!
rev BDC
do they have anything in common personality wise? I was trying to find out what kind of traits happy laywers have.
I got a nice sciency boost to my morning today by nearly walking into this neato butterfly! Even better, it was still there when I got home from work, so I got to take a couple of pictures (that pic, and resting w/ folded wings). It finally flew away (bummer), but it was so neat to get a close-up view of it like that. It was HUGE–it had *at least* a 5-inch wingspan. I’ve never seen one that big around here before. *happydance*
RahXephon:
Send me an email!
But do it relatively soon ‘cos I am sleepy and headachey.
>:(
There are lots of different kinds of lawyers. I don’t think being happy doing one kind of law needs to have much in common with being happy doing another. Besides, people can have different reasons for being happy about doing the same thing.
Googling suggests that the High Park fire is “contained”.
That’s where Ogvorbis is, right?
My houseplants have come down with spider mites. :( :(
Have sprayed them with anti-mite spray. Also, have cleaned off the crap as well as I could.
Argh! Fucking spider mites!
Esteleth: Have you acquired a new plant recently?
NPR told me that half the federal firefighting force is in Colorado. Even if his fire is contained, he may be sticking around a while.
Not in a few months, no.
I did buy a packet of seeds and planted them, though.
I’m not sure if mites can travel that way, though.
Esteleth: I’m not sure, let me look online.
I am on my Nook and just looked at the barnes and noble shop. It recommends a book called How to Argue “just for me”. What do they know about me that I don’t know?
I also bought a new bag of potting soil.
That’s probably it.
Esteleth: [Game show “Ding!”] Yep, that sound about right.
NOMA
Argh.
I hope the spray works. I also have some pellets that you can put in soil.
Esteleth: Back when I was growing bromeliads, I used some spray or other that worked really well, I’ll see if I can find the bottle.
Also, WTF is going on on the “misogynists think women are tasty” thread?
Did we get linked to from /r/mensrights or something?
apparently Jack Abramoff is out of jail.
@Esteleth
Thunderfoot. Almost the same thing. I think all of his posts are complaining about how awful FFB is.
Not the wisest move from fearless leader
Fuck. This. Nation
The spray I have is Schultz insect houseplant spray.
I also have some Bonide Systemic Houseplant Insect Control pellets.
Honestly, he seems to have been hit by a clue-by-four.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!
In other news…
Esteleth: Hmm, that might have been what I used.
Check this out RE: Abramoff.
[Snort!] I knew I recognised that stench.
@Fossilfishy
I’m dead fucking serious. It’s basically the same thing. That which is taboo to the tribe and MUST NOT BE TOUCHED!
These assholes seem to fear social sciences like vampires fear crosses
So against my better judgement I went and looked at Thunderf00t’s most recent disgorgement. My diagnosis? That’s not digging a hole; that’s living in a crater. Jeez. It’s an embarrassment.
Wowbagger you’re right. If Justicar and his ilk are your cheering squad, what does that tell you?!
<
I hope I'll wake up one morning and find it gone.
I hate to ask, PZ, but is there any discussion about booting TF?
Because I do think that having him here is damaging the FTB brand.
I knew you were serious Ing. And I meant it about the stench.
Tfoot is a shining example of how a smart person can use their smarts to rationalise their way to a fucked up conclusion.
Estleth: Last I heard, kicking Tfap (hmm sounds rather like a bizarre rapper name…) out wasn’t being considered, but I might be now.
*it not I
Also, this quote from PZ on the Changing Focus thread:
Estleth: He’s on it, I think.
The problem of course is that booting Tfoot will play right into his sort of persecution complex. He’ll crow about how *he’s* all about free speech and just how mean and nasty anyone who disagrees with him is.
FossilFishy, you have a borked link.
ATTENTION FIBER ARTS PEOPLE
We need to get on the ball and make PZ a whole bunch of knitted, crocheted, stitched, felted, kumihimo’d, shibori’d, shibari’d, handspun, tatted, and quilted sammiches pronto. Maybe a couple of beers as well.
@Fossilfishy
Yes yes freespeech is all well and good, but to honestly expect people to follow your freespeech wank for getting booted when you spent the last dozen posts talking about how everyone of your cohabitant’s shit stinks but your own seems…well actually it seems like exactly what will happen and that people will lap it up because they’re idiots.
Hell, I’ve seen in the last week people defend a 30 year old man who gets suspended for making rape jokes to coworkers, then fired for throwing a temper tantrum and screaming at fans over it…and people still defending him as the persecuted poor victim of politics.
I think people give him way too much credit for creationist-bashing and promoting science. He’s not the stupidest person out there, but seriously, how much intelligence does that really take? Why should we be surprised when that’s pretty much the only thing you know about him?
@CR
I cynically said earlier that a lot of skeptic ‘culture’ seems to be setting a really low bar and then praising yourself for clearing it.
@Ing
Yeah, like debunking stuff that is acceptable to debunk, like psychics and creationism. If it is things like religion and sexism, oh no, we can’t get near that because it is society’s precious baby that needs to be protected.
Of COURSE I borked the link.
We, well I at any rate, know that his real name is Phil Mason and he’s a molecular biology researcher who’s reasonably well published. See here skip ahead to 5 minutes or so for the relevant part. He ain’t stupid, he’s just willfully blinded by his privilege.
Which is ironic, given that all sorts of wooists and creationists do the same fucking thing. I think Dennett described it as “playing tennis without a net.” If all you can do is score points against people who do that, there’s not much reason to think you’re a lot better.
Well, shit.
I assume that would be Spoony from TGWTG? I’ve been wondering what the deal was there. Damn shame, I thought he was better than that. Schroedinger’s Asshole, I guess.
You can be stupid and do all of that. Not a mindless, drooling, village idiot, but still pretty fucking stupid about a lot of fucking things.
Yes. Facing some psychotic fucking break down.
Love you peoples. That is all.
Okay, I see this isn’t thread-wise currently. You can skip right over if you don’t want to read this….
Tony,
I wish there was another field I’d be just as happy to go into, but there isn’t. I have a decently paying job, but I also have a couple of bank loans I’m paying off. So I dont save much right now. If I stayed the course for a few more years, I might be able to save a little that could help my parents. But I feel I’m already too late for grad school; a few more years, I’m not sure I’d even be able to do it.
.
The accent, its what Thunk said. I copy-pasted it from somewhere else.
Also good luck with your own quest. Thank you for listening and offering advice.
ImaginesABeach,
I’m pleased it worked out for you and you’re happy now. Yeah I’m privileged in many ways to compared to mmost folk in my region of the world. I’m lower middle class here, cis, straight, ethnic non-minority, non-disabled etc. But apparently not enough to be able to switch careers midway, relatively easily. Also, thanks for your support.
Cicely,
Thanks for the welcome!
Audley,
Thanks for your offer to listen and support. Thank you so much.
Also, I’ve a long list of errands to run, so I haven’t been able to check in regularly. I hope to keep up more often after I’m done. And thanks to anyone else who welcomed, offered support or advice that I may have missed to acknowledge. Sorry I’m in a bit of a hurry and will catch up more thoroughly later.
Aarrgh, blockquotes will be the death of me…
So I go away for a few days to work night shifts, and Thunderdolt solves the matter of sexism by conducting a Youtube poll among his subscribers ? Amazing.
I had a look at my Pharyngula backup from 2010, and I discovered that I
1)actually got the whole of Scienceblogs, not just Pharyngula (bloody command line arguments)
2)that the backup is incomplete, and that from eg February 2009 I have about 15 posts and comments, but not Titanoboa !
Bummer.
Good morning
Fossil Fishy
Oh, no worries, they’re not holding her back. I talked with her teacher and she well believed me (they are used to extreme “switches” in her behaviour when she’s in kindergarten alone vs. when I’m present). She based her judgement on the data she had and I can’t fault her for that, but I guess that will be the problem we’ll run into: people constantly underestimating her. I can only hope that this will change once she can go from oral to written tasks.
I’m hestitant to use “normal” in that sense. There’s a broad range of behaviour, just we take the typical as normal and build society around it.
Vilém Saptar
Is there a way to do this part-time or alongside working?
I understand your conflict, but it#s not fair that you should have to sacrifice your happiness for the wellbeing of others.
I know, life isn’t fair, but sometimes there are possibilities to make it possible for all.
Cipher
Hugs are coming
Take all the break you need.
pelamun
Good to see you back!
++++
Re: TF
Well, his creationist videos were OK, but I admit to having been guilty of cutting him a lot of slack there. And the moment he stopped doing science things went wahoonie-shaped. IMO he’s one of those scientists who heavily and justifiably criticise and mock people without a decent science education for talking bullshit but thinks that for social and cultural sciences it’s enough if you have an opinion.
Oooo, it wasn’t a butterfly! Looks like it was a Polyphemus Moth instead. Still pretty, tho. :)
Hi Vilém Saptar! What career are you wanting to pursue?
If you need more time to get financially ready, that may not be an insurmountable problem. I have seen people get their PhDs even at the age of 50 or 60. Perhaps you could get a start on that second bachelor’s degree right away, but at a low-level part-time rate. Get a few subjects cleared away while you save up. Or at least get some informal prep study done, so you don’t feel you’re going nowhere, and when you do start, you’ll ace it. There’s lots of stuff online these days – proper academic lectures, courses, distance education.
Cross-posted from PET…
*barges through the doors with a grim look on her face*
Hi guys. I’m so upset right now. See, my ex, you remember him–I’m gonna call him CT since those are his initials and his nickname–he was supposed to come visit. He was supposed to arrive this morning, in time for my niece’s birthday party. But he’s in Washington DC and… I don’t know exactly what happened, but with the storms and the electricity outages and traffic lights being gone, he missed the bus. And he lost his ticket, and apparently this means he’s shit out of luck, Greyhound does not care if he already purchased a ticket, if he lost it it’s on him. So he called me in the middle of the night to ask if I or my parents could refund him the cost of a new ticket and I was like, I definitely can’t and I can’t speak for my mom, so I can’t guarantee you anything. It wasn’t until after I hung up (and now the window of time for the 4 am bus has passed) that I realized I probably could with the help of the Horde. Should I tell him to get on the next bus so we can see each other–and he can see my family too–for at least a day?? Could the Horde’s fundraising abilities make that happen? I’m on a bit of an emotional roller coaster here, I was looking forward to seeing him and he was me and we’re both a little shook up by now. I’m sorry this is so rambling and strange. What say you, friends? Can I raise $200 to get him out of the sweltering city for a day? God, I hate being poor.
AHHHHHHHH never mind he found his tickets!! He is coming after all. Wow, what an emotional roller coaster. Damn.
@ 493. “We Are Ing The Matrimonial Collective” – 29th June 2012 at 12:42 pm
No it isnt.
Also I think that’s sarcasm and not how they actually do treat you because you wouldn’t be friends with them if that were true surely.
I apologise for upsetting you and I do respect you as a person and a commenter here.
@494. pentatomid :
Because the Islamic religion seems to me to be just so extreme and misognyistic and horrible in its ideas and its treatment of women and non-Muslims. Worse even than all the other religions and yes, there’s plenty that’s really bad about Christianity etc … I find it hard to think that someone who is a feminist and politically left-wing can be friends with those whose ideas and practices that are so diametrically opposite.
I’m going to lurk and maybe take a night or two off this blog / thread now if that helps. Planning to come back and read this full thread again later.
ooh, SamStrange, congratz on the impending happy visit. (Now with extra emotional whiplash!)
You put this here, so I will tell you honestly what I think…Are you sure he really wants to be there ?
Sorry to hear you’re having a shitty time.
Vilém Saptar,
You can use a non-breaking space, if you want.
I haven’t recalled seeing the little bigots name in any of the misogynist-threads. At all.
Which is better than being on the side of evil in them I suppose, but:
Why is it all the bigots only care for women when misogyny can be used as a bludgeon against the brown?
Bloody idiot. Bloody dangerous idiot.
He kinda reminds me of a certain right-wing terrorist. He too thought Islam was terribly misogynist. And wanting force-breeding camps for white women so the brown don’t out-breed us.
Rorschach, I think he’s conflicted about it, as am I. But the desire to see each other is sincere, and facing the prospect of not having it happen highlighted that.
Thanks for understanding, Pteryxx! ♥
I got myself some Justicar-interaction down in foot-in-mouth-alley. And I must say: Yuck!
I knew he was bad, but never paid attention to the d000d in the way you need to when you are writing to him.
I feel I need a bath now.
Only partly caught up again, a bit!
Cipher – hope you have (had) a good break. Sounds like you are looking after yourself – good to hear it!
Giliell,
I wouldn’t presume to guesstimate how things are coming along with your no.1, but as (I think it was FossilFishy) said if you have any concerns it’s always worth chatting about it to any good teachers she’s got if only because they have such a big pool of individuals of similar age to give them a comparison.
If she’s ahead and may get bored with classwork, there’s maybe some scope for variation within the classroom (I remember getting sent off to older yeargroups’ classrooms for more reading books when I ran out, and feeling quite happy to do so – none of the teachers ever made any fuss, so no-one felt awkward about it). And of course you’re giving them a headstart in languages, which is always great!
Gnumann, look, these people have an agenda, they want to fuck over the people they hate, PZ, Ophelia Benson, Rebecca. It’s a group of maybe 10 internet losers who have spent the past year lobbying, harbored by Abbie Smith, they now have found some FtB blogs who will entertain their hatred, bigotry, misogyny and sophistry, and some FtB bloggers also have kept the fracas going by commenting on comments about comments etc…
I think this is the Bill Donahue phenomenon. You have one angry dimwit, in a basement, with a typewriter, who manages to conjure up a lot of publicity and controversy, but if you take a long hard look, it’s just a guy with a typewriter, powerless and without any arguments. The same goes for the Australian Christian Lobby, and the same also applies to those few obsessed internet losers like Justicar, John Greg, Welch or Gray. Entirely irrelevant, entirely hateful bigoted wankers, noone cares, but they manage to make a lot of noise through sheer perseverance.
They are not our movement. Let’s not forget that.
Ugh, Justicar. I’ve seen him trolling feminist blogs for YONKS and he never gets any better. EEEWWWWW. *shudder* Even before joining the skeptical “community” myself and seeing him JAQ off here, this is someone I would avoid meeting at all costs, to the point of if I ever hear he’d be in the same vicinity of something I planned to attend, I’d cancel every plan I had of going.
*shudder*
Shrodinger’s raving asshole indeed. I’m trying to stay positive about it (my boss would be so proud! I’m always so negative, anticipating problems and trying to make plan B, C and D and whatnot!) and think that well at least now I know who else I can’t trust to have my back, but right now, it’s kind of difficult.
____________________________________________
I other news, I kind of need some help/advice.
I know, you’re all shocked!
One of my kid’s friends talked to me this morning – she’s 11 and it’s clear she has a history of sexual and physical abuse. She’s staying with her grandparents right now and was visiting here. So this morning her mom pitched up and demanded the girl go with her to some guy’s house.
The girl like *immediately* went into fear-mode and tried to resist going with her mom. The mom said something about some toys the girl left there and how they’re just going to pick those up. The girl still didn’t want to go so the mom, since this interaction happened in front of me, I guess, left it at that. The girl was very, very upset because she told me that the toys were really, really cool and she’d hate to loose them, but she really doesn’t want to go to this guy’s place. So she asked could she call the mom and just ask her to bring the toys with her when she comes back.
Long story short, the mom said “no, you kind of messed up your chances of getting those toys, kid”.
Which in itself is creepy.
I talked to the kid a bit and found out that she’s run away before and plans on doing it again. Either that, she says, or running in front of a train or a bus.
This girl is ELEVEN.
I don’t know what to do with this, other than be here for her (her grandparents live next door).
Kind of freaking out, actually. Any thoughts?
“Child Services – now!” was kinda my first thought, but I don’t know how they work in your neck of the woods.
Not a good solution, but kinda the least bad of the bad ones.
julian:
Skyrim: Dawnguard looks epic. The vampires look more like predators of the night than they have in other Elder Scrolls which, if nothing else, is a stylistic change I appreciate.
No sparkling then?
Bummer. The totally teen angst-wannabe, mormon mating message (by way of sinister sparkling stalker) has much more melodramatic mileage…
Jebus christ, Gen, where do you live? In the US?
Gen – could you talk to the grandparents? Maybe describe this interaction and say you’re worried about the kid being so scared of this guy?
I live in SOoth Africa – where Social Services are swamped with literally millions of kids in child-headed families and worse. I don’t think that “Yeah, I got a really, really bad vibe and this girl may be in serious trouble” will be enough to ensure action.
Also, she begged me not to talk to anyone, said the grandparents were part of the problem and that she’d get in horrible trouble if anyone ever started asking questions or investigating, because then they’d know she’d told.
Just to add – it’s the maternal grandparents, the mom lives very nearby and very often visits. Apparently during school time (it’s school vacation now), she lives with the mom.
Fuck fuck fuckety fuck…
That’s the trap, right there. Running away WOULD be her best option if she had anywhere safe to go – she could only get away with a clean break.
Hi there
I think I need to do a permanent installment on my blog: your daily dose of sexism…
Just for all those people who think it’s not that bad.
Gen
What about the grandparents?
Do you think you could talk to them, ask them about the situation, tell them you’re worried. Probably they know the reasons why the kid is with them and are lacking support, too?
I mean, this really sounds like trying to lure the kid to a place where she’ll be abused.
*hugs for you and the kid*
opposablethumbs
Yeah that’s what we’ll have to do when she actually starts school. Preschool and kindergarten in Germany are very different, they’re much more like fun and play daycare with the preschool-part being interwoven.
Giliell:
Well, his creationist videos were OK, but I admit to having been guilty of cutting him a lot of slack there.
I found some of the videos mildly entertaining, but nothing like the QualiaSoup vids.
~~
StevoR:
Because the Islamic religion seems to me to be just so extreme and misognyistic and horrible in its ideas and its treatment of women and non-Muslims.
Assuming this is true, does that mean every Muslim is deserving of your outrage?
I agree [to a point] that the religion of Islam has adherents who are extreme misogynists and horrible people, but there are many people who are not like that. Moreover, the United States has a great many religious hate groups that spew the same bile as Muslim extremists. If one were to condemn all Muslims for the actions of *some* Muslims, shouldn’t one do the same for *all* Christians?
Also, why the focus on Islam and Muslims? Have you always held the same opinions on the religion and its followers? Do you know someone who’s Muslim?
I am unaware if anyone I know of (or have met) is Muslim. For all intents and purposes, I’ve never met a Muslim so it would be unfair for me to negatively judge one based on what I know of Islamic terrorists.
It’s weird to explain, but I recognized the way she looked, even the way she talked.
She was saying things like “And sometimes I would get so frustrated and think bad thoughts, like “doesn’t my mom love me” and then I’d realize what a bad girl I am. I really owe my mom an apology, I shouldn’t have gotten so upset”… etc. Like “I don’t know what to do to resolve this situation”. Using words like that. She’s ELEVEN.
Like I said, difficult to explain. She talked in a way and with a maturity that most grown ups wouldn’t be able to emulate and I recognized that. Because I used to do the same.
Fuck! It’s so fucking quick to forget how privileged we are in my neck of the woods (and we complain heaps about the ills of our child services).
I wish I could give you better advice, but I see no good options that doesn’t involve you eventually getting charged for kidnapping.
On a lighter note:
Kevin-the-rat has just moved in with me for the summer (I’m rat-sitting for a colleague). He seems very shy at the moment. Rats are territorial right? How long should I wait before encouraging him to explore the apartment?
Gen: I don’t know that this is helpful at all, but when I was ten and rationally considering running away and/or suicide, it would have meant the world to me to have an adult nearby I could trust to understand.
John:
You can use a non-breaking space, if you want.
You are my unofficial official tech hero.
I have TET updates sent to my phone via Email, and so often I get that   and have *no* clue what it’s for.
First it was blockquote.
Now nbsp.
Perhaps one day I’ll learn ‘a href’.
Why Germany didn’t deserve to win against Italy
I’m meant to do this podcast now, right ? Let me go and read about this creationism thing first.
It is helpful. I used to feel the same. I’m hoping that will be enough. I assured the girl, when we talked, that she mattered, that grown-ups are NOT always right, that I used to feel like she did, also ran away, tried to commit suicide but she won’t be dependent on other people for the rest of her life, and I’m always here if she needs anything or just wants to talk.
I just hope it’s enough.
Hell, Gen. The best thing I can think of – if there’s no chance child services will be any good – is talking directly to the mother, (I take it the other parent is out of the picture.)
It’s going to take an incredible amount of diplomacy, but if the kid is being abused, and the mother is complicit in some way, it might mean they knock it off, for fear of being caught.
Long shot I know.
@Gen
I have no real advice to give but, if it isn’t to far out of your way, you could start recording and keeping a memory of bruises, cuts and other issues with the child. It might help give child services the information and incentive to act should you decide to contact them.
Alien, Next Generation, or something
It’s weird, trust me.
@Gen, random idea: a pre-paid cellphone with your number on it? (And any others that might be useful.)
I don’t know about SA but I could get one here for less than £10.
cm: the kid would have to have an excellent excuse for why she suddenly has a cellphone. This ‘family’ hates lines of communication. (And they might go through her belongings; mine did.)
elaborating on julian’s idea: if she’s willing to keep a journal, maybe you could guard it for her. Journals can be evidence AND self-affirmation.
So yeah, bedtime…Have fun, podcasters..
Gen,
Maybe you could investigate if there are any shelters for abused kids/women in the area–somewhere that could take her in if she can run away. It’s harder to run if you don’t have a place to go. In fact, it might be better if you could find a place in a nearby city. Close enough that you could get to her if necessary, but not someplace she’d be easily found?
Wtf happened to comments?
{Sorry, teal dear ahead. Long, rambling and not well written. I want be helpful here but it’s hard to talk/explain for me}
Gen,
I agree with Pteryxx here.
Be her friend and keep evidence of what’s going on. Pictures, her journal, make your own recording of goings on. The cellphone, just like the authorities, would most likely just backfire. Her memorizing your number helps so she can use it when she can instead of having proof she’s talking about stuff outside the family like with the cellphone.
I’ve been there, done that. I don’t trust authorities to help in these situations. In the US, from MI to AZ I’ve had nothing but trouble and hindrance from cops and CPS instead of help.
I ran away and got away. But I was older. It’s very situational if running away is going to work.
I ran away to my abusive partner’s parents and from there went to shelters to get away from my abuser. I’d look up any information on the nearby children’s shelters (if there is any) and what needs to be done in case she needs and can get away. I had to bide my time, waiting til the right moment to go. I was ready to leave my ex almost a year before I left, it just takes time and planing. Last minute or spotty plans will likely fall through. If getting away is the end goal, help her plan and cope until the time is right. Just up and leaving often end in being back home getting beat for leaving and it makes it harder to try again.
It was hard but I was lucky. If if was up to CPS and the cops, I would have been stuck with my drug addicted mother in a crack house til I was 18 being beat on. Who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed.
Does she have things to help her cope? Like music or books? I think no matter what happens she’ll need something to help her deal with her shitty family. Having you listen helps but she’ll need something to do at home as well. If there’s anyway or anything to help her out to emotional deal all this shit, do it, just talk to her and make sure it won’t backfire on her.
For instance, if she has an mp3 player already, outfit her with some tunes Maybe if an occasion comes up you can get her something like that. Of course, ask her in case her family would flip out and take it.
Does she have a hiding spot for her personal stuff? From what you said about the toys, it feels like her family would take stuff she gets attached to. Maybe helping her with a hiding spot or holding it for her would help. If it ever come up just say she forgot it. Plus her “forgetting” stuff at your house is a good excuse to use if she can get away when she’s in trouble.
I’m sorry, all this is stuff that worked for me but I don’t know this girl and her situation so I don’t know what would help her best. It really depends on what she can get away with from her family.
Basically, what I was trying to say was this stuff worked for me, but I’m stressing the fact that you need to talk to the girl, assess the situation and try to help in ways that don’t backfire into making it worse. I can’t stress enough how important that is. I’m sure you know it, I’m not trying to make it sound like you don’t, I’m just really worried that it will backfire. I’ve had things backfire on me. Going to the cops because everyone said they protect us? HAHA bring you straight back home and don’t turn around when they hear your father smack you. Your dog growls at your father and trys to protect you? Tossed out of the house and ends up dead. Best friend’s parents talk to your father? Never allowed to go over their house again or call them.
Which is why I react violently against this suggestion:
Wait what? I don’t think this has ever worked. It might cause the abuse cycle to go into the “honeymoon” period, but it will not stop. It will be worse when the next beating comes.
The girl could get punished and never allowed to see Gen again if Gen goes asking and the family freaks out.
If the girl is being abused, there is no way for the mother not to know. The parent’s that claim ignorance are in denial, know whats going on but don’t do shit. The mother is compliant in this situation, denial or not, whether she strikes her or just pretends not to notice.
Too often going to the abusers is more bad than good and only serves to make you feel better because hey you tried to talk to the parents but it didn’t work. While the girl gets beaten for you sniffing around. If the girl says don’t call CPS or talk to her parents, don’t because she knows it’s going to backfire on her. She will bear the consequences, not you.
I’m biased from what happened to me but I really do not like this idea at all. All I see happening is more pain for the girl.
There really is no good solution here. Just helping her to cope, collect evidence and information for if/when she can get away. Getting away and never dealing with her family again is probably the only way out.
AWW FUCK. REALLY? Phantasmagoria is ruined now.
Nothing wastes my time like a dude. jesus.
There’s a convicted pedophile living in the street I grew up. Long standing member of the city council, still respected head of a local charity division, pillar of society. Well, after his conviction became partly public people understood why his adult daughters never came for a visit. You can all guess where his wife lives…
Something positive:
During my internet abstinence I had a little more time for reading books and read the Russian Night Watch pentalogy. And right there in the second book it was: The protagonist (magician) meets the girl-friend of a murder victim (suspected to have been killed by a vampire). She drinks heavily to get over it. He sobers her up and also tells her that she might want to stop drinking that much since she’s pregnant. And then, there it is, the clear message from the protagonist that neither he, nor anybody else can tell her what to do, whether to have the baby or have an abortion, it’s her decision alone.
Beautiful.
don’t put it that way then. Say that her mother was trying to coerce her into visiting an adult man’s house with toys and candy and that the girl was clearly afraid of the man. Its what happened.
If you report and nothing is done then you can’t really control that. But if you don’t report and something could have been done you will be haunted by it for a long time.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I’m going to be working with my psychologist (who also does a lot of work in the community with runaway kids and battered families) to set up some sort of a safety net for her both physically and psychologically speaking in a safe way.
I’m also going to be making sure she has the escape she needs – she looked really interested in reading this morning, and luckily, that’s one thing I excel in! Finding the right book for the right person!
I totally should have been a librarian. I have no idea why I’m not, actually. *puzzled*
Bryan Fischer has figured out what’s wrong with liberals. The average liberal, according to Fischer, has been duped by Satan. Liberals have no common sense, and they believe stuff that any reasonable person would reject.
If you’ve been wondering about the afflictions that bedevil liberals, wonder no more.
Short video here:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-liberals-have-been-duped-satan
Fox News can whip up an hysterical firestorm over faux facts, but one thing we know just elicits a yawn or a chuckle from them is a threat to “pistol whip” a bus full of nuns.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201206270004
As we all know, evangelicals have been working hard to push the Air Force and other military establishments into the arms of their whacko god for some time. They took over the chaplain officers for the most part.
Since there are still a few atheists and practitioners of minority religions in the armed forces, evangelical Republican politicians are looking for ways to put more pressure on troops to worship the Right Sky Daddy.
This excerpt is from the Defcon Hill blog:
Gen, I think you’re doing the right thing. I am not experienced in dealing with a problem like this – hell, I am lucky; the only time I’ve ever been even remotely involved in a possible abuse situation was just providing overnight shelter for the kid sister of Spawn’s friend while the police were investigating the possible abuse by one of the (separated) parents. But for what little it’s worth, it sounds to me like those who are saying beware above all of inadvertently making it worse are in the right here. Sounds like listening, providing books, offering a safe hiding-place for her journal or her most precious stuff, researching refuges for when she has a chance to escape, keeping records – all those are hugely valuable things that hopefully won’t have any chance of backfiring on her. I hope so much that you are able to help, and at least she will have one adult somewhere in her life who listens to her and cares what happens to her.
Sweet I just was in the Podcast :D
You’ll get to hear my androgynous voice… like… three times.
The irony of that, Lynna, is that the USAF is the most in-thrall-to-Christianists of the branches.
Hmm, where is everyone?
I had dinner :)
Giliell: Anything interesting? I had penne with pesto and caprese salad.
I played the Sims, did laundry, and ate leftover pizza. I really should put clothes on.
A. R
Just got back from my SiL’s baby shower.
Ugh. If she’s going to throw herself a boring-ass party and expect expensive gifts every time she has a kid (this is her second), I’m staying the hell home.
Esteleth,
Funny you should say that, I just took mine off. ;)
*shakes her nekkid booty*
*shakes naked belly!*
That’s hawwwwt.
/Paris Hilton
No fair! You’ve got a fetus in there!
All I’ve got is cellulite.
*pants Josh*
Now dance! Shake it!
A.R.
Not really. Tortellini with some veggies and fried calamari rings.
Audley
Hmmm, I like the idea of a baby shower. German superstition says that if you buy anything before the baby is born something bad will happen. Some people will follow that religiously and don’t even put up the crib or cot before birth with the result that the poor puppet has to sleep in the unhealthy vapours of new furniture.
Squid pattern for knitting
Pattern from 75 Seashells, Fish, Coral & Colorful Marine LIfe to Knit & Crochet by Jessica Polk, reproduced with permission on the LIon Brand website.
Lion Brand yarns are often kinda tacky, but I’m grateful to them that they supply a lot of information about yarn crafts, including hundreds of free patterns. I can’t remember if you have to set up an account to access all the free patterns, but if so, it’s no big deal. They don’t send spam. Of course you don’t need to actually buy any of their products.
Giliell:
Baby showers in-and-of themselves are fine– it’s a nice thing to help soon-to-be parents out with the necessities and usually there’s cake! BUT, having a baby shower for your second pregnancy is, I’m sorry, tacky. It’s a blatant gift grab at that point.
Also, I had no idea how much I should spend on the gift. The general advice was between a quarter and a third of what I spent on the gift for the first shower ($100), so I spent $30. Yeah, I looked like a cheap asshole because everyone else spent around a $100 and several people bought my SiL new pieces of furniture.
I’m just frustrated with the whole situation and that side of the family in general, so sorry for the vent.
E,
She’s shakin’ it, too!
*wiggle wiggle!*
Also, brace yourselves everyone, DarkFetus is nekkid, too!
*gasp!*
Audley: Shock! Horror! Shouldn’t DarkFetus know that it has to cover its totes disgustingz gurltype body?
Hmm, where is everyone?
Sleeping late, brunch, discussing nature of the universe with boyfriend, saving same from being run over by car when he walks out into traffic. The absent minded professor stereotype has some validity. I probably shouldn’t have asked him about dark matter at an intersection.
Pteryxx, I did say “random”. :-/
You couldn’t do it as a secret thing, but I could find a spare right now (it’s in a cupboard over there), and for about £7.50, I could “find” some more spares at short notice.
Gen: do teach her your phone # and how to call reverse-charges (“collect” for the Americans).
Josh,
Your email/Paypal?
Sili—my email is spokesgay at gmail. Is there a fundraiser going on that I don’t know about?
Note that the spokesgay email is NOT connected to PayPal. That email address doesn’t get posted publicly.
A. R:
To be fair, DarkFetus is still pretty horrific looking at this point. Which is why I haven’t been flashing around the sonogram pics. :-/
No, I just wanted to contribute to the Pharyngufond, since I’ve just been paid.
Thanks.
S-ingTFU about that now, though.
—
I was at the kids’ school fair. I came back with Stranger in a strange land, a book on the Highland clearances, a two-foot-tall cactus, and three globe artichoke plants, all for free!
Hmmm…Mobile version of the site has TET comments shoved into a obscenely small space
When the first pictures of child-the-tiny came in, she appeared to be a fuzzy blob, so she became known as “fuzzy blob”. Later, she was “fuzzy bump”. Once she was born, she was–for a while–just “fuzzy”.
Kids #1 and #2 have similarly-silly nicknames.
One of their friends came over one time and, after a while, asked innocently: “why don’t you use real names?” ;)
I don’t usually expect magazines in a hair salon to provoke deep thought, but today was different. In an issue of Smithsonian (the food issue – I swear the article about how chicken became so ubiquitous made me hungry), there an interview with Roseanne Cash (I also didn’t know Johnny Cash had a daughter, but I blame that on just not being very interested in anything to do with him). You’ll have to read the full article, I doubt I could give a summary to do it justice, but here’s the part htat made me go “Wait, what?”
I don’t think she’s correct about bonobos being “loveless.” It strikes me as a very one-dimensional way of seeing love, that it can only mean something if there’s all sorts of madness and pettiness attached. Of course if you love someone, romantically or otherwise, there will be times of conflict and disagreement, but damn! Does there really need to be so much of this drama we’re all supposed to just relish?
And I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who reconsidered dating at all if it meant putting up with all that.
Gilliel ,
Hello! Thanks for listening and offering advice.
It is possible to go part-time and work my way through the second bachelor’s and grad school. But things being how they are here right now, I probably won’t be able to make enough to send my parents any money. I’ve tried looking at alternatives such as are available, but it seems to’ve come down to this intractable either/or.
I can try to risk it, hoping I’ll manage to pull through by luck, until I’m able to go back to work full time. But that ,I feel, is a larger risk than I can morally afford to take. I’d be lying to myself if I let myself think I wouldn’t have to face some eventuality in the intervening period for which I’ll have neither money saved nor the creditworthiness to borrow.
Alethea,
Hi! Thanks for the listen and advice.
I have a thing for geology, which maybe sounds rather *ahem* fancy, but it is what it is. I could maybe part-time study instead of part-time work like you said and wait till later to start grad school, but I don’t want to wait till I’m that old to get a PhD- I want to have a research career. Also, i think, field work would get difficult as one gets older, esp in geology.
I know that sounds like asking for too much, but I can’t help myself wanting that. Wish I could.
John Morales,
Oh thank you! Using them.
Ing,
*cringeface* I guess that would be me.
I borked a blockquote or two in my prematurely submitted comment at # 516 (# 16 on this page), which, I’m guessing, seems to have screwed with the markup nastily and also restarted the comment count. I’m not certain though.
This will probably fix when PZ spawns a new sub-thread.
Gen,
Good on you for what you’re doing. Hope things get better for the poor kid.
I’ve got some chores left over, will do a thorougher catch up soon.
Thanks everyone for listening and supporting.
Yeah. I assumed it was a botched “blockquote” somewhere, but I couldn’t be arsed to find out at which comment it began.
Open relationships are not loveless relationships.
cm:
:D
At my first ultrasound (at 7 weeks– we though there was a problem), DarkFetus wasn’t human shaped at all and very very tiny. We’ve come to call her “the bean”.
“The banana” is a close second simply because my pregnancy book loves to compare the size of the fetus to food.
Hmm does it include a reference to 9 month old fetuses as babby BBQ?
Headed out to pick up this hard drive, and some groceries.
I must say that while I normally wouldn’t trust Wal-Mart as a grocer, I rather liked their buns the last time I bought them. (Yes, Wal-Mart Supercentres have finally come to Canada, though not of the 24-hour variety…yet.)
NEW THREAD!