This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Calmer:
Welcome!
Pull up a seat.
After reading all the comments in that thread, the first drink is on me (if you partake…if not, free n/a frozen drinks, or wonderful n/a mojito).
If I may, what were some of the reasons you abandoned the hyperskepticism?
I have to say your post made me smile. That what so many of us have done has succeeded in changing minds makes me appreciate this place that much more.
Takes brain out. Looks at it, taps it on the floor. Makes a hollow clunking sound. No peas fall out, but several spiders make a run for it under the cover of the dust cloud. Sprouts hundreds of little legs — rather like the Luggage — and several cutlasses, and charges outside through one of the penguin-shaped holes, going BHHRAAAHAHWHAW!
Drat.
After a brief struggle with one of the occupants, opens the cabinet of curiosities and takes a jar labeled “brains, just add cheese”. Inserts, jar and all.
AwwwwkkaaBONGGGpffytsie!
Right. Mine changed.
Thanks everyone for the welcome messages and the drinks.
It was kind of a gradual transition, but it was mostly due to podcasts. I had been driving about an hour and half each way to work and was looking for things to listen to. I discovered the SGU podcast which led me to Skepchick which eventually led me here. I also started listening to The Atheist Experience around the same time which helped too. I cant really point to anything specific though that changed my mind, but I guess just being exposed to more progressive ideas over the course of about 2 years changed the way I thought about the issues.
The Grauniad snarks The Daily Mirror (a.k.a. The Moron): “Readers who make it to page six…”.
Horses are evil.
David!!! :)
I can’t afford a full Rhinebeck-a-looza, but I could go for the day. Or if it turns out that the geographic locations of people who want to all get together skews in another direction than that part of the state, we could find something to do elsewhere that is central to whatever that group is.
Infuse the sprogs or significant others in yer life with the Magick of Ye Gaddomned Pendanticle:
Inside the LHC?
Ohhhhh! Magnets. Must be real. And at c.200USD, clearly a bargain, especially for what would be stolen parts emitting high levels of EMR.
Spotted at Bad Science, God particle pendants.
I received my cigars yesterday. A mazzo of Gurkha Widowmaker gordos and two mazzos of Bahia B-line Connecticut coronas.
Came packed in bubble wrap. The ones with big bubbles.
And the damn things have channels going from bubble to bubble so I couldn’t pop them. :(
A Norwegian Perspective on Stonehenge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg&feature=player_embedded
(shamelessly stolen from the blog Aardvarchaeology)
Ogvorbis
That is just so wrong.
“succeeded in changing minds2
This is something I have been thinling of since the thread “Like Cattle”.
Some minds will not be changed.
Since we have no Ark B, must we wait for the segment of the population that are unreconstructed assholes to grow old and die?
The Germans waited for the old nazis to grow old and die before they could discuss the history of the Third Reich openly, but waiting forty years means the assholes who are misogynist/racist/shills for the plutocracy have plenty of time to wreck the world beyond repair .
Education is no panacea, since education is the first thing to get “downsized”.
Sweden’s ‘biggest sex party’ sparks local fury http://www.thelocal.se/50346/20130920/
At least they have no Nazis visiting, like we had a fortnight ago. Norrköping gets a better class of unusual visitors than Umeå.
Calmer Than You Are, Welcome, welcome! We’re glad to have you among us. Please come often and sit deep. We look forward to hearing your stories.
You read all the comments in the grenade thread? In one go? And your still . . . Calmer . . . ?
*I’ll get my coat; it’s the one with the foot wedged in the pocket.*
0_o
(;^>)
No fun if you can’t pop the bubbles :-(
So, DaughterSpawn aka Spawn#1 is a biochem undergrad right now, and SonSpawn aka Spawn#2 is in the last year of sixth form (final year of high school, maybe, translated into furrin?). And he wants to be a musician … and it’s kind of funny, in a way and for certain values of “funny”, but if it weren’t for his language/communication disorder (which has various effects, the least of which is that he sweats blood to get anything down in writing) his other parent and I would very likely be urging him to consider trying to work on something else while keeping music for joy only rather than as a profession. Because money, for the most part, which none of us have. Whereas in my utopian dream world where social security is really for all society and really secure, we would have just been happy there was something he loved doing, and never had a second thought about it …
Opposablethumbs:
Yeah. In an ideal world. Just imagine — a world in which accord is the norm and all personal aspirations and dedications enjoy universal support.
No beating up and no beating down. Minimal want with maximum creativity. Health as wealth, joy as coin, peace as the solid foundation.
*wakes up . . . shakes head and notes a vaguely worrisome change in the rattling sound . . . flexes painful joints . . . listens to morning news broadcast . . . hears fading chorus of “Yellow Submarine” . . . growls lowly and furrows brow . . . gives serious consideration to going back to sleep . . . fails . . . stumbles into Lounge . . . “Wassup?”*
There is a new bright thing, though. The secret pleasure of entering Loungeling’s nyms in FireFox dictionary. =)
The following is my OCR scanning, clean-up, and re-formatting of the essentially the complete declassified PDF at Goldsboro revisited: account of hydrogen bomb near-disaster over North Carolina — declassified document, described by The Grauniad as:
In the text below, embolded text are marks from the censor, italic text is Mr Jones’s comments on the text he is quoting, and my own guesses as to missing letters are [enclosed in brackets like this]. A few words are missing (not in the PDF having been obscured by various stamps and the like). I have not guessed at missing words, only at missing letters within truncated words. The break between the first and second pages is not marked but should be obvious.
The Grauniad’s report, US nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina —secret document:
Blf: here.
The resting place of that bomb is about six miles from where I type this. The Air Force purchased from the farmer who owned the field where the bomb impacted, a circular plot of land with a 100 foot radius centered on the impact spot. They go up there twice a year with Geiger counters and what all. Then the return to Seymour Johnson AFB, on the other side of town. They fly F-15s out of there these days.
The linked page dates to 2000. I found it two years ago when I moved here. The story did not frighten me as much as it might others who did not spend childhood in the tightly wound years of the Cold War. I did lots of growing up within ten miles of two nuclear weapon sites. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Naval Shipyard (nuclear powered and nuclear weapon bearing submarines) and Pease Air Force Base in Newington, New Hampshire (Strategic Air Command nuclear bomber base).
Step dad worked at the Yard and B-47 bombers scrambled right over our house at all hours. Somehow it all seemed routine in those days . . .
I followed your link to God Particle 4U, blf, and from there a link to Bad Science Forum (from the comments) and thence to this story from Wired Magazine: Story.
The Cold War in terms of boom and bust, dedication and resignation, excitement and melancholy, pages from history.
I am moved by this story to observe the latter half of the twentieth century, the former half of my life’s century (cough*childhood expectations sneer at reality*cough), as testament that the whole history of human experience can be condensed to a single lifetime, a single generation. I look back and wonder if it actually happened. Then I remember that I lived each moment of it. If that is not so then I do not exist. If you read this, I do exist; ergo, my suspicion is correct: errors are repeated endlessly and I am witness.
The wonder of it all is that I am not swayed, not dismayed or dissuaded. Rather, paradoxically, I am both disappointed and encouraged simultaneously. “How can this be?” I ask myself. I answer thusly: “Look, read, listen. Talk to the old timers. They know, they know. They yearn to tell you”.
I encourage all to follow the above link. Read it all; it will take you some minutes but surely you have some minutes to spare for history. The story is rather long. So is history. So are our stories. So are our lives, if only in a relative sense. (What other sense is there to our lives but relative to all other lives?) Those of you who did not come of age during the years prior to 1989 need to know. You need to know.
Crudely Wrott, You may be confusing the bomb whose parachute deployed with the one whose parachute did not deploy. The second one (no parachute) buried itself in the muck and has never been fully recovered. That is the one the USAF purchased the land(? digging?) rights to the impact site.
The other one, the one whose parachute did deploy, is apparently the bomb that is known (and now confirmed in public via the FoI request) to have been one safety mechanism away from a very probable nuclear detonation. Up to now, as the link you gave points out, there has been confusion and essentially only verbal claims about how many safety systems existed, were applicable, failed, and worked.
I’m surprised Mr Jones in his rebuttal didn’t also call out Dr Lapp on the “24 megaton bomb” error. I wonder if Mr Jones read it the same way I did, as “2 4-megaton bombs” (albeit that does not completely make sense in context)? The link you gave suggests a simple missing decimal point.
I’m well aware og the blasé nature people living near or involved with the programmes of the time often had. I once had a furious argument at University with the son of someone involved with the ICBM “deterrent” on quite a number of points ranging from MAD’s theoretical basis and its morality, how much of a danger the SAC and related forces presented, and the true operational accuracy of the ICBM’s (as opposed to the accuracy claimed from testing). Hr believed everything the USAF &tc said (perhaps because of his family / upbringing) whilst I had considerable doubts, motivated, in part, by a lack of clear evidence and a known history of FUD from the cold “my penis is bigger than your penis” warriors.
Blf, I was indeed unclear on the distinction between the two bombs that fell from the stricken B-52.
Fog of War? Disinformation calculated to keep enemies off balance? Dissembling in the name of “National Security”? Likely some mongrel of all three and other, close to the vest, considerations.
Those years stand out in my memory as times characterized by a zombie gamesmanship aimed to not only confuse perceived and real enemies but also the very people who had vested interests in the efficacy of US military supremacy.
I clearly remember the sign at the entrance to Pease AFB: “Peace is Our Profession”. More’s the pity that similar placatory mindsets continue to define justification of destructive might of such magnitude that their inherent power is the single most persuasive argument for not using them.
Such are the counter intuitive results of possessing massive destructive power. Like toddlers with loaded guns. Adolescents driving cars with to many horses (!) under the hood. Adults fortified by false confidence buoyed by bluster.
In a manner similar to traffic accidents and accidental shootings which can be traced to naivete, inexperience, carelessness, smug self assurance, contempt bred of familiarity and everyday dumbfuckery, there exists a frightening history of nuclear incompetence.
What is the most amazing thing about the Cold War nuclear pissing contest is that it actually did prevent the worst from happening. I am here reminded of ritual war as used by tribes in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. Delicate dances of demonstrative prowess standing for actual killing and mayhem. The striking of symbolic blows that draw a little blood and cause a little embarrassment. The touching of coup that replaces bloodshed.
We got lucky. Tribal ritual saved the world. In the midst of advanced science and technoprowess ancient tradition grounded in an seemingly primitive wisdom saved our bacon. That, it must be agreed, is a good thing.
Meant to add to paragraph beginning with “Fog of War?”, “Simple incompetence?”
*hopes that’s not self referential . . . possibly it is, to some small degree . . . botheration; my normalcy is showing*
I leave now to go patronize a local artisan. She makes lovely jewelry and I will buy a necklace made from natural stone of soft earth tones for Younger Daughter.
All this talk of near disaster needs a suitable antagonist, an elixer or philter of distraction that focuses my attention on more important considerations. Like loving my children.
I feel smarter now, and less . . . incompetent. Like Eddie Green used to say, “You are com-pete’-ant.”
*Thanks, Eddie. I love you, man. I miss you.*
So I visited my mother last week and she said her neighbor, whom she dislikes a lot because he’s a total asshole, believes in “reptilians.” And I’m like, oh, you mean like David Icke? And she’s all, who? So she looked Icke up online and spent like half an hour reading bullshit from his website out loud and laughing herself into spasms.
Mom vs. Teh Icke. Them reptilians are in big trouble now…
Starting with the GOP’s latest vote to reduce funding for food stamps, Andrew O’Hehir examines the right wing “Hunger Games” vision of America.
It’s a good article. A couple of the things O’Hehir mentioned are memorable:
Over 22,000 gallons of oil spilled so far in Colorado’s floods.
Yeah, I saw the oil and gas industry PR people exuding auras of confidence, reassuring the people that all was well. That was the news a couple of days ago. Now it’s not the news, it’s the lies.
Yes, there’s still more sewage than oil in the flood waters, but I don’t find that reassuring.
@522 Crudely Wrott I leave now to go patronize a local artisan.
Is this a regular usage of “patronize” somewhere? Because I keep reading it, and it keeps sounding odd to me (which I freely admit may be me being odd, and not you, Crudely Wrott), because for me “to patronize” can only mean “to talk down to as a parent-figure (often, inappropriately)”, whereas I’d use “give them my patronage” to mean I wanted to go see them, which is what I’m taking CW to have meant here.
I don’t in any sense mean to be critical of you, CW, I want to be clear, and if I have done so, I’m sorry for whatever hurt I cause. I’m asking as a language nerd, not as a critic; I’m very much a descriptivist in the linguistic sense, so I’ve no brief to suggest anyone’s usage is wrong. What I mean to be asking is, in a sense, “I am ignorant of this possibility, can someone enlighten me?” as to whether this usage is common in some particular dialect or sociolect or something, not whether it’s ‘right’ or not. I believe that if someone intentionally uses a particular meaning-carrying-unit in a particular manner in a given language, and their interlocutor can understand the correct meaning, then they are doing language ‘right’; and that since each and every one of us has an absolutely unique idiolect, there’s no advantage in professing that one or another is “better” than any other.
I hope that makes more sense to you than it does to me. Why is my own writing confusing me today?
CaitieCat:
When I visit a shoppe, I am a patron. So if I patronize a shoppe, it means I am going there to avail myself of their services or products, not that I am being condescending.
Patronize means both regularly use a store or service, or alternatively, talk down to. I knew CW meant the first meaning from context.
@528, Ogvorbis: Thank you! So it looks like I’m the one who was unaware of an ongoing shift in usage. That’s cool! I love finding artifacts of language change while they’re happening.
For me, its only previous usage that seemed valid (in my own idiolect, I mean, that is, things I would expect others to be able to understand in the same way I do) had been in the condescension role, as in “Stop being so patronizing to me, I know perfectly well what Broca’s Area is!”
I’m pretty sure, from looking it up previously, that it’s gone back and forth between the two meanings over a fair bit of time, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both.
Thanks! :)
CaitieCat, From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
I assume Crudely Wrott is using it in the perfectly innocuous 1801 sense.
CaitieCat
I use ‘patronize’ as Ogvorbis describes.
I also use it with the condescending connotation.
(not at the same time)
I never really thought about before.
I have English as a first language. (Western Canada)
Definitely cool. I wonder if this is one of those weird gaps I find every now and then in my vocabulary? When I had my car accident in 1988, the one that broke my back (not literally, but eventually), I also suffered from some neurological difficulties, like amnesia and aphasia, the latter particularly disturbing as a languages student. Ever since then, I’ve found a fair number of words that I was sure I knew meant X and only X, which have turned out to be X & Y & Q, actually.
I wonder if it dinged my brain’s thesaurusizer (apparently the neologizer is still ticking over nicely).
Anyway, to reiterate, I’m sorry if anything I said sounded critical, it really really wasn’t meant to be at all, just curious about something being different from what I’d expected. And for the record, I understood what CW meant the first time through as well, I’d just always believed the meaning zie used to be a deprecated one in the prescriptivist sense, so I was wondering if that had shifted. Apparently it had, but it may have happened in my head, rather than in the language. :)
I blame the reptilians.
Plus the usual suspects, peas, horses, celery, and similar foule beasties.
Hi, CaettieCat. You pose an interesting question:
Partial and off handed answer is something like: “I’m just back from acting as a patron of a local artisan” in the sense of supporting her in a material fashion. I see, though, why you would pose your question. I first admit to not being able to speak authoritatively, being only a student of language.
“Patron”, I have learned, is derived from older words for “father” which specifies a male ancestor with some special authority over progeny. Inasmuch as fathers frequently instruct and upbraid children, his own and those of others, the sense of “talking down to” seems unavoidable. This is regrettable in that a reader may first assume this meaning.
To illuminate myself, and you as well, I turned to my Answers.com plugin and here follows what I found:
I’m not certain who to cite for the above definitions given that there is an intrusive banner that covers precisely that information when I open Answers.com. The following is from Roget’s Thesaurus:
From the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature:
My use of the word is quite squarely within the above. Your question in no way implies that I may have used the term inappropriately with or without intent. I would be very silly to either use the word pejoratively in this case or to assume that you were accusing me of doing so.
Peace. =)
Funny thing about English; so many words have multiple meanings and often those meanings are in conflict among themselves. More than any other (?) language, in English, context is king. After all, is there another tongue in which a “fat” chance and a “slim” chance mean exactly the same thing?
_______________
The result of my, ahem, patronage consists of a lovely necklace with matching earrings made of a wonderful stone that is golden brown with black inclusions and way, way sparkly. That is, “Ooooo! It Sparkles!”(2)
The necklace features one inch diameter disks separated by beads of same stone and small, man made, black beads. The earrings are of the same stone shaped into rectangular prisms with tapered ends and the same beads. The prisms are also present in the necklace. The ensemble is really beautiful and eye catching. Younger Daughter will love them.
(1) as a non-devout human, I really like this sense of the term in a totally non-ironic way. *chuckles to self*
(2) see “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test” by Ken Kesey for context. ;^>
Hi, CaitieCat. You pose an interesting question:
Partial and off handed answer is something like: “I’m just back from acting as a patron of a local artisan” in the sense of supporting her in a material fashion. I see, though, why you would pose your question. I first admit to not being able to speak authoritatively, being only a student of language.
“Patron”, I have learned, is derived from older words for “father” which specifies a male ancestor with some special authority over progeny. Inasmuch as fathers frequently instruct and upbraid children, his own and those of others, the sense of “talking down to” seems unavoidable. This is regrettable in that a reader may first assume this meaning.
To illuminate myself, and you as well, I turned to my Answers.com plugin and here follows what I found:
I’m not certain who to cite for the above definitions given that there is an intrusive banner that covers precisely that information when I open Answers.com. The following is from Roget’s Thesaurus:
From the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature:
My use of the word is quite squarely within the above. Your question in no way implies that I may have used the term inappropriately with or without intent. I would be very silly to either use the word pejoratively in this case or to assume that you were accusing me of doing so.
Peace. =)
Funny thing about English; so many words have multiple meanings and often those meanings are in conflict among themselves. More than any other (?) language, in English, context is king. After all, is there another tongue in which a “fat” chance and a “slim” chance mean exactly the same thing?
_______________
The result of my, ahem, patronage consists of a lovely necklace with matching earrings made of a wonderful stone that is golden brown with black inclusions and way, way sparkly. That is, “Ooooo! It Sparkles!”(2)
The necklace features one inch diameter disks separated by beads of same stone and small, man made, black beads. The earrings are of the same stone shaped into rectangular prisms with tapered ends and the same beads. The prisms are also present in the necklace. The ensemble is really beautiful and eye catching. Younger Daughter will love them.
(1) as a non-devout human, I really like this sense of the term in a totally non-ironic way. *chuckles to self*
(2) see “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test” by Ken Kesey for context. ;^>
Grrr. Flagrant Double Post Violation.
(I made a hash of your nym in the first and tried (too late) to stop it posting, CaitieCat. Please don’t get mad at me /_\)
*crawls under nearest thing with sufficient ground clearance; ’bout an inch)
Please don’t think another moment on it, I’m very flexible about my ‘nym. If I can recognize it’s pointed at me, then communication has been achieved, and language use has been effective. I know people who call me Cait, Cat, Cate, Caity, Caitlin, Caitie, Kate, Kat, and a few other very individual choices, and honestly, as long as it’s not a boy’s name you’re calling me, we’ll never have an issue (and even then, only cause it’s a bit of a trigger).
And thanks for your gracious response. I know people can be really critical and mean about differences in writing/speaking styles, and I don’t want to be one of those people, but there are only so many ways to ask about someone’s usage without it sounding critical, again, probably because most of the time one hears it, it would be critical. Anyway, graciousness appreciated. :)
The connection here is that the patron began to act as a metaphorical father to the client, by assisting the client’s career/social mobility. The means by which he did this included introductions to influential people, handing out jobs, often in the civil service, investing in the client’s business interests or purchasing, particularly if the client was an artist of some type, the client’s goods and services and directing his associates to them(hence the eventual usage of ‘patronize’ to mean ‘uses the services of/buys the products of, via the period of the middle ages and renaissance when aristocrats would demonstrate how cultured they were by patronizing artists, i.e. paying their expenses and ‘encouraging’ them to make art that flattered the patron), and also by teaching the client the ways of the upper crust and giving ‘advice’ and ‘guidance’ in the client’s affairs (hence the usage of patronize meaning to condescend or talk down to.).
Ah! Dalillama, you make me wiser by reminding me:
Related in a progenitory manner to something like “schmoozing”? “Glad handing” once removed? That is, currying favor from the one to obtain even greater favor from another? Veerrry interesting.
CaitieCat (double checks spelling and adds to resident dictionary), your graciousness is received with relief and, er, grace. Pretty smooooth, aren’t we? =)
Crudely
Pretty much; if you were interested in a military career, for instance, your patron might obtain you a position as a junior officer, say, but promotion would be quicker for you because his brother is a general, and keeping an eye out for you, etc. In exchange for this, you were expected to kiss the patrons ass, kiss other people’s ass on his behalf (it makes him look good when you show proper respect to his peers), go do errands for him, show up and cheer when he’s politicking, and generally act as a sycophant. He had an interest in building up your career because the more important you are, the more impressive it is that he can have you jump to obey him at the snap of his fingers, see.
Yaaas. I recall two times in my life when someone sought to curry me so. All I left behind was softly settling dust and the echo of a scowl.
Crudely,
+1
You are a poet.
The patronage system was one of the cornerstones of Roman society, wasn’t it (at least, that’s what I think I remember learning). I never made the connection between that and being a sort of father-figure, though, nor realised how that linked together the two senses of the word. Thank you for that, Dalillama, that’s really interesting!
In my idiolectical corner of the forest, I’d use patronise initially in the talk-down-to sense but I’d also be very likely to use it in the buy-things-from sense; the former would be bog-standard usage and the latter would be deliberately slightly highfalutin’ and used for effect. Not the same register, imo. (Brit here).
Morgan ?!, you are too kind.
Please, do continue to seek your own way in life, blazing your own trail through uncharted territories, ever declaring yourself in all matters in order that you may ever more effectively, with unquestionable authority and transparent intent, freely remain too kind. :^>
*Schleps like me just eat that shit up!*
BTW, anyone who has an interobang as part of their name is just alright with me. =)
Hey all.
Over at WEIT, Coyne wrote a post criticizing a piece by Henry Gee. Gee’s piece compared science to religion, scientists to priests, and contained a whole lot of other nonsense. Anyway, Gee responded to Coyne’s post, saying he was just joking and that Coyne was just proving his point.. that he was just joking about. Apparently, his piece is in a state of quantum superimposition and whether it’s serious or not depends on whether it suits Gee’s purposes.
Anyway, I bring this up because Coyne mentioned a discussion that occurred at Pharyngula five years (?! Time flies.) . Some of you may remember that Gee made, without a shred of evidence, this disgusting accusation:
Besides shamelessly using his family’s Holocaust experience to win an internet argument, he also made a prediction:
Yep, that’s totally the world we’re living in now.
Note: For those who don’t know, Gee is a senior editor at Nature. Yep, Nature.
O Crudely, slather me with your sweet verbiage. ;-}
I love the interobang (interabang?) (Seems there is no agreement on the spelling). It describes me precisely. I am equal parts confused and astonished by most things in life.
firstapproximation! Good to see you, it’s been a while. Oh rats below, do I ever remember the untermensch business. The outrage rippled everywhere. I see very little has changed in Gee’s teeny reality.
Morgan:
It’s interrobang.
You mean one of these‽
*pops in*
Crudely Wrott
Just need to say “Fetchin Gretchen the slime queen!”
It’s been going through my head after reading your comment, even without the EKAT reference.
Ahhh the 60’s, and the magic bus.
*wanders off humming…..you say you want a revolutio uh on wweeell you kno oh ow, we all want to change the world*
interrobang
& #8253;
or
& #x203d;
without the spaces
Cain,
*waves* Good to see you too. Yeah, I couldn’t believe that whole Gee thing was five years ago.
Gee, how’s that prediction of yours working out for you? The one that goes,
I’ll cut you a little slack since we’re just on the opening cusp of your schedule. But, altogether and with regard to actual conditions in academia extant today, how’s that prediction of yours working out for you? Remind me again, who, exactly, is forcing said dismissals? Young, fresh, agile and aspiring minds want to know. In order to not waste their time and effort, as any fuel no.
__________________
Hey, Morgan ?!. You give fresh breath to something that I’m very familiar with:
Yeah. Doing double takes daily and delighted by it. Really, we live in an astounding universe alongside the most perplexing people. I’m almost afraid to ask how it could get any better because if I do, it’ll do something that will knock me into a treble hoolihan and cause my eyebrows to freeze in astonishment position. I’d look so silly at the grocery store.
The good part is that is bracing and invigorating to be constantly gasping deeply and suddenly at every turn, innit?!
‽
or
‽
Latest news on the interrobang – seems we are in the vanguard.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/social-media-icon-interrobang
Always wanted to be in the vanguard of something. I’ll take what I can get.
Preachin’ to the choir, blf.
–
In Niven’s Ringworld (or possibly its direct-most sequel), a puppeteer says something along the lines of, “Human history reads like a series of hair’s-breadth escapes”…and so, they decided to breed “lucky” humans.
Unfortunately for them, the “luck” was non-transferable….
–
Cicely:
No, no. Simon, TomTom, Gunner and Balto disagree. And disagree again, in a silly manner!
It must be Ignorant Douchebags’ Day Out or something today. I was taking a bus from the south end of the downtown transit tunnel to the north end. There’s only one tunnel with a total of five stops (four, if you’re going northbound on the train). No branches. Trains, city buses and county buses all use the tunnel, and while some buses continue their routes out the other end, this particular bus doesn’t. After I pay and sit down, a woman tries to get on to go three stops with a transfer from the city bus system. This was a county bus so the driver says she can’t ride. Then a man tries to get on, also to go three stops, with a train ticket. Driver says he can’t ride either.
I mutter, how could it possibly matter? And this guy next to me says (with the air of a habitual and unclever contrarian) it totally matters. And I’m like, how? This bus is not going anywhere the other buses or trains aren’t going. The most that the people with the wrong types of payment could gain is getting to their station five minutes sooner. Guy insists that “it’s business.” Which makes no damn sense because none of the transportation agencies are going to lose money by letting those people ride. The driver is just sticking to pointless rules. I tell the guy if it’s business, it’s stupid business and start reading the novel I’d brought.
Now, this novel was in Japanese and when the guy to my other side starts getting off two stations later, he looks at it and mutters something at me about “han zi” and “waste of time.” He looked to be of Asian descent. I’m like, what’s a waste of time? And he says, “That. Chinese.” Which is weird, because if he knows the Chinese word for Chinese characters, I should think he’d be able to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese writing. But he was getting off and didn’t stick around to clarify. Instead, the first guy (who’s white) says that, yeah, it’s a waste of time to learn that. And when I say that’s a stupid thing to say and it’s Japanese, not Chinese, he says, “It all comes from China, anyway” (as if to school me for thinking Japan has a unique culture?) and proudly shows off his mini-poster of Bruce Lee to me and other people at the front of the bus (as if he’s the better person for liking something “Chinese”?).
And this is why I’m a misanthrope.
So, apparently the California State Railroad Museum has been letting my daughter and I in with an expired membership since 6/30/13 – on some five occasions. And of course no one fucking thought to mention that it was expired until today, when the deadline for renewal-by to get on the can-actually-fucking-get list for their special Polar Express train ride tickets had passed, and I never got any kind of notification on it (and don’t keep the card in my wallet since it’s one of those fragile tagboard things and would be destroyed in two weeks, I’ve just been having them look it up where the expiration thing should be REALLY OBVIOUS).
I’m going to try calling their member office on Monday. Anyone have any other suggestions? Doesn’t someone here have some kind of connection there? :(
A. Noyd, isn’t there a line from Forest Gump that’s apropos? Sumpin’ like “stupid is . . . sumpin”?
Azkyroth
Makes one wonder if it was just sloppiness that people kept missing the expiry, of if they thought they were doing you a favor. Annoying as hell either way, I hope you can get it sorted out.
@Crudely Wrott
Never seen Forrest Gump, but Google tells me it’s “stupid is as stupid does.” Of course, I then had to look up the meaning of that, so who’m I to talk, eh? Heh.
Doing me a favor would be mentioning it and THEN letting me in. >.>
hello?
I guess. I’m more getting the impression that this new house is doing screwy things to me.
ugh. also coin jars get unwieldy past 5 kg.
also, TOO MANY CATHERINES. or similar forms…
(never understood what goes on in the minds of those who have their emotions clouded by felines)
Progress! I actually managed to layer caramel bailey’s on top of creme de menthe :D
Unfortunately, it seems that an unmeasured mix of butterscotch schnapps and caramel vodka still has a higher specific gravity. Either that or a 1/4 cup measure is a horrible pouring utensil. >.>
A. Noyd:
Heh. Yes. Who’m (nice structure, there) I?
I get a little (on an off day, much more!) if that every day. Serves to keep me on my toes. Like, engaging brain before opening mouth. There but for an unpredictable confluence of factors go I.
My saving grace is that when my “stupid” is pointed out to me I get angry at a rate that is roughly inversely proportional to my age. Better late than never, I’ve heard it said.
Humility is, I think, encouraged by the accumulation of such enlightenments.
If you like movies you can do lots worse than watching, more meaningfully listening to, Forrest Gump. In my case it is one of the few movies that I enjoy watching multiple times. Others include The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Man Who Would Be King, Forbidden Planet, the original Frankenstein and Dracula and almost all music/dancing films featuring the talents of Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Gene Kelly (that man could MOVE!), Irving Berlin, Cyd Charrise (so could she!), Hope and Crosby, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Donald O’Connor, Jane Powell and the list goes on and on.
But, yeah. Forrest Gump.
@Crudely Wrott
I keep meaning to see it, but I’m terrible about remembering that fact when I’m in the video rental store and in the mood for something like it.
Reminds me, though. Last time I was in that video store, they were playing a movie called Lover Come Back from 1961 that has this scene where a guy complains about the “handicap” of being rich and how lucky poor people are to be poor. I don’t know anything else about the movie, but, despite being hammed up a bit for a laugh at the rich guy’s expense, that scene was a perfect example of a privileged asshole believing he’s the one who’s really oppressed. I wish I could find a clip of it.
Gotta take Jesi for her dose of methadone in four and one half hours. I must tip over now and sleep in order to do so.
But first, for thunk who says,
Turnabout is fair play. Don’t stop playing. It’s how we, six to sixty and beyond, learn. May you learn and profit, dear friend. May you sleep well, too, as I now intend to do.
G’night.
Caine: I do not believe that Simon, TomTom, Gunner and Balto are exactly unbiased witnesses.
They can’t be.
They’re Horses.
–
Slipping in one more for A. Noyd.
I am not familiar with Lover Come Back except knowing that it was notable for mumble something. Perhaps for the very thing you allude. I suppose that all stations in life come with some burden. I observe that people vary widely in their ability to bear their various burdens whether just or not.
A great equalizer is finding one’s self at some definable station of life that is easily contrasted with other definable stations. Richer or poorer, each station comes with some measure of regret. To appreciate the regret of someone perceived to be privileged doesn’t come naturally to one who is not so privileged. The reverse, I suspect, is equally true.
As a wise/crazy man once wrote: “And so it goes, Billy Pilgrim. And so it goes.”
This one now goes to sleep. Until morning, then.
I am gonna leave this here for the benefit of anyone who, like myself, had no idea what an interrobang was (darn these Loungers using words I do not understand. Do they not know the amount of work it takes to obtain information online? Nearly 2, 2 whole minutes…gone.)
Spider-Man: Hero No More?
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/09/pittsburgh-police-arrest-spider-man-in-store-robbery/
_____
Oh, look it appears that Spidey doesn’t just rob banks. He inspires teen violence in Venezuela:
____
A comic book featuring atheists?
Possibly in a good light?
Do what?
The interrobang has been around for ages (Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge says since 1962 with it first being included in a typeface in c.1966), and I have an admittedly vague memory of running into at(?) University. I have no recollections of ever using it myself, preferring the double-glyph ?! if I am more puzzled than I am amazed, and !? if I am more amazed than I am puzzled. Or sometimes the other way around (I am not that consistent, besides, to be clear, you should simply say(write) you are both puzzled and astonished).
(And then there is multiple-glyphery…!!?!!*!\1?@)
I’ve been following this tumblr for a little while now – http://rebel-girl92.tumblr.com/ – there are a couple of particularly striking items on the page at the moment.
One is about a racist hiring manager called Andrew Moskowitz, employed at The Cotton Warehouse in Atlanta (more details on the tumblr, including some info about verification that it’s the correct individual, plus contact names and numbers for his supervisors) posting specifically and clearly about how he systematically rejects job applications from anyone with an “African sounding” or “tribal” name.
The other is a long item about a forced-birther demo on a student campus (West Chester University) on the 20th and an inspiring account of the pro-choice counter-demo. TW for the images in the second of these, as there are photos where the forced-birther posters depicting lynchings and abused children are in shot (this is also warned for on the page itself).
This Fire Breathing Dragon is World’s Largest Walking Robot: “This massive fire breathing dragon stands about 30 feet tall, 51 feet long and has a wingspan of about 40 feet. Oh, and yes.. once again.. IT BREATHS FIRE.”
*sigh*. why do so many people need convincing that mental illness is NOT THE FAULT OF THE PERSON HAVING IT, that depression is an actual thing, and not just me being angsty about feeling horrible due to lack of exercise/”internet addiction”, and will not be solved with Bootstraps, and that no, your shitty idealised thinking that personal responsibility is 100% responsible for people’s success in life and that those icky poor people should just GETAJAHB (and that those trans* freaks should just go away) are all horrible concepts. ugh.
I’m too incoherent to write today–existential insomnia. obviously not helped by this.
Sometimes I honestly wish there were background bigotry checks prior to allowing parenting. but that would be so prone to abuse any way.
and this is all because I’m having time moving too fast anxiety, and so I just can’t let a day end without agonising over it, and if parents are such light sleepers as to be woken up when I need water or something, they could always close the bedroom door. *sigh*.
Nevermind the fact that literally every force from those around me is trying to shove me into being a man in some sort of wealthy, prestigious field… and that is not me at all, nor who I want to be. I’m too tired to fight fate. why. (and second-guessing that I’m the lazy ass they always portrayed me as for the crime of not being NT.)
Religious leaders explain the floods in Colorado:
Right Wing Watch link.
Cicely:
Yes. Sweet ones, too. They live not far from us. :D
Bwahahahahahahaha!
Did that go something like this:
I am beamused
From blf:
Well, yes, I’m sure that the Higgs – now that it is proved to exist – is present in those ball bearings.
moreover, in comparison with how I would feel if I was suddenly massless, I think my mood is much better. I don’t like being smushed into the corner between the ceiling and the west wall of whatever room I am in.
Oh dear
German conservatives might have won the absolute majority.
Kind of makes me wish that the racist “I want the German Mark back because I understand shit about economics” crybabies from the “Alternative for Germany”* would make it to parliament because it would force the conservatives into a coalition with what passes for Labour these days.
*Their propaganda included a lot of complaining but actually not a single alternative idea apart from the currency nonsense.
Monitor note:
There appears to be a REALLY annoying flash ad in the rotation, one that’s also broken. See here.
@Giliell #586
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Well… at least the (rich, white, male)
libertariansliberals *cough* seem to have lost their seats.Giliell #586
An absolute majority?
well, bugger
At the moment they’re below absolute majority.
Let’s hope it stays that way.
klatu
It is. My compatriotes are around 55% assholes (conservatives plus libertarials* and teaparty)
*Seeing their faces was kind of a treat.
Guh, it’s happening everywhere, isn’t it? Canada a couple of years ago (bleah), Australia recently, the UKIP is picking up in the UK and might even win seats (vomit), the bloody Golden Dawn in Greece are a third party now, and are rounding up immigrants when they can’t be bothered to just kill them.
Now Germany too? I think soon NZ is going to be the only country left without a horrific right wing taking up all their political time. :(
My sympathies, Giliell.
Wow. How did my 584 end up here? that was for Ed’s blog…
Links Time:
Is Google Wrecking Our Memory?
–
From Informed Comment: I lived to See the Day when the Pope and the President of Iran are more doctrinally Flexible than the GOP
–
If you can watch this without getting all leaky-eyed, you’re tougher than I am: TrueMove H : Giving
It’s in (apparently; I cannot vouch for this, personally) Thai, but with sub-titles where it counts.
Hat-tip to Making Light
–
Wasn’t someone talking about laundry detergent allergies a few weeks ago? We use Tide detergent. We sometimes use Downy dryer sheets, and I have a container of Downy spray-on fabric softener for use on finished clothes. AND YET, spouse bought a big container of Tide+Downey liquid stuff just to try it out, which should just be the same stuff we use except in a combined form, and I just did laundry, and just pouring it out and being next to it gave me an asthma attack. Not a huge one, just one of those “if I breathe deeper than normal I start to cough” things. Bugger. At least I don’t have to do laundry for awhile until it’s used up.
I put my laundry on a wash-line and have God dry it.
Works well.
—
Once, I was hanging the wash outside and a passing workman commented that he liked to see women doing that stuff in the old-fashioned way.
I responded that God dries my laundry for free and workman *ahemed* and carried on with his digging of mysterious holes in the alley.
Words of wisdom from Tumblr:
Fuck, I’m exhausted.
We came down to Missouri to visit my brother, sister and her two youngest kids. Then we had a massive family road trip over to Mansfield to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum on the old Wilder homestead there. I still had some childhood nostalgia for the books left over though I’d been too uncomfortable by the casual racism to be able to re-read them for years. I think my nostalgia is finally obliterated. I could choke down my bile regarding a woman who was born in 1867, but the unapologetic glorification in the museum of taking Indian Country just left me so depressed. Then there were the weird conspiracy theories and the proto-Tea Partier stuff and just urgh. There is a very special feeling from being surrounded by a bunch of white people in pioneer cosplay fantasizing about fighting Indians for land.
The kids were beside themselves with excitement to see Branson because their friends had told them about how awesome it was, so we spent the night there. I was aggressively cheerful because I didn’t want massive amounts of other people’s money to be wasted and not have some fun to show for it.
Now we’re all back to my sister’s house at long last. We have a twelve hour drive home tomorrow. I need to sleep for a week to recover from this. At the very least I’ll be happy to be back in my solitary little bubble where I can pretend everything I hate doesn’t exist.
I don’t know. I’ve started to hate sleeping now. and having a body. The great question being whether it’s this body, male bodies, or all bodies I hate.
It’s all terrifying.
Cool beans!
No, hot beans!
–
*hugs* for thunk.
I suspect that some people are extra-weirded by non-physical problems specifically because they don’t show. They could be anywhere. Even in their own brains. And they might not even know it.
–
thunk #598
I really hope that this feeling is something you will
grow out ofbe able to get past.Do something with your body.
Go for a walk, bounce a ball, close the door and window and dance.
Your body is you, your body can be your friend.
Thunk
*hugs* and best wishes. I hope things improve for you soon.
thunk, ugh. I’m so sorry. You have my sympathy. You’re the only one who can figure out what that means, unfortunately, so I have no easy answers for you. I hope you soon feel better in some capacity and I hope everything that’s terrifying becomes less so.
Do you have anyone trusted that you could talk to about what you’re feeling? Someone knowledgeable about different forms of dysphoria, ideally? Hell, at the very least someone knowledgeable enough to be able to listen without making you feel worse. :/
A spot of humor for the depressed.
Yeah, I was saying over at fullmetal that it’s weird to come across people who experience depression in the same way I do, because it isolates me so much that it’s hard to conceive that other people are like me in the same pathetic, self-deprecating ways, or that they get the same well-meaning but utterly inutile advice about how things always get better (methink: for you, maybe, that’s not the chart of my life, one more way I’m not like human beings), or that hope conquers all (methink: nice for human beings, with all those emotions other than rage, and even that one’s a long reach), or just to get up and go for a walk (methink: if i could do that easily, then i would by definition be quite a bit less depressed).
Which is not to say anyone here has ever done any of that, just that it’s (ahem) depressingly common.
CaitieCat: Oh, I know experiences may vary. For instance, I can and often do think about suicide without being even mildly sad. I am not currently sad, and I have a lot of activities I enjoy thoroughly. I also get regular exercise, and while I do have resting bitch face, I laugh often.
And yet, according to testing, I am thoroughly depressed–partially because they ask about my relationships with people in general (for the most part, I don’t know about them homo sapiens. Weird apes, the lot of ’em).
mouthyb:
Thanks. Some of those comics were funny (in a sad way). Some are just, honest?
I know I’m depressed but I do a damn good job of faking not being depressed. I think.
Number 18 has it right.
But the weird thing is, I do have a little hope. I just keep hoping that as I remember more and more of what I did I’ll finally hit the end and realize it can’t get any worse. And then it does.
Ogvorbis: I’m thinking that dealing with what you (and to some degree, I) had to deal with is something that is anomalous from regular depression. Unfortunately, it seems to come in waves of crap (and crap and crap and crap).
I’m glad some of the cartoons amused you. I’ve always really liked gallows humor because when you’re deep in it–sometimes there’s so much of crap that it becomes absurd, you know? The kind of humor that’s only funny when it’s excessive enough to be ridiculous.
mouthyb:
I think you may be right. It is different. Partly because (and I’m pulling this out of me arse (so take it with 65mg of NaCl)) we actually have a clue as to WHY we are depressed.
TRIGGER WARNING — SUICIDE
I attempted suicide (obviously I failed at that, too) about 15 or so years ago. I was hospitalized for depression. I spent about a year on a wonderful (for me (not trying to sell anything)) mind-altering drug that gave me the room to find myself. Talking with my psychiatrist, we figured that I was depressed because I had never completed the grieving process after my sister was killed in a car accident. I remembered, vaguely, that I hated being a cub scout because one of the scout leaders was a perv (that is the way I would have phrased it) but I never actually said anything about it to my shrink.
When I first wrote about being abused, the first time I had admitted it to myself, and the memories began to come (in waves of crap (I like that (thanks))), for the first time I was able to put my finger on why I went through depressive episodes. Seeing something that triggered me, or something that brought up another memory, preceded being depressed (usually (not always)). So even though I hurt, even though I keep going up and down from ‘normal’ to feeling like shit and back to normal and up and down, I actually have a clue as to why I feel this way. Doesn’t help the depression but at least I know why. Or at least a little of why.
The gallows humour helps, definitely. Right now, though, not all of it is funny. Some of it just feels right, honest, real.
Does any of that shit make sense?
Ogvorbis: Makes sense to me. My problem was never that I didn’t know the reason (Lord, have I got reasons!), my problem was always grappling with the reasons and their ramifications on my current behavior. The part where I do get to ‘feel’ depressed has to do with how much my current actions are proscribed by my experiences. To give you an example…
DEPRESSING SHIT TO FOLLOW, TW***************************************
I have trouble remembering to celebrate birthdays, especially my own. On the plus side, I tend to buy gifts for the week around a birthday because it’s on me that I spaced the exact day of the birthday. I just tell people I’m celebrating them for the whole week–they seem to like it.
My therapist is interested in this, of course. I do it because my family made a practice of humiliating me for my birthday–they made me wear a toilet seat on my head all day for one and made me go run errands so that I was out in public for hours, wearing the toilet seat; at another we went out to dinner and when I mentioned that the waiter was cute, my father offered to bribe him to kiss me, since there’s no way he’d volunteer; my parents forgot my birthday or refused to acknowledge it for others; they also took a lot of pleasure in singing songs about how much I sucked for my birthday, or making fun of me all day in front of whomever was there for being stupid, or awkward, or ugly, or just useless.
It annoys the piss out of me that these things happened years ago, and yet they effect how I store memory about birthdays now. I still don’t ‘get’ why people want to celebrate their birthdays, but I’m willing to try and do it (and forget exactly when, but make up for it a little.) I get incredibly anxious whenever someone wants to celebrate mine, and I feel like I have to bribe people to show up (still), but I’ll let them do it because I know I have a problem and it seems to make people happy to go through the whole rigmarole.
DEPRESSING SHIT ENDS HERE**************************************************
I’m really lucky in that finding examples of that behavior typically pisses me off, and I’m one of those people for whom anger is jet fuel. Get me angry, watch me become incredibly productive.
It may not work for you, but when I’m feeling super shitty, sometimes I play video games or read (the most trite shite ever) when I can feel my mood moving down at speed. I do spend a lot of time analyzing and grappling with behavior, but sometimes I just need the escape.
I also seem to really appreciate humor about shitty people. I do have to turn off the part of me that analyzes for social equity, but dark humor tends to cheer me up. Or terrible, TERRIBLE B movies, as long as I let myself talk shit to the screen.
Hugs, mega hugs to you, mouthyb.
When I feel down, I I read different things. When I feel up, I read medieval history, modern military history, and palaeontology. When I feel down, I read fiction — Pratchett, Dickson, Niven, Herbert, Rowling. Right not, I am reading through the Discworld series. I just started Lords and Ladies.
Many safe hugs to you. You are good people.
Heading upstairs to read and crack pumpkin seeds. G’night.
*hugs* for mouthyb. I’m sorry you went through all of that; your family sounds…charming (*spoken through gritted teeth and a tight, exaggerated grin*).
–
A new Discworld book, Raising Steam, is due out in early November.
:) :) :) :) :)
–
Ogvorbis: Prachett is really good company when one wants a good read, isn’t he?
cicely: The joke my sibling and I used have when we were much younger is that our parents should have been raising assassins or contract killers. We’ve gotten better over time, but the parents tried really hard to raise two psychopaths. They was about this close to getting them, too.
The real joke has been that even my parents have mellowed as they’ve aged. They’re now housing homeless families and doing other charitable acts. I’d say they were trying to get into heaven, but since that’s a figment of imagination, maybe they feel guilty and wish to reform.
*Hugs* for Oggie and mouthyb. Your family sound like total assholes.
cicely #612
*joins happy happy happy dance*
…out of morbid curiosity, did you ever get an explanation?
See
this is why it’s important to refer to ‘nym and number
Azkyroth: ?
on another note
it’s fucking cold in here
I’m turning on the furnace.
(hey, it went Autumn today)
(all you South Hemispherians can shaddap)
(with hugs)
I think that Azkyroth is asking of mouthyb whether there was ever an explanation from the parentals of the humiliating abuse they dealt out to mouthyb and sibling?
If so, I also am curious, in a “What the fuckin’ hell did they think they were doing?!?!?!?” kinda way.
I mean, did they fall hard for the whole “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” line of bullshit, and were they trying to raise superheroes, or something?
–
TRIGGER WARNING. NO, REALLY.
Depends on the day of the week. Some days it was about their religious and moral duties toward me, some days it was because of some personality faucet–in particular, I’m stubborn as hell and if I don’t understand something, I tend not to do it. On occasion, it was because they found me to be a freak/monster/thing (in particular, my obtuseness to social convention and habit of being honest and blunt often precipitated long prayer sessions in which Jesus was berated for giving my mother that thing she gave birth to, followed by a beating).
Ever so often it was because it made them horny. That was the most…. embarrassing…. for me. They were loud and the neighbors, when I went outside to try to escape things after being hit, often complained to me that people have families and shouldn’t have to hear that kind of thing.
So, you know, a grab bag of evil.
Fuck. *hugs* and here I was feeling a little bad about having to second-guess making the LFC write sentences of “I will not take off my jacket in a museum without tying it around my waist or handing it to an adult.” >.>
In other news, I made what promises to be an exciting dish – applying the “lasagna” concept to enmoladas. I made layers of a mixture of queso fresco and cottage cheese, mole-ish sauce, corn tortillas, and queso cotija, and topped the dish with another layer of mole sauce and cotija and oaxaca cheeses. I suspect I should have used rather more tortillas…
….I hope that wasn’t cultural appropriation. >.>
Azkyroth: Eh. It’s not a contest. Sometimes you end up in shit-tastic circumstances without any particular effort on your part.
I originally shared because I’m hoping Ogvorbis doesn’t feel so alone. I hope I didn’t make you feel weird.
H.P. Lovecraft explains why cats are the best
And he’s right.
mouthyb:
Fuck.
Hearing how badly you were treated on your birthday makes me angry. No one ever deserves such humiliation, birthday or not. But doing so on that day is worse, since culturally birthdays are celebratory days.
If such has been your wish, I hope you have experienced pleasurable birthdays in the intervening years.
****
thunk:
So sorry for what you are going through. I wish I could be of some assistance.
****
Mellow Monkey:
From the sound of things, your time with the family was not enjoyable. Sorry.
****
I feel helpless to help E.
He is one of my closest friends, though we rarely see one another much. We both work long shifts and until recently he was staying with his BF. Until BF moved to South Florida. Last we talked, they were still together, but with no idea when they will see each other next, there is such sadness coming from E.
Then to make things worse, he texted me over the weekend saying that his truck is almost certainly going to be repo’d by the upcoming weekend if he does not come up with $501…which he likely cannot. And of course I have nowhere enough to help him.
Fuck.
Ogvorbis:
Ha ha!
Your comment about going off to read and crack pumpkin seeds made me LOL.
I read that as “I am going upstairs to read pumpkin seeds, then crack them.”. I have heard of reading palms or buttocks, but not pumpkin seeds. Then my brain kicked back in and saw my error. Amusing nonetheless.
***
In unrelated news, I am listening to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, a song I have not heard in years.
Tony: I’m almost sure my mother would have been happier collecting figurines or something. I’ve had much better birthdays since I’ve left them (just before my 16th birthday.) Fear not.
Good morning
thunk
Safe hugs.
mouthyb
Wow, my parents are assholes, but they play in kindergarten league compared to yours.
Feel free not to answer, because this is inquisitive, but, did they ever acknowledge the pain and the damage they caused?
For me that’s the thing I would like to see from mine. Given that they’re not done yet being assholes, I don’t have much hope.
+++
Since we’re talking about them: some parents suck
On Saturday #1’s primary school had their schoolfair (more about that later) and since the kids had to be there, they got the day off today. Now, #1 is enrolled in the school daycare. This means that usually when school finishes at 12:30 she gets lunch, then they do homework and then there’s fun and playing. The daycare also partly covers holidays and days off, because people don’t have that much holiday. So today they’re making a trip to the zoo.
Not all kids are enrolled in the daycare, only about 60 out of 150. When I brought #1 there another man came and brought a boy he’d picked up. The poor kids isn’t in the daycare and even though he’s at least 2nd or 3rd grade he doesn’t know where he lives. So the man couldn’t take him home and this was the only place he felt safe to drop the boy off.
I hope the people from the daycare could call his parents and I hope they told them a thing or two.
Ahhh, and the schoolfair. The kids had a circus project all week and prepared a real show in a real circus tent. And apparently the principal is a godbotherer, because she invited the catholic priest to open the show and bless it. He reminded us that all of this is a gift from god. As far as I remember that project and show were the result of people wrking hard for a whole week, parents volunteering, assisting circus people and teachers, putting up the tent, baking cakes, etc…
+++
Another thing: Any good ideas how to explain to kids that American Indians are not fairytale people but real folks and everything.* I can’t cut out fucking mainstream culture that still treats them like a sheet of paper for white people to write their stories on. But although I won’t allow the little one to dress up as “Indian” for carnival I’d like her to understand instead of just putting down my foot.
*So far we’ve done maps, pictures and music on youtube (thanks, Caine) and explenations.
Holy fucking shit, mouthyb. I think you are awesome and amazing for being a good human being despite all their best efforts.
Thunk, I’m sorry things are so godsdamn tough :-( I hope you don’t mind I put some hugs in the USB for you.
I’m worried about Spawn#2. He’s very vulnerable and depressed due to the whole non-neurotypical-and-therfore-no-friends thing. He’s good at music, which helps a bit, but he doesn’t think he’s that good (the reality is, he’s one of many kids who are good (I mean, as in maybe a numerical minority of all kids but still a large number in absolute terms. As for any human activity)). Part of the problem is he’s only comparing himself to other kids who are brilliant, instead of recognising that he’s good and that it’s fine to be one of the many who are good. If a music event doesn’t go well it really trashes him because that’s his only thing. Last night’s jam session wasn’t all that good (usually they’re better than that) and he suggested it to a couple of other kids at school and they made excuses not to go. His dad and I are racking our brains trying to think of things we can do … :-((((((((
Hello, Lounge!
I have *hugs* and *[other gestures]* for this crowd! LOTIK for everyone!
(I wish I had some constructive advice for you, opposablethumbs, but all I can offer is *extra hugs*. :( I hope Spawn #2 learns to recognize his own talent on its own merits! (I know, much easier said than done…))
Also I have buckets of walnuts, if anyone here has any constructive idea about what to do with buckets of walnuts (black market?).
I need some advice, though, or maybe just moral support, seeing as how ChoirCreep has upgraded himself to General Sexual Harasser* and ChoirTroll**. Also total asshole, but I guess that comes with the package.
So, any idea on how to deal with this kind of person in person?? At the moment I have been battling his internet comments on the choir forum (for which courage and ability I am forever indebted to the Lounge and Pharyngula in general), and it’s funny how he has nothing to say when direct questions are being asked… But eventually I’m going to end up saying something rash and emotional publicly. Help?
* I’m all for nudity, if everyone has agreed to it, but when you insist on parading yourself around ‘in search of your clothing’ in the same room where everyone else is eating and where most people expressed a wish to not go unclothed, sorry, you’re being a dangerous asshole. Oh, and then propositioning the same
girlwoman for a half hour running, also not cool…** “This choir sucks and has crappy plans for the non-existent future and you all should really take my advice, but I don’t feel like telling you my advice right now because sometimes it’s better to keep my mouth shut, and you’re all suffering from a horrible case of Latvian Mentality, because you can’t accept that my opinion is totally constructive criticism so you’re all being too emotionally defensive about it and yet I have managed to say nothing at all with lots and lots of words.” [/ChoirTroll condensed version]
For some reason newspapers think this is news: Romney announces that adopted black grandson has Gaelic name meaning ‘black’ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/22/romney-announces-that-adopted-black-grandson-has-gaelic-name-meaning-black/
This is the second time in a few months he has had a 22nd grandchild. Wake me up when he gets a grandchild named “Conan”. Or a kid nam.ed “666”
— — — — — — — —
rq, shit, isn’t this “call the cops” territory? Wanker walking around without clothes in a public area is generally not approved of.
— — — — — — — —
Norwegians give Scandi mountains a new name http://www.thelocal.no/20130916/norwegians-give-scandi-mountains-a-new-name
Unilaterally re-naming a two-country mountain chain? I hereby rename it “Ered Lithui”!
(or possibly “Bara Några Berg”)
birgerjohansson
It was a private/collective-choir party in a closed, remote location, so it’s just everyone-is-very-uncomfortable territory. This is where I don’t know what to do, because he’s crossing serious lines, and getting offended that nobody takes him seriously, and at the same time I’m pretty sure law enforcement wouldn’t care too much about his behaviour (because he’s not hurting anybody, he’s just 1) drinking 2) trying to have a good time 3) expressing himself)… *sigh*
rq, can you get across to him that he could look forward to not getting invited to many parties (on account of making people uncomfortable) ? Or is he completely “Dubya”* about it?
*like oblivious, only more so.
Hell Now A Thriving Epicenter Of Gay Culture http://www.theonion.com/articles/hell-now-a-thriving-epicenter-of-gay-culture,33928/
Looks outside at the town of Wilkes-Barre, otherwise known as hell. Hmmm. Must be some other hell.
Ogvorbis,
This is just a random and non-specific hug. I feel I owe you several just for being you but we’re rarely in the same space at the same time.
mouthyb @ 623 (hey, it rhymes!):
One of the things that tears me apart is how unalone I am. The depression and abuse that my friends here on Pharyngula have suffered scares me, gives me good reason to despair for humanity. You are such wonderful people and many of you have suffered so much but are still wonderful people. Which does make me feel a little alone because I feel like I don’t fit in. So many of you are survivors of what others have done to you and you have my absolutely useless support and hugs.
birgerjohansson
I think he’s slowly getting the message. :/
*hugs for opposablethumbs* Parenting is hard. And I don’t have any advice to offer. But the fact that you love him and are there for him shows that you’re doing it right.
My Fox-watching dad said to me, Saturday, “well, they’ve admitted that global warming stopped fifteen years ago.”
I just kind of shrugged it off.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/15/1014151/ten-charts-that-make-clear-the-planet-just-keeps-warming/
So he’s regurgitating a year-old Daily Fail piece by a discredited denier whose claims were based on a misleading chart that the authors of the original chart immediately pointed out was totally wrong.
I don’t even have the energy to point this stuff out to him anymore.
opposablethumbs
*hugs*
Is he currently getting any help for his non neutotypicalness?
Maybe an outsider, a counsellor or therapist might help him better than you, because they’re quite suspicious of their parents at that age on accounts of us being biased…
Or would the suggestion freak him out?
rq
Urgh, that’s kick him out territory
Thank you for the hugs, rq and Walton. Sometimes just being able to say something about what frightens/upsets us and getting some hugs really helps. Really, thank you!
I just can’t help wishing, foolishly, there was some way I could “make” some other teenagers see that he’s a pretty sweet-natured, generous sort of person even if he’s socially clumsy and talks a bit oddly :-\ Of course, I know it doesn’t work like that! He puts a brave front on it (it’s wrong that he should have to, but it’s probably true that letting it show how much this gets to him would likely make things worse) but that’s probably hard work in itself. It’s so frustrating not being able to do more to help.
Eh, I’m off out. Read you all later. So glad that there is a Horde! {{hugs Horde}}
Wilkes-Barre in Wikipedia: looks like Gotham City, but with smaller buildings.
“Political corruption in Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County became a major regional news story following nationwide publication of stories about the Kids for Cash scandal, a kickback scheme involving two local judges……
….More recently a series of scandals in the end of 2012 through the beginning of 2013 involving the city’s towing firm and his connections to the Mayor of the city and the chief of police has further caused more concern over a growing feeling of wide spread corruption within the city’s government. The recent arrest of the city’s towing firm LAG Towing has increased these fears”
“Teaching a computer to perceive the world without human input” http://phys.org/news/2013-09-world-human.html
-Like, reading the lips of astronauts?
Rq:
ChoirCreep must go. ASAP.
On a more positive note: pooooooouncehug!
ALERT: site is trying to force a download of a file to my system. Someone check for malware
Thanks, Ingdigo Jump.
Getting the same thing. My browser vomits pop-ups telling me to download some sort of twitter widget.
Hey Giliell! I just missed seeing your comment before switching off earlier.
He has a Statement of SEN (“Special Educational Needs”) which makes it all “official” (O.O ) and entitles him to a modest amount of support in school. Trouble is, that kind of support is mainly geared towards helping with academic issues – and his difficulties now are more social/organisational.
He will be seeing the school counsellor at some point soon, apparently, and I’m hoping that might conceivably be of some help – the last school counsellor was rubbish, unfortunately, but this is a new person. I did half-jokingly (but not at all jokingly, really) remind him last night that it’s perfectly fine to talk to a school counsellor about how your parents are a pain in the arse – I feel he could probably do with someone to vent to about things, including about us!
He’s not freaked out by it – he’s incredibly reasonable sometimes – but I suspect he’s worked so hard on the whole putting-on-a-brave-front thing that he would actually find it very difficult to let it down a moment and actually mention the things that are worrying him :-(
I noticed earlier that things are hopefully looking promising on the #1 at school front? How is she getting on?
Can someone explain to me the appeal of the “irregularly-sized randomly-colored tiles” web design? It is hideous, painful on the eye, and impossible to navigate.
Since Skepchick rolled that design out, the only time I’ve visited the site is when following a link to a particular post – and I used to keep it open in a tab. That is how badly I can’t hack that design.
And now Slate‘s done that! Ugh. Guess I’ll have to start getting my news-analysis elsewhere.
rq
*pouncehugs* Sorry to hear about Choircreep, hopefully you can get rid of him soon.
nich 648
I get the same problem when I come here on my phone. On my desktop, I use adblock plus for exactly that reason. When advertisers learn to put silent, static, monochrome ads in the margins of the page only, then I’ll think about turning it off or whitelisting some pages.
Giliell: I recently got a non-specific “we messed up,” which is miles better than the previous years’ “you made us do it.”
It really doesn’t matter–there’s no repairing the relationship. It is what it is.
Ogvorbis: Don’t make me shake my finger in your face because I’ll do it. I’m bad at this whole empathy thing–absolutely terrible–and I’m telling you that you fit in. Bad shit happened to you, too. Ain’t no contest, and the entry fee (such as it is; the experience of people being shitty) is more than paid in your instance.
Monitor Note:
@Ingdigo Jump, 646:
Alert sent.
Following up on my post @525, Paul Krugman has weighed in with an excellent, (and short), essay on why SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps) is an effective program, and on why the Republicans do not have a case when they target SNAP for $40 billion in cuts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?ref=paulkrugman
Mormon Moments of Madness, cosmology category (excerpted from ex-mormon “Anagrammy’s” list.)
Maybe mormons should submit a few papers to the Journal of Cosmology.
And today at BigDumbieCo with its posse of System Admins trained at Hades Cheap and Sadistic Back Alley shop (all the diplomas you want for $25.95)…
When the story last ended, a new person had entered the picture and was, supposedly, trying to figure out why I could login but nonetheless got an error.
There was no e-mail nor a response to the Ticket this morning. This is sort-of understandable due to the weekend and timezone differences. Nonetheless, a bit frustrating.
In looking at the URL which was almost, but not quite, working, I had an idea. A small tweak to the URL and… BINGO! I could login, set various details, and most importantly, see what I wanted to see (which confirmed the first engineer’s warning that it wasn’t too useful).
What is annoying here is I asked, several times in different media (e-mail, problem Ticket, …) for the URL to be confirmed. Admittedly, one engineer did “confirm”, but appears to have been mistaken — very possibly didn’t notice the relatively small difference between the URL I was asking about (which was obtaining by searching BigDumbieCo’s intranet and then modified slightly (another guess on my part)) and the one which actually works.
So I added a slightly snarky entry in the Ticket pointing out what the problem was, and that I had asked if the (wrong) URL was correct, and pointed out that I had specifically listed that question as one requiring a response, but had never gotten a response to that (or any of the other questions I had asked and so-listed) via the problem-reporting system (the BigDumbieCo blah blah).
(Grumble grumble grumble…)
Threadrupt venting ahead…
I know, I know, past transgressions, inability of any group to regulate itself, possibility of harm even when no harm intended, etc, etc…but some days the IRB feels as useful as an asbestos respirator.
If anyone has been paying attention to Twitter (or Skepchick) today one might have noticed the FAQ-up made by the organiser(s) of Consensus, the UK group The Entangled Bank’s upcoming event.
Why misogynists? Why do you have to make it so easy to mock you?
louis
Just got “The Origin of Species.” Spoilers anyone?
Only scrolled through the first 60 comments on this page. More later.
On the causes of autism.
That might especially be good because it’s gotta be difficult for me to organize going to Rhinebeck in less than a month… :-]
However: It turns out I’ll probably need to show up in Pittsburgh again, even if not for a full week like last time; and it’d probably also be a good idea to visit collections in Norman, Oklahoma, assuming there’s a way to even get there without having a car, and in *drumroll* Austin, Texas! On the other hand, it’s possible that the collection in NYC is still inaccessible – rumor has it that Sandy sprayed asbestos all over it; I’ll have to ask. In that case I’d stay there for shorter than currently… imagined.
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
(Interesting to see how evolve, literally “unwrap”, was a transitive verb in 1859: somebody evolves something – today it’s intransitive: something evolves all on its own.)
DM @ 662: blowin my mind man :P
I wonder if it became intransitive because of Darwin.
Well, probably. :-)
From way above:
And they’re all catarrhines!!! :-D
*flees on horseback*
Be careful, David! Maybe that was Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst’s horse!
Lynna@655 and 525,
The Rethuglicans do not oppose SNAP because it is ineffective, but rather because it is effective. Their goal is to gut every effective government program so the people hate their government even more than they do now. In their view, effective government programs merely cause people to be dependent on government. And this is a bad thing.
Why, you ask? Er,… uh, Because…. Because… LIBERTY! Yeah! Liberty! That’s why.
And now for something completely different…
I love this poem. It wafts over me like a soft breeze over marsh grass.
Note: a wimbrel, a limpkin, a snipe and a sandpiper are all shore birds. I think doing poetry Mondays would be an excellent idea.
Whimbrel by Sidney Wade
Kin to
the Limpkin,
she whimpers
when primping,
wears rimless
eyeglasses
for skimming
her primer
on swimming.
She splashes
through grasses
amassing
her ration
of shrimp,
and stands,
a fat ampersand,
on the sandpaper
strand
making eyes
at a snipe,
fanning
the passions
of the sandpiper
nations.
Published in Nation Magazine, June 2011
Anyone have any suggestions for specific products for bonding HDPE? It doesn’t have to be strong (shear stress in the joint will be carried by a dowel pin; we just want to make the connection watertight to 45 psi or so) and simplicity is desirable.
Azkyroth, I think a quick trip to the plumbing section of your favorite hardware store will suffice.
Look for the cements for plastic pipe. Check the labels for HDPE compatibility. I could be wrong (not standing in said section right now) but I think you’ll find what you need.
Failing that, or to prepare for doing exactly that, log onto Ask This Old House. Them guys’ll set you straight. ;^>
Linky
mouthyb @ 663:
Sorry.
Not sure how to put this. I am really good at empathy but I have a hard time viewing myself in the same way. Is there a word out there for having empathy for one’s self? Or failing to have empathy for one’s self?
I know. But I still (and here comes a big surprise) have trouble getting over what I did, not necessarily what was done to me.
Sorry. i really am not trying to engage in some sort of abuse olympics. Didn’t mean it to come out that way.
Aha! A search yields the following:
*EPIC THWAP*
Damnit, Ogvorbis, stop apologizing. And don’t you dare apologize for it. You have every right to grab a glass of empathy and fucking throw it back for what you’ve been through without becoming the kind of person who abused you. No matter how you think you’ve fucked up since you know damn well it never reached the core like that. Do you think that bastard ever felt guilty? Do you think he ever thought back to how he’d bent under fuck knows how many emotional PSI of stress and recoiled? Come on!
If it helps any to think of how much I cringe when YOU, for fuck’s sake, start this sackcloth-and-ashes routine, and look at me bitter over the empathy ration I do get, then for fuck’s sake take some perspective from it. Otherwise, disregard.
Oooh, product names. PROGRESS :D
(Seriously, who the fuck serves Imperial Stout in pints? At least Hot City Pizza By Garolbi is staggering distance to campus x.x)
a_ray_in_dilbert_space @667:
May be true, but Rethuglicans do not say that out loud. I head Republicans highlighting abuse of the SNAP program — all those able bodied people lying around in hammocks collecting their $4.50 per day for food. (Stats are more like 1% abuse in this system.) So, in that regard, they do think it is ineffective because it is not feeding people who need help, they think it is feeding parasites.
I also heard multiple Republican politicians pointing out the rapid growth in the number of SNAP recipients, that being a single hook on which they can hang their “bloated government” coat.
Recently, all of the Republican politicians from the state of Colorado requested emergency federal disaster relief (reaction to the floods in Boulder); those same politicians voted against federal disaster relief for the East Coast after Hurricane Sandy. (80% of Senate Republicans opposed post-Sandy relief, 78% of House Republicans voted against emergency assistance.)
So, to your analysis that Republicans want to decimate the federal government, I would add that Republicans have no empathy. They are empathy deficient. If the flood doesn’t affect their state, well then no fucking federal funds, by gawd. Liberty to starve, liberty to freeze, liberty to drown, liberty to die.
Republicans are using the same decimate-then-dismiss tactic for public education. But they also do not admit that out loud.
Most of the run-of-the-mill Republicans in my neighborhood seriously believe that programs like SNAP only create a class of underachieving layabouts. This includes a fairly large contingent of mormon families that take advantage of SNAP, their use of government programs being special and okay because god approves large mormon families. God also approves when fundamentalist mormons “bleed the beast,” (draw resources from the big bad evil anti-christ government).
Ogvorbis, I knew what empathy was before I knew the word. The affliction seems to have always been present. As well, I had the child’s notion that my ability to identify with the feelings of another was somehow related to being able to understand my own feelings. To this day, though, I am not sure how that works but I cannot escape the notion that empathy might work in reverse, revealing to the one insights similar to the one’s insights into another.
As is my habit of late I plugged empathy into Answers.com. Here is what I found.
Something stood out in the section on empathy’s etymology:
My emphasis.
Perhaps this will stimulate your thinking or inform your reflection on how one can manage one’s own state of mind. While I have no ready answer for your question,
my empathy meter is nearly pegged when I think of you. I have in the past held myself in ill regard for things that were shameful. Somehow I was able to learn to see them in a context much larger than myself. My realization was like this: As I had the ability to understand the evil that is in others and to forgive them its influence, so also I must have the ability to apply that understanding to myself. I think I was able to do so because I saw what would happen if I could not. That picture frightened me more than discovering that I could do hurtful and cruel things. The same picture gave me license to forgive myself as I forgave others. Indeed, I have been my own savior.
I hope deeply that you can come to terms with what you must come to terms with and be able to stride into your future with confidence and purpose.
Keep on keepin’ on, brother.
From Not Always Right, an example of a racist douchecanoe getting smacked down.
(For those who don’t want to click, someone says, “I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England,” in response to a “this is America, speak English” exhortation.)
:D :D
[TW: sexual abuse of detainees]
A follow-up to my post on the abuse of immigration detainees at Yarl’s Wood. It seems that new evidence has come to light corroborating the allegations of sexual abuse – three more women have come forward to confirm them.
If you haven’t already, please sign the petition calling for a full public inquiry into the abuse of immigration detainees. Yarl’s Wood should be closed down.
Walton @678, quite right. Yarl’s Wood is a cesspool. It should be shut down.
Esteleth, that’s what you call a perfect squelch*.
Magnificent!
*v., squelched, squelch·ing, squelch·es.
v.tr.
To crush by or as if by trampling; squash.
To put down or silence, as with a crushing retort: squelch a rumor.
To suppress or inhibit: a protein that squelches gene transcription.
*if only there was enforceable required reading for bigots*
Moments of Mormon Madness that contributed to Dick Cheney’s torture policy:
Whoops. Forgot the link for quoted text in #681:
http://archive.sltrib.com/printfriendly.php?id=12256286&itype=ngpsid
Those who know 日本語
cheating on my 宿題
what sound do geese in flight make?
re: my#683
or a generic term for ‘animal sounds’
preferably with 3 morae
This just in from our Positive Developments Gaining Ground desk:
Superdads adopt 14 kids! Adoption case worker says,
@Chigau
Uh, the honking or the wing flaps? (They do both when they fly.) As best I can confirm, the honking of geese is ガーガー. Wing flaps in general are バタバタ. (How a goose flaps its wings might have a more specific sound that isn’t obvious from a basic search, though.) I dunno any 3-morae general words for animal sounds. The closest I can come is the 3-character 鳴き声 (nakigoe).
Also, here’s a cute conversation about goose vs. duck noises with attempts to render honking and quacking more accurately than the standard onomatopoeia.
Thanks, A. Noyd. #686
I’m composing haiku.
I’m looking for something like ‘the voice of the geese’, that conveys how some North Americans feel when they hear that at this time of year but in Japanese.
and
Do you have anything for an elderly cat pursuing the patch of sunlight?
and
re: your link
*sigh*
I have such a long way to go.
Here is further information to go with Lynna’s #675 from Ed Brayton over at Dispatches.
I’ll take behavior suggestive of spoiled children for $200, Alex.
This sort of thing is getting so very tiresome. So much so that I’m going to bed and finish reading current book. If I can keep my eyes open I might start next book.
*hugs, grog, bacon and mounted peas to all — take what you like and pass the rest along* ;^>
@Chigau
Well, even the haiku masters would use filler particles like よ to cheat when they were short on morae for a line. So something like ガチョウの声よ (gachou no koe yo) would work if は, が,に,で,を, etc. don’t fit. In this case, よ isn’t emphasis. It’s literally just there to fill the line.
As for your cat one, that actually arranges pretty easily into a haiku:
1) 老いた猫 / oita neko
2) 日向の溜まり / hinata no tamari
3) 追いかける / oikakeru
1) The aged cat
3) chases after
2) puddles of sunlight
Although, “hinata no tamari” is not a standard idiom, probably because “tamari” refers to “accumulations” which works for liquids and money better than for light. And 老けた猫 (fuketa neko) also works for “aged cat,” but I like the repetition of the “oi” sounds, even if it’s probably kind of gauche having them both at the head of the line.
As for the link, just look for the doubled katakana and then scan back for which bird it refers to.
A. Noyd
ありがとう
I’ll continue to try for something about goose-voices-noises that meets what I’m trying for.
and I intend to present your 猫 one to the class (with proper accreditation) because it is so lovely.
Well, Ogvorbis, do I belong here? I’ve done some shitty stuff over the years.
Will you judge me as you judge yourself? Will you tell me, as you tell yourself, that whatever small good I may have done over the years is cancelled out and I am unworthy?
I don’t think you will. The question is why you think you are a special case. Depression is not a good answer to that question. It is not sufficient.
When I reach this point, the thing that…. wakes me…. is the thought that it is arrogant of me to presume that my case is exceptional. If it is true that others are still willing to accept me, I am willing to be accepted.
I’m grateful to be accepted–if there’s anything life has taught me, it’s that there’s something miraculous in the fact that any one of us is willing to accept another. It is in no way assured that anyone will give a shit.
This is a haiku
Except for the last line which
Has too many syll
Azkyroth #692
your first line has six syllables
(Nelson haha)
Lynna @656:
I feel like I lost a dozen brain cells reading that Mormom cosmology…
****
morgan @668:
Nice poem.
I noticed that when reading poetry I automatically attempt to make words rhyme, even when they do not. I also have a hard time trying to find the correct rhythym for certain poems.
“ai” is one syllable. If it’s pronounced as two in Japan it’s transliterated wrong. >.>
@Chigau
Oh! There is a 3-morae word for noise of the clamorous variety, though it’s not specific to animals or voices: 騒ぎ (sawagi). To my mind, it characterizes the sound flying geese make, but I think they’re incredibly noisy fuckers. It also has a verb form: 騒ぐ (sawagu).
A. Noyd
I think sawagi could work.
—
Azkyroth
‘ai’ is not a syllable in Japanese.
‘ha’ is a syllable and
‘i’ is a syllable.
Technically, “haiku” is 2 syllables (even in Japanese!) and 3 morae. Last quarter, I had to read a paper for my linguistics class on how you can tell Japanese has syllables in addition to morae. Up till then, I had always thought that “syllables” in Japanese correspond to kana, but it turns out that’s a simplification used by language teachers. The linguistic reality is complicated and not terribly relevant to acquiring the language.
That said, traditional poems in Japanese don’t count syllables. The 5/7/5 of a haiku always refers to morae, and “haiku” (the word) is 3 morae long. But with an English haiku, even one containing the word “haiku,” counting syllables would be more appropriate.
A. Noyd
It is also possible that the ‘simplification’ applies to many native speaker/readers of Japanese.
When one learns a language from infancy, technical linguistic nuance is rarely part of the process.
Thanks, mouthyb and Ogvorbis.
—–
“Safer than Tylenol” – but how dangerous is Tylenol?
via BB: http://boingboing.net/2013/09/23/the-dangers-of-tylenol.html
In-depth article on the research and cover-ups of acetaminophen damage going back to the 1960s:
http://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-only-as-directed
— Content warning for mention of suicide —
Morning
So, now today #1 has this intelligence testing thingy.
Grrr, I know too much about them to be entirely happy about it.
…I guess I should be a little less cavalier with Excedrin. >.>
Askyroth @673:
What the hell? When have I ever thrown back an offer of comfort, an expression of empathy, a statement of support? Seriously. I know I am hard on myself and I do get angry when I’m told I’m not a real survivor (so far I am!) or that I’m just imagining my whole history but that’s not empathy. Can you point to an instance of me doing this so I can figure out how I fucked up this time?
Silly me. I thought this a community wherein all of us, ALL OF US, can vent about how we are feeling (plus recipes for peas, aspic, Jell-o, and peas). Sackcloth and ashes? No. Just me expressing who I am.
And bitterness? What the hell?! I can be called a lot of things — verbose, boring, weird, lacking in good humour, well-read, ill-read, but bitter? Again, as I said before, can you point to an instance of bitterness directed towards anyone but me so I can figure out how I fucked up this time?
mouthyb @ 691:
No, and that is exactly the point I was trying to make. My heart breaks when I read what you have gone through. Or Caine. Or Pterryx. Or any of the hundreds here who are survivors. Empathy is being able to put myself in someone else’s shoes, to see things from their perspective. But when it comes to me, it is different for me. I already have the perspective of standing in my own shoes but I have a reall problem understanding how others see me. How others could possibly like me especially knowing what I have done.
I’m not a special case. I just have not figured out how to see myself as others see me. I just see the warts not the beautiful lissamphibian.
Yeah. I have a difficult time remembering that I am no longer in middle school or elementary school, back when, if a group decided to include me, it was part of a setup for me being insulted, or embarrassed, or beaten up. Depression may not excuse that (it doesn’t), but it does explain it a little.
Ogvorbis: Ah, I know that feeling, too. I’m always a little worried when people are nice to me that it’s part of a joke whose punchline I won’t see until something goes *BOOM*. I genuinely can’t tell the difference between manipulative or nice without something going horribly wrong. (I’m also absolutely horrible at reading many facial expressions.)
Hmmmm. I would remind you here that many of the regulars have vouched for you, but I’m not sure it would help. If it makes you feel better, all I see are the warts as well–mine. And then I worry that I’m being overly obsessed with myself.
You aren’t alone.
It’s my habit to shake the finger at this here point in the conversation, were it happening in person. (I also kick people in the shins at this point in the conversation. I don’t think I’ll ever really be older than 12 on the inside and pissed at me is better than sad.) * shakes finger * Silly man. You, too, are cared for. And it’s not out of some misplaced sense of charity–people actually like you and believe you to be a good person based on the only real evidence anyone accepts: their observations of your actions.
…is “throw it back” as an expression for drinking heartily not cone you’re…
Fuck it, I quit.
YAY TEMNOSPONDYLS YAY
Make sure to read the preceding article, too. :-)
…Is it not as widely known as you seem to think? I think so. And switch your spellchecker off, it confuses things even further.
Eagle kills deer. Photos and short news feature, paper.
Argh, do I forget everything today. There’s a petition… the suggested e-mail actually says it best:
Elsewhere on the page: “Can you help build the pressure on Cameroon’s President Biya to go further and help stop the attacks? If at least 100,000 of us sign the petition in the next 72 hours, we will send it directly it to the Presidential Palace.”
*scrolling up*
…That’s not some kind of inherent feature of the Latin alphabet or something. It’s language-specific.
DDMFM @708:
Did I mention my neighbor who recently ranted about LGBT people being gross and how he’s super-thankful that there aren’t any people like that where he’s from?
He’s from Cameroon.
With hug at the end! ^_^
Bookmarked. Impressive.
If you did, I wasn’t present.
The idea that teh ghey is some kind of apparently infectious disease that was introduced to Africa by Whitey isn’t new, alas.
Hi Hordlings!
Here’s some fun news for those looking for a little cheer:
Today is Reading Buddies day and I get to go be a Reading Buddy at the school. Dinner tonight is inspired by Josh the official spokes gay’s recipe blog and is going to be amazing! I also want to report that my husband has the strangest sense of humor. He insisted on buying all the flavors of sugary Halloween cereal, cutting out the front of each box, framing them and hanging them over the bathroom door. Every time he sees them, he laughs. They are supposed to be a cute reference to our love of scary movies. He is a very silly person.
Happy hugs and coffee with Thin Mint creamer to you all!
Ogvorbis, Azkyroth didn’t mean they thought you were throwing back empathy as in rejecting it – see #705 – it was “throw back” as in “throw back a drink”, i.e. draining the glass in one go. The message in #673 was totally intended as a loud and emphatic expression of support for you, possibly tempered by the frustration of seeing you suffering and not being able to prevent it (plus probably other nuances I didn’t get; I think Azkyroth was also suggesting that you are the very last person who deserves to suffer like this, and actually comparing you favourably to themself in this particular context. I may have misunderstood bits; if so I apologise to both of you)
Azkyroth, don’t go. It was a misunderstanding. You might probably be feeling very hurt right now, but I would bet anything that Ogvorbis wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings and was himself hurt and bewildered by what he read as an unexpected and vehement criticism.
Also, Azkyroth is particularly vulnerable to having their utterances misconstrued. And Ogvorbis is particularly pre-stressed towards feeling guilty. I’m really, really hoping you’re not both inadvertently badly hurt by this explosive instance of total cross-purposes.
Please come back both? I am quite certain that was a massive misunderstanding due purely to the use of an idiom that one thought was familiar but which the other didn’t recognise.
thirding that “throw back (a drink)” means tilting one’s head back and chugging it; it’s not the same expression as “throw back (a fish)” meaning throwing away something not worth keeping. I had to go back and re-read Azkyroth’s statement a few times to figure that he intended the former.
Ogvorbis: but that’s also the same for all of us survivors. It’s completely characteristic, almost diagnostic, for a given abused person to say ‘xyz was terrible and unjust, nobody deserves to be treated like that’ and then rationalize or deny away that THEY don’t deserve it either. Or that everyone deserves basic kindness, respect, validation and the friendships of others, but somehow it doesn’t apply to oneself. You’ve seen me doing it; check here. (Your response to me is #254.)
There’s no easy fix to this except practice, practice, practice: repeatedly reminding oneself that you DO have the right to be happy and respected and beloved of clueful friends whenever the brain-demons pop up to claim you don’t. Over and over for years until it gets easier and eventually sticks without much effort. Rather like piano lessons, or getting fluent in a new language, I assume. (I’m nowhere near there yet, which is why I saved the thread above as a reminder.)
So y’know, we’ll keep right on telling you you’re worth it, Oggie. Because you are.
—–
Mostly neat article from Cracked: warning for problematic language, including the odd fat-shaming and ableism remark and invoking icky marriage tropes on page 2.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-true-stories-behind-iconic-pictures-badass-women/
I have to admit, of all the clickbait sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy and so on, Cracked seems weirdly inclined to do the most social-justice-y work, and to have the most writers who consider SJ angles when writing. This is not an outcome I would have predicted while sniggering over my smuggled-to-school dog-eared copies shared among friends when I was 12.
Og, I think the above have it right, and this is a simple miscommunication, rather than an attack, though I completely see how it could feel that way; the idiom serves as a bit of a garden-path sentence, where reading through it the first time can lead you down the wrong path, making the later parts incomprehensible, like in “the horse walked past the barn farted,” where the initial read makes you think one thing, only to encounter a seemingly ungrammatical ending which makes you walk back up the path to try again.
Only it didn’t kick in for you, probably not knowing or being at best unfamiliar with the idiom of “throwing back a drink” (imagine taking a shot of whiskey in one go, for instance), and thus there was no garden path moment where you could re-evaluate.
Azky, I don’t think Og was intentionally misreading, or taking it as an attack, but rather just took the wrong path in a somewhat ambiguous construct.
I hope you can both find a way back, because you both make this place better.
*hugs* offered in every direction, as wanted.
Crap, I wrote this long comment to Og and Azky about garden path sentences and stuff, and now it’s utterly disappeared. :(
I checked my sent mail, in case I stupidly replied to the e-mail rather than the comment, but no, not there.
I has a sad. Anyway, other people have said it since, so not much lost. But hugs all round, as wanted.
I listened to Richard Dawkins on NPR’s Diane Rehm show this morning (linky) and he mentioned Lewis Thomas. Several years ago I purchased Thomas’ book The Lives of a Cell out of curiosity, not being familiar with the author. Turned out to be a very good decision.
Hearing Dawkins’ mention of Thomas I did a quick search and landed here. I pass on two quotes to the Horde:
A reference to SETI and radio messages going out from Earth:
Germane to the arguments over the Affordable Care Act and the practice of medicine generally:
Shoot — I’ll make it three quotes. Remaining with health and medicine:
Now I’m reminded that I need to read more Lewis Thomas and recommend his poetic ruminations to all. My daughters still remember me reading passages from The Lives of a Cell after supper as we sat around the table digesting.
Azkyroth: I sympathize with frustration over miscommunication. I talked people into sitting next to me in class this semester and poking me in the leg when I’m speaking Martian in class so I’ll be forced to notice when I’ve wandered away from meaning. -.-;
I need more money so I can pay someone to just hang out and poke me when I’m no longer speaking Earth.
what
Parrots screech the louder the happier and more social they are. The louder, the better! Humans just hear a cacophony and flee.
This shit isn’t universal even on Earth.
“I am not human. Never forget that.”
– Spock, in the unlikely case I’m remembering the quote correctly. And he is half human.
NEW THREAD.