This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Bookses…I’ve just started Max Gladstone’s Three Parts Dead, with the sequel, Two Serpents Rise waiting. The first book reminds me a bit of Jemisin, the world building and gods are wonderfully created, and the characters full and enjoyable. Weird, exciting stuff. I also have Lissa Price’s Starters and Enders downloaded and awaiting reading. I blame Scalzi and his Big Idea posts.
Going slowly through Death subseries of Discworld. I’m at Hogfather now (that’s a reread)
It’s funny because it’s true!
It’s also uncanny. A cat of all things!?!
I’m sure that one refers to literal seed: you shall sow wheat and barley, and your enemies shall reap them, and then you shall be sorry, motherfuckers.
Link doesn’t work. :-(
The best part? “Amino acid substitutions cause chromosomal rearrangements” is pretty close to “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.
The man simply has no idea what he’s writing. Not one of the words he uses mean what he thinks they mean, probably including “a” and “the”. And he doesn’t care! It’s like the True Meanings were revealed unto him, so everyone else has them wrong and can be safely ignored.
Luke Jerram has created a sculpture series called Glass Microbiology:
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/luke-jerram-glass-microbiology
Bruce Springsteen on the Gov. Chris Christie Fort Lee New Jersey Traffic Jam
For fuck’s sake, is that tedious asshole still spamming the crank thread?
Dalillama
Well, he is the crank in question.
Wind has knocked the power out. Hopefully I’ll be around tomorrow. Maybe not.
While I was searching around the net, I found Personality and Individual Differences on the Elsevier/sciencedirect website. Even beyond the issues of having people pay nearly $36 per article, I thought that the fact that the journal also has an L. Philippe Rushton memorial issue along with some of their other content makes me suspect that a lot of this journal’s output is scientific racism. Could someone that has access to this journal beyond the previews look in depth at the articles for criticism?
Threadrupt and also bookrupt: I haven’t finished a book since increasing my newspaper subscription in the fall from just Sunday through Wednesday-Sunday*. Now I am overcome with all of this news, and I can’t seem to make myself 1) ignore that I get the paper, or 2) not read the whole fucking thing except for the business and comics sections which I don’t get and don’t enjoy. I am so compulsive. Anyway, I started reading Foucault’s Pendulum and was enjoying it, but they keep dumping the paper on my doorstep and it feels to me like I somehow have an urgent responsibility to keep up with it. Eco isn’t showing up on my doorstep with any regularity.
Seriously, if anyone wanted to end my career productivity**, they could simply buy me a subscription to a bunch of magazines and I’d be in waiting-room mode near constantly.
*It wasn’t my idea. They gave it to me for the same price.
**Like a nemesis or something.
AE, I can relate. I used to tell myself every Sunday that I was buying the LA Times just for the comics and A-section news, and then every week I’d find myself glancing up from like Travel & Leisure as the sun was going down.
David Marjanović@503,
Thanks – here it is: atheist Afghan granted religious asylum in UK.
Testing…
And here‘s some Edo-vintage Japanese WTF.
屁をひって尻つぼめ。
he o hitte shiri tsubome
There is no use scrunching up your buttocks after a fart.
chigau, that is amazing. I love it.
I doubt I’ll ever use it, but I love it.
Crip Dyke
It’s my favourite.
this still where the rage-inducing goes? (warning: Native appropriation like nobody’s business… have a bucket handy.)
They give out Oscars for racism now?
What is this Christian market racist movie that nobody has heard of? Introducing the year’s most obscure Oscar nominee
chigau #515
XDDD
Brilliant! I gotta somehow remember that one.
Pteryxx
Like the films we had to watch at school during the apartheid era. Not just demonising the heathen Other, but counterposing this with all the xtian values that make Us superior.
.
I notice the trailer footage is bracketted by shots of sparkling water and glistening sun. Quite apropriate for an agriculturally inspired god like YHWH.
theophontes and Crip Dyke and anyone else
I recommend to you these books
Even Monkeys Fall From Trees ISBN 0-8048-1625-5
and
Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk ISBN 0-8048-2127-5
The Monkeys one usually has a Foreword by E.G. Seidensticker.
So.
What with the extreme snow-load and the sudden thaw (above freezing and gale winds) the canoe (and the canoe-rack) departed from the garage.
Our canoe is snapped in half.
I mourn.
Chigau, my condolences on your canoe. Ours is buried under snow outside, but it is metal, and has had a good survival record. So far.
Chigau:
My condolences on your canoe.
If it is plastic, you might just have to replace the gunwales.
If it is fibreglass, you can use a fibreglass patch to repair it and use duct tape to hold things together until cured. Aluminum strips can also be used under a fibreglass patch.
If it is wood, I’m so sorry;.
Caine:
As I said over on the ‘I don’t even . . .’ thread, sorry about the derail.
My view of appropriate is not real engaged right now. Figting panic attacks and depression since yesterday and, well, sorry. I’ll keep out of that one. Sorry.
(I figured an explanation would be a further derail over there).
Ogvorbis, I replied to you there, this is what I wrote:
Please don’t worry, you’re seldom inappropriate, you’re excellent at addressing the subject of posts. What was pissing Josh, Gen, and myself off were the men who had to pop in and talk about how they managed wifey’s periods. That is eyeroll city, and that you didn’t do.
Caine:
Sorry.
I should have read what you and Josh were writing more closely. My bad.
Okay, you have filled your quota of sorries, Ogvorbis. I love you, always.
Sorry.
Had a shitty day yesterday. Overheard some assholes, in the visitor center, joking about boy scouts, girl scouts and brownie scouts. And all the jokes were about sexually abusing kids. Sent me over into a nice freeze up panic attack.
Today, we have a group of about thirty Bible Scouts. I went to the web page for information, but the Bible Scouts are so new, all they have is a web page with a nice graphic with lots of image-mapped links that aren’t links, so I wasn’t able to get any information on them.
Just having a shitty day.
Now I feel bad for dumping this shit here and in the Lounge.
Sorry.
Ogvorbis:
Holy shit. Just reading that made me hold my breath. I can only imagine how horrific that was for you.
Oh, wonderful. This is more than a shitty couple of days. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with all this.
Caine:
Yeah. I’ve got that spiraling down feeling going. Just need to ride it out for a few days. Or a week. We’ll see.
@Ogvorbis
Don’t. That’s part of the point of these places. Have a hug.
More hugs, Ogvorbis.
—
The canoe is still half-buried in icy snow but it look like toast (non-artisan) to me.
Took out a couple of lawn-chairs, too.
Oggie
What Caine said.
Chigau, I’m sorry about the canoe.
And also I wanted to send Ogvorbis some extra hugs. That must have been one hell of a bad time, and I hope it doesn’t send you down. Hang in there, and know that we are thinking of you {{{retrieve hug here if acceptable}}}
I have sticky hands.
N.K. Jemisin on “Concern trolling and “gratuitous diversity”
GWAR cover Billy Ocean — Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car (and
Teenage WastelandBaba O’Riley).I have no words.
Caine
I don’t read much fiction these days but N.K. Jemisin is going on the list.
Chigau:
I have thoroughly enjoyed all of her books I have read so far. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms garnered high praise from me. The gods were truly interesting, the world building excellent, the politics devious, all the characters well delineated and interesting, and the protagonist is a mixed race woman, who is not the standard “tall, slender and gorgeous”.
From http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/01/18/calling-a-bluff/
kinem,
I can appreciate nit pickers. You on the other hand are deliberately misinterpreting PZ and going for an obviously outrageous interpretation, in order to…. I don’t know what. Be and asshole? It looks like that.
And by asshole, I don’t mean you literally turn into an asshole (because that’s impossible). In case you might read it that way.
Kinem, here’s a story of someone who used their freedom to hate. It’s ugly.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2014/01/18/a-quick-update-on-moderation-policy/#comment-33758
Curiously this person was unable to cite examples of us being far too fond of requesting people to die
Oh my, DanDanDan, Sheaf, and AndrewRyan. *memories* Tony, you were in the thread where Sheaf was soundly trounced: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/15/hot-tip-for-comedians-humor-pieces-are-supposed-to-be-you-know-funny/comment-page-1/
@ Beatrice 541:
I did not misinterpret PZ. I did point out that he said a terrible thing which was clearly not what he meant. I did so in the hope that he would realize he’d made a mistake in saying it that way and would choose different wording in the future.
What’s the problem, exactly? It might have been an awkward phrasing, but it’s hardly a big deal, seeing as everybody clearly understood the point.
LykeX:
Except kinem. We must guard the frozen peaches and beware the rise of the thought police. Yep.
Yes you did. Also, there is no such thing as absolute free speech. Only the government can guarantee your free speech when talking to them. But you are responsible for your bigoted speech when you use it to try to legislate actual bigotry against a class of citizens as a government official, and then try to hide behind religion, or anything other that admitting you are a bigot.
Even kinem. That’s what makes it particularly nutty. As they said, it was “clearly not what he meant”. If it was clear, then what’s the problem? This seems to be on the level of pointing out a spelling error.
You rang, Caine?
Josh! Did you know you are mentioned in Harold Schechter’s The Whole Death Catalog? He quotes your wise words “It’s time to have death at the dinner table”, you wonderful executive director, you. :D
Hahah, thanks Caine, that’s fun! (I do like to keep my professional life separated from my personal life online, though, so I’m not apt to talk v much about work here).
Josh, I know, that’s why I didn’t want to mention it until I saw you.
hey, josh, always good to see you.
Thanks for your “monster” contribution in another thread. Not that I’m reading it or anything.
Ermm…
I don’t know any of you, so it’s very uncomfortable to say this, but Caine’s quote has only three Google results – the 1st is Josh’s name and the second is here. Maybe it’s because I’m still thinking about the Dr. V. article, but if Josh wants his online life separate from his RL, maybe that comment should be edited or deleted.
Kinem:
You haven’t successfully argued that PZ said a “terrible thing”. You*tried* so I’ll give you a C for effort. You were refuted though and haven’t adjusted your opinion accordingly. You should get on that.
Fuckety fuck fuck, I’m starting to want to slap every single person who indulges in the No True Human fallacy. And I want to do worse to those idiots who defend it.
No True Human this, No True Human that…. I wonder if there are any humans left.
Whenever I hear a person described as a monster, I hear a little voice whispering,
“They couldn’t help themself.”
Stupid little voice.
Beatrice:
Just monsters and angels, I think.
Chigau:
Some people can’t, but it’s not because they are a monster, it’s who they are as a person.
Caine
The little voice thinks that a Person™ can always help themself.
(see: bootstraps, pulling of)
With a Monster™, we can just get out the pitchforks and torches.
Chigau:
Yeah. The pitchforks and torches are easier.
If someone’s a monster then obviously I couldn’t have done anything to stop or change them. Not my fault. They were bad sort to begin with.
Well, the drop-dead, flaming stupid just landed in the Dr. Valentine thread. I might have to call it an early night.
Also, Seedy, if you drop in, many, many, many hugs to you. Because.
Been offline for a bit, just dropped in here for a moment. Gotta go cook in about 5 min.
@Caine
Thanks for the hugs. I appreciate it. I’m not participating in the Dr V thread, but I’m reading it closely, or at least I was earlier today.
Gotta go, company is here, but I’ll be back.
Ogvorbis, much love and many, many, many hugs to you, too. If you’re a monster, so am I. We can hang out in the monster’s corner.
Caine, Oggie, CD, et al
Hugs and supportive gestures.
Dalillama, thank you. I went back in that thread. I shouldn’t have, but I can’t get myself chilled down. The whole thing has triggered me (and not just me, either), and I’m jumpier than…well, whatever the fuck fits there.
I just outed myself as a trans woman in the Caleb Hannan thread.
If anyone has any questions about why I was in stealth mode for all these years, feel free to ask.
Also, no need to offer me any e-hugs.
Janine, I know this probably isn’t the way you wanted things to go, but I’m proud to be your friend.
Thank you, Caine. Your friendship means a lot to me.
What can I say, Chas and CM really pissed me off in that thread.
Janine:
As does yours to me.
Yeah, I know. Me too. CM more than Chas in my case, ’cause Chas has a thing about details, and he did stop. There’s no excuse at all for cm’s shitting all over the place.
I really do wonder why some people think Dr. Vanderbilt’s suicide was due to being a con artist (not confirmed as of yet). I’ve known a few con artists in my time, and they aren’t much subject to introspection or suicidal thoughts.
As has been pointed out, Hannan stopped trying to prove that a con was happening once he got to his Crying Game reveal. It is almost as if that was enough to proof his case.
Janine
My eyebrows raised because I had assumed something else about you.
(My default assumption seems to be that everyone is like me, unless otherwise stated.)
I would like to continue to count you as a friend.
Chigau, do I want to know what you assumed about me?
(I ask in jest. You do not need to answer.)
Janine
I assumed you were just like me.
White, cis-female, hetero, ex-christian, etc. (the list goes on.)
I just have no imagination.
Chigau:
I think lots of people do that. I’ve had a good share of moments when I’m surprised that other people aren’t as strange as me.
Chigau:
Our Janine, hetero? Oh my.
For my part, Janine, I’m sorry. Really.
A long time ago, I posted an “are you OK” in response to a string of music links.
That was genuine, believe it or not.
Caine
If I am not vigilant, the default assumption reboots.
Chigau, I have been loudly proclaiming my queerness (if not being trans) since I have been here.
Janine and Caine
re: queerness
I did know that.
It’s obviously something I need to continue to work on.
Just because I think I have a broad definition of “normal” shouldn’t mean that my actual type-specimen of “normal” is me.
Chigau, many of the arguments I have gotten into with trolls here over the years has been about me being a lesbian and arguing for rights for LGBT people.
Remember my run in with Barb? How I kept asking her if she would kick her children out of her house if any of them came out as gay or lesbian. And she replied that I must have been molested when I was a child.
Sorry. I am not trying to give you a hard time over this. (I am not at all upset.) But I never claimed to be heterosexual and usually made claims to the contrary.
And the neo-cons are now shitting all over that hash tag.
Caine!
I got nowhere else to go! /RichardGere
I try really hard not to be a bigot. I may inadvertantly be obtuse. I am sorry when I get it wrong.
Awesome, I’m so bad I make Chas look good.
Site-copping! Can I still post on Sb? /jk
Well, yeah, done and done. I’m not completely stupid.
Sorry, cm but I still do not understand how you thought that article was sympathetic to Dr V.
(And I do remember asking if I was alright after I linked to a bunch of songs. Had no idea you were being serious.)
Janine – I am proud to know you, and I’d be happy to be considered a friend.
The two worst persons spamming the hashtag are Donald Douglas and Robert Stacy McCain. It seems like they are a couple of long time right wing trolls It is a lot like when Eric Hovind leads his flock to this blog.
@GEJanine
I saw that and came over here right away.
I’ve long been glad you’ve been here.
I am also keenly aware of the day that a jerk-person had chosen a label for a guest poster (“Why I’m an atheist” series) who had not themselves chosen a label. I wasn’t reading jerk-person b/c jerk-person, but I was reading others in the thread and thought that you (I’m pretty sure it was you) had chosen the label.
it took like 3 or 4 exchanges for me to understand that you hadn’t done it b/c I wasn’t reading jerk-face. I knew that was painful for you at the time, but this adds another layer. I hope that my apology in the moment and the passage of time has eliminated any hurt I caused. I could have prevented it by just reading the whole thread, but no.
Once again, I’m sorry.
Thanks for your work in that thread. I’m glad to have you as part of the Horde.
Oops. My 591 didn’t include a ref to Janine’s 571.
Also, I wrote it in the moment, but then closed my computer right after hitting send…I guess it didn’t go through til I opened it up again just now.
It would have made more sense not to have a comment number if I had come in @572-575.
Crip Dyke, thanks for the apology but there has never been a time I felt you insulted me. And the story is vague enough that I do not know what incident this is. But I could also be mistaken. there is a lot of stuff I have been in the middle of that I have already forgotten.
Just want to point out, IRL, I have been open about my status. But I have also been lucky enough to have friends where, if they knew, they never brought it up or commented on it.
But it was nice to be able to go online and be in stealth mode.
When I got started on Twitter, I started following a lot of trans women and a few trans men. And I wanted to be able to talk about issues without seeming like an intrusive cis woman. So I have been out for a while there.
But I kind of expected news to make it here. A lot of people here are over on Twitter. I guess they all respected me enough to not say a word. And that actually pleases me.
I have gotten off the point, Crip Dyke. So I will say this. Thank you. Also, I wish I remembered this exchange.
@Janine:
It could have been carlie, but I really think it was you. No biggie. The important point for me is that what I did – one of my bigger fuckups on P (if not my biggest) – wasn’t continuing to hurt anyone.
Now unless it was actually carlie, I’m much relieved.
@Caine:
I shall endeavor never to surprise you.
I believe I’ve made a good start.
CD:
You have, no fear.
@ Caine
When I saw this picture, I first squeeeeeee’ed, then thought of you: Pic.
@ Janine
OK then, we’ll resort to Plan B!
Picture.
Janine
Fistbump?
I thank you for your trust.
Hell, everybody with two molecules of empathy to huddle together should at this point understand why trans* people would rather not out themselves. You don’t owe us anything. Not your outing, not an explenation, not anything.
It’s us who owe you.
chigau
I know that problem. I find it fucking embarassing when I catch my brain doing this. We’ll work on it, right?
Janine, I just want to second Giliell’s comment: you are under no obligation to us in any way. It’s been an honour and a pleasure to read your posts and chat on line with you over the years, as it is now.
Speaking as one of those on Twitter who noticed that Janine was out there but not here, I figured that (as in most cases where someone is out in one place and not in another):
(1) Janine had her reasons, and
(2) Those reasons were no business of mine.
Also, outing others is bad.
So I kept my mouth shut.
Janine – I noticed on twitter as well, but figured you certainly didn’t have need for me to stick my nose in and comment there, and had the same reaction as Esteleth in terms of the rest. I’ve always seen you as an incredibly emotionally strong woman in the face of the crap of society, and now I just see that that strength runs even deeper than I realized, because you’ve had to put up with so much more from society than I knew.
Crip Dyke – it’s not ringing any bells for me, so if it was me, I have no memory of it.
What a surprise. More of the slymepit crew has appeared on the JusticeForDrV hashtag. It is all variations of “Fraud was committed, therefore everything is open season.”, “Social Justice Warriors demanding special treatment.” and “Trans people are sacred.”.
In other words, the same old crap.
Even if being trans was as newsworthy as being left or right-handed, and the only outing in the story was concerning Dr V’s background…. I’d still consider the journalist a piece of shit.
Less of a piece of shit than now, but still not completely blameless in the tragedy.
To hell with a good story if the cost is someone’s life.
Off the present topic.
Caine, you have authority as a monitor – please be careful with saying such things.
A few Pharyngulites I’ve met in meatspace have told me they stay off Pharyngula now because of “the Caine Mutiny”. They’re not the ones that should stay off.
Caine is not a monitor.
She is not and has not been a monitor for a while. If you can’t be bothered to catch up or read the list, then at least you should notice she hasn’t used the “Monitor’s Note” for some time now.
Plenty of commenters tell each other to fuck off all the time, Caine is allowed to as well.
Back to the topic.
You had no reason to tell us. *shrug*
picture
good news
David Marjanović, while cm did apologize for that crap and apologized to me, you did read that shit he wrote. He was trying to justify why Caleb Hannan wrote what he did and acted as he did. And calling that article “ultimately sympathetic to Dr V” was particular vile.
Those things aren’t announced, why would I check…
I did notice that. But I also noticed that nobody else has posted one in a long time.
In the one recent case where somebody told others to leave the thread or Pharyngula altogether, PZ got very angry. IIRC, the banhammer came down soon after.
While the thought is nice, David Marjanović, I never went agog over pictures of kittens.
I would rather have a real cat in my lap.
(Was never a visual person.)
As far as I can tell, cm had simply overlooked a few parts of the text. I don’t know how that happened (caffeine withdrawal?), but malicious intent leads to different-looking results. As far as I can tell, cm wasn’t trying to justify what Hannan had written, he misunderstood what Hannan had written.
The misunderstanding has been explained, cm has understood it, everything should be fine now. cm seems burnt enough by this experience that I think he’ll pay more attention to the written word next time. *shrug*
It’s a chimpanzee and a tiger.
Even USB 3.0 can’t provide that… if only because I haven’t got any cats here in meatspace either. :-/
Run my cursor of the link and saw kittens.
I have been using the wrong words and dropping words more then usual. I am starting to get worried.
Pika, pika!
Being old and curmudgeonly, I avoid Poke-speak like it were a toxic sludge pit.
I’ll bite: why?
Strange. It never occurred to me that pikachu might be a pika.
Goodbye Enemy Janine, I’m delurking to add my 2c worth of support and appreciation. You have consistently been one of the nyms here I recognise with pleasure and anticipation as I scroll down the pages.
As for a few cognitive blips with words right now, I’m not surprised that outing yourself might be causing some temporary cortical rerouting to deal with heightened emotions/anxieties. Give yourself a few days of reparative you-time to rebalance yourself before getting too worried about it?
Chas,
With all the other* factors being the same as in this story: because on one side there would be a relatively unknown individual, a harmless fraud in a precarious mental state and on the other a journalist who would get a good story at the cost of someone’s life.
I probably shouldn’t have gone into what ifs since those can only turn into more useless what ifs. I’ll drop this now. I’m annoyed with myself that I even wrote down the useless line of thought, considering the topic.
Sorry.
*besides what I mentioned n the previous comment
Tigtog, thanks for the advise. But I started with this about twenty years ago.
Understood. I have several chronic conditions myself where “more than usual” in certain things starts ringing alarm bells. I’m still hoping for you that this is more of a glitch than anything nastier.
Janine
In that case, may I offer you some Crazy Horses?
Tethys, that video remains one of the most inexplicable things I know of.
It took long enough but a TERF finally shows up on the JusticeForDrV hashtag.
*imagining MRAs and TERFs colliding in a wonderful firework display and subsequently disappearing*
Beatrice, on Twitter, I once had a person who co-blogs with EG brag to me about having Cathy Brennon’s number and possibly working on a project with here.
David:
I am not a monitor.
The Osmonds meet Alexander McQueen?*
It is fascinating to look back at the gender-norm bending costumes and androgyny that was so common back in the day that even the Osmonds wore spangles and capes.
*actually his design house, but OMG these clothes are amazing works of art.
Theophontes:
Oh rats and mice below, that is just too damn cute. Thank you!
O hell, so they wouldn’t explode but merge. *shudder*
David:
I see. I suggest you take advantage of the handy ‘contact a monitor’ link in the sidebar. That will get to PZ directly, you see. You can make your case for my bannination, rather than settling for being a compleat asshole to me.
I stopped being a monitor because I was sick to death of all the assholes who think PZ resides in my pocket, that I have some sort of unholy power here – he doesn’t, I don’t, and I never did. This leaves me with one thing to say to you: go fuck yourself.
Well.
I hope Caine gives this suggestion all the consideration it deserves.
Beatrice:
Oh, I did.
Update. Now the slymies and assorted RWWNs are using the JusticeForDrV hashtag as a place to dump on feminists, Chelsea Manning and FtBullies. All issues are the same issues for these bozos.
Janine:
No surprise there, all these things are connected in those itsy bitsy brains of theirs. A, uh, certain faction of the ‘net has gotten quiet recently, so I’m not at all surprised they’ve jumped all over this, gives them their reason to internet back, y’know, hatin’ on FTB.
They have always been at war with human decency, Janine.
From, The poison must be drawn out
Azkyroth, I’m not sure that (the tvtropes page) has anything to do with the absence of a serial comma. In fact, the tvtropes page contains only examples where the serial comma is used. No, my confusion is in what way the absence of the serial comma denotes ‘the Right’. I don’t use the serial comma, for instance, because it’s not common to Canadian English.
In any case, I can see the trope; I just don’t see the relation to the absence of the serial comma. The trope would still be there (obviously) if the serial comma had been used. It’s not even an abuse of the absence of the serial comma. I remain confused, but second to my rationalization that it can be taken ironically, I wonder if, counter-intuitively (and still ironically), ‘the Right’ in the US always eschews the serial comma for …reasons?
I just figured out why we didn’t see the PBS movie of Twelve Years A Slave back in 1984. We didn’t have a TV then. Duh.
Caine:
I thought anuran’s nym looked familiar. I must not have read much by them in the past. I’d like to not read much by them in the future.
Tony:
I think many, many peoples share your feelings in the matter. They used to just say stupid shit, the intense whining about PZ has been a more recent thing. I don’t know what that’s about, and I can’t say I care.
@Janine, 624:
Yeah, there may not be a day I’ve been more glad I don’t have/use twitter.
@Caine, 638:
I borrowed the book a long time ago and only read part of it. Haven’t seen either incarnation. The language of the book is – at least in places – so matter-of-fact and understated that it shook me.
I can’t imagine how they would handle that in the movie: I think you’d either have to have a detached narrator reading verbatim from the book or do a very large amount of focus on bystanders. Show things like people sipping water or gin or beer and chatting while horrificness happens nearby. I don’t know how else to get across not merely that this happened, but that this isn’t a particularly horrific story of slavery. People were outraged on his behalf, he got out. What about the people with good immune systems and healthy hearts that lived 70 years a slave? What about the psychological devastation of being born in the south where expression of abolitionist sentiment wasn’t tolerated and one’s entire life one’s subjugation is treated as normal?
Horrific doesn’t begin to cover it, but I suspect that in the movies – of whatever version – they will focus on the perps and the violence and whippings, kidnappings, blood: anything but that millions of whites looked on and shrugged. And if the movie does show shrugs, they will still receive more critical attention for realistic whipping than realistic shrugging.
People have no idea what a daring movie about slavery would really show.
CD, I’ve just bought and downloaded the book, I’ll start reading tonight. I know the PBS version was restrained, I imagine they had to go that way, it was ’84 and television. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the current movie, and people have said it sticks fairly close to the book. I’ll refrain from judgement until I have read the book and see the movie. One of my most fave actors, Chiwetel Ejiofor is the lead in the movie, which will bias me, so I’ll have to account for that.
The outward horrors of slavery have been done, and done well, in some cases, like The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. (At least what I remember, that was in 1974.)
Chigau, first, I want to say I am not picking on you.
I think because our experience are so very different, we have very different ideas about how we picture other people. You said that you expect others to be like you . Because everything has been so disjointed for me, I expect other people to be very different (and possibly hostile) from me.
Rarely have I ever felt like I fit in anywhere, not even at a meeting for trans people nor an anarchist convention. (An other reveal) I expect that who I am and what I believe to be at odds with people. So I never picture anyone being like me. It is something I am unable to do.
That is why I was just a bit thrown about what you said. I was not made upset. I was both amused and perplexed.
I could not even tell if you felt I was being defensive. And for that, I am sorry.
(As a side note, their is a reason why trans people came up with the cis designation. It is hard for most people to understand what it is like to not heel comfortable with their assigned gender. And being trans does color how I view people. To me, most seem better adjusted than I am.)
Chiwetel Ejiofor rocks.
I still don’t know anything about the movie. Don’t know when I’ll watch it, but I probably will.
Knowing me, …during exam week, maybe?
Crip Dyke, like everything else, there are positives and negatives. But I have found a lot of different trans people to follow. And for the most part, I do not seek out the idiots. (And I am quick to block the bigots.)
For the most part, I recommend being on Twitter. But people like us do have to navigate carefully. But I have made contact with lots of good people.
CD:
That seems about right, but don’t. A stressful, depressing viewing on top of stressful, possibly depressing exams? Yikes.
Like many others, Imma watch it at home, with partner, where I can access booze, and make liberal use of the pause button. Yep.
I did start the book (There seem to be a mass amount of cheapass e-books going for 0.99, which I ignored. I got the one from the company who reprinted the original in ‘010.) Mr. Northup was achingly eloquent. I expect this book is going to haunt me.
And speaking of Chiwetel Ejiofor, did ya see him in Kinky Boots?
I did not. The only things I’ve actually seen him in are Serenity and Dirty Pretty Things. Kinky Boots is now on my list, though.
Dalillama:
That man is incapable of lookin’ bad. He’s more gorgeous than ever in that little movie.
Ejiofor in drag?
Only problem: In the IMDB pics, the drag hair obscures his face.
Now on list.
….
It did me for a while, though now it’s more an emotional memory than a memory of the specific narrative. Of course, when I borrowed the book it was
2522 years ago.I just saw Kinky Boots a few weeks ago. I’ve been ‘burgundy’ online in various places for something like 13 years. So this scene nearly had me falling off the couch.
Please God, tell me I’ve not inspired something burgundy.
CD:
And more gorgeous than anyone has a right to be, I tell ya. See here.
Ah yes. Much better pics there. I only looked on IMDB b/c I wanted to see what the movie was about so I was already on the site. Should have done my homework.
Not that I hadn’t already appreciated him as gorgeous, just that there were no good pics of his Kinky Boots character on the site.
=========
As for finals: yeah, I tend to make not the best choices around use of time when finals comes b/c I work so hard I get to the point that **anything** seems like a good distraction to get me sane again. But 12 years a slave during exams was me kidding.
On the square.
Kinda.
Maybe on the parallelogram… or, y’know, rhombus. A rhombus with 2 angles of 89 degrees and 2 of 91.
But the point is: kidding.
Burgundy:
Hahahahahaha, that had to be a fun moment. :D
It was pretty fabulous. The only way it could have been better would be if I’d been wearing my own pair of burgundy suede boots at the time.
TW for me, perhaps?
—
I used the wrong word … I shouldn’t have used ‘sympathetic’. Sympathetic would have realised that there’s a risk that the expose of non-qualifications would have risked more than just exposing a bunch of physics mumbo-jumbo designed to sell $250 golf clubs. I was aiming for a word that would say non-judgemental in terms of trans-identification but judgemental in terms of faking qualifications and stealth-bomber experience.
Of course, there is no such word. Particularly at 3am. :-(
—
Wrong drug, wrong direction¹. Alcohol ingestion. :-/
—
Let me back up.
For various reasons (all work-related) I don’t/can’t comment as much as I used to. I tend to jump in with silly/humorous, mostly SIWOTI-ish, contributions to non-contentious threads. I very clearly picked the wrong one to jump into.
But (since this is Thunderdome) what I jumped on was something I see a lot here (but almost never comment on); what I think of as the maximally-uncharitable explanation.
That thread had two: first PZ’s (paraphrasing from the OP) “he doesn’t use the putter anymore because it has trans* cooties” and that “chill” must refer to “disgust and revulsion”. Of course, it’s possible that these interpretations are right. It might be probable that they’re right. But when the discussion of the written text is separated from any interaction with the author(s) of the the text, it kinda feels to me like hermeneutics, and that’s never struck me as a profitable approach to understanding reality. :-/
tl;dr
I don’t think I’m a shitty person, but I might be a shitty ally. That, I need to work on.
—
Apologies to anyone hurt or offended.
—
¹ Which would be a great name for an alternative cover band.
well, at least you made me look good, eh?
cm
And this is the problem; it’s not a matter of being charitable or not in each individual case. This is a classic example of privilege-based context blindness. This statement (the ‘chill running up [his] back’) cannot be looked at as an isolated case, because it’s not one. It’s part of a matrix of micro (and macro) aggressions running all through society, and as such follows a predictable pattern. When someone in a very transphobic and misogynistic society, who makes a living focusing on an even more misogynistic, transphobic subset of this society, says something like that, Bayesian analysis indicates a nearly 100% chance that the obvious transphobic meaning is the one that is intended. It requires significant bending to make that about something else, in the context which actually exists.
Dalillama (#658)
And, withholding charity by default will encourage those who don’t mean the things they say the “uncharitable” way to be more conscious of what they’re saying. People—especially people who are paid to put words before the public—should have an idea of what fellow company their utterances keep.
Janine, I always pictured you kind of like Joan Jett (and a bit like Toni Basil, since you linked to some information about her). Still do.
cm:
And yet you have no trouble indulging in obtuse, un-charitable hyperskepticism when it suits you. You might want to think about that just a bit.
Another thing is that what strikes you as maximally uncharitable is the difference from your privileged point of view, and the point of view of those who live with microaggressions, hostility, and bigotry every day of their lives. When it comes to something like transphobia, the best thing to do is engage your empathy, and pay very serious attention to those who speak from the position of being a trans*person, because you can learn a lot, and become aware of internalized bigotry in yourself, which is something we all need to be aware of, at every step of our lives.
SC:
In my head, Janine has always been blonde, which is odd, because I rarely picture people with blonde hair.
Popping a response of mine over to here so that I don’t derail the discussion at the Caleb Hannan post too bad.
David @204 in Caleb Hannan post
Passive-aggressive self-promotion. I.e. every discussion on minority rights ends up hosting a meta-narrative by Chas on how he is clearly more objective and a better steward of what objective is. And all with a hint of deniability so that it would be rude to call him out.
I mean, even when he’s “staying away” he usually posts a post about how he needs to stay away because of “heated tempers on subjects like this” or some other faux-martyr bullshit. And when he dives in like this, he does the bare minimum of due-diligence to sell a dominant narrative and more importantly the meta-narrative of how he’s the only one “level-headed” enough to be truly objective with all the minority “conclusion-jumping”.
And I guess this is the thread where my tolerance for that bullshit con game has officially reached its breaking point.
I’m not entirely sure how infuriating it is to regularly be reading things that are eg in this example another casual demonstration of how people like you are callously put to death, and see the same old Chas show as he does his little “I’m so objective and you minority group members aren’t” dance and using well-known social leniency to dominant group members who are not actively aggressively hostile to do his little needling bullshit.
And as a further qualifier in answer to you, unbiased in terms of how we are to regard his account. Chas acknowledges the author is a transphobic piece of shit, but we’re also supposed to be logically flawed because we don’t take the account of a transphobic piece of shit investigating the messy history of a trans person that is doing the “standard proscribed” “disappear into society” thing as gospel truth and acknowledge the possibility of an unreliable narrator.
And that that assumption is used to “argue” that once again minority group members are easily roused and ignorant about the world and only Chas can see the truth.
And as noted, I’m really fucking at the point of fuck his self-serving meta-narrative intruding to every minority group discussion he can.
I’ll try less hard next time. ;-)
But it is one! It’s an isolated statement.
You don’t really understand Bayes, do you? Hint: E needs to be observed, not inferred based on H.
Blonde? I had extremely wavy and very thick dark brown hair. Now it is about oe third grey but still unruly. Used to color it red.
Blonde?
Janine:
:hangs head: I know, I know! It really is extremely unusual for me to picture anyone as a blonde, I’m almost always surprised when it turns out someone I know on the ‘net is blonde, but for some reason, you’re the exception to that. I’ll stop now, I promise.
cm @644
I think the crucial bit of information is that for you it seems like an isolated bit of information, a turn of phrase that you wouldn’t normally pay much mind to.
For trans* people, that’s about a non-insignificant number of daily interactions with people. Pretty much every day walking outside as myself, I see someone have the “chills run down” reaction and have to smile through the usual gauntlet of stares, double-takes, people publicly thinking they have the right to inquiry about my genitals, and even physical actions like people spitting on me (I guess to ward off the evil eye or something). And it’s something that my cisgendered friends mostly tune out because they are not used to seeing it over and over again.
For a trans* person it is nearly impossible not to see the link between his “chill down the spine” bullshit and the constructed way he systematically destroyed someone’s life and his decisions to ignore confirming his original story in service to bringing proof of the “deception”.
And as a writer, I will also note that “chill down the spine” is always a negative turn of phrase, one most commonly employed in horror genres. Creeping horrors peering over your shoulder produce a “chill down the spine”. Someone learning of a surprise birthday party does not. A sickening realization that your the only one left alive in the house produces a chill down the spine. Learning someone is trans* does not. Not unless you view that revelation to be something inherently horrifying to your self-regard of the “safety” of your masculinity or your sense of the world.
There was a recent post by Dr. Keith Ablow of Fox News that pretty much demonstrates the exact attitude underlying actions like that undertaken by Hannan.
It’s a sad fact of life that trans* people are regarded as monsters in society and that’s a large part of the reason that their deaths are treated so callously.
Janine
I’m fine. I don’t feel picked on. I am learning.
and
I also pictured you as blonde.
(but then, I’m blondegreywhite, therefore default)
But (since this is Thunderdome) what I jumped on was something I see a lot here (but almost never comment on); what I think of as the maximally-uncharitable explanation.
Right. And as a trans person, what I hear is, “Well, are you sure it’s really transphobia? I mean, it could be he was just having a really bad day! Or maybe his car was keyed by someone who looked like Ms. Vanderbilt. Or maybe when he was a kid he had a cat called Vandy, and the cat bit him and the bite got infected, and he was just reacting from the place of being triggered by someone using the same name!”
In other words, what I’m hearing is you desperately seeking for maximally charitable explanation, the explanation that makes it anything but transphobia. And I wonder why it is that you want to push so hard to make sure that something that seems pretty obvious cut-and-dried transphobia to those of us who actually have to see what that looks like from the sharp end every frakking day of our lives is written down to anything but transphobia – why is it so important to you to offer every possible explanation other than the most obvious and most likely one?
And for my own safety, what conclusion can I come to other than, “Well, why would you want to deny that anyone’s being transphobic?” I’m thinking most likely because you feel the same way yourself, and you’re desperate to deny that you’re in any way a (gasp) bigot, of course.
Which makes you someone I don’t want to be around, or converse with, because as far as I know, given how fervent you are to deny that there could be anything transphobic in what we’re seeing, you’re probably just more careful to hide it in front of me.
And honestly? I’d rather have the assholes like Hannan. At least I know where they stand, and they’re not pretending to be anything but bigots. It’s the stealth bigots that are the dangerous ones, to me.
That’s why, cm. That’s why. Maybe you need to ponder why it’s so very important to you to search for any possible explanation other than the most obvious, no?
Or just carry on being pseudo-Spock, and pretending anyone admires that, or likes to have a pseudo-Spock around.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
*click*whir*
Serenity
*connection made*
I’ll be in my bunk.
for a fair while
Chigau:
Watch Kinky Boots while you’re in there!
Oh, and Chiwetel: Oh, yes. I don’t even get much of a wibbly on for men as a rule, but Chiwetel Ejiofor is definitely on my list of freebies.
Cerberus said:
While not a horror movie, this is the reason why I call that the Crying Game turn. And when the article changed from investigating fraud into condemning Dr V as a “troubled man”.
Oh, also – Janine, *fistbump*, sister. Nice to have more of us (visibly) around. :)
Cerberus is working overtime at the outrage factory @667
I didn’t even need to have experience with this brand of bigotry to read “chills down my spine” in the “horror” context. To me that’s the primary usage and reading it any other way would need extreme charity even under non-obviously-bigoted circumstances.
If a white, cis, well-to-do, doe-eyed little blonde child came up and hugged someone and that person later told me, “when that kid hugged me I got chills down my spine”, my first response would be, “sheesh, kids freak you out or something?”
“That gave me chills” can be ascribed to a surprising-but-in-a-good-way event, sure. A singer hitting a note that gives you goosebumps can elicit, “that gave me the chills”.
“Chills down my spine” is so blatantly horror/freaky related I can’t even believe the editor’s apology tried to gloss it over so nonchalantly. Hell, even his gloss over included “stranger”. As if that’s ok.
“Jesus, this story is getting stranger?” I mean, he admits that’s how he read it and he found that A-ok. “Jesus, you mean Dr. V is also strange? Dr. V is weird. Ohhh, cool, things just got reaaally odd.” Even what he supposedly thought it meant was fucking derogatory.
Cerberus, I read your comments at and about me here and on the other thread.
They’re unfair, self-righteous, logorrheic bullshit.
But so what else is new.
Have a nice day.
My first example was PZ’s ‘I won’t putt with this no more because trans* cooties’.
I don’t understand how you managed not to understand that.
If you’re hearing stories about Vandy the cat, I can’t help you. If you like cats, I have a cat you can borrow, PZ has one that’s desperate for a change of toilet paper, and I have somewhere, Fat Freddie and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers featuring Fat Freddie’s Cat. (The one where the Feds burst into the icecream parlour and shout ‘freeze’ is legendary.)
Every possible explanation? Citation, please.
I’m pushing for people who invoke Bayes’s Theorem to actually read the Wiki page before invoking it.
Science! No … Maths!
I am desperate for you to be safe. Honestly.
But if you want to call me a bigot that’s OK.
I’ll just call you illogical.
The North Atlantic Ocean assures this.
Huh? You posted this at me? You won’t respond?
Perhaps I will. Remind me again what was the “most obvious”? Outright bigotry?
This is Pharyngula. You’d be surprised.
Chas @676
Fuck you too, Chas.
And fuck your wannabe martyr pose.
cm @677
You need a light down there, good buddy? Cause, it seems you’re down pretty damn far.
I go down deeper.
(Did you know Billy plays 7s. As a skinny-top/heavy-bottom guy, I’m shocked.)
Jesus. I’ll be gone for a few days, I can be reached in all the usual ways.
Trish Groves, head of research at the British Medical Journal, seems to have responded to my post about the journal’s debating a ban on pharma-sponsored studies:
http://saltycurrent.blogspot.com/2014/01/pharmaban.html
Twitter debate will be today.
Caine
*hugs* if desired.
my what, now?
Chas, ask yourself this.
Do you need to justify your existence to hostile strangers everyday?
Or do you think we who are not white straight men be thankful that your impartial wisdomis around, making sure that none of us gets to self selfing.
And, oh yes, fuck you.
NEW THREAD.