I’m really tired this afternoon, and need a nap. Maybe a lullaby will help.
(If you don’t already know this song, AAAAAH! Trigger Warning!)
(Episode CCCLII: Nice planet you’ve got there.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Just a note:
I was reading the wikipedia article on Anencephaly to see if I was missing anything, and saw the following:
Is this a common means of description? Of of those things is not like the other.
And I looked further. Dear god, the source of that phrase and the surrounding paragraph is
I’m going to go cry now.
Caine:
AAAHHH! Too complicated. Also I have a mortal hatred of queues.
Subversion of expectations?
Ugh.
Yes, people not being charitable enough to lilandra’s bullshit is the fucking problem.
*rolleyes*
Ing, Brownian, if either of you are reading this, I get where you are and I’m feeling 2/3 of the way there myself, but I’ll miss you if you go away forever. :( But yeah, of course do whatever you need to do. *hugs*
Just in case:
ING! Please, don’t leave forever. ♥
Caine:
Well then.
Second all in favour?
*cough*cough*Sullivan*cough*
Caerie:
In this case, it was innocent ignorance. Many (most?) majority-privileged people I’ve encountered aren’t aware of the details of the the Holocaust, just that “6 million Jews died.” That’s the talking point that gets hammered into heads, so it’s the only one they remember.
That specific fellow went through the stages of doubt, shock, horror, and then total immersion in the subject when I pointed out that the yellow Star of David wasn’t the only patch worn. I also told him about the White Rose, and he spent hours reading up on both. But his ignorance is far from unique – even people who are “allies” in the legitimate sense often don’t know the details.
(I am, throughout my life, continuously surprised at how little most middle- and upper-class people know about many things, including recent history. The subjects of finance and economics alone seem to be lost on a few generations.)
…White Rose? *goes to read*
also, Sili – who’s Sullivan?
Thanks all for pointing out the hierarchy of deviance, saves me a lot of time inferring it from behavior.
Now, as a newbie to elders, what does one wear to one’s first Atheist meetup? I’m as fluttery as a newborn calf in a slaughterhouse.
…
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html
Your finest armor, still caked in the blood of your opponents?
Or, well, clothes could work. I suppose you could go naked, but take a towel to sit on.
Escapism:
Wicked.
Pretty bug pictures. (Warning: Lots of dragonflies today.)
I wanted to drop in a Paterno link.
I had been wondering whether college football would act as badly as the Catholic church. It seems not. While Penn State as a program acted as badly as any diocese, when it all came out, Paterno not only didn’t get promoted but huge numbers of repercussions are being handed down within NCAA football and amongst its sponsors (like Nike). Read the briefs at the links. It’s heartening that the man who played the Cardinal Ratzinger role is (albeit posthumously) actually being rejected by the institution that so revered him.
Richard, you know you should always have your towel! This is basic stuff.
Well, the Jews got their own state afterwards.
If there’d really been any “sexual deviants” rounded up in the Holocaust, why isn’t the US propping up the state of Faggotopia next to the Vatican City right now?
Oh, and Patrick, see here about quoting. I did a little demo for you.
FWIW I would consent — I think, from the privileged viewpoint of never having been confronted with the situation — for my hypothetical anencephalic baby’s organs to be used.
Although maybe I wouldn’t be so fine and rational if I really had to make the choice. I remember when both my kids were small, imagining the possibility of being asked to donate their organs, and the shockingly intense wave of GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BABY that washed over me.
Thirded.
I have a dream that one day a post focusing on privilege, or sexism, or the patriarchy, or some other aspect of equal rights will actually be able to stay on topic. There are more fucking derailers here than in my railroad yard (not to worry, they are all blue flagged).
Tony:
Awe! *chucks under chin* You ain’t so bad yourself!
Patrick:
People wear clothes to those things? O.o
A bib.
You really don’t wanna get baby blood on your shirt. It’s Hell to wash out.
Caine:
I actually have one in my car at all times.
/true story
Still not enough.
When SMU (Southern Methodist) got caught cheating to get players onto the team, they lost their football team for a year under NCAA sanction. The school added a second year. For cheating on SATs and grades.
Penn State decided the football programme was more important than stopping a sexual predator and, yes, they got hit hard, but they still have a football team.
Nice priorities, NCAA.
Well, duh. If I have my towel they’ll be happy to give me clothes. I’m one hoopy frood.
And yeah, the blockquote fail was just me moving from one site that used [] brackets to here and not using preview Silly me.
From there:
“Didn’t do everyhing”?
“Didn’t do everyhing”?!?!
He didn’t fucking do anything, did he now?
The evidence would point to him actively doing his best to keep it quiet.
This pathetic excuse for walking, talking cognitive dissonance.
I assume your talking about NGT saying Republicans are more proscience because they spend more money on it?
Despite that they are against, Evolution, Stem cell, Global Warming
No, Niel, they do not give more money FOR science. They give money for science to give them the answers they want. You should know this.
Wrong thread
Wrong thread I think, Ing. Unless you meant to move the convo to TET.
Oooh! Can I have a pony, too?!
Sorry, we posted at the same time.
It’s so fucking stupid that someone might get a chuckle out of addressing it, but it was a wrong thread.
Occasionally NDGT says something very very stupid. Such as his agnosticism not atheism.
Welcome to the lounge, Patrick.
Ogvorbis:
While you’re at it, I want a dragon. A silver one. A firebreather. Female preferred.
Sadly, yes. I love NDGT, but sometimes he can be so frustrating. Aaaargh!
Frankly talking about anything else is a plus. Had a bad day.
Had to drop union action against old boss. Got to me that word is being spread to new employer that I have an attitude problem.
Union cannot protect you, even in blatant violations of the contact and of blatant abuse and exploitation. The word of the faculty is still iron and they can black ball you.
Yes. That would be so nice. I also want a Death Star, half a dosen shetland ponies and a live Elasmotherium. It… It’s just not gonna happen, is it?
@pentatomid
Thanks for the welcome! I feel like I’ve said this about 8 times today, but finding FTB through PZ was a wonderful thing.
Ing, that blows. Do you mind if I ask where you work? If intrusive, consider that inquiry withdrawn. In any case, wouldn’t it be nice if there were a federal agency that dealt with such issues…. or at least, wouldn’t it be nice if it were fully staffed and could hold hearings.
I do remember my days as a grad student where I basically had to force the CWA to accept me as a union member. Paperwork snafus, bad volunteer on the campus who just messed up. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much trouble voluntarily giving away money. Bit of non sequitur, but eh.
NDN?
So something like “Oreo” and “Banana”? ” ___ on the outside, white on the inside”?
Sili:
Say it out loud – en dee en – Indian.
No. Did you read the list? Twinkie refers to those who wish to co-opt all things Indian, along with do other stupid things, like think “Dances with Wolves” was just *wonderful!* and so on.
As for the oreo/banana/ crap, when you mean to describe someone like that who is NDN, the term is apple – red on the outside…
@mouthyb I lost the post number…
You know what gets me? When they say stupid shit like “we couldn’t afford to go to the carribean that year, remember and then[…] blah blah, We were so poor when I was a kid”. If they are a semi friend I might respond with “yeah, my mom used to count the chicken legs in the package to make sure we would all have at least one even if she had to do without and if we were lucky we’d get a can of peaches too”
okay, white trash trolling but you know that re-definition of poor really pisses me off sometimes. But the other stuff you mentioned happens so often I really don’t even hear it any more.
The Louis queue is more of a writhing ball. :)
@Josh
I was just wondering how the ever loving fuck you know I had Cherokee in my family. lol it’s funny now. Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians aamof
@CT If I followed that from Josh he didn’t, he was making a musical reference?
I was puzzled, yes. I did get that the list was very much aimed at the hipster racists, but I spent too much time trying to figure out the label. Sorry.
he was, but I didn’t get it and while I was typing my stilted reply I just kept thinking ‘what the hell, how did he know that’. laughing at myself.
Very true, Carlie. An apt descriptor, for sure. :D
Sili:
That list was put together by an Apache years before the term ‘hipster’ was even coined. NDNs have disdained twinkies for fucking generations. This is not a new thing.
I’ve been reading Bart Ehrman lately, and while he tries to label himself a “very happy agnostic”, I don’t actually see any evidence that he believes in gods any more than Dawkins do. I guess he just don’t want the stigma of the word “atheist”.
Or perhaps it’s because his wife is still a believer (I’d ask how the everloving fuck does that works, but I assume it’s a matter of not taken work home to the dinnertable – and then again, Mark Goodacre is, himself, a believer so a good knowledge of the New Testament doesn’t preclude one from being a Christian).
I keep a drop-cloth in my trunk. Close enough, right?
True. I didn’t realise that trying to pose as a Native American was actually always that popular (in the spirit guide and so on way), but I got to cringing about the depiction of “Indians” in the comic books of my childhood the other day and cringed.
Yup.
“Playing Indian” has a long, dirty history, going back to the earliest European settlements in North America. It could be used for con-games, for spiritualist bullshit, for masking your crimes (Boston Tea Party!). It’s the same old noble savage bullshit it’s always been. It could be argued (and has been) that the US was built on it.
IIRC, that was true back in my college days when the radicals where attempting to
co-opthelp the native Americans, and more or less were told to FOAD.It was one of L. Ron Hubbard’s many bald-faced lies.
@Sili, 54
Love the reference. His writing style is…unique. I was just depressed that that was treated as a legitimate citation on that Wikipedia article. I shudder to think how frequent that sort of reference is across Wikipedia is. Honestly, referencing a Senior thesis from Liberty for anything other than something clearly noted as an opinion?
I see your bird, and I raise you a story about Jim Henson taking naked pictures of Frank Oz.
Oh yeah. I used to teach private SAT prep classes when I was in grad school, and ugh. Listening to them talking about their spring break trips…
Bleeeeeeeeeeegh, I never knew pasta could be so starchy. I feel like I have a rock sitting in my stomach.
——————————————–
I must have been super-sheltered growing up, because I never ran into anyone who acted out any of the traits on that list, Caine. Maybe it was better that way – I got into enough trouble for telling off one of Mom’s friends for using the word “sp*c” when talking about Puerto Ricans.
———————————————
Thunder. This must be the opening number. About time, too. We cancelled every outdoor activity planned for today due to hearing about possible storms. Kids were probably bored out of their minds.
On top of which, two of them got caught stealing when helping clean out one of the classrooms. One stole a pencil sharpener and the other stole money – fifty cents, but still, it’s the whole stealing part that gets me, since pretty much everything left in the classroom belonged to the teacher. Their reason. “Because we wanted it.” This coming from a soon-to-be seventh grader and a soon-to-be fifth grader.
——————————————
All right, excuse me, my stomach can’t take it anymore.
I checked the thesis, and either the claim isn’t referenced, or it’s lifted wholesale from a book. (Christian, of course.) So it’s not even a good reference to put in an encyclopædia.
Time to go fix (er, reheat) dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs, salad (not nuked), and garlic bread.
So I was reading a local (statewide) outdoor magazine in my doctor’s office today, and I had a rather pleasant surprise when I read an article by a John Ozoga (apparently a recognized expert on Whitetail deer), which contained a very good explanation of kin selection and an example of its application to his field. I was impressed.
Where’s your sense of adventure, Nerd? There’s nothing like nuked salad to get your whatsit somethinging. Besides, if you microwave cherry tomatoes you can spend hours cleaning the oven. Everyone needs a hobby! :-)
You play for keeps, I see.
(Is that George Lucas in the pews? Or didn’t he look that old and fat back then?)
I did a bit more sniffing about for Lisak material after the blazing trolls in the Shame thread, and came across an old email interview. I found this part telling: (emphases mine)
http://mencanstoprape.blogspot.com/2011/11/predatory-rape-on-college-campuses.html
Y’know? By fighting the trolls and calling out misogynists within skepticism and atheism, not to mention getting harassment policies enacted in almost all major conferences, we’ve been doing pretty darn well.
So, remember that pro-life lady that I was arguing with earlier? Yup, I think I made her cry.
PTI:
Do you remember an ad campaign about littering that ran for ages with Iron Eyes Cody? (You might be too young.) The Indian, in full regalia*, looking out at a littered landscape, tear running down the face?
There was much ado about that and all this luuuuv for Iron Eyes Cody and the noble
savagesIndians. Well, “Iron Eyes Cody” was an Italian (Espera Oscar de Corti) born in Louisiana. While he wasn’t an out and out twinkie, he fought being outed as a non-Indian for ages. It came out publicly in ’96. He did do a lot of work in trying to help actual Indians, but he also made a lucrative living playing Indian.*This is a loathing point, one where twinkiness abides. Every fucking male Indian ever is always portrayed either shirtless or with the obligatory eagle feather headdress. The headdress is not traditional with most tribes and in those tribes where it was used, it was reserved for certain individuals. I can’t stand all the idiocy surrounding regalia.
Bully!
Biscuit?
If there’s any Korean food fans out there, I just posted the recipe for vegetarian Bibimbap on the Cookbook for the Pharyngula wiki.
Oh, I looked in on the smug thread. PZ posted about some douche at rationalia posting under the nym Audley Strange. I really have to wonder if that idiot lifted that nym from here.
Sili:
Don’t mind if I do!
*urp!*
]
Sure, but it comes with a can of peas. And some dried peas. And some frozen peas. And some fresh ones.
With that one, it also comes with wasabi peas.
The death star comes with peas frozen so solid they can used for a game of marbles.
No, the Louisqueue is a mass of Brownian motion.
When I was in elementary school in Arizona, if we played cowboys and Indians, the Indians were the Indians. Literally. Navajo, Hopi and Havasu. And the Hispanic kids were the vacqueros. Made for some interesting social dynamics.
Er, pasta is a starch.
Some of the families I knew in Maryland, when in high school, never, ever ate raw vegetables. Or fruit. Even lettuce was cooked.
Good.
The NAs I went to school with thought that was hilarious. He was paid well, though.
When I moved back east and people found I had gone to school with Indians, they asked, “what did they wear?” They were very let down when I answered, “The kids I knew? Jeans, cowboy boots, button down shirt. Boys and girls.”
Caine:
Oh, booooo. I haven’t even posted on that damned thread.
Ogvorbis:
Hah! As my family says, the veterans of Brownian motion.
*russian idioms*
Ogvorbis:
That’s cool, Mister likes those.
Sili, I bow to your mastery.
mouthyb, thank you! but what is ‘crushed red pepper’ ?
*durrrrrrrr*
Sili, not that easy. I started using Audley Darke around 16 years ago, maybe longer, but Audley is a common surname in the UK and it’s not completely impossible someone else liked the whole Audley/Oddly thing.
Unlikely in the circumstances, I grant you.
*gloats*
At least noöne decided to break out the Jurassic Bark.
The problem with avocado cookies is that avocados should not be cooked. They get quite unpleasantly bitter. You can just warm them through gently if you want, but that’s it. Some cultures do use them as a sweet – but in things like ice-cream and smoothies.
Caine, I get (or kind of get) most of the twinkie list, but why “you think apples are for eating”? What else are apples for? Also, is NDN a term that non-NDNs should not use? (I think it’s quite funny. “Indian” is so wrong, so it’s poking fun.)
Cipher: big safe e-hugs for you!
ZOMGWTFBBQ?!!! What!???!! I really really really *hope*, for the sake of her other clients, that she isn’t really an evil victim-blamey arsehole, but was majorly fucking up her words in your one case. (As I’m sure you know, but others may not, one of the signs of child sexual abuse is hyper-sexualised behaviour, as the child applies what zie’s learned from the abuse to other occasions. Horrifying and sad.)
OK, now it looks like I have to go read some horror-threads. I suspect PZ of Making A Point with that “be polite” one.
After the FreeFromThoughtBlahgs, I’m not given to assuming good faith.
I do remember that, but mostly because a) it was discussed on some TV show many years after it aired, and b) one of the Wayne’s World movies riffed on it, so to speak, towards the end. So I’ve never seen the ad itself, just by proxy.
I don’t understand the whole “show ’em shirtless or in full regalia” thing. Well, no, maybe I can. The former is cashing in the sex appeal of a well-toned body, and the latter is cashing in on the striking visuals/power display. Total lizard brain appeal, on top of the ease of using stereotypes. Is that about right?
And you just reminded me of something that happened to me when I was in high school doing a project for history class, but that’s for another post. This is long enough for now.
*goes back to sipping soothe-the-tummy tea*
Alethea, “apple” is the Native version of “Oreo” or “banana.” Red on the outside, white underneath.
Also,: Og, I know pasta is a starch. But Christ, that fettucine left the cooking water so thick it looked kind of like the fat you skim off homemade chicken broth once it’s cooled down. Maybe Mom didn’t use enough water this one time? Whatever the reason, my stomach rebelled.
Hi threadizens! *waves*
I made the mistake of checking back to the latest evil thread.
D:
I need rats…stat!
*clicks open a new rat tab*
*thinks up new, inventive, methods of vermin troll eradication*
*cute wins*
The tails! OMG look at their adorable pink tipped tails!
Ah, a good, oldfashioned, rambling, whiny Christian. Oh, whence the trolls of yesteryear?
Alethea:
Apple – red on the outside, white on the inside. As far as NDN, it wouldn’t bother me if non-NDNs use it, although I’ve only ever seen NDNs use it so far.
I have a question for those of you who went to school in the US. The discussion of racism against against Native American* people made me wonder, what do American students learn about Native American history?
Growing up in Manitoba, we spent a decent portion of our social studies classes in 6th and 9th grade learning about the major aboriginal groups in Canada. But the lessons focused on aboriginal life prior to the arrival of Europeans, and we didn’t learn much about aboriginal history after that. The one exception was a focus on how the Metis** were involved in the founding of Manitoba, which we studied in 11th grade. Unfortunately, I don’t recall learning very much at all about residential schools – I believe that students learn more about that now.
Even with some basic education on aboriginal history, there’s still a depressing amount of racism and inequality in Canada, and conditions on northern reserves are unbelievable.
*Apologies if this isn’t the correct terminology, and please feel free to correct me. I know the preferred terms in Canada, but not in the States.
**Is there an equivalent to the Metis in the States? I’ve seen the term “haffer” here, but are there organized groups like the Metis Federation?
Nutmeg: I’m from a US fundie school and I got nothing, barely studied history at all and it was whitewashed. I only learned the phrase “Trail of Tears” last year.
*Checks sense of adventure, checks the Redhead’s probable reaction, decides on the wisest course*
Puts out raw salad veggie mix, diced onion, and freshly diced Roma tomatoes.
Very little is taught about Indians in the U.S. and most of what is taught is from the jingoistic* side or wrong.
*As in, white, patriotic Americans good, Indians bad.
Pteryxx: You get it with pizza sometimes. It’s red pepper flakes many places.
Nutmeg – If my recollections of high school and before are any indication, US students don’t learn very much about Native American history. The one exception I can think of would be the US history teacher I had one year in high school, but even then, I doubt we learned as much as we could have. Makes me envy my best friend, at HER high school, the teachers got to make up their courses, and one of them came up with a whole class about Crazy Horse. That wouldn’t fare well where I went, I think.
I don’t recall learning much about all the different tribes, if at all. There wasn’t much focus on their history before the the Europeans came, or after. Anything I did learn about those topics came later, when I looked around online for project info and talked to some local Native Americans (Pequot mostly, the Mohegan tribe did not really make it onto my radar, again until later, since they didn’t have a museum next to their casino). Really, when it came down to it, if I wanted to know more than what I learned in class, I had to find out on my own.
Thanks Caine. And duh! on the apple thing. Quite a bit of that list is applicable to Australian Aboriginal peoples, too, with some minor tweaks. No feathery headdresses, but the equivalent is surely the noble savage in his loincloth and body paint, one foot up and resting on his other leg, leaning on his spear and gazing into the distance. It’s quite sickening, some of the appropriation.
oh, thanks mouthyb, I have seen that bizarre condiment.
—
Via Ophelia: Ronald Lindsay of CFI speaking out, further in Surly Amy’s series.
http://skepchick.org/2012/07/speaking-out-against-hate-directed-at-women-ronald-a-lindsay/
Alethea:
Oh yes, I know that pose! I saw it too many times growing up. Yes, very much noble savage.
@ Sili, #26 –
Yeah, I noticed that clause, too.
Of course, you’re wrong in asserting he did nothing. He actively impeded reporting in order to retain Sandusky on the payroll.
This wasn’t, “Ooops, I forgot to fulfill my ethical obligations.”
This was, “Ooops, I figured out what my ethical obligations were and then actively did the opposite of that.”
Nutmeg:
I was home-schooled after the third grade, so my recollection is a bit muddled. I know things were pretty Disney-fied when I was in elementary school. I did use the same books that public schools used while I was being taught at home–as well as encyclopedias–and what I do remember was standard, cartoonish crap that focused on making relations seem as friendly as possible and tried to gloss over the oppression and genocide. If conflict was mentioned, it was twisted in a way to make it appear that Indians were responsible.
It’s hard to be sure, though, because I learned a lot directly from my grandmother (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa) and mother, so if something went along with what I already knew of history in a book, I’d be less inclined to remember. It was largely the stuff I knew was wrong that stuck out. I remember the stories about the smallpox tainted blankets as far back as ten years old, but I’m quite sure that wasn’t in any of my state approved books.
College was much better. I was lucky enough to have some very progressive professors.
Pteryxx: If you don’t like it hot, you can always just use table pepper. It should have a little bite.
…If y’all really want to cringe, one of the Christian press books I grew up with was “Swift Arrow”.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Swift_Arrow.html?id=KMheDEpEu9UC
mouthyb: Oh, hot’s fine. Hot’s *wonderful*. I just didn’t know what that kind of pepper was… crushed dried chilies? dried sweet bell? But I use sriracha on almost everything.
Havelock: I shall wiggle my butt. I shall wiggle my butt here. I shall wiggle my butt there. I shall wiggle my butt everywhere!
Goofy boy.
I don’t see where anybody gets off extrapolting his or her personal experience to the entire USA. Do you know how many elementary, middle, and high schools are encompassed by that kind of general assertion? And the even larger number of individual teachers (which is the real determinate, I bet)?
My kids had a several-week segment on the Iroqois Confederacy and its history, which was a great deal more than I learned when I was in school.
Pteryxx: Anything smoky hot will do. If you’re making that dish, I make my marinades considerably less sweet than normal, so you might want to add more brown sugar.
*pulling out a fireplace match and lighting it*
–
Foodies: help?
Is there a good, easy, tasty recipe out there for home-making cherry pie filling? The Husband is a diabetic, and jonesing for cherry pie something horrible; I keep catching him sneaking dreadful little store-bought horrors into the shopping cart. He likes to bake, so I thought, maybe….
–
*gag*
If your banana has gone brown and mooshy, either make banana nut bread, or carefully tip that sucker into a hole and bury it. Try not to get any of the peel on your hands.
–
*watching Caine closely, cushions in hand, in case/when she swoons at the prospect of having 5000 rats*
–
I have the ugly suspicion that this is…wishful thinking…on the part of some people. See, if they’re all dead, then moral/ethical questions concerning their treatment (past, present & future) become moot points, and the process of Romanticised Nostalgia can procede unhindered by uncomfortable facts. Living, breathing Indians are inconvenient.
Or maybe I’m just cynically giving too little credit to my fellow human beings.
(But I doubt it.)
–
Carlie:
Some questions – are what the christians did to various tribes, the children in particular being addressed? How are treaties, land grabs and massacres being addressed? How is Greasy Grass taught (also known as Little Bighorn) – is Custer still treated as a great hero? What about incidents like the mass hanging at Mankato?
I’m curious because I don’t know what kids are being taught these days, specifically, and wonder about the slant of it all.
Cicely:
True. I have met people who truly think Western Indians are extinct and it’s pure ignorance on their part.
I had about a week or two of Native American history taught in my middle school. Not much, and what there was of it was this kind of “Indians were our friends” and the noble savage jibber-jabber — this was near Seattle, so we got a lot of the Chief Seattle, wise counsel to the white settlers, sort of stuff.
I learned much more when I was in high school and read a lot of the more critical histories; also, I got this very confused perspective because as a moderately adventurous youth I’d often take the bus up to downtown Seattle, and hang out in the Pioneer Square area…which as those familiar with it know, is where you can find a very dignified statue of Chief Seattle, and you can also find a lot of desperately poor and homeless Native Americans on the park benches.
My family lives right near the Muckleshoot reservation, where the various White River tribes were all lumped together and confined. We had next to no exposure to native culture, other than their prosperous trade in cigarettes and fireworks.
So no, in my experience, negligible exposure to Native American culture. We got much more instruction and discussion about Japanese culture (another big thing in the Pacific Northwest), but the local aboriginals…nope. Which is a shame. That area had a lot of very diverse and very prosperous and advanced cultures, with trade networks all across the region and fairly sophisticated maritime technologies.
I really don’t want to say where I work save that it is a big institution and is supposed to protect from it. It’s just that with a Uni staff has so much power being the movers and shakers that getting a bad rep working for them is a death sentence apparently. And there is a bit of a “who are you going to believe…”
I think the abortion flame war is finally over. Yay! Antichoice lady brought her kid into it to say “My mommy didn’t abort me, I’m special!”, then they both left in a huff.
I never did get a reaction to the pic of the elephant fetus. :(
Oh, but I think my kids got much more here in Western Minnesota. This is kind of a center of Native American academia: we offer free tuition to Native Americans, and so a significant fraction of our student body identifies as Indian, mainly the local tribes, but we also get a scattering from all across North America. Native American rituals are featured in all the university ceremonies, we host a couple of pow-wows every year, and we offer courses in Anishinaabe.
My history book occasionally had a point counter point side bar for various topics of possible moral ambiguity, you know the gray areas
“was the trail of tears necessary?”
“Was the Japanese Interment a good thing?”
with arguments from both sides. Because treatment of minorities is open to debate you know.
Audley:
FFS. Yeah, great argument. :near fatal eyeroll:
carlie:
We did too, but it was very much: Indians are awesome and peaceful* and perfect stewards of the environment and they loved the white settlers to pieces! So, “noble savage” with all the trimmings.
I also recall learning about the Trail of Tears briefly in high school, but it was incredibly glossed over (some tribes were forced to move off their ancestral land) and didn’t learn about the horrors until well into college.
*Wut.
We have a Danish saying (usually applied to knick-knacks): More special than valuable. Or something like that.
Caine – literally, it was just about the tribes forming the confederacy and what they wanted and got out of it, and a little on the differences between the tribes. New York state regional history only – nothing about southern or western history. It was sympathetic towards the Native Americans, as I remember, and touched on their bad treatment by Europeans.
When I lived in Kansas there was a lot of info embedded in the local culture about the terrible treatment Native American children got, because it was the home of one of the biggest re-education centers at one point and is now a Native American university, but I don’t know how much of that seeped into the k-12 curriculum.
Caine:
Totally. I told her that she was welcome to the debate after she had grown up a bit and that’s when she and her mom flounced.
It’s a pity. I’ve been looking for an anti-choice fight lately and that one had no meat to it.
We learned nothing about the Trail of Tears.
We had a little bit about the Nez Perce and “I will fight no more forever.”
The Japanese internments were never mentioned, which was really weird. My wife-to-be and I both worked in the summers on small truck farms owned by Japanese families of a certain age, and it was only after I got older and read up on the internment that I realized they’d all been dispossessed and had to rebuild from the ground up after the war. Recommended reading: Neiwert’s Strawberry Days. It made me realize how screwed over those people had been.
Growing up, the bulk of the references to Native Americans I got in school fell into three categories:
1) Stuff about pre-Colonial time. Major emphasis on noble savages and crap.
2) Stuff about Colonial time up until the end of the wars in the 1870s. Major emphasis on savagery, Manifest Destiny, all that. Butchery at Little Bighorn! Scalping!
3) Stuff about the tribes local to the area (the Miami), including some accurate (I think?) discussions of how they’ve lived, customs, and such.
___
Fun fact: my sibling graduated from Florida State University. Which is in Tallahassee, smack in the middle of Seminole territory. And a lot was made about this. A tribal elder came to the ceremony to bless the graduates. An honor guard presented the flag of the Seminole Nation. A speech about the scholarship fund for Seminole students was given.
And then the students, in response to a highlight reel of campus showing a brief clip of a football game (specifically, shot of a man in buckskin pants, no shirt, and massive feathered headdress riding an also be-feathered speckled horse bareback) stood, starting whooping, and waving their arms. The gesture looked very odd to me (fist closed, upper arm outstretched horizontal to the ground, and a back-and-forth motion of the lower arm), so I asked my sibling about it later. It was a tomahawk chop.
Of course it was.
SoCal here, we had some basics but nothing much. I’ve been to “Little Big Horn” and got the “Custer was an idiot” version of that fight when I was there, but it was barely mentioned in school.
We probably got more of a focus of the Spanish and natives than most places would, as we did study the missions a fair bit. However, even there it was more “educating and clothing the poor locals” than anything.
I do remember having my junior high history teacher give us the “Europeans came and fucked things up” version, at least to a point, but I doubt we spent more than a day or two on pre-colonization North America.
Of corpse.
If the US can argue that Israël needs to be handed back and protected after 1888 years, then it’d be really inconvenient is there were actually any aboriginal Americans remaining, who could lay claim to North America. Better to think them extinct.
Of course, given how many ‘specimens’ have been saved away in basements and cabinets all over the place, we could of course try to bring them back – like the mammoth.
Eurrgh. I disgust myself.
PZ:
It wasn’t mentioned in any of my history classes, either! Of course, we can’t mention anything that sullies WWII, what with that being a and all that bullshit. *eyeroll*
I’ve been to Little Big Horn. It was excellent! The guide who gave us the Park Service overview was Native American, and he told it all from their perspective…and he was hilarious. He seemed to take great joy in telling all the white people in their RVs about how Custer’s butt was roundly kicked.
I read PZ’s “We learned nothing about the Trail of Tears.” as “We’ve learned nothing from the Trail of Tears” and wanted to agree.
The United States government perpetrated an act of genocide. And yes, that is what that was. By itself, and in combination with the rest of the government policies towards Native Americans since Colonial days.
And we don’t talk about this. We don’t acknowledge it. We downplay the significance.
found a neat site, full of informational photos, about the Dakota concentration camp museum at Fort Snelling:
http://nativeamericanminnesota.org/archives/51/
When I went to elementary school back in the 70’s, we actually did spend a lot of time learning about the various Native Americans of the US. I still remember the map of MN and history of various place names lesson vividly.
Our city was a trick question, because it is the English version of the original Lakota name. Our school yearbook is known as the Matoskan. You can go to Matoska park, gateway to Manitou Island.
I remember a lot of the most casual racism was in the girl scouts. We could get “scout” merit badges for making objects using supposed native american techniques. I made a woven rush mat, from cattails.
Welcome in, patrickgranvold!
–
But, Katherine, this play is ! Accuracy need not apply.
:)
–
+1
–
“White Rose”? I assume we aren’t referencing the House of York?
*checking Wikipedia*
Ah, yes; I remember reading about this, but didn’t remember the connection.
–
Well, technically I’ve only been to a skeptics meet-up, but it was expressly for the purpose of meeting with other atheists, but I went with my green-on-black Celt-thulu tee shirt with black jeans.
:)
–
+ ∞
And I’d rather have a dragon than a pony, too. Purple would be awesome, but silver is good, too.
–
Pteryxx, you’re talking about Ernest Adams, right? Yeah, as the thread wore on I became progressively less impressed with him. Being an ally means listening, and he doesn’t want to listen, he wants to preach.
Nutmeg, I barely remember learning anything about Native American history in my classes. And I was in one of the “better” school districts. In first grade we acted out the “First Thanksgiving,” with headgear made out of colored construction paper — Pilgrim hats for some (mostly white) kids, “headdresses” for some other (mostly white) kids. I’m not even sure we had any NA kids in my school.
Cicely:
The NA writer Linda Hogan has written on this theme rather eloquently, especially when it comes to the myth of how “empty” the continent supposedly was as white people moved further and further west, and how this “emptiness” is a central theme of American iconography.
Caine:
Richard:
Jesus FUCKING Christ, people are stupid and ignorant.
Richard, I’m glad that guy was willing to be educated. I agree with you that a great many middle-to-upper-class people are remarkably ignorant… including an awful lot with post-graduate degrees. This country has never suffered from an excess of intellectualism, but it’s gotten worse over the last 30 years, with the defunding of “frills” in education plus the commoditization of post-secondary education discussed in the last TET or the one before it.
Audley:
HA-ha!
(I’m sure Lilandra wouldn’t approve.)
That’s pathetic. As pathetic as linking you to a Li’l Markie song.
Hey, PZ: Here’s another Alternet concern troll. by Prof. James Rohrer. There is a response here that mentions you by name.
Did I miss a joke?
Custer was hardly the sharpest crayon around, however, his being a bad strategist is not the slant given in most history books.
Ing:
No. That was after you said you were leaving in the smug thread.
I have a fascinating history teacher…
We spend a great deal of time talking about a topic– give us several perspectives, then set us free to write a research paper. It’s quite fun.
Primary sources required.
In the beginning of the year, we spent a great deal of time talking about the British, Spanish, and French colonial empires, and how they treated the Indians. The British displaced, the Spanish conquered and enslaved, and the French traded (and mingled).
Of course it was.
Uh-oh. Minnesota’s Indian War is an ugly topic — a lot of abuse of the Dakota, with hot spurts of ugly violence on both sides, culminating in a mass execution, with the dead bodies being shipped off to medical/scientific institutions for dissection and display.
Not a story for the squeamish. Or those easily aroused by injustice.
Also, how post-glacial rebound caused the American Revolution.
I’m not joking.
Not like that, Sili. The upper arm stayed away from the chest, going from sticking up to being horizontal.
It is even on YouTube. Complete with the “war chant.”
Ms Daisy Cutter: yeah, I was venting about Ernest Adams, and I’m still so disgusted I can’t go back to that thread. I can’t believe *Ophelia* is happy with his forced-real-name suggestion, and his reply to everyone was this:
right, never mind that forced outing is an absolute deal-breaker for many of the people you’re supposedly helping, dude.
*goes aside to partly-metaphorically hurl*
Daisy:
That wasn’t me, it was Caerie.
Srsly. I didn’t mean to harp on about this, but this false claim was nicely repeated in “A land without people, for people without a land.”
Yeah I’m done with everything for a while, except maybe TET. Like Brownian said, I’m so sick of dealing with slyme and frankly every single fucking Septic
I have no idea if that football chant is authentic Seminole. Quite frankly, I don’t know if which would be worse.
Tethys:
Oh, same here. The name of my city is an English bastardization of the Dutch bastardization of a Mohawk term meaning “near the pine trees”. I didn’t learn that in school, though– all we learned in school was that the settlement that would become my hometown was burnt to the ground by the French and Mohawk in 16*mumble mumble*. Except for that, there were no one but Dutch settlers in this area, no siree!
Esteleth:
I think a big part of that is because to admit to the full force of that atrocity would make it all too easy to then have to look at all of the stuff they did in the 20th century and this one. In many ways, the genocide continues. It’s just a little subtler. Easier to ignore the whole issue.
I was thinking more of the sentiment.
I must have seen that film at school, and I don’t recall caring for it. But damn, if the memory hasn’t stayed with me.
QFT.
I once got in an argument with some earnest do-gooder about this. His response? To ask me if I’m Native (I am not, not even a little bit).
I fucking love you so hard right now. :D
And time for bed!
Coulda been worse.Coulda been kittens.
Thanks for all the interesting perspectives. It seems like there’s a lot of variation in how much people learned about Native American history, but it generally varies from nothing at all to mediocre.
I hadn’t thought about it in detail before now, but there are some very large gaps in what I learned at school. What we learned about aboriginal history pretty much stopped after ~1800, and we switched to learning about the different waves of immigration. (Which is also a valuable topic in Canadian history.) But we never learned very much about the treaties, and that’s something I should probably educate myself about some more.
Other Canadians – what did you learn about? I wonder if we learned more than average about aboriginal history in Manitoba, because we have a high proportion of First Nations and Metis people here.
PZ:
I asked about the mass hanging in Mankato upthread, because I don’t know whether that is being taught anywhere (I don’t mean university) and what the slant is, if it’s being taught.
The Seventies, duh.
When US kids were taught the metric system, and the president put solar panels on the White House.
Caine,
Audley
Basically. That’s what I got in Michigan. Very rarely mentioned, glossed over and focused on the American settlers and not on the Native Americans.
In AZ it was so much worse. So, so much worse. I seriously can’t even begin to describe it. They didn’t bother with the “noble savages”. We were taught racism and lies about what happened and about Native Americans.
I learned about the Trail of Tears in college from a Native American student. The reaction from everyone in the class, including the teacher, was shock or disbelief. The teacher was asking her questions like “when did this happen?”. There were a couple of dudebro assholes who were talking shit after class calling the student a liar.
Most, if not all my education, as incomplete as it is, has been from here.
The only class I can think of that was honest about the bloody past was a history class in high school. That class was informative on the Holocaust (not just Jews were murdered, talked about Hitler’s strategies), America’s Japanese interment camps, religious conquest with Catholics and Apartheid. Nothing about what we did to the Native Americans though.
There was also a science teacher that straight up said something like “I have to say this. Some people believe, without actual evidence, that God made the world and Adam and Eve. The end. Go ask your parents about religion. I’m here to teach you science so for the creation theory, we’re going to watch the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe.” We watched the movie. Then he taught us science. It was awesome. The only two classes I can think of that did well. I know the other science teachers were creationists. That’s really sad. I wonder if those two awesome teachers are even still employed.
(Yes, all anecdotal but someone asked for our experiences and that’s what we are talking about)
——-
My step-father is an apple. He’s white but claims native. He did when he was in prison and talks about being 1/16th…something. I forget. I’ve tried talking to him about it but he’s a brick wall. He doesn’t get it. He’s also a fundie and thinks the apocalypse is coming soon. He says he’ll take us all up in the hills of Oklahoma where he grew up to hunt and survive when the end of the world happens. I can’t get through to him. There’s just no point in trying to talk to him about this stuff.
—————
I get the Oreo and an apple reference but I’ve never heard of banana. What does that apply to?
Esteleth:
Well, why would you possibly care if you weren’t NDN?
Unfortunately, that’s the attitude of whole lot of people.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120725150215.htm
Sorry if you’ve seen this before but it seemed like the kind of study some of you might be interested in.
Okay, I’ve switched my nym around to hopefully be less prone to getting confused with Caine without being now confused with a different person entirely.
…at least I hope not.
Benjamin Geiger is back.
So nice to discover that Betteridge’s Law actually has a name. Makes it much easier to be snarky.
JAL, “banana” is the Asian equivalent.
Empty land, eh? That’s a familiar one. See “Terra Nullius” in Australia.
We had a “20 years since Mabo” celebration at work recently.
@Esteleth
Another way it is minimized is by putting Andrew Jackson in the $20 bill. That guy was a genocidal maniac. He doesn’t deserve to be honored in any way.
JAL:
No, your step-father is a twinkie. An apple is an NDN who would rather be white, so acts white, talks white, tries to emulate white in every way.
Caine – do you mind if I send you an email? I think I still have it on an old group mailing somewhere.
JAL:
Someone who is Asian, but identifies with white culture and concerns over their own community.
I can think of worse people to be confused with.
ibeya:
Trufax.
Sili, I agree, but I’d hate for Caine to get saddled with some dumb think I said!
Is that good or bad? I couldn’t access his link.
Caerie:
You can count me among the non-confused, if that makes you feel better.
Daisy:
As long as he doesn’t attempt to weigh in on any of the feminism threads here.
Likewise – from here, other forum communities, individual folks’ blogs that get passed around on significant dates, Wikipedia and Cracked. I think I know about sundown towns due to a comment thread on Crommunist’s, most of what I know about Native American atrocities comes from two online friends and Stephanie Zvan, and the Japanese internment camps info comes from TVTropes, George Takei, and my anime mentor.
Carlie:
No, not at all! If you don’t have it, you can find my e-address at http://caine.zenfolio.com/
Caine
Oh, derp. That was stupid of me sorry. He’s a twinkie. I even went to your link about it. >.<
Ohhh, that’s a duh moment. Thanks everyone.
Caerie:
Pffft, I’m not worried about that! You aren’t getting proper credit for a lot of things you do say, though, and that bothers me.
Pteryxx, I left another reply to Adams. I suspect I will be scolded for my “tone.”
Sorry, Caine (and Caerie). I usually don’t misread one person’s name for another, but it’s getting late here.
Also, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood is such an insufferable tone troll. Yes, because it plays into existing harmful tropes that we should get rid of.
I just saw the link for sundown towns in a recent thread here. You might have been the person who linked it. That’s some eye opening shit. Made me think back on my town and how we never had more than one black family living there and they quickly moved. The longest they lasted was a school year. My town isn’t on the site though it probably should be. I was young and didn’t pay attention. I wish I had. =(
Sili (previous page),
Comments here aren’t numbered in the source, but rather are an numbered list that your browser creates on the fly.
Huh, I’m recalling LB-W as a White Hat. Am I mixing up nyms?
Thanks Ms Daisy Cutter – a bunch of folks weighed in on anonymity, and if I try to answer a wave of citations and quotes and examples and outrage rises behind my eyes so I can’t get any coherent thoughts out. One of ’em is “you’re being cavalier with my personal safety” from Schroedinger’s Rapist, IIRC. danah boyd said it all better than I could anyway, with cites.
JAL, Pt’xx:
What’s a sundown town?
(/clueless)
thunk: sundown towns were whites-only communities kept segregated by the threat of force. the name comes from “nigger, don’t let the sun set on you in [xxx]”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
List of sundown towns:
http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/content.php?file=sundowntowns-whitemap.html
…heck, in searching I found this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/27/989124/-Anti-racism-DoJ-sues-modern-day-sundown-town-in-Wisconsin
Thunk:
Ever heard of a search engine? A sundown town is one that had a rule that niggers had best be off the street before or by sundown.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sundown+town
Here’s a list of Minnesota sundown towns. You might be living in one now.
Also, here’s Seattle: didn’t exclude blacks, but did kick out Native Americans and Asians.
HIVEMIIIIINNNNNNND!!!
Caine, Sili:
Herp-a-derp.
The internet is at my fingertips! Why am I asking you?
No peas, of any sort at all, with my dragon, pls. All of my porcupines are already stuffed and ready to freeze.
–
I recall it vividly. He was the best Iron Eyes Cody who was ever Iron Eyes Cody. </obscure literary reference>
I also recall my surprise when I found out that he was Italian (?), and not Native American.
–
In SoCal, where I did elementary school (in the ’60s) there was a unit covering the Native American/Mission era. Not particularly in-depth.
In OK, in my high school years (early/mid ’70s) there was some coverage in the compulsory Oklahoma History semester-long class; but my teacher was primarily a coach, and just assigned chapters, then retired to the back of the room to make X’s and O’s on a standalone chalkboard with the football guys.
I got rather more exposure at college; but then, that was in Tahlequah, which may have a bearing.
In American History in general (in the public school system), we had the full Manifest Destiny treatment. Nothing pre-colonial at all, and no differentiation between Native American peoples. Well, not until you hit Aztec territory, anyway.
Most of my admittedly inadequate knowledge on these and related subjects has been from extracurricular reading on my part.
–
Indeed. Needless to say, not dwelt upon in
Manifest DestinyAmerican History class.–
Thanks Pt’xx.
Although my town was not listed on there, many other towns nearby were.
It’s still a very white-dominated community in this area.
Also has a strong Teaturd contingent.
I have freakin’ had it with Jo-Ann “Fabrics”. There was once a time in the misty past when I could actually shop there for, y’know, fabric for making clothes, but they’ve whittled down the fabric selection until all that’s left is overpriced designer quilting prints, overpriced boring “special occasion” fabrics and overpriced ugly “silky prints” and denim. Blargh! Oh, but of course they have plenty of room in the store for two aisles of greeting cards, an aisle of cheap dorm room essentials, and innumerable aisles of ugly fall wreaths, Cricut machines, stinky scented candles, and no-sew tote projects.
Going to stick to eBay and rummage sales from now on and try to find cool vintage fabrics from back when people actually bought suitable types of material to sew useful things. *cranky*
I don’t know about ND, probably the whole state was Sundown. I know a law was passed in 1890 prohibiting interracial marriage.
My town was like that; maybe one family out of 14,000 people. It was a common trope around town that we couldn’t be racist, because they aren’t here. How could we be racist?
And only a few weeks ago I learned something I never knew before: the state of Oregon had one documented lynching (should probably emphasize documented here) in its history: in 1902 a man was shot twice and hung from what was then known as the 7th street bridge in Marshfield (now Coos Bay).
The swampy area that the bridge spanned was later drained and is now known as Golden Field. When I was six years old I lived for a year in a house overlooking the site. I learned that fact from Wikipedia a mere 47 years later.
Not in bed. Too hot.
But HOLY FUCKING SHIT, SUNDOWN TOWNS STILL EXIST.
Lynchburg, OH
I’m feeling a little naïve now. :-/
@cicely
It was dwelt upon in my ap history class, and yeah, I was appalled by that guy. Everytime I was wondering “this guy is considered an American hero?!”. Plus, I also remember him as the guy who destroyed the US economy.
Jesus, I’ve had enough of Kalliope in the smug thread. “I’m behind you guys 100%, except I’m not!” Yeesh.
@Caine
To be fair apparently we were triggering hir with using insults and all.
@ David Marjanović
I have posted off a letter of complaint…
That thread is making me so goddamn sad.
I just had to look up Andrew Jackson to understand everyone’s comments on him.
o.O
Holy fucking shit I can’t believe I didn’t know that before. Fuck him.
Ing:
Yeah. Amazing how that didn’t seem to bother K before, in other threads. The most I can say about this latest bit of reasoning is that if nasty words hurt that bad, this isn’t the place for you.
Caine
Once upon a time, I lived in a place named Grey Cloud Island.* It was where Medicine Bottle’s village was located at one time. My former property is also an archaeological site. (Campground and five 1800-2000yo grave mounds) There is a historic lime kiln and several different village sites near-by.
Every year a local historian would bring a tour group through.
(all-ages usually 20 to 30 people)
He was very pro-native, and covered the long native history of the area from glaciers melting, to the horrible treatment they received at the hands of the government, to the mass execution.
*Mostly factual article but Grey Cloud Thunderbirds?!
It isn’t addressing the massacre per se, but it shows there are still plenty of stupid people “honoring” NAs.
**do note that Grey Cloud Elementary is located in Cottage Grove
.*gesture of aversion* aka a microcosm of all that is bad about white bread suburbia.
I keep getting ignored in the smug thread. I think I’m not uncivil enough. Oh well.
Thanks to Daisy Cutter for directions.
http://www.facebook.com/HuntLaxmanJohnson/posts/393236927404071
One Christian(a stupid juvenile) stepped on a piece of rock (Hindu icon – Lingam – Lord Shiva) and posted the pic on Facebook ( the photo is currently not there – so this might be fake/real blasphemy – I just don’t feel any difference).
And there is a hunt page up on Facebook, his house vandalized, family on run .
The people who spew out poison on the hunt page all seem very young/educated :( still filled with such pathetic zealot.
The page has been reported by many people, but still is up and running.
My questions –
1. What should be the atheist/skeptics’ concern in inter-religious malice, especially when it involves young minds? Should I be bothered at all?
2. Is there any place where I can find atheist arguments countering Hindu supremacy – logically I shouldn’t need one – I don’t see any evidence for that – and all the idiots’ arguments seem complete BS. But still, my ignorance defies my confidence to call it out.
Like – I keep seeing wonderful memes mocking “Christian love” – which is super good/helpful, since that is kind of pivotal .
As for Hinduism – the talk is more about “Supremacy”(Seriously!), “Maths-Science-Civilization-Ancient – non-destroyable- Huge” etc.
——
“When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.” ~ Albert Einstein
“The Bhagavad-Gita has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions.” ~ Dr. Albert Schweizer
—–
Did these guys really tell that? I guess, the burden of proof lies with the person quoting them, but I’m scared to even ask, what if it was true.
Oh, Richard! I don’t mean to ignore you. Maybe it’s just that you’re not shouty enough to rise above the HATEFUL DIN.
But really, your comments are very happy-making. Moar of that kind of thing pleez.
Josh: didn’t mean you :) meant the people complaining that no one’s being civil to them :P
But thanks.
(The Nac Mac Feegle comment was just a throwaway, really. But I think you should paint yourself blue and run around in a kilt anyway.)
Hehehe:)
I shouldn’t say this (which of course means I’m going to, damn the consequences), but nothing irritates me more than a super-thick Scottish accent. I cannot for the life of me understand a single word of it; it doesn’t even sound like English to my ears. Is it just my parochial USIAN-ness, or is this hard to parse for others?
cicely – *return pouncehug*
Beatrice, cipher, Josh, and anyone else who wants or needs one – *hugs*
Patrick, welcome to TET!
Caine:
QFT! Thank you to all of you who have been sharing your stories across so many threads. I can only salute your courage and fortitude and stand and fight by your side.
This. Please stay.
I’m only caught up (more or less) to 500, but the rest must wait until tomorrow.
I should add that certain very Deep South American accents are just as un-parseable to me. There are certain dialects that are honest-to-god nothing but mumbled streams of undifferentiated vowel-based phonemes with no consonants and no (to me) identifiable vocal stresses that would indicate case, part of speech, question, declarative statement. . anything. I’ve actually had to end phone conversations at work from time to time because I literally could not understand a word of what the person was trying to say (and I’m not untraveled in the US or un-used to regional accents).
Josh:
I know what you mean. I had a coworker who was from India at my last company – well, many of them, actually. I had no problems understanding any of them face to face. However, this one guy had an accent or method of speaking that, at least to me, became indecipherable over the phone. I spent half the time trying to guess what he was saying by others’ replies (luckily, I very rarely worked with him). I know at least one other person had the same problem, but it was only with him.
I don’t have any problem with Scots accents, but I also grew up going to Irish faires every year and got exposed to many brogues.
Oh hell.
Random fit of depersonalization.
What the hell.
I’m currently in a ‘discussion’ with a christian on my sil’s facebook page regarding gay marriage.
It’s like playing Bingo.
So far I’ve had “Some of my best friends are gay”, “You can’t claim to be tolerant if you don’t tolerate *everything*”, “It doesn’t hurt gays to not be able to marry”, “They’ll *make* churches marry gays”, and “What about incest”
That’s just about a BINGO, right?
rowanvt: almost. You didn’t get the polygamy spot. But we can give you a freebie.
Well, I cut him off at the pass and said that any more slippery slopes and false equivalencies are signs of dishonest arguing. This should prevent the slide to polygamy (which I’m actually relatively okay with except for the severe legal headaches it would cause with regards to child custody/alimony and whatnot) and eventually bestiality/pedophilia that inevitably occurs.
Semi-related, but years ago (well before I started posting here), a friend and coworker of mine sent an email message saying, “Can you help? You’re better at this than me,” and included a link.
The site was a place where a few people could put up essays on topics and discuss them. The community was small but diverse: the site was founded by a couple of brothers, one of whom is more liberal and the other is more fundamentalist. She had posted a gay marriage essay (I think this is back in the early days before Prop 8 passed here) and was being hit by the typical “but but but polygamy/bestiality/whatever!” arguments.
The notion that there’s nothing inherenly wrong with polyamory except for legal complications (which can be resolved but take effort to do so) finally got across to almost all of them, which surprised me. I wasn’t expecting it to be that simple. I know that the first person who posted “well, you’d have to support polygamy then!” at me was completely shocked by my reply of, “of course. why wouldn’t we? It’s just more involved to work out the details.”
I did think it funny when my friend later said, after reading through everything, that my style was “half scorched earth and half Socrates.”
@Josh 209
Yeah, I’ve had that same experience
@ education on racial issues
I honestly can’t remember what I learned in school about NAs beyond ‘not much.’ I read a lot on my own, and my parents also helped (dad worked with the Klamath tribe on language conservation) and I picked up a fair amount of reasonably accurate information that was not mentioned in the standard curriculum in Eugene, Oregon.
@ Josh
{Enter theophontes dressed in kilt. Reads from script in loud and broad Scottish accent:}
/[Yeah, I’m a mean bully]
I love you Theo, but. . blech. Yick.
Ugh, sorry everyone but frankly checking in on shit here and posting has just become a time sink. Not fun, not productive, not rewarding. Might check TET from time to time but unless I show horrible self control I think I’ve learned my lesson about arguing on the internet.
@ Josh
Dang, you make it hard to be Truly Ebil ™ !
{*hugs* back}
Ironic, hipster restaurant patronage:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/26/a-chick-fil-a-poll/comment-page-1/#comment-413339
See, it’s funny and meta to spend money at anti-gay businesses. It doesn’t hurt anyone. Except maybe your budget for PBR accessories.
Ing,
For what it’s worth (from a newbie), I’m sorry to hear you are leaving.
I hope to see you on TET.
*hugs* (if you want them)
Cool ! Suicide bomber Termites
Fruit bats on the wing, in July. Normally don’t see them until October-ish.
Weather is all screwed up, yo.
*hugs* to Ing, if’n you want them.
I’ve been having a stresstastic anxiety attack for the last couple of days, and I woke up today, thankfully without that, but with a definite lassitude and depression, kind of like a hangover from the previous stressiness. Anyone else ever get that?
—-
What now? /searches
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_guide
Traditionally, within the spiritualist churches, spirit guides were often stereotyped ethnically, with Native Americans, Chinese or Egyptians being popular for their perceived ancient wisdom.
.
Dollars to donuts.
.
/thinks about modern Australian aboriginal/settler relations.
This would explain a lot. There seems to be a persistent belief here that any atrocities or land theft that occurred (if acknowledged at all) happened in the distant past and we should all be able to hold hands and just get along. Resentment towards aboriginal people for having the gall to exist would explain some of the uglier manifestations of hatred. – and it would be well in line with the awful silence in high school education up until recently (Once upon a time, noble savages, then convicts! sheep! gold!)
.
+elebenty!
.
.
Cipher:
Aw jeez :( Are you okay?
.
Richard Austin:
♥ ♥ ♥
Also, it’s been raining like a boss here lately. The yard between my hut and the main house is a swamp – there are puddles of standing, muddy water where once was grass. And storms upset my kitty :(
drbunsen, definitely… I even call them panic-attack hangovers. It’s about the same level of thrashed as physically working hard all day (at something soul-crushing and unrewarding, to boot).
O hai!
Comparison between countries: “Income inequality alone explained 74% of the variance in murder rates and half of the aggravated assaults”!
*hugs & squeezes for Ing* Haven’t caught up on what happened.
kthxbai
David M: But what about social capital?
thunk:
Yeah, well I have an immortal hatred of “R’s”. So there :P
****
patrick:
Please see our “Adam & Eve” line of apparel in the study. We promise you’ll find your shade of green in just the right size leaf. No member of the Horde ever leafs empty handed.
****
Caine @17:
I wonder why slightly more detailed explanations for the allowed tags aren’t included above the comment box. It seems there are always people who don’t know how to use them (and thankfully there are often regulars around who can be of assistance as you’ve done).
****
‘Tis:
I just read what you wrote in the SMUG thread (comment 30) and you rock! Something like that could easily be on a plaque, or flyer or poster. It serves to show what you stand for and *why* you stand for it. It serves as an unspoken challenge for others to step forward and attempt to reach that level (I don’t mean to imply that you’re perfect here; you’ll have to settle for 96% perfect, sorry; any more and we’ll have to call you God…hmm come to think of it I think you’d do a helluva lot better job than Yahwalla).
Ms Daisy Cutter: I gave Mr Geiger my fondest regards. Couldn’t resist.
Hugs, Ing. I understand the need to not send energy down the sinkhole. Please check in here sometimes if you like?
So you don’t find this vortex of Scottish charm delightful, then? :)
One bit of nice news: my friends are getting maaaaaaaarrried today! And *squee* I’m performing the ceremony! I got all internet-ordained up last year to be ready for it. I really hope I don’t screw anything up. And it’s an outdoor wedding and it’s been rainy since last week for the first time all summer, so we’ll see how that goes.
Richard:
I have you beat!
I keep an overnight bag in my car for all those nights of no sex at other peoples’ houses I get.
(I wonder if I could get laid on For Fuck’s Sake Isle…?
****
Sili:
There are so many people who still believe Joe Paterno did what was necessary. If one’s reaction isn’t “Joe Paterno didn’t fucking do *anything* [to stop Jerry Sandusky]!” their moral core is on shaky ground.
****
Sili (from your link @28):
Someone is wearing his privilege on his sleeve. Since when is it anyone else’s job to “expand people’s horizons”? Did she sign up to be a hero? Was “serving as a strong role model for young lesbians” in her job description?
Moreover, Andrew doesn’t know a damned thing about the life of Ms Ride. There could have been extremely important reasons she chose to remain closeted.
Get off your fucking high horse Cap’n Douche!
Only if I can ride on Appa and learn waterbending.
****
Avatar lovers,
Which bending powers would you like to have?
****
carlie:
writhing balls tend to come in pairs. Where is the other one?
:::Hey Louis you may want to speed that line up, otherwise your writhing ball(s?) might turn blue:::
HI there
Let’s see if I get portcullised again ;)
Yes, please
Cipher
*big hugs*
Who the fuck allows those people to work as therapists?
++++
This is what Indians look like in Germany
Wow, that’s later than me O.O
The goal of British Empire education: a class* of people British in everything except skin colour
*for the native upper and middle-classes who served as civil servants and administrators to handle the nasty darkies so the good white people wouldn’t “go native”
+++
Audley
Fuck her
It’s one thing to be pro-choice. I’m vehemently so and I would probably only think once about having an abortion should I become pregnant again. But to draw your kids into it and make them feel unsafe and threatened is fucking bordering on child abuse.
I didn’t abort my children because I wanted them, they are in this world because I actively chose them to be. How fucking hard must it be for “pro-lifer” kids if they grow up thinking “if mummy weren’t against abortion she’d kill me” (since they don’t really understand yet that they weren’t “they” as an embryo anyway.)
Josh
I’ll tell Mr. and he’ll be relived that actual native speakers don’t understand it either.
Me luves it, just a wee biddy strainge.
In exchange I’ll offer that I have difficulties with some American accents. Not ’cause I don’t understand them, but ’cause they make my ears bleed. (Personal taste, no other judgement implied)
Ing
We’re here eagerly waiting to hear from you
Ooh, look: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2681
I wasn’t very surprised at some of the names listed in CT as possible sundown towns. There are some places where it’s so white it’s scary. Orange was the only one that got me, as I’m sure I’ve seen some black people living in that area.
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Come back when you’re ready Ing. There’ll be a spot for you.
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A hearty “Screw off!” to the anti-abortion lady. Dragging your own kid into it is just a horrible move.
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Some therapist. We’re sure some of these aren’t actually sentient clods of dirt?
bye Ing
NEW THREAD!