Ing, I can understand about time and energy sucks. You have to handle things the way that works for you.
Tony:
Which bending powers would you like to have?
I’ve always liked water bending and the various ways it’s been applied. I’m rather hopeful Tahno comes back to LOK, too. Over the top snotty-yet-not-evil water benders are fun.
Heeeeeey, I’ve dated that guy! He declared his love for me on the second date (in a hilariously over-the-top dramatic way) and then told everybody I was immature for dumping him.
—
So I’ve started taking magnesium supplements, since there’s some evidence that they might help in some cases of migraine (think there are enough qualifiers there?). I’ve actually gone over twenty-four hours now without a migraine and it kind of scares me. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I haven’t had to deal with either an aura, the migraine itself, or the after-effects. The exhaustion from this has probably been exacerbating my PTSD, too. I imagine there’s a bit of the placebo effect going on here, but frankly, I’m okay with that, if I can manage to function. Lalala, magnesium is magic.
Rob Curry in that Ernest Adams thread can fuck right off. What a supercilious, snotty tone troll.
Also, Ysanne. “If you don’t like it, make up your own plan!” Then again I’ve never been impressed by her anyway.
Caine, I suspect that at least some of the tone-trolling we’re seeing from regulars is caused by burnout. Which is understandable. What they need to do is withdraw and care for themselves, as Ing is doing. Not extrapolate from their mental state to the conclusion that we’re all doing it wrong.
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.
Agreed.
Josh, yeah, I think you’re being a tad parochial and not taking into account that this is the natural course of languages, at least in the absence of widespread literacy and telecommunications: to drift apart in terms of mutual intelligibility, from subdialects to dialects to full languages. Being able to understand someone who lives more than ~20 miles away from you is, historically, a very new thing. In the modern age, those pockets of your own language that are not intelligible to you are typically marked by poverty and lack of educational opportunities.
Of course, it’s irritating when you’re trying to communicate with the other person. I wish I could suggest a solution for your situation at work that enables communication without alienating the person on the other end of the phone. Maybe a very abashed-sounding, “I apologize, but I am having a very difficult time understanding your accent”…? Or having someone in a regional office who has experience with such accents deal with people from that area?
That said, I find Scottish burrs and Irish brogues kind of sexy. To each their own.
Ing, take care of yourself. We’ll miss you, but you’re under enough stress offline and you need to do what you need to do. Please do let us know from time to time how things are going.
Dr. Bunsen, it sounds like your system is exhausted from being on edge for days and needs to recuperate.
I mostly experience relief at the end of an anxiety bout, but oftentimes the bout is precipitated by an actual issue, even if the issue is not that meaningful, and resolution of the issue makes me feel better.
David:
In a follow-up study in 2001 Kawachi looked specifically at firearm prevalence and social capital among U.S. states. The results showed that when social capital and community involvement declined, gun ownership increased (see Figure 3).
That makes sense. If you feel detached from the people around you, you’re less likely to trust them. The right wing has been working on that detachment for 30 years now, too. But, also, rural Americans have always had guns for hunting, and in rural areas there is a greater ethic of individualism because the community has traditionally been so small and widely dispersed.
TLC, thanks for throwing in against Geiger. Gawd, what a dishonest, weaselly shitmuppet he is.
Tony, the world in general would be a better place without Andrew Sullivan in it. He doesn’t understand any oppression he himself doesn’t suffer, nor does he want to.
Giliell:
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.)
Most young pro-liars seem to take it really personally that abortion exists, because “they” could have been aborted. The idea of choice doesn’t occur to them because they don’t credit women with agency. If we aren’t prevented from getting abortions, we’ll be getting them three times a day, in between pedicures.
CTsays
Here in NC, my kids learned that there are Native Americans and that they were rounded up into reservations. fin.
@Josh – about Scottish and Deep South accents – I have no problem with Scottish accents because they deeply resemble southern accents for the very real reason that a shit ton of Scots were exported to NC/the South after the 1715 and 1745 war. A lot were ‘criminals’ and/or rebels and others were rich fuckers sick of the king and the church.
I’m undecided if I am a twinkie or not. I am super white, like nazi poster child white but my heritage isn’t. So I never say something stupid like “well I’m Native American” but I do claim my heritage if someone asks when I could just not mention it and no one would be the wiser.
The Cherokee and Lumbee here really hate the moniker “Native American”. If you ask, they are Indians. I don’t know the reasoning but it may be the political white washing “Native American” represents.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ogvorbis:
Sure, but it comes with a can of peas. And some dried peas. And some frozen peas. And some fresh ones.
Are there *any* canned vegetables that are even *remotely* decent?
I’ve had canned asparagus, and it tastes like canned ASS. Wait, I’ve tasted better ass than that.
While you’re at it, I want a dragon. A silver one. A firebreather. Female preferred.
With that one, it also comes with wasabi peas.
As in…poops wasabi peas?
Some of the families I knew in Maryland, when in high school, never, ever ate raw vegetables. Or fruit. Even lettuce was cooked.
Love me some raw carrots and broccoli.
Love me some red or golden apples, pears (especially asian pears), watermelon, white or concord grapes (not a fan of *eating* many other fruits, but blend them in a smoothie, and in my belly they will go; unless there are strawberries in there-I have to strain out the seeds before I’ll drink a smoothie).
****
Nutmeg:
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?
I went to middle school in El Paso, TX and Huntsville, AL (which is where I went to high school as well). History was horribly sanitized. I don’t remember much, but I certainly do remember not going into any great detail about Native American history (or black history, or the contributions of women to pretty much anything, or anything queer). But again: ALABAMA.
I asked T this question (she’s from somewhere in northern US; I *think* she said Ohio), and she said in seventh grade her social studies class studied Native American history in depth.
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cicely:
If your banana has gone brown and mooshy, either make banana nut bread, or carefully tip that sucker into a hole and bury it.
At the risk of asking a question that’s just buried in innuendo-why would one bury a banana?
****
Audley @193:
I don’t know that I want to live in a city called “Lynchburg”…
****
Richard:
I keep getting ignored in the smug thread. I think I’m not uncivil enough. Oh well.
The secret is to submit a post that contains harsh language and insults only. After all, that seems to be all tone trolls hear.
Or if your posts showed enough concern for making others’ experiences more positive, the concern trolls might speak to you.
****
I don’t know why this just popped into my head, but hey all you folks that live in the northern part of the US do people speak somewhat fast up there? I have often been asked to slow down my speech so that others can understand (Florida here). But to take the time to concentrate on what I’m saying so that it’s slow enough for others always comes out condescending. I’m not aiming for that, but I literally have to enunciate my words clearly (and I’m already very good at that) and slowly and I just feel like I’m talking down to people when I do that.
People often remark that I’m from up north b/c I speak so quickly.
****
Ing:
Please don’t leave.
We geeks have to stick together :)
****
Ms. Daisy:
Most young pro-liars seem to take it really personally that abortion exists, because “they” could have been aborted.
I don’t understand that. It’s as if they have some insight on what non existence feels like.
diannesays
Just read today’s XKCD and now I have this weird Charlotte/Shelob crossover in my mind.
diannesays
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.)
The “what if your mother was pro-choice” argument’s always creeped me out for just this reason. My mother IS pro-choice. She chose to have the baby that would become me. Do pro-life women really go around telling their kids that they’d never have existed if it weren’t for their mother’s “morals”?
I know exactly how you feel about this song. When I wrote about it as part of my weekly series on music that inspires my geek self, I had a very mixed reaction to it.
Beatricesays
Maybe I missed it somewhere in that clusterfuck of a thread, but what is lilandra teaching?
My English isn’t the best, but I have trouble parsing her comments that I don’t usually have with anyone else’s.
1) Where are the socks?
There are never enough socks. I swear I buy about a pair a week and there are never like 10 pairs around.
2) What do my kids do with all the laundry? Why is it so hard to keep it in the wradrobe?
Ms. Daisy Cutter
Most young pro-liars seem to take it really personally that abortion exists, because “they” could have been aborted. The idea of choice doesn’t occur to them because they don’t credit women with agency. If we aren’t prevented from getting abortions, we’ll be getting them three times a day, in between pedicures.
I’d call it fear. If you truely believe that, then the only reason you’re alive today is because your mother was prevented from not having you, either by having had access to contraception or ba having had access to abotion. Way to fuck up a kid’s mind.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Maybe I missed it somewhere in that clusterfuck of a thread, but what is lilandra teaching?
Do what I say, not what I do ?
My English isn’t the best, but I have trouble parsing her comments that I don’t usually have with anyone else’s.
It is nothing to do with your understanding of English. Even those of us who’s first language is English are struggling to work out what she on about.
And you have nothing to be ashamed about with your English. I never have any problem understanding you, and if I did not know otherwise I would not know English was not your native tongue.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Beatrice:
I just read through the last page of the thread and don’t recall lilandra mentioning what she teaches.
I don’t understand that. It’s as if they have some insight on what non existence feels like.
Don’t forget that they mostly lack basic education in embryology and think that embryo = baby = MEEEEEEEEEEE!
For them there’s no difference between having an abortion at 10 weeks ad smashing your baby into pieces
Matt Penfoldsays
There are never enough socks. I swear I buy about a pair a week and there are never like 10 pairs around.
This is one of those mysteries I fear we will never know the answer to.
Tony, canned asparagus is disgusting, as are most (all?) canned green veg. In my pantry I usually have tins of tomatoes (for cooking), sweet corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, pickled beetroot, and assorted pulses. It’s a big time-saver, using canned kidney beans.
Matt Penfoldsays
Certainly nothing wrong with using canned tomatoes. Unless you grow your own and have a glut, they are often better than using fresh and always cheaper, especially to get really good toms from a shop you have pay a price premium. Here in the UK some supermarkets even have a label on them saying “grown for flavour!”
Canned kidney beans are useful as well, especially when you have not planned the mean the day before.
Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Googlesays
@217, prev. thread:
Technically speaking, that is not a transcription of the Scottish accent, that is Scots. As in the language.
English and Scots are mostly mutually intelligible, but are (linguistically speaking) different languages.
Tony, canned asparagus is disgusting, as are most (all?) canned green veg. In my pantry I usually have tins of tomatoes (for cooking), sweet corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, pickled beetroot, and assorted pulses. It’s a big time-saver, using canned kidney beans.
Yes, yes and yes
*whisper*
I also like canned peas. They’re like childhood comfort-food. When we were on holidays, the usual dinner would be barbeque and a green salad. Since I was never a fan of green salads but should eat something green I always got a can of peas with a spoon of creme fraiche.
Matt Penfoldsays
I also like canned peas. They’re like childhood comfort-food. When we were on holidays, the usual dinner would be barbeque and a green salad. Since I was never a fan of green salads but should eat something green I always got a can of peas with a spoon of creme fraiche.
Tinned garden peas, or tinned processed peas ?
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Giliell:
Peas are becoming a meme :)
As a child my mother usually prepared peas alongside mashed potatoes and meatloaf. I’m thankful for that b/c the only way I ate those green fuckers was with a big bite of meatloaf and mashers to disguise them.
****
I’m still speechless that people cook *lettuce*.
Matt Penfoldsays
I’m still speechless that people cook *lettuce*.
People cook cucumber as well.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Alethea:
I forgot that I’ve had canned potatoes before (shortly after M died, E and I were trying to figure out money saving measures around the house and since I tend to cook often, I thought canned potatoes might be cheaper). Once you cook them (after they’ve been drained, rinsed, dried and seasoned), they taste ok (I can still tell a difference between canned and whole potatoes, but it’s not as bad as one might think).
I’m undecided if I am a twinkie or not. I am super white, like nazi poster child white but my heritage isn’t. So I never say something stupid like “well I’m Native American” but I do claim my heritage if someone asks when I could just not mention it and no one would be the wiser.
My family is very mixed and I grew up thousands of miles away from the rez, with red hair and pale skin, and didn’t move back here until I was done with college. Because I do have the benefit of white privilege and lack many experiences others have, I don’t make any claims beyond my love for my grandmother and advocacy for Anishinaabe people. My place is as an ally who needs to listen carefully and let others lead; I don’t feel that seeking more than that is my right. I wouldn’t go around telling people I’m French, Irish or Black either. If it comes up I’ll happily discuss my heritage, but my accent, my appearance, and my experiences are identified as those of a white American. I’m very careful not to appropriate things I don’t have a right to.
It’s different for my older half-sister and cousins, who are much darker and don’t have white features. I know more about Anishinaabe culture, language and history than my sister, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I grew up in Nevada with light skin. Unlike my sister, I’ve never had to prove to someone I’m a US citizen.
As for preferred terms, around here most people just call themselves Indian or Native.
For what it is worth, I went to public schools near Atlanta GA in the late 60s through the 70s and it was not until I was in my 20s and doing my own reading that I discovered that the Trail of Tears actually began in the Deep South. It was mentioned in school as one of those anonymous historical details you had to remember for the test, but never so specifically as “you now live on the land that was seized then.”
That and the cartoon version of Thanksgiving are all I recall being “taught.” I don’t know if much has changed where I grew up, but given the current political climate, I doubt that historical accuracy is really a goal of public education in much of the US. I could be wrong, of course.
Somehow I still have this sinking feeling whenever I ponder the future of education here. But that might be a direct effect of the defunding of higher education here in CA now.
Are there *any* canned vegetables that are even *remotely* decent?
Canned corn can be quite edible. And (guilty secret) I love canned creamed corn. Which is also good in cornbread. Canned tomatoes can also be quite useful for chili and ragu. And canned beans, rinsed and drained and rinsed again, are a great shortcut.
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?
When I lived in Arizona, in a school with about 25% NA students from four different nations, we got the Dee Brown Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee version of history. When I moved to Arizona, we got the noble savage who helped the pilgrims and we got the evil savages who massacred poor Custer. And I got a rash of shit for pointing out that there are still NA cultures in the US.
At the risk of asking a question that’s just buried in innuendo-why would one bury a banana?
Because a banana was designed by Gawd to fit the human hand, as was the penis, and the penis was designed to go into one hole and one hole only so . . . er, . . . . Nevermind.
The secret is to submit a post that contains harsh language and insults only. After all, that seems to be all tone trolls hear.
All you need is one ‘fuck’ in the comment and the rest of the comment doesn’t exist.
Peas are becoming a meme :)
Peas have been a meme for some time. Especially since some of the Horde are vehemently antipea.
And there is a French dish where peas are braised with lettuce and spring onions.
Which sounds good. But a salad of boiled lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and onions, served warm, with warm bacon dressing, is a thing of nightmares.
it was not until I was in my 20s and doing my own reading that I discovered that the Trail of Tears actually began in the Deep South.
In Arizona, the Trail of Tears was mentioned, but that was it. However, the concentration camp at Basque Redondo, and the destruction of the Navajo clans, was discussed. As was the Peublo revolt of the late 1600s.
diannesays
Caerie and CT: I’m another one. I’m a blond, blue eyed mestizo. I usually claim my race is “passing” if asked. I’d give up and say I was white and anglo except that my grandmother, who was entirely descended from Spanish immigrants to northern Mexico (aka Arizona and New Mexico) and various people already living there who they interbred with, got literally and metaphorically beat into pretending she was anglo and I just can’t bring myself to continue the pretense. OTOH, I can’t pretend that I don’t get white privilege either. So I can’t actually tell someone what my race is without feeling like I’m lying or deceiving them. Sorry about whining about this.
All you need is one ‘fuck’ in the comment and the rest of the comment doesn’t exist.
Worse.
Insert one “fuck” and all other comments disappear, too!
Am I the only person who thinks it’s perverted to put toddlers and preeschoolers into bikinis? There’s nothing there that could be covered and you should wash your brain with soap if you think otherwise.
But I’m also wondering how much of it is a perpetuum mobile. I’m pretty sure that #1 will insist on her little top once she sees that all other girls wear one and that only the boys go topless and then the next little girl sees her and so on.
So I can’t actually tell someone what my race is without feeling like I’m lying or deceiving them.
This describes experiences I’ve had, too. I remember taking my youngest niece to a restaurant once when she was about three and all of the servers wanted to coo over how precious she was, which is perfectly fine. What wasn’t fine was them asking “where she came from.”
…
See, my youngest niece has curly brown hair, olive skin, and brown eyes with obvious epicanthic folds. I am, as mentioned, red-haired and light skinned. I explained that she was my niece. The response: “Yes, but where did she come from?” Her mother and father, for fuck’s sake. Did I have to break out our genealogy to prove that she really was related to me?
I know recessive genes and racial mixing can be confusing, but goddamn. America can be shockingly stupid about the fact that ethnicity isn’t binary.
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?
No. At most we learn about Native American’s history with Europeans. We get at best the broad strokes of their history and absolutely no details. How as the Iroquois Confederacy formed? What is the history of the Sioux, important developments with Aztec or Mayan history or technology? Not even asked. European history is painstakingly drilled into our heads with every major land mark and king after king after king but not a single detail on the indian equivalent. There’s some of that in Asian history as well; a lot more detail than the Indian but it’s still just a side bar from the default main branch of history (white history). African history is non existent.
diannesays
I’ve never had to prove to someone I’m a US citizen.
I have. On a plane traveling from Frankfort to the US there were a bunch of obnoxious American teens traveling so I started speaking German to the flight attendants to distance myself from them. This was all good and well until we were near landing and the flight attendant tried to insist that I had to fill out the visitor’s forms to get through customs. I was rather flattered. (Incidentally, the flight was with Air France so neither of us was a native speaker of German. I would never have fooled a native speaker for a minute. But I still took it as a compliment.)
OTOH, I can go in and out of Mexico with utter impunity.
OTOH, I can go in and out of Mexico with utter impunity.
Ironic, no? Back when crossing the border was a little more casual, one of my aunts was detained and no one would believe that she was American. I was a little kid at the time, so I don’t know all of the details, but I know when someone tried to speak to her in Spanish her horrible mangling of the language bolstered her case.
Giliell re: “my mommy didn’t abort me!” (Last thread):
Yes, it is child abuse to tell them that they they were lucky because they weren’t “murdered”. What is that little girl going to do if she ever needs an abortion? *head shake*
Mommy also pointed out that she had five unplanned pregnancies that were all conceived while she was using birth control (!) but she’s such an awesome person that she didn’t abort. *headdesk!* Since I was keeping it civil, I totally refrained from calling her a moron.
I never got the drop the news that I am very much happily pregnant. Oh wells. (I did get to use your excellent elephant fetus, but I didn’t get a response about it. Damn.)
(I know that shit happens, which is why I support abortion services. But five times?? Birth control ain’t exactly rocket surgery– fuck, I was able to figure it out.)
Matt Penfoldsays
(I know that shit happens, which is why I support abortion services. But five times?? Birth control ain’t exactly rocket surgery– fuck, I was able to figure it out.)
Did she mention what form of birth control she was using ?
This was all good and well until we were near landing and the flight attendant tried to insist that I had to fill out the visitor’s forms to get through customs.
I was rather flattered when I had to show the Irish my ID to prove I’m not English :)
Hey, but you were lucky. My schoolfriends father was almost arrested for human trafficking when he came back from a holiday in Cuba. They insisted that he was trying to smuggle that tanned, attaractive dark-haired Cuban woman into the country, his wife of 30 years.
I know the distancing trick. I sometimes switch to English or Spanish. Or I used to before the kids could talk.
diannesays
Ironic, no?
Especially since I’m almost certain that one reason my grandmother insisted that she was anglo is that she was being threatened with deportation. Even though she was clearly born in the US of US-American parents whose ancestors had lived in the Arizona/New Mexico area since long before it even was the US. Heck, before there was a US to be part of. It happened to a number of US citizens at about that time (the 1920s). The assholery of US immigration is no new thing.
(I know that shit happens, which is why I support abortion services. But five times?? Birth control ain’t exactly rocket surgery– fuck, I was able to figure it out.)
Depends on what she was using. Especially the “natural stuff” has a high failure rate and if you’re very fertile…
I can be pretty sure that a mistake at the wrong time means pregnancy for me:
2 cycles for the pregnancy I miscarried (after 7 years on the pill)
1 cycle for #1 three months after the miscarriage
1 cycle for the little one.
I think I’m just glad that I have my period at the moment :)
My mother IS pro-choice. She chose to have the baby that would become me. Do pro-life women really go around telling their kids that they’d never have existed if it weren’t for their mother’s “morals”?
Holy fucking shit, this. My mother is every bit as pro-choice as I am and she had four kids*. All of us were wanted.
I was talking about this with a pro-choice facebook friend last night and it’s almost as if the anti-choicers believe that every pro-choice woman hates babies so much that not only will she never have kids, but she wants every other woman to abort every pregnancy, too.
*Known as: Eldest Sister, Asshole Sister, me, and Youngest Sister.
Did she mention what form of birth control she was using ?
At first, I assumed The Pill because of how she worded it, but who the fuck knows? It could have been the rhythm method or something used inconsistently or the hope that Jesus will provide.
Giliell:
I can be pretty sure that a mistake at the wrong time means pregnancy for me:
Oof, sorry about my assumption there.
I just can’t imagine five unplanned pregnancies happening to me while I was using some form of birth control, but perhaps I’m lucky.
Giliell:
I know, right? I know that my (maternal) grandmama fought to legalize abortion and both of my parents are pro-choice. My (paternal) grandfather donated money to Planned Parenthood until his death. By all means, I (and DarkFetus!) shouldn’t exist!
Audley
Believe me, although Mr. and I are a very fertile combination, it wouldn’t happen 5 times to me unless I wanted children anyway. We didn’t mind the condom that broke when #1 was a year old (luckily breastfeeding was still working as a contraceptive). It would have been sooner than planned for a second one, but well, not soooo unplanned that I’d have gone through an abortion only to try for a pregnancy half a year later. But if it happened right now I wouldn’t only have an abortion, I would have my tubes tied right away.
Urgh, gotta leave now, and I don’t want to.
Matt Penfoldsays
At first, I assumed The Pill because of how she worded it, but who the fuck knows? It could have been the rhythm method or something used inconsistently or the hope that “Jesus will provide”.
If it was the pill, the chances of five pregnancies is astronomical without “user error”.
I recall reading about some research that showed a good number of women do not realise the pill is unlikely to be effective if they have D&V. Maybe she pukes a lot.
Matt Penfoldsays
Although it is true the pill is not 100% effective, even when taken correctly. I’m proof of that.
No, it’s not 100% effective (like I said, shit happens), but it’s the high number of unplanned pregnancies that anti-choice lady had that baffled me.
Paulsays
I’ve never had trouble crossing borders, but during a family road trip in Texas my dad was pulled over for going 2 mph over the speed limit and the officer wanted to see everyone’s US IDs. He was very white, my mom and us kids less so (my mother’s family being from Mexico, supposedly some Native ancestry but I’ve never heard details).
Pteryxxsays
warning because this might be a disturbing answer:
(I know that shit happens, which is why I support abortion services. But five times?? Birth control ain’t exactly rocket surgery– fuck, I was able to figure it out.)
Also recall, along with possibilities such as poor dosing, lack of education about how birth control works, and that some women’s systems just behave strangely vs the pill: birth control sabotage is totally a thing and it’s vastly underrecognized.
At the risk of asking a question that’s just buried in innuendo-why would one bury a banana?
You must have missed the “brown and mooshy” part. That would be “why”.
– *scrolling past chatter about peas*
–
Richard Austinsays
Tony:
I don’t know why this just popped into my head, but hey all you folks that live in the northern part of the US do people speak somewhat fast up there? I have often been asked to slow down my speech so that others can understand (Florida here). But to take the time to concentrate on what I’m saying so that it’s slow enough for others always comes out condescending. I’m not aiming for that, but I literally have to enunciate my words clearly (and I’m already very good at that) and slowly and I just feel like I’m talking down to people when I do that.
People often remark that I’m from up north b/c I speak so quickly.
Both my mother and I have both lived all of our lives in Los Angeles County. My father is from Indiana, not exactly known for speaking quickly. My mom’s mom (my only grandparent nearby) was a Colorado-born daughter of Czech immigrants and spoke normally with a slight accent.
And yet, all of my life, I’ve been accused of being from New York (except by New Yorkers, who for some reason think I’m from London, and one guy from London who agreed with that I sound like I could be) because I speak so fast and with an “accent” that isn’t really anything. No one has any idea where I picked it up or why. The area I grew up in was largely immigrants from eastern Europe and Mexico (about half and half), so the nearest I can think is that I picked up on the rate of speech from some of the other languages being spoken.
Anyway, the impression of most people seems to be that people from New York and surrounding areas speak quickly.
Matt Penfoldsays
(except by New Yorkers, who for some reason think I’m from London, and one guy from London who agreed with that I sound like I could be)
But which part of London ?
Richard Austinsays
Totally unrelated, but the new astronauts are going to look like Buzz Lightyear.
Richard Austinsays
Mann Penfold:
But which part of London ?
I never got a name, but my one friend from London I think said something about the south? It had more to do with the rate of speech, but he even said that my “accent” could sound similar.
Matt Penfoldsays
I never got a name, but my one friend from London I think said something about the south? It had more to do with the rate of speech, but he even said that my “accent” could sound similar.
“Sarf” London is a recognisable accent.
Akira MacKenziesays
(Scoff) MMORPGers! Ha! Dumbass kids who’ve had their imaginations replaced by a CPU. Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
Anyway;
Giliell
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.)
I think it’s a modification of the old “if-I-didn’t-believe-in-God-I’d-go-around-killing/raping/stealing” fallacy. In their authoritarian minds, unless there is a written-in-stone prohibition against something with nasty legal consequences attached, people are gleefully going to do it.
My sister and I grew up in an anti-abortion, Roman Catholic family. The belief only stuck with my sister and since she had kids of her own it has only grown more obnoxious. Now it’s the primary decision making factor in ALL of the candidates she votes for. She admitted to me that she would have voted for Obama if it were for his pro-choice stance.
Once, after her first child was born and the topic had somehow come up, she said, “how could anyone abort my little girl?” Right, Sis, because their are packs of OB-GYNs roaming America, kidnapping expectant mothers, and dragging them to the nearest Planned Parenthood for a forced abortion.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m bachelor (i.e a 37-year-old virgin). I’ve seen too many of my friends and family become overprotective right-leaning loons the instant they have their first kid.
Akira MacKenziesays
Edit: …if it weren’t for his…
cicelysays
Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
Sing it!
–
diannesays
Once, after her first child was born and the topic had somehow come up, she said, “how could anyone abort my little girl?”
To be fair, the period just after birth is a hormonally paranoid time. I was afraid of just about anyone approaching my baby for a while.
ButchKittiessays
I feel better about my life knowing that my mother had the option of abortion. She wasn’t forced to stay pregnant. I wasn’t some punishment that society forced on her for having sex. She chose to have me. What a wonderful way to enter the world.
Richard Austinsays
Akira MacKenzie
(Scoff) MMORPGers! Ha! Dumbass kids who’ve had their imaginations replaced by a CPU. Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
So, when was the last time you had a table-top RPG event that included 80+ real people from all over the world?
The folks on my WoW server regularly did (and may still do) things like that. We’ve even had multi-month scripted events that include forum chat, storylines, kidnappings, murders, traitors, and a full-scale (there were 60-70 people on our side attacking and I don’t even want to think about how many were defending) assault on a city to rescue a mage.
True, most MMORPG players don’t role-play, but the ones who do really do it.
Akira MacKenziesays
dianne @ 67
I could buy that. However, she had her last kid two years ago and the attitude is still the same. To make things worse, Sis works as an RN in the local Catholic hospital network so she buys into all of propaganda despite only going to Mass on holidays. In her eyes, Bennie the Rat can do no wrong.
diannesays
To make things worse, Sis works as an RN in the local Catholic hospital network so she buys into all of propaganda despite only going to Mass on holidays.
That’s a problem. She could kill someone that way. If it weren’t for HIPAA I could name several women who’d be dead now if it weren’t for abortion. What would have happened to them at a Catholic hospital I don’t like to think.
thunk, martian atmosphere weaksaucesays
Matt Penfold:
obnoxious American teens
Not necessarily redundant.
I’m a recent immigrant, but am completely white (seriously, completely Russian/Belarusian). Obviously, we never got hassled about it.
Matt Penfoldsays
Not necessarily redundant.
I’m a recent immigrant, but am completely white (seriously, completely Russian/Belarusian). Obviously, we never got hassled about it.
I think you must have missed my point, which was that labelling teens as obnoxious is not necessary, since all teens are obnoxious. It is kind of the whole point of them.
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
Aww, RealityEnforcer and thunk aren’t obnoxious! *can’t remember who else is teenaged here offhand*
thunk, martian atmosphere weaksaucesays
Matt:
I think you must have missed my point, which was that labelling teens as obnoxious is not necessary, since all teens are obnoxious. It is kind of the whole point of them.
Sorry, two different topics- forgot to separate.
But still, what makes you so certain of the universal quality of obnoxiousness?
Nightjarsays
Matt, thunk is a teenager.
thunk, martian atmosphere weaksaucesays
But still, what makes you so certain of the universal quality of obnoxiousness?
This, not the. Bah.
Nightjarsays
*can’t remember who else is teenaged here offhand*
Grimalkin!
Matt Penfoldsays
But still, what makes you so certain of the universal quality of obnoxiousness?
I’m not. It was supposed to be a joke, but clearly it fell a bit flat.
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
My brother and I both went to sleep feeling okay and woke up feeling sick, presumably from just allergies (I base this on the fact that he has known allergies and in addition to our other symptoms, my throat and ears are very itchy). So he’s had medicine and is going to go to sleep, and I just had some Benadryl to go with my coffee.
Keeping in mind that I haven’t had benadryl in a long time and have had weird reactions to several other medications that are known to make people drowsy, I am expecting FUN TIMES FOR ME.
Ogvorbissays
I don’t know why this just popped into my head, but hey all you folks that live in the northern part of the US do people speak somewhat fast up there?
When giving a tour or presentation, I intentionally allow myself to lapse into a soft southern drawl because it slows me down.
mythbrisays
In a lot of the abortion discussions I have with my conservative friends and relatives, they always pull the “Well, you might be a woman but you also don’t have kids, so you don’t know what you’re talking about” card.
It’s true – I don’t have kids and I’m 99% sure that I won’t ever choose to have them. But my sister-in-law just went through her first (possibly only) pregnancy, and produced my niece, the first grandchild on all sides of the family (lots of sides to my family).
I’m still pro-choice. In fact, I’m even more pro-choice. My sister-in-law’s pregnancy wasn’t even a particularly difficult one, but the idea of someone being forced to go through that experience gives me chills.
I love my niece, and she will grow up knowing that she was wanted, and loved. I feel sorry for the kids of anti-choicers who aren’t certain of the same.
Matt Penfoldsays
When giving a tour or presentation, I intentionally allow myself to lapse into a soft southern drawl because it slows me down.
I’ve never done that (I’m a Brit with Southern England middle class accent so it would sound very odd) but I was taught to wait before starting to speak, and then wait some more, and keep waiting until the audience is starting to wonder why I have not started. It makes people pay attention.
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
I don’t know how to speak slowly.
It’s a whole thing.
Akira MacKenziesays
So, when was the last time you had a table-top RPG event that included 80+ real people from all over the world?
First of all, let’s get one things straight: WoW isn’t role-playing. It’s a fucking video game. I played it once. Once. If marathon mouse clicking sessions and motion sickness counts as role-playing, then the hobby deserves to die.
Secondly, why in the hell would I want to play a game with 80+ complete strangers who I will most likely never meet, when I can play face-to-face with people I now, like and enjoy being with? Sorry, but if all you ever are to me is just a stream of chat text or a voice on a VoIP client, you don’t count as “real” in my book.
True, most MMORPG players don’t role-play, but the ones who do really do it.
Really, and when was the last time WoW players had a raid on Barsoom? We played a 1st Ed. AD&D game set on John Carter’s Mars last March. When was the last time a WoW party had to be careful what they said to a NPC lest it affect the entire outcome of a game? I played in an Empire of the Petal Throne game where the poorly-chosen wording to a prayer made to Lord Sarku (“the Five-Headed Lord of Worms, Master of the Undead, Guide into Darkness, the Demon-Lord of Decay…”) led to one of the most interesting TPKs I’ve ever witnessed. When was the last time a WoW player created a entirely new and original setting for their game with new lands and monsters that are outside of Blizzard’s control? Paper-and-pen role players have been doing it since the beginning.
Besides the lack of face-to-face interaction, the problem I have with these computer-based pseudo-RPGs is that they are constrained by the world and setting created by the programmers as well as the obvious limitations of computer technology. A computer simply lacks the one thing that a flesh-and-blood GM has: an imagination and the ability to improvise. Until the day in the far-flung future when we have desktop sentient AIs that can create any scenario you request (or any scenario it can imagine), you are still playing just a boring, pre-scripted, nausea-inducing video game.
portiasays
I was just told that I’m so “extreme” that I’m “the liberal equivalent of Westboro.” How does that even compute? I don’t recall picketing the funerals of…well, anybody.
Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
…
Sometimes I’m glad I’m bachelor (i.e a 37-year-old virgin).
I keep telling myself, “correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation…”
(By the way, I played the original D&D back in 1975, and had a regular game going throughout my undergraduate years. Also, shed the virginity as quickly as possible.)
(Also play WOW intermittently. Virginity hasn’t grown back.)
Pteryxxsays
Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
Well, online you don’t have to justify your gender presentation ;> (Also, it really helps if you’re bad at math!)
That said, I know I’d have a grand time playing a paper&pencil FRP game now…but lack the time and most importantly, lack the community of people with similar interests. Those MMOs and card games sucked all the players away.
All of my tabletop RPG friends now live across the continent from me (and in some cases, in Canada), so I don’t play much these days. The inability to have a lasting effect on the online game worlds just turned me off. It all felt so pointless.
On the other hand, it occurs to me that a Google+ hangout would be a good way to run a long-distance tabletop game. Hmmmm.
On the other hand, it occurs to me that a Google+ hangout would be a good way to run a long-distance tabletop game. Hmmmm.
That’s so brilliant and obvious…I wonder if it’s been done already?
Browniansays
I played something like D&D for awhile. I understood that it was actually D&D, but given that my friends are much like the sorts of people you might find on Pharyngula, it was more like a weekly four-hour argument.
At one time, we had thirteen players. A combat round took so long that the last action in the the sequence was to order another pizza.
Of course, as an amateur thespian in a theatre troupe that writes its own plays, I could make many of the Akira’s criticisms about pen-and-paper ‘roleplayers’.
Audley, we’ll always have Chippewa…and Amanda’s retainer.
*swoon!*
Mythbri:
My sister-in-law’s pregnancy wasn’t even a particularly difficult one, but the idea of someone being forced to go through that experience gives me chills.
Ah yup. I am more committed to being pro-choice than I’ve ever been before.
So far (six and a half months in), I’ve had an “ideal” pregnancy– one of my docs has even remarked that I’m her easiest patient. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s been easy: I’ve dealt with vomiting, ligament pain, nerve pain, swollen joints, fatigue, mood swings, insomnia, itchiness, congestion… I could go on and on. I can’t even begin to imagine dealing with all of that shit while at the same time dreading having a child. It must be pure hell.
Browniansays
and in some cases, in Canada
Gross. And you call them ‘friends’?
The problem my old D&D group has always encountered when trying to organise a game is time: it’s really hard to coordinate when people have kids and jobs and yards and gyms and witnesses to disappear.
CTsays
My two teens are only obnoxious to me, so, there… proves nothing but okay.
Speaking of the glorified Atari comments, my kids and their friends all play long involved matches with Magic:The Gathering cards. They have a Friday Night Magic get together. I know, isn’t that surreal. They are almost like old people playing bridge or something. lol
CTsays
it was more like a weekly four-hour argument.
LOL, listening to my kids with their cards in the dining room is *just* *like* *this*.
Pteryxxsays
There *are* some online tools within games that allow GMs to create their own content… there are Minecraft arena competitions, for instance, and I’ve heard there is Minecraft roleplaying. Also, City of Heroes MMO has a user-created content system where players can craft their own story arcs, including writing custom backstory and making limited custom enemy groups, using the same tools the MMO uses. Sure, there are limitations.
IMHO, the absolute best combination of unlimited imagination and online convenience and safety is online tabletop, using interfaces such as MapTools for the dice rolling, secret messages, map display and similar.
…I’d be interested in online tabletop with folks here, if Google+ didn’t have such real-name issues and such. *sigh*
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
I played something like D&D for awhile. I understood that it was actually D&D, but given that my friends are much like the sorts of people you might find on Pharyngula, it was more like a weekly four-hour argument.
We had those too. Once we had a sentient building and someone asked if he could use Intimidate on it. The DM went outside, shouted a swear word, came back in and said “No.”
My geek cred suffers from my complete lack of D&D experience. I have never played. I received some basic D&D books when I turned 13, but never had anyone to play. (Lots of friends, really, just no geek friends.)
Also, too, I’ve never seen a single episode of Dr. Who.
*sob*
There. I said it.
Akira MacKenziesays
PZ @ 87
Heh… I’m the only member of my group who isn’t married. At my age, I’ve pretty much given up hope of finding a woman who’d be attracted to me, much less tolerate my hobbies.
However, being lonely still hurts though.
Browniansays
A weekly four-hour argument? Sounds marvelous, I could get into that. But why so short?
Six hours to wait for everyone to show up, roll characters, toddle off to the local fast food joint for a snack, etc.
cats + herding
Pteryxxsays
Akira: a friend of mine got married at 45, to someone she met through a hobby. It does happen. ;>
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
Thanks to ixchel we now have a little arrow thing that goes on the Wiki next to academic research. It goes like this: {{arrow}} and then it shows up. I don’t know if it will actually help anybody but I wanted it because I like categorizing stuff.
This has been your Wiki related public service announcement.
Akira MacKenziesays
PZ @ 94
Oh it has! There is even a Hangout app in the works to help:
The next Pharyngula meetup, or atheist convention, why don’t those who remember the P&P RPGs with fondness plan a night of P&P RPG? Villains & Vigilantes, Dungeons & Dragons (an early version), Call of Cthulhu, any of the 70s and 80s games would work. One of two things will happen: y’all will love it and it will become a standard offshoot to the get togethers, or y’all will remember why those P&P games with either amorphous rules or exacting rules are seldom played today. Either way.
Richard Austinsays
Akira MacKenzie:
Besides the lack of face-to-face interaction, the problem I have with these computer-based pseudo-RPGs is that they are constrained by the world and setting created by the programmers as well as the obvious limitations of computer technology. A computer simply lacks the one thing that a flesh-and-blood GM has: an imagination and the ability to improvise. Until the day in the far-flung future when we have desktop sentient AIs that can create any scenario you request (or any scenario it can imagine), you are still playing just a boring, pre-scripted, nausea-inducing video game.
Did you totally miss the fact that I said a lot of the interaction takes place outside the MMO? As well as the fact that we go through long, scripted (by players) events?
Really, the medium is just that – a medium. It’s the imagination of the players that makes it work. And MMOs are perfectly reasonable mediums, assuming you have players who care enough to bother.
What if I told you that, every week, a group of friends on the server get together and run a bar? They buy up a lot of booze from NPCs ahead of time, get outfits and such, and go occupy one of the empty “inns” in a city for four hours, talking in character and selling booze to other players who come in to chat and have bar fights and all sorts of things. It’s just as dynamic and imaginative as anything that would happen at a table. Hundreds of people wander through in the evening, participating in largely unscripted ways and just enjoying themselves.
No, they’re not creating the underlying setting or the monsters. But most players of table-top games don’t do that either. Someone else creates the world – they just occupy it and change it. What’s so different here?
cicelysays
I haven’t played a proper tabletop RPG in years and let’s just say that with the gamers I know, I’m not inclined to take it up again any time soon.
I’ll bet you’d like it a lot better if * were running it!
:D
–
cicelysays
*sigh*
That should read, “if I were running it”.
Richard Austinsays
… And, I’ll apologize for pushing the point, but “bashing video gamers” is a common thing that I really hate. You may not have intended to do that, but that’s how it came across to me (with a dose of “get off my lawn”). I’ll walk away from it now.
diannesays
nigel, if it helps any, I’ve never played D&D either. I’ve played plenty of other RPGs, but not that one. Too mainstream.
We had those too. Once we had a sentient building and someone asked if he could use Intimidate on it. The DM went outside, shouted a swear word, came back in and said “No.”
Our DM was infamously miserly. A cleric character detected evil in a magical mace, the only magic loot after a long and bloody campaign in which several characters died. He was adamant that it should be destroyed. Other non-good-aligned characters wanted to sell it.
It almost became physical.
That very night we instituted a “no alcohol at gaming sessions” rule.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com, and his wife, MacKenzie, have agreed to donate $2.5 million to help pass a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington State, instantly becoming among the largest financial backers of gay marriage rights in the country.
[…]
“We were chatting about the biz. We weren’t chatting about our lives,” she said, recalling her time at the company. “I never, ever in my life talked to him about gay marriage.”
In the e-mail, Ms. Cast described in detail the pain she endured as a young adult and the difficulties she faced publicly acknowledging her sexuality. At the end, she pointedly asked him to donate between $100,000 and $200,000 to the referendum cause.
“Jeff, I suspect you support marriage equality,” she wrote. “I beg you not to sit on the sidelines and hope the vote goes our way. Help us make it so.”
She hit “send” and waited.
Two days later, on Tuesday, she received a reply while in a car with her family. Recalling that moment, she said she had to read it out loud twice to make sure she had read it right.
“Jen,” the e-mail said, “this is right for so many reasons. We’re in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie.”
“Jen,” the e-mail said, “this is right for so many reasons. We’re in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie.”
This brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing, Richard.
Ogvorbissays
Richard:
Fantastic.
Now I feel even better about my Amazon addiction.
Paulsays
Our DM was infamously miserly. A cleric character detected evil in a magical mace, the only magic loot after a long and bloody campaign in which several characters died. He was adamant that it should be destroyed. Other non-good-aligned characters wanted to sell it.
Too bad it wasn’t a cursed shield. Everyone knows you equip those for 256 battles, after which it gets becomes a Paladin Shield, basically makes you invulnerable, and teaches you Ultima. Even a Cleric couldn’t destroy it in good conscience.
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
Akira: a friend of mine got married at 45, to someone she met through a hobby. It does happen. ;>
Indeed! For instance, I met The Husband courtesy of D&D—he was the DM.
:)
–
No, they’re not creating the underlying setting or the monsters.
It just now occurs to me—I’ve never run a module, or used a published game world. All home-brewed.
And creating your own monsters keeps the players delightfully off-balance.
:) :) :)
*suffers brief brainstorm; alters ‘nym*
–
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Eh. Never played these games you speak of. I must be too young, I guess.
Akira MacKenziesays
Ogvorbis @ 111
I like the idea, and would love to join, but my current financial situation (i.e. poor-paying job and lots of bills) prevents me from travelling outside the county much less out of state for any of the atheist/skeptic conventions.
Heh… maybe if someone brought a laptop with a web cam…
dianne, I’ve never played any RPGs. Considering I was a young lad in the late ’70s – early ’80s, that’s a sad thing. My only defense is that I grew up in logging camps in Southeast Alaska.
@Ogvorbis, I’d definitely be up to a run at an RPG at a horde gathering. I suck at role-playing in real life, but I might do OK in that kind of setting.
Are there *any* canned vegetables that are even *remotely* decent?
Organic peeled tomatoes. Diced are okay, but the more intact the tomato is, the less its acids interact with the can metal, which affects the taste.
As Ogvorbis said, corn is OK too.
Matt:
The obnoxious part is redundant.
Be careful; you might be accused of childism.
Audley: Yeah, I know birth control fails sometimes, and that some abusive men sabotage it, but going by what you’ve told us so far about this woman it sounds like she could fuck up blowing her nose.
it’s almost as if the anti-choicers believe that every pro-choice woman hates babies so much that not only will she never have kids, but she wants every other woman to abort every pregnancy, too.
Wingnut “thought” is full of binary caricatures. There are wholesome, demure virgins in long skirts who become mothers of large broods, and then there are man-hating lesbian prudesluts who fry up fetii for breakfast.
Mythbri:
In a lot of the abortion discussions I have with my conservative friends and relatives, they always pull the “Well, you might be a woman but you also don’t have kids, so you don’t know what you’re talking about” card.
Two words: Guttmacher Report.
Caine:
The regulars haven’t been tone trolling. It’s Kalliope who has been concern trolling and she’s a newb.
My bad about Kalliope, but Julian has been tone-trolling, and I’d call him a regular.
Browniansays
Eh. Never played these games you speak of. I must be too young, I guess.
I played once in junior high. I used my starting funds to buy two ‘attack’ chickens, Bucky and Clucker, and a cart to pull them in. I was accused of not ‘taking it seriously’.
I didn’t play again until 17, when I met the group of people I’ve been friends with ever since. (I still don’t count off food and water rations, unless starvation or dehydration is a potential plot point in the module. Fantasy role-playing for me doesn’t include buying groceries.)
diannesays
For instance, I met The Husband courtesy of D&D—he was the DM.
Is it bad that I was briefly concerned about the ethics of that situation?
Richard Austinsays
This is kind of cool: vaccines grown in plants at an amazing rate (in this case, 10 million doses in a month).
Plant-based vaccines, however, are developed using “virus-like particles,” which actually resemble viruses on a genetic level but are non-infectious. They can’t spread between people, and they help produce anti-viral antibodies. To produce the particles, scientists synthesize the DNA of the flu virus, combine the flu DNA with bacteria, and then soak the plants with it. After soaking for a few minutes, the plants then start producing the flu-fighting particles. Those particles then become the basis for a vaccine.
The most popular plant? Tobacco, as it grows relatively fast. The U.S. is also estimated to produce a heaping 450 metric tons of tobacco per year. And the whole process of turning tobacco into vaccines only takes a matter of weeks to complete. On a large enough scale, plant-based vaccines could be conceivably produced at 100 million vaccines a month. Egg-based vaccines, though, can take months just to develop.
I’m getting a kick that this is using both GM and tobacco.
Caerie, the sLOG post got pulled. Do we want to know what we missed?
Browniansays
Is it bad that I was briefly concerned about the ethics of that situation?
[Rolls dice behind a screen.]
No.
Akira MacKenziesays
cicley @ 125
And creating your own monsters keeps the players delightfully off-balance.
Oh definitely. There is one OD&D retro-clone called “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” (or LotFP) that doesn’t have the usual lists of monster stat blocks on the grounds that the author believes that throwing the usual armies of goblins, orcs, skeletons, and kobolds at players would get boring after a while. Instead he gives GMs guidelines on how to create your own original monsters.
LotFP’s author, Jim Raggi, also published a small book called “Random Esoteric Creature Generator” that contains rules and tables for creating a new slobbering fiend for your campaign in just a few dice rolls.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Well… I have tone trolls as parents.
We were discussing something or whatnot, then father started saying “Why are you assuming you’re always right?”
Me: What? I never said that!
Father: Well that’s what your tone’s saying!
*facedesk*
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
We now also have a red triangle thing to serve as a trigger warning. {{warn}} makes it appear.
Daisy,
That’s what I was getting at! Anti-choice mommy was either 1) lying about birth control or 2) completely fucking it up. Neither one would surprise me.
Daisy, damn! I wish I’d C&Ped it. Goldy wrote a post about Rob McKenna having moobs and suggested he was a trans man, with a link back to an old post by Dan Savage calling McKenna transgender.
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
Is it bad that I was briefly concerned about the ethics of that situation?
Believe me, he’s always killed out my characters just as readily as anyone else’s.
And I’ve always returned the favor.
That said, I know what you mean. For a while I played in a group in which nothing bad ever happened to the DM’s wife’s characters, who were never significantly out-matched in melee (even when the enemies were just dog-piling on everyone else), and any god was slobberingly eager to help her characters out of a pickle and give them free magic goodies…even if the character in question wasn’t a worshipper.
I one of her characters was supposedly Osiris’ half-sister. He always remembered Little Sister for birthdays and holidays.
This did not yield a satisfactory gaming experience, and I quit that group.
–
Silisays
Which bending powers would you like to have?
ALL OF THE POWERS!
Richard Austinsays
This could come in handy for people who need a moment.
Leonard Blair comes off as a soft-spoken asshat with no grounding in reality. No matter how nicely he tries to put his case, he comes off as an “obey me you women” kind of guy. And, he hides behind theology to do it. The interview is revealing, even when Blair intends to obfuscate. I think the result is one of Fresh Air’s greatest podcasts.
Sister Pat Farrell comes off as intelligent, also soft-spoken, and certainly not an asshat — though she is somewhat delusional when it comes to religion, and to expecting religious men to be reasonable.
Excerpts from Bishop Blair’s interview:
I recall something that Pope John Paul II said: He said that all other human rights are false and illusory. If the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and condition of all personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination … to relativize or say, well the right to life of an unborn child is a preoccupation with fetuses or [it is] relative in its importance, I cannot agree with that, and I don’t think that represents the church’s teaching and the focus of our energies in trying to deal with this great moral issue….
If by dialogue, they mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable, and that the bishops represent one position and the LCWR represents another position and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no, I don’t think that’s the dialogue the Holy See would envision. But if it’s a dialogue about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions, and try to heal some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues, that would be the dialogue.
We do recognize the validity of natural family planning but not artificial contraception. And admittedly, that involves more of a personal investment as a couple or individual, but that would be based on the moral grounds of what church teaches about marriage and human sexuality.
Excerpts from the interview with Sister Farrell:
I would say the mandate is more critical of positions we haven’t taken than those we have taken,” says Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference. “As I read that document, the concern is the issues we tend to be more silent about when the bishops are speaking out very clearly about some things. There are issues about which we think there’s a need for a genuine dialogue, and there doesn’t seem to be a climate of that in the church right now….
We have been, in good faith, raising concerns about some of the church’s teachings on sexuality. The problem being that the teaching and interpretation of the faith can’t remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in. And new questions and new realities [need to be addressed] as they arise. And if those issues become points of conflict, it’s because Women Religious stand in very close proximity to people at the margins, to people with very painful, difficult situations in their lives. That is our gift to the church. Our gift to the church is to be with those who have been made poorer, with those on the margins. Questions there are much less black and white because human realities are much less black and white. That’s where we spend our days.
A related article and podcast addresses the fact that the hierarchy of the Catholic church has shifted far to the right in terms of social issues and politic.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Richard Austin:
This could come in handy for people who need a moment.
Borked link.
Richard Austinsays
Thunk: Aww. well, the link is there in text anyway.
We were discussing something or whatnot, then father started saying “Why are you assuming you’re always right?”
You are doing the teenager thing all wrong. The proper answer to this question is “Because I am Your child!” or “I learned it from my elders!”. ;p
___
I never could understand the appeal of RPGs. I kept waiting for the game to become fun and entertaining, but I mostly found it very boring and would die on purpose to end the tediousness.
You know what I find funny? I keep getting new followers on Twitter (not just random bots, but atheists and people who fight for social justice and whatnot) and OMG, I almost never update.
Sorry, everyone! I don’t hate you, I’m just lazy!
Silisays
Am I the only person who thinks it’s perverted to put toddlers and preeschoolers into bikinis? There’s nothing there that could be covered and you should wash your brain with soap if you think otherwise.
But I’m also wondering how much of it is a perpetuum mobile. I’m pretty sure that #1 will insist on her little top once she sees that all other girls wear one and that only the boys go topless and then the next little girl sees her and so on.
I can’t decide what upsets me most – that they’re already thinking about sex, or that the boy doesn’t realise that “girls have naughty thoughts”.
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
I never could understand the appeal of RPGs. I kept waiting for the game to become fun and entertaining, but I mostly found it very boring and would die on purpose to end the tediousness.
Sorry to hear that, Tethys; I don’t see how anyone on TET can have avoided noticing that IMO, tabletop RPGs are among those things (like chocolate, and kittens) that considerably and consistently out-perform sliced bread. (I guess maybe someone who’s got me kill-filed.)
Mind you, some DMs can suck the fun outa anything. Still, I wish you’d had a better gaming experience, ’cause good Games are awesome.
–
Louissays
Richard Austin,
Calm.com? Ohhhh thanks for that. I shall use it.
______________
Thunk,
Did you ask to be born? If not, that’s always been one of my favourites! ;-)
I plan to spend most of the weekend in the park, getting used to the camera and seeing what it can do.
*more happy dance*
Epinephrinesays
You know, paper and pen RPGs and MMORPGs aren’t exclusive ;)
We play a weekly game (currently 4th ed. D&D, we’ve migrated around), but also hook up in online games. Oh, and when I DM the game, I use a computer and flat screen TV to do the maps, etc – the program is called Masterplan, and works wonders for tracking conditions, reminding to make saves, etc – so I suppose we’re partly pen and paper (characters, etc) and partly computer (maps, pictures). It is hard to work around everyone’s schedules, but it mostly works out.
Tethyssays
Thunk
Hee! I see your snark lessons are progressing on a very steep learning curve.
diannesays
Did you ask to be born? If not, that’s always been one of my favourites! ;-)
Yes, but what if you did ask to be born?
Louissays
Dianne,
Yes, but what if you did ask to be born?
Hmmmm, I feel a candidate for the JREF’s Million Dollar Prize has arrived.
Well, I was going to take my morning nap, but that third cup of coffee did not put me to sleep so I am still up–coffee will knock me out when I am sleep-deprived, which I should be but apparently am not, or something.
Can I say something? I will try to keep it brief.
I understand burn-out. Actually I am sort of a casualty of life burn-out, having tried to teach for over a decade and finally breaking down and running away screaming at yet another crop of entitled young white men who, thinking that the way college works is you put your money in a machine and your diploma thunks down to the slot where you pick it up, kept throwing tantrums when asked to question their assumptions as part of learning to think and write.
And so when I hear regulars like Browning and Ing saying they are getting burnt out, I do think to myself that it is wise to take care of yourself before you completely break, but I also hope that after some time spent resting from the good fight, that you all will be back–for all values of “you all” who might be feeling a bit weary of the ongoing hostilities.*
See the thing is this, at least for me: before so-called Elevatorgate, I found it hard to give two shits about the “atheist community,” because it seemed to me already obvious that it was inhabited mainly by straight, cisgendered, able-physiologied**, young white men who were not interested in questioning their own cultural assumptions beyond that single one represented by theistic religion.
But in the last year this has changed, and much for the better, from my point of view. The change might be painful for some, and it certainly is creating noticeable conflict. But I don’t see this movement, however it might be composed, as falling apart or dying. I see it as going through a bit of a revolution, but from where I stand, it is welcome and good and even a bit of a miracle, insofar as fighting for social justice tends always to feel like a losing battle here in the US.
I’ve lurked here for a long time and kept quiet mainly because I was not certain that there was room in the atheist movement for me, even though I don’t believe in any gods. I have PTSD partially from growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family and being told from age 7 that I was going to hell. The main reason I hung around here was that I thought there might be potential for engaging atheism in cultural critique, starting by resisting the hegemony of Christian practice in the West.
I think that (conservative) Christianity in particular needs to be exposed as an abusive practice, but it exists in an abusive culture that also needs to be exposed in its colonialism, misogyny, racism, heteronormativity, ableism, and all the other manifestations of its essential structure of domination and control. I don’t think that one can fight any of these things–or at least not well–without fighting all of them, and I think that if the atheist movement wants to grow as a skeptical community and become/remain relevant to the rest of the social justice movement, it has to extend its skepticism to the roots of Western chauvinism in all of its forms.
I can only speak for myself, of course. Me, I don’t want to have much to do with a skepticism that refuses to examine its own biases, especially if it does so out of the opinion that all forms of rationality are immune to bias a priori. There is no neutral subject, but there is a subject assumed to be neutral, and it is almost always straight, white, christian, male… you know the litany.
I may be no great catch, it is true; you all might not find it particularly compelling when I say that the atheist movement has only become relevant to me in the last several months. But, you know, maybe I am not the only one for whom this is true.
That was not very brief, was it.
*Is that a useful euphemism for the Deep Rift Wars?
**A mouthful, I guess, but when fighting against Cartesian dualism I figure use the big guns.
Richard Austinsays
The only response my mother ever really took to heart was when I said, “I am under no obligation to prove myself to anyone, least of all you.” I said it in a very calm, even voice, and then turned and left the room. This was in response to her demanding to know why I was hurting her by not living up to her expectations.
I never had to say it again, and she gradually stopped pulling codependent shit on me over the next few months (after doing it for pretty much my entire life). She still slips up once in a while, and I see her starting to go that way, but I can accept that, and she also knows that she’s doing it and backs off.
CTsays
thunk:
Well… I have tone trolls as parents.
My kids tell me when I’m trolling like this. I don’t know how that would work for you but I think it’s hilarious then I forget what the hell I was bitching about. Which is why they do it. “Mom’s a troll!!!!”
Silisays
On the other hand, it occurs to me that a Google+ hangout would be a good way to run a long-distance tabletop game. Hmmmm.
That’s so brilliant and obvious…I wonder if it’s been done already?
The author of Casey and Andy made a thingummajig for making it easier to play table top games on the Internet, but that predates G+ by years. (Incidentally the webcomic where I picked up the “-tard” suffix as being derived from “bastard”.)
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
eriktrips, if I haven’t welcomed you in before, Welcome In! May I offer you a *beverage*?
–
Silisays
Bit of a threadrupt, but I see that Slog is heading back to its bodysnarking, transphobic roots. Stay classy, Goldy.
Darn. A 404 Error.
Sorry, we can’t find the page you’re looking for.
Patricia, OMsays
Rev BDC – Wild Fermentation… came in yesterday. I’m getting inspired!
birgerjohanssonsays
I HAZ FOUND “PHARYNGULA ISLAND”!!!*
.
Gotland pic voted top in NASA ‘Earth as Art’ poll http://www.thelocal.se/42278/20120727/
PS View the entire “Earth as Art” collection
.
(*And unlike the island in “Lost”, this one stays in place)
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
Thanks for your post, eriktrips.
Tethyssays
cicely
Mind you, some DMs can suck the fun outa anything. Still, I wish you’d had a better gaming experience, ’cause good Games are awesome.
I think that imagination is an important aspect of the game?
I was playing with a group of white, male, Christians who considered D&D to be borderline devil worship. (It was on the list of things not allowed at church teen nights) I am sure that the game would be much more engaging if played with horde members.
I can’t do much gaming of any kind anymore, but there was a time when I was pretty much the Ultimate gamer nerd. Back when “gamer” had nothing to do with video games.
Patricia, OMsays
Dalillama – The Yakima & Celilos that live around here call themselves Indians too.
Suppressing the black vote, yes Republicans did that intentionally.
…Florida’s former Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble, blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote….
@Ricahrd Austin
I have a mixture of my dad’s upstate New York accent and mom’s Philadelphia with a hint of East Texas that confuses everyone, especially because I live in Oregon. I’ve had people guess ‘England,’ and ‘Australia,’ and once a visiting Scot asked me what part of Scotland I was from.
@Akira MacKenzie
Hear, Hear. Although there are a number of quite good virtual desktop programs for when you simply can’t meet in person.
@Pteryxx #88
Recently I’ve been doing ‘tabletop’ gaming via various chat programs due to a lack of an in person group at the moment. It retains all the virtues of anonymity and freedom of presentation that the internet offers. Also, there’s loads of programs and spreadsheets, mostly free, that handle the math. :)
@Caerie
You and your friends might want to look at some virtual tabletops too, particularly if you’ve got computers with microphones.There are several that are online and free, I can dig up links later when I have more time if there’s interest.
@ Brownian
indeed. one of my regulr chat games hasn’t been able to get together in 2 months due to peopl’es changing schedules.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Finally able to get some pics of my other cat, Cassie, as well as E’s dog, Sham (plus another one of Krystal for good measure):
Krystal in her pet my belly position (she *loves* to have her stomach rubbed; all I have to say is “rub the belly” and she drops down and rolls on her back)
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
I think that imagination is an important aspect of the game?
Very important, yes, even if you’re sticking strictly with store-bought campaigns and monsters and magic.
I was playing with a group of white, male, Christians who considered D&D to be borderline devil worship. (It was on the list of things not allowed at church teen nights) I am sure that the game would be much more engaging if played with horde members.
*facepalm*
I believe that I have spotted your problem. “White”, “male” and even “Christian” don’t have to be problems—or at least, they sometimes come packaged with problems, without causing them—but the “D&D is borderline devil worship” is, big time. *flashing-back to the bad old Mothers Against Dungeons & Dragons days*
–
All the tribes in ND, Indian. The term ‘Native American’ is not appreciated.
*making mental note*
Thanks for the tip. I will try hard to remember. If I screw up on it in the future, hit me with a dead fish, okay? Promise?
–
Paulsays
Daisy, damn! I wish I’d C&Ped it. Goldy wrote a post about Rob McKenna having moobs and suggested he was a trans man, with a link back to an old post by Dan Savage calling McKenna transgender.
@Eriktrips:
Welcome. I swear, the more I hear about other people’s families the more grateful I am for mine. You have my entire sympathies. My husband is also suffering from PTSD issues surrounding his abusive Christian upbringing
@Pharyngula game night
I’d be willing to have a go at GMing as well, it’s been a long time since I’ve done it. I’d also be happy to play in someone else’s game. Other people have already pointed links to some online desktop programs; I have the same restrictions as JAL and others re: budget and travel.
Ogvorbissays
All the tribes in ND, Indian. The term ‘Native American’ is not appreciated.
Thanks. Unaware of this. Still stuck in late 1970s Arizona.
Browniansays
Yes, but what if you did ask to be born?
Then I fail to see why the Nintendo I asked for was somehow out of the question.
Silisays
I like the idea, and would love to join, but my current financial situation (i.e. poor-paying job and lots of bills) prevents me from travelling outside the county much less out of state for any of the atheist/skeptic conventions.
Rhinebeck is a socialist, pharyngular commune. You could apply for a grant.
Good evening
Talking about contraception, how can you become 41 yo and only reproduce with intended pregnancies and look surprised when you’re told that the condoms you left in the car in the summer-sun are now rubbish?
My sister-in-law’s pregnancy wasn’t even a particularly difficult one, but the idea of someone being forced to go through that experience gives me chills.
This. I wouldn’t even voluntarily do it for anybody else.
+++
Rpgs: I really need to get the troup back together in September. Roleplaying in a good group where you can also relax and trust people is a great experience. Never tried playing D&D, I’d probably be confused not cheer at a tripple 1
Patricia, OMsays
Eriktrips – Welcome! My upbringing was very similar to yours.
*Tankard of three minute grog headed your way*
(vis speeding Pullet)
Silisays
Then I fail to see why the Nintendo I asked for was somehow out of the question.
As if squeezing a baby out of the birth canal wasn’t hard enough?! I shudder to think of a Wii passing that way.
Silisays
fetii
NO! BAD DAISY! BAD!
Patricia, OMsays
Brownian – Yer doing that wrong. Jezus gave me a pony.
Silisays
. Instead he gives GMs guidelines on how to create your own original monsters.
If I screw up on it in the future, hit me with a dead fish, okay? Promise?
Eh, it’s not that big of a deal, ya know? NA generally elicits an eyeroll at worst, from most NDNs. It’s just not how Indians refer to themselves or other Indians. NA is a white term, made up to assuage that whole racial guilt business. Mostly, NA is simply viewed as white people silliness, an empty gesture.
Ogvorbissays
fetii
Wait. The Darkfetus is twins? Darkfetii?
Ogvorbissays
Yer doing that wrong. Jezus gave me a pony.
With peas? Or whithout?
Silisays
This could come in handy for people who need a moment.
In Cherokee it will earn you the stink eye and a polite rebuke.
Ogvorbissays
Oggie,
Oh dear god, no. No twins.
Sorry. I saw ‘fetii’ and my mind just went there. You can climb down off the ceiling now.
One of my favourite books as a little kid was Dr. Suess’s ABC’s. It was a favourite book when Boy and Girl were young. And I wish that I knew what I know now when I was in kindergarten — I could’ve had fun: “Big C, little c, what begins with C? Camel on the Ceiling, LSD.”
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ogvorbis:
Canned corn can be quite edible.
Sheesh! Can’t believe I forgot canned corn.
You’re right, it’s probably (IMO) the best example of a good canned vegetable. Now I just wish corn were more nutritious. I love me some corn on the cob.
Which is also good in cornbread.
This may sound strange, but while I looooooooooooove cornbread, I don’t like pieces of corn in it (or pieces of *anything* in it).
I’m much the same way when it comes to rice. I hate that I Mexican and Chinese restaurants mix veggies into their rice. When I order rice, I want just that: rice. I don’t want to pick out the peas, carrots, or onions. People get a chuckle out of me spreading the rice on my plate and picking that stuff out.
****
Audley:
I just can’t imagine five unplanned pregnancies happening to me while I was using some form of birth control, but perhaps I’m lucky.
If that person had used Bayer between the legs, no pregnancy would have happened :)
****
I guess I’m not that geeky since I’ve never played an RPG in my life. Heck, I’m still getting accustomed to 3-dimensional video games. There’s a part of me that still feels more comfortable playing Legend of Zelda II or Super Mario 3 than many of the games today.
****
Akira:
Heh… I’m the only member of my group who isn’t married. At my age, I’ve pretty much given up hope of finding a woman who’d be attracted to me, much less tolerate my hobbies.
However, being lonely still hurts though.
I feel the same way. I know there’s always hope, but geez, at 36, I’ve never been in a relationship longer than 3 months and have never been in love. Yet I *want* a relationship and I *want* kids (people continue to be surprised that a gay man wants kids…:::SIGH:::). I worry that my hobbies, combined with living in southern US and being a PoC (who tends to date interracially), as well as being atheist combine to create some obstacles.
****
nigel:
My geek cred suffers from my complete lack of D&D experience. I have never played. I received some basic D&D books when I turned 13, but never had anyone to play. (Lots of friends, really, just no geek friends.)
Also, too, I’ve never seen a single episode of Dr. Who.
*sob*
I feel your pain.
Shall we start a club?
****
Sili:
Which bending powers would you like to have?
ALL OF THE POWERS!
we’ll have none of that McGreedy Pants :)
Just for that, you get to be Sokka.
****
Richard:
Thanks for the calm.com link.
****
diannesays
Mostly, NA is simply viewed as white people silliness, an empty gesture.
Which is what it is, of course. But the term “Indian” is confusing. I never know if we’re talking about the people who immigrated to the Americas from Asia via the Bering strait or the people living on the Asia subcontinent known as India.
Silisays
There are few things I love more than bigots getting thoroughly trolled
That sounds about as much fun as having sex with a white, male Christian who considers it sin (but isn’t kinky enough to enjoy “sinning”.)
Errr, ummmm, didn’t really seem to be a problem.
Tying in with the above theme of birth control failure, my first-born son turned 30 on Wednesday. He is an unapologetic snarky atheist. I am so proud.
__
cicely
they sometimes come packaged with problems
Yep. The whitewashed, white bread, white christian entitlement version of reality is a huge problem ie; Michelle Bachmann.
Hi Tethys! I am glad my coffee high was of value to you. :)
Cipher: ah ok. It is good to know that my occasional inability to stop writing is useful at times.
Dalillama: yeah the funny thing (hahahaha!) was that I of course thought my family was normal until I moved out and started meeting people who were not told they were evil because they were human. Now it may be true that my parents did not put it in those words, but the preachers at their church did, and they implicitly endorsed everything I learned at church.
Your husband has my empathy.
Patricia: I’m truly sorry your upbringing was similar to mine. Here’s to survival.
Keeping this vague for the sake of privacy: I had a manuscript cross my desk with a man arguing with other characters that he wanted to be called Native American and the other characters–who were meant to be sympathetic–were snidely mocking him and insisting on calling him Indian instead.
It was…bizarre and inappropriate, to say the least.
Pteryxxsays
I’ve been thinking. Despite all the Deep Rift Wars, being accused of being bullies and all that, there have been quite a few good delurks recently.
^ this.
I wonder what would happen if PZ ran a hello-lurkers thread?
I shall add my somewhat beer-roughened voice to the cry: Welcome, ErikTrips!
Now. Where did I put that bottle opener?
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
I don’t want to pick out the peas, carrots, or onions. People get a chuckle out of me spreading the rice on my plate and picking that stuff out.
And no matter how diligently you pick that shit out, it still can’t remove the pea cooties. No, if a place only offers fried rice with garbage stirred in, I’ll do without.
–
Ahem…. That would be ‘Welcome in, Eriktrips!’ not ‘Welcome in Eriktrips!’. That… would be weird…
Richard Austinsays
Which is what it is, of course. But the term “Indian” is confusing. I never know if we’re talking about the people who immigrated to the Americas from Asia via the Bering strait or the people living on the Asia subcontinent known as India.
That’s my problem too: my OCD dislikes the imprecision (not that it’s my call).
Would something like “Tribal” be bad? As in, “xe is of tribal descent” if the specific tribe isn’t known? I’ll use Indian if that’s the favored option, but I’ll likely find myself qualifying it constantly :)
Silisays
Third time’s the charm (why does this trigger the spamfilter?).
There are few things I love more than bigots getting thoroughly trolled:
Would something like “Tribal” be bad? As in, “xe is of tribal descent” if the specific tribe isn’t known?
IMHO, it’s not the best option. There are tribes in other parts of the world besides the Americas. Europe, for example. Plus calling, say, Mayans, “tribal” just seems wrong. They built cities and suffered a collapse due to overfarming, i.e. an overbuilt civilization. Not what I think of as “tribal”.
True, most MMORPG players don’t role-play, but the ones who do really do it.
That sounds pretty cool, actually. I was under the impression that WoW was more about grinding levels and such.
Silisays
we’ll have none of that McGreedy Pants :)
Just for that, you get to be Sokka.
Given the fanart I’ve seen of him putting that name to good use, I shan’t complain.
diannesays
Of course, one should consider that my opinion on the Indian/Native American/whatever issue is worth approximately nothing since any cultural heritage I have from that group of ancestors has been filtered through at least two colonial powers, at least once forcibly. No real connection left.
Richard, tribal gets some pretty strong emotional reactions for a variety of reasons, so I’d advise against that one. Here in my part of Wisconsin, Native by itself and as an adjective (Native issues, Native identity, Native peoples, etc) is accepted when Indian might be confusing, but I can’t say that for everywhere.
It does seem to be used on sites like Native Appropriations without any trouble, though.
Silisays
I wonder what would happen if PZ ran a hello-lurkers thread?
The blogiverse would collapse on itself. If they delurk, they aren’t lurkers anymore!
/no-true-lurker
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Sili:
“girls have naughty thoughts”.
wait, they *do*???
I always thought girls didn’t have sex and that water was dry.
****
erik:
I’ve lurked here for a long time and kept quiet mainly because I was not certain that there was room in the atheist movement for me, even though I don’t believe in any gods.
There *is* room for you.
Everyone has their own voice and unique set of circumstances they bring to the table. That is evident in the differing techniques used by Pharyngulites to argue a point. If you feel you have nothing to say on a subject, I understand that. But please don’t think there’s no room for you. To me, being as inclusive as possible while levelling the playing field is one of the goals of social justice.
I don’t think that one can fight any of these things–or at least not well–without fighting all of them, and I think that if the atheist movement wants to grow as a skeptical community and become/remain relevant to the rest of the social justice movement, it has to extend its skepticism to the roots of Western chauvinism in all of its forms.
THIS. YES.
I’d love a JUST SAY NO tee shirt with all the isms on it (along with religion).
****
birger @167:
That’s nowhere close to Monster Island is it? We would die before the Mothra and Rodan droppings produced psychedelic mushrooms…
****
Brownian:
Then I fail to see why the Nintendo I asked for was somehow out of the question.
Did you pray for it?
I hear Jesus answers all prayers.
****
Audley:
Oh dear god, no. No twins.
For an even worse nightmare, imagine if women routinely had babies in numbers similar to female rats (how big was Esme’s litter?)
pentatomid: Heh. I appreciate the sentiment. The one with a comma, at least. I’m not going to think too much about the other one for now.
nigelTheBold: Cheers! And is it just me, or does hanging out in the lounge here make a person thirsty? I keep wanting to go to the corner store to get my yearly six-pack.
It would probably be a bad idea.
Or would it..?
CTsays
I usually just say the tribe name or just qualify like you said.
Tethyssays
Caine:
Eh, it’s not that big of a deal, ya know?
Oh good, I was going to get in the fish slapping line.
(bad 70’s woo, baaad!) I appreciate the correction.
Richard Austinsays
Caerie:
Okay, I’ll stick with Indian until I hear otherwise.
I’ve heard “Native” used as a specific adjective as well, but something in my brain squicks out about applying it to a specific person directly. It feels (to me) like shades of “Oriental”.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Caine:
Eh, it’s not that big of a deal, ya know? NA generally elicits an eyeroll at worst, from most NDNs. It’s just not how Indians refer to themselves or other Indians. NA is a white term, made up to assuage that whole racial guilt business. Mostly, NA is simply viewed as white people silliness, an empty gesture.
No more NA it is.
I have no interest in offending someone in that manner.
May I ask what an appropriate term would be?
mythbrisays
We have a few reservations in my neck of the woods, and whenever possible I just try to use the name of the Nation (ex. Navajo, several Paiute groups, etc.).
I’ve heard the term “Amerindian”, but that’s not universally appreciated.
Jesus Drosophila Christ, my flat is full of mosquitoes. Aaaargh. DIE! DIE YOU VAMPIRIC HARBINGERS OF DEATH! DIE!
Patricia, OMsays
Cicely – Naughty Marvin has pet cooties, and he eats canned peas.
*ducks*
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
pentatomid:
I sooooooooooo feel your pain.
Just the other day I walked outside at dusk just to take out the trash. I had on just a pair of shorts. I was outside *maybe* 30 seconds.
Came back in with 3 mosquito bites.
It’s like they surround the door and ignore T and E if they come and go, but wait for me to exit the house and just attack me.
When I say I’m looking for love, that is not what I’m talking about.
CTsays
I’ve heard the term “Amerindian”, but that’s not universally appreciated.
and not really accurate any more since there are so many people from India living and working here. A friend of mine from India requests people call her Eurasian rather than Indian but I don’t think that’s universal.
Ogvorbissays
I mentioned Pentatomid’s comment about mosquitos to a friend. He pondered if mosquitoes have an afterlife, a heaven. He asked what heaven would be to a mosquito? I answered, a nudist colony?
Some people can only put in so much effort before they burn out, and it doesn’t matter how much privilege they have, because everybody’s emotional constitution and offline situation is different. Brownian and Ing have been doing this shit for years, and doing it much better than most. If they never come back, I will miss them, but I sure as hell won’t resent them.
Quite honestly, I keep debating whether I want to stick around here. On the one hand, we have a shit-ton of MRAs, PUAs, racists, and other social detritus. On the other, we have our own in-house concern and tone trolls. Plus, all the SJW bullshit that’s reached a crescendo in other online spaces in the last year or two has increased on FTB. People wringing their hands over “childism,” for example, or claiming that a silly meme based on a girl speaking with a retainer in her mouth is “ableist.” That term is already grossly overused — words like “weak” and “stupid” and criticism of body odor have all been described thusly.
Am I the only one here who feels really uncomfortable between those two opposing tensions? Virulent misogyny and willingness to stalk women and their allies on the one hand, and the walking-on-eggshells approach to language on the other? I wouldn’t say this place is turning into Shakesville quite yet, but I’m getting some of those vibes, to be honest.
Also, I adore and respect the vast majority of you, but, I’m sorry, I don’t want to live on an island or commune with you. I don’t want to live in a small town where everybody knows me, either. I like having a bit of anonymity offline, even if it’s illusory.
/as you can see I have a lot of feelings about this
Oh ye nonexistent gods, I spent the last hour ironing some important holiday-stuff (yay, setting out on Sunday morning) and I’m melting. I left a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Beatricesays
He pondered if mosquitoes have an afterlife, a heaven.
Since mosquitoes would be part of hell for me, I guess that’s heaven for them.
'Tis Himselfsays
I work for an Indian tribe.* We have a large number of Indian Indians working for the company.** This has led to some discussion about what the two groups should be called. The consensus is “American Indians” and “Indian Indians”.
*The Mashentucket Pequots.
**So much so that the most common last name among employees isn’t Smith or Johnson but Patel.
One down, a gazillion to go… Honestly, WTF is this?
He asked what heaven would be to a mosquito? I answered, a nudist colony?
Ha! Nice one!
Ze Madmaxsays
On the issue of Indian/Native/NA: A friend of a friend is half Lakota and she mentioned in a couple of occasions that she preferred “Aboriginal.” Although that could cause confusion between American and Australian aborigines?
I guess the best approach would be to go by what the people one is referring to prefers. But then how can you find that out without being needlessly offensive? (Dunno how people would feel if someone plain asks them “So, what do YOU prefer to be referred as?”)
So yeah. I got myself tied in knots a bit here. Which is probably a good thing.
I hope.
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
Ick.
I don’t wanna go see people.
I just wanna go to bed.
Am I the only one here who feels really uncomfortable between those two opposing tensions? Virulent misogyny and willingness to stalk women and their allies on the one hand, and the walking-on-eggshells approach to language on the other? I wouldn’t say this place is turning into Shakesville quite yet, but I’m getting some of those vibes, to be honest.
You’re not alone, though like you said, the SJW stuff is a problem that’s become rampant all over the Internet recently. I don’t blame anyone for getting burned out with either extreme, but as a noob around these parts I also know my opinion (rightfully) carries far less weight than someone who’s been battling it out here for ages.
CTsays
You may also refer to me as “Birthgiver” as my children do.
'Tis Himselfsays
Ms. Daisy Cutter #233
On the other, we have our own in-house concern and tone trolls. Plus, all the SJW bullshit that’s reached a crescendo in other online spaces in the last year or two has increased on FTB.
This is something I’ve noticed. We have our own in-house SJW shouting down anything he feels derogatory to some group. Some of the criticisms of ableist language are appropriate, but some of it is stretching the point long past anything useful. No, I do not think that “stupid” is ableist.
Am I the only one here who feels really uncomfortable between those two opposing tensions?
Oh no, you’re not alone there. Trust me.
'Tis Himselfsays
CT #242
You may also refer to me as “Birthgiver” as my children do.
Do you refer to the kiddies as “fruit of my loins”?
Patricia, OMsays
Crap, now that everyone several people have mentioned it, I’ve lost my deadly antichristan superpowers. Unless, I just don’t give a fuck about your gawd doesn’t count as burnout?
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
*sigh*
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
We have our own in-house SJW shouting down anything he feels derogatory to some group.
Do you have to do this? It’s passive-aggressive.
CTsays
Do you refer to the kiddies as “fruit of my loins”?
No, shut-ins. LMAO that kills them. The oldest called me a few hours ago to let me know he was out of the house taking his brother to the orthodontist and dealing with my mother. I told him 1 day out of fourteen *was* an improvement.
Patricia, OMsays
Giliell – My favorite gawd this week is ‘Koalemos’, the god of stupidity. I believe he is the patron saint of my county, and the veterans administration.
Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Googlesays
Once, at a rally for choice, some one shouted at me, “What if YOUR mother were pro-choice?!”
I didn’t answer, but:
1) My mother, at the time of my birth, was not pro-choice. She was a god-botter of a fundie variety.
1a) She is now pro-choice and has gotten better about the god-botting.
2) I was conceived via in vitro. I think it is safe to say that when a woman goes to such lengths to get pregnant, it is a wanted pregnancy.
3) If my mother had been pro-choice in those days and had had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, I would not exist. Which means that I wouldn’t know the difference.
___
Gaming:
True story. When I was an undergraduate, I came out to the family. Later, my uncle (my father’s brother) pulled me aside and said that he had my back, no questions asked, and that if anyone in the family gave me grief, I was on his side. ♥
Then: “Y’know, when your father was in high school, the family thought he was gay.”
[My dad is one of those aggressively straight men].
Me: *confusion*
Uncle: “See, he never had a girlfriend and was always over at his friend [Male name]’s house.”
Me: “What was going on? Ever figure it out?”
Uncle: “Yeah, they were playing D&D.”
My dad was not gay as a kid. He was just a nerd.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Birger:
I regret to inform you that Gotland is over 50 degrees latitude.
The ecliptic is at 23 degrees latitude.
We don’t have enough fuel for those plane changes.
I remember Aquaria giving back her OM.
Is she also taking a break ( I hope she hasn’t left for good)?
Louissays
The thing that worries me more than anything about the SJW stuff is this:
Look at Abraham Lincoln’s racism for example, he was still ahead of the curve for his time (understatement) but even the words of a great pioneer of social justice ring racist in our ears today. What the hell have I said that in a similarly distant future will have some nonentity on the Interwebz Version 236452.0101Beta shaking his* head? Probably quite a lot.
Not that I am Abraham Lincoln….oh bugger….what I mean is our current values are just that: current. More evidence and social change comes in every day. What future antique views do I have now?
Louis
* Because we know there are No Girls On The Internet. ;-)
Louissays
Thunk, #253,
Yup, still learning how to snark.
Stick by me, young Padawan. I shall teach you the ways of the Snark Side.
;-)
Louis
Jeebussays
Do you refer to the kiddies as “fruit of my loins”?
Crotch-droppings.
I prefer “crotchfruit”, myself.
'Tis Himselfsays
Do you have to do this? It’s passive-aggressive.
Yes, I do have to do it. SG goes out of his way to be the tone-nanny here. Plus I have not forgiven him for claiming that since the bullying I endured in school wasn’t because I was gay or accused of being gay then it wasn’t “real” bullying.
FTR, I have no problem modifying my language in certain respects. However, I do have a problem with harassment. There are people here who don’t have any problem at all with someone being harassed, as long as it’s SG doing the harassing. I have a major fucking problem with that.
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
Yeah, I agree with Daisy. I decided to stay out of it in PET, but the discussion about Ermagerd was absurd to me. I can understand being uncomfortable with it if one was teased as a kid, for example, but it’s not “ableism”. Slight orthodontic issues are not “disabilities” that society refuses to accommodate, or systematically punishes/oppresses people for. To call that ableism is to cheapen the meaning of that word.
My thinking on this is that there are people who encounter SJ ideas and embrace them, but they only understand them in a superficial way. For instance, using the word “privilege” should be reserved for things that are actually privileges, as in they give one group advantages in society. Also, pointing out privileges isn’t an argument-winner. Inherent in intersectionality is that people belong to multiple groups at once and may have privileges from some of those groups and disadvantages from others. For instance, I’m a white gay male; therefore, I have white privilege, male privilege, but my gayness doesn’t give me some kind of privilege. Also, having those privileges doesn’t make someone a bad person, or evil, and it doesn’t even mean they use them intentionally. Most people are completely unaware of their privilege.
All that being said, I have seen people (not here, at least not by regulars) pull that word out for anything and act like that stops the discussion. The most egregious place I’ve seen it happen at is Shakesville, where frequently in the comments people will be told to “check their privilege”, and what that means is “fuck off until you agree with us”. There are no explanations of privilege over there or discussions about what are and are not privileges.
And I don’t even wanna know if I wanna get started on “trigger warnings”. Daisy sent me a link to a vegan Tumblr page where someone put “trigger warning: fish” because they talked about fish. That’s, well…it’s fucking bullshit, is what it is. Even if one is a vegan, I can understand the sympathy one can have for another animal dying, and I can see the ethical issues, but a person being triggered by someone mentioning fish? I find that unlikely. It’s possible that there are a few people out there that have had traumatic experiences with fish, but that’s not something that happens to 1 in 10 people. It’s not something one can reasonably expect to bother people. Going beyond reasonable expectations is why SJ places on Tumblr, and Shakesville too, is going fucking overboard on the trigger warnings.
fastlanesays
I’ve been around Pharyngula a long time, but I think is the first time I’ve dipped my toes in TET…so be gentle.
1) I actually have native American (Lakota) on my mom’s side. One could guess it looking at her, but I look as white bread as can be. It was her great grandmother (IIRC), so that’s 5 generations removed from me. Even in Az, we were taught very little about the treatment of the local native tribes, although I learned a bit on my own, mostly tutoring the summer programs for the kids from the reservations. (Very cool experience with a really awesome bunch of motivated youngsters, BTW.)
2) for those asking about what lilandra teaches, this is what she said in the guest post over on Aaron’s blog:
As a public school teacher I am required by the state to lead the pledge every school day. As an American atheist, this daily pledge is a reminder that however indivisible our country pledges it is; nothing divides a people like religion. Although it irks me to lead the pledge, I am mandated to do it, and it wouldn’t accomplish anything other than losing my job not to do it. The good I do every day in my science classroom far outweighs the daily dings to my conscience. So, I like most of the people the pledge excludes, have become pragmatic about pledging to a nation under God. After all I am being compelled to violate the Constitution by my own government.
So I guess she’s a science teacher…probably jr. high or high school?
Ok, back to post 20-ish to catch up on the rest of the thread.
Caerie and Pentatomid: Thanks. I feel obliged to add that, even if I’ve been lurking for years, I’ve only been speaking up here for… crap, I’m not even sure it’s been a full year.
Maybe it’s the contrast of the full-on bawling out of malefactors in the most vicious terms one can think of with the hugbox atmosphere that prevails on TET and in “heavy” threads like the one about Savannah Dietrich. Both are justified, but I’m more comfortable with the former than with the latter, due to upbringing and other personal reasons.
That’s not to criticize anybody for having emotional reactions, or requiring or giving out hugs. I’m just noting that the intensity of such discussions, separate from the trolling, can be hard to handle, for various and complex reasons. My default mode for dealing with injustice is anger, gallows humor, and cynicism. Years of therapy with a very earnest U/U who couldn’t see that she was trying to get me to be more like her didn’t “fix” me. /shrug
Louis, yes and no. The problem with Abraham Lincoln isn’t that he was an imperfect man who did a very good thing. It’s that he has been idolized in the American consciousness, much like the founding fathers, and the anger at him is a reaction to that. I don’t know if this is strictly an American thing but we seem incapable of evaluating our predecessors without either lionizing or demonizing them.
Aquaria gave back her OM?! Oh, shit. And I didn’t realize she’d been driven off. Fuck.
‘Tis:
Plus I have not forgiven him for claiming that since the bullying I endured in school wasn’t because I was gay or accused of being gay then it wasn’t “real” bullying.
Jesus.
RahXephon:
My thinking on this is that there are people who encounter SJ ideas and embrace them, but they only understand them in a superficial way.
The phrase “cargo cult social justice” has been used to describe the slimepitters who thought up the term “FTBullies.” I think it also applies to many people who are, only nominally, on the side of “good.”
(Natalie Reed’s recent post on trigger warnings is really good, btw.)
…
LOL, “fruit of my loins.” I also laughed the other day when I passed a minivan with the bumper sticker “I Embarrass My Offspring.”
KristinC: BWAHAHA. I didn’t realize that parents actually used that term. Wouldn’t it be funny in some kind of script font on a photo frame? “♥ My Darling Crotchdropping ♥” There’s probably a market for it on Etsy, come to think of it.
Sili, J. Vacuous is a prime example of how insistence on “niceness” and “civility” is so often a power play and a cover for a moral void.
Patricia, OMsays
Wow, we’ve lost some really good commenters. Just yesterday I was thinking about JefferyD and MaJeff when I was chopping basil. Sure miss that …blah,blah, blah.
nigelTheBold: Cheers! And is it just me, or does hanging out in the lounge here make a person thirsty? I keep wanting to go to the corner store to get my yearly six-pack.
It would probably be a bad idea.
Or would it..?
I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m a nascent alcoholic who drinks far more beer than I ought lately.
Slight orthodontic issues are not “disabilities” that society refuses to accommodate, or systematically punishes/oppresses people for. To call that ableism is to cheapen the meaning of that word.
Agreed. I had to wear full on orthodontic headgear when I was starting high school. It was embarrassing as all hell, yes. A disability, no. Actually, my braces and embarrassing headgear shrieked my privileged status all over the damn place. That shit is expensive.
Just yesterday I was thinking about JefferyD and MaJeff
I don’t know about MAJeff, but JeffreyD is doing well.
Beatricesays
Caine,
As far as I know, she left.
Oh, that’s not good.
:(
RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospitalsays
Actually, my braces and embarrassing headgear shrieked my privileged status all over the damn place. That shit is expensive.
Wow, Caine, I hadn’t even thought of that! I remember when I first got glasses and was teased a little bit. That was embarrassing, but what about the kids who couldn’t afford that? Even with eye insurance (which I think I had at the time) it’s still expensive, and for a growing child you usually need new glasses at least once a year. That adds up to a lot of money.
Here is the way I think about the uses of language and the fear/concern/wish over being offensive to someone. Whether it is useful to anyone but me, I cannot say.
Using language in such a way that it mirrors concerns about social justice is always going to be a tension-bound act, because there is no way to satisfy all listeners/readers, both those present now and those who might read later. I think that the best thing I can do is to be mindful of what I am saying, willing to listen to reasons why a certain turn of phrase could be hurtful to someone, and then willing to weigh, in good faith and with compassion, whether or not I find it important to avoid causing whatever pain any particular word or phrase might credibly make.
Different people will have different answers as to where that would put them on the scale of socially-conscious language. To me, the important thing is to be conscious, rather than strive to never offend or, even, to never cause pain. I cannot achieve perfection in any realm; I certainly am not going to avoid causing pain in this universe no matter how hard I try. It seems to me to be the nature of terrestrial life that living involves pain.
Like many, I try not to cause needless pain, buy I don’t have any illusions that I will succeed. I have already fucked up quite horribly, in fact, and not just with words. But I try to be conscious of when I fuck up and how much pain I cause. It is almost always a trade-off, though, as far as I can tell. But I also don’t think that it costs me a great deal, for any value of “value” that would cause me to suffer if I were to lose it, to be conscious of which words are demonstrably hurtful.
Whether I use any of them, and in which circumstances, depends on the circumstances, because I guess I don’t believe in any pure morality that exists outside of the relations between living beings. And so as circumstances shift, the language I use shifts.
That’s my approximate description of approximately what I think it means to be conscious of linguistic oppressions. I don’t think I can do better than that–or at least as long as I am living with all of you unpredictable creatures, I think it will have to do.
But I could change my mind.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
I had braces for two and a half years. I was lucky; both my father and my brother wore headgear, and for much longer than that.
These days, I wear… well, I don’t know if you’d call it a retainer. It’s a little resin clip that goes over my bottom front teeth that keeps me from grinding what remains of my dentition into powder while I sleep. If I had gotten one of those years before I actually did it might have saved me a root canal, but I didn’t realize that I could get them in any size except full-mouth.
I agree, Caine; conditions that are easily correctable (provided you have the socioeconomic privilege) aren’t disabilities. I wear glasses, too, and my prescription is pretty damn strong, but I don’t have a visual disability. That’s kind of insulting to people who can’t see at all.
I think it was in the last Molly nom thread. Aquaria is a…forceful personality and she has a fondness for the word “Christard”. A while back, SG took issue with that, and in his usual style, showed up whenever she posted, no matter what she posted, and continually castigated her for it, indulging in continual harassment, derailing threads left and right, same old, same old.
Aquaria decided she didn’t want to be part of Pharyngula anymore, as she couldn’t speak the way she wanted and was harassed every time she posted.
I don’t blame her at all. While I have no problem with someone registering a protest over certain words or language, I think protesting it once is enough, unless the person being protested against wishes to argue the matter. Following someone around and harassing them should be something the people here disapprove of, but it seems it isn’t.
I agree, Caine; conditions that are easily correctable (provided you have the socioeconomic privilege) aren’t disabilities. I wear glasses, too, and my prescription is pretty damn strong, but I don’t have a visual disability. That’s kind of insulting to people who can’t see at all.
I sort of agree, also wearing glasses. But Matt Penfold’s remark about “obnoxious teens” was a bad joke, and Matt realized that. But going on about how you might be accused of “childism” is even more tasteless.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
“Harassment”.
Not true.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Caine:
I don’t blame her at all. While I have no problem with someone registering a protest over certain words or language, I think protesting it once is enough, unless the person being protested against wishes to argue the matter. Following someone around and harassing them should be something the people here disapprove of, but it seems it isn’t.
Rightfully so; if that happened as you described, SG’s behavior is over the line.
It might be more accurate to say that I often prefer to say nothing.
And yes I am stealing that expression.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
A while back, SG took issue with that, and in his usual style, showed up whenever she posted, no matter what she posted, and continually castigated her for it,
This certainly appears to be a claim that I fought her over it in threads where she did not use the term.
That is not true.
What you appear to be saying is that if I challenged her on it in one thread, and she decided to keep on saying Christard Christard Christarded over and over in thread after thread, I should never challenge it again.
Which would be oh so welcoming for people who have family members with developmental disabilities.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the background and I do agree with you. Harassment should not be tolerated.
Patricia, OMsays
Caine – Is SG a morph of Truthmachine? Once I “tsk, tsk’d” him as a tease & holy fuck (!) he came completely unwrapped. With him it seems like his meds run out. O.o
Paulsays
While I have no problem with someone registering a protest over certain words or language, I think protesting it once is enough, unless the person being protested against wishes to argue the matter.
With the disclaimer that I haven’t read frequently since a bit before Elevatorgate, it was always noteworthy that many people were lauded for consistently pointing out someone’s privilege or use of a slur against a group of people (whether they knew what it meant or otherwise) if they kept trotting it out. They didn’t settle for “one call out, then let them be”. For example, if someone came in referring to women exclusively by certain words starting in b or c, it wouldn’t be left to “only if they feel like arguing it” if they continued the behavior, even if their conversation aside from that word usage was completely cordial.
Unless the person doing the calling out was SG. I’ve felt he’s gone too far on certain issues in the past, sure. Most people here have. But he’s always gotten a disproportionate amount of detraction for it, probably because he does take some positions that really push buttons for people here.
I’d agree in a heartbeat that following someone around harassing them is unacceptable. But as much as I adore Aquaria (no exaggeration), I don’t consider pointing out active use of slurs to be harassment. If SG was castigating her for previous objectionable comments on a thread where Aquaria was just talking about how her job sucked, or how she loves kittens, or how crappy the weather would be, that would clearly be harassment. And similar has happened with certain personalities on Pharyngula before (although it seemed to normally involve Sven, heh).
Ah, I see. Thanks for the background and I do agree with you. Harassment should not be tolerated.
Outrageous claims. Show the “harassment”.
Patricia, OMsays
Here we go.
Paulsays
Is SG a morph of Truthmachine?
I’m almost positive I remember them both posting concurrently (TM just went active for long periods of time). But not positive.
Blockquote fail above. Mea culpa. And my last parenthetical was ill-considered, so I’ll just note that I was thinking of it as a two-way thing, not that he went around harassing people.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
If SG was castigating her for previous objectionable comments on a thread where Aquaria was just talking about how her job sucked, or how she loves kittens, or how crappy the weather would be, that would clearly be harassment.
Yes, I think that’s fair to say.
And of course I never did that.
Cipher, OM, Sweetness and Fluffsays
While I have no problem with someone registering a protest over certain words or language, I think protesting it once is enough, unless the person being protested against wishes to argue the matter.
Unless I’m misunderstanding, I disagree with that and also am surprised that you’d say it. If someone is consistently using problematic language, I think they should be called out on it every time they do it. If what you mean is that in conversations when they’re not using it they shouldn’t be called out for it, then yeah, that makes sense.
What I meant when I said that Tis’s post was passive-aggressive wasn’t that saying SG did that was passive-aggressive – I should have been clearer, but I was feeling uncomfortable and posted hastily. (Strictly my problem, and one that arises often in these conversations, so I need to keep an eye on it.) My problem was in the not naming names, talking about people like they’re not here aspect of it. It’s like going “some people,” which gets under my skin in a way few other things do.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
I’m almost positive I remember them both posting concurrently (TM just went active for long periods of time). But not positive.
No, we’re not the same. TM dislikes me now for defending Patricia one time.
Paulsays
No, we’re not the same. TM dislikes me now for defending Patricia one time.
I was going to say that I thought I remembered you guys feuding, but I didn’t want to come on too strong with the denial. I take the malleability of my memory very seriously, as I’m very suggestible.
No. I think Truth Machine goes by ‘Nothing Sacred’ these days. Maybe. I’m not sure anymore. SG has been around for ages though, under different nyms, best known as Strange Gods Before Me.
Paul, if multiple people want to call someone out for using something like ‘Christard’, fine. I don’t care about that. I care about SG persistently following someone around and insisting they address his concerns, no matter what the thread is and with no regard to the person he’s following about or derailing one thread after another.
I’ve been harassed by him and it’s unpleasant as hell, as most harassment is, no surprise there. He crosses lines he shouldn’t and I’m tired of people making excuses for him when other people would be smacked down for doing that sort of shit. I don’t like losing people because he thinks he’s on a mission.
Just my point of view, take with salt, all that.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
SG goes out of his way to be the tone-nanny here.
Content, not tone.
Calling people retards is an issue of content.
Calling people piece of shit who should die in a fire, that’s tone as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t complain about it.
Plus I have not forgiven him for claiming that since the bullying I endured in school wasn’t because I was gay or accused of being gay then it wasn’t “real” bullying.
I most certainly did not claim that.
Patricia, OMsays
ixchel – then I apologize for guessing that. I miss long periods of time here and the name changes are hard to follow. You do have the same dogged determination that TM has. Thank you for defending me, I’ve forgotten the incident, mercifully.
If what you mean is that in conversations when they’re not using it they shouldn’t be called out for it, then yeah, that makes sense.
Yes, that’s what I meant, I apologize for being so damn fuzzy. I’m now just about burnt beyond recognition and it might be a good idea for me to take a break.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
I don’t like losing people because he thinks he’s on a mission.
I don’t like seeing thread after thread with slurs against developmentally disabled people.
Aquaria is perfectly capable of posting in every single thread she wants to without ever making insults against developmentally disabled people.
Tethyssays
Outrageous claims. Show the “harassment”.
With all due respect, there was a thread where you were fixating on word-usage with Louis once that was extremely annoying, ironically off-topic, and quite inappropriate.
I was going to post, asking you to knock it off.
Then he called you darling.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
I miss Aquaria too.
I was tone trolling in my first post here at FtB (I think it was here in TET), and Aquaria politely (but firmly) informed me *why* that shouldn’t be done. I’m grateful to her for that.
Every time some MRA, or rape apologist, or fundie xtian shows up, I wish she would pop her head in, b/c I love sitting back with a bag of popcorn and watching Aquaria rhetorically eviscerate someone.
Paulsays
I care about SG persistently following someone around and insisting they address his concerns, no matter what the thread is and with no regard to the person he’s following about or derailing one thread after another.
But how was that the case in the Aquaria situation? Being familiar with her posting style, I don’t doubt that she refused to curb her word choice. How is this any different than someone else posting slurs? Is the only difference truly that everyone else felt like “letting it slide”, so SG is the bad guy because he stuck to pointing out ongoing word usage?
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing. Seriously, how many times in the past have individuals received Mollys for being willing to consistently approach someone who refused to change, even if other people either didn’t have the energy or the desire?
While I’ve had disagreements with SG and TM in the past, I always respected them because they didn’t ignore incorrect or offensive statements by people just because they were “us”. But I can’t read your above statement any other way when you apply it to the Aquaria situation, with the links provided.
I’ve been harassed by him and it’s unpleasant as hell, as most harassment is, no surprise there. He crosses lines he shouldn’t and I’m tired of people making excuses for him when other people would be smacked down for doing that sort of shit. I don’t like losing people because he thinks he’s on a mission.
I can hardly excuse him for anything he did to you. It wouldn’t be my place, and I don’t know anything about that situation. But I do feel the need to clearly disagree on the Aquaria case, unless there were incidents where he pushed the issue where the offending slur wasn’t being used.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
TruthMachine was posting sporadically on the old SciBlogs until NatGeo tried to do their thing about “upgrading”. I haven’t looked in for a while, as progress converting Pharyngula was slow, and it appeared the moderated trash was being opened first.
Patricia, OMsays
The only truly epic battle I remember was SC/Truthmachine, which was horrible. But a fuzzy memory now.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
With all due respect, there was a thread where you were fixating on word-usage with Louis once that was extremely annoying, ironically off-topic, and quite inappropriate.
I was going to post, asking you to knock it off.
Then he called you darling.
With all due respect, the “harassment” alleged here is supposed to have happened to Aquaria.
Moreover the implication has been that I’ve “followed” her rather than responding in those very threads where she used slurs against developmentally disabled people.
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing.
seconded
Browniansays
As often seems to be the case lately, Paul explains my position better than I can.
So I’ll just add that from my perspective, this seems to be a conversation best had in TZT.
With all due respect, there was a thread where you were fixating on word-usage with Louis once that was extremely annoying, ironically off-topic, and quite inappropriate.
what. even Louis admitted he fucked up back then. what is this shit?
While I’ve had disagreements with SG and TM in the past, I always respected them because they didn’t ignore incorrect or offensive statements by people just because they were “us”
That’s just dandy. It does not excuse bad behaviour on their part, nor should they be immune when it comes to being taken to task over it, okay?
As for Aquaria, no, she did not wish to censor herself, so she left. I know she felt harassed and that bothers me. I don’t agree with how SG treated her, as I said, that’s my personal point of view. We’ll have to disagree on that one, okay? I simply don’t have the energy to fight this out to the death and if I try, all kinds of bad shit will happen, and I’ll be blamed for doing terrible, awful things to poor SG again.
So, I’m going to leave for a while. Just a break, I’ll be back, like a bad penny.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
‘Tis insinuates:
Some of the criticisms of ableist language are appropriate, but some of it is stretching the point long past anything useful. No, I do not think that “stupid” is ableist.
I have never said that calling people “stupid” is ableist.
Why, I was just calling joey stupid over on TZT.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Caine:
Take care of yourself.
Browniansays
probably true. which really just means people will get to not actually have to deal with responses to their claims *sigh*
Unfortunate as that will be, I think that’s preferable to another incident in which PZ decides Ixchel is the problem and bans him from TET.
As for Aquaria, no, she did not wish to censor herself, so she left.
Aquaria left because it was too much of a hassle to avoid using permutations of ‘retard?’
Please tell me that something substantially less completely fucking stupid happened.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Jadehawk,
Tethys said “then he called you darling.”
Which to me implies that Tethys was annoyed with something else, not my response to being called “darling”.
Patricia, OMsays
Thanks Nerd. Now I know where the hell to stay out of.
Musesays
Where did Aquaria give back her OM – I checked the four most recent Molly threads, and it wasn’t there. Unlike Sven/Chas, she’s still listed as well.
Also with regards to Amerindian – I only know that as a anthro term. I know folks who’ve picked up the Canadian First Nations, but I think it’s pretty solidly up to the person self identifying.
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the background and I do agree with you. Harassment should not be tolerated.
Outrageous claims. Show the “harassment”.
I think it was obvious that my comment meant that the harassment OF THE KIND CAINE WAS DESCRIBING shouldn’t be tolerated. If it so happens that you didn’t indulge in that behavior, fine. Good for you. Doesn’t change the fact that I still find the described behaviour intolerable. And you agree with that, as you demonstrate in your #308. So as far as I’m concerned, we’re fine, as I don’t have all the facts and I am not making claims about you.
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing.
Agreed completely. However, from what I’ve seen, I do think that SG’s behavior sometimes can be incredibly intimidating, something I think SG is himself unaware of at times. That might just be me and my opinion, though, but I certainly can see how someone might feel bullied or harassed by it. That’s just my opinion, though, and not too much should be read into it.
Finally, I’d just like to say: please take any arguments like this to TZT, as was agreed on last time. (I however, will not be joining)
I’m as unlikely a defender of SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel as there probably is.
I don’t always agree with SG.
I definitely don’t always agree with some aspects of the way he does things.
{Listens intently to the SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel-iverse….sound of not a single fuck being given ;-) }
But I don’t think he’s always…{insert your own adjectives}. I have to be honest, I think his choices of phrases/interpretations of phrases are very deliberate and that’s a sword that cuts both ways. It can lead almost directly to infuriatingly poor dialogue or enlightenment, with little middle ground. In the hands of a less than fulsomely honest interlocutor it’s an effective silencing tool. Whether SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel is that sort of interlocutor or not…no one is perfect. I have my suspicions some days and not others.
All that said, on the “-tard” thing he is absolutely, unequivocally right. Sorry all, but them’s the breaks. I really get how irritating it is to have the “flow” of a thread (such as ever happens around these parts) broken by SJW-ing (if we have to call it that, personally…not currently a fan) for some people, but it’s worth it for a bit of consciousness raising. I’ve had my consciousness raised by things others here might not enjoy, and I’m grateful for it.
Of course I miss Aquaria if she’s gone (I thought I’d seen her around, must be my crappy memory), she’s a superb poster with a brilliantly raw and insightful style. And if she’s gone because she feels harassed that’s a crappy thing, it truly is. If she’s gone because she refuses to change her use of a particularly ableist term (and “-tard” is really a hallmark of ableism, it’s no “stupid”!) and calls that harassment…yeah…that’s not good for her.
Start out mean, end nice-ish! Hey, I tried!
Louis
Louissays
Caine,
Dammit! Take care of yourself. Be well, be happy and cuddle a ratlet. I reckon it might just make things worth it. :-)
Louis
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
pentatomid, it wasn’t obvious to me, but thanks for clarifying.
Nightjarsays
He crosses lines he shouldn’t and I’m tired of people making excuses for him when other people would be smacked down for doing that sort of shit.
No, Caine, it’s the other way around. SG gets smacked down simply for being argumentative and calling people out in a way I don’t see happening to other regulars. I find it disconcerting.
***
So I’ll just add that from my perspective, this seems to be a conversation best had in TZT.
probably true. which really just means people will get to not actually have to deal with responses to their claims *sigh*
Exactly.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing.
Fourthed.
Paulsays
Only replying since you’re not reading TZT by your admission:
Agreed completely. However, from what I’ve seen, I do think that SG’s behavior sometimes can be incredibly intimidating, something I think SG is himself unaware of at times.
I don’t really think SG would argue here. This also applies to most Pharyngulites who have ever posted enough to be considered regulars, with some outstanding exceptions (Sastra, Pteryxx, and several others), who go out of their way to maintain a measured tone and to softly try to point out where a person goes totally wrong.
I’m getting the weirdest feeling of Deja Vu. I’m sure I’ve posted something very similar to this before.
pentatomid, it wasn’t obvious to me, but thanks for clarifying.
In retrospect, I probably should have phrased that a bit more clearly. Apologies for that. My bad.
Of course I miss Aquaria if she’s gone (I thought I’d seen her around, must be my crappy memory), she’s a superb poster with a brilliantly raw and insightful style. And if she’s gone because she feels harassed that’s a crappy thing, it truly is. If she’s gone because she refuses to change her use of a particularly ableist term (and “-tard” is really a hallmark of ableism, it’s no “stupid”!) and calls that harassment…yeah…that’s not good for her.
pentatomid, it wasn’t obvious to me, but thanks for clarifying.
In retrospect, I probably should have phrased that a bit more clearly. Apologies for that. My bad.
Of course I miss Aquaria if she’s gone (I thought I’d seen her around, must be my crappy memory), she’s a superb poster with a brilliantly raw and insightful style. And if she’s gone because she feels harassed that’s a crappy thing, it truly is. If she’s gone because she refuses to change her use of a particularly ableist term (and “-tard” is really a hallmark of ableism, it’s no “stupid”!) and calls that harassment…yeah…that’s not good for her.
Yep. I agree completely.
Tethyssays
SG
I see I should add a few things for clarity. I emphatically do not want to make you feel piled on.
I do not support anyone using variations of ‘tard, and that is directly due to your efforts to educate on ableist terminology.
I was pointing to the Louis thread as an example of this:
following someone around and insisting they address his concerns, no matter what the thread is and with no regard to the person he’s following about or derailing one thread after another.
because you asked for examples.
Tenacity is an admirable character trait, but like anything it can be carried to far.
Louissays
Tethys and Jadehawk,
As I remember it, the comment I made was that something Sikivu Hutchinson said made me think there was an unfortunate undercurrent of the bad kind of postmodernism going on. SGBM got it into his head this meant I was accusing Sikivu Hutchinson of something and thus would not read further. I tried to get him to realise this was not the case and when I encounter confusion like that my tendency is to investigate.
The simplest version of what happened next is I said something I thought was entirely innocent and flippant, which he didn’t think was entirely innocent. His reply, which was something he and others thought was entirely innocent, I didn’t think was entirely innocent, so I (wrongly and well apologised for) doubled down. I also went into “Tedious Captain Language Logic” mode which I understand can piss off people, especially in the wrong circumstances (which in retrospect, these probably were).
Sure I fucked up about some things. I do it all the time. I am now going to take the piss out of Jadehawk… ;-)
Even Louis? EVEN Louis? Oh yeah, the emphasis there is problematic. Pistols at dawn? ;-)
{I know, I know, I jest, I jest}
Louis
P.S. I quite liked the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, there was piss taking of a typically British nature involved. They had The Queen get into a helicopter with James Bond (Daniel Craig) and “parachute” (obviously a stunt double) into the arena. Good on yer Ma’am, impeccable sense of humour. I quite like the old duck if I’m honest.
Mind you…don’t get me started on how much it’s costing and what could be done with the dosh…
…Oh and our gorgeous tabloid media are just pissing their kecks trying to find SOMETHING that’s gone wrong so they can point at it and have a feeding frenzy. They haven’t got over the fact we’ve let loads of foreigners in, some of whom can pole vault…. ;-)
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
following someone around and insisting they address his concerns, no matter what the thread is and with no regard to the person he’s following about or derailing one thread after another.
because you asked for examples.
Honestly I don’t understand this. Prior to the darling-related breakdown of dialogue, my disagreement with Louis in that thread was about that thread; it was specifically about his characterization of “excesses of postmodernism.” I wasn’t dragging an unrelated discussion in.
+++++
Anyway, I have no interest in keeping Caine out of TET.
I’ve answered the current claims about me here. If I find a link to the thread where I did not tell ‘Tis Himself that he didn’t experience real bullying, I’ll link it here. Google isn’t turning it up.
I will respond to talk about me where it happens. If people would like to bring their talk about me over to TZT, that would be best for everyone.
Louissays
Tethys,
Gotta be honest, I didn’t feel particularly harassed by SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel on that thread (I rarely do feel that way, other people’s mileage may vary), I just thought he was wrong. If anything I think the harassment/tenacity thing went the other way. I really did mix up a “guys don’t do that” (utterly unobjectionable) with something I thought was properly wrong, and I went at it like a dog with a bone.
I really get how irritating it is to have the “flow” of a thread (such as ever happens around these parts) broken by SJW-ing (if we have to call it that, personally…not currently a fan)
Yes, it is irritating. I also find it irritating that social justice issues almost took over this blog. I preferred the science and the creationist stomping myself. I’m irritated. But I’m not irritated at those who restlessly fight for social justice. I’m irritated at those fight against it.
I’m irritated that Aquaria left. But FFS, SG is right. I’m not going to fucking blame him because she preferred to leave than to stop using an offensive slur.
@ Giliell:
Do I hear the sound of a fellow GURPSer?
@Ogvorbis:
A very fun ABC I had when I was a kid was called Animalia. It consisted of little sentences about animals, with all the words using the same first letter. Very fun, I recommend it for other spawn.
@Tony:
L feels the same way about newer games. A lot of the 3d stuff gives his eyes trouble.
On the relationship front, it’s not too late, certainly but I can’t give you any advice that would help, you’re in too different of a social milieu to mine. Best wishes, though.
Re:Ermagerd/ablism
To be perfectly honest, I had not realized that that was a reference to someone speaking through a retainer rather than suffering from some type of actual speech problem. Thus, although I’ve not been involved in discussions of it, I had assumed it to be somewhat ableist.
Nightjarsays
I quite liked the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics
Me too. Kept me entertained.
Louissays
Nightjar,
But I’m not irritated at those who restlessly fight for social justice. I’m irritated at those fight against it.
I’m irritated that Aquaria left. But FFS, SG is right. I’m not going to fucking blame him because she preferred to leave than to stop using an offensive slur.
Double seconded and extremely well put.
I like Aquaria. She scared the piss out of me, I like that in people!
Although I will say I am not pissed off about the increase in social justice issues here. I’m pissed off the increase is necessary, like yourself of course, I view these as an extension of my interest in science. I am exceedingly grateful to a huge number of people on this blog for raising and expanding my consciousness. Selfish I know, but true.
Louis
Patricia, OMsays
Thank you. The last thing I ever want to see is another bloodbath between the regulars. :(
*************************************
In honor of the Queens pseudo jump –
GROG for the house!
Nightjarsays
And of course I watched it all up until the last country got into the stadium. There are too many countries out there, I like to refresh my memory. Also, trying to guess which comes next. Am I the only one who does this?
***
I’m pissed off the increase is necessary, like yourself of course, I view these as an extension of my interest in science.
I agree. It’s just that… I miss the creationist trolls! :)
Louissays
Ooooh I like how they did the torch. The chosen British athletes looked like they lit the oil filled copper kettles that each country had one of, and then the kettles all were wired up to form one big flame. Nice.
Not seen many Opening Ceremonies, but I thought that was a good internationalist touch.
Louis
Patricia, OMsays
Louis – For some reason PBS has decided to run four (?) different programs on the monarchy. I’m enjoying seeing the old footage of Edward & Wallis. Now there was some naughty!
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Gah! If only this whole thing wasn’t so tape-delayed here.
Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Googlesays
The current headline over at the NY Times? “Games Open With Very British Pageantry.
I LOL’d.
Patricia, OMsays
Nightjar – I miss the fundy trolls too. Do you suppose we ate them all, or they’re just so expensive PZ can’t afford them anymore?
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
I agree. It’s just that… I miss the creationist trolls! :)
Well, joey’s stuck on free will right now, but if you prod a different part of his brain, he’ll say that atheism generally can’t offer meaning in life.
No creationism though.
I wouldn’t mind some new creationist trolls, myself.
Louissays
Patricia,
I’m only a Comedy Monarchist, if you want the real deal you need Walton. I think they’re HILARIOUS!
As an almost exclusively ceremonial figurehead, I think the Queen does all right. Just don’t piss her off otherwise it’s the old Paris underpass and being chased by “paparazzi” if you know what I mean…;-)
It’s the next one I don’t want. Based on opinions expressed on anything except architecture and genius gardening, Charlie is an anti-science woolly headed bozo. A figurehead like that we don’t need.
Ah well.
Louis
birgerjohanssonsays
“The term ‘Native American’ is not appreciated”
.
As long as we are talking about indians from North America instead of South America, would “Laurentian” be more acceptable?
.
No cultural luggage attached.
No risk of confusing Sikhs and Navahos.
Severing the ties with that arsehole Columbus
and his slavetaking Spanish pals.
“I am part Laurentian” has a nice ring to it, and it would include the Inuit, and the extinct ancestors of the Kennewick* man.
*plus the now-extinct group of former Siberians who once lived in Greenland, acording to the DNA of a skeleton.
— — — — — — —
Thethys, I read this as “It is a Northern [Ireland] flying squirrel”
Reading past local midnight is not good.
— — — —
thunk
“I regret to inform you that Gotland is over 50 degrees latitude.
The ecliptic is at 23 degrees latitude.
We don’t have enough fuel for those plane changes”
.
It is the same story with ISS and the Hubble telescope. If they were in the same plane, Hubble could simply reduce altitude to get repairs and upgrades.
Thunk, if you have a bona fide spaceplane, you could just skim the atmosphere a couple of times to bend the orbit :-)
Louissays
Oh and every nation has at least one female athlete and I think all events have both male and female competitors. Both for the first time from what the commentators are saying…salt…pinch…probably.
But if true: woot!
Louis
birgerjohanssonsays
Would the tongue-wrecking phrase “Autochtonous people” be acceptable? Yes, I know it is not perfect.
Nightjarsays
Oh, and Chariots of Fire + Rowan Atkinson. That was nice, too.
Patricia,
Do you suppose we ate them all, or they’re just so expensive PZ can’t afford them anymore?
Well, judging by their quality, the ones we’ve been getting lately do seem to be cheaper. They break very quickly. I blame the poopyhead.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Games Open With Very British Pageantry”
Esteleh, that made me think of Tim Burton. Let in Sweeney Todd and his razor to enliven the ceremony!
Nutmegsays
I wouldn’t mind some new creationist trolls, myself.
Absolutely. I actually had a chance with creationist trolls. Even after reading here for ~18 months, I don’t feel confident enough to tackle trolls about feminism, etc.
Some fundie and/or creationist trolls would be lovely. I wonder if PZ would try to draw some in if we asked nicely? I have such a craving.
thunk (Фарингюловская Народная Республика)says
Birger:
Thunk, if you have a bona fide spaceplane, you could just skim the atmosphere a couple of times to bend the orbit :-)
Very true, but I’m not experienced with aero-plane changes.*
*Nothing to do with catching the next flight over to somewhere.
Louissays
I bid you all a good night! Tomorrow I am getting…
…a haircut.
Oh yes, my life is a full and rich tapestry of fun and frolics. I may even, if I am very, very lucky, be permitted some sleep at some point.
Adieu, adieu mes cheris, je vous adore!*
Louis
* Except Brownian. I only like him for the Ghey Secks. It’s purely physical. We don’t respect each other after.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Some fundie and/or creationist trolls would be lovely. I wonder if PZ would try to draw some in if we asked nicely? I have such a craving.
They had The Queen get into a helicopter with James Bond (Daniel Craig) and “parachute” (obviously a stunt double) into the arena. Good on yer Ma’am, impeccable sense of humour. I quite like the old duck if I’m honest.
Needs more Corgi.
–o–
A quick link to a story of a christer Down Under (20 miles from where I live) stealing a million bucks from the school he was bursar of:
Look at the plus side: He stole from an explicitly Christian school. The money likely did less harm getting blown on meth and hookers.
Patricia, OMsays
Louis – Oh, Comedy Monarchist, I’ve never heard that, so yeah me too. Best damn 1000 year soap opera going, in a P.G. Wodehouse way.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
This seems oddly appropriate given the discussion going on here (one that I worry may create too much tension in TET):
I understand that Camels With Hammers is Daniel’s blog and he can dictate the rules as he sees fit. However, I don’t agree with some of the words on his list. I also don’t like the way they’re grouped together. It can give the impression that they all carry the same weight.
Fag, tranny, or cunt are examples of words that are absolutely off limits IMHO. They do harm to others by perpetuating a homophobic, transphobic or sexist culture AND are extremely offensive.
Stupid, jerk and asshole though? These are NOT minority-bashing words that silence a marginalized group of people. They’re just offensive words (and even there, jerk and stupid are just mildly offensive, IMO).
As for ‘social equivalents of physical assaults’, not every word on that list has the weight behind it to be a ‘social assault’.
It just reeks of him trying to *make* everyone play nice to the Nth degree. I don’t believe I’ll be commenting there anytime soon with his new STUPID rule.
note: not sure if this would be better placed in the Smug thread.
Tethyssays
Louis/SG
You guys went full pomo word precision meaning blah, blah, blah.
On a thread that was supposed to be about men dominating the conversation in atheist circles, and how that relates to involving women and especially WOC because neighborhood churches are often their most reliable sources of support.
The OM sniping across threads during the OM wars was like reading a real time soap opera, but much sadder.
This community is important to me, and I dislike it when regulars attack each other over things like semantic quibbles. I have no problem bashing people who post maliciously. I try to temper the severity of the bashing to the perceived ill intent.
Nutmegsays
*bookmarks ixchel’s link for some serious evolution nerding later on*
Thanks to whoever created that page of the Wiki, that looks fun!
Patricia, OMsays
So what with Prince Charles, we had Ronnie Reagan & freaking George W! I thought you Brits coddled your eccentrics.
No idea what’s going on. However, I’m gonna leave this here, should anyone want some popcorn later.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
You guys went full pomo word precision meaning blah, blah, blah.
On a thread that was supposed to be about
Fair point. Of course, Louis started it.
</snipe>
+++++
Thanks to whoever created that page of the Wiki, that looks fun!
That’s mostly Lpetrich, who I think is a lurker here.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Pteryxx:
Hey, were you reading my mind?
I crossposted my comment to Daniel’s blog and told him I don’t think I’ll be back. It feels like he wants to sanitize conversations to the point that no one can get cross with one another. Let’s play nicey nicey all day every day.
Sorry, sometimes people are being jerks and need to be called out for it.
Jerk=/=nigger
Asshole=/=cunt
Stupid=/=homo
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Audley:
Seriously?
Buttered Popcorn flavored Vodka???
I have *got* to try that!
Patricia, OMsays
Perhaps the lack of creationist trolls is what caused my loss of killer mojo. It’s fun poking them in their gospel spots.
Our king is boring, but harmless. Can you Brits trade us a “harmless but entertaining” excentric? I was thinking “Old King George” if you have a living specimen. I will trade you a member of ABBA in return.
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
A black Mississippi couple say a predominantly white Baptist church where they were to wed turned them away because of race.
Nightjarsays
ixchel,
Well, joey’s stuck on free will right now, but if you prod a different part of his brain, he’ll say that atheism generally can’t offer meaning in life.
I really wish he would understand what Owlmirror has been trying to explain to him first. It’s bugging me a bit that he doesn’t, but I don’t think I can explain it any better, so I’m just watching.
Tony,
Seriously. By the same company that makes the glazed donut flavored vodka. (Which, now that I think about it, would be excellent in a white russian.)
Patricia, OMsays
I’ll trade you a member of ABBA in return.
That gets you a free tankard of grog. Sniny smartassing should always be rewarded.
Ogvorbissays
I have a cynical mind.
Will Faux News, Limbaugh, et al., freak out over how the opening ceremony honoured the National Health Service? Will they claim that the Brits are trying to influence the US Presidential election? Anyone want to take a bet?
…glazed donut flavored vodka. (Which, now that I think about it, would be excellent in a white russian.)
Oh man. The suffering I’d experience from the alcohol might be worth it for that.
Patricia, OMsays
Nightjar – Thanks! Luckily my gospel spots scarred over. *smirk*
Silisays
A black Mississippi couple say a predominantly white Baptist church where they were to wed turned them away because of race.
Sheesh. That’s a lot to demand anyway.
Now, if they’d just asked to use the bathroom, noöne would have had a problem with it.
Silisays
Our king is boring, but harmless. Can you Brits trade us a “harmless but entertaining” excentric? I was thinking “Old King George” if you have a living specimen. I will trade you a member of ABBA in return.
Boring? Isn’t this the king who engages in pubcrawls and likes nudie bars?
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Audley:
If you like White Russians, you might like my Busted Nut
:::waits for the laughter to diminish:::
3/4 oz Stoli Vanilla Vodka
1/4 oz Kahlua
1/4 oz Amaretto
1/4 oz Butterscotch Schnapps
top with half and half
Consume!
Tony the Parkour Kat [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Sili:
That only works if the bathroom is out back. Do you really think they’d let a black person use the white restroom?
A friend of a friend is half Lakota and she mentioned in a couple of occasions that she preferred “Aboriginal.” Although that could cause confusion between American and Australian aborigines?
Not really, unless you happen to have a lot of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around. But do note – in Australia, you *don’t* call an indigenous person “an Aboriginal”. It’s not just bad grammar, it’s considered insulting in the same way as “an Oriental”.
“Aboriginal people” is considered best, and “Aborigine” is OK – some like it, some don’t much like it, but at least it’s not an insult. If you know their grouping, it’s nice to use that, but don’t over-generalise. “Koori” is NSW-specific, for instance. Blackfella is OK, as long as you also use Whitefella. And although Aussies use abbreviations all the time, “Abo” is a grave insult. Not the worst insult but I’m not typing anything worse.
Richard @120: Thank you so much for posting that! I really, really needed a boost and that did the trick nicely.
Flavoured vodka is missing the point of vodka entirely. If you want flavour drink wine, or a craft beer, or an aged whiskey, or… Vodka is for smashing brain cells with the efficiency of a Stalinist purge.
Pteryxxsays
Ms Daisy Cutter, thanks for the Readercon harassment info.
From the con statement on their decision (emphasis mine):
During the course of our conversation with Rene it became immediately apparent that he realized what he had done and was sincerely regretful of his actions. It was that recognition and regret that influenced our decision, not his status in the community. If, as a community, we wish to educate others about harassment, we must also allow for the possibility of reform.
…
…Yeeeaaaaah, I don’t agree that THOSE clauses should go together, especially where serious sexual harassment is concerned. Education includes accepting that reform may not be possible nor is allowing for reform a requirement. Depending on the details, context, how much this board could be trusted and so forth, I’m provisionally willing to accept their decision of a two-year ban (as opposed to a lifetime ban) but it should be made clear that the harasser is on notice and expected to prove he has reformed, not simply be accepted back by default after two years.
Sili,
Are we bith looking at Cheezburger sites right now? O.o
Pteryxxsays
…Caine left?! *checks*
Oh, on break. *faints*
take care, Caine, and bathe in ratlets.
Tony •King of the Hellmouth•says
FossilFishy:
I’m gonna have to learn you a thing or two :)
I’m a vodka fan. If I have a vodka drink I often use the non flavored variety. When I do shots, though, flavored vodkas are the way to go.
Skittles or Jolly Rancher shots are awesome.
Slippery Nipples (with Vanilla Vodka) taste delish.
Lemon Drops with Ketel One Citron are great.
Chocolate Cake shots with Citrus Vodka and Frangelico are the best.
When it comes to flavored vodka’s there are so many out there and they keep adding more and more each day.
I have to try the popcorn flavor, as well as the smores and bacon flavors.
Off to work to make some drinks.
Ciao!
Pteryxxsays
theoretically, as vodka’s mostly alcohol (?) it should be easy to infuse it with whatever flavor you like, right?
…what happens if y’ spike vodka with an Every Flavor Bean?
Silisays
Are we bith looking at Cheezburger sites right now? O.o
Most likely.
Though, listening to the hangout and browsing that site is taxing this oooollllld lappie.
John Moralessays
Caerie:
I don’t blame anyone for getting burned out with either extreme, but as a noob around these parts I also know my opinion (rightfully) carries far less weight than someone who’s been battling it out here for ages.
Not from my POV: The only difference between newbies and regulars is that there’s no extensive commenting history upon which to base interpretation.
—
Is SG a morph of Truthmachine?
Not even slightly; tm is smart as anything, SG thinks he is.
(Mind you, he’s probably smarter than I am, but just not in the same league as TM and SC)
—
ॐ:
Moreover the implication has been that I’ve “followed” her rather than responding in those very threads where she used slurs against developmentally disabled people.
@ Caine
Hope to see you again soon
@birgerjohansen:
Who’s Laurence that his name should be attached to the First Nations instead of Colombus? Also, Autochthones is easier to say that Autocthonous people.
@John Morales:
Are you deliberately being an asshole there, or was that some kind of attempt at humor.
John Moralessays
Dalillama, no and no.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Not even slightly; tm is smart as anything, SG thinks he is.
Oh? How do you square that with my repeatedly saying that one of the things I like about this place is that I get to argue with ahem, learn from people smarter than me?
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
My daughter turns five today. How the hell did that happen? Okay, I mean sure, we feed her leafy greens and shoo her away from conflagrations and running chainsaws and the like, but I’m pretty sure the last time I looked she wasn’t capable of recognising the signs of immanent excretion, let alone open presents with a pair of scissors without bloodshed or tears.
So today I build marshmallow catapults for the insanity that will be her birthday party. We already had a successful test run of the prototype. Data was kept, results analysed and startling conclusions made: pink marshmallows travel on average 12cm further than white ones. Who knew? Mind you, I’m not sure just how much the “Measuring Dance” affect the data, a flailing armed, whirling affair that was apparently required by the protocol before pulling out the tape measure.
I’m pretty sure that the next time I look up she won’t be there, gone walkabout to lands foreign just like her mother did. And I’ll be left alone in the kitchen having to measure the fall of rubber band powered confections without the aid of my precious, gap-toothed, dancing lab assistant. And so I cherish these times. I hold on as tight as I can to these moments where she needs me so very much, even when the lip comes out and the feet cannot touch the ground without all the force of four five year old legs can muster being brought to bear.
She’s exactly five years old today and she never will be again.
David Marjanovićsays
Cipher, *long hug* I’m with Giliell: your “therapist” was completely unfit for that job.
Pteryxx, I overlooked that because I was tired and… what is social capital?
TLC, thanks for throwing in against Geiger. Gawd, what a dishonest, weaselly shitmuppet he is.
Seconded.
Flavoured vodka is missing the point of vodka entirely. If you want flavour drink wine, or a craft beer, or an aged whiskey, or… Vodka is for smashing brain cells with the efficiency of a Stalinist purge.
Heh.
David Marjanovićsays
vodka’s mostly alcohol (?)
Oh no. Usually 38 to 42 %, AFAIK never reaching 50.
The rest is mostly water.
carlie, who has nice reading comprehensionsays
Guess what guess what? I wrote a ceremony and I performed a ceremony and I signed a license and now my friends are married! I’m a marryin’ kind of gal! Yay for online ordination! :)
Patricia, OMsays
OK, I’m off to watch the Queen jump…. but I’m going to have my naughty thoughts on the young fella on the meet up. Yummmm!
Even Louis? EVEN Louis? Oh yeah, the emphasis there is problematic. Pistols at dawn? ;-)
how about crutches in the late afternoon?
anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean it in the “even that stubborn ass” way, I meant it in the “even the person at the receiving end of SG’s argument” way. Should have clarified that.
Flavoured vodka is missing the point of vodka entirely. If you want flavour drink wine, or a craft beer, or an aged whiskey, or… Vodka is for smashing brain cells with the efficiency of a Stalinist purge.
pfff. flavoring vodka is doing it backwards. you’re supposed to use vodka to alcoholize flavors, not the other way ’round. getting shitfaced on vodka OTOH is a rather dangerous sort of fun [/someone who gave herself alcohol poisoning doing that]
Rawnaerissays
I’m sad to see any of the regulars go, permanently or on breaks. I enjoy reading all ya’lls posts.
Speaking of folks we haven’t seen in a while, whatever happened to Smoggy?
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
…getting shitfaced on vodka OTOH is a rather dangerous sort of fun…
Oh yes indeedy. The only time I drank vodka was when I was drinking with intent. And that intention was to get as shitfaced as possible, as fast as possible. Vodka is the perfect choice for this because of its high ratio of alcohol to volume (reduces the need to pee) and its relative lack of other additives (reduces hangovers, somewhat). I never quite got to the poisoning stage though, luck more than anything I’m sure.
John Moralessays
ॐ:
John, a lot of people with developmental disabilities, including and in addition to mental retardation, have been mocked as “tards.”
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
What it has to do with what you wrote is that you wrote was hurtful, because
John, a lot of people with developmental disabilities, including and in addition to mental retardation, have been mocked as “tards.” It is hurtful to many of these people as well as their families.
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
Congrats to you, and especially congrats to your married friends!
… I hope it wasn’t a gay marriage so that it doesn’t potentially destroy my straight marriage…
Oh screw sarcasm, all marriage based in love is AWESOME marriage, and I hope your friends are always at least as solid as my wife and I are after 7+ years.
Paulsays
That only works if the bathroom is out back. Do you really think they’d let a black person use the white restroom?
(sorry for explaining it guys, but not everyone has been around since that time and it’s still a fairly common meme here)
Are you deliberately being an asshole there, or was that some kind of attempt at humor.
As sad as it is, some regulars like to troll certain other regulars. Even when no real point is being made. And yet, the ones that get upset at being trolled get blamed for “bringing their problems where they’re not wanted or off-topic”.
John Moralessays
FossilFishy, when I was in my early 20s, one of my D&D friends died after overindulging on vodka, passing out and drowning in his own vomit. He was 18, and didn’t really drink much or often, usually.
(I very much wish he’d had weed, instead)
John Moralessays
ॐ:
What it has to do with what you wrote is that you wrote was hurtful, because [reiteration]
Was this purported hurtful aspect that I asked you whether ‘retards’ refers to ‘developmentally disabled people’, then?
(Is ‘developmentally disabled people’ more hurtful than ‘developmentally challenged people’, in your estimation?)
cm's changeable monikersays
Would the tongue-wrecking phrase “Autochtonous people” be acceptable?
No, because then we’d have to also say “Allocthonous people”. ;-)
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
I’m very sorry to hear that John. I do feel lucky I never injured myself seriously.
I gave up drinking for effect years ago, hell, over a decade ago if I want to be honest about it. Alcoholism runs in my family and I saw the signs in myself soon enough to do something about it. These days I’ll drink a craft-brewed beer or two with a meal or have a peaty, smokey whiskey for a treat and always stop when the effects start to manifest. Drunkenness for its own sake: been there, done that, and over and above any possible genetic propensity for alcohol abuse I find it rather boring now.
John Moralessays
Paul:
Even when no real point is being made.
That you can see.
broboxley OTsays
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war
retard is an old way of describing a class people with certain developmental disabilities.
As the general public grew more familiar with terms such as mongoloid, cretinism, autism, hydrocephalic, moron, retard grew out of favor as a medical description and into favor as a generic insult for people that don’t ascribe to the ideas of the privileged class weighting the discussion.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Was this purported hurtful aspect that I asked you whether ‘retards’ refers to ‘developmentally disabled people’, then?
No; you specified that some people — presumably those Christians earlier referenced — were “the retards”.
(Is ‘developmentally disabled people’ more hurtful than ‘developmentally challenged people’, in your estimation?)
I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect to see much difference, but I’d have to study the issue more to know.
What it has to do with what you wrote is that you wrote was hurtful, because …
[…]
… you specified that some people — presumably those Christians earlier referenced — were “the retards”.
My #411, which was the genesis of this little discussion, made no such claim.
Again: how was my #411 hurtful?
(I note you still haven’t explicitly acknowledged that both uses of the terminology—that is, yours and mine—referred to the same set of people; that was a very direct question)
Paulsays
That you can see.
I was making a general point. People have made a game of baiting sgbm and SC before with no apparent greater goal in the past. If you have a point here, share it, but that would not falsify my statement in the least.
I assume your point is that you were using retards as a neutral descriptor and not a slur. I would not have said your usage is hurtful if devoid of context, but you knowingly using it as a tool to elicit a negative reaction (textbook definition of trolling) in this thread when this discussion started with people making much ado of how unfair he was to call out the usage of -tard as a slur is hurtful.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
Thanks for that Nigel. This learning curve I’m on is a steep one and as much as I dread the challenges that her continued development will bring I have to remind myself that there are plenty of joys to go along with them.
Silisays
Speaking of folks we haven’t seen in a while, whatever happened to Smoggy?
I believe he retired to his farm.
(He feared the joke was getting stale.)
cicely (Confusion to the Innocent Bystanders! Full speed STRAIGHT UP!)says
Cicely – Naughty Marvin has pet cooties, and he eats canned peas.
*ducks*
Ah. Well, I’d somehow got the notion that Naughty Marvin is depraved; nice to have one’s impressions definitively confirmed.
:D
–
As far as I know, she left.
:( :( :(
–
Slight orthodontic issues are not “disabilities” that society refuses to accommodate, or systematically punishes/oppresses people for. To call that ableism is to cheapen the meaning of that word.
Reminds me of an incident about 20 years back—there was a group collecting donations for a “handicapped” group, meaning, people who wore glasses. Don’t remember the descritive phrase (Vision-Impaired? Something like that), but it implied blindness.
–
So, I’m going to leave for a while. Just a break, I’ll be back, like a bad penny.
Take these *hugs* with you, ‘kay? Be well.
–
This community is important to me, and I dislike it when regulars attack each other over things like semantic quibbles.
Me too, Tethys. Me too.
I…guess this is an odd choice of hangout for someone who tends to be at least somewhat [can’t quite pin down the word I want here. Strife? Violence? Conflict? State-of-vicious-acrimony?]-aversive, where the [insert word] is between people I like/respect.
–
Guess what guess what? I wrote a ceremony and I performed a ceremony and I signed a license and now my friends are married! I’m a marryin’ kind of gal! Yay for online ordination! :)
This learning curve I’m on is a steep one and as much as I dread the challenges that her continued development will bring I have to remind myself that there are plenty of joys to go along with them.
My own daughter (now 24) is not the person I would want her to be.
And at the same time, she has blown me away with her independence, her personhood, her individuality.
Enjoy these times. They will escape you, faster than you imagine.
Yet what awaits is even greater.
At least, that’s my experience.
John Moralessays
Paul:
… but you knowingly using it as a tool to elicit a negative reaction (textbook definition of trolling) in this thread when this discussion started with people making much ado of how unfair he was to call out the usage of -tard as a slur is hurtful.
You imagine that I was seeking to elicit a negative reaction?
—
Anyway, I shall desist now, since this is the lounge.
(Take it to TZT, if you want. And I’m AFK for a while, forthwith)
Oh waaah! I miss him. He could evangelize like no other.
Wait – Bride of Shrek is missing too…you don’t suppose?!
The Queen has jumped… whomever up thread said Rush Limbaugh and similar idiots will see the Brits health care display as Obama driven, I see what you mean now. Bet you’re right.
Paulsays
Anyway, I shall desist now, since this is the lounge.
So big of you, to troll someone on a thread you know they’re not supposed to respond to, then to nobly decide it should be taken elsewhere. I wish I could say I hadn’t seen that behavior on Pharyngula before.
So big of you, to troll someone on a thread you know they’re not supposed to respond to, then to nobly decide it should be taken elsewhere.
Hey, now. It ain’t like TZT is a whole internet away, and a more appropriate place.
I’ve been staying away from all this in-fighting. That makes me a coward, I guess. But JM is right — TZT is more appropriate for these High Noon sorts of call-outs.
I think we need a roster of those who served well, and are sorely missed. Smoggy would be right up there at the top of the list. And Aquaria too. And MAJeff, and Bride of Shrek, and Bill Dauphin, and so many others I miss.
I know we progress. I know we evolve (in the social sense). But at the same time, there are folks I miss.
chigau (自分のサンドイッチを作ろう！)says
Don’t call First Nations people in Canada “Indians”.
Guess what guess what? I wrote a ceremony and I performed a ceremony and I signed a license and now my friends are married! I’m a marryin’ kind of gal! Yay for online ordination! :)
My wife and I were married by our best friend, on a beach on the fourth of July in Sitka. My wife wrote the ordination. My friend’s daughter (3 at the time — fourteen now, can you believe it?) wrote her own bit — served as flower girl (her own demand, not in the original script).
I still swoon at all that, the best friend, his daughter, being married to my best friend, the whole thing orchestrated by my other best friend.
But then, I try to make life make me happy.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
My #411, which was the genesis of this little discussion, made no such claim.
It made some implicit claim that some people are “the retards”.
Again: how was my #411 hurtful?
You called some people “the retards”.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
My kitchen stinks of fermenting cabbage and sourdough starter. Bad.
I wonder how long Mrs BDC will allow this to continue.
Paulsays
I’ve been staying away from all this in-fighting. That makes me a coward, I guess. But JM is right — TZT is more appropriate for these High Noon sorts of call-outs.
I don’t disagree. I just couldn’t let it slip that he’s the one that decided to troll a long-time forum participant in the lounge, then to say “I shall desist, take it to TZT if you must”, externalizing all the blame for unpleasantness in the lounge. Especially when the point I was noting in the first place is that there has been incidents where certain people have been referenced or insulted, then they get worse for daring to defend themselves where people are talking about them.
ibyeasays
Paul has a point, John is the one who randomly decided to be a jerk. I don’t know if he does it intentionally or not, but he tends to do that.
FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker)says
Nigel:
Enjoy these times. They will escape you, faster than you imagine.
Oh yes, I well know that. It was kinda the point of my 415. I make a conscious effort to appreciate her as she is now and not long for a time when she doesn’t need help with teeth brushing or hair combing. Those things will come soon enough.
But on to more important topics: why the hell would pink marshmallows travel farther than white ones? They weighed the same to the best of my not particularly precise scale’s ability to detect. I thought I observed that the pink ones had more sliding/rolling action after landing, but as that part of the experiment was not taped I can’t really say for sure. Strange.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
This gave me a good snortle
Flavoured vodka is missing the point of vodka entirely. If you want flavour drink wine, or a craft beer, or an aged whiskey, or… Vodka is for smashing brain cells with the efficiency of a Stalinist purge.
Tethyssays
Ixchel
Fair point. Of course, Louis started it.
:D
I am totally digging the humor.
I don’t wish to be patronizing or presumptuous. I have only been commenting since E-gate , so I am a relative newbie here. But since we are discussing it and you accept the comparison as valid, I have a few subtle but IMO very important points I want to make.
1. Arguing with a troll is different than arguing with a regular.
If you are having an honest disagreement with someone you respect, and that person asks to stop the discussion because they are being triggered, you stop arguing your point.
2. Pressing an argument on somebody while they are being triggered is a Very Shitty Thing To Do ™. It tells them that you do not respect them, because being right is more important to you than not causing them trauma.
3. Louis eventually apologized multiple times. Both to you personally for the darling comment, and the horde in general for participating in a truly bone-headed nitpicking derail.
4. Breaking TET was fucking traumatic for many regulars. I personally had to take a break during the battle that ended in your banning to TZT.
5. In conclusion, I am not blaming you for breaking TET.
But from my point of view, you really do owe some sincere regret and apologies to the regulars like Caine and Aquaria you traumatized by ignoring points 1. and 2.
/humbly offered as a possibly naive suggestion to help restore trust and goodwill within the horde.
chigau (自分のサンドイッチを作ろう！)says
which really just means people will get to not actually have to deal with responses to their claims
?
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
I got a late birthday present today, a car wreck.
Nothing major, got rear ended by a guy w ho was also rear ended. Some damage but no injuries.
Funny thing is all three people in the wreck were perfectly cordial with each so much that as I was surveying the damage to my car with the guy at fault and some asshole drove by, slowed down and yelled at us out his window for being in a wreck and slow ing him down to what I can only guess was his nightly visit to Hooters.
In perfect synchronization the guy who caused the wreck and I both extended our middle fingers and told the guy to go fuck himself.
Childish, but I got a ton of amusement out of that.
Oh and I got a new grill smoker. So there’s that.
John Moralessays
Paul:
I don’t disagree.
Then I was not wrong, was I? :)
I just couldn’t let it slip that he’s the one that decided to troll a long-time forum participant in the lounge, then to say “I shall desist, take it to TZT if you must”, externalizing all the blame for unpleasantness in the lounge.
That you imagine it’s trolling is your problem, not mine.
(That you failed to get that I was telling the “long-time forum participant in the lounge” to take this particular discussion there is either obtuseness or malice)
Especially when the point I was noting in the first place is that there has been incidents where certain people have been referenced or insulted, then they get worse for daring to defend themselves where people are talking about them.
“certain people”, eh?
—
And I hereby desist from continuing this particular discussion with you, Paul, here in the lounge.
You want to continue your opining about its merits, take it to TZT.
(bah)
Be aware I’m about to watch a footy game, so I’ll be AFK for a couple of hours.
(nominal Crows supporter, here, being a Croweater and all)
Owlmirrorsays
I personally had to take a break during the battle that ended in your banning to TZT.
Nitpick for accuracy: banned from TET; not banned to TZT. Those banned to TZT are not allowed to post anywhere else besides TZT; SGBM was allowed to post anywhere except TET.
It’s just that TZT is the only other “open thread” for general-purpose posting, so that’s where SGBM’s general purpose posting went.
I don’t disagree. I just couldn’t let it slip that he’s the one that decided to troll a long-time forum participant in the lounge, then to say “I shall desist, take it to TZT if you must”, externalizing all the blame for unpleasantness in the lounge.
I apologize. I didn’t see it that way. I saw one long-time-member calling out another long-time-member, then saying, “But this would better bet served in TZT.”
Especially when the point I was noting in the first place is that there has been incidents where certain people have been referenced or insulted, then they get worse for daring to defend themselves where people are talking about them.
And this is where I declare coward status.
There are members of this forum that I truly love. I mean, these are folks that I would take into my family (which is not genetically related to me — I have plenty of those).
And when members of that group start fighting, I get tense. They have every right to fight. sgbm had every right to call out Aquaria for using the suffix “–tard.” And from the arguments that followed, Caine has every right to call out sgbm for hounding Aquaria for using the suffix “–tard.” Both of them are right.
Did sgbm go too far? Beats me. Caine thought so. Near as I can tell, it’s a matter of judgement. Do I dislike the “–tard” suffix? Fuck, yeah. I have a niece who is multiply-disabled (Angelman’s syndrome, which I swear was covered here at Pharyngula, but for which I cannot immediately find a link via Google).
I agree sgbm has a right to defend xerself. But JM wasn’t provoking and running, as you suggest. The issue came up here. JM was merely suggesting a more appropriate venue.
But I guess that’s all meta. I have nothing to defend, especially other folks here. I’m not sure why I’m posting a response, other than pride.
Browniansays
What the fuck was that, Morales?
I’ll tell you, because you like this question and answer format:
it was a bunch of bullshit.
This is the kind of shit that keeps me out of TET.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
But since we are discussing it and you accept the comparison as valid,
No, I did not accept any comparison as valid. I meant you had a fair point that the thread was supposed to be about Sikivu’s writing.
1. Arguing with a troll is different than arguing with a regular.
If you are having an honest disagreement with someone you respect, and that person asks to stop the discussion because they are being triggered, you stop arguing your point.
I disagree.
Since the rest of your points appear to be premised on #1, I’ll stop there.
Browniansays
Did sgbm go too far
Did Ixchel continue to harass Aquaria after she’d stopped using -tard as a slur? Because if not, then there’s an obvious answer to this that everyone seems to want to ignore: Aquaria could have stopped using ableist slurs like we ask of everyone else who uses -ist language.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
On a tangential note, I have just elicited an amazing comment out of Daniel Fincke.
Aquaria could have stopped using ableist slurs like we ask of everyone else who uses -ist language.
Yeah. I already admitted I was a coward here.
I’m willing to admit, the problem was that I liked Aquaria. I’m willing to admit, I got tense when Ixchel (then sgbm) attacked Aquaria as we’d attack anyone else.
I’m willing to admit I’m a hypocrite that way.
I liked both sgbm and Aquaria.
Note I’m not defending JM’s position. I’m just saying, he’s right to take it to TZT.
And yes: I’m a hypocrite.
chigau (自分のサンドイッチを作ろう！)says
John Morales hasn’t taken anything to TZT.
He has suggested that other people got there.
Browniansays
Oh, Nigel, that wasn’t my intent to impugn you.
I’m bowing out for now, since I don’t think I’m helping.
broboxley OTsays
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war
I watched that colbert report, it didnt respond to any point I was trying to make
tard=^fuck^straight^gay^old^fem^straight^(aussie.brit,insertgroup)^lib^libertarian^lib^creo^repo^demo^young^gekko^ are all fair game without expressing derogatory remarks to the actually mentally challenged.
Fuck, dude, I know that wasn’t your point. I’m sorry if I sounded defensive. That wasn’t my point.
Hell, right now, I’m not even sure what my point is.
I’m bowing out for now, since I don’t think I’m helping.
You always help. Don’t bow out because I can’t communicate properly.
Owlmirrorsays
1. Arguing with a troll is different than arguing with a regular.
If you are having an honest disagreement with someone you respect, and that person asks to stop the discussion because they are being triggered, you stop arguing your point.
I disagree.
Would you agree that you could, or should, modulate your style of argumentation so as to avoid being triggering?
What exactly is it that seems to make 13 year olds so stupid?
My son had a friend over this afternoon and the two of them thought it would be a good plan to get out the long-unused electric chainsaw buried in the garage and start it up.
Fortunately I stopped them before they gained Darwin awards, but Misterc only just now discovered that in rigging the extension cord the little yo-hos blew a breaker and our chest freezer has consequently been without power all day. We are extremely lucky that no one opened it, so everything is still frozen.
Would you agree that you could, or should, modulate your style of argumentation so as to avoid being triggering?
I’d say that’d be impossible.
I just learned tonight there’s a sexual fetish that involves dressing up in animal costumes and rubbing against others dressed up in different animal costumes. How specific can you get?
With this, knowing there are experiences out there you can’t predict, there’s no way to modulate your style of argumentation to avoid triggering.
However, you can avoid language that deliberately triggers others.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
tard=^fuck^straight^gay^old^fem^straight^(aussie.brit,insertgroup)^lib^libertarian^lib^creo^repo^demo^young^gekko^ are all fair game without expressing derogatory remarks to the actually mentally challenged.
oxley, you are not known for clarity, but if your meaning here is that permutations of “tard” are not derogatory regarding some people with developmental disabilities, you are wrong.
Owlmirrorsays
With this, knowing there are experiences out there you can’t predict, there’s no way to modulate your style of argumentation to avoid triggering.
However, you can avoid language that deliberately triggers others.
???
I think that is more or less what I meant by modulating the style of argumentation.
I’m not sure what you thought I meant.
As I understood it, it was indeed the use of certain phrases and wording that led to the triggering, and those phrases and wording certainly looked like a certain style of argumentation being used — so modulating that style would mean avoiding or blunting the phrases and wording.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Would you agree that you could, or should, modulate your style of argumentation so as to avoid being triggering?
I probably missed a lot of context here. I thought it was a straightforward question, which I answered in a straightforward way. (At least, I thought.)
I’ma gonna go back to watching some ST:TNG. That seems more my speed tonight, I guess.
I seem to be missing on pretty much every cylinder tonight.
Also, too, I wanted to mention the whole animal costume fetish.
I thought I was imaginative. I found out I was wrong.
Go figure.
I have to admit, though, when my wife mentioned it to me and said, “That’s weird,” my first response was to say, “No, it’s just different from what you expect.”
Aww, I was disappointed when I clicked a second time and I got a different scene from the first. The first one I got looked much like where I live, except we don’t have any water. I think it may have been taken east of Reno at the Mexican Ditch (old irrigation canal). Lovely. Not really desert-y.
Tethyssays
Ixchel
I disagree
It is, at the very least, irrational to demand others treat you with empathy, if you are unwillingly to treat them with empathy.
I am unwilling to move this to TZT, for that reason.
I am going to bed in any case.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
It is, at the very least, irrational to demand others treat you with empathy
And I don’t.
I am unwilling to move this to TZT, for that reason.
Too bad. You might be surprised.
carlie, who has nice reading comprehensionsays
nigel, that sounds like a perfectly lovely wedding in every way. :)
I’m in the same corner as you on the infighting (or whatever it shall be called). I like pretty much everyone here, and I’m conflict-averse when it comes to people I like, and I don’t follow specific arguments well enough or long enough to feel like I can really take sides a lot of the time (and often I can see points on both of the sides), so I tend to just slink back and wait for it all to finish so I don’t jump in and possibly make things worse.
Also, having those privileges doesn’t make someone a bad person, or evil, and it doesn’t even mean they use them intentionally. Most people are completely unaware of their privilege.
Well, big part of your privilege is how people treat you and you can’t change that. And who’d want to be treated like crap?
The point is to recognize it and not to rationalize why the only person checked is an immigrant or a person of colour to maintain the ilusion of an equal society and to work towards more justice. Because lots this isn’t a zero sum game.
Wow, Aquaria gave up her OM?!
Fuck, that’s bad :(
Caine
A while back, SG took issue with that, and in his usual style, showed up whenever she posted, no matter what she posted, and continually castigated her for it, indulging in continual harassment, derailing threads left and right, same old, same old.
Yes, I recognize that behaviour.
Yes, that’s what I meant, I apologize for being so damn fuzzy. I’m now just about burnt beyond recognition and it might be a good idea for me to take a break.
Take care of yourself. The last weeks were exhausting online, and you have a shitload of things offline as well.
Nightjar
No, Caine, it’s the other way around. SG gets smacked down simply for being argumentative and calling people out in a way I don’t see happening to other regulars. I find it disconcerting.
No, sorry, I can’t agree with you.
I have repeatedly told SG that I did not want to engage with him, did not want to talk with him, and so on. As a result he tried to bait me into reentering the discussion, Constantly writing something like “Giliell said…” (and quite often misrepresenting my argument), so that I had either to defend myself or let it pass. And yes, I consider that harassment. No, I don’t use “-tard” slurs, so that’s not a defense. And then I got called a bully for not giving SG the time other people thought I owed him. No, that was not SG himself.
dalillama
@ Giliell:
Do I hear the sound of a fellow GURPSer?
No, The Dark Eye, the most popular German RPG
Played with a D20 as well but you try to remain under your talent score in a roll
Fossil Fishy Congratulations to her. Well, I don’t know. Time’s relative as a parent: It’s hardly a minute ago that they were nursing at my breast but the time they need to fall asleep at night takes forever :)
++++
Reminds me of an incident about 20 years back—there was a group collecting donations for a “handicapped” group, meaning, people who wore glasses. Don’t remember the descritive phrase (Vision-Impaired? Something like that), but it implied blindness.
I think the complaint holds perfectly true for the first world where glasses are easy to come by. I’d make a difference for the third world where lack of glasses makes people lose their livelyhoods. (I recently saw a report on somebody who invented very ugly but very cheap adjustable glasses for the third world. That rocked)
RBDC
I got a late birthday present today, a car wreck.
Nothing major, got rear ended by a guy w ho was also rear ended. Some damage but no injuries.
That’s bad, that’s good. Just a word, if you feel dizzy or anything go to the hospital and complain heavily. I once made the mistake of saying “well, they can’t do much about it anyway, so why bother them”
kristinc
What exactly is it that seems to make 13 year olds so stupid?
Hormones
+++++
Arrrrgh, I have a good old case of I cleaned up the kitchen and now things are missing
+++++
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
If I find a link to the thread where I did not tell ‘Tis Himself that he didn’t experience real bullying, I’ll link it here.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Giliell,
A while back, SG took issue with that, and in his usual style, showed up whenever she posted, no matter what she posted, and continually castigated her for it, indulging in continual harassment, derailing threads left and right, same old, same old.
Yes, I recognize that behaviour.
Never mind that all the actual citations show otherwise.
I have repeatedly told SG that I did not want to engage with him, did not want to talk with him, and so on. As a result he tried to bait me into reentering the discussion,
Not as a “result” of, but in spite of.
I simply don’t believe that people should be able to make false statements unchallenged.
Constantly writing something like “Giliell said…” (and quite often misrepresenting my argument), so that I had either to defend myself or let it pass.
You mean, what you’re doing right now.
No, I don’t use “-tard” slurs, so that’s not a defense.
Indeed, and calling people retards is not the only objectionable thing in the world.
And then I got called a bully for not giving SG the time other people thought I owed him.
Definitely not true. Citation needed.
Nightjarsays
Giliell, I can’t speak about your experience with him in particular, I wasn’t around to see. But both before I left and after I came back I’ve noticed the behaviour I was referring to, where it looks like a different set of rules apply to SG. Some people dislike him so much they lash out against him even when he’s saying stuff those same people would agree with in principle. The comments on the old site aren’t up yet, but for the “after I came back” situations I’m thinking specifically of the incident with Louis (though not of Louis) and this kind of thing.
On the old site? I saw people concerned that he was scaring away lurkers from delurking. People who aren’t usually concerned that the environment here tends to do that to some. I wish I could link to that thread.
Now, maybe people do that because they’ve felt harassed by him in the past. I don’t know. Still not an excuse to side against him when he’s obviously right.
Ing, I can understand about time and energy sucks. You have to handle things the way that works for you.
Tony:
I’ve always liked water bending and the various ways it’s been applied. I’m rather hopeful Tahno comes back to LOK, too. Over the top snotty-yet-not-evil water benders are fun.
Alethea:
Heeeeeey, I’ve dated that guy! He declared his love for me on the second date (in a hilariously over-the-top dramatic way) and then told everybody I was immature for dumping him.
—
So I’ve started taking magnesium supplements, since there’s some evidence that they might help in some cases of migraine (think there are enough qualifiers there?). I’ve actually gone over twenty-four hours now without a migraine and it kind of scares me. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I haven’t had to deal with either an aura, the migraine itself, or the after-effects. The exhaustion from this has probably been exacerbating my PTSD, too. I imagine there’s a bit of the placebo effect going on here, but frankly, I’m okay with that, if I can manage to function. Lalala, magnesium is magic.
Rob Curry in that Ernest Adams thread can fuck right off. What a supercilious, snotty tone troll.
Also, Ysanne. Then again I’ve never been impressed by her anyway.
Caine, I suspect that at least some of the tone-trolling we’re seeing from regulars is caused by burnout. Which is understandable. What they need to do is withdraw and care for themselves, as Ing is doing. Not extrapolate from their mental state to the conclusion that we’re all doing it wrong.
Agreed.
Josh, yeah, I think you’re being a tad parochial and not taking into account that this is the natural course of languages, at least in the absence of widespread literacy and telecommunications: to drift apart in terms of mutual intelligibility, from subdialects to dialects to full languages. Being able to understand someone who lives more than ~20 miles away from you is, historically, a very new thing. In the modern age, those pockets of your own language that are not intelligible to you are typically marked by poverty and lack of educational opportunities.
Of course, it’s irritating when you’re trying to communicate with the other person. I wish I could suggest a solution for your situation at work that enables communication without alienating the person on the other end of the phone. Maybe a very abashed-sounding, “I apologize, but I am having a very difficult time understanding your accent”…? Or having someone in a regional office who has experience with such accents deal with people from that area?
That said, I find Scottish burrs and Irish brogues kind of sexy. To each their own.
Ing, take care of yourself. We’ll miss you, but you’re under enough stress offline and you need to do what you need to do. Please do let us know from time to time how things are going.
Dr. Bunsen, it sounds like your system is exhausted from being on edge for days and needs to recuperate.
I mostly experience relief at the end of an anxiety bout, but oftentimes the bout is precipitated by an actual issue, even if the issue is not that meaningful, and resolution of the issue makes me feel better.
David:
That makes sense. If you feel detached from the people around you, you’re less likely to trust them. The right wing has been working on that detachment for 30 years now, too. But, also, rural Americans have always had guns for hunting, and in rural areas there is a greater ethic of individualism because the community has traditionally been so small and widely dispersed.
TLC, thanks for throwing in against Geiger. Gawd, what a dishonest, weaselly shitmuppet he is.
Tony, the world in general would be a better place without Andrew Sullivan in it. He doesn’t understand any oppression he himself doesn’t suffer, nor does he want to.
Giliell:
Most young pro-liars seem to take it really personally that abortion exists, because “they” could have been aborted. The idea of choice doesn’t occur to them because they don’t credit women with agency. If we aren’t prevented from getting abortions, we’ll be getting them three times a day, in between pedicures.
Here in NC, my kids learned that there are Native Americans and that they were rounded up into reservations. fin.
@Josh – about Scottish and Deep South accents – I have no problem with Scottish accents because they deeply resemble southern accents for the very real reason that a shit ton of Scots were exported to NC/the South after the 1715 and 1745 war. A lot were ‘criminals’ and/or rebels and others were rich fuckers sick of the king and the church.
I’m undecided if I am a twinkie or not. I am super white, like nazi poster child white but my heritage isn’t. So I never say something stupid like “well I’m Native American” but I do claim my heritage if someone asks when I could just not mention it and no one would be the wiser.
The Cherokee and Lumbee here really hate the moniker “Native American”. If you ask, they are Indians. I don’t know the reasoning but it may be the political white washing “Native American” represents.
Ogvorbis:
Are there *any* canned vegetables that are even *remotely* decent?
I’ve had canned asparagus, and it tastes like canned ASS. Wait, I’ve tasted better ass than that.
As in…poops wasabi peas?
Love me some raw carrots and broccoli.
Love me some red or golden apples, pears (especially asian pears), watermelon, white or concord grapes (not a fan of *eating* many other fruits, but blend them in a smoothie, and in my belly they will go; unless there are strawberries in there-I have to strain out the seeds before I’ll drink a smoothie).
****
Nutmeg:
I went to middle school in El Paso, TX and Huntsville, AL (which is where I went to high school as well). History was horribly sanitized. I don’t remember much, but I certainly do remember not going into any great detail about Native American history (or black history, or the contributions of women to pretty much anything, or anything queer). But again: ALABAMA.
I asked T this question (she’s from somewhere in northern US; I *think* she said Ohio), and she said in seventh grade her social studies class studied Native American history in depth.
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cicely:
At the risk of asking a question that’s just buried in innuendo-why would one bury a banana?
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Audley @193:
I don’t know that I want to live in a city called “Lynchburg”…
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Richard:
The secret is to submit a post that contains harsh language and insults only. After all, that seems to be all tone trolls hear.
Or if your posts showed enough concern for making others’ experiences more positive, the concern trolls might speak to you.
****
I don’t know why this just popped into my head, but hey all you folks that live in the northern part of the US do people speak somewhat fast up there? I have often been asked to slow down my speech so that others can understand (Florida here). But to take the time to concentrate on what I’m saying so that it’s slow enough for others always comes out condescending. I’m not aiming for that, but I literally have to enunciate my words clearly (and I’m already very good at that) and slowly and I just feel like I’m talking down to people when I do that.
People often remark that I’m from up north b/c I speak so quickly.
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Ing:
Please don’t leave.
We geeks have to stick together :)
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Ms. Daisy:
I don’t understand that. It’s as if they have some insight on what non existence feels like.
Just read today’s XKCD and now I have this weird Charlotte/Shelob crossover in my mind.
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.)
The “what if your mother was pro-choice” argument’s always creeped me out for just this reason. My mother IS pro-choice. She chose to have the baby that would become me. Do pro-life women really go around telling their kids that they’d never have existed if it weren’t for their mother’s “morals”?
I know exactly how you feel about this song. When I wrote about it as part of my weekly series on music that inspires my geek self, I had a very mixed reaction to it.
Maybe I missed it somewhere in that clusterfuck of a thread, but what is lilandra teaching?
My English isn’t the best, but I have trouble parsing her comments that I don’t usually have with anyone else’s.
1) Where are the socks?
There are never enough socks. I swear I buy about a pair a week and there are never like 10 pairs around.
2) What do my kids do with all the laundry? Why is it so hard to keep it in the wradrobe?
Ms. Daisy Cutter
I’d call it fear. If you truely believe that, then the only reason you’re alive today is because your mother was prevented from not having you, either by having had access to contraception or ba having had access to abotion. Way to fuck up a kid’s mind.
Interesting…
The Higgs Boson therefore homeopathy-in the classroom
Do what I say, not what I do ?
It is nothing to do with your understanding of English. Even those of us who’s first language is English are struggling to work out what she on about.
And you have nothing to be ashamed about with your English. I never have any problem understanding you, and if I did not know otherwise I would not know English was not your native tongue.
Beatrice:
I just read through the last page of the thread and don’t recall lilandra mentioning what she teaches.
Tony
Don’t forget that they mostly lack basic education in embryology and think that embryo = baby = MEEEEEEEEEEE!
For them there’s no difference between having an abortion at 10 weeks ad smashing your baby into pieces
This is one of those mysteries I fear we will never know the answer to.
Tony, canned asparagus is disgusting, as are most (all?) canned green veg. In my pantry I usually have tins of tomatoes (for cooking), sweet corn, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, pickled beetroot, and assorted pulses. It’s a big time-saver, using canned kidney beans.
Certainly nothing wrong with using canned tomatoes. Unless you grow your own and have a glut, they are often better than using fresh and always cheaper, especially to get really good toms from a shop you have pay a price premium. Here in the UK some supermarkets even have a label on them saying “grown for flavour!”
Canned kidney beans are useful as well, especially when you have not planned the mean the day before.
@217, prev. thread:
Technically speaking, that is not a transcription of the Scottish accent, that is Scots. As in the language.
English and Scots are mostly mutually intelligible, but are (linguistically speaking) different languages.
Ing! ♥
Yes, yes and yes
*whisper*
I also like canned peas. They’re like childhood comfort-food. When we were on holidays, the usual dinner would be barbeque and a green salad. Since I was never a fan of green salads but should eat something green I always got a can of peas with a spoon of creme fraiche.
Tinned garden peas, or tinned processed peas ?
Giliell:
Peas are becoming a meme :)
As a child my mother usually prepared peas alongside mashed potatoes and meatloaf. I’m thankful for that b/c the only way I ate those green fuckers was with a big bite of meatloaf and mashers to disguise them.
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I’m still speechless that people cook *lettuce*.
People cook cucumber as well.
Alethea:
I forgot that I’ve had canned potatoes before (shortly after M died, E and I were trying to figure out money saving measures around the house and since I tend to cook often, I thought canned potatoes might be cheaper). Once you cook them (after they’ve been drained, rinsed, dried and seasoned), they taste ok (I can still tell a difference between canned and whole potatoes, but it’s not as bad as one might think).
Garden peas. Processed peas aren’t big in Germany/France
And there is a French dish where peas are braised with lettuce and spring onions.
Rather nice actually.
Tinned garden peas are not quite as bad as the processed ones. The processed ones are the work of the devil.
CT:
My family is very mixed and I grew up thousands of miles away from the rez, with red hair and pale skin, and didn’t move back here until I was done with college. Because I do have the benefit of white privilege and lack many experiences others have, I don’t make any claims beyond my love for my grandmother and advocacy for Anishinaabe people. My place is as an ally who needs to listen carefully and let others lead; I don’t feel that seeking more than that is my right. I wouldn’t go around telling people I’m French, Irish or Black either. If it comes up I’ll happily discuss my heritage, but my accent, my appearance, and my experiences are identified as those of a white American. I’m very careful not to appropriate things I don’t have a right to.
It’s different for my older half-sister and cousins, who are much darker and don’t have white features. I know more about Anishinaabe culture, language and history than my sister, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I grew up in Nevada with light skin. Unlike my sister, I’ve never had to prove to someone I’m a US citizen.
As for preferred terms, around here most people just call themselves Indian or Native.
For the people asking, lilandra teaches science.
Hi. I hope it is ok if I caffeineate here.
For what it is worth, I went to public schools near Atlanta GA in the late 60s through the 70s and it was not until I was in my 20s and doing my own reading that I discovered that the Trail of Tears actually began in the Deep South. It was mentioned in school as one of those anonymous historical details you had to remember for the test, but never so specifically as “you now live on the land that was seized then.”
That and the cartoon version of Thanksgiving are all I recall being “taught.” I don’t know if much has changed where I grew up, but given the current political climate, I doubt that historical accuracy is really a goal of public education in much of the US. I could be wrong, of course.
Somehow I still have this sinking feeling whenever I ponder the future of education here. But that might be a direct effect of the defunding of higher education here in CA now.
aleph squared, huh.
Yet she doesn’t distinguish between a thought experiment and a regular experiment.
Canned corn can be quite edible. And (guilty secret) I love canned creamed corn. Which is also good in cornbread. Canned tomatoes can also be quite useful for chili and ragu. And canned beans, rinsed and drained and rinsed again, are a great shortcut.
When I lived in Arizona, in a school with about 25% NA students from four different nations, we got the Dee Brown Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee version of history. When I moved to Arizona, we got the noble savage who helped the pilgrims and we got the evil savages who massacred poor Custer. And I got a rash of shit for pointing out that there are still NA cultures in the US.
Because a banana was designed by Gawd to fit the human hand, as was the penis, and the penis was designed to go into one hole and one hole only so . . . er, . . . . Nevermind.
All you need is one ‘fuck’ in the comment and the rest of the comment doesn’t exist.
Peas have been a meme for some time. Especially since some of the Horde are vehemently antipea.
Which sounds good. But a salad of boiled lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and onions, served warm, with warm bacon dressing, is a thing of nightmares.
In Arizona, the Trail of Tears was mentioned, but that was it. However, the concentration camp at Basque Redondo, and the destruction of the Navajo clans, was discussed. As was the Peublo revolt of the late 1600s.
Caerie and CT: I’m another one. I’m a blond, blue eyed mestizo. I usually claim my race is “passing” if asked. I’d give up and say I was white and anglo except that my grandmother, who was entirely descended from Spanish immigrants to northern Mexico (aka Arizona and New Mexico) and various people already living there who they interbred with, got literally and metaphorically beat into pretending she was anglo and I just can’t bring myself to continue the pretense. OTOH, I can’t pretend that I don’t get white privilege either. So I can’t actually tell someone what my race is without feeling like I’m lying or deceiving them. Sorry about whining about this.
Worse.
Insert one “fuck” and all other comments disappear, too!
Am I the only person who thinks it’s perverted to put toddlers and preeschoolers into bikinis? There’s nothing there that could be covered and you should wash your brain with soap if you think otherwise.
But I’m also wondering how much of it is a perpetuum mobile. I’m pretty sure that #1 will insist on her little top once she sees that all other girls wear one and that only the boys go topless and then the next little girl sees her and so on.
dianne:
This describes experiences I’ve had, too. I remember taking my youngest niece to a restaurant once when she was about three and all of the servers wanted to coo over how precious she was, which is perfectly fine. What wasn’t fine was them asking “where she came from.”
…
See, my youngest niece has curly brown hair, olive skin, and brown eyes with obvious epicanthic folds. I am, as mentioned, red-haired and light skinned. I explained that she was my niece. The response: “Yes, but where did she come from?” Her mother and father, for fuck’s sake. Did I have to break out our genealogy to prove that she really was related to me?
I know recessive genes and racial mixing can be confusing, but goddamn. America can be shockingly stupid about the fact that ethnicity isn’t binary.
No. At most we learn about Native American’s history with Europeans. We get at best the broad strokes of their history and absolutely no details. How as the Iroquois Confederacy formed? What is the history of the Sioux, important developments with Aztec or Mayan history or technology? Not even asked. European history is painstakingly drilled into our heads with every major land mark and king after king after king but not a single detail on the indian equivalent. There’s some of that in Asian history as well; a lot more detail than the Indian but it’s still just a side bar from the default main branch of history (white history). African history is non existent.
I’ve never had to prove to someone I’m a US citizen.
I have. On a plane traveling from Frankfort to the US there were a bunch of obnoxious American teens traveling so I started speaking German to the flight attendants to distance myself from them. This was all good and well until we were near landing and the flight attendant tried to insist that I had to fill out the visitor’s forms to get through customs. I was rather flattered. (Incidentally, the flight was with Air France so neither of us was a native speaker of German. I would never have fooled a native speaker for a minute. But I still took it as a compliment.)
OTOH, I can go in and out of Mexico with utter impunity.
The obnoxious part is redundant.
dianne:
Ironic, no? Back when crossing the border was a little more casual, one of my aunts was detained and no one would believe that she was American. I was a little kid at the time, so I don’t know all of the details, but I know when someone tried to speak to her in Spanish her horrible mangling of the language bolstered her case.
Giliell re: “my mommy didn’t abort me!” (Last thread):
Yes, it is child abuse to tell them that they they were lucky because they weren’t “murdered”. What is that little girl going to do if she ever needs an abortion? *head shake*
Mommy also pointed out that she had five unplanned pregnancies that were all conceived while she was using birth control (!) but she’s such an awesome person that she didn’t abort. *headdesk!* Since I was keeping it civil, I totally refrained from calling her a moron.
I never got the drop the news that I am very much happily pregnant. Oh wells. (I did get to use your excellent elephant fetus, but I didn’t get a response about it. Damn.)
(I know that shit happens, which is why I support abortion services. But five times?? Birth control ain’t exactly rocket surgery– fuck, I was able to figure it out.)
Did she mention what form of birth control she was using ?
dianne
I was rather flattered when I had to show the Irish my ID to prove I’m not English :)
Hey, but you were lucky. My schoolfriends father was almost arrested for human trafficking when he came back from a holiday in Cuba. They insisted that he was trying to smuggle that tanned, attaractive dark-haired Cuban woman into the country, his wife of 30 years.
I know the distancing trick. I sometimes switch to English or Spanish. Or I used to before the kids could talk.
Ironic, no?
Especially since I’m almost certain that one reason my grandmother insisted that she was anglo is that she was being threatened with deportation. Even though she was clearly born in the US of US-American parents whose ancestors had lived in the Arizona/New Mexico area since long before it even was the US. Heck, before there was a US to be part of. It happened to a number of US citizens at about that time (the 1920s). The assholery of US immigration is no new thing.
Depends on what she was using. Especially the “natural stuff” has a high failure rate and if you’re very fertile…
I can be pretty sure that a mistake at the wrong time means pregnancy for me:
2 cycles for the pregnancy I miscarried (after 7 years on the pill)
1 cycle for #1 three months after the miscarriage
1 cycle for the little one.
I think I’m just glad that I have my period at the moment :)
Dianne:
Holy fucking shit, this. My mother is every bit as pro-choice as I am and she had four kids*. All of us were wanted.
I was talking about this with a pro-choice facebook friend last night and it’s almost as if the anti-choicers believe that every pro-choice woman hates babies so much that not only will she never have kids, but she wants every other woman to abort every pregnancy, too.
*Known as: Eldest Sister, Asshole Sister, me, and Youngest Sister.
Oh Felicia, I’d never push you into a pool!
(Me and 10 million other nerds. *sigh*)
Hmmm, so far 4 generations of pro-choice women in my family have resulted in my kids…
Matt:
At first, I assumed The Pill because of how she worded it, but who the fuck knows? It could have been the rhythm method or something used inconsistently or the hope that .
Giliell:
Oof, sorry about my assumption there.
I just can’t imagine five unplanned pregnancies happening to me while I was using some form of birth control, but perhaps I’m lucky.
Giliell:
I know, right? I know that my (maternal) grandmama fought to legalize abortion and both of my parents are pro-choice. My (paternal) grandfather donated money to Planned Parenthood until his death. By all means, I (and DarkFetus!) shouldn’t exist!
Audley
Believe me, although Mr. and I are a very fertile combination, it wouldn’t happen 5 times to me unless I wanted children anyway. We didn’t mind the condom that broke when #1 was a year old (luckily breastfeeding was still working as a contraceptive). It would have been sooner than planned for a second one, but well, not soooo unplanned that I’d have gone through an abortion only to try for a pregnancy half a year later. But if it happened right now I wouldn’t only have an abortion, I would have my tubes tied right away.
Urgh, gotta leave now, and I don’t want to.
If it was the pill, the chances of five pregnancies is astronomical without “user error”.
I recall reading about some research that showed a good number of women do not realise the pill is unlikely to be effective if they have D&V. Maybe she pukes a lot.
Although it is true the pill is not 100% effective, even when taken correctly. I’m proof of that.
Matt,
D&V?
I wish she had specified, ‘cos now I am interested to know what has such a high failure rate.
No, it’s not 100% effective (like I said, shit happens), but it’s the high number of unplanned pregnancies that anti-choice lady had that baffled me.
I’ve never had trouble crossing borders, but during a family road trip in Texas my dad was pulled over for going 2 mph over the speed limit and the officer wanted to see everyone’s US IDs. He was very white, my mom and us kids less so (my mother’s family being from Mexico, supposedly some Native ancestry but I’ve never heard details).
warning because this might be a disturbing answer:
Also recall, along with possibilities such as poor dosing, lack of education about how birth control works, and that some women’s systems just behave strangely vs the pill: birth control sabotage is totally a thing and it’s vastly underrecognized.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/health/research/15pregnant.html
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/socscimed201002009.pdf
D&V = diarrhea and vomiting?
I have the perfect combination of privilege and lack of privilege to make me nearly invisible to police and border patrol people:
1. I look white so I’m probably not one of “them” trying to sneak in.
2. I’m a not particularly attractive woman so I’m virtually invisible to most men.
3. I’m middle class by behavior and therefore am assumed to be just ditzy if I don’t have the proper paperwork rather than trying to pull something.
4. Again at #2: I’m female so it’s assumed that I’m probably too stupid to be trying to pull something anyway.
Diarrhoea and Vomiting. Done that way around to avoid confusion with VD (Venereal Disease).
Audley, we’ll always have Chippewa…and Amanda’s retainer.
:D
–
–
Tony:
You must have missed the “brown and mooshy” part. That would be “why”.
–
*scrolling past chatter about peas*
–
Tony:
Both my mother and I have both lived all of our lives in Los Angeles County. My father is from Indiana, not exactly known for speaking quickly. My mom’s mom (my only grandparent nearby) was a Colorado-born daughter of Czech immigrants and spoke normally with a slight accent.
And yet, all of my life, I’ve been accused of being from New York (except by New Yorkers, who for some reason think I’m from London, and one guy from London who agreed with that I sound like I could be) because I speak so fast and with an “accent” that isn’t really anything. No one has any idea where I picked it up or why. The area I grew up in was largely immigrants from eastern Europe and Mexico (about half and half), so the nearest I can think is that I picked up on the rate of speech from some of the other languages being spoken.
Anyway, the impression of most people seems to be that people from New York and surrounding areas speak quickly.
But which part of London ?
Totally unrelated, but the new astronauts are going to look like Buzz Lightyear.
Mann Penfold:
I never got a name, but my one friend from London I think said something about the south? It had more to do with the rate of speech, but he even said that my “accent” could sound similar.
“Sarf” London is a recognisable accent.
(Scoff) MMORPGers! Ha! Dumbass kids who’ve had their imaginations replaced by a CPU. Why don’t they crawl away from their glorified Atari 2600s, sit down at the table with some dice, a character sheet, and some actual people, and play a REAL role-playing game?
Anyway;
Giliell
I think it’s a modification of the old “if-I-didn’t-believe-in-God-I’d-go-around-killing/raping/stealing” fallacy. In their authoritarian minds, unless there is a written-in-stone prohibition against something with nasty legal consequences attached, people are gleefully going to do it.
My sister and I grew up in an anti-abortion, Roman Catholic family. The belief only stuck with my sister and since she had kids of her own it has only grown more obnoxious. Now it’s the primary decision making factor in ALL of the candidates she votes for. She admitted to me that she would have voted for Obama if it were for his pro-choice stance.
Once, after her first child was born and the topic had somehow come up, she said, “how could anyone abort my little girl?” Right, Sis, because their are packs of OB-GYNs roaming America, kidnapping expectant mothers, and dragging them to the nearest Planned Parenthood for a forced abortion.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m bachelor (i.e a 37-year-old virgin). I’ve seen too many of my friends and family become overprotective right-leaning loons the instant they have their first kid.
Edit: …if it weren’t for his…
Sing it!
–
Once, after her first child was born and the topic had somehow come up, she said, “how could anyone abort my little girl?”
To be fair, the period just after birth is a hormonally paranoid time. I was afraid of just about anyone approaching my baby for a while.
I feel better about my life knowing that my mother had the option of abortion. She wasn’t forced to stay pregnant. I wasn’t some punishment that society forced on her for having sex. She chose to have me. What a wonderful way to enter the world.
Akira MacKenzie
So, when was the last time you had a table-top RPG event that included 80+ real people from all over the world?
The folks on my WoW server regularly did (and may still do) things like that. We’ve even had multi-month scripted events that include forum chat, storylines, kidnappings, murders, traitors, and a full-scale (there were 60-70 people on our side attacking and I don’t even want to think about how many were defending) assault on a city to rescue a mage.
True, most MMORPG players don’t role-play, but the ones who do really do it.
dianne @ 67
I could buy that. However, she had her last kid two years ago and the attitude is still the same. To make things worse, Sis works as an RN in the local Catholic hospital network so she buys into all of propaganda despite only going to Mass on holidays. In her eyes, Bennie the Rat can do no wrong.
To make things worse, Sis works as an RN in the local Catholic hospital network so she buys into all of propaganda despite only going to Mass on holidays.
That’s a problem. She could kill someone that way. If it weren’t for HIPAA I could name several women who’d be dead now if it weren’t for abortion. What would have happened to them at a Catholic hospital I don’t like to think.
Matt Penfold:
Not necessarily redundant.
I’m a recent immigrant, but am completely white (seriously, completely Russian/Belarusian). Obviously, we never got hassled about it.
I think you must have missed my point, which was that labelling teens as obnoxious is not necessary, since all teens are obnoxious. It is kind of the whole point of them.
Aww, RealityEnforcer and thunk aren’t obnoxious! *can’t remember who else is teenaged here offhand*
Matt:
Sorry, two different topics- forgot to separate.
But still, what makes you so certain of the universal quality of obnoxiousness?
Matt, thunk is a teenager.
This, not the. Bah.
Grimalkin!
I’m not. It was supposed to be a joke, but clearly it fell a bit flat.
My brother and I both went to sleep feeling okay and woke up feeling sick, presumably from just allergies (I base this on the fact that he has known allergies and in addition to our other symptoms, my throat and ears are very itchy). So he’s had medicine and is going to go to sleep, and I just had some Benadryl to go with my coffee.
Keeping in mind that I haven’t had benadryl in a long time and have had weird reactions to several other medications that are known to make people drowsy, I am expecting FUN TIMES FOR ME.
When giving a tour or presentation, I intentionally allow myself to lapse into a soft southern drawl because it slows me down.
In a lot of the abortion discussions I have with my conservative friends and relatives, they always pull the “Well, you might be a woman but you also don’t have kids, so you don’t know what you’re talking about” card.
It’s true – I don’t have kids and I’m 99% sure that I won’t ever choose to have them. But my sister-in-law just went through her first (possibly only) pregnancy, and produced my niece, the first grandchild on all sides of the family (lots of sides to my family).
I’m still pro-choice. In fact, I’m even more pro-choice. My sister-in-law’s pregnancy wasn’t even a particularly difficult one, but the idea of someone being forced to go through that experience gives me chills.
I love my niece, and she will grow up knowing that she was wanted, and loved. I feel sorry for the kids of anti-choicers who aren’t certain of the same.
I’ve never done that (I’m a Brit with Southern England middle class accent so it would sound very odd) but I was taught to wait before starting to speak, and then wait some more, and keep waiting until the audience is starting to wonder why I have not started. It makes people pay attention.
I don’t know how to speak slowly.
It’s a whole thing.
I was just told that I’m so “extreme” that I’m “the liberal equivalent of Westboro.” How does that even compute? I don’t recall picketing the funerals of…well, anybody.
…
I keep telling myself, “correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation…”
(By the way, I played the original D&D back in 1975, and had a regular game going throughout my undergraduate years. Also, shed the virginity as quickly as possible.)
(Also play WOW intermittently. Virginity hasn’t grown back.)
Well, online you don’t have to justify your gender presentation ;> (Also, it really helps if you’re bad at math!)
Whoops, blockquote fail. Sorry.
That said, I know I’d have a grand time playing a paper&pencil FRP game now…but lack the time and most importantly, lack the community of people with similar interests. Those MMOs and card games sucked all the players away.
Daisy:
The regulars haven’t been tone trolling. It’s Kalliope who has been concern trolling and she’s a newb.
CT, Caerie, Dianne, add me to the list. Half Lakota, half Scots and other stuff. Whitest skin, auburn hair.
All of my tabletop RPG friends now live across the continent from me (and in some cases, in Canada), so I don’t play much these days. The inability to have a lasting effect on the online game worlds just turned me off. It all felt so pointless.
On the other hand, it occurs to me that a Google+ hangout would be a good way to run a long-distance tabletop game. Hmmmm.
Pteryxx:
What? It can’t be! :p
That’s so brilliant and obvious…I wonder if it’s been done already?
I played something like D&D for awhile. I understood that it was actually D&D, but given that my friends are much like the sorts of people you might find on Pharyngula, it was more like a weekly four-hour argument.
At one time, we had thirteen players. A combat round took so long that the last action in the the sequence was to order another pizza.
Of course, as an amateur thespian in a theatre troupe that writes its own plays, I could make many of the Akira’s criticisms about pen-and-paper ‘roleplayers’.
;)
A weekly four-hour argument? Sounds marvelous, I could get into that. But why so short?
Cicely:
*swoon!*
Mythbri:
Ah yup. I am more committed to being pro-choice than I’ve ever been before.
So far (six and a half months in), I’ve had an “ideal” pregnancy– one of my docs has even remarked that I’m her easiest patient. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s been easy: I’ve dealt with vomiting, ligament pain, nerve pain, swollen joints, fatigue, mood swings, insomnia, itchiness, congestion… I could go on and on. I can’t even begin to imagine dealing with all of that shit while at the same time dreading having a child. It must be pure hell.
Gross. And you call them ‘friends’?
The problem my old D&D group has always encountered when trying to organise a game is time: it’s really hard to coordinate when people have kids and jobs and yards and gyms and witnesses to disappear.
My two teens are only obnoxious to me, so, there… proves nothing but okay.
Speaking of the glorified Atari comments, my kids and their friends all play long involved matches with Magic:The Gathering cards. They have a Friday Night Magic get together. I know, isn’t that surreal. They are almost like old people playing bridge or something. lol
LOL, listening to my kids with their cards in the dining room is *just* *like* *this*.
There *are* some online tools within games that allow GMs to create their own content… there are Minecraft arena competitions, for instance, and I’ve heard there is Minecraft roleplaying. Also, City of Heroes MMO has a user-created content system where players can craft their own story arcs, including writing custom backstory and making limited custom enemy groups, using the same tools the MMO uses. Sure, there are limitations.
IMHO, the absolute best combination of unlimited imagination and online convenience and safety is online tabletop, using interfaces such as MapTools for the dice rolling, secret messages, map display and similar.
…I’d be interested in online tabletop with folks here, if Google+ didn’t have such real-name issues and such. *sigh*
We had those too. Once we had a sentient building and someone asked if he could use Intimidate on it. The DM went outside, shouted a swear word, came back in and said “No.”
Also: Harrumph, MMORPGs. Boring as shit.
I haven’t played a proper tabletop RPG in years and let’s just say that with the gamers I know, I’m not inclined to take it up again any time soon.
Pteryxx:
I thought that had all been cleared up. It was made quite clear some time ago that google+ has no problem with established nyms.
My geek cred suffers from my complete lack of D&D experience. I have never played. I received some basic D&D books when I turned 13, but never had anyone to play. (Lots of friends, really, just no geek friends.)
Also, too, I’ve never seen a single episode of Dr. Who.
*sob*
There. I said it.
PZ @ 87
Heh… I’m the only member of my group who isn’t married. At my age, I’ve pretty much given up hope of finding a woman who’d be attracted to me, much less tolerate my hobbies.
However, being lonely still hurts though.
Six hours to wait for everyone to show up, roll characters, toddle off to the local fast food joint for a snack, etc.
cats + herding
Akira: a friend of mine got married at 45, to someone she met through a hobby. It does happen. ;>
Thanks to ixchel we now have a little arrow thing that goes on the Wiki next to academic research. It goes like this: {{arrow}} and then it shows up. I don’t know if it will actually help anybody but I wanted it because I like categorizing stuff.
This has been your Wiki related public service announcement.
PZ @ 94
Oh it has! There is even a Hangout app in the works to help:
http://tabletopforge.com/
If I may make a small suggestion:
The next Pharyngula meetup, or atheist convention, why don’t those who remember the P&P RPGs with fondness plan a night of P&P RPG? Villains & Vigilantes, Dungeons & Dragons (an early version), Call of Cthulhu, any of the 70s and 80s games would work. One of two things will happen: y’all will love it and it will become a standard offshoot to the get togethers, or y’all will remember why those P&P games with either amorphous rules or exacting rules are seldom played today. Either way.
Akira MacKenzie:
Did you totally miss the fact that I said a lot of the interaction takes place outside the MMO? As well as the fact that we go through long, scripted (by players) events?
Really, the medium is just that – a medium. It’s the imagination of the players that makes it work. And MMOs are perfectly reasonable mediums, assuming you have players who care enough to bother.
What if I told you that, every week, a group of friends on the server get together and run a bar? They buy up a lot of booze from NPCs ahead of time, get outfits and such, and go occupy one of the empty “inns” in a city for four hours, talking in character and selling booze to other players who come in to chat and have bar fights and all sorts of things. It’s just as dynamic and imaginative as anything that would happen at a table. Hundreds of people wander through in the evening, participating in largely unscripted ways and just enjoying themselves.
No, they’re not creating the underlying setting or the monsters. But most players of table-top games don’t do that either. Someone else creates the world – they just occupy it and change it. What’s so different here?
I’ll bet you’d like it a lot better if * were running it!
:D
–
*sigh*
That should read, “if I were running it”.
… And, I’ll apologize for pushing the point, but “bashing video gamers” is a common thing that I really hate. You may not have intended to do that, but that’s how it came across to me (with a dose of “get off my lawn”). I’ll walk away from it now.
nigel, if it helps any, I’ve never played D&D either. I’ve played plenty of other RPGs, but not that one. Too mainstream.
Bit of a threadrupt, but I see that Slog is heading back to its bodysnarking, transphobic roots. Stay classy, Goldy.
WTFF:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19932_5-creepy-things-london-did-to-prepare-olympics.html
*shudder*
Our DM was infamously miserly. A cleric character detected evil in a magical mace, the only magic loot after a long and bloody campaign in which several characters died. He was adamant that it should be destroyed. Other non-good-aligned characters wanted to sell it.
It almost became physical.
That very night we instituted a “no alcohol at gaming sessions” rule.
Feel-good story for the day: Amazon’s Founder Pledges $2.5 Million in Support of Same-Sex Marriage
… I wonder, does Amazon sell waffle fries?
This brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing, Richard.
Richard:
Fantastic.
Now I feel even better about my Amazon addiction.
Too bad it wasn’t a cursed shield. Everyone knows you equip those for 256 battles, after which it gets becomes a Paladin Shield, basically makes you invulnerable, and teaches you Ultima. Even a Cleric couldn’t destroy it in good conscience.
Indeed! For instance, I met The Husband courtesy of D&D—he was the DM.
:)
–
It just now occurs to me—I’ve never run a module, or used a published game world. All home-brewed.
And creating your own monsters keeps the players delightfully off-balance.
:) :) :)
*suffers brief brainstorm; alters ‘nym*
–
Eh. Never played these games you speak of. I must be too young, I guess.
Ogvorbis @ 111
I like the idea, and would love to join, but my current financial situation (i.e. poor-paying job and lots of bills) prevents me from travelling outside the county much less out of state for any of the atheist/skeptic conventions.
Heh… maybe if someone brought a laptop with a web cam…
dianne, I’ve never played any RPGs. Considering I was a young lad in the late ’70s – early ’80s, that’s a sad thing. My only defense is that I grew up in logging camps in Southeast Alaska.
@Ogvorbis, I’d definitely be up to a run at an RPG at a horde gathering. I suck at role-playing in real life, but I might do OK in that kind of setting.
Tony:
Organic peeled tomatoes. Diced are okay, but the more intact the tomato is, the less its acids interact with the can metal, which affects the taste.
As Ogvorbis said, corn is OK too.
Matt:
Be careful; you might be accused of childism.
Audley: Yeah, I know birth control fails sometimes, and that some abusive men sabotage it, but going by what you’ve told us so far about this woman it sounds like she could fuck up blowing her nose.
Wingnut “thought” is full of binary caricatures. There are wholesome, demure virgins in long skirts who become mothers of large broods, and then there are man-hating lesbian prudesluts who fry up fetii for breakfast.
Mythbri:
Two words: Guttmacher Report.
Caine:
My bad about Kalliope, but Julian has been tone-trolling, and I’d call him a regular.
I played once in junior high. I used my starting funds to buy two ‘attack’ chickens, Bucky and Clucker, and a cart to pull them in. I was accused of not ‘taking it seriously’.
I didn’t play again until 17, when I met the group of people I’ve been friends with ever since. (I still don’t count off food and water rations, unless starvation or dehydration is a potential plot point in the module. Fantasy role-playing for me doesn’t include buying groceries.)
For instance, I met The Husband courtesy of D&D—he was the DM.
Is it bad that I was briefly concerned about the ethics of that situation?
This is kind of cool: vaccines grown in plants at an amazing rate (in this case, 10 million doses in a month).
I’m getting a kick that this is using both GM and tobacco.
Caerie, the sLOG post got pulled. Do we want to know what we missed?
[Rolls dice behind a screen.]
No.
cicley @ 125
Oh definitely. There is one OD&D retro-clone called “Lamentations of the Flame Princess” (or LotFP) that doesn’t have the usual lists of monster stat blocks on the grounds that the author believes that throwing the usual armies of goblins, orcs, skeletons, and kobolds at players would get boring after a while. Instead he gives GMs guidelines on how to create your own original monsters.
LotFP’s author, Jim Raggi, also published a small book called “Random Esoteric Creature Generator” that contains rules and tables for creating a new slobbering fiend for your campaign in just a few dice rolls.
Well… I have tone trolls as parents.
We were discussing something or whatnot, then father started saying “Why are you assuming you’re always right?”
Me: What? I never said that!
Father: Well that’s what your tone’s saying!
*facedesk*
We now also have a red triangle thing to serve as a trigger warning. {{warn}} makes it appear.
Daisy,
That’s what I was getting at! Anti-choice mommy was either 1) lying about birth control or 2) completely fucking it up. Neither one would surprise me.
Daisy, damn! I wish I’d C&Ped it. Goldy wrote a post about Rob McKenna having moobs and suggested he was a trans man, with a link back to an old post by Dan Savage calling McKenna transgender.
Believe me, he’s always killed out my characters just as readily as anyone else’s.
And I’ve always returned the favor.
That said, I know what you mean. For a while I played in a group in which nothing bad ever happened to the DM’s wife’s characters, who were never significantly out-matched in melee (even when the enemies were just dog-piling on everyone else), and any god was slobberingly eager to help her characters out of a pickle and give them free magic goodies…even if the character in question wasn’t a worshipper.
I one of her characters was supposedly Osiris’ half-sister. He always remembered Little Sister for birthdays and holidays.
This did not yield a satisfactory gaming experience, and I quit that group.
–
ALL OF THE POWERS!
This could come in handy for people who need a moment.
http://www.calm.com/
I’ve never played any RPGs.
Right then. About that Pharyngula gaming night…Because it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
Daisy:
Oh, yes. Julian hasn’t been a regular here much at all. He decamped pretty quickly for PET and rarely posts here.
Up-thread some commenters engaged in a brief discussion about Catholics and their views on abortion. To add to that, I wanted to bring up Bishop Leonard Blair’s recent interview on NPR’s Fresh air, and the contrasting interview with Sister Pat Farrell, the President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. (Podcast and text excerpts here.)
Leonard Blair comes off as a soft-spoken asshat with no grounding in reality. No matter how nicely he tries to put his case, he comes off as an “obey me you women” kind of guy. And, he hides behind theology to do it. The interview is revealing, even when Blair intends to obfuscate. I think the result is one of Fresh Air’s greatest podcasts.
Sister Pat Farrell comes off as intelligent, also soft-spoken, and certainly not an asshat — though she is somewhat delusional when it comes to religion, and to expecting religious men to be reasonable.
Excerpts from Bishop Blair’s interview:
Excerpts from the interview with Sister Farrell:
A related article and podcast addresses the fact that the hierarchy of the Catholic church has shifted far to the right in terms of social issues and politic.
Richard Austin:
Borked link.
Thunk: Aww. well, the link is there in text anyway.
Here.
Thunk
You are doing the teenager thing all wrong. The proper answer to this question is “Because I am Your child!” or “I learned it from my elders!”. ;p
___
I never could understand the appeal of RPGs. I kept waiting for the game to become fun and entertaining, but I mostly found it very boring and would die on purpose to end the tediousness.
Tethys:
Don’t tell me how to live. :p
You know what I find funny? I keep getting new followers on Twitter (not just random bots, but atheists and people who fight for social justice and whatnot) and OMG, I almost never update.
Sorry, everyone! I don’t hate you, I’m just lazy!
Perverted barely begins to describe it.
I’m squicked enough by this webcomic with 12-year-olds:
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2012/07/26/0397-silence-is-silver/
I can’t decide what upsets me most – that they’re already thinking about sex, or that the boy doesn’t realise that “girls have naughty thoughts”.
Sorry to hear that, Tethys; I don’t see how anyone on TET can have avoided noticing that IMO, tabletop RPGs are among those things (like chocolate, and kittens) that considerably and consistently out-perform sliced bread. (I guess maybe someone who’s got me kill-filed.)
Mind you, some DMs can suck the fun outa anything. Still, I wish you’d had a better gaming experience, ’cause good Games are awesome.
–
Richard Austin,
Calm.com? Ohhhh thanks for that. I shall use it.
______________
Thunk,
Did you ask to be born? If not, that’s always been one of my favourites! ;-)
Louis
So, I got Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25 (/ZS15).
*happy dance*
I plan to spend most of the weekend in the park, getting used to the camera and seeing what it can do.
*more happy dance*
You know, paper and pen RPGs and MMORPGs aren’t exclusive ;)
We play a weekly game (currently 4th ed. D&D, we’ve migrated around), but also hook up in online games. Oh, and when I DM the game, I use a computer and flat screen TV to do the maps, etc – the program is called Masterplan, and works wonders for tracking conditions, reminding to make saves, etc – so I suppose we’re partly pen and paper (characters, etc) and partly computer (maps, pictures). It is hard to work around everyone’s schedules, but it mostly works out.
Thunk
Hee! I see your snark lessons are progressing on a very steep learning curve.
Did you ask to be born? If not, that’s always been one of my favourites! ;-)
Yes, but what if you did ask to be born?
Dianne,
Hmmmm, I feel a candidate for the JREF’s Million Dollar Prize has arrived.
(For sufficient values of “ask”)
Louis
Not fully caught up, but trying.
@ CT
All the Klamath and Umatilla I’ve met say Indian rather than Native American too
@Ing
You will be missed, but you have to take care of yourself.
@ Tony
Yes, Northerners talk faster. So do urbanites, relative to more rural areas, and the denser the urban area the faster people talk, IME .
@ Carlie:
that therapist needs to be delicensed post haste. That shit is unacceptable.
Well, I was going to take my morning nap, but that third cup of coffee did not put me to sleep so I am still up–coffee will knock me out when I am sleep-deprived, which I should be but apparently am not, or something.
Can I say something? I will try to keep it brief.
I understand burn-out. Actually I am sort of a casualty of life burn-out, having tried to teach for over a decade and finally breaking down and running away screaming at yet another crop of entitled young white men who, thinking that the way college works is you put your money in a machine and your diploma thunks down to the slot where you pick it up, kept throwing tantrums when asked to question their assumptions as part of learning to think and write.
And so when I hear regulars like Browning and Ing saying they are getting burnt out, I do think to myself that it is wise to take care of yourself before you completely break, but I also hope that after some time spent resting from the good fight, that you all will be back–for all values of “you all” who might be feeling a bit weary of the ongoing hostilities.*
See the thing is this, at least for me: before so-called Elevatorgate, I found it hard to give two shits about the “atheist community,” because it seemed to me already obvious that it was inhabited mainly by straight, cisgendered, able-physiologied**, young white men who were not interested in questioning their own cultural assumptions beyond that single one represented by theistic religion.
But in the last year this has changed, and much for the better, from my point of view. The change might be painful for some, and it certainly is creating noticeable conflict. But I don’t see this movement, however it might be composed, as falling apart or dying. I see it as going through a bit of a revolution, but from where I stand, it is welcome and good and even a bit of a miracle, insofar as fighting for social justice tends always to feel like a losing battle here in the US.
I’ve lurked here for a long time and kept quiet mainly because I was not certain that there was room in the atheist movement for me, even though I don’t believe in any gods. I have PTSD partially from growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family and being told from age 7 that I was going to hell. The main reason I hung around here was that I thought there might be potential for engaging atheism in cultural critique, starting by resisting the hegemony of Christian practice in the West.
I think that (conservative) Christianity in particular needs to be exposed as an abusive practice, but it exists in an abusive culture that also needs to be exposed in its colonialism, misogyny, racism, heteronormativity, ableism, and all the other manifestations of its essential structure of domination and control. I don’t think that one can fight any of these things–or at least not well–without fighting all of them, and I think that if the atheist movement wants to grow as a skeptical community and become/remain relevant to the rest of the social justice movement, it has to extend its skepticism to the roots of Western chauvinism in all of its forms.
I can only speak for myself, of course. Me, I don’t want to have much to do with a skepticism that refuses to examine its own biases, especially if it does so out of the opinion that all forms of rationality are immune to bias a priori. There is no neutral subject, but there is a subject assumed to be neutral, and it is almost always straight, white, christian, male… you know the litany.
I may be no great catch, it is true; you all might not find it particularly compelling when I say that the atheist movement has only become relevant to me in the last several months. But, you know, maybe I am not the only one for whom this is true.
That was not very brief, was it.
*Is that a useful euphemism for the Deep Rift Wars?
**A mouthful, I guess, but when fighting against Cartesian dualism I figure use the big guns.
The only response my mother ever really took to heart was when I said, “I am under no obligation to prove myself to anyone, least of all you.” I said it in a very calm, even voice, and then turned and left the room. This was in response to her demanding to know why I was hurting her by not living up to her expectations.
I never had to say it again, and she gradually stopped pulling codependent shit on me over the next few months (after doing it for pretty much my entire life). She still slips up once in a while, and I see her starting to go that way, but I can accept that, and she also knows that she’s doing it and backs off.
thunk:
My kids tell me when I’m trolling like this. I don’t know how that would work for you but I think it’s hilarious then I forget what the hell I was bitching about. Which is why they do it. “Mom’s a troll!!!!”
The author of Casey and Andy made a thingummajig for making it easier to play table top games on the Internet, but that predates G+ by years. (Incidentally the webcomic where I picked up the “-tard” suffix as being derived from “bastard”.)
eriktrips, if I haven’t welcomed you in before, Welcome In! May I offer you a *beverage*?
–
Rev BDC – Wild Fermentation… came in yesterday. I’m getting inspired!
I HAZ FOUND “PHARYNGULA ISLAND”!!!*
.
Gotland pic voted top in NASA ‘Earth as Art’ poll http://www.thelocal.se/42278/20120727/
PS View the entire “Earth as Art” collection
.
(*And unlike the island in “Lost”, this one stays in place)
Thanks for your post, eriktrips.
cicely
I think that imagination is an important aspect of the game?
I was playing with a group of white, male, Christians who considered D&D to be borderline devil worship. (It was on the list of things not allowed at church teen nights) I am sure that the game would be much more engaging if played with horde members.
If you want “real” FRP, try LARP. SO. MUCH. FUN.
I can’t do much gaming of any kind anymore, but there was a time when I was pretty much the Ultimate gamer nerd. Back when “gamer” had nothing to do with video games.
Dalillama – The Yakima & Celilos that live around here call themselves Indians too.
Hi cicely! Thanks!
Is it too early for the grog? Six minutes past noon on a Friday..
Thanks for the thanks, Cipher. I may have gotten carried away.
Eh, don’t worry about that. At least for me, it was super helpful to read, in all its length (:P), because I’m feeling the burnout too.
Welcome in eriktrips
That was a lovely post. I agree completely.
Suppressing the black vote, yes Republicans did that intentionally.
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/27/fla_republican_we_suppressed_black_votes/
All the tribes in ND, Indian. The term ‘Native American’ is not appreciated.
I was playing with a group of white, male, Christians who considered D&D to be borderline devil worship.
That sounds about as much fun as having sex with a white, male Christian who considers it sin (but isn’t kinky enough to enjoy “sinning”.)
@Ricahrd Austin
I have a mixture of my dad’s upstate New York accent and mom’s Philadelphia with a hint of East Texas that confuses everyone, especially because I live in Oregon. I’ve had people guess ‘England,’ and ‘Australia,’ and once a visiting Scot asked me what part of Scotland I was from.
@Akira MacKenzie
Hear, Hear. Although there are a number of quite good virtual desktop programs for when you simply can’t meet in person.
@Pteryxx #88
Recently I’ve been doing ‘tabletop’ gaming via various chat programs due to a lack of an in person group at the moment. It retains all the virtues of anonymity and freedom of presentation that the internet offers. Also, there’s loads of programs and spreadsheets, mostly free, that handle the math. :)
@Caerie
You and your friends might want to look at some virtual tabletops too, particularly if you’ve got computers with microphones.There are several that are online and free, I can dig up links later when I have more time if there’s interest.
@ Brownian
indeed. one of my regulr chat games hasn’t been able to get together in 2 months due to peopl’es changing schedules.
Finally able to get some pics of my other cat, Cassie, as well as E’s dog, Sham (plus another one of Krystal for good measure):
Cassie
Sham
Krystal in her pet my belly position (she *loves* to have her stomach rubbed; all I have to say is “rub the belly” and she drops down and rolls on her back)
Very important, yes, even if you’re sticking strictly with store-bought campaigns and monsters and magic.
*facepalm*
I believe that I have spotted your problem. “White”, “male” and even “Christian” don’t have to be problems—or at least, they sometimes come packaged with problems, without causing them—but the “D&D is borderline devil worship” is, big time.
*flashing-back to the bad old Mothers Against Dungeons & Dragons days*
–
*making mental note*
Thanks for the tip. I will try hard to remember. If I screw up on it in the future, hit me with a dead fish, okay? Promise?
–
It’s available in its full glory via the magic of Google’s cache, if you want to make a local copy before the cache gets overwritten
@Eriktrips:
Welcome. I swear, the more I hear about other people’s families the more grateful I am for mine. You have my entire sympathies. My husband is also suffering from PTSD issues surrounding his abusive Christian upbringing
@Pharyngula game night
I’d be willing to have a go at GMing as well, it’s been a long time since I’ve done it. I’d also be happy to play in someone else’s game. Other people have already pointed links to some online desktop programs; I have the same restrictions as JAL and others re: budget and travel.
Thanks. Unaware of this. Still stuck in late 1970s Arizona.
Then I fail to see why the Nintendo I asked for was somehow out of the question.
Rhinebeck is a socialist, pharyngular commune. You could apply for a grant.
Good evening
Talking about contraception, how can you become 41 yo and only reproduce with intended pregnancies and look surprised when you’re told that the condoms you left in the car in the summer-sun are now rubbish?
This. I wouldn’t even voluntarily do it for anybody else.
+++
Rpgs: I really need to get the troup back together in September. Roleplaying in a good group where you can also relax and trust people is a great experience. Never tried playing D&D, I’d probably be confused not cheer at a tripple 1
Eriktrips – Welcome! My upbringing was very similar to yours.
*Tankard of three minute grog headed your way*
(vis speeding Pullet)
As if squeezing a baby out of the birth canal wasn’t hard enough?! I shudder to think of a Wii passing that way.
NO! BAD DAISY! BAD!
Brownian – Yer doing that wrong. Jezus gave me a pony.
Such as Redneck/Deliverance trees?
Cicely:
Eh, it’s not that big of a deal, ya know? NA generally elicits an eyeroll at worst, from most NDNs. It’s just not how Indians refer to themselves or other Indians. NA is a white term, made up to assuage that whole racial guilt business. Mostly, NA is simply viewed as white people silliness, an empty gesture.
Wait. The Darkfetus is twins? Darkfetii?
With peas? Or whithout?
Well, it killed my browser, if that’s what you mean.
2nd what Caine said for this area as well.
Oggie – No peas, oats.
Oggie,
Oh dear god, no. No twins.
In Cherokee it will earn you the stink eye and a polite rebuke.
Sorry. I saw ‘fetii’ and my mind just went there. You can climb down off the ceiling now.
One of my favourite books as a little kid was Dr. Suess’s ABC’s. It was a favourite book when Boy and Girl were young. And I wish that I knew what I know now when I was in kindergarten — I could’ve had fun: “Big C, little c, what begins with C? Camel on the Ceiling, LSD.”
Ogvorbis:
Sheesh! Can’t believe I forgot canned corn.
You’re right, it’s probably (IMO) the best example of a good canned vegetable. Now I just wish corn were more nutritious. I love me some corn on the cob.
This may sound strange, but while I looooooooooooove cornbread, I don’t like pieces of corn in it (or pieces of *anything* in it).
I’m much the same way when it comes to rice. I hate that I Mexican and Chinese restaurants mix veggies into their rice. When I order rice, I want just that: rice. I don’t want to pick out the peas, carrots, or onions. People get a chuckle out of me spreading the rice on my plate and picking that stuff out.
****
Audley:
If that person had used Bayer between the legs, no pregnancy would have happened :)
****
I guess I’m not that geeky since I’ve never played an RPG in my life. Heck, I’m still getting accustomed to 3-dimensional video games. There’s a part of me that still feels more comfortable playing Legend of Zelda II or Super Mario 3 than many of the games today.
****
Akira:
I feel the same way. I know there’s always hope, but geez, at 36, I’ve never been in a relationship longer than 3 months and have never been in love. Yet I *want* a relationship and I *want* kids (people continue to be surprised that a gay man wants kids…:::SIGH:::). I worry that my hobbies, combined with living in southern US and being a PoC (who tends to date interracially), as well as being atheist combine to create some obstacles.
****
nigel:
I feel your pain.
Shall we start a club?
****
Sili:
we’ll have none of that McGreedy Pants :)
Just for that, you get to be Sokka.
****
Richard:
Thanks for the calm.com link.
****
Mostly, NA is simply viewed as white people silliness, an empty gesture.
Which is what it is, of course. But the term “Indian” is confusing. I never know if we’re talking about the people who immigrated to the Americas from Asia via the Bering strait or the people living on the Asia subcontinent known as India.
There are few things I love more than bigots getting thoroughly trolled
http://notalwaysright.com/sticking-to-ones-guns/22139
There are few things I love more than bigots getting thoroughly trolled:
http://notalwaysrightDOTcom/sticking-to-ones-guns/22139
Dianne
Errr, ummmm, didn’t really seem to be a problem.
Tying in with the above theme of birth control failure, my first-born son turned 30 on Wednesday. He is an unapologetic snarky atheist. I am so proud.
__
cicely
Yep. The whitewashed, white bread, white christian entitlement version of reality is a huge problem ie; Michelle Bachmann.
They seem so nice!
Hi Tethys! I am glad my coffee high was of value to you. :)
Cipher: ah ok. It is good to know that my occasional inability to stop writing is useful at times.
Dalillama: yeah the funny thing (hahahaha!) was that I of course thought my family was normal until I moved out and started meeting people who were not told they were evil because they were human. Now it may be true that my parents did not put it in those words, but the preachers at their church did, and they implicitly endorsed everything I learned at church.
Your husband has my empathy.
Patricia: I’m truly sorry your upbringing was similar to mine. Here’s to survival.
Okay, I don’t have much time and I haven’t caught up with the thread, but anyway…
Welcome in Eriktrips!
—
I’ve been thinking. Despite all the Deep Rift Wars, being accused of being bullies and all that, there have been quite a few good delurks recently.
Caine:
Keeping this vague for the sake of privacy: I had a manuscript cross my desk with a man arguing with other characters that he wanted to be called Native American and the other characters–who were meant to be sympathetic–were snidely mocking him and insisting on calling him Indian instead.
It was…bizarre and inappropriate, to say the least.
^ this.
I wonder what would happen if PZ ran a hello-lurkers thread?
I shall add my somewhat beer-roughened voice to the cry: Welcome, ErikTrips!
Now. Where did I put that bottle opener?
And no matter how diligently you pick that shit out, it still can’t remove the pea cooties. No, if a place only offers fried rice with garbage stirred in, I’ll do without.
–
Ahem…. That would be ‘Welcome in, Eriktrips!’ not ‘Welcome in Eriktrips!’. That… would be weird…
That’s my problem too: my OCD dislikes the imprecision (not that it’s my call).
Would something like “Tribal” be bad? As in, “xe is of tribal descent” if the specific tribe isn’t known? I’ll use Indian if that’s the favored option, but I’ll likely find myself qualifying it constantly :)
Third time’s the charm (why does this trigger the spamfilter?).
There are few things I love more than bigots getting thoroughly trolled:
notalwaysright<DOT>com/sticking-to-ones-guns/22139
–o–
Genius: http://www.ikeahackers.net/2012/07/recycle-bin-dresser.html
Would something like “Tribal” be bad? As in, “xe is of tribal descent” if the specific tribe isn’t known?
IMHO, it’s not the best option. There are tribes in other parts of the world besides the Americas. Europe, for example. Plus calling, say, Mayans, “tribal” just seems wrong. They built cities and suffered a collapse due to overfarming, i.e. an overbuilt civilization. Not what I think of as “tribal”.
That sounds pretty cool, actually. I was under the impression that WoW was more about grinding levels and such.
Given the fanart I’ve seen of him putting that name to good use, I shan’t complain.
Of course, one should consider that my opinion on the Indian/Native American/whatever issue is worth approximately nothing since any cultural heritage I have from that group of ancestors has been filtered through at least two colonial powers, at least once forcibly. No real connection left.
Hmmmmmm… That could prove interesting.
Richard, tribal gets some pretty strong emotional reactions for a variety of reasons, so I’d advise against that one. Here in my part of Wisconsin, Native by itself and as an adjective (Native issues, Native identity, Native peoples, etc) is accepted when Indian might be confusing, but I can’t say that for everywhere.
It does seem to be used on sites like Native Appropriations without any trouble, though.
The blogiverse would collapse on itself. If they delurk, they aren’t lurkers anymore!
/no-true-lurker
Sili:
wait, they *do*???
I always thought girls didn’t have sex and that water was dry.
****
erik:
There *is* room for you.
Everyone has their own voice and unique set of circumstances they bring to the table. That is evident in the differing techniques used by Pharyngulites to argue a point. If you feel you have nothing to say on a subject, I understand that. But please don’t think there’s no room for you. To me, being as inclusive as possible while levelling the playing field is one of the goals of social justice.
THIS. YES.
I’d love a JUST SAY NO tee shirt with all the isms on it (along with religion).
****
birger @167:
That’s nowhere close to Monster Island is it? We would die before the Mothra and Rodan droppings produced psychedelic mushrooms…
****
Brownian:
Did you pray for it?
I hear Jesus answers all prayers.
****
Audley:
For an even worse nightmare, imagine if women routinely had babies in numbers similar to female rats (how big was Esme’s litter?)
pentatomid: Heh. I appreciate the sentiment. The one with a comma, at least. I’m not going to think too much about the other one for now.
nigelTheBold: Cheers! And is it just me, or does hanging out in the lounge here make a person thirsty? I keep wanting to go to the corner store to get my yearly six-pack.
It would probably be a bad idea.
Or would it..?
I usually just say the tribe name or just qualify like you said.
Caine:
Oh good, I was going to get in the fish slapping line.
(bad 70’s woo, baaad!) I appreciate the correction.
Caerie:
Okay, I’ll stick with Indian until I hear otherwise.
I’ve heard “Native” used as a specific adjective as well, but something in my brain squicks out about applying it to a specific person directly. It feels (to me) like shades of “Oriental”.
Caine:
No more NA it is.
I have no interest in offending someone in that manner.
May I ask what an appropriate term would be?
We have a few reservations in my neck of the woods, and whenever possible I just try to use the name of the Nation (ex. Navajo, several Paiute groups, etc.).
I’ve heard the term “Amerindian”, but that’s not universally appreciated.
Jesus Drosophila Christ, my flat is full of mosquitoes. Aaaargh. DIE! DIE YOU VAMPIRIC HARBINGERS OF DEATH! DIE!
Cicely – Naughty Marvin has pet cooties, and he eats canned peas.
*ducks*
pentatomid:
I sooooooooooo feel your pain.
Just the other day I walked outside at dusk just to take out the trash. I had on just a pair of shorts. I was outside *maybe* 30 seconds.
Came back in with 3 mosquito bites.
It’s like they surround the door and ignore T and E if they come and go, but wait for me to exit the house and just attack me.
When I say I’m looking for love, that is not what I’m talking about.
and not really accurate any more since there are so many people from India living and working here. A friend of mine from India requests people call her Eurasian rather than Indian but I don’t think that’s universal.
I mentioned Pentatomid’s comment about mosquitos to a friend. He pondered if mosquitoes have an afterlife, a heaven. He asked what heaven would be to a mosquito? I answered, a nudist colony?
Eriktrips,
Some people can only put in so much effort before they burn out, and it doesn’t matter how much privilege they have, because everybody’s emotional constitution and offline situation is different. Brownian and Ing have been doing this shit for years, and doing it much better than most. If they never come back, I will miss them, but I sure as hell won’t resent them.
Quite honestly, I keep debating whether I want to stick around here. On the one hand, we have a shit-ton of MRAs, PUAs, racists, and other social detritus. On the other, we have our own in-house concern and tone trolls. Plus, all the SJW bullshit that’s reached a crescendo in other online spaces in the last year or two has increased on FTB. People wringing their hands over “childism,” for example, or claiming that a silly meme based on a girl speaking with a retainer in her mouth is “ableist.” That term is already grossly overused — words like “weak” and “stupid” and criticism of body odor have all been described thusly.
Am I the only one here who feels really uncomfortable between those two opposing tensions? Virulent misogyny and willingness to stalk women and their allies on the one hand, and the walking-on-eggshells approach to language on the other? I wouldn’t say this place is turning into Shakesville quite yet, but I’m getting some of those vibes, to be honest.
Also, I adore and respect the vast majority of you, but, I’m sorry, I don’t want to live on an island or commune with you. I don’t want to live in a small town where everybody knows me, either. I like having a bit of anonymity offline, even if it’s illusory.
/as you can see I have a lot of feelings about this
Oh ye nonexistent gods, I spent the last hour ironing some important holiday-stuff (yay, setting out on Sunday morning) and I’m melting. I left a puddle of sweat on the floor.
Since mosquitoes would be part of hell for me, I guess that’s heaven for them.
I work for an Indian tribe.* We have a large number of Indian Indians working for the company.** This has led to some discussion about what the two groups should be called. The consensus is “American Indians” and “Indian Indians”.
*The Mashentucket Pequots.
**So much so that the most common last name among employees isn’t Smith or Johnson but Patel.
One down, a gazillion to go… Honestly, WTF is this?
Ha! Nice one!
On the issue of Indian/Native/NA: A friend of a friend is half Lakota and she mentioned in a couple of occasions that she preferred “Aboriginal.” Although that could cause confusion between American and Australian aborigines?
I guess the best approach would be to go by what the people one is referring to prefers. But then how can you find that out without being needlessly offensive? (Dunno how people would feel if someone plain asks them “So, what do YOU prefer to be referred as?”)
So yeah. I got myself tied in knots a bit here. Which is probably a good thing.
I hope.
Ick.
I don’t wanna go see people.
I just wanna go to bed.
She who must be obeyed. true story.
Daisy:
You’re not alone, though like you said, the SJW stuff is a problem that’s become rampant all over the Internet recently. I don’t blame anyone for getting burned out with either extreme, but as a noob around these parts I also know my opinion (rightfully) carries far less weight than someone who’s been battling it out here for ages.
You may also refer to me as “Birthgiver” as my children do.
Ms. Daisy Cutter #233
This is something I’ve noticed. We have our own in-house SJW shouting down anything he feels derogatory to some group. Some of the criticisms of ableist language are appropriate, but some of it is stretching the point long past anything useful. No, I do not think that “stupid” is ableist.
Oh no, you’re not alone there. Trust me.
CT #242
Do you refer to the kiddies as “fruit of my loins”?
Crap, now that
everyoneseveral people have mentioned it, I’ve lost my deadly antichristan superpowers. Unless, I just don’t give a fuck about your gawd doesn’t count as burnout?*sigh*
Do you have to do this? It’s passive-aggressive.
No, shut-ins. LMAO that kills them. The oldest called me a few hours ago to let me know he was out of the house taking his brother to the orthodontist and dealing with my mother. I told him 1 day out of fourteen *was* an improvement.
Giliell – My favorite gawd this week is ‘Koalemos’, the god of stupidity. I believe he is the patron saint of my county, and the veterans administration.
Once, at a rally for choice, some one shouted at me, “What if YOUR mother were pro-choice?!”
I didn’t answer, but:
1) My mother, at the time of my birth, was not pro-choice. She was a god-botter of a fundie variety.
1a) She is now pro-choice and has gotten better about the god-botting.
2) I was conceived via in vitro. I think it is safe to say that when a woman goes to such lengths to get pregnant, it is a wanted pregnancy.
3) If my mother had been pro-choice in those days and had had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, I would not exist. Which means that I wouldn’t know the difference.
___
Gaming:
True story. When I was an undergraduate, I came out to the family. Later, my uncle (my father’s brother) pulled me aside and said that he had my back, no questions asked, and that if anyone in the family gave me grief, I was on his side. ♥
Then: “Y’know, when your father was in high school, the family thought he was gay.”
[My dad is one of those aggressively straight men].
Me: *confusion*
Uncle: “See, he never had a girlfriend and was always over at his friend [Male name]’s house.”
Me: “What was going on? Ever figure it out?”
Uncle: “Yeah, they were playing D&D.”
My dad was not gay as a kid. He was just a nerd.
Birger:
I regret to inform you that Gotland is over 50 degrees latitude.
The ecliptic is at 23 degrees latitude.
We don’t have enough fuel for those plane changes.
Tethys, Louis, CT:
Yup, still learning how to snark.
Tony:
Indian. Failing that, use Indigenous, as in Indigenous people.
I’m not a violent person – I lack the strength.
But, Jesus Fuck, do I want to remove the stick from J*st*n V*culas’ arse fast and sideways.
What the hell is wrong with that guy?
CT;
I preferred “Divine High Empress Mother – giver of life and groceries”.
The teen years were such fun once they made it past the sullen/moody hormonal stage.
Cipher:
No it isn’t. SG goes way overboard on language and is more than happy to drive people off because of it. Aquaria is a case in point.
Crotch-droppings.
Kristinc:
Heh. I remember that from my usenet days.
I remember Aquaria giving back her OM.
Is she also taking a break ( I hope she hasn’t left for good)?
The thing that worries me more than anything about the SJW stuff is this:
Look at Abraham Lincoln’s racism for example, he was still ahead of the curve for his time (understatement) but even the words of a great pioneer of social justice ring racist in our ears today. What the hell have I said that in a similarly distant future will have some nonentity on the Interwebz Version 236452.0101Beta shaking his* head? Probably quite a lot.
Not that I am Abraham Lincoln….oh bugger….what I mean is our current values are just that: current. More evidence and social change comes in every day. What future antique views do I have now?
Louis
* Because we know there are No Girls On The Internet. ;-)
Thunk, #253,
Stick by me, young Padawan. I shall teach you the ways of the Snark Side.
;-)
Louis
I prefer “crotchfruit”, myself.
Yes, I do have to do it. SG goes out of his way to be the tone-nanny here. Plus I have not forgiven him for claiming that since the bullying I endured in school wasn’t because I was gay or accused of being gay then it wasn’t “real” bullying.
Beatrice:
As far as I know, she left.
Children are, and should always be, referred to as “sexcrement”
Louis
{Hat Tip to Richard Herring}
FTR, I have no problem modifying my language in certain respects. However, I do have a problem with harassment. There are people here who don’t have any problem at all with someone being harassed, as long as it’s SG doing the harassing. I have a major fucking problem with that.
Yeah, I agree with Daisy. I decided to stay out of it in PET, but the discussion about Ermagerd was absurd to me. I can understand being uncomfortable with it if one was teased as a kid, for example, but it’s not “ableism”. Slight orthodontic issues are not “disabilities” that society refuses to accommodate, or systematically punishes/oppresses people for. To call that ableism is to cheapen the meaning of that word.
My thinking on this is that there are people who encounter SJ ideas and embrace them, but they only understand them in a superficial way. For instance, using the word “privilege” should be reserved for things that are actually privileges, as in they give one group advantages in society. Also, pointing out privileges isn’t an argument-winner. Inherent in intersectionality is that people belong to multiple groups at once and may have privileges from some of those groups and disadvantages from others. For instance, I’m a white gay male; therefore, I have white privilege, male privilege, but my gayness doesn’t give me some kind of privilege. Also, having those privileges doesn’t make someone a bad person, or evil, and it doesn’t even mean they use them intentionally. Most people are completely unaware of their privilege.
All that being said, I have seen people (not here, at least not by regulars) pull that word out for anything and act like that stops the discussion. The most egregious place I’ve seen it happen at is Shakesville, where frequently in the comments people will be told to “check their privilege”, and what that means is “fuck off until you agree with us”. There are no explanations of privilege over there or discussions about what are and are not privileges.
And I don’t even wanna know if I wanna get started on “trigger warnings”. Daisy sent me a link to a vegan Tumblr page where someone put “trigger warning: fish” because they talked about fish. That’s, well…it’s fucking bullshit, is what it is. Even if one is a vegan, I can understand the sympathy one can have for another animal dying, and I can see the ethical issues, but a person being triggered by someone mentioning fish? I find that unlikely. It’s possible that there are a few people out there that have had traumatic experiences with fish, but that’s not something that happens to 1 in 10 people. It’s not something one can reasonably expect to bother people. Going beyond reasonable expectations is why SJ places on Tumblr, and Shakesville too, is going fucking overboard on the trigger warnings.
I’ve been around Pharyngula a long time, but I think is the first time I’ve dipped my toes in TET…so be gentle.
1) I actually have native American (Lakota) on my mom’s side. One could guess it looking at her, but I look as white bread as can be. It was her great grandmother (IIRC), so that’s 5 generations removed from me. Even in Az, we were taught very little about the treatment of the local native tribes, although I learned a bit on my own, mostly tutoring the summer programs for the kids from the reservations. (Very cool experience with a really awesome bunch of motivated youngsters, BTW.)
2) for those asking about what lilandra teaches, this is what she said in the guest post over on Aaron’s blog:
So I guess she’s a science teacher…probably jr. high or high school?
Ok, back to post 20-ish to catch up on the rest of the thread.
Caerie and Pentatomid: Thanks. I feel obliged to add that, even if I’ve been lurking for years, I’ve only been speaking up here for… crap, I’m not even sure it’s been a full year.
Maybe it’s the contrast of the full-on bawling out of malefactors in the most vicious terms one can think of with the hugbox atmosphere that prevails on TET and in “heavy” threads like the one about Savannah Dietrich. Both are justified, but I’m more comfortable with the former than with the latter, due to upbringing and other personal reasons.
That’s not to criticize anybody for having emotional reactions, or requiring or giving out hugs. I’m just noting that the intensity of such discussions, separate from the trolling, can be hard to handle, for various and complex reasons. My default mode for dealing with injustice is anger, gallows humor, and cynicism. Years of therapy with a very earnest U/U who couldn’t see that she was trying to get me to be more like her didn’t “fix” me. /shrug
Louis, yes and no. The problem with Abraham Lincoln isn’t that he was an imperfect man who did a very good thing. It’s that he has been idolized in the American consciousness, much like the founding fathers, and the anger at him is a reaction to that. I don’t know if this is strictly an American thing but we seem incapable of evaluating our predecessors without either lionizing or demonizing them.
Aquaria gave back her OM?! Oh, shit. And I didn’t realize she’d been driven off. Fuck.
‘Tis:
Jesus.
RahXephon:
The phrase “cargo cult social justice” has been used to describe the slimepitters who thought up the term “FTBullies.” I think it also applies to many people who are, only nominally, on the side of “good.”
(Natalie Reed’s recent post on trigger warnings is really good, btw.)
…
LOL, “fruit of my loins.” I also laughed the other day when I passed a minivan with the bumper sticker “I Embarrass My Offspring.”
KristinC: BWAHAHA. I didn’t realize that parents actually used that term. Wouldn’t it be funny in some kind of script font on a photo frame? “♥ My Darling Crotchdropping ♥” There’s probably a market for it on Etsy, come to think of it.
Sili, J. Vacuous is a prime example of how insistence on “niceness” and “civility” is so often a power play and a cover for a moral void.
Wow, we’ve lost some really good commenters. Just yesterday I was thinking about JefferyD and MaJeff when I was chopping basil. Sure miss that …blah,blah, blah.
eriktrips:
I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m a nascent alcoholic who drinks far more beer than I ought lately.
RahXephon:
Agreed. I had to wear full on orthodontic headgear when I was starting high school. It was embarrassing as all hell, yes. A disability, no. Actually, my braces and embarrassing headgear shrieked my privileged status all over the damn place. That shit is expensive.
Patricia:
I don’t know about MAJeff, but JeffreyD is doing well.
Caine,
Oh, that’s not good.
:(
Wow, Caine, I hadn’t even thought of that! I remember when I first got glasses and was teased a little bit. That was embarrassing, but what about the kids who couldn’t afford that? Even with eye insurance (which I think I had at the time) it’s still expensive, and for a growing child you usually need new glasses at least once a year. That adds up to a lot of money.
Caine – Oh good news!
Also this cracked:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-meaningless-arguments-against-gun-control/
Here is the way I think about the uses of language and the fear/concern/wish over being offensive to someone. Whether it is useful to anyone but me, I cannot say.
Using language in such a way that it mirrors concerns about social justice is always going to be a tension-bound act, because there is no way to satisfy all listeners/readers, both those present now and those who might read later. I think that the best thing I can do is to be mindful of what I am saying, willing to listen to reasons why a certain turn of phrase could be hurtful to someone, and then willing to weigh, in good faith and with compassion, whether or not I find it important to avoid causing whatever pain any particular word or phrase might credibly make.
Different people will have different answers as to where that would put them on the scale of socially-conscious language. To me, the important thing is to be conscious, rather than strive to never offend or, even, to never cause pain. I cannot achieve perfection in any realm; I certainly am not going to avoid causing pain in this universe no matter how hard I try. It seems to me to be the nature of terrestrial life that living involves pain.
Like many, I try not to cause needless pain, buy I don’t have any illusions that I will succeed. I have already fucked up quite horribly, in fact, and not just with words. But I try to be conscious of when I fuck up and how much pain I cause. It is almost always a trade-off, though, as far as I can tell. But I also don’t think that it costs me a great deal, for any value of “value” that would cause me to suffer if I were to lose it, to be conscious of which words are demonstrably hurtful.
Whether I use any of them, and in which circumstances, depends on the circumstances, because I guess I don’t believe in any pure morality that exists outside of the relations between living beings. And so as circumstances shift, the language I use shifts.
That’s my approximate description of approximately what I think it means to be conscious of linguistic oppressions. I don’t think I can do better than that–or at least as long as I am living with all of you unpredictable creatures, I think it will have to do.
But I could change my mind.
SJW=social justice warrior?
Welcome, fastlane.
—
Wow, Aquaria gave up her OM?! I knew she’d left, but I kinda hoped it was just temporary. This is worrying.
erik @280:
well said.
What was that about how you had nothing to say?
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
What? I could have sworn you were already here when I first started commenting.
My memory sucks.
I had braces for two and a half years. I was lucky; both my father and my brother wore headgear, and for much longer than that.
These days, I wear… well, I don’t know if you’d call it a retainer. It’s a little resin clip that goes over my bottom front teeth that keeps me from grinding what remains of my dentition into powder while I sleep. If I had gotten one of those years before I actually did it might have saved me a root canal, but I didn’t realize that I could get them in any size except full-mouth.
I agree, Caine; conditions that are easily correctable (provided you have the socioeconomic privilege) aren’t disabilities. I wear glasses, too, and my prescription is pretty damn strong, but I don’t have a visual disability. That’s kind of insulting to people who can’t see at all.
pentatomid:
I think it was in the last Molly nom thread. Aquaria is a…forceful personality and she has a fondness for the word “Christard”. A while back, SG took issue with that, and in his usual style, showed up whenever she posted, no matter what she posted, and continually castigated her for it, indulging in continual harassment, derailing threads left and right, same old, same old.
Aquaria decided she didn’t want to be part of Pharyngula anymore, as she couldn’t speak the way she wanted and was harassed every time she posted.
I don’t blame her at all. While I have no problem with someone registering a protest over certain words or language, I think protesting it once is enough, unless the person being protested against wishes to argue the matter. Following someone around and harassing them should be something the people here disapprove of, but it seems it isn’t.
Awww… Aquaria was my favorite!
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
I sort of agree, also wearing glasses. But Matt Penfold’s remark about “obnoxious teens” was a bad joke, and Matt realized that. But going on about how you might be accused of “childism” is even more tasteless.
“Harassment”.
Not true.
Caine:
Rightfully so; if that happened as you described, SG’s behavior is over the line.
Yeah I’ve been there. Hence the hesitation. Well, that and my middle age spread.
Here is what you are calling “harassment”.
God forbid I point out that using mental retardation as an insult is not helpful.
You and Caine would never dream of saying this if the term was “Christfags”.
The 14 yr old is still getting over that but the 17 yr old is a joy most days.
Eriktrips, I think that is a good approach.
Tony – yep. I used the acronym tag in my comment so that you could read that phrase if you hovered over “SJW.”
Beatrice, my memory’s probably worse than yours, so I have no idea.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen MAJeff around elsewhere on the internet, like Sadly, No! or something.
The absence of Aquaria’s voice is a loss for us, honestly.
Here is what you are calling “harassment”.
It might be more accurate to say that I often prefer to say nothing.
And yes I am stealing that expression.
This certainly appears to be a claim that I fought her over it in threads where she did not use the term.
That is not true.
What you appear to be saying is that if I challenged her on it in one thread, and she decided to keep on saying Christard Christard Christarded over and over in thread after thread, I should never challenge it again.
Which would be oh so welcoming for people who have family members with developmental disabilities.
Daisy:
Agreed. I miss her.
I miss Aquaria. I hope she comes back at some point.
_
I have a new critter living in my urban yard.
It is a Northern flying squirrel They are so cute, like anime come to life!
The cats go into hunting mode every night when they hear it land and run across the roof.
Caine,
Ah, I see. Thanks for the background and I do agree with you. Harassment should not be tolerated.
Caine – Is SG a morph of Truthmachine? Once I “tsk, tsk’d” him as a tease & holy fuck (!) he came completely unwrapped. With him it seems like his meds run out. O.o
Tethys:
Eeeeeeeeeeee, the cute!
A thread where I should have challenged her but didn’t.
Another.
And another.
Another.
Another.
Outrageous claims. Show the “harassment”.
Here we go.
I’m almost positive I remember them both posting concurrently (TM just went active for long periods of time). But not positive.
Blockquote fail above. Mea culpa. And my last parenthetical was ill-considered, so I’ll just note that I was thinking of it as a two-way thing, not that he went around harassing people.
Yes, I think that’s fair to say.
And of course I never did that.
Unless I’m misunderstanding, I disagree with that and also am surprised that you’d say it. If someone is consistently using problematic language, I think they should be called out on it every time they do it. If what you mean is that in conversations when they’re not using it they shouldn’t be called out for it, then yeah, that makes sense.
What I meant when I said that Tis’s post was passive-aggressive wasn’t that saying SG did that was passive-aggressive – I should have been clearer, but I was feeling uncomfortable and posted hastily. (Strictly my problem, and one that arises often in these conversations, so I need to keep an eye on it.) My problem was in the not naming names, talking about people like they’re not here aspect of it. It’s like going “some people,” which gets under my skin in a way few other things do.
No, we’re not the same. TM dislikes me now for defending Patricia one time.
I was going to say that I thought I remembered you guys feuding, but I didn’t want to come on too strong with the denial. I take the malleability of my memory very seriously, as I’m very suggestible.
Patricia:
No. I think Truth Machine goes by ‘Nothing Sacred’ these days. Maybe. I’m not sure anymore. SG has been around for ages though, under different nyms, best known as Strange Gods Before Me.
Paul, if multiple people want to call someone out for using something like ‘Christard’, fine. I don’t care about that. I care about SG persistently following someone around and insisting they address his concerns, no matter what the thread is and with no regard to the person he’s following about or derailing one thread after another.
I’ve been harassed by him and it’s unpleasant as hell, as most harassment is, no surprise there. He crosses lines he shouldn’t and I’m tired of people making excuses for him when other people would be smacked down for doing that sort of shit. I don’t like losing people because he thinks he’s on a mission.
Just my point of view, take with salt, all that.
Content, not tone.
Calling people retards is an issue of content.
Calling people piece of shit who should die in a fire, that’s tone as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t complain about it.
I most certainly did not claim that.
ixchel – then I apologize for guessing that. I miss long periods of time here and the name changes are hard to follow. You do have the same dogged determination that TM has. Thank you for defending me, I’ve forgotten the incident, mercifully.
Cipher:
Yes, that’s what I meant, I apologize for being so damn fuzzy. I’m now just about burnt beyond recognition and it might be a good idea for me to take a break.
I don’t like seeing thread after thread with slurs against developmentally disabled people.
Aquaria is perfectly capable of posting in every single thread she wants to without ever making insults against developmentally disabled people.
With all due respect, there was a thread where you were fixating on word-usage with Louis once that was extremely annoying, ironically off-topic, and quite inappropriate.
I was going to post, asking you to knock it off.
Then he called you darling.
I miss Aquaria too.
I was tone trolling in my first post here at FtB (I think it was here in TET), and Aquaria politely (but firmly) informed me *why* that shouldn’t be done. I’m grateful to her for that.
Every time some MRA, or rape apologist, or fundie xtian shows up, I wish she would pop her head in, b/c I love sitting back with a bag of popcorn and watching Aquaria rhetorically eviscerate someone.
But how was that the case in the Aquaria situation? Being familiar with her posting style, I don’t doubt that she refused to curb her word choice. How is this any different than someone else posting slurs? Is the only difference truly that everyone else felt like “letting it slide”, so SG is the bad guy because he stuck to pointing out ongoing word usage?
I think Aquaria was a great contributor who will be very missed if she does not return. But that does not mean that she deserves immunity from refraining from offensive slurs, and it does not mean that someone pointing out ongoing slurring is a bad person nor harassing. Seriously, how many times in the past have individuals received Mollys for being willing to consistently approach someone who refused to change, even if other people either didn’t have the energy or the desire?
While I’ve had disagreements with SG and TM in the past, I always respected them because they didn’t ignore incorrect or offensive statements by people just because they were “us”. But I can’t read your above statement any other way when you apply it to the Aquaria situation, with the links provided.
I can hardly excuse him for anything he did to you. It wouldn’t be my place, and I don’t know anything about that situation. But I do feel the need to clearly disagree on the Aquaria case, unless there were incidents where he pushed the issue where the offending slur wasn’t being used.
TruthMachine was posting sporadically on the old SciBlogs until NatGeo tried to do their thing about “upgrading”. I haven’t looked in for a while, as progress converting Pharyngula was slow, and it appeared the moderated trash was being opened first.
The only truly epic battle I remember was SC/Truthmachine, which was horrible. But a fuzzy memory now.
With all due respect, the “harassment” alleged here is supposed to have happened to Aquaria.
Moreover the implication has been that I’ve “followed” her rather than responding in those very threads where she used slurs against developmentally disabled people.
seconded
As often seems to be the case lately, Paul explains my position better than I can.
So I’ll just add that from my perspective, this seems to be a conversation best had in TZT.
what. even Louis admitted he fucked up back then. what is this shit?
probably true. which really just means people will get to not actually have to deal with responses to their claims *sigh*
Paul:
That’s just dandy. It does not excuse bad behaviour on their part, nor should they be immune when it comes to being taken to task over it, okay?
As for Aquaria, no, she did not wish to censor herself, so she left. I know she felt harassed and that bothers me. I don’t agree with how SG treated her, as I said, that’s my personal point of view. We’ll have to disagree on that one, okay? I simply don’t have the energy to fight this out to the death and if I try, all kinds of bad shit will happen, and I’ll be blamed for doing terrible, awful things to poor SG again.
So, I’m going to leave for a while. Just a break, I’ll be back, like a bad penny.
‘Tis insinuates:
I have never said that calling people “stupid” is ableist.
Why, I was just calling joey stupid over on TZT.
Caine:
Take care of yourself.
Unfortunate as that will be, I think that’s preferable to another incident in which PZ decides Ixchel is the problem and bans him from TET.
Aquaria left because it was too much of a hassle to avoid using permutations of ‘retard?’
Please tell me that something substantially less completely fucking stupid happened.
Jadehawk,
Tethys said “then he called you darling.”
Which to me implies that Tethys was annoyed with something else, not my response to being called “darling”.
Thanks Nerd. Now I know where the hell to stay out of.
Where did Aquaria give back her OM – I checked the four most recent Molly threads, and it wasn’t there. Unlike Sven/Chas, she’s still listed as well.
Also with regards to Amerindian – I only know that as a anthro term. I know folks who’ve picked up the Canadian First Nations, but I think it’s pretty solidly up to the person self identifying.
Thirded.
Outrageous claims. Show the “harassment”.
I think it was obvious that my comment meant that the harassment OF THE KIND CAINE WAS DESCRIBING shouldn’t be tolerated. If it so happens that you didn’t indulge in that behavior, fine. Good for you. Doesn’t change the fact that I still find the described behaviour intolerable. And you agree with that, as you demonstrate in your #308. So as far as I’m concerned, we’re fine, as I don’t have all the facts and I am not making claims about you.
Agreed completely. However, from what I’ve seen, I do think that SG’s behavior sometimes can be incredibly intimidating, something I think SG is himself unaware of at times. That might just be me and my opinion, though, but I certainly can see how someone might feel bullied or harassed by it. That’s just my opinion, though, and not too much should be read into it.
Finally, I’d just like to say: please take any arguments like this to TZT, as was agreed on last time. (I however, will not be joining)
Caine,
Take care.
I’m as unlikely a defender of SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel as there probably is.
I don’t always agree with SG.
I definitely don’t always agree with some aspects of the way he does things.
{Listens intently to the SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel-iverse….sound of not a single fuck being given ;-) }
But I don’t think he’s always…{insert your own adjectives}. I have to be honest, I think his choices of phrases/interpretations of phrases are very deliberate and that’s a sword that cuts both ways. It can lead almost directly to infuriatingly poor dialogue or enlightenment, with little middle ground. In the hands of a less than fulsomely honest interlocutor it’s an effective silencing tool. Whether SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel is that sort of interlocutor or not…no one is perfect. I have my suspicions some days and not others.
All that said, on the “-tard” thing he is absolutely, unequivocally right. Sorry all, but them’s the breaks. I really get how irritating it is to have the “flow” of a thread (such as ever happens around these parts) broken by SJW-ing (if we have to call it that, personally…not currently a fan) for some people, but it’s worth it for a bit of consciousness raising. I’ve had my consciousness raised by things others here might not enjoy, and I’m grateful for it.
Of course I miss Aquaria if she’s gone (I thought I’d seen her around, must be my crappy memory), she’s a superb poster with a brilliantly raw and insightful style. And if she’s gone because she feels harassed that’s a crappy thing, it truly is. If she’s gone because she refuses to change her use of a particularly ableist term (and “-tard” is really a hallmark of ableism, it’s no “stupid”!) and calls that harassment…yeah…that’s not good for her.
Start out mean, end nice-ish! Hey, I tried!
Louis
Caine,
Dammit! Take care of yourself. Be well, be happy and cuddle a ratlet. I reckon it might just make things worth it. :-)
Louis
pentatomid, it wasn’t obvious to me, but thanks for clarifying.
No, Caine, it’s the other way around. SG gets smacked down simply for being argumentative and calling people out in a way I don’t see happening to other regulars. I find it disconcerting.
***
Exactly.
Fourthed.
Only replying since you’re not reading TZT by your admission:
I don’t really think SG would argue here. This also applies to most Pharyngulites who have ever posted enough to be considered regulars, with some outstanding exceptions (Sastra, Pteryxx, and several others), who go out of their way to maintain a measured tone and to softly try to point out where a person goes totally wrong.
I’m getting the weirdest feeling of Deja Vu. I’m sure I’ve posted something very similar to this before.
Damn. Take care, Caine. Have some good rat time.
G’bye Caine, take care.
Caine – Kiss a rat for me!
(yeese, I couldn’t for myself)
Oh crap. Bloody blockquote. Let’s try that again.
In retrospect, I probably should have phrased that a bit more clearly. Apologies for that. My bad.
Yep. I agree completely.
SG
I see I should add a few things for clarity. I emphatically do not want to make you feel piled on.
I do not support anyone using variations of ‘tard, and that is directly due to your efforts to educate on ableist terminology.
I was pointing to the Louis thread as an example of this:
because you asked for examples.
Tenacity is an admirable character trait, but like anything it can be carried to far.
Tethys and Jadehawk,
As I remember it, the comment I made was that something Sikivu Hutchinson said made me think there was an unfortunate undercurrent of the bad kind of postmodernism going on. SGBM got it into his head this meant I was accusing Sikivu Hutchinson of something and thus would not read further. I tried to get him to realise this was not the case and when I encounter confusion like that my tendency is to investigate.
The simplest version of what happened next is I said something I thought was entirely innocent and flippant, which he didn’t think was entirely innocent. His reply, which was something he and others thought was entirely innocent, I didn’t think was entirely innocent, so I (wrongly and well apologised for) doubled down. I also went into “Tedious Captain Language Logic” mode which I understand can piss off people, especially in the wrong circumstances (which in retrospect, these probably were).
Sure I fucked up about some things. I do it all the time. I am now going to take the piss out of Jadehawk… ;-)
Even Louis? EVEN Louis? Oh yeah, the emphasis there is problematic. Pistols at dawn? ;-)
{I know, I know, I jest, I jest}
Louis
P.S. I quite liked the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, there was piss taking of a typically British nature involved. They had The Queen get into a helicopter with James Bond (Daniel Craig) and “parachute” (obviously a stunt double) into the arena. Good on yer Ma’am, impeccable sense of humour. I quite like the old duck if I’m honest.
Mind you…don’t get me started on how much it’s costing and what could be done with the dosh…
…Oh and our gorgeous tabloid media are just pissing their kecks trying to find SOMETHING that’s gone wrong so they can point at it and have a feeding frenzy. They haven’t got over the fact we’ve let loads of foreigners in, some of whom can pole vault…. ;-)
Honestly I don’t understand this. Prior to the darling-related breakdown of dialogue, my disagreement with Louis in that thread was about that thread; it was specifically about his characterization of “excesses of postmodernism.” I wasn’t dragging an unrelated discussion in.
+++++
Anyway, I have no interest in keeping Caine out of TET.
I’ve answered the current claims about me here. If I find a link to the thread where I did not tell ‘Tis Himself that he didn’t experience real bullying, I’ll link it here. Google isn’t turning it up.
I will respond to talk about me where it happens. If people would like to bring their talk about me over to TZT, that would be best for everyone.
Tethys,
Gotta be honest, I didn’t feel particularly harassed by SGBM/LILAPWL/Ixchel on that thread (I rarely do feel that way, other people’s mileage may vary), I just thought he was wrong. If anything I think the harassment/tenacity thing went the other way. I really did mix up a “guys don’t do that” (utterly unobjectionable) with something I thought was properly wrong, and I went at it like a dog with a bone.
Honestly, I thought and think that was my bad.
Louis
Off topic I guess, but,
A quick link to a story of a christer Down Under (20 miles from where I live) stealing a million bucks from the school he was bursar of:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/pope-accused-of-stealing-more-than-1million-in-funds/story-e6frea83-1226437134786?from=public_rss
The article caught my eye cos he is called “Pope”. Funny that.
Yes, it is irritating. I also find it irritating that social justice issues almost took over this blog. I preferred the science and the creationist stomping myself. I’m irritated. But I’m not irritated at those who restlessly fight for social justice. I’m irritated at those fight against it.
I’m irritated that Aquaria left. But FFS, SG is right. I’m not going to fucking blame him because she preferred to leave than to stop using an offensive slur.
Gah.
@ Giliell:
Do I hear the sound of a fellow GURPSer?
@Ogvorbis:
A very fun ABC I had when I was a kid was called Animalia. It consisted of little sentences about animals, with all the words using the same first letter. Very fun, I recommend it for other spawn.
@Tony:
L feels the same way about newer games. A lot of the 3d stuff gives his eyes trouble.
On the relationship front, it’s not too late, certainly but I can’t give you any advice that would help, you’re in too different of a social milieu to mine. Best wishes, though.
Re:Ermagerd/ablism
To be perfectly honest, I had not realized that that was a reference to someone speaking through a retainer rather than suffering from some type of actual speech problem. Thus, although I’ve not been involved in discussions of it, I had assumed it to be somewhat ableist.
Me too. Kept me entertained.
Nightjar,
Double seconded and extremely well put.
I like Aquaria. She scared the piss out of me, I like that in people!
Although I will say I am not pissed off about the increase in social justice issues here. I’m pissed off the increase is necessary, like yourself of course, I view these as an extension of my interest in science. I am exceedingly grateful to a huge number of people on this blog for raising and expanding my consciousness. Selfish I know, but true.
Louis
Thank you. The last thing I ever want to see is another bloodbath between the regulars. :(
*************************************
In honor of the Queens pseudo jump –
GROG for the house!
And of course I watched it all up until the last country got into the stadium. There are too many countries out there, I like to refresh my memory. Also, trying to guess which comes next. Am I the only one who does this?
***
I agree. It’s just that… I miss the creationist trolls! :)
Ooooh I like how they did the torch. The chosen British athletes looked like they lit the oil filled copper kettles that each country had one of, and then the kettles all were wired up to form one big flame. Nice.
Not seen many Opening Ceremonies, but I thought that was a good internationalist touch.
Louis
Louis – For some reason PBS has decided to run four (?) different programs on the monarchy. I’m enjoying seeing the old footage of Edward & Wallis. Now there was some naughty!
Gah! If only this whole thing wasn’t so tape-delayed here.
The current headline over at the NY Times? “Games Open With Very British Pageantry.
I LOL’d.
Nightjar – I miss the fundy trolls too. Do you suppose we ate them all, or they’re just so expensive PZ can’t afford them anymore?
Well, joey’s stuck on free will right now, but if you prod a different part of his brain, he’ll say that atheism generally can’t offer meaning in life.
No creationism though.
I wouldn’t mind some new creationist trolls, myself.
Patricia,
I’m only a Comedy Monarchist, if you want the real deal you need Walton. I think they’re HILARIOUS!
As an almost exclusively ceremonial figurehead, I think the Queen does all right. Just don’t piss her off otherwise it’s the old Paris underpass and being chased by “paparazzi” if you know what I mean…;-)
It’s the next one I don’t want. Based on opinions expressed on anything except architecture and genius gardening, Charlie is an anti-science woolly headed bozo. A figurehead like that we don’t need.
Ah well.
Louis
“The term ‘Native American’ is not appreciated”
.
As long as we are talking about indians from North America instead of South America, would “Laurentian” be more acceptable?
.
No cultural luggage attached.
No risk of confusing Sikhs and Navahos.
Severing the ties with that arsehole Columbus
and his slavetaking Spanish pals.
“I am part Laurentian” has a nice ring to it, and it would include the Inuit, and the extinct ancestors of the Kennewick* man.
*plus the now-extinct group of former Siberians who once lived in Greenland, acording to the DNA of a skeleton.
— — — — — — —
Thethys, I read this as “It is a Northern [Ireland] flying squirrel”
Reading past local midnight is not good.
— — — —
thunk
“I regret to inform you that Gotland is over 50 degrees latitude.
The ecliptic is at 23 degrees latitude.
We don’t have enough fuel for those plane changes”
.
It is the same story with ISS and the Hubble telescope. If they were in the same plane, Hubble could simply reduce altitude to get repairs and upgrades.
Thunk, if you have a bona fide spaceplane, you could just skim the atmosphere a couple of times to bend the orbit :-)
Oh and every nation has at least one female athlete and I think all events have both male and female competitors. Both for the first time from what the commentators are saying…salt…pinch…probably.
But if true: woot!
Louis
Would the tongue-wrecking phrase “Autochtonous people” be acceptable? Yes, I know it is not perfect.
Oh, and Chariots of Fire + Rowan Atkinson. That was nice, too.
Patricia,
Well, judging by their quality, the ones we’ve been getting lately do seem to be cheaper. They break very quickly. I blame the poopyhead.
“Games Open With Very British Pageantry”
Esteleh, that made me think of Tim Burton. Let in Sweeney Todd and his razor to enliven the ceremony!
Absolutely. I actually had a chance with creationist trolls. Even after reading here for ~18 months, I don’t feel confident enough to tackle trolls about feminism, etc.
Some fundie and/or creationist trolls would be lovely. I wonder if PZ would try to draw some in if we asked nicely? I have such a craving.
Birger:
Very true, but I’m not experienced with aero-plane changes.*
*Nothing to do with catching the next flight over to somewhere.
I bid you all a good night! Tomorrow I am getting…
…a haircut.
Oh yes, my life is a full and rich tapestry of fun and frolics. I may even, if I am very, very lucky, be permitted some sleep at some point.
Adieu, adieu mes cheris, je vous adore!*
Louis
* Except Brownian. I only like him for the Ghey Secks. It’s purely physical. We don’t respect each other after.
Ask him to post on some evo devo.
Needs more Corgi.
–o–
Look at the plus side: He stole from an explicitly Christian school. The money likely did less harm getting blown on meth and hookers.
Louis – Oh, Comedy Monarchist, I’ve never heard that, so yeah me too. Best damn 1000 year soap opera going, in a P.G. Wodehouse way.
This seems oddly appropriate given the discussion going on here (one that I worry may create too much tension in TET):
I understand that Camels With Hammers is Daniel’s blog and he can dictate the rules as he sees fit. However, I don’t agree with some of the words on his list. I also don’t like the way they’re grouped together. It can give the impression that they all carry the same weight.
Fag, tranny, or cunt are examples of words that are absolutely off limits IMHO. They do harm to others by perpetuating a homophobic, transphobic or sexist culture AND are extremely offensive.
Stupid, jerk and asshole though? These are NOT minority-bashing words that silence a marginalized group of people. They’re just offensive words (and even there, jerk and stupid are just mildly offensive, IMO).
As for ‘social equivalents of physical assaults’, not every word on that list has the weight behind it to be a ‘social assault’.
It just reeks of him trying to *make* everyone play nice to the Nth degree. I don’t believe I’ll be commenting there anytime soon with his new STUPID rule.
So… what do y’all think of this then?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/07/27/making-my-comments-rules-explicit-dont-bully-people-with-insulting-names-and-make-personal-charges-against-others-only-in-egregious-cases/
note: not sure if this would be better placed in the Smug thread.
Louis/SG
You guys went full pomo word precision meaning blah, blah, blah.
On a thread that was supposed to be about men dominating the conversation in atheist circles, and how that relates to involving women and especially WOC because neighborhood churches are often their most reliable sources of support.
The OM sniping across threads during the OM wars was like reading a real time soap opera, but much sadder.
This community is important to me, and I dislike it when regulars attack each other over things like semantic quibbles. I have no problem bashing people who post maliciously. I try to temper the severity of the bashing to the perceived ill intent.
*bookmarks ixchel’s link for some serious evolution nerding later on*
Thanks to whoever created that page of the Wiki, that looks fun!
So what with Prince Charles, we had Ronnie Reagan & freaking George W! I thought you Brits coddled your eccentrics.
Harasser at Readercon gets a slap on the wrist.
FWIW, the con comm posted their statement on their LJ community.
No idea what’s going on. However, I’m gonna leave this here, should anyone want some popcorn later.
Fair point. Of course, Louis started it.
</snipe>
+++++
That’s mostly Lpetrich, who I think is a lurker here.
Pteryxx:
Hey, were you reading my mind?
I crossposted my comment to Daniel’s blog and told him I don’t think I’ll be back. It feels like he wants to sanitize conversations to the point that no one can get cross with one another. Let’s play nicey nicey all day every day.
Sorry, sometimes people are being jerks and need to be called out for it.
Jerk=/=nigger
Asshole=/=cunt
Stupid=/=homo
Audley:
Seriously?
Buttered Popcorn flavored Vodka???
I have *got* to try that!
Perhaps the lack of creationist trolls is what caused my loss of killer mojo. It’s fun poking them in their gospel spots.
A perfect relationship http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2678#comic
Marital bliss http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2675#comic
— — — — — — —
Our king is boring, but harmless. Can you Brits trade us a “harmless but entertaining” excentric? I was thinking “Old King George” if you have a living specimen. I will trade you a member of ABBA in return.
An example of Christian love
ixchel,
I really wish he would understand what Owlmirror has been trying to explain to him first. It’s bugging me a bit that he doesn’t, but I don’t think I can explain it any better, so I’m just watching.
But I may try to poke him one of these days.
***
Patricia,
Yes it is, and you’re very good at that.
Tony,
Seriously. By the same company that makes the glazed donut flavored vodka. (Which, now that I think about it, would be excellent in a white russian.)
That gets you a free tankard of grog. Sniny smartassing should always be rewarded.
I have a cynical mind.
Will Faux News, Limbaugh, et al., freak out over how the opening ceremony honoured the National Health Service? Will they claim that the Brits are trying to influence the US Presidential election? Anyone want to take a bet?
Oh man. The suffering I’d experience from the alcohol might be worth it for that.
Nightjar – Thanks! Luckily my gospel spots scarred over. *smirk*
Sheesh. That’s a lot to demand anyway.
Now, if they’d just asked to use the bathroom, noöne would have had a problem with it.
Boring? Isn’t this the king who engages in pubcrawls and likes nudie bars?
Audley:
If you like White Russians, you might like my Busted Nut
:::waits for the laughter to diminish:::
3/4 oz Stoli Vanilla Vodka
1/4 oz Kahlua
1/4 oz Amaretto
1/4 oz Butterscotch Schnapps
top with half and half
Consume!
Sili:
That only works if the bathroom is out back. Do you really think they’d let a black person use the white restroom?
Tony,
Gonna have to wait a few months for that. Remind me to try it in November.
;)
Ze Madmax:
Not really, unless you happen to have a lot of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around. But do note – in Australia, you *don’t* call an indigenous person “an Aboriginal”. It’s not just bad grammar, it’s considered insulting in the same way as “an Oriental”.
“Aboriginal people” is considered best, and “Aborigine” is OK – some like it, some don’t much like it, but at least it’s not an insult. If you know their grouping, it’s nice to use that, but don’t over-generalise. “Koori” is NSW-specific, for instance. Blackfella is OK, as long as you also use Whitefella. And although Aussies use abbreviations all the time, “Abo” is a grave insult. Not the worst insult but I’m not typing anything worse.
Oh! Look, who’s on Youtube.
Richard @120: Thank you so much for posting that! I really, really needed a boost and that did the trick nicely.
Flavoured vodka is missing the point of vodka entirely. If you want flavour drink wine, or a craft beer, or an aged whiskey, or… Vodka is for smashing brain cells with the efficiency of a Stalinist purge.
Ms Daisy Cutter, thanks for the Readercon harassment info.
From the con statement on their decision (emphasis mine):
…
…Yeeeaaaaah, I don’t agree that THOSE clauses should go together, especially where serious sexual harassment is concerned. Education includes accepting that reform may not be possible nor is allowing for reform a requirement. Depending on the details, context, how much this board could be trusted and so forth, I’m provisionally willing to accept their decision of a two-year ban (as opposed to a lifetime ban) but it should be made clear that the harasser is on notice and expected to prove he has reformed, not simply be accepted back by default after two years.
More genius!
An excellent reason to donate to WBC!
http://cheezburger.com/6455614464
Caine:
There was a boat in Sitka called Bad Penny.
Take your time, my friend. See you back when you are rested and ready.
Sili,
Are we bith looking at Cheezburger sites right now? O.o
…Caine left?! *checks*
Oh, on break. *faints*
take care, Caine, and bathe in ratlets.
FossilFishy:
I’m gonna have to learn you a thing or two :)
I’m a vodka fan. If I have a vodka drink I often use the non flavored variety. When I do shots, though, flavored vodkas are the way to go.
Skittles or Jolly Rancher shots are awesome.
Slippery Nipples (with Vanilla Vodka) taste delish.
Lemon Drops with Ketel One Citron are great.
Chocolate Cake shots with Citrus Vodka and Frangelico are the best.
When it comes to flavored vodka’s there are so many out there and they keep adding more and more each day.
I have to try the popcorn flavor, as well as the smores and bacon flavors.
Off to work to make some drinks.
Ciao!
theoretically, as vodka’s mostly alcohol (?) it should be easy to infuse it with whatever flavor you like, right?
…what happens if y’ spike vodka with an Every Flavor Bean?
Most likely.
Though, listening to the hangout and browsing that site is taxing this oooollllld lappie.
Caerie:
Not from my POV: The only difference between newbies and regulars is that there’s no extensive commenting history upon which to base interpretation.
—
Not even slightly; tm is smart as anything, SG thinks he is.
(Mind you, he’s probably smarter than I am, but just not in the same league as TM and SC)
—
ॐ:
You mean the retards? :)
(Care to start chiding on me?)
@ Caine
Hope to see you again soon
@birgerjohansen:
Who’s Laurence that his name should be attached to the First Nations instead of Colombus? Also, Autochthones is easier to say that Autocthonous people.
@John Morales:
Are you deliberately being an asshole there, or was that some kind of attempt at humor.
Dalillama, no and no.
Oh? How do you square that with my repeatedly saying that one of the things I like about this place is that I get to
argue withahem, learn from people smarter than me?I already have, so I’ll just cut and paste:
John, a lot of people with developmental disabilities, including and in addition to mental retardation, have been mocked as “tards.” It is hurtful to many of these people as well as their families.
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
My daughter turns five today. How the hell did that happen? Okay, I mean sure, we feed her leafy greens and shoo her away from conflagrations and running chainsaws and the like, but I’m pretty sure the last time I looked she wasn’t capable of recognising the signs of immanent excretion, let alone open presents with a pair of scissors without bloodshed or tears.
So today I build marshmallow catapults for the insanity that will be her birthday party. We already had a successful test run of the prototype. Data was kept, results analysed and startling conclusions made: pink marshmallows travel on average 12cm further than white ones. Who knew? Mind you, I’m not sure just how much the “Measuring Dance” affect the data, a flailing armed, whirling affair that was apparently required by the protocol before pulling out the tape measure.
I’m pretty sure that the next time I look up she won’t be there, gone walkabout to lands foreign just like her mother did. And I’ll be left alone in the kitchen having to measure the fall of rubber band powered confections without the aid of my precious, gap-toothed, dancing lab assistant. And so I cherish these times. I hold on as tight as I can to these moments where she needs me so very much, even when the lip comes out and the feet cannot touch the ground without all the force of
fourfive year old legs can muster being brought to bear.She’s exactly five years old today and she never will be again.
Cipher, *long hug* I’m with Giliell: your “therapist” was completely unfit for that job.
Pteryxx, I overlooked that because I was tired and… what is social capital?
Seconded.
Heh.
Oh no. Usually 38 to 42 %, AFAIK never reaching 50.
The rest is mostly water.
Guess what guess what? I wrote a ceremony and I performed a ceremony and I signed a license and now my friends are married! I’m a marryin’ kind of gal! Yay for online ordination! :)
OK, I’m off to watch the Queen jump…. but I’m going to have my naughty thoughts on the young fella on the meet up. Yummmm!
how about crutches in the late afternoon?
anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean it in the “even that stubborn ass” way, I meant it in the “even the person at the receiving end of SG’s argument” way. Should have clarified that.
pfff. flavoring vodka is doing it backwards. you’re supposed to use vodka to alcoholize flavors, not the other way ’round. getting shitfaced on vodka OTOH is a rather dangerous sort of fun [/someone who gave herself alcohol poisoning doing that]
I’m sad to see any of the regulars go, permanently or on breaks. I enjoy reading all ya’lls posts.
Speaking of folks we haven’t seen in a while, whatever happened to Smoggy?
Oh yes indeedy. The only time I drank vodka was when I was drinking with intent. And that intention was to get as shitfaced as possible, as fast as possible. Vodka is the perfect choice for this because of its high ratio of alcohol to volume (reduces the need to pee) and its relative lack of other additives (reduces hangovers, somewhat). I never quite got to the poisoning stage though, luck more than anything I’m sure.
ॐ:
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
Yes, but what does that have to do with what I wrote?
(I note you didn’t explicitly answer my question)
David @417, ahem.
What it has to do with what you wrote is that you wrote was hurtful, because
John, a lot of people with developmental disabilities, including and in addition to mental retardation, have been mocked as “tards.” It is hurtful to many of these people as well as their families.
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
Well that was a reverse sexist thought.
O.o
carlie,
Congrats to you, and especially congrats to your married friends!
… I hope it wasn’t a gay marriage so that it doesn’t potentially destroy my straight marriage…
Oh screw sarcasm, all marriage based in love is AWESOME marriage, and I hope your friends are always at least as solid as my wife and I are after 7+ years.
Actually, yes. That’s the whole joke :-).
(sorry for explaining it guys, but not everyone has been around since that time and it’s still a fairly common meme here)
As sad as it is, some regulars like to troll certain other regulars. Even when no real point is being made. And yet, the ones that get upset at being trolled get blamed for “bringing their problems where they’re not wanted or off-topic”.
FossilFishy, when I was in my early 20s, one of my D&D friends died after overindulging on vodka, passing out and drowning in his own vomit. He was 18, and didn’t really drink much or often, usually.
(I very much wish he’d had weed, instead)
ॐ:
Was this purported hurtful aspect that I asked you whether ‘retards’ refers to ‘developmentally disabled people’, then?
(Is ‘developmentally disabled people’ more hurtful than ‘developmentally challenged people’, in your estimation?)
No, because then we’d have to also say “Allocthonous people”. ;-)
I’m very sorry to hear that John. I do feel lucky I never injured myself seriously.
I gave up drinking for effect years ago, hell, over a decade ago if I want to be honest about it. Alcoholism runs in my family and I saw the signs in myself soon enough to do something about it. These days I’ll drink a craft-brewed beer or two with a meal or have a peaty, smokey whiskey for a treat and always stop when the effects start to manifest. Drunkenness for its own sake: been there, done that, and over and above any possible genetic propensity for alcohol abuse I find it rather boring now.
Paul:
That you can see.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war
retard is an old way of describing a class people with certain developmental disabilities.
As the general public grew more familiar with terms such as mongoloid, cretinism, autism, hydrocephalic, moron, retard grew out of favor as a medical description and into favor as a generic insult for people that don’t ascribe to the ideas of the privileged class weighting the discussion.
No; you specified that some people — presumably those Christians earlier referenced — were “the retards”.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect to see much difference, but I’d have to study the issue more to know.
FossilFishy:
Just wait ’til the double-digits.
Believe me, life only gets better.
broboxley, it is still used widely to refer to people with developmental disabilities.
ॐ:
My #411, which was the genesis of this little discussion, made no such claim.
Again: how was my #411 hurtful?
(I note you still haven’t explicitly acknowledged that both uses of the terminology—that is, yours and mine—referred to the same set of people; that was a very direct question)
I was making a general point. People have made a game of baiting sgbm and SC before with no apparent greater goal in the past. If you have a point here, share it, but that would not falsify my statement in the least.
I assume your point is that you were using retards as a neutral descriptor and not a slur. I would not have said your usage is hurtful if devoid of context, but you knowingly using it as a tool to elicit a negative reaction (textbook definition of trolling) in this thread when this discussion started with people making much ado of how unfair he was to call out the usage of -tard as a slur is hurtful.
Thanks for that Nigel. This learning curve I’m on is a steep one and as much as I dread the challenges that her continued development will bring I have to remind myself that there are plenty of joys to go along with them.
I believe he retired to his farm.
(He feared the joke was getting stale.)
Ah. Well, I’d somehow got the notion that Naughty Marvin is depraved; nice to have one’s impressions definitively confirmed.
:D
–
:( :( :(
–
Reminds me of an incident about 20 years back—there was a group collecting donations for a “handicapped” group, meaning, people who wore glasses. Don’t remember the descritive phrase (Vision-Impaired? Something like that), but it implied blindness.
–
Take these *hugs* with you, ‘kay? Be well.
–
Me too, Tethys. Me too.
I…guess this is an odd choice of hangout for someone who tends to be at least somewhat [can’t quite pin down the word I want here. Strife? Violence? Conflict? State-of-vicious-acrimony?]-aversive, where the [insert word] is between people I like/respect.
–
Huzzah!
:)
–
FossilFishy:
My own daughter (now 24) is not the person I would want her to be.
And at the same time, she has blown me away with her independence, her personhood, her individuality.
Enjoy these times. They will escape you, faster than you imagine.
Yet what awaits is even greater.
At least, that’s my experience.
Paul:
You imagine that I was seeking to elicit a negative reaction?
—
Anyway, I shall desist now, since this is the lounge.
(Take it to TZT, if you want. And I’m AFK for a while, forthwith)
This may have been posted on a thread already, but a collection of Romney clips supporting the pro-choice side. But that was before he needed Republicans outside Massachusetts to vote for him, I guess.
Oh waaah! I miss him. He could evangelize like no other.
Wait – Bride of Shrek is missing too…you don’t suppose?!
The Queen has jumped… whomever up thread said Rush Limbaugh and similar idiots will see the Brits health care display as Obama driven, I see what you mean now. Bet you’re right.
So big of you, to troll someone on a thread you know they’re not supposed to respond to, then to nobly decide it should be taken elsewhere. I wish I could say I hadn’t seen that behavior on Pharyngula before.
Night all.
Paul:
Hey, now. It ain’t like TZT is a whole internet away, and a more appropriate place.
I’ve been staying away from all this in-fighting. That makes me a coward, I guess. But JM is right — TZT is more appropriate for these High Noon sorts of call-outs.
‘night, Patricia. Appropriate displays of affection offered for your sleep-cycle.
@Carlie:
Yay for marrying. I did our friends’ ceremony a few months ago with my own online ordination. It’s great fun, isn’t it?
Sili:
That’s not a euphemism, is it?
I think we need a roster of those who served well, and are sorely missed. Smoggy would be right up there at the top of the list. And Aquaria too. And MAJeff, and Bride of Shrek, and Bill Dauphin, and so many others I miss.
I know we progress. I know we evolve (in the social sense). But at the same time, there are folks I miss.
Don’t call First Nations people in Canada “Indians”.
carlie:
My wife and I were married by our best friend, on a beach on the fourth of July in Sitka. My wife wrote the ordination. My friend’s daughter (3 at the time — fourteen now, can you believe it?) wrote her own bit — served as flower girl (her own demand, not in the original script).
I still swoon at all that, the best friend, his daughter, being married to my best friend, the whole thing orchestrated by my other best friend.
But then, I try to make life make me happy.
It made some implicit claim that some people are “the retards”.
You called some people “the retards”.
My kitchen stinks of fermenting cabbage and sourdough starter. Bad.
I wonder how long Mrs BDC will allow this to continue.
I don’t disagree. I just couldn’t let it slip that he’s the one that decided to troll a long-time forum participant in the lounge, then to say “I shall desist, take it to TZT if you must”, externalizing all the blame for unpleasantness in the lounge. Especially when the point I was noting in the first place is that there has been incidents where certain people have been referenced or insulted, then they get worse for daring to defend themselves where people are talking about them.
Paul has a point, John is the one who randomly decided to be a jerk. I don’t know if he does it intentionally or not, but he tends to do that.
Nigel:
Oh yes, I well know that. It was kinda the point of my 415. I make a conscious effort to appreciate her as she is now and not long for a time when she doesn’t need help with teeth brushing or hair combing. Those things will come soon enough.
But on to more important topics: why the hell would pink marshmallows travel farther than white ones? They weighed the same to the best of my not particularly precise scale’s ability to detect. I thought I observed that the pink ones had more sliding/rolling action after landing, but as that part of the experiment was not taped I can’t really say for sure. Strange.
This gave me a good snortle
Ixchel
:D
I am totally digging the humor.
I don’t wish to be patronizing or presumptuous. I have only been commenting since E-gate , so I am a relative newbie here. But since we are discussing it and you accept the comparison as valid, I have a few subtle but IMO very important points I want to make.
1. Arguing with a troll is different than arguing with a regular.
If you are having an honest disagreement with someone you respect, and that person asks to stop the discussion because they are being triggered, you stop arguing your point.
2. Pressing an argument on somebody while they are being triggered is a Very Shitty Thing To Do ™. It tells them that you do not respect them, because being right is more important to you than not causing them trauma.
3. Louis eventually apologized multiple times. Both to you personally for the darling comment, and the horde in general for participating in a truly bone-headed nitpicking derail.
4. Breaking TET was fucking traumatic for many regulars. I personally had to take a break during the battle that ended in your banning to TZT.
5. In conclusion, I am not blaming you for breaking TET.
But from my point of view, you really do owe some sincere regret and apologies to the regulars like Caine and Aquaria you traumatized by ignoring points 1. and 2.
/humbly offered as a possibly naive suggestion to help restore trust and goodwill within the horde.
?
I got a late birthday present today, a car wreck.
Nothing major, got rear ended by a guy w ho was also rear ended. Some damage but no injuries.
Funny thing is all three people in the wreck were perfectly cordial with each so much that as I was surveying the damage to my car with the guy at fault and some asshole drove by, slowed down and yelled at us out his window for being in a wreck and slow ing him down to what I can only guess was his nightly visit to Hooters.
In perfect synchronization the guy who caused the wreck and I both extended our middle fingers and told the guy to go fuck himself.
Childish, but I got a ton of amusement out of that.
Oh and I got a new grill smoker. So there’s that.
Paul:
Then I was not wrong, was I? :)
That you imagine it’s trolling is your problem, not mine.
(That you failed to get that I was telling the “long-time forum participant in the lounge” to take this particular discussion there is either obtuseness or malice)
“certain people”, eh?
—
And I hereby desist from continuing this particular discussion with you, Paul, here in the lounge.
You want to continue your opining about its merits, take it to TZT.
(bah)
Be aware I’m about to watch a footy game, so I’ll be AFK for a couple of hours.
(nominal Crows supporter, here, being a Croweater and all)
Nitpick for accuracy: banned from TET; not banned to TZT. Those banned to TZT are not allowed to post anywhere else besides TZT; SGBM was allowed to post anywhere except TET.
It’s just that TZT is the only other “open thread” for general-purpose posting, so that’s where SGBM’s general purpose posting went.
I get Jeff’s twitter feed, but that’s about it these days. BoSOM was off to China last I heard from her.
Paul:
I apologize. I didn’t see it that way. I saw one long-time-member calling out another long-time-member, then saying, “But this would better bet served in TZT.”
And this is where I declare coward status.
There are members of this forum that I truly love. I mean, these are folks that I would take into my family (which is not genetically related to me — I have plenty of those).
And when members of that group start fighting, I get tense. They have every right to fight. sgbm had every right to call out Aquaria for using the suffix “–tard.” And from the arguments that followed, Caine has every right to call out sgbm for hounding Aquaria for using the suffix “–tard.” Both of them are right.
Did sgbm go too far? Beats me. Caine thought so. Near as I can tell, it’s a matter of judgement. Do I dislike the “–tard” suffix? Fuck, yeah. I have a niece who is multiply-disabled (Angelman’s syndrome, which I swear was covered here at Pharyngula, but for which I cannot immediately find a link via Google).
I agree sgbm has a right to defend xerself. But JM wasn’t provoking and running, as you suggest. The issue came up here. JM was merely suggesting a more appropriate venue.
But I guess that’s all meta. I have nothing to defend, especially other folks here. I’m not sure why I’m posting a response, other than pride.
What the fuck was that, Morales?
I’ll tell you, because you like this question and answer format:
it was a bunch of bullshit.
This is the kind of shit that keeps me out of TET.
No, I did not accept any comparison as valid. I meant you had a fair point that the thread was supposed to be about Sikivu’s writing.
I disagree.
Since the rest of your points appear to be premised on #1, I’ll stop there.
Did Ixchel continue to harass Aquaria after she’d stopped using -tard as a slur? Because if not, then there’s an obvious answer to this that everyone seems to want to ignore: Aquaria could have stopped using ableist slurs like we ask of everyone else who uses -ist language.
On a tangential note, I have just elicited an amazing comment out of Daniel Fincke.
Fucking shocking.
Brownian:
Yeah. I already admitted I was a coward here.
I’m willing to admit, the problem was that I liked Aquaria. I’m willing to admit, I got tense when Ixchel (then sgbm) attacked Aquaria as we’d attack anyone else.
I’m willing to admit I’m a hypocrite that way.
I liked both sgbm and Aquaria.
Note I’m not defending JM’s position. I’m just saying, he’s right to take it to TZT.
And yes: I’m a hypocrite.
John Morales hasn’t taken anything to TZT.
He has suggested that other people got there.
Oh, Nigel, that wasn’t my intent to impugn you.
I’m bowing out for now, since I don’t think I’m helping.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war
I watched that colbert report, it didnt respond to any point I was trying to make
tard=^fuck^straight^gay^old^fem^straight^(aussie.brit,insertgroup)^lib^libertarian^lib^creo^repo^demo^young^gekko^ are all fair game without expressing derogatory remarks to the actually mentally challenged.
Brownian:
Fuck, dude, I know that wasn’t your point. I’m sorry if I sounded defensive. That wasn’t my point.
Hell, right now, I’m not even sure what my point is.
You always help. Don’t bow out because I can’t communicate properly.
Would you agree that you could, or should, modulate your style of argumentation so as to avoid being triggering?
What exactly is it that seems to make 13 year olds so stupid?
My son had a friend over this afternoon and the two of them thought it would be a good plan to get out the long-unused electric chainsaw buried in the garage and start it up.
Fortunately I stopped them before they gained Darwin awards, but Misterc only just now discovered that in rigging the extension cord the little yo-hos blew a breaker and our chest freezer has consequently been without power all day. We are extremely lucky that no one opened it, so everything is still frozen.
Gah!
kristinc:
A deadly combination of education, ignorance, and arrogance?
That’d be typical.
Couple that with a debilitating level of insecurity, and you’d have me at 13.
I mean, never mind the infants, it’s probably the 13-year-olds we actually need the playpens and strap-in chairs for.
Owlmirror:
I’d say that’d be impossible.
I just learned tonight there’s a sexual fetish that involves dressing up in animal costumes and rubbing against others dressed up in different animal costumes. How specific can you get?
With this, knowing there are experiences out there you can’t predict, there’s no way to modulate your style of argumentation to avoid triggering.
However, you can avoid language that deliberately triggers others.
oxley, you are not known for clarity, but if your meaning here is that permutations of “tard” are not derogatory regarding some people with developmental disabilities, you are wrong.
???
I think that is more or less what I meant by modulating the style of argumentation.
I’m not sure what you thought I meant.
As I understood it, it was indeed the use of certain phrases and wording that led to the triggering, and those phrases and wording certainly looked like a certain style of argumentation being used — so modulating that style would mean avoiding or blunting the phrases and wording.
That depends on the particular trigger.
Would you care to take this to TZT?
Again, I would.
Owlmirror:
Uhm, the same thing I said?
I probably missed a lot of context here. I thought it was a straightforward question, which I answered in a straightforward way. (At least, I thought.)
I’ma gonna go back to watching some ST:TNG. That seems more my speed tonight, I guess.
I seem to be missing on pretty much every cylinder tonight.
Also, too, I wanted to mention the whole animal costume fetish.
I thought I was imaginative. I found out I was wrong.
Go figure.
I have to admit, though, when my wife mentioned it to me and said, “That’s weird,” my first response was to say, “No, it’s just different from what you expect.”
And for that, I thank the horde.
Ixchel
It is, at the very least, irrational to demand others treat you with empathy, if you are unwillingly to treat them with empathy.
I am unwilling to move this to TZT, for that reason.
I am going to bed in any case.
And I don’t.
Too bad. You might be surprised.
nigel, that sounds like a perfectly lovely wedding in every way. :)
I’m in the same corner as you on the infighting (or whatever it shall be called). I like pretty much everyone here, and I’m conflict-averse when it comes to people I like, and I don’t follow specific arguments well enough or long enough to feel like I can really take sides a lot of the time (and often I can see points on both of the sides), so I tend to just slink back and wait for it all to finish so I don’t jump in and possibly make things worse.
Good morning
Yay, it cooled down a bit here
Well, big part of your privilege is how people treat you and you can’t change that. And who’d want to be treated like crap?
The point is to recognize it and not to rationalize why the only person checked is an immigrant or a person of colour to maintain the ilusion of an equal society and to work towards more justice. Because lots this isn’t a zero sum game.
Fuck, that’s bad :(
Caine
Yes, I recognize that behaviour.
Take care of yourself. The last weeks were exhausting online, and you have a shitload of things offline as well.
Nightjar
No, sorry, I can’t agree with you.
I have repeatedly told SG that I did not want to engage with him, did not want to talk with him, and so on. As a result he tried to bait me into reentering the discussion, Constantly writing something like “Giliell said…” (and quite often misrepresenting my argument), so that I had either to defend myself or let it pass. And yes, I consider that harassment. No, I don’t use “-tard” slurs, so that’s not a defense. And then I got called a bully for not giving SG the time other people thought I owed him. No, that was not SG himself.
dalillama
No, The Dark Eye, the most popular German RPG
Played with a D20 as well but you try to remain under your talent score in a roll
Fossil Fishy
Congratulations to her. Well, I don’t know. Time’s relative as a parent: It’s hardly a minute ago that they were nursing at my breast but the time they need to fall asleep at night takes forever :)
++++
I think the complaint holds perfectly true for the first world where glasses are easy to come by. I’d make a difference for the third world where lack of glasses makes people lose their livelyhoods. (I recently saw a report on somebody who invented very ugly but very cheap adjustable glasses for the third world. That rocked)
RBDC
That’s bad, that’s good. Just a word, if you feel dizzy or anything go to the hospital and complain heavily. I once made the mistake of saying “well, they can’t do much about it anyway, so why bother them”
kristinc
Hormones
+++++
Arrrrgh, I have a good old case of I cleaned up the kitchen and now things are missing
+++++
Here it is.
Giliell,
Never mind that all the actual citations show otherwise.
Not as a “result” of, but in spite of.
I simply don’t believe that people should be able to make false statements unchallenged.
You mean, what you’re doing right now.
Indeed, and calling people retards is not the only objectionable thing in the world.
For reference, our argument begins here.
Definitely not true. Citation needed.
Giliell, I can’t speak about your experience with him in particular, I wasn’t around to see. But both before I left and after I came back I’ve noticed the behaviour I was referring to, where it looks like a different set of rules apply to SG. Some people dislike him so much they lash out against him even when he’s saying stuff those same people would agree with in principle. The comments on the old site aren’t up yet, but for the “after I came back” situations I’m thinking specifically of the incident with Louis (though not of Louis) and this kind of thing.
On the old site? I saw people concerned that he was scaring away lurkers from delurking. People who aren’t usually concerned that the environment here tends to do that to some. I wish I could link to that thread.
Now, maybe people do that because they’ve felt harassed by him in the past. I don’t know. Still not an excuse to side against him when he’s obviously right.
SG
Thanx for finally admitting that you’re harassing me.
And no, I’m still not getting into any debate with you.
Why do you lie?
I said that in spite of your demands that I not address you, I believe it is important to point out when false claims are made.
ॐ, try to be slightly less of a pain in the ass, please.