One of the members of this band, Quiet Company, sent me a copy of their latest album, which he said was a personal concept record about his journey from belief to disbelief — I like the idea. And then I listened to it, and I liked the music, too! So here you go, a sample of one song from the album, and if you’re interested, you can look for more on their website.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Janine for the previous incarnation,
I’ve seen this happened and I’m a bit torn up by it. On the one hand, someone has said I “wasn’t really gay” because I wasn’t stereotypical, and on the other hand, I know many “straight” acting gay guys berate flamboyant gay men because of internalized homophobia.
I really wish there wasn’t this belief that gay folks must act or be a single certain way.
That was f**king superb. But I am smoking the greenery, so perhaps it’s that.
Of course I ment Lebanese lemon olive oil.
Hail typhos!
Episode CCXLX is two hundred and forty-ten; sounds like a number made up by a three-year-old who can’t count.
BTW, are the post and comment statistics still running or have they been reset since the move to FTB?
Gyeong hwa
I’m not upto date on your previous conversation but I thought I’d comment based on personal experience. When I was in college I had a friend called sean. He was very camp, but always remained insistent that he was straight. I often told him he would one day come out to be gay (insensitive I know but it was the kinda friendship that included jibes like that). Summer came and we parted company until the next year. When I saw him he was wearing a damn smart leather jacket and I asked him where he got it from. He was a bit quiet at first but then told me his boyfriend had bought it for him. I’m only bringing this up because I think that the ‘campness’ if you will is usually a very good signal of being gay. But personally, I don’t see why that’s a problem unless it’s a result of social prejudice, a kind of awkward reaction.
Maybe the ones that aren’t camp are lucky enough to have avoided as much prejudice. Maybe I’m talking crap.
That was pretty good. They remind me of another band, but I can’t recall which at the moment.
I was going to say, I have never heard of lesbian lemon olive oil. But I have heard of Boy Butter!
Phooey, I am not going shopping for oil tonight after all.
*yawn*
With a shiny new thread you will have filled up in the morning, I leave you for the night
Just wondering if anyone can give me an update.
Does Rhett still win?
Well.
That was unexpected.
Last Thread
opposablethumbs
As do peanut butter sandwiches.
Sorry for the disappointment. If I ever do run across any lesbian lemon olive oil I’ll be sure to post about it.
What?! You expect us to treat you like people?!!
–o–
*ahegm*
Mr. Fire, as unwelcome as all the advice is about your daughter’s new found ability to fall from a greater height, I offer you an anecdote: My younger brother, before he could walk, would scale the louvered closet doors. To the top.
His little pudgy baby fingers fit perfectly into the louver gaps and he apparently didn’t understand the dimensional difference between horizontal and vertical.
BTW, may I add my *squee* to this event?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
O’ Brother, I understood your neologisms perfectly. But ‘Oh stewardess! I speak jive.’
(I had to put that in there because I was beaten to the Monty Python line.)
I just wanted to say thanks to Patricia, Rey Fox, and others who expressed sympathy for my impending separation from my beloved sweetheart. I did not respond then, but I read and appreciated. Really, seriously: thank you.
I think the Pharyngula mini-meetup in VT is going to be a big help in dealing with the aftermath!
Acting “camp” just a sign of, I dunno, acting “camp”. It has nothing to do with sexuality. I will admit that there are some (many?) gay men who do it deliberately as an affectation due to culturally-imposed criteria. There are also gay men who act that way naturally. There are also straight men who act that way naturally.
I have a friend who was forced to question his own sexuality because he acted in a camp manner and almost everyone he knew was insisting that meant he was gay (he was also in band, choir, theater, etc.). That isn’t right, and caused a lot of issues that took a few years to work out (that I’m proud to say I helped with). So, please be careful about insisting on this kind of thing.
The only behavior that is a decent indicator of sexuality has to do with where you put your private parts and with whom, and even that isn’t necessarily indicative.
*raise grog tankard* To Tpyos!
Helllllloooooo, new thread!
In weather/neighborhood news, the flooding has abated and things are pretty much back to normal at La Casa de Darkheart.
And I have a new cookbook. Well, an old cookbook– The American Woman’s Cook Book from 1939*. It was my grandmother’s and it’s pretty fucking awesome.
*I can’t imagine that many cookbooks were marketed towards men back in the 30’s, but oh well.
These are the socks I’m casting on for Naughty Marvin, in a beautiful steel grey merino.
http://spacekitty.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/spring-cable-socks/
OK, so that wasn’t lettuce I brought home – it was cabbage. Three heads of it. Any tasty ideas besides boiled?
———————————–
I’m sure there’s a medical term for this one:
So, come to find out that the twin boys my co-worker has aren’t really twins, and how! Aside from the younger one being conceived about two weeks before the older boy, which is something I haven’t heard much about in itself, it turns out that the boys also have different blood types. It also seems the younger one lost the genetic lottery – ADHD and possibly something else, both of which his dad also has.
I won’t say much about the contrast in personalities, because maybe even identical twins can differ in that respect. Nothing in common? I’m skeptical that this hasn’t happened at some point with a set of twins somewhere in the world already. Am I wrong on any of the above?
———————————————-
Fresh tomato sauce tonight. I knew those “Good-bye Irene” sale tomatoes would come in handy.
——————————————–
As to camp vs. macho gay men – If the personality sucks, all the campiness in the world won’t hide the fact that the person is a fucking asshole, and camp won’t make them more bearable to be with. Ditto for macho.
SOMG!
There’s a Congressional Black Caucus! People banding together on the basis of race!
What bigots!
Don’t they know we live in a post-racial society?
What’s next? A Woman Caucus?!
Cole slaw. Or, if you’re masochistic, sauerkraut.
Any tasty ideas besides boiled?
Fry it with sausage. Also stuff a-la stuffed peppers, with a meat/rice mix.
Coleslaw…
Spring rolls are a good home for some cabbage.
@20 – You could chop the cabbage, add onions chopped, sautee it in butter, and when it’s just about done add a can of corned beef to it, pepper it well, put the lid on it – turn the heat down on low. Once the corned beef is hot & mixed in, it’s done. We call this Camp Cabbage.
Nerd:
I ♥ me some sauerkraut. OM NOM NOM!
Austin
It isn’t something I’d insist on. It certainly isn’t the way I act now. Just a fond memory ^_^
Fried with sausage is good too!
Patricia, OM
re socks
Wow! I just threw away a pair that looked like that!
In hunter green. They were 20+ years old and the darning was like wearing high-heels.
*sigh*
Where’s my wool?
@Patricia:
Oh those are cute socks!
No problem, just leave your USB port free when the Redhead serves it.
Dang, Patricia’s #25 sounds good. The Redhead always makes a bunch of corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty’s day (which she thankfully shares with friends, after leaving a reasonable amount for planovers.)
Katherine Lorraine – These are the “socks” for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D_n45erCC4
Nerd – That recipe is older than the hills, my grandmother made it many times during the winter. It is good.
Chigau – If your socks where darned that much, you must have really loved them, or the person who made them.
Hmm spring rolls…..I DO have some free time this weekend, and it can’t be that hard to find any ingredients we don’t already have.
————————————
Sili: I keep waiting to hear about a Congresssional Japanese Caucus or similar, if only because it might make a few certain heads explode and rid us of some riffraff.
@Patricia:
WANT!!!
Cabbage also keeps well (like, for months in a cold place) if you don’t cut it. My main uses for cabbage are: coleslaw, swedish pizza salad, bulking up a stirfry. I’m rarely happy with soft-cooked versions; I like it crisp. Though I do buy sauerkraut & kimchee.
Cath:
Wut?
Those three words just won’t combine in my head. XD
Sili – Well! My thypo about lesbian olive oil wasn’t so bad after all. Eleven million olive trees is one hell of a lot!
Sally Strange – Glad to help when I can. *grin*
Patricia, did you ever figure out that afterthought heel thing? Because if you didn’t, I can now explain it to you, thanks to my adventures with Ann Budd’s Sock Knitting Master Class book, which is excellent. I’m going to cast on some socks for Crazy Catholic Neighbor™ tonight – he came over to my house after the hurricane and helped me cut into the electrical supply for my well pump so that I could connect the generator. (Now I can do it next time – woohoo!) We managed not to talk about pron or why women should stay in their divinely appointed place the entire time, and his son got to spend some time being corrupted by the Spawn.
Holy freaking cow – I’m planning on making a diplocaulus amigurumi plushy for a certain paleontologist who will be gracing us Murkins with his presence in a few weeks, and once I persuaded google that I wanted diplocaulus and not diplodocus, I came upon this fine knitted work-in-progress. Mr. Mattir insists that this is “pervy.” DaughterSpawn and I think it’s wonderful.
Seriously, where are my comments going? :(
They only had one link each, I swear!
Okay, seriously, what the hell?
Katherine Lorraine – Gorgeous huh? I have the pattern, but haven’t tried it yet. Because I wear long hemlines I’d make them knee-hi’s for myself.
Suppose we could con Mattir into knitting us both a pair? *wink, wink*
And there’s a pattern for a knitted lepospondyl!!! Wheee!
This has been a very sucky day, what with remembering all the horrid pregnancy and birth stuff due to that other thread –
sometimesPTSD-ish stuff is unpredictable. Hadn’t bothered me for years, and then I looked at skepticalOB’s blog, and WHAMMO. So this is fantastic. I will cast on tonight and worry about CCN’s socks later.Here’s the pattern for your enjoyment.
@Patricia:
Want? :)
@Mattir:
Ehehee! Lepospondyl!!!
I can’t knit anything for Katherine Lorraine until I finish making her tit-bit bra fillers. Which I can’t do until I finish the lepospondyl. So there.
@SallyStrange, I’m really sorry that I missed that/those post/s. Am I allowed to offer belated sorries, hugs and levels of understandings? I’m fairly recently separated myself, so if I can be of any assistance, just ask.
@All, Now what is this about Vermont?
@Mattir:
Poo, I was hoping that site would have either a baneling, zergling, or Kog’Maw pattern. I want one of those in plushie form!
Kog’maw is so cute :3 Isn’t he?
For you knittsters, Knit and Crochet Now is starting a fourth season shortly. Set your DVRs.
Randide:
Are you talking about how parts of southern VT are basically gone?
Re:cabbage
I love it on fish tacos, with a good squeeze of lime.
If your kraut is not crunchy, you’re letting it ferment too long. Try it a couple weeks earlier.
There is also warm cabbage salad. Sesame oil, rice vinegar, five spice, tossed and nuked or sautéed a short time. Garnish with sesame seeds.
And as I am sure the good Rev would recommend, slaw on a pulled pork sammie.
Mattir – Holy crap that’s cute! My mother will love making that for my little pre-school great neice.
I did eventually figure out that heel, but it looks ugly to me, and is a real pain in the ass to get started. O-o
The last four pairs of socks I’ve knit all have Elizabeth Zimmermans old Woodsmans Sock heel. To me it’s pretty.
Oh come on be a good sport, you could just knit up four of those stockings in a flash. I’d prefer slut red, thank you!
Patricia, OM
I knit those socks.
They were my first real success at sock-knitting.
I’m currently on my second pair of tabi.
A pattern I invented myself.
“Knit socks. When you get to the toe, make two different two-thingies (mirror them on the other sock or wear one inside-out.”
Haven’t caught up, have to go to bed at long last, but have to test if we can really put 6 links into 1 comment now.
Suffer from a combination of irritable-bowel syndrome and anxiety or depression, in other words, from problems with your -aminobutyric acid receptors? Make sure you get Lactobacillus rhamnosus into your gut. German news feature here, paper (free abstract) here.
It has often been suggested that the medieval Black Death wasn’t the plague but, for instance, an Ebola-like virus because it spread so quickly and was so deadly. Not so. It really was the plague, caused by good old Yersinia pestis – just not the strains that people knew about. Of the two strains of which DNA has been found in skeletons in plague pits, one survives in eastern Asia, and the other, which was apparently the only one to make it to London, is apparently extinct. German news feature here, paper (free abstract) about the strain that made it to London here.
Anaerobic gram-positive bacteria from panda shit turn cellulose (and perhaps even hemicelluloses and/or lignin!) into alcohol, and that at remarkable efficiency. The bioethanol industry appears to have found its holy grail. German news feature here, very short poopyhead conference abstract here. The news feature emphasizes the importance of conservation – you never know in advance what gems may lurk in the crap of endangered species.
And so, to bed.
Audley
re disappearing posts
Clearly you must include something about knitting or cabbage or bridges for your posts to go through!
“Since the far off days when man first heard a scratchy noise …”; The Herbaliser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOGLtZCFBw8&t=145
Features cuttlefish. Many cuttlefish. And mid-90s Ninja Tune awesome. ;)
chigau:
I did, though! It was about Swedish pizza salad!
Trying this AGAIN, with no link:
Nerd – The only knitting show I get is on the Create channel, Knitting Daily ™.
Re: cabbage
Try Asian coleslaw! It’s a nice alternative to the regular. There are several recipes floating around online. Most involve ginger, peanut butter, soy sauce, that sort of thing. I find it quite yummy.
I’ve also put cabbage in stir fries and it works pretty well.
About Vermont: there are about a dozen towns that are only accessible by ATV, by foot, or by helicopter right now. In the previous few days, there were many more towns that were completely cut off. People are having medical emergencies as they run out of medication. There are still some families looking for loved ones, unable to get in touch with them. The National Guard is out in force, except that a bunch of them are just getting back from Iraq, so we’ve got the Indiana and Florida National Guard helping out as well. I passed a bunch of military vehicles loaded up with bottled water on the highway today. It’s surreal (I live on the top of a hill in one of the least-affected areas of the state). It’s going to take a long, long time to rebuild.
You can use cabbage to help bridges knit together.
And I win on the inappropriate joke post timing. I think I may crawl in a hole for a bit.
The cuttlefish were nice. Except for the one that was on that crab, like a chicken on a cheeto. Wasn’t quite fair for him to hula around like that & then pounce.
Dhorvath, OM
You didn’t real earn the Inappropriate Timing award.
That goes to what ever gremlin is timing the release of comments to the Thread.
and xe werks in mistyrious weighs.
Hmmm. PZ said we can put 6 links into 1 comment, but my comment with 6 links still hasn’t got through. I suppose it’s bad that all links have “here” as their text?
Anyway. The awesomeness of knitted Diplocaulus is beyond words. Imagine carrying one to the conference of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology… <^_^>
Out- to whip up the teriyaki marinade, and get the peaches peeled for the “lesbian” lemon olive oil. *smirk*
Don’t worry Dhorvath. I’m not offended.
David M,
I attempted to add one link to the Swedish pizza salad recipe in several different posts, but no dice. :(
In regard to food, I read a recent story about how the Homo Erectus were the first to cook their food. I had a flashback to countless scenes with Homer Simpson.
— — — — —
This is the beginning of crayfish season in Sweden. People voluntarily sit down and eat scavengers. Aquatic buzzards… u-ulp.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the begining of WWII, as well as of the takeover of Libya by Moammar Ghaddaffi in 1969. Stewie Griffin would be pleased.
Katherine (from the previous thread): I thank you so much for the parts of your story here. It has helped. :)
Cabbage: We always cooked it southern style:
Cut cabbage
Sautee an entire pack of the fattiest bacon you can find
Sautee onions
Cover bottom of pot with water
Add cabbage
Cook until Grandma can eat it without her dentures (yes, I’m serious that this actual line was in the instructions given to me by me great-grandmother when I was about 9)
Mom eats hers with a little bit of vinegar on top.
OR, you can put it into a tomato-based veggie soup.
When I met my grandfather for the first time, he taught me to make cabbage and potatoes and homemade sauerkraut (I have not tried the sauerkraut as Ex would just complain about the smell…like he does everyeffingthing else (oh, I’m sorry. Do I sound bitter?))
And no, I will NOT be going into the libertarian thread. Not even to watch. I gave up on libertarians when I was informed that I was a dog not worthy of the scraps from their table. No. I will sit here and enjoy my Riesling in bliss tonight.
Crawfish may be scavengers but they’re tasty.
@Audley, the Swedish pizza salad that I ate in Stockholm definitely didn’t have the oregano and basil. It was pretty much pure cabbage, with a vinaigrette and black pepper. Yummy, and offsets some of the greasiness of eating too much pizza.
I have a tricky political/personal question for and about Kitty. As I think most of us see it, encouraging girls to be nothing but pretty is perniciously damaging. And yet something like 90% of the compliments to Kitty are about her being pretty, gorgeous, beautiful etc.
But what are we implicitly saying to her here – surely we don’t think that you MUST be pretty to be a proper woman?? Kitty, how do you feel about this? I know it’s nice to be complimented, but it can also feel diminishing when it’s solely focussed on your appearance. Does this bother you at all?
FWIW, I think that Kitty is smart, eloquent and brave, and a very fine woman regardless of how pretty she is, or not. (And also pretty. Terrific strong-looking arms, love a woman with muscles!)
FROST WARNING!!!!??!!
Are they fucking KIDDING?
I need a recipe for basil pesto STAT!
chigau: easy
What is wrong with me that I can’t remember simple tags!?
Our school year may not start tomorrow as previously scheduled because the teachers are in negotiation. Naturally I’m explaining it to my kids with commiesoshalist propaganda like “Your teachers feel they deserve a fair wage for the important job of teaching you”. My son (12) was interviewed by the local news station yesterday while he was at the park, and they asked him what he thought about the situation; he said if teachers were going on strike they probably had a good reason. We don’t have a TV, though, so we never found out if he was actually on the news that night.
I wasn’t watching the libber thread live today, but scrolling through it when xe brought up railroads, I could sense the impending education being banged out by Brother Ogvorbis. Impressive as always.
Squigit
Thanks. I think that’s my basic recipe. I’m just panicking.
—
Therrin
Brother Og’s railroad lesson was/is largely ignored by the golfclub.
Chas on previous thread:
It seems like she wanted to play with the big kids, but other than her “complain about feminists” thread, most of her posts get fewer comments than PZ gets on a post wishing his daughter a happy birthday.
Cabbage is very good, sliced thin, and stir fried with some onion and chile pepper, meat of your choice (or not) and a nice fermented blakc bean sauce.
G’night.
PZ, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I thought you might be amused by the following abstract:
TRIASSIC KRAKEN: THE BERLIN ICHTHYOSAUR DEATH ASSEMBLAGE INTERPRETED AS A GIANT CEPHALOPOD MIDDEN
Basically, it appears the presenter is proposing that there was an enormous, vastly intelligent giant squid that consumed ichthyosaurs and arranged their bones into a giant self-portrait.
Since the next GSA conference is taking place in Minneapolis, maybe they’re just trying to boost their visibility by tempting you to come and live-blog it. ;-)
And waffles. Dry, fortunately!
–
To Tyops!
–
I have Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery. It’s interesting to look at it as a point of comparison between medieval/Renaissance recipes and modern-day stuff.
–
Not even boiled. There are no edible parts.
–
Or a White Man’s Caucus?!? After all, they are a persecuted minority!
Oh….wait…..
–
SallyStrange, so sorry about your impending situation; if it’s any help, hubby and I spent a great deal of time apart when he worked away from home (sometimes in another country), and so have other couples I know, yet it didn’t weaken the bonds in any way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re cabbage/lettuce:
Hubby brought home one of each; just two days ago I was warning the boys not to get them confused! We’re having boiled corned beef (fresh joint, not canned) with carrots, cabbage, roasted leek & baby marrow plus baked potatoes for dinner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re the transgender/camp/gay thing:
My husband of 31 years is camp. And straight.
Funnily enough, this seems to be the ‘topic of the week’ in my house. On Tuesday, during a discussion about marriage equality (they and I are all for it), I ‘came out’ to my youngest sons (the 18-year-old twins) without turning it into a joke (as I have in the past with family) and admitted that, joking aside, I have always felt my inner self to be male. And totally not attracted to females. How unfair is it, I asked them, that a transgendered gay male can marry his boyfriend quite legally as long as he hides inside the female body he happened to be born with, and allows himself to be referred to as ‘she’? But that anyone who is open and honest about who they are will be discriminated against? They agreed that it was totally unfair. The next day I spent with two close friends. Both women on the spectrum, like me. We were discussing marriage equality (all for it too, of course), porn, sexuality, the BDSM community… I feel so safe with them I opened up. And it was accepted by them, as by my boys, as a non-event. =^_^=
From infancy I played as a boy (although I fought with my mother over it, I was actually encouraged by my Aspie father! =^_^=), preferred male company (I have always had more male friends than female ones), and (even as an adult) pursued ‘male’ occupations and hobbies. My best friend at primary school was a gay lad. I always enjoyed being allowed to hang out with the boys; I understood them far more easily than I did the girls (which was, basically, not at all). Then I went to an all-girls grammar school where I very obviously didn’t fit in, although I was lucky in that a couple of girls (already good friends with each other since primary school) eventually took me ‘under their wing’ as it were and protected me from further bullying.
Had I been born more recently I possibly would have gone for re-assignment surgery. As a teenager, being able not only to act but be treated as a male would have been awesome. On the other hand, being able to have a long and happy marriage with someone who wouldn’t have given me a second glance (in any romantic sense) had I had a male body…
I always rationalised my differences to myself (and others) by thinking/saying that ‘traditional’ gender roles are far too restrictive and that assigning particular activities/behaviour/appearance to anyone because of perceived gender was anti-feminist and discriminatory and I would jolly well behave the way I felt comfortable with, regardless; and would not conform to a stereotype (not that I put it quite in those words when I was eight). If a boy (like my friend) wanted to dress in glittery skirts and tops, wear make-up and play with dolls, and his female friend wanted to play alongside him in trousers and with toy cars and trains, why not? I really didn’t understand my mother’s shock when she found us… =ô.ô=
Despite being bullied as a child, despite not ever fitting in, despite my preferred activities being frowned upon as being ‘inappropriate’ for my perceived gender, on balance I’ve decided that I actually like the fact that I was born with the wrong body, as (1) I had the privilege of being able to give birth (something I definitely do not regret and which makes me feel desperately sad for people who would like to experience that for themselves and don’t have the equipment); and (2) I have benefitted from (totally unearned and misplaced) ‘apparent-cis-straight’ privilege.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR:
Closeted, transgendered, gay, autistic male passing as ‘tomboyish-woman’ in a ‘straight’ marriage faces waaaaay less discrimination for xir ‘unfeminine’ behaviour than a gay male faces merely for existing. I think that overall I have been fortunate.
Guys, Chaz Bono is going to be on Dancing With the Stars!
I can’t think of another transgender person on such a high profile show. This is going to do a lot to raise the visibility of trans people and their issues!
And I love DWTS! *does a happy dance* I don’t care what you say, it’s quality entertainment I tells ya.
Well, I’m off to the fair. Going to ride The Stinger! It goes up 182 feet in the air, rotating in every direction!
I don’t generally watch DWTS, but if I remember/notice Chaz’ debut upcoming, I’ll make a point to catch it.
–
Cole slaw: vinegar, sugar, pepper, water to dilute, a little oil to go with. Marinate overnight. Yum.
@Cath:
Doesn’t matter to me as long as the other aspects of myself are also mentioned :) I know women don’t have to be pretty, but it’s good for me to hear that others think I’m pretty and cute and such because it makes me understand that I’m not a mannish person, and I have issues with “passing.”
Not sure what you mean about “strong arms” since they’re stringy and weak XD
Speaking of musical interludes, PZ…Hemant had a link to a rapper whose song “Anti-Science” is really good. I have generally been “anti-rap” up to this minute (mostly for the mysogyny), but this song hits it out of the ballpark.
His name is Tombstone Da Deadman. I have no idea how to put in a link. Help!
A friend of mine said on Facebook: “I have no use for Chaz. Could not care less about him/it/her. She remade herself to better suit herself. Fine. We all have that right, I say. But I don’t have to care about it.”
Of course, I had to reply: “I think you mean ‘he remade himself’.”
####
I just got a check in the mail. It’s over nine thousand. Really. (It’s the remainder of my student loan for this semester, coming out to $9,096.38.)
And again I realize just how steeped in racism my childhood was. The first thing that popped into my head upon opening the envelope was “I’d better not start feeling n****r-rich.” (It’s the mistaken belief that one is wealthy simply because one has cash in one’s pocket.)
The sad part is that it’s something that needs a short and catchy name… but not one with the N word in it.
WHoa!!! I just tried to post the url!! Sorry!
cicely,
I didn’t own any old cookbooks until now*– what I’ve found interesting is the recipes that have survived since the ’30s. Sure, you expect a basic yellow cake to be pretty much the same, but baked eggs in bacon cups garnished with cheese? It sounds so modern.
The American Woman’s Cook Book is pretty fascinating, just to see what people ate– a lot of fruit and milk, apparently, with no shyness toward meat substitutes (many made with peanut butter, of all things). It makes a lot of sense considering the time period, but it’s something I’ve never thought of before.
It also seems to be the beginning of the “Let’s float shit in gelatin!” age.
Also, on a more personal note, it’s kind of cool to have some of my grandmother’s cookbooks. She died when my dad was in his teens and I know so little about her, but she made notes in her books and there’s still bookmarks marking off particular recipes. I don’t know why, but that made me smile.
*I’ve also inherited a couple of cookbooks** from the ’60s and a reprint of The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896, which I haven’t thumbed through yet.
**And the U.S. Department of Agriculture guide to Cheeses of the World.
IT’S PADDY IT’S PADDY IT’S PADDY!
*damn Amurcans*
SallyStrange – Oh gak! I’m about to cook supper and I read about the 182 foot fall of that ride. No way am I going to look at it. Are you going to wear Depends ™ ? I’d have to dress in three garbage bags.
Funny thing, Tigger, is that my childhood was quite similar. I’m not autistic, just rather introverted, but I used to score as “male” on all the psych tests, and when they gave me a career aptitude test I was off the scale for females in terms of science/maths etc.
The thing is, I did exactly as you suggested –
And I think that’s a totally appropriate reaction, and not just a rationalisation. And it’s appropriate for anyone, whether cis or trans, gay or straight.
One of the reasons that feminists used to be (and in some cases still are) anti-trans is precisely this point here. When you’re spending all your time fighting to say that girls can be astrophysicists too, and don’t have to wear stupid confining clothes, and can be attracted to other women, it feels like a real slap in the face for someone to embrace the stereotypes that you’re busy rejecting. Femininity is a performance, and I hate it, think it’s deeply oppressive, and I won’t do it, and now transperson X says that shit is what ze thinks being a woman is all about? Please to be fucking off now, kthx!
Now I know that some of the apparently air-headed focus on clothes and make-up and appearance for the transwomen then was not actually air-headed. They HAD to do that to convince their doctors and psychologists that they were serious about it. Back in the 90s I met a trans-woman who was always impeccably groomed and made-up, wearing skirts and heels all the time – and as soon as she’d had the surgery, she was into the jeans and comfy sneakers. She shared with me a quiz on “can you pass as a woman?”, and I totally failed it. Not just gimme questions like that I hadn’t had my Adam’s apple shaved, but because of my inability to walk in heels and such like. The trans women were being set a standard of femininity performance that was way above what most cis women would bother with. Sad.
My favorite old cookbook is from the 60’s, I believe, and it’s by Peg Bracken — the I Hate To Cook Book. Bracken also wrote the I Hate To Housekeep Book. I love them because of her irreverent sense of humor, her literary asides, and her assumption that there are better things most women want to be doing with their time than lovingly floating shit in gelatin and buffing the furniture.
@Kitty, your arms may not be muscular from a male bodybuilder perspective, but women have leaner and lighter musculature. From that perspective you look strong. Think of Madonnna’s “yoga arms” (before she got so much older and skinnier).
well… trapped the last of the kittens today :-( but it will be best for them. Bubba has decided against trying to capture the Mister, who knows when we’ll see him again. Hopefully soon.
Dumbass quote of the day: ‘Feminism is Socialism is Nazism, hence “Femi-Nazism.”‘ I thought it was satirical but it’s not. I’m not going to link to the sit, it seems to be run out of the basement of “fathers for life” and insists that letting women out of the kitchen was a Rothschild plot. Or something like that. The crazy was making it hazy.
Katherine, last thread:
I see your point, but I don’t think it’s quite the same. Making alliances with intelligent Christians like Miller who support evolutionary biology can have a positive effect, insofar as their activism can encourage other Christians to accept evolution and reject creationism. Over time, it can be hoped that the presence of people like Miller will influence the religious population for the better on this issue. Similarly, I’m in favour of building bridges with religious feminist and pro-LGBT organizations in order to achieve common goals, and in the hope that overt sexism and homophobia will become less common over time in mainstream religions (as overt racism already has over the past couple of decades).
By contrast, I don’t see that Harris is achieving anything that other writers haven’t already done better, and I’d say any good he’s doing is enormously outweighed by the fact that he’s actively promoting bigotry and authoritarianism. I hasten to add that I wouldn’t say the same about Dawkins or Hitchens – both of whom are sometimes brilliantly insightful (notwithstanding that I disagree with them on many issues), and neither of whom have gone to Harris’ lengths in promoting Islamophobia.
Audley, I was referring to when Sally said:
There’s been a drive-by in the TAX THE RICH thread, by the way.
re: the video for this thread. . .
Lazy hipster I’m-bearded-have-big-chords-love-my-big-song
Stupid.
Tigger—
Just so I’m clear (because I don’t want to misunderstand you, and most definitely not because I feel entitled to interrogate you):
Are you saying you’re a biological female who identifies as a man, and a gay man too?
Josh at 100
Don’t be so mean! :D I think the beard is cute.:3
Oh! Randide, there’s a little gathering of Pharyngulites in Vermont, the same weekend as the Wool Festival in New York State. It’s in mid-October, just a couple of weeks before StrangeBoyfriend moves to Maryland. Some folks rented a cabin on a lake somewhere. The details are escaping me right now.
If you want a good song that’s also atheistic, check out ‘Glorious Feeling’ by Joelistics. It’s been playing heaps on Triple J (Australian radio station) and when it comes on when I driving I always end up singing along.
Gee, it is only 11:23 PM. Why is no one here?
Josh, Yes. You nailed it. =^_^=
Pharyngula has been good to me. The horde not only made me feel OK about ‘coming out’ as atheist (even though I hadn’t been at all sure that was what I was, and was sorely afraid of admitting it) but has also made me feel that I can and should be honest with you all about how I have always felt about myself.
I told my husband a long time ago. He doesn’t mind, because we fell for each other as friends and intellectual equals with similar interests and outlooks. I have hinted at it in a joking manner with our children for a long time, sort-of afraid to embarrass them and giving them an outlet (“Oh, that’s just one of Mum’s jokes!” sort-of thing) but Mattir’s reporting of her offspring’s response to her honesty was so refreshing I realised that I had been underestimating the younger generation’s openness and accepting nature, so the next step, that of telling them, was accomplished with no drama whatever.
Once I had told my closest friends and they weren’t even surprised, I thought this was the place to start ‘going public’ as it were. The older one would have said something if she had any doubts I were telling the truth – she has a tendency to be blunt to the point of offensiveness (she still thinks I’m not as sick as I am, and tells me so) and she has a lot of other gay and transgendered friends in her community.
So, in the wide spectrum of human kinds and types, the one that fits me is, and always has been,
I am always male in my dreams (even when I’m an owl or other bird, a recurring theme). While my sisters stayed at home and played house, I was with my younger brother out on our bikes in the fields and woods, climbing trees and making camps. Back in the ‘seventies, while my sisters (both younger; the youngest is on the spectrum, too) both liked dressing up for parties and discos, my brother and I were both in motorcycle clubs. At motorcycle meetups, where the other women were and what they were doing I have very little idea (except when they were on stage in the wet t-shirt ‘competitions’, :-P ) because I was always with the blokes, covered in oil, working on something mechanical. Usually the only one who had arrived on her own bike (instead of decoratively on the back of someone else’s). Hubby and I met when we were both training as motorcycle instructors at Crystal Palace in 1979.
Many of my friends have been gay men, although most of the (very few – I am also nearly asexual) men I ever fancied were straight. And another odd thing; my given name has always been shortened by my friends into a masculine one, throughout my teens my friends called me ‘Ken’ (not my name!), my current nick-name is a male character and all my friends seem to think that’s appropriate. I have never been treated by men or women the way they treat other women. I once asked a group of male friends about that, and the puzzled response was “But you aren’t really a proper woman, are you?” I felt proud, then vaguely felt that perhaps I should have been offended by that – my mother certainly was, when I reported the conversation to her. Poor woman, she tried so hard to turn me into a girl. =^_^=
I’m here! I’m just getting ready to leave for a few days.
*sends hugs to everyone, especially Caine (for reasons entirely taking place in my head) and SallyStrange*
We’re headed back to ND for a visit for my brother’s birthday. I’m going to study Greek and Latin like crazy in the car – it’ll be awesome. Right now I’m growling at the poster for the Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – does Lisbeth need to be displayed naked on it? Really?
Oh dear. Linky ?
Good morning,
Re: naked poster for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake
I looked for the poster. I’d say I’m disappointed, but my expectations for that movie are so low that I’m not even surprised. There is something about that pose bothering me too. I can’t help imagining that if Mikael ever tried to restrict Lisbeth like that, he would one day wake up without that arm. (not really.. but they just don’t look like Mikael and LIsbeth *whine*)
I’m here, but the time is 14h23 (well, when you posted). Just lurking.
…………………….
* waves *
Nihao CC!
CC,
For some reason I envision you literally growling at a poster. :D
Tigger
Hugs! The horde is where I came out first! I don’t know why but something about a group like this just invites openness.
I told my friends later. Some of them said “they called it”. I thought it was weird that they could, since I wasn’t camp. But then again, one of my close friends is a camp straight guy. I just assume it’s because I always dodged any question about my sexuality.
Though I cringe when people say I’m straight acting because it usually implies that gay men are naturally feminine or it implies that femininity is somehow undesirable. It ignores the fact that femininity and masculinity are cultural constructs and relative to a particular culture.
Here, have some naked Lisbeth! And some creepy possessive Blomkvist too for good measure.
I think everyone is at the childbirth thread – I am wading through it at the moment.
@ Gyeong Hwa
Or cross cultural. One might note how effeminate and camp (he also loved to camp out) Qaddafi is/was. Yet he sold himself as a macho leader in a macho culture at the same time. Where the truth of the matter lies is anyone’s guess.
Yeah, more here if you want them. Don’t be shy there.
PaulG@ 90 – You don’t get away with twitting Nerd that way.
My name is Patricia, I have been called Patty Cakes as a toddler, and Patty in elementary school. Never have I been called Padtricia, Miss Paddy, Mistress Paddy, or Madame Paddy.
You may insist on a catholic named Patrick being called Paddy until you turn blue. Patrick is the male name derived from Patrician, female being my name Patricia – meaning Noble Head of Family.
Paddy is some sort of catholic bastardization of a proper heathen name, and your definition won’t do.
Watched the trailer yet? I don’t remember the original well enough to compare all the scenes, especially when they speed away in the trailer, but a lot of it looks like a total copy from the original. On one hand, that’s better than making it all wrong, but on the other – what’s the point? If there is no new depth to be added, it’s the same thing with different actors. I understand making remakes after ten, twenty or more years, but this is just stupid.
It just makes me so angry. Here’s a fascinating, powerful, and complex female character who is fucking defined by her layers upon layers of protection from the world, who is supremely difficult to figure out and yet incredibly compelling, who is actively dangerous to people who would attempt to control her, and whose piercing intellect is pretty much the only part of her inner life that anyone has access to. And Hollywood looks at all that and what they get out of it is: Girl! Boobies! ? And we end up with an image of Blomkvist (at this point in the series, the one guy in the world that she thinks is decent for not attempting to control her) possessively restricting her movement, and her naked and vulnerable-looking with a stupid, empty stare that I assume is supposed to read as sexually appealing because I don’t see any other use for it. It’s outrageously stupid and an affront to anyone who understood the book.
…[/rant]
Gyeong Hwa, thanks for the hugs! =^_^=
Great paragraph! Hugs back at you! Hardly any of my gay friends were nearly as camp as my husband. And, as I said, hubby is camp but straight.
Cath, you called it too, I think your post 92 was perfect. It explained a lot; the weird hostility of some feminists towards m to f trans people, the inexplicable (to me) extreme stereotyped behaviours of some of those transitioning (and I now feel really angry on their behalf; how dare the medical profession tell someone how they should behave in order to be accepted as who they are, as if anyone would face such potentially traumatic surgery etc. for frivolous reasons?) and why I liked you, not just your posts here, from the first time we met IRL (when that is a very, very rare thing for me where women are concerned). I like your worldview and your attitude! =^_^=
I hope you aren’t feeling too poorly and that everything goes well for you tomorrow. The results had better be good ones or the FSM will have me to answer to!
Now to go cook some egg fried rice with bacon and peas…
Classical Cipher, OM,
Rant approved and signed.
Oh but Beatrice, it’s in English. You can’t expect American audiences to read while they’re trying to watch a movie, remember?
Frankly, that’s the only reason I can see to remake it this quickly – not like they needed different actors, after all, as the original cast was excellent. And yeah, looks pretty similar to me… but the tagline on the poster makes me warier still, to be honest. Yeah, there was religion in the book, but I’m afraid part of making the movie palatable to American audiences will be inserting religious concepts where there need not be any. I always worry about that (ever since I saw the cringefest I Am Legend). And the Bjurman scenes… handled ham-handedly, they could be really horrendous, and not in the way they were in the Swedish film.
“I am always male in my dreams” says Tigger… and I almost never am. I wonder if that’s diagnostic of being trans? At least a hint, you’d think.
When I play games, I always choose female avatars – unless they’re really ridiculously pneumatic & battle-bikini gross. Androgynous if there’s an option.
@niftyatheist: Thanks for posting the link to Tombstone’s rap. I have never been a big fan of the genre, after Grandmaster Flash everything seemed a cheesy derivative. The lyrics are amusing and the classical DJ made it work on an entertainment level. I have to go post a link on my Fecesbook page to annoy all the religious rellies.
After a bit of googling ( I really have better things to do which explains why I’m obsessing over this movie ), it’s not a remake of the movie, but a new adaptation of the book. Right. I’m sure the director came up with identical scenes accidentally.
Hm, there really are a lot of things to muck up there. From religion to rape, and let’s not forget Lisbeth’s bisexuality. Or the whole incest&rape thing they are investigating. Uh. That will not end well.
See, bacon fried rice and peas.
Ohh fuck. Lisbeth has sex with WOMEN! Which means OMG PORNILICIOUS LESBIANS! Having SEXY SEXY SEX! Now with TWO TIMES THE BOOBIES! That Blomkvist guy is one lucky fucker amirite?
Surprised they didn’t put that on the fuckin poster.
—
Okay, off to bed with one foul-mouthed foul-tempered Cipher.
Part-Time Insomniac, Zombie Porcupine Nox Arcana Fan:
Kohlrouladen: Take the big leaves, wash, boil quickly so they become soft. Fill with spiced minced meat, make “dumplings”, make sauce with butter, onions, garlic, the rest of the cabbage. Put your dumplings into the sauce, simmer until done, serve with potatoes.
Well, double-ovulation is at the basis of all non-identical twins. It sometimes happens that far apart, but, well, I wonder how often nobody actually notices how far apart the children were conceived.
Sauerkraut: Yummie, but takes quite some time and work. I also suppose that since the cabbage was mistaken as lettuce, we’re not talking about the firm white stuff but about the loose green variety, am I right?
Mattir: Please post pictures when it’s finished
David M: OK, I’m waiting for Danone to jump on this train. Now, what will happen if we combine yoghurt with panda-shit? :)
BTW, it’s kind of fun to constantly wake up to read an interesting comment by you followed by a comment where you complain it didn’t go through. Somehow they always appear before I get to read the thread.
Old cookbooks: My gran’s handwritten one is mostly hard to read because it’s been written in Sütterlinschrift, (good girls were taught cooking in Nazi-Germany) but there are also some of my great-grandma in there which are readable. They serve as a reminder that the good old times were actually bad old times, especially in the cake and cookies section: butter, sugar and eggs were expensive, so they contained mostly flour. The whole traditional cooking from my area (which I like a lot) is based on flour, potatoes and veggies.
Tigger:
Hmm, although I my childhood sounds very much like yours, I never felt male. I always knew I was female, never wanted to be anything else, got upset when people called me he. I just never wanted to be a doll-playing female but one with a pocket knife, a tool kit and more bruises than the rest of the class combined.
Girl with the dragon tatoo poster:
yuck
Really.
Lisbet kind of clinging to a possesive and protective Blomkvist? I hate Hollywood.
Hmmm, Greta Christina’s blog has moved here, but it’s not in the sidebar yet (or the mainpage).
Nevertheless, here it is: https://proxy.freethought.online/greta/
Unexpected Good Television
You may or may not have seen or even heard of the British TV programme What Not To Wear. It has been broadcast over here as well, and it’s apparently popular enough to warrant a Dutch version, called Trinny & Susannah: Missie Holland (missie being Dutch for mission).
The format is simple but effective. Trinny and Susannah go out on the streets, scout people who could do with a makeover, and then give them one. It is, however, done with integrity. There’s no “you’re so ugly, here, let us dress you up” but rather “we want you to feel better and dress like you feel” (if that makes any sense). It also helps that neither Trinny nor Susannah are ‘models’ themselves.
For instance, yesterday’s show had a 21 y/o woman with a history of self-mutilation and anorexia, and I noticed that Trinny spoke of ‘we’ when referring to people suffering from anorexia.
The high point though, was the very first couple they met. Two women, who, when asked if they were mother and daughter, responded “sort of”, but then clarified that yes, she was her daughter. In the conversation that followed, the daughter was asked about her father, to which the older woman responded “I am”. As it turned out, she transitioned a couple of years ago (I don’t know to what degree, but she was dressed the part).
There was a bit of himming and herring at first, by the daughter as well, but in the end she was transformed from having a ‘housewive-look’ — as one of the presenters described it — to a beautiful woman, and during the final catwalk session, everybody was cheering for both mother and daughter, while somebody else was introduced as “the only man today”.
Of course, there was fun to be had as well. A nice example of Dunglish for instance: “I feel me so good”. All in all, a good show.
OK, things are moving here.
We’re going to take gran home. The hospital can’t do anything for her, she’s lying in bed and she’s probably dying exactly because of that.
My mum and my sis actually agree with each other (I might start believing in miracles). So we’re going to take here home where she’ll either find the courage and strength again to get up, or she’ll die peacefully in her own home. My sis is a qualified nurse with experience in palliative medicine, she won’t get better care than that.
Jen McCreight is coming to freethoughtblogs!!!
Giliell, funnily enough, despite hanging out with my brother and his mates, I always managed to be largely clean and undamaged. My beautiful, blue-eyed sister with the curly blonde hair was the one always covered in bruises*. Whereas my sibling destroyed shoes in short order, mine (despite all the climbing, roaming etc.) looked brand-new even as I outgrew them.
If I’d had my way, of course, I would have spent my entire childhood curled up in a comfy chair in a quiet corner reading fantasy and sci-fi. But in those days children were expected to be outside so long as it was daylight and the weather wasn’t severe.
*My mother says that the difference between us was obvious even as babies. I could eat a small bar of chocolate and be pristine afterwards; give my sister a small square of chocolate and it would look as if she had bathed in it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cath
I wonder what other people, trans-or cis-gendered, experience? Not necessarily diagnostic, but certainly would make an interesting paper. I sense a Google Scholar search in the offing…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patricia, OM
=^_^=
Four rashers of bacon, snipped small-ish and fried in olive oil until opaque, add four cups of boiled rice followed by three large eggs (beaten together with two teaspoons of tamari) and, when the egg is cooked, two cups of steamed peas. Feeds three to four depending on appetite (in my family; YMMV).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:
Hubby watched the first one and realised that it wasn’t a film I would be able to watch. I’m in awe of those who could. I found even the vaguest descriptions uncomfortable; my friend (also a survivor of rape, plus incest) said she was quite unable to read the book despite trying very hard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part-Time Insomniac,
Sounds like fairly usual fraternal twins.
When my youngest twins were born at 34 weeks, they were both blond, blue-eyed boys with O- blood group, and with a shared sac and placenta. They were very different in size (despite being pretty much the same size in ultrasound scans up to 28 weeks), 2.58kg vs 1.86kg, because the ‘upstream’ twin had been getting the greater share of nutrients (which is, I was told, common in identical twins). There was talk of them being identical until the smaller twin’s hair turned dark on the third day. Closer examination of the bigger twin (who was in an incubator) showed he had a double crown. They have grown up to be the least alike of any pair of my children except that they both inherited my father’s (and my) blood group and his colourblindness. One is 5’7″, short dark curly hair, wears glasses, is gregarious and sporty. Loves creating 3D animation and wants to work in the IT industry. In many ways he is almost a clone of his father. The other is 6’1″, long blond hair, suffers from social anxiety, quiet, bookish. Loves science, especially marine biology and mineralogy.
Twin pregnancies have very little in common with each other apart from the number of babies, who may or may not have anything in common with one another. My daughter’s twin died in pregnancy. I have met a lot of ‘surviving twins’ (my grandmother was one) and people who lost one of twins at or before birth for various reasons. It is far more common than many people realise. It is also more common than people used to realise, pre-scans, for fraternal twins to be conceived at different times. I was told that the older we get, especially once we reach our thirties, the more likely it is for our ovaries to get out of sync with each other and start producing eggs at intervals other than the usual alternate cycles thus increasing the chance of twin (and higher multiple) pregnancies with age.
Ciswoman here and I’m male in my dreams quite often, maybe even most of the time. I don’t really remember if that changed at some point or if it was the same when I was a kid. It’s a bit confusing, in a that’s me but not really, but it totally feels like me?! sense. Since I’m pretty aware in dreams, I sometimes feel that confusion even during the dream itself.
In other words, the inverse of that tired old joke
Err, thanks for that ! I think.
They couldn’t have made that actress look more artificial and non-authentic if they tried.
Oh dear.
Good morning!
Set was 3 minutes.
Think I could convince my boss to let me work on Columbus Day? Why the heck do I want to celebrate that jerk?
Tigger:
I’m afraid I was the dirty, grubby kid you would tell other kids not to play with ;)
My mum once asked my friend’s mum how come that her kid looked cleaner coming home from school than I when I went there in the morning :)
I also bruise easily*, that’s something I got from my grandpa, alongside the bad teeth and the remarkably good blood-pressure.
*Sometimes Mr will ask me quuite shocked what happened to me. Puzzled look on my side. “What do you mean?” “The gigantic bruise on your butt/back/shoulder, that must have hurt like hell!” Then I will look, discover that I look like a battered housewife and shrug my shoulders. Most times I can’t remember.
Twins: I remember reading that a remarkable number of pregnancies starts out as twin pregnancies. Only they aren’t, or weren’t detected and most of them lose one twin quite early. Nowadays they are often picked up quickly, which may not be a good thing. Most women are shocked at first, then get used to the thought, then lose one of them and are devastated.
Giliell,
Thank you for the update on Gran. I’m glad everyone is in agreement as to the best course of action. Whatever the outcome, that you all pulled together to increase her happiness is what counts.
(Sorry if it seems I ignored your post; I still have three hours of slooooooow internet; it took an hour for my post to appear. I wonder how long this one will take. It’s just twenty past the hour here)
=^_^=
How to find it? *Scratches head, then realises that using the searchFTB function is probably more productive*
*Sigh*
No, it isn’t.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SQB,
I haven’t seen the programme here in OZ, but that sounds like it was a very good episode!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carlie
=^_^=
I love talent shows. I’m watching X Factor right now.
Last week, there was a huge tattooed ex-con, who sang a gorgeous intimate sad song with a beautifully gentle but strong voice, and made everyone cry, me included. I know they look for these transformation stories, I know they play up the emotion, I know they edit for drama, but I can’t help it, I love every minute of it.
Just now, a 35 year old guy came out on stage and introduced himself. The judges asked him why he’d waited till now to enter.
He said, “I needed to wait for a few things to come together in my life; probably the most significant of those was my gender transition. I’m a female to male transexual.”
And he got a bunch of “Wooooo!!”s and a round of applause from the audience :D
Then he sang, and he was good, and he goes through to the next round. I’ll try and find video.
CabbageBubble and Squeak
I’m going to repeat this request until implemented: PZ, please let the comment submittal redirect to the page itself instead of an anchor within the page; it makes reloading a S*PitA (S for Small).
So is Greg lucid Congo Laden. Big fat MEH, as far as I’m concerned. Jen is muchly, shall we say, overrated. Give me SC’s or Jadehawk’s blog anytime instead, at least those 2 have something to say.
Good morning!
On Cabbage: W.U. often buys Napa cabbage, seeing as how she likes it in her sandwiches, but she can’t really get through a whole head, or often even the half head they sometimes sell at the local megafoodstore.
OTOH, we almost never buy celery.
OTGH, I make soup (or glop) on a weekly basis, so instead of using celery in my “mirepoix” I sometimes use Napa cabbage. I like to sauté it until it just starts to burn.
OTOGH, I just now started wondering what roasted cabbage would be like, seeing as how I’m a veggie roaster these days.
OTGOGH, our local “Irish” restaurant has an appetizer they call “Irish Spring Rolls” – corned beef and cabbage in a spring roll.
Blargh.
That’s good.
I have to say, I really don’t get “Comradde [sic] Physioproffe” or why he was offered a blog here, though. As far as I can tell, he seems to specialise in incoherent foul-mouthed rants with no content, some containing rather scary violent fantasies. The recipes appear to be the only meaningful content on his blog. (Has he always been like this?)
He seems unwell. Or unhinged. Or both.
Tigger:
No problems, I’m here, take your time.
Well, with abortion rights in the UK being under attack, the misogyistic asshole behind it has found new depths of victim blaming. While we’re all used to the normal “blame the woman”, “it’s the child’s fault” is something I’ve never heard from anyone except actual pedophiles:
sauce
*sigh* Nadine Dorries: Britain’s answer to Michele Bachmann.
(She represents a constituency in Bedfordshire, adjacent to my home town of Milton Keynes. Many people in the local area consider her to be a blithering idiot.)
Giliell,
I can’t get your link to load at the moment (fault is at my end).
The first time I heard a woman blame the children was thirty years ago. My mother-in-law’s mother. I assume she had completely absorbed the message of the patriarchal society she was raised in. I never found out whether the girl she blamed for her own abuse was herself or another child. But after she stated adamantly that a man would only sexually interfere with a girl if that girl led him on, thus the girl must be a ‘slut’ (her word), hubby and I (both shocked) insisted that it was never the child’s fault, that whatever the child did, it was the adult’s responsibility to protect the child and not abuse her or him. She went very quiet and thoughtful and we never heard another word from her on the subject.
I have heard other women blaming themselves for their abuse, repeating more-or-less what their abusers had said to them to blame them.
Doesn’t abuse usually start with the gradual psychological undermining of the victim’s will until they truly believe they deserve or are to blame for whatever comes next? It has nothing to do with sex being common in society (duh – where does she think all the humans around her came from?) Since even an adult woman is rarely, if ever, in a position to resist abuse, how in the name of all the hells ever imagined is a child supposed to protect themselves from being abused?
Blame. The. Fucking. Abuser.
Always.
Walton:
I hope those people are giving her a really, really hard time at the moment.
Tigger:
At best people are clueless. Maybe that woman is. maybe she has never ever given the whole field a real thought. In which case she should just kept her mouth shut.
But she didn’t and she plays into the hands of abusers who use that very tactic: Well, you should have said so, you are in this with me and so on.
Teaching girls (and boys) that they have the right to say no: absolutely.
Claiming that this would prevent abuse: Fucking shit!
BTW can we deal with a funny elevator story by now?
Sometimes, using the elevator, people forget that other people might want to use it, too.
So, today when I went down, I was totally not thinking about the fact that somebody might want to take it to go up. The man with the big black dog waiting for the elevator was not thinking along the same lines, so when the door opened neither of us was prepared for another person in front of us.
But I moved out with such a busy dedication that both he and his dog jumped back in surprise.
I assured them that I don’t bite.
oh fuck, I just cut off half of my fingernail in an attempt to peel the pumpkin.
Now I want one of those expensive fake nails and I want it done in Kevlar
[snark] Those crazy archaeologists! How can they keep on being so wrong about dates?
I mean, 1,760,000 year old tools? How can they be wrong by at least 1,754,000 years???[/snark]
Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes:
I hope you’re not going for Molly Millions type enhancements?
SteveV:
I don’t think I’m really going for any enhancements(and yes, I had to look up who Molly Millions actually is).
I’m much too practical, lazy and a miser for such a procedure.
BTW, Giliell is really enough
@SteveV:
Silly Homo Erectus leaving all their tools laying around – haven’t they ever heard of a toolbox?
As promised:Paige Elliot Watson’s audition, on YouTube or the X Factor official site
I’m all teary again :)
Paige’s Facebook fan page
A story from his local paper – hey! That’s my old town!
Wow, he’s good.
Welp, there was no teacher’s strike, so Thing Two was off to second grade today. Snif.
She wanted school breakfast (because last year some of her friends got school breakfast and it was an important socializing time). The school-issued breakfast was: one cup of Trix, chocolate milk, a chocolate graham “breakfast cookie” and four ounces of grape juice. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I ended up watching other clips from Australian X Factor. Of course.
Is Mitchell Callaway the ex-con you mentioned? I’m not sure because it was only said that he had some trouble with the law. Also, he was brilliant.
The 19-year-old who sang Usher was also a very nice surprise. I expected him to be all talk and no talent. How wrong I was.
Well, this should properly temper any excitement you may have had over Chaz Bono being on Dancing With The Stars.
http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2011/09/01/7554651-dwts-producers-vote-down-using-same-sex-dance-partners
Gee, why does this argument sound familiar…
@Beatrice:
That’s not nearly the same thing. Traditional gender roles for dancing is different from traditional gender roles for the family because… umm… dancing… umm… and the ballroom… and OH MY GOODNESS! An obvious distraction! *flee*
nice. when are they coming to Philly?
Katherine, that was a good cop out. ;)
Or, as my scandalized friend who started attending dancing classes a year ago explained : “Men are supposed to lead women in dance. You can’t just go changing that. There you go with it [my crazy feminist ideas, I suppose] again.”
(After I tried to console her that it’s not such a bad thing that she’s unable to stop leading and let her dance partner take charge.)
Letting the person more suited for it take the leading role in a dance couple is obviously a radical suggestion. I guess she’d have an apoplexy at the idea of a same sex dance couple. *eye roll*
I hate gender roles.
Kristinc,
When I was a lad, you would get waffles and sausages and hash brown and many other neat stuff for free. It’s a shame that giving our children quality schools is not important to our legislators.
Writing a letter to the state dept of health to protest cuts in a grant…Saying that they need to restore funding for the sake of the health of Pennsylvania’s citizens may have been a bit over the top, but how else am I going to get their attention?
Damn Utah and its anti-gay culture. A gay man was beaten almost to death in Salt Lake City.
Story and photos here: http://qsaltlake.com/2011/08/31/man-attacked-outside-of-salt-lake-city-gay-club/
Here’s the Salt Lake Tribune’s take on the story: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52500205-78/hall-attack-club-gay.html.csp
From the Readers Comments section below the Salt Lake Tribune article:
Comment quoted by Lynna, OM:
That’s pretty common in most news now. They don’t want to report anti-gay hate crimes quickly and sometimes it they’ll only briefly mention it. It’s because they don’t want to offend their more conservative viewers. So much for the “liberal media” bias.
More from the Readers Comments section below the Salt Lake Tribune article (link in comment #168):
[above comment in reference to a previous attack on a gay man — as an aside, many of the Tongans in SLC are mormon]
And then there’s this from the right-wing commenter:
And this:
And this reply:
Corona’s cell phone was stolen and phone calls were made, but the information did not help police,
They’re not trying very hard if this is true. Cell phones are extremely easy to trace. Not to mention that the calls were probably made to someone who knew the perpetrators…
The practice of blaming the child for child abuse is unfortunately common. Particularly in sex abuse cases–I’ve worked with dozens of mothers who say the child tempted/seduced/led on the abuser–or is ‘making it up.’ One mother said her 5 year old was ‘really mature and dresses sexy’ as the reason why her boyfriend molested her for a year and a half. (Yes, do the math–it started when the child had just turned 4.)
And it’s passed on. Working in B-more, a group of middle school kids had a debate with me during a summer teaching program. I’d overheard one of them making a comment about the Kobe Bryant case that was going on during that time. This turned into an hour long discussion on rape and sexual abuse, with the girls arguing that Faber was ‘making it up’ and even if she wasn’t lying, she should feel grateful to have had the chance to have sex with Bryant. Nearly all of the girls (15) stated their mother or other female relative had told them about being raped or sexually abused, and said it’s just “something you deal with.” Some of the girls had been told they were ‘slutty’ after being fondled or molested by neighborhood men or relatives. Nearly all reported some incidence of abuse, rape or witnessing abuse or rape. Nearly all believed they ‘deserved’ it, and had done something to ‘turn on’ their attackers.
I knew about rape culture, but that day was one of the most vivid encounters I’d had with it.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I’m here! Trying to stay caught up on Thread through the email comments, I just can’t get on to post much. *hugs*, tea & chocolate to all who need them. :)
Fucking P-WORD, MOTHER-F-ER.
The Salt Lake Tribune is usually good about reporting hate crimes immediately. In this case, they kinda, sorta have an excuse for not reporting the beating of the gay man right away.
So, what you will notice from this explanation is that the Salt Lake City Police Dispatch did not report the incident on their log!
I thought the point of Dancing with the Stars was pairing a professional dancer with some person who is famous for something (not dancing).
And to have an end result wherein the Famous doesn’t look like a total buffoon.
Does anything but the non-buffooness really matter?
From the ACLU/UT website (as brought to our attention by ex-mormon, wine country girl):
“Dresses sexy”.
This (initially 4 year old) girl picked out her own clothes, and used her own money to buy these “sexy” clothes? No maternal input? Why not? Or if so, how and why were these “sexy” clothes procured for this girl? Rationalised much?
For the rest: no, no rape culture here. </sarcasm>
–
Tongan gangs have been a problem in SLC for some time. They fact that many of the gang members are also mormons gives LDS Head Honchos a public-relations headache of major proportions.
This is from one of the Tonga/Latter-day Saints websites:
And here are some excerpts from a 2009 story:
@onion girl
If you don’t mind me asking, is there any hope of young girls like those acknowledging what was done to them and their friends as wrong?
I’ve always suspected that sort of attitude was in part influenced by a refusal to be a ‘victim’ (an attitude that’s easy enough to empathize with even if it’s probably not doing any real good) taken to its absurd extreme. You see something like it in other areas (for example, in the military when a enlisted member is hazed by his superiors. ‘What did he think was going to happen to him.’ ‘It was my fault. I was late for my shift. I shouldn’t have been such a retard.’) but sex seems to be the worst place for it. Only when it’s rape can you expect to hear ‘They should be honored! Wish I could get some of that!’
All for defense mechanism but not if they’re going to make the situation worse for everyone involved.
Urgh, things are not gettig better here. Somebody also known as “me myself and I” has misplaced a not trivial amount of money. I’ve looked in all the sensible places and a couple of really stupid ones.
I’ll try again tomorrow
Accusing the victim:
Hmmm, maybe things are a bit different here. But maybe there’s also a difference between the individual level (at which it is common for mothers to ignore their children or, especially in the case of stepfathers and daughters, even turn jealous) and the level of society, where the idea of the sacred child persists.
Some friends tried to teach me a few steps. Whith one of them, I knew what said friend wanted from me. With the other one, I felt flung against the wall. Well, the good partner was my lesbian college friend, the bad one was my gay college friend. Well, to cut a long story short, she’s also a passionate dancer who is certified to teach latin and standard.
In a sensible world, the better partner should lead.
Scavengers are great, they take things we can’t eat and turn them into things we can. Isn’t that what plants and mushrooms do too?
___
Tigger,
That’s just awesome. Not the struggle to assert who you are, but that you did so, and having put it in explicit terms that your friends and family are being accepting. Life can be good.
And this:
Sounds familiar. Of course, far easier for me to accomplish than many, but yeah, what a great attidude.
___
McCthulhu,
What? Where have you been hiding?
___
Giliell,
So sorry to hear things have turned out like that with your gran, it’s hard, but home seems like such a nice option. Glad you and yours can manage it.
___
I don’t know as I am aware of gender at all while dreaming. Must not be important to the narratives.
___
I don’t bruise easily. Like, really, not easily. So the notion that a bruise could occur that I wouldn’t recall was pretty foreign growing up.
___
Lynna,
Seethe. Evil has an attitude, if not a face.
But this:
Is just horrible, so now, not only is he beaten most of the way to death, but his story is in question too? Because four people will beat the shit out of one for forty dollars? There is something wrong with that city’s police force.
On partnered ballroom dance:
I love it. A good dance can only be compared to good sex, without any of the cultural baggage and health risks that come with sex.
In competitive ballroom dancing there are required lifts. The majority of females simply are not physically capable of being the lifter. I’m strong and muscular, but there is no way I could hoist any dance partner over my head with any degree of grace much less while staying on step.
Lead/follow: Yes, the male leads but that doesn’t mean the female never leads. It’s actually quite a bit more of a give and take. He initiates the lift, but the female is the one who does 90% of the actual lift. His job is to support/catch her and make sure they don’t crash or injure other dancers in the process. Accidentally kicking someone in the head is generally frowned on.
I’m no dance expert and I wasn’t really trying to revolutionize the world of dancing competitions, it was just a general observation about more casual dancing arrangements.
For example, the friend I mentioned is only taking classes for fun and all participants are more or less talented amateurs. She would get partnered with a less capable man and try to lead when he screwed up, which was then considered a bad move on her part because she was supposed to follow him (even thought he didn’t really know his steps). It basically boils down to what Giliell said.
That got me laughing out loud.
GH
*snort!* Yeah ‘cos you’re sooooo old now. ;)
School breakfast in the dark days of the early 90’s wasn’t much different from what you’ree describing now, kristenc. Cold cereal, juice, and that’s about it.
So, Elmhurst College is now asking applicants about their sexual orientation. Supposedly, this is so that they can award scholarships to underrepresented groups (I hope that’s what it actually gets used for).
Most of the comments below the article I read are angry because straight white people are being discriminated against.
*sigh*
School breakfasts: In the early 90s where I went to school, we had “breakfast pizzas” or powered scrambled eggs, or one of those tiny little things of cereal and milk. Occasionally, there would be sausage patties (never bacon) with our “eggs”. I was never one to eat in the morning, though.
Giliell: Sorry Gran isn’t doing well. I hope things get better for her. :(
On gender identity: I always identified as female (I am biologically) but I was always very tomboyish. I like sporty cars that are usually identified as being masculine, I don’t usually wear jewelry(except my cheesy holiday earrings at Christmas:)), I used to climb trees, had tons of barbies that I never played with, etc.. However, I have some…quirks…that people consider to be exclusively feminine; for example, I cannot go without make-up. Even when I’m digging, I have at least foundation on. I wear my hair in typically feminine cut, I like purple and flowers, etc…
Oh, and ask me at your own risk to go anywhere where I’d need to be any fancier than jeans with no holes and a nice shirt. :)
A friend told me years ago that she always thought I was going to come out as lesbian or bisexual at some point.
forgot link
I have never had a guy who I was trying to teach get upset that I will lead if they fail to lead. I have had one egotistical instructor get pissy because I would improvise in open position and he had to “chase me down”. (yep…did it on purpose to piss him off after that comment)
Having danced with all levels of skill, I much prefer the men who are capable of letting the lead pass back and forth to the men who force you to follow. It’s very different when you are performing choreographed dances than just dancing for enjoyment in a totally spontaneous manner.
The best dancers are very skilled at communicating intent via pressure and touch. Apparently it looks like magic to people who have never learned to partner dance.
Oddly enough, men who ride horses make awesome dance partners without much teaching. They already understand how to communicate using body pressure.
Damn. I liked the viral hypothesis.
How do they explain the rapid spread, though? Did this variety transmit directly between people? I seem to recall that the objection was that rats could not move that fast.
@Dhorvath:
In my dreams I’m almost always female. Only times I’m not is when I’m not human?
I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that I’m not me.
+++++++++++++++++
I had a peculiar exchange in comments over at Raw Story IRT GaddafyDuck’s being deposed.
I asked for citations and he brought up a shitload of articles from ‘independent’ news sources. One of them from Thierry Meyssan said NATO generals were leading Al Qaeda’s troops off of invasions ships in Tripoli harbor.
To add to my WTF? moment, a linked article said “War propaganda has entered a new phase, involving the coordinated action of satellite TV stations. CNN, France24, the BBC and Al Jazeera”
My reply was “You are a loon.” Not helpful, but when someone is so deluded WTF can someone reply?
Katherine,
I don’t know as I have dreamed myself into another species either. I feel kind of boring now.
I just watched an odd but fascinating documentary.
“Goodnight Nobody” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606229/ -a documentary by Jacqueline Zund about the daily/nightly lives of four extreme insomniacs across the world: USA, Burkina Faso, China and the Ukraine.
The documentary does not adress the medical reasons for the extreme insomnia (which is still a poorly understood subject), but the subjective reality of being awake for 24/7 as they struggle to deal with boredom, functioning while experiencing the mental impact of not getting sleep (the brain really needs sleep, but what if you can’t get it for long periods). The documentary brings across the almost surreal experience , I recognise the mental “fuzziness” of going without sleep for far too long.
The one that comes across as having done the most of his condition is a janitor/groundskeeper at a theater in Burkina Faso, Africa, who lives at the theater and becomes an impromptu night watchman on top of his other duties. I found it a fascinating glimpse into the lives of four semi-outsiders, living in a society designed for people who work at day and sleep at night.
I poorly phrased the “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that I’m not me.” I generally don’t remember dreams, or in the time it would take to transcribe them they are already dissipating, but I’ve always been my persona (?) which is male, straight and human. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that;-)
With adulthood also came the death of nightmares. I still get disturbing dreams (I have insomnia, and dreaming that I can’t get to sleep is tiring) but nothing rises to the level of a nightmare.
As an insomniac I always sought jobs/positions that let me sleep in. It seems to me that my clock is on a different schedule than 24 hrs. If left to my own devices I generally slept about an hour later each day until I stayed up all night. (I’m currently enforcing a 9-5 sched 5 days/week thanks to recent advances in meds, but even with meds I can’t make it to work on time. and I love my job.)
It’s not that simple, it seems to go in cycles, and yes, YES, I still get tired/exhausted, I just don’t get sleepy.
The same plague had different vectors and took a different form with each vector.
Bubonic plague spread via flea bite. 40% mortality
Pneumonic plague could be primary or secondary to bubonic plague and spread via coughing/inhaling the bacillus or contact with infected body fluids. 100% mortality
Septacemic (blood borne) plague could be primary or secondary. 100% mortality
I hope they are right that this particular strain went extinct.
THe Sailor,
My wife is on something similar, but she doesn’t lack for sleep due to it, she is just always tired. Left to her own devices her time frame will creep.
“They couldn’t have made that actress look more artificial and non-authentic if they tried”
It made me think of Pris, the replicant in Blade Runner.
Birger, it’s not a given work shift, it’s the flexi-time one gets to employ on the ‘swing shift’.
Graveyard was just as, or even more so, anathema to me as day shift. On swing shift you wake up when you wake up and then go to bed after your shift when you feel like it. I was working 8-16 hours at a time, but it was OK with me. Getting up everyday at 7:30 am is not.
Society also has a blaming culture for people who don’t fit in to it’s sched. My Dad, who was a morning person, told me that “Well, I think that the sunrise is the best part of the day.”
I told him “I agree. I stay up as often as I can to see it.”
Audley,
Early twenties is old!
I’ve been thinking all day about Tigger’s post about gender and more than anything else I think it points up why just about everything that’s not directly connected to making zygotes, feeding nurselings, and amusing ourselves, mutually and consensually, with the interesting bits of other people’s bodies should be disconnected from social roles. It is ridiculous that one has to feel like a gay man in a woman’s body just because one likes some activities, social roles, and behavior patterns more than others.
This isn’t a criticism of Tigger, since I certainly feel the same way – every time I wear a dress or heels or get a pedicure, I feel like I’m passing as female and everyone is noticing that I’m not doing it well. Even DaughterSpawn has absorbed enough of this stupidity that when I got her a fluorescent pink sportsbra as a joke, she refused to wear it because it was “too girly.” This particular problem was solved when I discussed the queer idea of gender and asked, hypothetically, what SpokesGay would do with a hot pink sportsbra. The answer, of course, was “sashay the hell out of it,” and thus it got worn at Boy Scout camp all summer, providing support and protection from the Leg Hair Gender Police™ and the “you’re not a real girl” brigade of critics. (Josh, of course, suggested that I might be somewhat misguided to hope that my only girlchild would grow up to be a cynical, sarcastic middle-aged gay guy, but hey, I can dream…)
It’s just so damn depressing to feel like I don’t belong, like I’m not a “real girl”, to feel and be told that I’m really a “guy in a woman’s body.” I have the freaking body I was born with, and I should be able to enjoy it, all of it, without feeling like I’m passing, or pretending or something. What my genitals look like and whether I can gestate and nurse a baby has nothing at all to do with how I might want to behave, and just about nothing to do with what I think is hot in bed (particularly since the answer to “what’s hot” would be “imagination”). When I was younger, it was horrid to have straight male friends whom I thought were totally hot and who didn’t even see me as having the same parts as the women they were interested in, solely because I was acerbic and somehow “male” in some ineffable way.
So that’s my screed against the splitter cis/trans/straight/gay/male/female dichotomies. Sure they have their uses, but they’re also ridiculously limiting.
And have I mentioned that I totally love you guys? I felt on the edge of tears most of yesterday, which surprised me since it’s been years since I found recollections of pregnancy and early motherhood so painful. But between TET and FB, I felt a lot of support and knew that today would be better, which it is.
Now off to
BoyVenturing Scouts. Yet another way in which I don’t fit in with traditional gender roles – I’d rather deal with the BSA and its stupid discriminatory policies (complaining vocally all the while) than deal with the eighth-grade-girl interpersonal crap of most Girl Scout activities I’ve dealt with. And by crap, I mean adult leader interpersonal stuff, not the kid stuff.The Sailor:
You’re lucky. The only dreams I remember are my nightmares.
:(
GH:
I must be ancient by your metric. I’ll be 30 in October!
*shakes fist!*
You damn kids with your “rap” “music” and “baggy” “pants” need to get the hell off my lawn!
Audley,
Come share a porch chair with me.
Dhorvath:
Only if it rocks or swings.
I am an old lady, afterall, and we love that shit.
Poang suit you?
Dhorvath,
I had to Google “poang” and now I want one.
Audley,
BEST. CHAIR. EVER.
And they rock quiet too.
Fuck.
You.
*killfile*
That’s more like I remember.
Really?
Hmm, I Googled ‘poang’ and all I got was “Göteborgs gulddröm”
I’d like a Singapore Sling, but either the intertubes is clogged or my ex-GF has just used her safe-word;-)
Sailor,
Poang
Well… I probably just got banned from another website. Man, it’s like I *try* or something.
Some times when you’re just in the worst mood, some piece of shit says something on the internet and you just kind of decide to let it allll hang out.
Oh well, fair enough.
Hey Pharyngula!
I am loving the phrase “sashay the hell out of it”.
Even though I’m apparently a senior citizen (20’s is old!) I am now feeling the need to sashay the hell out of something.
Algernon,
The internet is like that. Some places can take it, others not so much. Need to vent?
Otherwise, hey back atcha. Hope you are otherwise well.
Nuclear meltdown warning:
Just so everyone knows. My life sucks right now. I have people dying, people going crazy, my work environment continues to suck, I don’t know where I’ll move next, and basically I’d cry if it wasn’t so motherfucking hot here that the tears evaporate anyway.
I want to punch the sun to death, or just about anything that gets in my way. So… Imma take some ΧanaΧ I guess.
Sorry if I have barged in here. I haven’t been following the thread for a while.
Algernon
Oh please share the details of your banning. Did you offer porcupines or say fuck too much?
So, the comment with 6 links that I wanted to submit yesterday is now through. It’s comment 53.
Not caught up. Hugs for Tigger_the_Wing, Mattir and Audley.
X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D
Well, so far, they’re in the market of decreasing gut passage time. I’m sure any attempt to digest cellulose would increase it. But you still win the subthread :-)
I think the time it takes for a comment to get through at FtB is exponentially related to its length.
When the comment actually goes through immediately, the automatic reloading of the page takes you to that comment. That’s standard on WordPress, and I think it’s a very good idea in principle. When the comment hasn’t gone through, you see the top of the page instead.
What is annoying is that this also happens when your comment is actually held for moderation. There is no error message.
Well, it’s pretty deeply anchored in Western culture that women are expected to want to be reassured about their beauty all the time. I’ve always found that tiring… and insulting, because it means lots of people are expected to lie a lot.
That said, I expected the following before I read it:
Ah shit Algernon, that’s horrible. Not barging at all. Please take care of yourself, that much stress is not healthy.
:( is all I can say. And offer a cyber-hug.
Meh. I barged in here. And now I’m hanging out here in my unemployment not really contributing much, so you’ll get no complaints from me about your barging.
Oh, please do!
For Algernon:
Hyperbole and a half has just the comic for your mood, complete with the evil burning sun.
Sneaky hate spiral
Algernon,
Hugs if you need them. You’re free to talk about in on TET as much as you want.
*hugs Algernon from behind around her hipbones and lifts her up to the sun*
Now punch. :-)
(…Actually, I’m lying. I’m probably too weak for that. But I can stand up when you sit on my shoulders; I promise.)
And if you tell your story of how you got banned, I might tell mine. :-)
Oh I luuuurve that episode!
I am… not a small woman, sir.
Yeah, what usually gets me is my classless trashy mouth.
More interesting to me though is how my mother (yes, my mother) got banned from RDF for questioning something (I forget what now, but it was surprisingly innocent).
That’s why I never posted there. If they can’t take my mother they sure as fuck can’t take me.
Flowers for Algernon, I’ve got sweet peas and um, sweet peas.
Algernon,
*extra hugs*. Also, check your FB.
Hey Algernon. *hands Algernon her favorite swill and a bowl of popcornz*.
*clinks glass*
*munches popcorn*
Your favourite chocs are being posted through the USB to anyone who wants them…
Algernon – I’m sorry life sucks now. Hugs from me too. And a few desserts of your choice.
Tethys, thanks so much for that link. I really needed it today. Nothing nearly on the level that other people are dealing with, but the last couple of days have been right down that spiral.
One bit being, related to the age-related comments above, that today my optometrist told me I have old eyes. :( I took the advice here and went to get my eyes checked in the always-open-for-service optometrist while waiting the whole month for an ophthalmologist, and she basically told me my eye was old and flabby. It is indeed a conjunctival cyst as Dr. Google told me. She described it as “You know how your skin is taut and elastic, but when you get old and get a needle stick the blood all pools up under the skin because it’s gotten looser and there’s space inbetween the layers now and blood gets caught in there? That’s your eye. The conjunctiva gets more loose when you get old and/or if you’ve rubbed your eyes a lot and then you can get a blister because the fluid pools up.” Ok, that was…graphic. Useful, but not the best mental image I wanted to associate with my eye. She said, like Dr. Google said, that it may go down on its own as the fluid eventually reabsorbs, or that I could get it lanced. She didn’t say that it’s possible that it won’t go down or that it will come back (Dr. Google did). I’m thinking that surely it would come back, because now there’s a weak area in my conjunctiva like an eye hernia or something, yes?
Sigh. So she said there really isn’t a reason to keep the ophth. appointment, because they wouldn’t tell me anything different, unless I want to lance it. And that doesn’t sound particularly fun. Blech.
Aww, I got excited that Allie might have finally made a new post. Hope the book is worth it.
The Redhead turned some left over spaghetti sauce into LASAGNA. With planovers! *Garfield heaven*
Drinking a Vapeur Cochonne.
Not bad. A little sweet but not bad.
Makes me want a Cochone de Lait po boy though.
Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!
Someone decided to test the hypothesis that “you’re being too rude, if you would just ask nicely, then people would change their minds and be more tolerant of you”. Surprise of surprises, it didn’t work. Take that, accommodationists!
Phillips Amnesiac Double IPA raised around for all to whiff. IPA is not my gig, but at least it tastes like something and I could get it at the hole in the wall liquor store on the way home.
That’s the idea. Not enough rat skeletons were found to make the previously proposed infection route via them seem possible, given how quickly the disease seems to have spread. All those sickies congregating and hugging each other in the town church must have made the baby Jesus giggle.
Algernon:
You have my sympathy.
And a little company. Nothing as extreme as your current, but the right wing snuff pornography surrounding the upcoming anniversary is just . . . , just . . . .
Ah, hell. Have a Long Trail IPA (what I’m drinking right now). It should be dribbling out of your USB port about now.
Hello
Can you please help Australia by voting here:
Do you think history books should abandon BC and AD?
The vote is favoured at the moment at No…!
WTF.
Anyway, sorry to play PZ and ask to pharyngulate a poll, but if any Aussies (in particular, but not exclusively) are not doing anything, pay the site a visit.
Sorry PZ if this activity is frowned upon (asking others to Pharyngulate)…
Good news for Australians – well, presuming they like British comedy and are in or can get to a capital city – John Cleese is doing a spoken word/standup tour in early 2012.
Am so very excited. He’s someone I never thought I’d get to see perform live.
(slithers in under door)
Does TET allow suicidal lizards? Or… you know… any lizards? My garage is being torn down around me…
Invisible Dragon – only if you don’t mind the powder on the floor so we know where not to step on you. :)
I frequently have dreams in which I am not “me”, though I’m almost always female—say, 95% of the time. Sometimes I’m internal to the dream “me”, and sometimes I’m a disembodied “me”, watching “myself” from the outside.
I’m an elf (Tolkien variety, no quasi-pixies need apply) a lot, when not dreaming personal history re-mixes. And/or a mutant.
–
Left to myself, my “normal” rhythm seems to be rise at noon, go to bed at 3 am. My brain is slow to boot up at earlier rising, and slow to shut down for an earlier bedtime. Unfortunately, this doesn’t synch up well with my life; I’m generally sleep-deprived all week long, until I can get a couple of what passes for “normal” days and nights on the weekends.
–
Ha! A mere babe! I just turned…*doing the math*…53 this last month!
*shakes cane*
And take your damned on-the-floor pants with you!
–
Hey Algernon!
Sometimes life is lahk a box of dog turds. </Forrest Gump voice>
Here’s a *hug*, if you’ll accept it; if not, let it slide on by, and have this *chocolate and booze* instead. Or dare to have it all! :)
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Aaaaand my brain apparently got a cameo on the “Sneaky Hate Spiral” strip Tethys linked.
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In thinking about transmission of the bubonic plague, I’ve always wondered why the question of human-to-human infections, vectored by fleas (goodness knows they’ll jump hosts from animal to human, I can’t see why human to human would be any different) doesn’t come up. Minimal investment in rats to bring in the initial flea crop, maybe, but it seems to me that after the fleas first “jump ship”, it should be off and away. And if fleas can hang around in carpetting, I see no reason why rushes, straw, whatever, wouldn’t work just as well. For that matter, I’ve seen ’em side-jumping their way across a tile floor in the direction of prey, so I can’t see why packed earth flooring wouldn’t be at least somewhat analogous.
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Talk about Aussies, is anyone else going to see Michael Shermer and Neil deGrasse Tyson (and apparently Hitchens via videolink) in Melbourne on September 18 ?
Tomorrow is one of the handful of days the office closes early. And if I get there early like this morning, I get home even earlier, Good night all.
Powder is no problem; I even carry my own, just in case. :)
Rorschach wrote:
I would’ve liked to, but theatre commitments mean I can’t. Plus I just parted with nearly 500 clams for the GAC – and still have to cover travel and accomodation at some point in the near future, and will be buying 2 tickets to John Cleese in a week, so money’s a bit of an issue.
How much is that in oysters?
Bubble and squeak! I forgot about that, always wanted to try it. Hmmm. *Considers checking that deli downtown to see if they have mashed potatoes* Not like Mom is going to be up for it.
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Ogvorbis: There’s a 9/11 Mass being held, and I’m sure they’re wondering if I’ll show up and be all patriotic alongside the whole school. Nyargh. So not looking forward to next weekend for that reason.
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Ah, back to running around the schoolyard, and maybe wrecking my knees in the process, if that paint that started in them towards the end of last school year is any indication. One of the reasons I’m tempted to take some paint and make up a track for my co-worker and I.
I sear I’m either burning out or just getting even more bored with my job, the way I feel these days. A whole week of not working was great.
Brother Ogvorbis wrote:
Heh. I almost always use clams in place of dollars, ever since this scene in The Big Lebowski:
Maude Lebowski: My father and I don’t get along, he doesn’t approve of my lifestyle and, needless to say, I don’t approve of his. Still, I hardly wish to make my father’s embezzlement a police matter, so I’m proposing that you try to recover the money from the people you delivered it to.
The Dude: Well, I could do that…
Maude Lebowski: If you successfully do so, I will compensate you to the tune of 10 percent of the recovered sum.
The Dude: [stunned] A hundred…
Maude Lebowski: Thousand, yes bones or clams or whatever you call them.
One of our resident right-wingers (luckily, not in my office, but when he starts talking at you, he’s like a Jehovah’s Pit Bull) cornered me today while I was doing some mounting (get your mind out of the gutter — I was mounting some posters on gatorboard) and started going on and on with right-wing patriotic America-first bullshit and putting down liberals as useless. And I lost my cool. I turned to him and asked if he had been in the military — no. I asked if he had gone down to NYC after the attack — no. I then pointed out that I, a liberal, a wild-eyed liberal, had volunteered for, and served in, the military and had also been down in NYC and asked him how that fit with his worldview. He said that I’m a brain washed conservative and some day I’ll wake up and started telling me about the trip he’s taking to NYC on 9/11. And something tells me that he is not the only asswipe I’ll have to deal with in the next week-and-a-half.
Hmmm…. I’ll say one thing. New Zealand is looking so good right now. They have openings in my field too.
The trajectory of my life will depend on the next sixth months. Wow… that’s kind of weird to think about.
Brother Ogvorbis, I will be thinking of you during this pathetic wankfest of maudlin stupidity over the next couple weeks. I would love to be able to wave a wand and prevent anyone who did not live in or have close relationships with people who lived in the affected areas from doing anything other than expressing solemn condolences and then DOING something to make the world a better place.
Or perhaps I could wave a wand and have the pontificating bozos take over a week of PTSD symptoms. Yeah, that’d be good – a brief vacation from PTSD.
Algernon wrote:
Do it! Then we’ll get the Australian contingent together to come visit you and Ichthyic.
They just get worse with each passing year, eh, Og?
That’s it, I’m buying a bottle of something special this weekend and saving it for next. If they sold absinthe here, I’d buy it. As it is, I might have to try and sneak it past prying eyes in the office after ordering online.
Whatever I get, I’ll drink to the memory. Probably a more dignified tribute than what your resident asswipe might have in mind.
Thanks, David.
Algernon,
This is the perfect place for barging in– no need to apologize.
Hm… hugs, chocolate, and booze have already been offered. Hang on, back in a bit, trying to shove a fat, fluffy cat through the USB port.
Mattir:
And I was down to about one nightmare or panic attack per week. But I’ve had three (one nightmare and two panic attacks) in the last three days. These shithole just love their snuff porn, don’t they?
Yeah, they do. And they keep re-writing history through teabag lenses, envisioning Bush jumping out of the chair, dropping My Pet Goat and flying to Afghanistan to single-handedly capture and kill bin Laden. And they fucking believe it.
Carlie @235 — somebody needs to make that fucking ass Penn Jillette (and his partner) read that link.
Posters on what blog? And “gatorboard” (whatever that may be) doesn’t sound like a very…comfortable…surface.
–
It’s like with Reagan, John Wayne and the Founding Fathers. Forget reality, the story they’ve written is soooo much better! Really drives home the point reality is rapidly becoming less and less relevant in US politics.
Comrade PhysioProf used to post at Drugmonkey: http://scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey/
He used to seem quite sensible. I also wonder what the fucke is uppe with him.
All right, I’m out. Shower before bed.
Urgh. Hi Algernon. My sympathies for the sucky suckin’s invading your life.
I’m tired cuz I’ve been working the fair. Mindless low-paid work. But hey! I got an award! Which consists of a certificate “Star of the Day”, a plaque, $25, and a free dinner.
Wooo.
We’ve got absinthe here; I live within driving distance of one of the absinthe distilleries in the US.
I had the same reaction to PhysioProf, and that being WTF?
I mean, maybe Ed will let me house my blog here. I blog about bread, post music, and occasionally post something intelligent… but usually I just rant incoherently or repost something from somewhere else. You know, like most people who for some reason open a blog without having what it takes to keep one up.
I’m glad to see Greta Christina’s Blog and Butterflies and Wheels here though. Having access to them through one spot will probably mean I read all three of these blogs more (my favorites on FTB now). I read Brayton’s some times… or have, but I don’t comment there.
On other points:
* AAAARGGGHH! Jon Cleese in Canberra clashes with GAC. Maybe I could do Sydney?
* Melbourne on Sep 18 is also Right Out. I’m going somewhere mysterious in Sydney on the 17th for my b’day (which is actually October, but the bloke was very definite about the date. I assume we’re seeing a show of some kind and I will not google to spoil the surprise.)
* Algernon – move to UnZud! It is cool! Australia is also pretty good for younger people if you have a trade qualification or a medical profession.
* I’ve had a few more tests and the doctor has booked a “non-urgent” appointment for me next week to discuss results, so I can only assume it’s nothing seriously dire.
I find it absolutely hysterical how Australian conservatives are adopting US rhetoric. Look at this nonsense:
No, mate. Australia is what it is today because of the foundations of our nation as a fucking PENAL COLONY. We’ve never much liked the holy rollers and wowsers, and I hope we never do.
Cool ! I just noticed that SGBM’s killfile for FTB works across all of wordpress.com as well.
Cath the Canberra Cook wrote:
Good grief, so it does. But he’s doing Adelaide in February – he must be walking from city to city…
Cath the Canberra Cook
Yaaay Oz!
In Canada we had to make do with 3rd sons and remission men and a entire villages of cleared Highlanders (not to mention boat-loads of missionaries).
Not so many “criminals”.
You may have gotten the better deal.
:3
♥ ♥ ♥
Cath,
John Cleese in Canberra?!!!
So I get some compensation for not being able to do GAC? =^_^=
Sooo glad your results are ‘non-urgent’. Hopefully you’ll get some easy, safe and pleasant treatment and will soon be ultra-fit!
chigau, we also got 3rd sons and remission men, and even some cleared Highlanders, though more of the Highlanders went to New Zealand. I understood much about the New Zealand accent when I went to Scotland. We did get lots of rabble-rousing Irish and Scots, too. The borderline between criminals and political prisoners was quite thin in the 1800s. I like Canada; it feels very homey. One day I’d lie to see more, perhaps some of the west since we went to Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick before.
Ultra-fit, eh? Seems unlikely. If I can get this damned fatigue to go away, and get my blood pressure down that will be the main thing. I’d like to get back into the weights and yoga and the long walks.
Cath the Canberra Cook
re Canada travel
You are two up on me.
I have never been to either Quebec or New Brunswick.
(shame…shame…)
——
I think the borderline between/among criminals and political prisoners and poor in the 1800s was thin.
hmm … déjà vu
Dammit, I’m moving to Australia now. I’d rather live in a country that pulled itself up from being a penal colony than live in a country that jacks itself off to its fucking myth of exceptionalism daily.
Chigau(TM):
Oh my! Some of those Highlanders cleared to Canada were my ancestors. I hope they didn’t make asses of themselves… or at least not religious asses.
Invisible Dragon,
One of my husband’s maternal great-great grandfathers was one of those Highlanders too. Hubby’s grandmother returned to Scotland. Then one of her many sons returned to Canada! Hubby also has both maternal and paternal relatives in Australia and the US. My family lived exclusively in the British Isles until my generation, which is the first to spread across the globe.
I don’t know who said it, but
===
Powered by what?
===
Algernon, make like Molly Millions (there she is, again) who had here tearducts rerouted to her mouth — don’t cry, spit!
Dammit, the post numbers don’t seem to be searchable in Firefox. Dammit.
Swede charged for ‘shooting down UFOs’ http://www.thelocal.se/35894/20110901/
Perfectly normal day in Sweden…
Book re-ignites debate on Ikea founder’s Nazi past http://www.thelocal.se/35892/20110901/
“A Nazi is smartzi” says Werner von Braun”
Dreams? After reading “Day By Day Armageddon” I dreamed I was trapped in a train with zombies spreading their infection to the passengers.
Thank you all for your good words for gran. It is hard, but I only wish the best for her and I would never want her to suffer or agonize. My two grandfathers died very suddenly and unexpectedly and I think they “had it good”. Even though my grandpa who died last December died in hospital, it was kind of “the hypochondriac in room 214 has died”.
@Dreaming
Well, I’m always me, but not always the same version of me. Aware of my gender am I only when it plays a role, but I’m not always straight (well, I’m probably not, put me somewher “mostly straight” on the Kinsey scale) or a human (Being a vampire was fun, but did you know that you have to be careful not tofly over the ocean because seals and sealions are fierce vampire hunters?)
Best dreams: Flying. They are rare but they are wonderful.
Worst dreams: Hubby’s evil twin. What’s particularly bad about the is that they all strat the same way. I always dream that I wake up, often because of I hear the kids or something that normally wakes me up.
But last time he made a mistake, he came from the rooftop over the balcony (idiot) and I bravely told him that I am dreaming and I just need to wake up and I did.
Funny: The one time I dreamed about having a fight with Mr. and woke up in the morning being really angry. He had a similar dream and was angry with me, so we both started our day telling the other one “don’t you ever do that again!”, then realized we had been dreaming and started laughing.
Mattir:
Wonderful post. I remember feeling actually guilty for “betraying feminism” because I actually like sewing…
I don’t know if you know Rita Mae Brown’s “Six of One”, but it has the paragraph where the bisexual feminist daughter lectures her kick-ass mum how nail-polish is a tool of opression and anti-feminist and the mother replies that a movement that cares about the colour of her nails is not worth belonging to (not, of course feminism in general, only the ones that do care about the clour of your nails)
Algernon
Hugs if you want them. I can relate to you. Vent if you need to or use our multiple shoulders to cry on.
Video: John Cleese interview.
From around 15:30 he explains why he’s leaving America; rather interesting.
Three good things.
SO and I took Spawnphontes out to the pub last night. I happened to meet up with an old drinking buddy propping up the bar. I had not seen him for a long time and asked him why. Apparently he had been diagnosed with cancer and had gone back to the USA for treatment. All went well and he is “cured” as he said.
SO also ran into an old friend – they had parted on bad terms and have now made up.
SO’s friend was out celebrating with a friend that had just come out. He is a great big rugby playing guy who had just decided to overcome his fears of rejection by his friends. Turns out these fears where completely unfounded and everyone just celebrated along with him.
Obviously each part of the above had to be celebrated with much alcohol so that I am still horribly hung over this afternoon.
Options: http://www.xkcd.com/946/
I’m sorry: http://www.xkcd.com/945/
Good news! I helped two different persons I did not know previously whose cats had run away to print and post posters/flyers to get people who spot the cats to contact the owner/owners. One got home on Wednesday, and one got home last night.
This gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling despite the recession.
I was thinking about linking today’s XKCD. It’s sort of accurate, in that having wealth leads to fewer offspring (on average). Mouseover is, as usual, awesome.
So Goren and Eames got fired for season 9 of CI ? WTF ! Here’s them saying goodbye. And I also hear that they will be back for the final season.
Good morning everyone. Looking forward to the four-day weekend though I won’t be spending it with Beau because he’s working :(
Set: 2 min, 33 (doing badly on them recently)
Good morning, Kat!
I’m so happy that it’s Friday*.
*Wednesday if you’re Oggie.
Is it weird that no one works on Labor Day? Everyone should be working on Labor Day. Or it should be called No-Labor Day.
Therrin
I understood it the other way round: Having the children means you have to spend the money the DINKS can keep for themselves.
Set: 1:04, after a week of failure.
Bwhahaa!
Touchdown Jesus is being rebuilt by the firm that built the old Big Boy statues.
And it’s the “I caught a fish thiiiiis big” type pose! :D
Having just taken my two children-who-are-now-old-enough-to-order-off-the-regular-menu out to dinner last night, I can attest to the meaning of the xkcd as that people with children have much less money left over.
Or, as in The Simpsons:
Bart (to Marge): Also, Maggie puked in your purse again.
Lindsey Naegle (single woman): Poor me… all my purse is full of is disposable income.
Yep, that’s how I took it. When you have kids most all of the money you make goes to taking care of the kids.
That being said, you kind of have to make enough money too (if you consider that you won’t have any family to help take care of you as you age, for instance)
There’s… there’s more than one Highlander?
On Labor Day: just be glad you’ve still got it. A union-themed holiday? Sounds commie to me!
No! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
If only they had taken their own advice when it came to movies…
This sounded so strange, I had to google it up.
The first statue was a bit like “Look dad [*looking hopefully up to God*], I caught a fish this big.” I guess dad didn’t care, so he has to brag to mere mortals now.
Is anyone else having trouble with the “preview” button? It doesn’t do anything.
Oh how I WISH that were true of my childless (hopefully forever!) ass.
Scroll down, it’s below the text field. I missed it at first, too.
What I mean is, I clicked the preview button and nothing happened.
Translation:
I am using positionable mounting adhesive (PMA) to affix printed material to plastic compartmentalized flat surfaces.
I am so glad someone understands (warning to Audley: understanding me is a sign of extant mental instability).
Oddly, I do not work on Labour Day. It is my normal lieu day. I do, however, get holiday pay on Friday (which is your Sunday).
Since this little critter eats weeds, maybe you should introduce it to your garden/farm?
Zoologger: “Architect mouse builds a food mansion” http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20855-zoologger-architect-mouse-builds-a-food-mansion.html
BTW I just found out humans are “diurnal”. And many species often referred to as either diurnal or nocturnal are actually active during dawn and dusk in the wild (cats and dogs too) but I forgot the proper term for it.
Zoological idea: If Republicans one day embrace GM organisms, they might insist that the poor should undergo GM for a burrowing lifestyle instead of being dependent on welfare.
I can see Glenn Beck arguing that burrowing in the soil and eating raw tubers is good enough for those who “choose” to be poor. And it would make the homeless disappear from view, while the GOP Elohim can live in their gated communities on the surface.
Even below the preview button?
Hmmph. No new posts yet today. I’m spending the morning mostly on hold with HMOs and demand fresh content for entertainment while listening to a recording telling me how important my call that they’ve ignored for 30 minutes is.
Carlie – It surprised me how much my grocery bill has gone up in the past year. Not by the price of groceries increasing, but because of the increased amount of food required for my growing children. At least my youngest still shares a dinner with me when we go out to eat.
I’m baking peach bread right now. Bought a tub o’ peaches at a roadside stand and they will never all get eaten before they go bad. So peach bread, it is! Plus cutting and freezing some.
Well, Labor Day is to celebrate the labor movement. These days it should probably be known as Fuck Republicans Day. I hope there’s some action planned at the Wisconsin capitol.
Rey – In WI, there’s a parade, which the organizers first “banned” repig politicians from, and then were forced to allow them to come. You know, cuz its unfair to exclude the assholes who have harmed workers, who are actively and repeatedly hostile to workers, and who have absolutely no business being there.
I hope people moon them.
Are you teasing me? LOL
Birger Johansson
crepuscular is the term for twilight active critters.
Isn’t that just the best word?
No, the preview doesn’t come up in a new window like before, it actually shows up below, as in scroll down, the preview button.
If you knew this and it isn’t working sorry. But if you didn’t know it, it took me a few times to find it as well.
it’s also a term for these Rays
Well, maybe I’m just a bit slow, but when I was still getting used to the new site I didn’t immediately notice that the preview of the comment shows up on the bottom of the page. It was a magnificent revelation when I finally “found” it. ;)
no need to apologize, I was joking. I did know that, but it wasn’t working. Then I rebooted my comp and now it works. I have no idea what the gremlins in the machine are up to today.
Yay!
–
Crepuscular.
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I like it!
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These days it should probably be known as Fuck Republicans Day.
Unappealing as the thought is when taken literally, I like the idea. Maybe we could have labor day on May 1st like the rest of the world and FRD in early September.
I have no idea what the gremlins in the machine are up to today.
Isn’t this how all the dystopian stories about the computers taking over start? Well, that or computers getting overly aggressive about trying to figure out what you want and doing it in advance of being asked (cough***text message fill in***cough).
*grumble*
Ex moved the litter boxes to the garage. Not to another room on the same floor…no. He moved them all the way downstairs to the garage. Now Cats are freaking and going to the bathroom on the carpet or in Son’s bathtub. I want to scream.
*grumble*
This may be, out of context, one of the best sentences I have read in a long while. Gave me a bit of a chuckle.
How about Fuck Conservatives Day? There have been (and still are) some good Republicans (though today’s good ones are running and hiding).
Cats are so cute when they freak. And the blood spatter from claw and tooth punctures can make some intersting patterns.
Oh. The shitty kind of freaking. That sucks. Though if they pee and poop in the bathtub, at least that is easy to clean, right? As long as Son has no problem with feet that smell like cat waste.
And I saw a depressing bumper sticer today:
With ‘coexist’ spelled out in religious symbols. So apparently, they are willing to coexist with everyone by non-believers?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t realize where the preview was for a few days.
Yeah… I’ve actually seen similar stickers… which has always made me want to create my own:
What do you think… too long?
@Celtic_Evolution:
I remember seeing on on Friendly Atheist that was better but I can’t remember what it was…
@Celtic_Evolution:
Here it is – http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/02/28/an-alternative-to-coexisting/
@ Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort:
heh… yeah, that’s certainly better… and more succinct, although maybe a bit too subtle.
I like to hit ’em directly over the head occasionally.
OMG – I’ve been reading this blog too long.
I was at Target last night and thought about buying some facial cream when I saw the word “homeopathic” on the label. I immediately put it back on the shelf thinking, “Oh, this must be worthless crap.”
PZ Myers and James Randi have convinced me that buying anything with the word “homeopathic” on the label is a waste of money.
As lately as a few years ago, I might have agreed, but the Republican party is so thoroughly rotten to the core that anybody with even an ounce of good should renounce the name, and if they don’t, then they’re just craven lickspittles.
The important thing is to have some magic man or mystical book on which to base their prejudices and baseless social rules. Otherwise, they’d have to justify them logically, and they clearly hate us for that.
@QWERTY: No, you haven’t been reading this blog too much. You’ve been reading it enough and well. Homeopathic treatments are a waste of money.
Use 2-1-1 to help keep kids safe and healthy in Maryland schools–an anti-bullying program for all of Maryland.
Pepsi Refresh Project
Dear TET, I posted this on my Facebook, and I’m re-posting it here in the hopes that the Horde can apply a little Pharyngulating magic–even if it’s not the full Pharyngula, the Horde has a lot of power! :)
My agency is trying to expand an anti-bullying project–bullying against LGBTIQ kids, bullying against disabled kids, bullying against any and ALL kids. And our program doesn’t just prevent bullying by protecting the victim, it also provides services for the bully–the best way to stop bullying is to stop bullies, and we’re doing that by providing the support and intervention these kids need to change their behavior.
This grant would let us expand the program across all of Maryland–and maybe provide a template for other states.
We’re also the only 211 program in the country to make it to the 50k level! /brag :)
If you’re not familiar with 211, it’s designed to be the 911 for mental health emergencies. It provides a central place for anyone seeking help for mental health issues–like bullying–to call and find referrals. In our area, it also is the first point of contact for anyone needing mobile crisis services, potential psychiatric hospitalizations, finding summer camps or therapists–just about everything.
…here ends your mental health wellness public service announcement. ;)
See previous comments @168, 169, 170, 174, 178 ….
A brief follow-up about the gay man that was beaten so badly in Salt Lake City that he spent 4 days in the hospital, (this is the young man that was almost killed when part of a bone from his jaw was rammed into his brain): It’s been a week now since the incident, and the SL police still haven’t interviewed the victim. Police have been in contact with him, but his jaw is wired shut. That, however, should not prevent a interview via computer or written notes.
An ex-mormon who still attends church (many do for family reasons), posted this:
Coverage on the story from Towelroad.
One club owner in the area is calling an earlier attack (April, 2011) a hoax. Several anti-gay sources are questioning the story. Here’s an excerpt from a reply posted by Michel Aaron, the reporter who first broke the story:
IIRC, many still question Matthew Shepard’s murder. Actually, I think most hate crime gets hushed away by these sources as a non-issue.
Oddly, aren’t these the groups that always claim “the liberal media” are silencing their “oppression”? lol.
Sigh.
That was a wasted bit of typing. Over on the colouring book thread, I tried to engage an avowed ‘ex-leftist’. Every request for clarification, or for examples, on hir part I complied. And every part of every response was either ignored or pooh-poohed as being inconsequential or weak. So I gave up. And then xe posted this wonderful passive-aggressive piece of dreck:
Xe appreciates the time I put in. I could have put the same time in wanking off and accomplished more. Xe is one of those annoying ‘America can do no wrong’ foreign policy ‘experts’ who have no knowledge of history. Why the fuck do we even try?
Oh, gag. Thanks.
I guess luckily, Previous Owners had dark-brown carpet installed upstairs.
Also, did I ever tell ya’ll how much I absolutely LOATHE facebook? And yet, though I should be packing, I’m hanging out on it just so Uncle can tell me how selfish I am. Go, me!
NPR Poll
Effing Republicans
One more detail associated with the recent gay-bashing in Salt Lake City: some anti-gay sources are noting that Hall, the victim, has been arrested previously for possession of marijuana. So now the argument is being made that maybe he was beat up because he had stiffed some Tongans in a drug deal, or that he was beat up because he was a drug dealer, and not because he was gay. [Le Mega Sigh]
@ squigit
Of course it frames the choices as either “insensitive” or not and asks you to choose one or the other (or the always popular “i’m in between”… cause ya know, we need to think about the accomodationists).
When really there needs to be a 4th option that describes it as “outrageous, callous, uncaring, unthinking and bordering inhuman”.
Brother Og,
Make your good, well-reasoned and sourced arguments for the lurkers.
They vastly outnumbered the one poster. :)
Sqidgit
Your ex sounds like several arseholes I know, one of whom is my ex.
You can learn a lot about someone by watching how they treat critters.
he ended up in an ambulance once he reached LDS Hospital because they said they could not treat his injuries.
I can’t say for sure without knowing the exact circumstances, but this sounds like an EMTALA violation and if so the victim has every right to sue the hospital.
julian: If you don’t mind me asking, is there any hope of young girls like those acknowledging what was done to them and their friends as wrong?
If they get access to treatment, possibly. What’s even more effective is outreach and education that affects the whole community and reframes the assaults and abuse as unacceptable rather than normal. A child going to see a school counselor or therapist and getting treated for sex abuse/assault is still going to go home and live in a house/neighborhood/school where she hears the opposite of what the counselor says all around her. It makes it hard for the message to stick.
I’ve always suspected that sort of attitude was in part influenced by a refusal to be a ‘victim’
There may be some who have the attitude in an attempt to refuse to be a victim, but I would suspect that in most, the attitude comes from ingrained rape culture and learned helplessness. When (it seems) every woman around you is raped, and nothing happens, the message that nothing can/should happen is loud and clear: All women get raped (or All men rape women); it’s less a refusal to be a victim than normalizing rape as a universal or unavoidable act.
Additionally, the patriarchal attitude of men owning/controlling women extends to children as well. In other words, I think these attitudes are based less on personality/internal coping mechanisms than on internalization of rape culture & patriarchy. Also–this was inner city B-more, and within the black community there is even less ability for women to have identity and agency. The community is coping with extreme poverty and racism, so the unfortunate side effect is that black men exert control over black women in response to being controlled themselves by racism from whites & poverty.
My father told me when I was fairly young about the treatment of most feminists by male activists. He said the line was: “There’s only one place for women in the movement (peace movement, anti-gov movement, AIM, Black Panthers, etc): on her back.”
The powerless often take away the power of others to feel stronger. Abuse victims abuse others–you see it most frequently in domestic violence: man abuses woman, woman abuses children, children abuse siblings or pets (which is why the ASPCA is sometimes the first to know about domestic violence in a family). When these girls reinforced the party line that rape is normal to their peers, they inflicted the trauma that they experienced (and make no mistake about it, a mother telling her child that her abuse/rape was normal and to forget about it is most definitely trauma) on those peers.
You know, sometimes I think one of the reasons paganism initially was so attractive to me was because of the emphasis on cycles–life and death, winter and summer, night and day–the Wheel of the Year and the comfort in natural cycles was so positive. In my line of work, most of the cycles I see are negative: addicts relapsing and recovering, abuse repeating from generation to generation, bipolars losing jobs, relationships, stability as they cycled, the cycle of violence–the most difficult part of my job is to try to break these cycles.
Aaaaanyway…hope that answered your question and please forgive my rambling. :)
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Algernon: Just so everyone knows. My life sucks right now.
UGH. :( *hugs*, tea, chocolate–I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. And don’t apologize for barging in, I’m just happy to see you. :) I hope things start getting better for you soon.
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Ogvorbis & Mattir: So sorry that particular four letter word is hitting you both. I really hope it’s not too bad this coming week–come back for USB beer, bacon & chocolate if it is. :)
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Carlie: No! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
Yeah, the movies afterward sucked–but at least the series gave us Methos. ;) Peter Wingfield…mmm, so wonderful.
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If I haven’t mentioned it recently, can I just say how much I adore the email comment feature? I can catch up with TET at lunch, compose response in Notepad, then come in and do a quick fly-by so I’m not ‘blogging’ at work too much. :)
Forgive me for experiencing a might bit of stupidity, by what four letter work do you you mean?
Brother Ogvorbis,
For what it’s worth, I appreciated them.
Either my brain is not working or y’all are playin’ a trick on me. What ‘them’ do you mean?
Brother Ogvorbis –
you’re getting caught up in the all-too-familiar maelstrom of the multi-topical never-ending thread.
Therrin is voicing appreciation for your efforts in the coloring-book thread… whereas your focus has now shifted to trying to understand the context of onion girl’s “four letter word” reference in her post #338.
’tis often difficult to keep straight the multiple strands of conversation that make up the braided rope of the never-ending thread. Been there…
Celtic Evolution, where the hell have you been? And if (as was once rumored) you’re in the USAnian northeast, are you interested in joining a bunch of the Horde at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival on October 14-15, or at the party thereafter? (As an added incentive, should you need it, the Horde will include Walton and DDMFM in the flesh.)
Howdy Thread,
Long time no read. I just got back from a mineral show in Brazil with a backpack full of rocks and a head full of knowledge about rocks. It was geology nerdvana. And when I got back, the wife had not changed the locks despite my leaving her to face an earthquake, hurricane and family illness in my absence.
Brother Ogvorbis–Remember: you can’t cure stupid…but maybe you can vaccinate the uninfected against it.
Algernon–sorry life sucks. Know people care.
All, it’s good to be back. Brazil is fascinating, but I may be getting too old for hard travel in a chaotic place….Naah!!
Mattir –
I’ve been rather absorbed in a couple of projects with very strict and aggressive deadlines… literally been working 12 hour days for the better part of the last year or so… but those are complete at this point and so my free time should increase to the point where I can take the time do some of the things I love to do… such as contribute here on a more regular basis.
I’ve kept up more or less as a lurker and just haven’t had the time to engage in any discussion I could devote any time to. So I left that up to the rest of you fine, fine pharyngulites.
The New York Sheep and Wool Festival, you say? Why that’s in Rhinebeck! Scarcely a 3 hour drive… I should think that would be a fine way to spend a weekend.
Via Bad Astronomer:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/california-science-center-foundations-statement-regarding-resolution-of-legal-dispute-with-afa-128618283.html
Celtic Evolution – Excellent. Email me at mattir 17 at gmail dot com and I’ll send you more info.
I have a soft spot for you because you gave a severely aggressive plonking to a self-identified male troll engaged in fat-shaming in my first weeks reading Pharyngula I believe it involved sweaty bits and what the troll could do with yours as you lapped him on the track. It was delightful.
Ah. Thank you, Therrin.
But onion girl’s four letter word (wow, I spelled that as ‘work’ up in something-or-other-39 (my bowser only shows the last two numerals) — I guess my Freudian slip is showing) still confuses and eludes me.
But how do I self-vaccinate against cupidity?
The posts you made on that thread. No tricks (this time).
er, ‘bowser’ = ‘browser’ and ‘cupidity’ = ‘stupidity’
All Hail Tpyos!
And welcome back, Celtic Evolution!
Oggie,
Nah, your schedule is pretty easy to grasp. Your Friday is my Sunday and everything falls into place from there. :)
Good point, the only way I’ve managed to keep track is maintain open tabs (10 at the moment), and my computer hates me for it (Firefox charges up to 80 MB of memory per tab).
Ogg,
Four letter word being PTSD? Just spit ballin’ here, since both you and Mattir mentioned it.
That makes sense. I also grok why I didn’t cotton to it immediately as it isn’t a word. Thanks.
Mattir –
Ahhh… you are referring of course to this… I remember it well…
I did enjoy that! I try to avoid getting into mud-slinging back and forth’s, but that asshat had it coming.
Email will be forthcoming! I look forward to it.
Good evening
I’m just passing through. Didn’t get half as much done today as I wanted to, but my great-aunt’s birthday was nice (was it her 88th? No idea…) Only nobody had told me the invinitation was for today until today.
Psych-Oh
What I find most amazing about our kids is that whenever they have their own meal, like the pasta from the children’s menu, one serving will be enough for both of them and there will be a lot left over. But whenever they share with us, they will eat enormous amounts so that we go hungry.
Last time hubby and I bought a sandwich afterwards…
Brother Obvorbis, as a Forest Service employee, you are obviously immune to cupidity or you wouldn’t be working there, and as to stupidity, well, methinks you avoid that quite well, too.
@276 Tigger_the_Wing:
That’s very cool! I know where the Scots ancestors came from and where they paused in Canada before moving southward into Minnesota, but that’s about it. I was poking at Ancestry dot com yesterday because of an offered ‘free’ look at immigration records, and I realized (maybe for the first time) that I have no idea of the dates involved. And with both parents gone and being the blackest of black sheep dragons, I have no hope of further enlightenment from the respective families. *big sigh*
I have inappropriate envy toward people who know that kind of stuff about themselves. :)
Mmmmmm, Methos. As if Adrian Paul weren’t enough eye candy already, then Methos showed up. Man, I loved that show. Well, until he cut his hair. (Nooooooooooooooo)
Celtic_Evolution, you muuuuuust come to Rhinebeck!
@Celtic Evolution – ah yes, that was it. I’ve been really moved by the anti-fat-shaming stance prevalent amongst the Horde. Yours was but the first example I encountered.
Carlie –
barring unforeseen events, I think I shall.
Oh sure, you all get to have a meet up in October clear on the other side of the country.
Le pout.
Well, yeah, but I don’t work for the USFS. I work for the USNPS (National Park Service), so cupidity and stupididy are pretty much a given.
Giliell & Psych-Oh,
We keep waiting for our little guy to show an interest in food. He has been stable in weight for nearly a year, and he’s four right now.
Next year, due to SonSpawn, I will probably be attending Under the Redcoat in Colonial Williamsburg. If the Walton were still here (which I doubt), I’d haul him there for the royalty worshipping pageantry.
Yes, my son is becoming a Redcoat reenactor. I blame Steve V for helping me buy those Sharpe books on tape via the UK’s version of audible.com. Hopefully I’ll have time to make a spiffy 18th century dress by next summer and learn to dance the quadrille or something…
Mattir – You’re sooo going to love the corsetry.
One of the stories that I use on one of my tours discusses little boys and food (trust me, I really am going somewhere with this (and this is pretty much the way I phrase it during the tour)).
One of the fun things about working here is that I get to talk to people who worked for the railroads. About 15 years ago, I met a little old man (literally, he was this tall [holds hand at about 5 foot level). I figured him for a farmer as he was missing two fingers and part of the hand from his left hand — where I went to high school in Western Maryland, if you met someone missing a finger, you could almost gaurantee he was a dairy farmer. So I asked him if he was. “Nope,” he answered. “I was a machinist. I hired out on the Seaboard Air Line down in Florida back in ’25 and retired in ’85.”
And, immediately, I start thinking, wow, this guy spent sixty years working on the railroad, I can learn a lot from him. So as we walk through the shop [this is a tour of our locomotive shop], we are discussing the different tools, what went on in his shop, what went on here. And then, about halfway through the tour, he comes of with, “Y’know, there’s only two parts on a steam locomotive.”
And I realized that this was going to get interesting. Either he’s senile, or he knows something I don’t know, and either way I’m gonna learn something. “Okay, what are the two parts?”
He smiled and said, “Well, there’s the parts what wear out fast and the parts what wear out slow.” And he was right. One of the parts that wears out fast is the tread on a wheel — steam locomotive, diesel-electric, passenger car, freight car, you name it, the tread on the steel wheels or tyres wear out fast.
[I then describe the 80-inch lathe used to resurface wheels, showing a 1cm thick chip taken from a wheel (the chip is a foot long and curled into a helix), and transition to apprenticeships.]
On this railroad [the DL&W] the apprenticeship was usually 5 to 7 years. Ben Jacobson, the guy from Florida, told me he spent 8 years as an apprentice. He figured the extra year was to teach him not to put his hand under that part of a sheer. And he also started working pretty young. He hired out when he was 12 years old.
And right away, something clicked in the back of my mind. The Child Labor Act of 1916 said you had to be sixteen to work in a machine shop. And he said, “Oh, I know. I lied.”
And I thought about that for a moment and said, “Well, you’re parents knew how old you were, right?” Of course they knew. And they wanted him out of the house.
At that time, I was a young parent. Didn’t know what I was in for. My son was a skinny little four-year-old who ate very little. And the year he turned 11, the food budget for my family, Mom, Dad, son and daughter, doubled. I’m not kidding. One month, we kept track and he drank 33 gallons of milk in one month. It was scary. And the worst part was, I couldn’t apprentice him out. He had to stay in school, not earning any money. So of course Ben Jacobson’s parents wanted him out of the house.
And the rairload knew they were hiring boys who were too young. After all, you take and 11- or 12-year-old, they know they don’t know everything; they’re still willing to learn. You take a 16-year-old, they think they know everything and are absolutely useless. Most of them grow out of it. Mine is showing promise.
The way he got around it? He slid a piece of paper with the number ’15’ written on it, raised his right hand, and said, “I swear I am over 15.” It worked.
[tour over for now]
Trust me. When your son hits the bottomless pit stage, you’ll look back on these days and miss them.
Ogvorbis,
I am just surprised because even at that age I ate willfully and with abandon. So did my brothers before me, os it’s a surprise to have a kid who doesn’t much care to eat.
Anecdata suggest that that’s also about the age at which they start travelling in hordes. That’s when we got real familiar with Stouffer’s Family Size lasagna, outsized for three, but add a salad and toasted garlic bread and it can be made to feed 6 to 8.
–
So did/does my son. He’s never been a picky eater and will even eat salad and absolutely LOVES hummus (he’s five).
I remember my brother and his friends always conveniently showed up around dinner time.
Basic lasagna is one of those things I can make quickly and easily. And for some reason, when I make it, it makes enough to feed 5-6 people alone. I always add a salad and some garlic bread. With no company, we’ll eat it for several days.
I was watching an episode of Highlander once when my brother passed through the room and queried “How can you watch this shit?”.
The question coincided with Adrian Paul’s episodely shirt removal.
Saying not a word, I gestured at the TV.
Brother conceded the point.
——
I don’t remember which episode had a flash-back inside a flash-back but that was really delightful.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/02/journal-editor-resigns-climate-sceptic-paper
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In related but personal news: During the school year we have guest speakers once a week. Our grad students are required to attend but anyone is welcome. It’s an open forum and anyone is allowed to ask questions during the talk or during the Q&A after the talk.
Today we had Howard Howland. He’s a really big name in our optometry community even if he is a biologist;-)
I’ve never seen the room so packed with profs emeritus. He impressed me with a simple answer to a complicated question: “I don’t know.”
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Am I missing something or is there no link to Mollys?
Nor archives. It will come. And there will be great rejoicing. (No minstrel eating required.)
There is a tab right at the top of the page for Mollies.
The Sailor:
Look up top.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/mollies/
So where do we go to nominate Mollys?
PZ has transferred that accounting to the Trophy Wife. We should see the August noms shortly…
Hi.
As a longtime (5yrs+) Pharyngulurker and occasional commenter I wanted to say that I love this FtB thing… and it might even bring me out of my shell (I’m chronically introverted and find “chatting” really hard). But i have a question; how can I keep track of responses to my comments here? If I comment on Pharyngula, then a quick word over at Hank’s place, etc. is there any way I can set up a “responses to your comments” kinda thing or am I just going to have to remember where and when I commented and follow the threads?… ‘cos that’s tricky.
I have to say, campness or femininity or jockishness is on a different axis from sexuality.
Darn! Went by the grocery store and forgot to buy frozen orange juice.
Double-darn! Bought four squash flowers in Chinatown the other day and forgot to eat them. It’s been years since I’ve had a squash flower fried in butter.
Had a large, early supper — and so to bed.
But… does anyone else figure that $cientology is L. Ron Hubbard’s biggest Poe? He’s probably laughing himself sick, wherever he is, that anyone believed in it. Or maybe it really was a self-aggrandizing attempt to set up a religion that chews people up and spits them out. About 1% of the population are psychopaths, apparently. Most of them aren’t criminals; they just care about other people as much as they care about furniture.
Hi, Grumps.
I don’t know — I just dip in and out of threads at whim. You don’t have to read them all. I suggest a different tab for each blog.
Grumps,
I just keep track of pages I have visited,(well, my browser does,) and search myself on them from time to time.
Markita @ 38: Considering Hubbard constructed Scientology as part of a bet, and likely just to roll around in money he swindled from others, Poe. Or some variety of troll. Whatever the proper term, it is still a pile of BS that’s broken far more people than, I will bet, it has helped.
Mattir,
Having done Scouting since I was a boy of 8, I often feel after all this time that Venturing mostly gets it right. I do have some problem in the religion area but it can be mostly ignored. Just as I would tell parents who had a boy in Cub Scouts, only you can confirm and “sign off” on the religion stuff. Cub Scouting has suddenly in the last 8-10 years exploded with religion crap. Fortunately I live in a liberal city where it is relatively easy to convince parents to basically ignore and sign off as needed.
At the Boy Scout level this as yet not a problem. Some how some idiot, pandering to the conservative religion types felt that any kind of “spiritual growth” needed the christian god. My “spiritual growth” was the wonder of nature and learning how evolution was involved and this of course lead to other areas of science such as math and physics. I argue to this day with people who seem to think scouting has always been a religious organization and yet I somehow grew up thinking it was an educational organization.
It’s somewhat depressing that one individual who taught the latter now believes the former. And by education I had understood to mean all that I would learn from science.
I could also ask you what you may have heard of the Order of the Arrow.
Squash blossoms fried in butter? That sounds good.
Yes, L Ron Hubbard, I recently found out he was a boy scout in Seattle. Someone wanted to give money to the scout camp he attended. My comment was “can we get the money without strings?”. The people in the room assured this was the case.
Well, OK and the LDS church is not an influence either, right? Well, thats what I thought. But everyone agreed he was a flake.
Watching the Mythies ramp it up on some storm (tornado) chaser’s vehicles. *sniff* I smell possible carnage in the exhaust from the 747.
Fuck! It’s almost 4 am and I can’t sleep. I’m wide awake, a bit agitated, and when I was in bed, my heart was pounding. Did I eat something wrong? WTF?
SQB,
Anything with pseudoephedrine in it? I have had similar reactions to that. Mostly though, I get it from stress, about once a month, and have done for several years now. It’s very distracting and coupled with some chronic chest pain it is very scary.
Goddamn it! I am so tired of Obama caving in to the republicans. Stand up for something,anything,….please. http://news.yahoo.com/obama-halts-controversial-epa-regulation-143731156.html
SQB snacks?
Dhorvath, I honestly don’t know. There was a barbecue organised by my company. I’m a vegetarian, so I got some veggie burgers to put on the barbie. Don’t know what was in there, nor what was in the salad or the appetizers.
Could be stress induced. Our youngest has been waking up eacht night around this time for a couple of weeks now. It only takes turning on a night light to get him to sleep again, but still. Both my wife and I are a bit on edge.
Oh well. I’ll just have to pay for it, the coming day.
Oh, and if there’s a TV show on at this time of night, called Naked Facts, it’s not so much about the facts as it is about nakedness. And that’s a fact.
Weird, I thought I still had some Top Gear episodes on my DVR. Oh well.
(I suddenly understand the appeal of Twitter. How many characters were that?)
Yes. A world of Yes.
–
Evening, all.
I find myself in a Facebook debate with the two biggest Libreturdians on my friends list with them both whining about how unfair the salary difference between my beloved Yankees (and those filthy Sox) and their poor, poor Detroit Tigers is. And how nice it must be to be able to outspend the other team.
Hope everybody is doing well. Though now I am about to read upwards to find out.
Why are they on it?
One’s my cousin and the other has been blocked for ages, but apparently sees my posts. The blood ties also hasn’t prevented the cousin from consistently being blocked.
Haven’t.
Order of the Arrow is a pestilence upon scouting, gussied up with stupid faux Native American bullshit. However, I cannot mock it as savagely as I might since I have promised SonSpawn to respect the ultra double secret nature of the Super Secret Boy Scout Honor Society™. Yes, he is in the silly thing, even to the point of doing ceremonies for their initiation rites – think klunkily awful “Indian” lore and Omega Theta Pi from Animal House. So. I. Must. Not. Type. More. Even. Though. I. Really. Really. Want. To. Mock. It. Savagely.
There. Good mommy.
I like Venturing – it’s where all the oddballs in scouting seem to have ended up. It’s been utterly fantastic for my kids, especially DaughterSpawn, who really wanted a more hardcore outdoor skills program. The religion thing in scouts is very much a group-by-group thing, and the official BSA position on atheism is such that unless you literally think YOU are the most powerful thing in the universe (in which case you would be psychotic and probably ought not be a Boy Scout leader), you cannot be an atheist. They even have a “well are you a real atheist for purposes of Boy Scouts?” type attitude – unless you want to be kicked out and work quite hard at it, you’re fine. We’ve been fine for the most part in our local Catholic troop, helped by the fact that there’s an 85 year old priest in our area who’s been in Boy Scouting since he was 11 and who is one of the wisest and kindest people I’ve ever met. Our family rule is that if Father Brady is saying mass or doing just about anything else, go and listen. Otherwise we ignore the religion stuff entirely. (We’ve also found that “we’re Jewish” is an excellent way to get people off our backs, since it’s a Magic R Word™ and no one’s ever heard of humanist Judaism anyway…)
About 1% of the population are psychopaths, apparently. Most of them aren’t criminals; they just care about other people as much as they care about furnitu
Hubbard was one, almost certainly.
Watching TV
I watch Larkrise to Candleford on Friday nights. Harmless English fluff, but nice eye candy. For some reason I don’t think the last episode of Downton Abby was presented. Dang it.
Ugh… sometimes I wish I could secede from my family. This facebook post just popped up from my cousin:
Guilty until proven innocent… it’s the new ‘Murkin Way…
‘Tis Himself, you’ve been accused of plagiarism. Just so’s you know.
Argle bargle blargh, folks. That’s about how I feel right now. And I’m going to get up tomorrow and do it all over again.
Catching up on Burn Notice, drinking beer and eating pasta in defiance of the OB-GYN’s suggestion to cut down on starches so as to cut down on yeast infections…
I swear to L. Ron, if men got yeast infections there would be a fucking cure for it already.
—
My quick dinner: saute onion and broccoli, add Chef Boyardee canned pasta, cook on high heat, add 1 egg, scramble, salt pepper. Voila. Tasty.
Facebook scares the crap out of me. I looked at some of it over at my friends place and about fell out of my chair. The things people say, and pictures they post, sheesh no wonder the police in Oregon troll facebook.
Also, what’s up with the Pharyngula banner? Since the move to FTB, all I’ve ever seen is the crocoduck. Now, I like the crocoduck, but there were a lot of other awesome ones, and I kind of miss them.
#402 Mattir-ritated,
I thought it was based on the Leni Lenape tribe or something (around Delaware?). Didn’t look very far into it at the time. The initiation was interesting, in a theatrical sort of way, but I haven’t had any involvement since I was 17. I’m sure it’d look like you describe in retrospect. The naming was pretty damn funny; one leader’s name translated to Dedicated Directionless Leader of Many, because she always got her groups lost.
My troop was school-based, so we didn’t have much religious infusion. Being the token Jew, I did get some good-natured fun poking (mostly about Saturday Sabbath and eating pig (I’m not a very “observant” Jew)). Didn’t do Venture unfortunately.
—
#409 SallyStrange
That was my favorite one, and I (assuming it’s a democracy (heh)) would vote for static over rotating.
This is why I love Burn Notice: lessons on how to use ballroom dancing for surveillance.
Oops, my comment at #388, the L Ron Hubbard estate may have wanted to give money. I am an idiot.
Mattir, I am one of those who actually performed in an OA ceremony. My training was such that I could do ceremony in street clothes and get to the meaning of the character. This is sometimes hard to understand and too many want to play dress up indian. Yes, if you are familiar with the poetry of Longfellow and the Song of Hiawatha, than yes there is some plagiarism in the ceremonies. Poetry may play to an ideal, but it still has power. If I where teaching a son-spawn, I would be pointing at the meanings behind the words and even point at writings such as by Joseph Campbell. To take him at his word means we all can create our own myths. Too many people in my acquaintance in scouting would be appalled at this, so the words are not this explicit. This should be what is the meaning of ceremonies. I never accepted a literal interpretation and yet too many look at indians rather than the experience of scouting from joining to first class. I have to say, your experience is closer to reality than mine.
@onion girl
I don’t think you were rambling at all. Thank you for the reply and thank you for the work you do.
Mattir – looked into Outward Bound? Sounds like it might appeal to DaughterSpawn. They’re big on hardcore outdoor adventures, and they have programs for teens. My brother did it some years ago and really loved it.
Good morning
Yay, I won dinner at my favourite Greek restaurant yesterday.
OK, I won it in a bet against hubby, so it was basically a “let’s find an excuse to go there”.
But it’s not my fault he mixed up shareholder value and stakeholder value (or as he called it, shakeholder value, which left me wondering in the first place)
Dhorvath
Both my kids are thin as sticks. So was I as a kid (sadly I’m not anymore), so was their dad. When daughter #1 was an infant, I got into a few “discussions” about her weight because she’s officially underweight (4 years, 1m, 12.3 kg). But over time they just got used to it. She’s healthy, she’s happy, there’s nothing to worry about in her developement.
The little one is more robust, but not a lot heavier. People laugh when I say that she’s our chubby kid.
It’s not as if they didn’t eat or were picky, but food, unless it’s the one most favourite treat, is not of interest.
They have rather healthy eating habbits, love fruit and veggies, #1 also salad, but she will try to trick you into spoonfeeding her.
So, I basically stopped worrying and will only make sure they don’t trick the rest of the family so they can have only their most favourite foods so the “put on a bit of weight”.
Good morning Gilliel. I’m going to bed soon. Any second now.
…StrangeBoyfriend is away and I hate going to bed alone.
This bodes ill for when he moves away for good.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/01/309647/florida-republicans-fight-to-keep-cohabitation-of-unmarried-couples-illegal/
So, not only am I living in sin, I’m also breaking the law! Haha!
Wish we had a greek restaurant here. Pffft! All we have is fast food dumps, goes to show you what sort of populace is in this one google town.
Breaking the law! Breaking the law!
Okay, I’m done here.
I just looked at my clock and it said today was Saturday and I was like OMG I MISSED DOCTOR WHO but then I realized it’s only been Saturday for ten minutes.
Therrin – We must be close to the same time zone. It’s 12:25 am here.
Unfortunately, I’m on antenna, so I don’t get Dr. Who.
Hugs to SallyStrange. I had trouble sleeping alone for a long time. It’ll get better. :/
Hugs to Algernon. I’m so sorry to hear that everything’s going to hell. I wish there were more I could say – but at least know that we care.
I’m only popping in briefly to let y’all know I’m in Salt Lake City, visiting a friend who’s moved here on our way back to visit ND. I read the stories above with pain and bewilderment – Beloved Friend just told me a few hours ago that he feels very safe here. I don’t know. Maybe he is. He’ll be living here for two years at least.
Here’s this. I like it because not only is it on one of my current pet subjects (writing by mothers of children with autism), it’s also about Fargo, and she writes from a perspective that makes it seem beautiful. Which is odd for me.
Cipher – Damn, I wish I was in SLC. Love the family history library, and the Dead Goat Saloon.
Patricia, closer than that. -.-
..
Sorry, that sounds stalkerish, I’m in Beaverton. I don’t watch it on TV. I can help with getting it online if you’re interested. *nudge nudge wink wink*
Beaverton! Well hell, we’re almost neighbors. Naughty & I go to Paradise Harley all the time.
That was the worst thing about being married, having someone in your bed all the time. I don’t miss it at all.
Classical Cipher, OM
Thank you for that link! It helped me get closer to understanding my friend’s relationship with her eldest son (who lives with us). She is driven, and bossy, and assertive like the woman in your link, and ADHD like her younger son who used to pester his brother too.
A year ago it all became too much for her eldest boy and the family was on the brink of disaster when we offered to take him in for a while. A year on, he has just come back from a week’s stay with them and my friend, when she dropped him off this evening, said she can hardly believe the change in him. He has relaxed, lost his background tension.
Since we are all on the spectrum here, we’ve always had a diametrically opposite approach to the one she has. I never expected much eye-contact (not being particularly comfortable with it myself), can read autistic facial expressions and body-language (but not neurotypical ones) and it wouldn’t occur to me to ‘chase down’ the child ‘inside’ (that seems a strange view of someone, to me). If someone feels like withdrawing, I respect that. I don’t care how long it takes for them to approach me again; they always do, eventually, when their stress- levels have dipped back down to tolerable.
Most days I amuse myself, often silently on the laptop or DS, or reading, or occasionally watching TV or a DVD. When at home, the three boys will usually each be in their own rooms, doing something pretty much from the same list. Occasionally one will go into the room of another, or into my room, to announce something they have seen online, or an achievement in a computer game*. If I’m watching a DVD or TV I always pause it or turn off the TV (background noise is very irritating); otherwise I carry on with what I’m doing. And they talk. I listen and respond appropriately. Then they go back to what they were doing.
My friend tells me that kind of behaviour drives her absolutely round the twist. She wants to socialise with her son on her terms; go out places, watch TV together. She hates listening to monologues about WoW. She hates him ‘sulking in his room’. She wants her son to be her kind of ‘normal’, not his. He gets defensive around her.
*Not always. Sometimes we have a discussion about religion, or science, or politics. Then the other boys will drift in one by one and we’ll get into a lively four-way discussion. Some days one or more of them won’t feel like socialising or talking much and will cook their own meals and take them back to their rooms. That is normal, to us.
Tigger_the_Wing,
I feel a bit weird about reading people’s personal responses to others, so sorry if this is intrusive, but I would just like to say that you sound like an awesome parent and friend. I think people who have you in their life, especially those children, are very lucky.
Beatrice, not at all intrusive, you are very kind. =^_^=
I was born into a poor family, but we gradually worked our way up to comfortable; I know I have been fortunate, so why not share it? The lad fits into our family. Anyway, fitting ‘strays’ into our lives seems to have become something of a habit over the decades.
I would like to be able to give a home to all the homeless. Knowing I cannot, I can at least help out where I am able.
Beatrice:
Yep, that’s him. I might have been embellishing my memory a little in calling him an “ex-con” , though the implication is sort of there.
Agreed :)
Josh Brooks? Yeah, he’s got the goods. Merriwah is possibly the nearest thing Australia has to a “hood” too, so he’s not just blowing hot air there (though I don’t know what a “60/30 suburb” is). Nas & Jade/Straight up gave me a similar “goodness, they actually are all that!” moment. I liked Zaachariaha Fielding’s audition too.
The English judge is Scary Spice (Melanie Brown of Spice Girls fame). The Irish feller is Ronan Keating, and the other two are Natalie Bassingthwaite, a middle-level local singer/actor/celeb, and Guy Sebastian, a previous winner of Australian Idol who has enjoyed a somewhat successful career since.
The official site won’t play videos for me any more for some reason, so I’m playing catchup on their YouTube channel.
In other news, it turns out half my Facebook friendlist knows Paige Elliot /smalltownmoment
Slight hyperbowl on my part. There’s always Eveleigh Street.
Thanks for all the well wishes. This has been hard. You know it is so awkward when people ask you “do you mind if I pray” by the way. I suppose if I could I’d say “No, I don’t… but I’d prefer it if you did it on your own instead of making a display in front of me about it as if I’m supposed to reward you some how. Please leave us alone.”
Interesting. Link fail and tag fail.
Testing:
Eveleigh Street
Merriwa
hWorking in preview …
Tigger the Wing,
This kind of thinking irks me, and I am gregarious. Let people be who they are, see where that leads. Trying to force a relationship to be something it’s not is just exerting stress that doesn’t make anyone happier. Good on you for knowing that and making a safe place for her child.
Hey, Algernon. Mind if I DON’T pray? Okay, cool.
SallyStrange,
Canned pasta? Better you than me.
drbunsen,
Yup, I was talking about Josh Brooks.
The only group I watched the other day were those horrible Britney Spears twins (in the funniest moments) and they ruined my ears for the evening. I’ll probably continue watching now that you’ve linked Straight Up and Zaachariaha. Sadly, the official page doesn’t work for me at all, so I’ve been relying on You Tube clips.
I recognized Ronan Keating, of course ;). But I can’t believe I didn’t recognize Scary Spice! I have to admit I listened to Spice Girls at my neighbor’s house when I was little. They had cable and I didn’t, so watching MTV was always a treat when I played there. I had no idea who the other two were, but Guy Sebastian looked familiar so I guess I had seen him (or rather, one of his videos) at some point.
I was really happy to see how much support Paige Elliot is getting all over the web. My faith in humanity got raised by a point or two.
Also, I think I might be addicted to Australian X Factor now. I usually find that form boring, at least our version with the same obnoxious judges who make same rude comments over and over again. But this group of judges with some quality competitors… I’m hooked.
I will reason for you, Algernon.
It was good! especially after 10 hours of standing. blergh.
I will only be taking you at your word. I don’t even like pasta that was stored from yesterday, canned gives me shudders.
Glad you got a reward for ten hours of standing, this was the fair?
Arggggh. I just checked the Harris-Eagleman thread, and I am, unsurprisingly, confronted with an idiot defending Harris and denying Harris’ bigotry.
I am now going to cross-post my response here, because I don’t want to be accused of ignoring the issue, and because I think this is relevant to the whole community.
Sam Harris has written, in so many words, that “the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.” He has encouraged the pernicious myth – beloved of the BNP, the EDL, Geert Wilders, and other far-right xenophobic groups – that Europe is “under threat” from Islam. (In reality, far-right nationalist extremism in Europe and America is a far bigger threat to our liberties than Islamic extremism; Muslims are a small minority throughout the Western world, and the great majority are not extremists or fundamentalists.) Muslims are an oppressed group in our society, and Harris’ inflammatory rhetoric is contributing to that oppression.
You mean anyone who’s read Harris’ own explicit statement that “torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror”? In an opinion piece titled “In Defense of Torture”?
I have said all this, with links, many times before on Pharyngula. But I’ll say it again. Harris is an anti-Muslim bigot. He talks as though we were “at war with Islam”, and seeks to present Islam as a uniformly dangerous and reactionary belief-system (rather than, as it really is, a diverse tradition with both liberal and conservative strains). And, in so doing, he is – intentionally or not – giving rhetorical ammunition to the far right in the US and Europe, for whom anti-Islam rhetoric is a convenient pretext for xenophobia and opposition to Asian immigration. While he may point out that Islam is a religion and not a race, and that criticism of Islam is not in itself racist (which is true enough), this ignores the social context: in reality, Islamophobic rhetoric is used by the far right as a convenient cipher for racism.
I don’t know how the US expects students to survive. I’m already taking out the maximum amount of loans, plus I have two grants. I’m only left with $1500 after tuition and fees. How am I supposed to live for 6 months on that? I could get I job (if I’m lucky enough to even find someone who’s hiring, especially since I’m a busy student), but I’m taking 16 credit hours (all but one of my classes are math or science, and every one of them is difficult). If I got even a part time job on top of it, I’d fail at least one class. I had food stamps at one point but (get this) I lost them because I lost my job. How am I supposed to pay my bills? I don’t even know what I’m going to do and I’m pretty sure I just had what qualifies as a panic attack.
I don’t even know why I’m telling you guys. I guess I just wanted someone I could say this to.
Starstuff,
That’s horrible, do you need to make rent out of that $1500 too?
@Dharvath
Yes. I found somewhere pretty cheap though. I’m supposed to be splitting it with my boyfriend. But his financial aid didn’t work out, so now we’re stuck paying for everything on my financial aid and his minimum wage, part time job.
Ouch. I made it through two years of school eating not enough rice and beans, problem is that when you are hungry all the time concentration goes to shit. Are there any programs in your area that help out with food?
@Dhorvath
Apparently there’s a semi-secret food pantry on campus, somewhere in the depths of the film school. They give out some canned goods and stuff. Hopefully I’ll be able to feed myself properly. At the beginning of this year (before I had gotten food stamps) I’d lost a lot of weight from not eating. I was on campus all day and I didn’t have money to spend on the kind of food that I could take with me (that would actually survive being in my backpack).
starstuff: I sympathize. :-( I’ve just moved to the US and am having trouble with finding affordable food too, though my situation is nowhere near as dire.
New from the world of literature: Michael Ward has detected the organizing principle behind the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis: each of the seven books evokes the mood of one of the seven medieval heavens: Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Sol, Luna, Mars, and Saturn. At first glance it makes sense. That’s why the Christian theme is a minor one and why there’s a Father Christmas but no Nativity.
He has two books that analyze the parallels between medieval cosmology and the seven volumes. There’s a more scholarly critique called Planet Narnia and a more popular book called The Narnia Code. They came out a couple of years ago so you may have heard of them. You can read about them at Planet Narnia.
Hat tip to Jeffrey D. Koonistra, the book reviewer at Analog. He gets a point deducted, though for referring to representative people of their day as Medieval Man and Twenty-first-Century Man.
Food banks? Our local church has a Deacon’s Cupboard but they’d probably have to get to know you.
Buy flour and make bread, peanut butter cookies, quick pizza crust… much cheaper than actual groceries. I scored a bread-making machine at a garage sale for $10. You can make bread every couple of days.
I feel pretty bad about it, in fact, but … um, the dog actually chased off a small marauding band of prosyletising evangelists of some flavour today. First time we’ve ever had this fauna come to the door in these parts, and thanks to the dog it may well prove to be the last. There were four of them, iirc – only one came all the way to the door from the gate, while the others hung back; I was standing near the door chatting with two of my neighbours, so fortunately for the dog and for me we have two independent witnesses to the fact that she had her muzzle on and therefore could not bite (she’s a rescue dog, originally found on the street and taken to a rescue centre, and we know her to be nervous of strangers so unless it’s just the family present she wears a muzzle just in case. Which you would think was ridiculous if you saw the neighbours petting her and fooling around – she’s fine 99 times out of 100. It’s just that 100th time …).
So the bloke comes up to the three of us, 2 neighbours and me, and offers us some leaflet or other about “do you want to know the Truth” etc. and I take one glance and shake my head and the guy starts to move away, very nervous of the dog. Dog goes ballistic. Barking and jumping up and sounding like something out of Revelations (or whichever is the apocalyptic bit). I yell at the dog, guy starts to run away, dog wants to chase him, I yell at the dog again and she stops and comes back. But you can get a lot of barking into those few seconds.
The neighbours (both atheists, as it happens) are delighted. They are fine with the dog, and thrilled to get rid of the evangelists (or whatever flavour they were) and we have a great discussion about religion and faith schools and taxing churches and agree that religion is all right as long as it’s solely and exclusively between consenting adults in private – no indoctrinating children, and no butting into the street, the schools or government.
I like my neighbours.
And thank the FSM they can be witnesses to the fact that the dog was muzzled.
But I don’t want my dog to behave like that, and I do feel bad that by the time I got my wits about me and thought of going to say sorry about that and are you OK they were gone. Maybe it will console them to think that we’re all going to hell or something.
I make bread and pizza crust. I also buy meat in bulk. I’ve eaten so much chicken that I think I might go crazy! I eat a lot of pasta and rice too. The big problem is being on campus for 7 hour blocks. I can’t really bring chicken and rice with me. And I certainly can’t afford to pay $10 a day for lunch at one of the places on campus. My solution has been to not eat from 8 am to 3 pm. I’m getting pretty good at it.
Like Benjamin Geiger once said,
starstuff91
Why not?
@chigau
I could try, I guess, but I’d have to buy a lunch box and an ice pack. And even then, it might not work out very well. I guess I’ll give it a try when I can afford to buy a lunch box and ice pack.
starstuff91:
Have you checked out thrift shops for coolers and/or ice blocks? Or possibly wrap your chicken and rice in a pastry crust and freeze it? I used to do that with chili back in the day. By noon it would be defrosted enough to nuke if I wanted it hot or if I couldn’t find a microwave, I could just eat it as-is.
Your brain gets funky when hungry; I never know what’s going to come out of my mouth, and it usually isn’t PG. :)
starstuff91,
At least now and then, you could make sandwiches at home and take them with you? Chicken works, some kind of cheese is always on sale (sadly, not the good ones). I’m not sure what prices of vegetables are there, but things like fried zucchini or eggplants (by fried I mean covered with a mix of flour, egg(s) and milk (works with water/milk combination if you want to save on the milk) and fried in oil) work great in a sandwich and don’t spoil during the day.
Hm, do you have some place where you can have a meal in peace, during the day? Because you can always make a cold salad with rice or pasta and whatever you think of and take it with you in a little plastic container.
I used to spend hours without eating in my first year because I had classes whole day without a proper break. It messed up my concentration. I was useless by the last class.
starstuff91
I used tupperware and a paper bag when I was on campus all day.
That was in another millennium, though :)
@Invisible Dragon
Thanks for the advice. I haven’t checked the thrift stores yet. I don’t have a car and going anywhere via the bus system is an all day event.
I know what you mean about your brain getting funky. I’ve never said anything crazy, but I get pretty mad at the world in general when very hungry or tired.
Obama folds again, part One Million
“Obama yields on smog rule in face of GOP demands (Update)” http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-obama-air-quality-standards.html
Whatever the hell it was that kept me up last night, it doesn’t seem to be coming back tonight. I managed to catch an hour of sleep somewhere about O’not-quite-dark-anymore hundred and I didn’t feel tired during the day. Still no clue what it was, though.
I used tupperware and a paper bag in this millennium. This year, even.
Is starstuff91 somewhere very hot, where food easily spoils if not cooled? Sorry, I didn’t catch where you are going to live.
Yeah, Florida. I’ve had experience with spoiled food because of the heat and it’s not fun. I’m a bit overly concerned with food safety, too.
I think I’ll at least try to bring some dry cereal for now.
USB-powered vibrator doubles as memory stick http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2011/08/25/2011-08-25_usbpowered_vibrator_doubles_as_memory_stick_sex_product_offers_up_to_16gb_for_st.html
I just had a random thought:
If God actively kills American for not bending to his political/social/economic demand (as Bachmann noted), then by definition, God is a terrorist.
GASP!
*dramatic music*
*shocked face*
Starstuff91, back in the dark ages when I was in college, the fraternities and sororities often hired extra help for meals. For spending a hour or so serving and washing up, one got a free meal (whatever was being served). It helped my uncle be the first college graduate in the family.
That’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure who to ask about that, though. There is free food on campus occasionally. Events like to pay students in free food for attending.
Starstuff91,
Why not? I love it when free food is involved, especially if what I’m doing is volunteering or community service based. I like doing volunteer work as it is, free food just add more incentive :D. Plus that’s how my frat got people to come to charity events. It’s much better than buying poorly cooked KBBQ from students just to feed missionaries.
Gyeong Hwa –
You’re not alone… I posted almost this exact same thing in the Bachmann thread a few days ago, and posted about it on my blog back on Tuesday.
@ Gyeong Hwa
I actually had a coworker who would write down all of the free food events on campus. She had a few to go to every week. I don’t remember where she found a list of all the events though, and I don’t really talk to her anymore.
Would it be wrong for me to create a troll account here? http://www.theatlasphere.com
Because I’m really tempted to.
Word of mouth back in the day. Probably the Dean of Students office could tell you if the practice is still continuing, and may have a reference or two to places looking for help.
Dish soap frozen in a ziploc bag makes a really good ice pack (flexible and gel-like). And you can still use the dish soap for dishes afterward, too. Ice packs can be inquitously expensive for what they are.
Starstuff91,
Those events usually have ads on the the out door message boards. It’s not hard to find. I’m so stoked for free ice cream at AIDS Walk this year!
Celtic_Evolution,
As a friend of mine noted, we should declare war on God then as we are suppose to be fighting terrorists. lol
War on God sounds like what happened in His Dark Materials to me.
No war with imaginary beings thanks.
starstuff91- I don’t understand why your food stamps got cut off. There must be some weird laws in your state. My death pension is under $700.00 per month, and I get food stamps. The job I have two days a week is a volunteer position, so I’m unemployed too.
I think it’s because I’m unemployed and a student. Which also doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it is. I think society expects my parents to pay for all the things that I can’t while I’m in college. It’s ridiculous.
Nerd – Let the Redhead know that sock pattern I posted @19 – is going lickety-split, and it’s fun.
I’ll be around some today, we’re repairing floor tiles, and removing the old pissed off pellet stove. Then removing and drywalling up the old electric heaters, and putting in a bunch of upgraded outlets.
That sounds like fall nest building. *Le smirk*
For protein to get through the day – can you eat nuts? Classic peanut butter sandwich or peanut butter with a banana is pretty cheap and filling. Or beans, if you have access to refrigeration and stove at home dried beans are cheap per meal, and you can make a decent take-along burrito with beans and maybe cheap cheese, and scoop up a few handfuls of salsa packs at a Taco Bell.
Ok, I know there are others here who read Feministe, so I hope someone is familiar with the article In Defense of Period Sex (link). It’s been bothering me since yesterday.
One of the issues is that I really don’t think that a guy who is squicked out by menstrual blood and doesn’t want to have penetrative sex while the woman is menstruating is necessarily a misogynist who should be disallowed from fucking women.
More important, the article is hetero-normative and when people complained about it, they got the answer that it’s just not about them no offense intended, that some issues are strictly about straights and so on. Seriously? You talk about people grossed out by menstrual blood, but you actually only talk about men and lesbians shouldn’t be offended because they were erased?
Not to mention, there is a rather unfortunate sentence that seems to imply that “normally-functioning vaginas” bleed, which looks quite insulting towards trans people. Actual trans people saying that, got the answer that they were reading it wrong. Nice.
Am I (and others) overreacting? I like Feministe, but sometimes they really go a bit overboard. And when something annoys me, I can’t let it go, so I’m stuck on this.
Oh, sorry, linked the whole blog instead of the post. Link
I was going to go out and shop a little, until Mom told me my brother called crying. One of his friends, C, was found dead. He didn’t know where, and how he died. A mutual friend had called my brother earlier to tell him, though I guess he also didn’t know much yet.
This guy had trouble all his life. To put it mildly, the day he met my brother and his best friend J, was the start of the best period of his life. He had friends, he wasn’t teased for being smart. When he admitted to being gay, my brother and his pals didn’t abandon him. Sorry to say that his parents weren’t quite as accepting. No, I don’t know if that has anything to do with him being dead.
Some months ago, he was fired from his job as a chef. The boss got rid of him to bring in cheaper labor . . . and also stole the menu C had created for the restaurant. He’d worked in a couple of other places before then, and I think the position he got fired from was the one he’d had the longest. “Bummed” doesn’t begin to describe how C felt.
Suicide or otherwise, it wasn’t a good way to begin the day. So rather than go anywhere, I’ve been at home. Tomorrow I’ll have to go, I need to pick my race day packet downtown. I’ll break my usual pre-race ban on booze and have some tonight. Somehow it seems appropriate. One more person to remember this coming Samhain.
If you don’t have dish detergent to freeze, hash browns (pre-cooked potato cubes) are the cheapest frozen vegetable. They’re about half the price of frozen peas, which are usually recommended.
I’ll bet hand soap would work well, too, and the re-fill packages sometimes come in plastic bags so you could just keep one in the freezer.
PTI, that just plain sucks. You have my sympathies, they’re all I have to offer.
starstuff91, they sell sorta plasticware individual sandwich keepers for a coupla bucks; maybe you could sock away a peanut butter sandwich in your pack? Or even two or three. The keeper’d keep it from getting squashed, and should prevent it from getting stale. I’d think it would do okay with jelly, too; jelly soaks into the bread and makes it too squashy for my tastes, but YMMV.
Fold-overs/pasties/hot-pockets are pretty easy to make, and a flattish plasticware keeper would be useful there, too. You could fill them with whatever you want/can afford.
Sometimes, if you get lucky and check often, you can find useful things like crock pots or breadmakers on craigslist, and sometimes even on the “free” list.
–
Really simple dishes:
– egg & toast
– baked beans & toast
– stir-fried onion & cabbage
– kidney beans, unrinsed, cooked with a chopped onion until the juice is gone and the onion is cooked.
– James Barber’s “pizza” cooked in a frying pan with cheese & onion on top
– pasta with tomato sauce & beans or lentils
– cheese & crackers
– hummus & crackers (you can make your own hummus from chick peas)
– peanut-butter sandwich & apple
– cheese sandwich & apple
– fried potato & onion (cheese on top at the end if you have any)
– fried chicken livers with onion – add oregano & mash for liver pate.
Another idea on food: you can get big frozen packages of mixed vegetables sold as various kinds of stir-fry mixes pretty cheap; around here they’re about $5 for three and a half pounds. Getting a mix sort of eases the monotony of having a mega-bag of the exact same veg. while still getting the bulk savings. I like to mix it in ramen and use it as a cold salad for lunch. (still working on how to make a nice cheap sauce to go with it, if anyone has any ideas)
You guys are great. Thank you all for the advice. Ima sleep now so that I might have the cognitive ability to finish my lab report later tonight.
Patricia, the Redhead is mostly a large project type (afghans, shrugs, and for smaller projects, baby stuff for relatives). Socks don’t interest her. Don’t interest me either. I buy socks, a dozen at a time in dark brown and in navy blue, from JCPenney, when needed. Keeps things simple for me, along with Lands Ends’ chinos, mocks, and polo shirts. Brown/green/yellow/orange, versus black/gray/blue. Rotate ad nauseum.
Gotta love the regulars, many ideas for a limited possibility. Stop by the Saloon, and a glass of swill/tankard of grog for your suggestions. *checks the Pulletette Patrol armament, checks cyberpistol aimed at spleen* er, on me.
I wrote a blog post in defence of hereditary monarchy. :-)
=====
Yeah… I won’t comment on the details (and I haven’t read the original article), but I’m generally uncomfortable with criticizing people’s sexual predilections for being discriminatory, given that our sexual feelings are something we don’t get much choice about.
After all, by the same token, one could argue that it’s sexist to be exclusively or primarily attracted to people of one sex. Or that it’s agist to be attracted only to people of one’s own generation. Or that it’s discriminatory to have a fetish for a particular hair or eye colour. Of course these inclinations are discriminatory, in a sense; but ultimately, they’re inbuilt predilections, not voluntary choices, and it isn’t very fair to judge people adversely for something they can’t change.
PTI, that sounds terrible. I’m sorry. :(
1 can of beans + 1 bullion cube or packet = fast cheap soup that works at room temperature. A repurposed glass jar can work to take to school. (from pickles or something, or if you can get a hold of a jelly canning jar)
Walton:
Nonsense. One judges on what is; whether it is so wilfully or otherwise is only an aspect of that judgement.
Also, how do you apply your belief that there is no free will to this issue whilst speaking about “voluntary choices”? :)
Beatrice – I wasn’t thrilled with that article either. What about women who don’t like period sex, as well? Just maybe that’s not all “not in touch with your own body” so much as “fuck it, I don’t want to clean all that off the sheets or towels after, and yes it’s perfectly possible to not have sex for four or five days in a row and not die from the strain”.
Beatrice,
Went and checked it out.
Jill is writing about men refusing to put their penis in her vagina solely because it is involved in a natural part of her body function. I can appreciate that she finds that off putting and any guy who was dating her who wouldn’t examine his reactions in light of her needs, yeah, I think that is just cause to curb him.
I would like to say that there is a big difference between finding something gross, or being squicked about it, and not finding something sexy. I am not grossed out by menstruation, nor is my wife, but we keep the blood out of our play time because neither of us find it sexy. A tampon and a refocus on all the other things we like to do means no one gets left out, we just avoid one erotic activity for a week.
This part really bothered me. Did you notice how Jill defended her wording in the comments by saying she chose them specifically to be sensitive to trans issues? So she knew it could be a problem and now that people are saying it is she isn’t willing to take a second run at better wording? I hate that defensive bullshit, do what’s right, change the wording so it’s better.
So.
The kitteh comes racing in all fuzzed.
From the back yard are sounds of *squaksquaksquak* *eekkekeeekk* *swueek*.
So I runs outside preparing to do battle with a rabid pitcougar and all there is is a magpie and a squirrel sitting on the fence *skqurking* at each other.
If I could manage, I would eat the lot of them.
Ah Usenet, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1) doctor_who_2005.6×09.night_terrors.720p_hdtv_x264-fov.mkv
In the feministe post comments, Jill (the author of the post) writes :Look. I meant exactly what I said: If you’re grossed out by periods, you should not have sex with people who have vaginas. I mean that even if the vaginas in question don’t bleed, which is why I didn’t add any other modifiers to “vagina-free.” Because if you’re disgusted by normal vagina functions, you should not come near vaginas even when those vaginas are not having the functions you dislike.
I find that totally wrong, for a lot of reasons. Vomiting is a perfectly normal function, I am disgusted by the sight of a mouth throwing up, and yet I do like to kiss mouths when they are not in the process of vomiting.
Carlie,
Oh yes, I forgot that part. Not to mention that for some, it’s not only about cleaning, it’s about pain and discomfort. I was also annoyed by all the explanations about how menstrual blood is not waste, but a really brilliant bodily fluid and there is obviously something wrong with those who are not thrilled by it. It’s great for some, but don’t makes sweeping generalizations.
Dhorvath,
I guess Jill isn’t the only one who should rephrase her statements. ;)
When I mentioned a person being squicked out by menstrual blood, I made it sound too general. A partner not being willing to talk about my period or acknowledging me during that time or being disgusted by it is not cool and would probably cause some harsh words. What I should have emphasized was feeling uncomfortable or well, grossed out, by penetrative/oral/something that might involve touching the blood. Or simply the case of not finding it sexy.
I wouldn’t mind if Jill had said that she thinks that guys who don’t want to have sex during her period are sexually incompatible with her and therefore destined to be dumped. But heaping all kinds of accusations about not liking normal vaginas and misogyny is, I think, over the top.
Oh yes. She knows what she meant with her words and if someone reads them differently, that is their own fault.
Carlie, #498
Aha! I knew that there was one comment that managed to confirm that yes, she really intended to make such an awful post… but then I forgot about it.