Esteleth: I’m SO sorry you had to deal with that! I had the compressor go out on our -20 about a year and a half ago and recently our -80 started making a really loud noise. I was all about taking whatever actions I could to prevent any sort of failure on the -80 because most of the labs in my department have moved to another building while they’re being renovated, so I have no idea what I’d do if ours were to go bad. It turned out to just be a problem with the bearings on one of the fans and my boss is still gloating about how he “fixed” the freezer with WD-40.
Sandhill Cranes are strange birds. The high school I went to was built in their habitat, so we always had a bunch of them walking around on campus. They would walk across the sidewalk and everyone would have to stop and wait for them because you’d get in big trouble if you harassed them.
Clearly you’re not a music fan, because the creationism of music is country. (Relatedly, Alt Country is the Intelligent Design of music.)
A. Rsays
Esteleth: That sounds like a nightmare. We haven’t lost a -80 yet (crossing fingers), but we did have a streak of -20 losses. One completely defrosted overnight…
Estelethsays
And, of course, since commenting above, I have had 6 separate people come to me going WAAA WHERE ARE MY SAMPLES despite the fact that I posted a sign (on the door of the freezer) explaining where everything had been moved to and emailed everyone as well.
*throws up hands*
A. Rsays
Esteleth: What was in the freezer? We had plasmid vectors in temporary storage in our -20s.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Esteleth @ # 12 – Why were you eating hands?
Estelethsays
The -80 contains everything from frozen cells (human, non-human mammal, bacteria, spores, etc) to antibodies to media components to vectors.
Biological engineering detritus, basically. Plus chemistry stuff.
A. Rsays
Esteleth: Oh, so basically random stuff people put in the freezer because it was the only one available? One of the people I’m working with a scary incident with a liquid N2 freezer (not a Dewar) a few years back. Apparently it was leaking like crazy and cracked the floor under it. The best part was that the freezer was in a BSL-3 lab where they were working with a rather nasty strain of Anthrax (not Ames)
KGsays
Punk rock, the creationism of music. – mythusmage
Nah. Punk rock is obviously the punc eek of music.
Coragypssays
Grumpyoldfart:
I’ve never tasted sandhill crane, but I have acquaitances that go hunt them every year. They say that the flavor is kind of a cross between Whooping Crane and ‘Akikiki.
changeable monikersays
My 3-yo loves that music, because it’s what her Disney Princess doll plays. Not conflicted at all, oh no.
changeable monikersays
(In fairness, she is also a huge fan of the Jetman Grand Canyon video. And *dogs and cats*.)
Carliesays
I’m dual-posting from the Penn State thread, because this analogy is so gripping (and it was being discussed here too). John Scalzi
Here’s what I think about that, right now. I’m a science fiction writer, and one of the great stories of science fiction is “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” which was written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The story posits a fantastic utopian city, where everything is beautiful, with one catch: In order for all this comfort and beauty to exist, one child must be kept in filth and misery. Every citizen of Omelas, when they come of age, is told about that one blameless child being put through hell. And they have a choice: Accept that is the price for their perfect lives in Omelas, or walk away from that paradise, into uncertainty and possibly chaos.
At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made.”
We keep our most valuable samples in Dewar’s. Can’t quite trust the electricity or freezers. One minor incident after a power outage, (a squirrel ate thru the insulation of the underground building mains. Fried squirrel, it’s nut just for breakfast anymore), led to me being being introduced to 2 guys in bunny suits who stripped me naked under the emergency shower in the hallway. It’s not as much fun as it sounds.
I had come in to reboot my servers. That’s the last time I investigate an alarm in the wet wing.
Uff, I’m finished.
That was more than I thought, but I think the candy canes came out pretty well for a first try.
consciousness razorsays
Clearly you’re not a music fan, because the creationism of music is country. (Relatedly, Alt Country is the Intelligent Design of music.)
Hmm, correct me if I’m wrong here…
Eighteenth-century counterpoint is the Deism of music
Post-Romanticism is the Sophisticated Theology™ of music
Delta blues is the old-earth creationism of music
Jazz fusion is the theistic evolution of music
Easy-listening is spiritual-but-not-religious music
Anything atonal or written by a communist is the atheism of music
A. Rsays
Sailor: What are you working with that would require that kind of Decon?
A. R, I’m not sure what all they are working with. I’m in the retinal imaging and psychophysics wing. I’m willfully ignorant about most of what goes on in the wet wing.
A. Rsays
Sailor: Likely something nasty if they used BSL-3/4 decon.
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned, both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets the trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
(Wilfred Owen, of course.)
Poetry using biblical imagery on an atheist site? Why the hell not?
SteveVsays
2 guys in bunny suits who stripped me naked under the emergency shower in the hallway.
I’d like to point out that, although I cannot deny wearing a bunny suit, I have never stripped a stranger naked under the shower.
I do recall being told by the gas meter reader (I was escorting him around the plant) that he had accidentally stepped on the platform of the emergency shower in the HF plant. He said that being drenched with 50 gallons of warm water whilst being deafened by the siren and scared shitless by the guys from the med centre spoilt his whole day.
I believed him.
A. R, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s over caution. They do have a lot of bio-signs on their doors, but we have LASER radiation signs on our doors that say something like (I see them so often I can’t recall exactly what they say) ‘Radiation hazard: LASER (insert power and freq here) avoid beam exposure. And then we ask the subject to sit down and stare into the LASER.
We got gigged a few years ago by the NIH. We’re pretty over compliant now.
A. Rsays
Unless it might identify you, may I ask, where do you work?
sumdumsays
Anything atonal or written by a communist is the atheism of music
What about pre-communism russians like Borodin or Mussorgsky ? Agnostic?
SteveV, it was 4 in the morning and I think they were worried about re-contamination if I handled my clothes.
p.s. the water was NOT warm. Shrinkage!
RFWsays
Well, while the rest of you are nattering about inconsequential matters, I will express my gratitude to P-zed for bringing that video within my ken.
The music is from one of Tchaikovsky’s big ballets (Nutcracker, Swan Lake, or Sleeping Beauty – probably Swan Lake) and while the cranes aren’t dancing and flapping in sync with the music, it’s still a pretty good fit of music to scene.
Now if only human ballets had some of the spaciousness of those scenes!
PS: Sibelius wrote a piece called “Scene with Cranes”.
consciousness razorsays
What about pre-communism russians like Borodin or Mussorgsky ? Agnostic?
Godless muslim communist fascist post-modernist atheists, all of them.
A. R, it would completely out me. I’m sure I’ve posted enough personal things here that the NSA could identify me, but not so much for the common internet hack. We also do animal research and have been targeted before ARA.
consciousness razorsays
RFW, it’s from Sleeping Beauty
A. Rsays
The Sailor: OK, yeah I can understand that. My college doesn’t do the type of animal research that would get us targeted by ARAs thankfully.
Oh, well, if we’re discussing the arts, the late great William McGonagall is the [insert religious metaphor here] of poetry.
ALAS! noble Prince Leopold, he is dead!
Who often has his lustre shed:
Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School,
Which proves he was a wise prince. and no conceited fool.
Methinks I see him on the platform singing the Sands o’ Dee,
The generous-hearted Leopold, the good and the free,
Who was manly in his actions, and beloved by his mother;
And in all the family she hasn’t got such another.
He was of a delicate constitution all his life,
And he was his mother’s favourite, and very kind to his wife,
And he had also a particular liking for his child,
And in his behaviour he was very mild.
Oh! noble-hearted Leopold, most beautiful to see,
Who was wont to fill your audience’s hearts with glee,
With your charming songs, and lectures against strong drink:
Britain had nothing else to fear, as far as you could think
A wise prince you were, and well worthy of the name,
And to write in praise of thee I cannot refrain;
Because you were ever ready to defend that which is right,
Both pleasing and righteous in God’s eye-sight.
(Written to commemorate the untimely death of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, Queen Victoria’s fourth son, who died in 1884 from haemophilia at the age of thirty.)
A collection of McGonagall’s poems can be found here. The highlights of his work include the famous “Tay Bridge Disaster” of 1879:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
It’s fucking snowing! Fuck that shit. I hate snow, (there, I’m just gonna say it), if it’s cold enough to snow I should be living somewhere else. But nobody will pay me to live there. My dream job would be doing research being paid with health & retirement for a job I love on Antigua. (Actually, on my sailboat in the bay of English Harbor;-)
Janine Is Still An Asshole, OM,says
Why don’t you ahead and buy Victoria’s bloomers?
Estelethsays
Sailor,
We’ve gotten nutters on my campus complaining about the embryonic stem cell work and the animal lab.
One nutter who was an undergrad demanded a discount on his tuition equal to the proportion of college funding that goes to stem cell research. Got very flabbergasted when the administration explained to him the concept of “grants.”
Of course, the animal lab is under such tight security that I was chatting with a student and mentioned it offhand and they reacted with shock. “We have an animal lab? Seriously?” A junior. Biology major. Didn’t know.
Janine Is Still An Asshole, OM,says
One nutter who was an undergrad demanded a discount on his tuition equal to the proportion of college funding that goes to stem cell research.
Someone should reach into their pocket and toss a quarter at that person.
A. Rsays
[NSA employee takes note of The Sailor’s complaint about snow for further triangulation]
Religious morality in action, folks…from Lawyers, Guns & Money’s discussion thread on Jerry Sandusky:
While serving as the Marine Forces Pacific Chaplain based on Oahu from 1999 to 2002, I was told by a Navy Chaplain that a Catholic Chaplain whom I recruited years earlier was cohabitating with a male sailor in Honolulu. The alleged cohabitating Catholic chaplain was not serving with Marines, and was not one of the some 150 chaplains that I supervised. However, because he was a priest of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A., I reported the matter in a letter dated May 6, 2002 to the Military Archbishop in Washington, D.C.
I did not take any further action in this regard. The priest/chaplain in question did not work for me just as Jerry Sandusky did not work for Joe Paterno who was told that Sandusky appeared to be sexually involved with a boy in a locker room shower in 2002. Might the alleged cohabitating priest merely been offering a sailor a place to stay before he was able to secure more permanent quarters? Might the incident in the shower been inappropriate “horseplay” that was not a more serious long-term problem? I believed it was within the purview of the Military Archbishop to determine the seriousness of the allegations. I tend to think that Joe Paterno trusted that Tim Curley would likewise have investigated the allegations and taken appropriate action.
In 2007, five years after I reported the matter involving the alleged cohabitation, the priest in question was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, indecent assault, fraternization, forcible and consensual sodomy, and conduct unbecoming an officer. Just as Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are accused of failing to take appropriate action involving alleged sexual abuse on the part of Jerry Sandusky, so too I believe the former Military Archbishop failed to investigate and take action in the case of the priest who was later convicted of engaging in sex with young Naval Academy midshipmen and Marines while he knowingly was HIV positive.
In 1985, Father Tom Doyle, while working at the Vatican Embassy, wrote a report that was sent to the Vatican about a very serious sexual abuse problem involving priests and mainly teenaged boys. We all know now that the Vatican did not take appropriate action and thousands of young people continued to be abused. When the matter was exposed by the Boston Globe in 2002, the same year I wrote the Military Archbishop and the same year Joe Paterno reported alleged abuse to Tim Curley, should Tom Doyle have been accused of not taking appropriate action? Should he be defrocked because he trusted that the Vatican would handle the matter in a just manner?
Because I was not in any position to tell the Military Archbishop in 2002 how to do his job and investigate the matter I brought to his attention; and because Tom Doyle was in no position to tell the Pope or Vatican Officials like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger how to handle the growing abuse problem he documented in his report; it is my opinion that it is unfair to argue that Joe Paterno should have done far more in 2002 than report the Sandusky matter to Tim Curley whom he had no reason to believe would not take appropriate action.
If you hover over that asshole’s username and click through to his website, you’ll see that he purports to be a relationship counselor. How nice.
changeable monikersays
That’s an intriguing definition of arts there Walton.
The music is the Garland Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Sleeping Beauty. It’s in the first act.
It was my ballet teacher’s favorite piece, so I got to hear it.
And hear it.
And hear it.
And hear it.
It’s lovely, but, honestly, if I never hear it again, that’s fine by me.
Estelethsays
Alright. It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to go dancing. :D :D :D
If I’m back on tonight, it’ll be in 3 hours or so.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
I do recall being told by the gas meter reader (I was escorting him around the plant) that he had accidentally stepped on the platform Hydrogen fluoride is some real nasty shit. Doesn’t necessarily get you acutely, just weakens your bones and teeth causing chronic pain and disability.
I prefer people who actually produce music, which puts me at odds with rock critics and people who think adherence to some ideology makes you a deep thinker.
Nerd:
The HF plant was not a pleasant place. The fume had etched the glass on the instruments to such an extent that a wipe over with a damp rag was needed to read them.
I seem to have survived the three months that I worked there (before moving on to the cadmium refinery) as it was over 45 years ago!
Fsays
my boss is still gloating about how he “fixed” the freezer with WD-40.
Well, we’ll see if that just masked the problem or fixed it.
In such a critical setting, I’d suggest finding out what exact bearing lubricant is needed, and whether there are any bearings missing or debris has gotten into them. (Or if not the bearings, whatever component is really the squeaky wheel.)
Note also that if all the old lubricant was not washed out by the WD-40, thing may actually become worse. Mixing lubes is not always a good thing. Some mixtures can even become rather sticky.
Really, these sorts of things should receive some PM anyway.
WD40, in the long term, is a solvent, not a lubricant. There is a reason my company switched to another actual lube for our helicopter rotors. 25 years ago.
Crudely Wrott, I laughed out loud, (OK, I snortled a bit).
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Jefferson 10yr Straight Rye Whiskey
thumbs up
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
HF(aq) does a lot more than weaken your bones! (Unless we were discussing HF(g))
Given that the boiling point of HF is about 20 ºC (room temperature), both are there. That is one scary material. And I have used it in reactions. Scared me more than hydrogen cyanide.
Rev. BigDumbChimpsays
Punk rock, the creationism of music.
Yes that’s exactly what think of when I think of Jello Biafra, Kevin Seconds, Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins and HR.
A. Rsays
Nerd: Whenever we work with HF (which is only for one obscure procedure) we do it in chilled fume hoods.
Mr. Firesays
HF(aq) does a lot more than weaken your bones!
You really don’t want to see one of the deaths in Saw VI.
It does. :) I was like you, watched the first one and declared it enough.
Predator Handshakesays
Re the WD-40, I learned enough from the -20 ordeal that I didn’t just let my boss squirt some in there and forget about it. I had the refrigeration people come take a look at it (state institution, therefore state dealing-with-things pace) and they’re waiting on some replacement parts that they’ll put in it. I’m loving my promotion- instead of having to remind my PI about the old -20 and explaining why it would be a good idea, I was able to just get the people to come fix the thing.
I had to watch it three times *bleargh*. At least it was in a different language each time. I was always looking forward to the scene where this one passenger pleads for help, to see what kind of accent they’d give her (the one who cries out “captain!”).
Well, at least the company was enjoyable.found in every town This was still a time when cinemas were a big part of social life for many people. I used to have this notion that for a place to be counted as a town, it needed to have a cinema. That’s no longer a viable condition (if it ever was).
Sorry for the edit error. “found in every town” should have been deleted.
Wowbagger, Madman of Insleyfarnesays
I can’t believe people watched Titanic.
Well, as ghastly as the content is, I think it’s got some value for people interested in filmmaking; say what you like about James Cameron, he’s got very high production standards – and it shows.
Though, with that in mind, it’s probably more interesting to watch a ‘making-of’ documentary; that way you avoid most of the schmaltz.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
[PSA]Brian Greene has a four part series on PBS Nova covering his book The Fabric of the Cosmos. Theoretical physics for the non-physicist. Link for part one and part two. [/psa]
I thought I remembered something about Sandhill Cranes. They needed to learn their migration route. And did so, with the help of an ultralight plane.
Insipid Monikersays
I’m not really sure how to start this other than it’s a shitty situation and there are many people on here who’s opinions I’ve learned to value. Just whining and looking for advice.
***Trigger Warning: Nothing graphic, but I don’t know what might trigger anyone and I would feel like a waste of space if I did it accidentally***
I spend some of my free time as a martial arts instructor and the head instructor and I just had a student complain about inappropriate touching by another instructor who she has a big brother little sister relationship with outside of the gym. Lingering massages, grappling with heavy breathing and no other students present, never quite touching her breasts or genitalia, but touching around them. We’re meeting with him tomorrow to take his keys and ban him from the premises before he can interact with any other students. The only reason we’re not calling the police is she did not want us to.
That’s the basic situation. Problems I’m having are that they instructor is, or was, a friend. We spent significant time together outside of the gym and I had him mentally tagged as one of the ‘good guys’. It makes me sick and angry because I feel like he betrayed my trust, but also because I can feel myself wanting to make excuses for him and blame the victim, which I know is fucked up and wrong. I also just don’t know how to deal with the friendship. Should I just cut him out of my life? I honestly feel like that would be the easiest thing for me to do. Or should I confront him more continually, try to talk about the personal issue and try to get him into counseling? One makes me feel like I’m just distancing myself without really helping him or the victim and the other makes me feel like I’m somehow condoning his actions by keeping any relationship with him intact.
Sorry to throw this wall of text out and ask you guys for answers, but my head is spinning right now. Should we make this public knowledge to hold him accountable, or should we respect the student’s expressed wishes and keep this quiet? I’m working on it with the other instructors, but I’d really appreciate any insight you folks have.
I’ll probably head to bed soon to sleep on this, but I promise I will read replies. Thank you, and sorry again.
(I don’t like the video, but I love the song and her performance.)
Estelethsays
Has someone recently requested to join PET?
I did. I emailed onion girl, who told me to message her on FB, and I never got a reply.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
The latter. Absolutely. No question.
You might want to reconsider that, Walton. What about the potential danger to other students? What about the harm that might be averted if other young women are alerted to a predator among them (yes, I realize that one must be confident the allegations are true before publicly accusing someone, that’s a given)?
There are ways to make this information known without revealing the identity of the complainant. Her wish that others not call the police is not the sole consideration, and it does not necessarily outweigh other ethical considerations. I don’t know what the right answer is in this situation, but I don’t think it’s nearly so airtight as to warrant an “absolutely; no question” response.
Should we make this public knowledge to hold him accountable, or should we respect the student’s expressed wishes and keep this quiet? I’m working on it with the other instructors, but I’d really appreciate any insight you folks have.
Speaking as a survivor, I’d say you have an ethical obligation to report him to the police at the very least. You do not need to name the victim to the police, however, neither you nor her know with any certainty that she is his only victim.
Refusing to name the victim to the police will most likely hamper any action they can take, however, a report will be made and there will be a record, which is incredibly important.
Yes, you should make it public knowledge and hold him accountable. As uncomfortable as this is for all involved, other people are at risk and staying quiet is not only encouraging this man, it is giving assent to his behaviour. His behaviour will not stop. It will continue and it will escalate.
I know just how fucked up this is for you and every one else involved, but please, I beg you, don’t become part of the problem here.
Estelethsays
I’d suggest this. She doesn’t want to go to the police. That’s her right.
But – if he applies for a position elsewhere and puts your place down as a reference and they call? Absolutely say why he was asked to leave. Don’t name names (they shouldn’t ask, in any case) but make sure he isn’t able to move to a new place, keep doing what he was (or take to the next level).
If you see he’s somewhere else, maybe put an ear to the ground and see how he’s doing? Maybe this experience will chastise him and he won’t do it again. Keep an eye out, and if you think he’s up to this again, mention it (again, don’t name names) to TPTB there.
You’re right. I retract it. Forget I said anything.
(I should not have weighed in on this topic with my instinctive reaction. Our instinctive reactions are not always necessarily the right ones, after all. And I also really, really, really don’t want to have any kind of debate with anyone about anything right now.)
Your priorities are so fucked up that you are the problem. You are one of the people that guarantees there will be more victims.
Estelethsays
Bah. Upon reading Caine’s response @100, I’m retracting mine @101.
Sorry about that, Caine, you’re absolutely right.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Oh no. Please, please tell me we’re not moving into “shuffle him off to somewhere else and hope he changes his ways” territory. Not here. Come on folks, don’t break my heart.
I find it incredibly unlikely any amount of chastisement is going to make this guy change his ways. Sounds like a rapist in the making (perhaps already one in fact).
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I figured it was an instinctive reaction, Walton, and I know it came from a place of reflexive empathy for the victim (do admit, Caine).
Your priorities are so fucked up that you are the problem. You are one of the people that guarantees there will be more victims.
Caine, I just retracted it at #102. I’m sorry. You and Josh are right. Please forget I said anything.
I have been suffering a severe depressive episode over the last week thanks to a bad reaction to a medication. I have been posting about this on PET, as other people will confirm. This is why my behaviour is not currently rational or well-thought-out.
No problem. It’s a shitty situation for everyone involved, there’s no question about that. However, this man is not going to stop. If this is his first time in acting on his fantasies, the time to stop him is now. If it isn’t his first time, he needs to be investigated, stat.
Caine, I just retracted it at #102. I’m sorry. You and Josh are right. Please forget I said anything.
Just saw that, Walton. I’m sorry for jumping. I’m really sorry you’re having such a lousy time with your meds, that’s got to be extremely difficult to deal with. {hugses} for you and I hope you get this situation resolved as quickly as possible.
Estelethsays
Caine,
I know that. I know that.
Dammit, I know better than to say shit like that.
*shakes head*
Sorry again.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I’m very sorry indeed to hear about the depression, Walton, and I do know what it’s like. Since you’re aware enough of how these issues play out I’m confident you’re availing yourself of all the mental health services available at your school and in the community.
Insipid Monikersays
Caine,
In all seriousness thank you. One of the main reasons I came here is that I don’t trust myself not to be part of the problem without even realizing it. I’ll make sure a police report gets filed.
Thank you all for the responses. I’ll keep checking back.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Esteleth – don’t crucify yourself (it’s so damned messy!). These discussions are instructive for all of us; they help us identify and root out the unhelpful reactions we all have.
Since you’re aware enough of how these issues play out I’m confident you’re availing yourself of all the mental health services available at your school and in the community.
Yes – I’m lucky to have a really good psychiatrist (hence why I’m on meds in the first place) and things are generally getting better. (I’m incredibly, incredibly fortunate compared to a great many people with similar problems.)
But my mental health condition is why I’ve been trying to avoid the thread, since I’m not in a position to deal with the stress of getting into arguments.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Glad you’re feeling more certain of what to do, Insipid – good luck.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Then you should leave here and find some stress-free, non-provocative activity until your head levels, Walton. Now be good and go! Check back with us, but go to some place with ponies. And unicorns.
Esteleth, it’s really hard to deal with these situations. Not only is it a major shock for those involved, there’s an instinctive reaction to bury it, much like you’d bury a smelly, decaying corpse. You just want it gone. Fuck, I know that, I’ve felt the same way.
What got to me immediately was the “Lingering massages, grappling with heavy breathing and no other students present, never quite touching her breasts or genitalia, but touching around them.” because there was instant recognition in that for me on a personal level. I saw the family member who spent years raping me doing that to a young woman (little sister of my uncle’s gf) more than once and knew what it was leading up to. While I couldn’t manage to speak out about it and simply say what was going on, after about the 5th time I saw this happening I screamed at the top of my voice and made up a bunch of shit about how much I hated her, yada, yada, yada, basically scaring the shit out of her and her sister, so she didn’t come over to the house anymore.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. ♥
Estelethsays
Yeah, it’s hard.
I just remember this incident from years ago. I wasn’t personally affected, but a serial pedophile was caught in my hometown. Basically, everyone who knew what he was doing wanted to pretend that if they scolded him and sent him on his way, then it would be okay. Of course, they didn’t say anything. It took WAY too long to get this guy. He didn’t even have powerful friends or anything – people just wanted it to go away.
Like I said, I wasn’t affected and I didn’t know any of his victims. But it happened. I was in his favored age range at the time.
Dammit. Yes, I know I’m being melodramatic and crucifying myself, but dammit.
Like I said, I wasn’t affected and I didn’t know any of his victims. But it happened. I was in his favored age range at the time.
I’d say it’s rather obvious it did affect you, deeply. You don’t need to be assaulted to be affected by such actions. You can still experience fear, shame and guilt without being touched. It’s part and parcel of how these people operate and how much they depend on silence or people choosing the route of “private scolding.”
Sally Strange, OMsays
Um… hi…
I’m at my parents house… I was gonna make a nice light-hearted post about seeing my folks & my grandparents again, but I think I’ll just quietly mosey off to bed and leave you to it.
Caine, let me just say: thank you for being willing to share your perspective with Insipid Moniker as well as anyone else who might be reading. It adds so much clarity to a situation that, as you say, is quite muddy and confusing. So thank YOU, thank you, thank you. ♥ ♥ ♥
At a former employer of mine, there was an accident with one of these machines right before I joined the company. The shout “HF LEAK!” went out into the halls, and I’m told that the whole area set a never-to-be-equaled evacuation record. This was one of those drop-things-right-where-you-stand type evacuations, a real sauve qui peut moment.
The whole “Things I Won’t Work With” category on that blog is hilarious. The entry on thioacetone was the funniest, IMNSHO.
Estelethsays
Yes. I never set eyes on the guy, he never touched me.
But it did affect me, of course. It affected the whole town.
One positive (I guess) thing that came out of it is that when, several years later, the Catholic priest scandal broke, and the local priest took the opportunity to give a vehement statement about why touching a child like that is never, ever okay and also emphasized that kids should feel 1) that they didn’t do anything wrong and 2) that they can confide in someone and get help and see their attacker face justice. He also listed the phone number of the local office of Children’s Services and the victim’s hotline. He said this from the pulpit, in his Sunday homily.
My family isn’t Catholic, but damn did that reverberate. Apparently his bishop tried to reprimand him for it (something about “intemperate language”) and basically got told to fuck off.
Sigh. I think I need to take a step back for a bit. The recent Penn thing is dragging a lot of this emotion back up in me, I think.
Oh, so right back at you. {Squeezles Sally half to death}
I hope it’s fun for you, visiting the parents & grandparents. Sounds like a nice break.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I’ve wrestled with this for months, and I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing – I get a knot in my stomach just typing this. But I do feel an obligation to say it out of solidarity with the others here who’ve been much braver than I have. And to add to the general effort of waking people the fuck up about rape and rape culture. I have no intention of getting any more specific about this than what I’m about to write, and I don’t want expressions of sympathy or comfort.
I was raped 20 years ago when I was 17. It was a date rape that started out as a slightly drunk mildly sexual encounter with a man I was very much interested in. It ended with me being drugged up to the point of being unable to resist while my attacker went far beyond mildly sexual.
I never reported it, and because of the usual reasons. I was ashamed – why was I acting like a drunk tart to begin with around someone about whom I should have known better? What did I expect since I was being a cock tease earlier in the evening? Who would believe me anyway since I didn’t go any further than a few feeble “nos” before I just decided to lie there take it and get it over with since I was in no condition to fight. What cop would have cared anyway – I was a faggot and I had it coming.
What happened to me wasn’t nearly so brutal as what some others here have experienced — it could have been far worse, and, thankfully, it’s a very distant memory with edges dulled by time. But I don’t like the thought that I might be complicit in perpetuating the silence about rape and rape-enabling culture. That’s the only reason I’m saying this.
I just want to apologize again. I shouldn’t weigh in on complex moral issues with my first emotionally-driven instinctive reaction. It was irresponsible of me.
The paper mentions that “Introducing N-oxides onto the tetrazole ring may . . . push the limits of well-explored tetrazole chemistry into a new, unexplored, dimension.”, but (of more immediate importance) it may also push pieces of your lab equipment into unexplored parts of the far wall.
This, folks, is the bracingly direct route to preparing dioxygen difluoride, often referred to in the literature by its evocative formula of FOOF.
Ranking my equipment in terms of its shrapneliferousness is not something that’s ever occurred to me, I have to say. It’s safe to assume that any procedure which involves considering which parts of the apparatus I’d prefer to have flying past me will not get much business in my lab, no matter how dashing I might look in a leather suit.
Selenium compounds are, if anything, more intrinsically noxious than sulfur ones. Imagine a sort of hyperskunk, scattering its enemies before it and making them carom off trees and dive into ponds.
What with four nitrogens in the ring and only one carbon, they do have a family history of possible trouble – several sections of this blog category could just as accurately be called Things That Suddenly Want To Turn Back Into Elemental Nitrogen. And thermodynamically, there aren’t many gently sloping paths down to nitrogen gas, unfortunately.
The guy’s a poet.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I just want to apologize again. I shouldn’t weigh in on complex moral issues with my first emotionally-driven instinctive reaction. It was irresponsible of me.
Knock it off, Walton:) You’re the only person I know who can turn apologizing into a full-blown neurosis. You have nothing to apologize for. Now go and get off this fuckin’ thread and do something comforting for your psyche!
Sally Strange, OMsays
You’re definitely doing the right thing, Josh. No worries on that front. Thanks for the solidarity.
Good night everyone!
Ragutissays
We get a few of those cranes that hang out around the local library every winter, just chillin’ with the local Roseate Spoonbills, herons and egrets.
But I don’t like the thought that I might be complicit in perpetuating the silence about rape and rape-enabling culture. That’s the only reason I’m saying this.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I know it isn’t easy, however, it is incredibly important and helpful to all those survivors out there. For every person willing to come out about their experience, it helps to add strength to all the voices, it helps to push back against rape culture and those who would defend and uphold it, it helps give strength and support to those who feel so very alone in their experience.
Stop it right now or I’ll have Patricia lock you up with the Pullet Patrol™. Talk about royal ponies and unicorn rainbow farts or something else that’s soothing and happy.
Janine Is Still An Asshole, OM,says
I have no intention of getting any more specific about this than what I’m about to write, and I don’t want expressions of sympathy or comfort.
Tough shit. You will get some anyways. Deal with it.
Seriously, you already know this but, everyone who has been through such an experience should tell their story. This is so even the most hard headed denialist cannot get away with just hand waving away the wide spread problem.
Josh, I am happy that you feel safe enough here to gather your strength. Thank you.
Insipid Moniker, I am chiming in a bit late but here it is. File a report and keep away from him. Even if nothing comes out of this report, it will leave a paper trail. It is very likely that your friend is not the first person he did this to nor the last. Part of how he gets away with what he is doing is by being charming and friendly. It makes you question if he is a predator and makes it more likely he will get away with it.
Good luck.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Seriously, you already know this but, everyone who has been through such an experience should tell their story. This is so even the most hard headed denialist cannot get away with just hand waving away the wide spread problem.
This is exactly right. And I’d go a step further – those of us who have been through such a thing have a moral obligation to do so for people who are in weaker or more vulnerable positions. That is, if and when we can. That’s what has been eating me about this; I’ve tried to conduct myself as an open book about being gay and being an atheist from a very young age. Because I know that a big part of changing an oppressive culture is simply the act of refusing to deny who you are. People in more dire and threatened circumstances need that from those of us who can afford to be brazen. It’s almost a Kantian categorical imperative for me.
I’ve been ashamed for some time that I couldn’t bring myself to live up to that when it came to my rape. There are complicated emotional reasons for that, but in the end it is a duty that I was shirking.
A. Rsays
Walton, would it make you feel better if we talked about monarchy?
A. Rsays
Oh yeah, and Insipid Moniker, I concur with the other threadziens, even if you don’t mention the victim’s name, a paper trail is a wonderful thing in helping to secure a conviction in another case, or if the current victim should come out about it and press charges.
I was disgusted to find out that people shoot them, even though there are only about half a million left in the world, which makes the northern subspecies not threatened. What pleasure can there be in shooting a slow-moving dust mop?
Ragutissays
Woah. I’m off poking around looking for youtube videos to post and heavy shit goes down.
Walton, Josh, thank you for sharing yourselves. Like the dissection of godbots and randroids, your revelations of these things (depression, rape) may not seem to have immediate effect, but I’m certain that they are reaching people who have been or are in similar circumstances and touching them. At the least, letting them know they are not alone or the only ones.
Anyways, in case my videos or words fail to cheer, let’s talk about rocks. Or royalty. Or throwing rocks at royalty. :p
There are complicated emotional reasons for that, but in the end it is a duty that I was shirking.
Josh, as I said in #131, sharing your experience is very helpful and a good thing to do, however, no survivor should ever feel they are shirking a duty by not speaking up about their experience.
Everyone has complicated emotional reasons behind their experience and one thing survivors don’t need is to feel they are obligated to speak out. I’ve found that people speak out when they are able and when they feel secure and safe enough to do so. That’s one of the reasons people talking about their experiences is helpful, it provides solid support and safety to others. All that said, it should never be felt as an obligation. Survivors deal with enough shit as it is.
So is “Night on Bald Mountain” the hellfire & brimstone of music?
Sailor, I can see why the whole decontamination thing would make one nervous.
Has anyone else commented that the guy who caught the coach raping a kid in the showers should have not only reported him but stopped him, preferably with a few blow to the head, and called the parents?
Janine Is Still An Asshole, OM,says
Strange as it is to say, I am proud of the fact that this blog, thanks to the constant efforts of many of the regulars, is thought of as a safe place for many of the other regulars and lurkers. (How many people have delurked just to share their story and give thanks? It is humbling.) How often does this happen outside of an explicitly feminist site?
That is all. I do not want to get too gushy and self congratulatory.
Sailor, surely some of those Bahamian banks have servers that need to be cared for.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
That’s one of the reasons people talking about their experiences is helpful, it provides solid support and safety to others. All that said, it should never be felt as an obligation. Survivors deal with enough shit as it is.
Caine, you’re right, of course. I should clarify that it’s a duty I feel on myself and that I impose on myself alone. No one else. I do hope everyone will contemplate (by themselves, in their own heads) whether they can speak up.
That is all. I do not want to get too gushy and self congratulatory.
You aren’t being either one. A lot of people here are unsung heroes for working quietly and consistently on making Pharyngula a good space, a safe space for all kinds of people. You have consistently spoken out, for years, about GLBTI issues, Carlie has consistently spoken out, for years, about the effects of language and on the list goes. We have a lot to be proud of here.
I should clarify that it’s a duty I feel on myself and that I impose on myself alone. No one else.
I know. It just hurts my heart that you felt this onus. It’s all difficult enough as it stands, without having that in your head. I hope at least that part of it has been eased for you now.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
Snow is often aesthetically pleasing, I like it in pictures. However, the minute that nasty cold stuff gets anywhere near my shivering bod, the love-fest is over. Kill it. Kill it with fire.
(With due consideration for the resulting run-off, of course.)
–
Given the sheer numbers of the completely clueless (all those MRAs on all those threads….), perhaps Insipid Moniker’s friend also needs to have it explicitly spelled out to him that he is a problem, exactly where he has gone wrong, and given some useful links to an education.
–
Walton, *hugs and chocolate*. At least you are aware of what is going on.
And, at the risk of being accused of “enabling” your monarchy mania, here’s a “mandala” for cheerful meditation. :)
–
The guy’s a poet.
I wholeheartedly agree, Benjamin, and you’ve quoted some of my favorite bits! The “shrapneliferousness” part makes me snortle loudly every time I read it.
If/when he bows to pressure and publishes a book of these gems, I’ll be there with cash in hand. Priorities!
–
chigau (---...---)says
*hugs* for Josh
—
*mild head smack* for Walton
—
This “inappropriate touching in the dojo” thing has made me profoundly unhappy so I’m going elsewhere…
—
I have not yet purchased a ticket for The Rocky Horror Show in my city but am leaning toward a Sunday Matinée; going dressed as a Church Lady (a costume) or going dressed as a Bag Lady (how I usually dress).
As to chickenpox lollipops and pox parties, from the last edition.
1. What else is going to be on that lollipop ? Anything from hand-foot-and-mouth to meningitis or influenza, the sky’s the limit.
2.Vaccination uses weakened wild virus, pox parties spread…just wild virus. The chance of developing a more serious complication is about one in fifty.
3. Chickenpox is two weeks of being itchy, miserable, looking hideous and feeling rotten. Who would do that to their kid ?
4. Having the disease seems to lead to lifelong immunity. Vaccination, as far as we can tell now, has 9 out of 10 people still protected after up to 25 years. And there are booster shots of course.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Rorschach – I’m one of those unusual adults who’ve never had Chicken Pox. Should I worry? How imperative is it that I get vaccinated?
Can someone fill me in on this Penn State thing ? Students are protesting in their thousands to have the coach ” I wish I had done more” guy reinstated ? Am I missing something ?
Hi Josh ! That’s up to you of course, but we know that chickenpox in adults may take a more severe course than in children or adolescents. Are you sure you haven’t had it ? That stuff is so contagious that usually by age 16 most kids have been exposed to it.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Am I missing something ?
No. You’re naturally astounded at the obscene triumph of tribalistic loyalty over empathy with the actual victims. Welcome to USA-Land. Sigh.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Yes, I’m sure I haven’t had chickenpox, even though my siblings have. Considering that I’ve seen the horrible effects of shingles on my older adult friends, I guess I’ve answered my own question. Duh. . .I should get vaccinated at the next Dr.’s appointment. “Luckily” for me those occur so frequently anymore that should be a breeze. . .lol.
Insipid Moniker, do you and your friends have any sway with this guy to get him to go for counselling, since it’s costing him his job(?), well position anyway, and may be in fact struggling with himself?
Josh, yes you definitely should mention it to your doctor, perhaps in advance so they’ll make sure it’s in stock. And Twinrix, the Hepatitis vaccine, if you haven’t had it.
I’d say it’s likely then that you have had it as well. But that’s advice from one internet person to another, so don’t listen to me !
And I’m stealing your line about tribalism…I find this rather unbelievable.
First Approximationsays
No. You’re naturally astounded at the obscene triumph of tribalistic loyalty over empathy with the actual victims. Welcome to USA-Land. Sigh.
Yeah, after seeing people defend Roman Polanski, the Catholic Church and now this I have to ask what the fucking hell is fucking wrong with some people?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I’d say it’s likely then that you have had it as well. But that’s advice from one internet person to another, so don’t listen to me !
I won’t; don’t worry. I’ll be sure to Ask My Doctor(TM):)) While I’ve certainly been exposed to the chickenpox virus, I’ve never had any manifestations of the actual disease. Believe me, I’d remember that. What that may mean medically I have no clue, but it sounds like I should just get myself a good round of vaccinations and boosters soon. Especially since they’re all “get your flu shot if you have heart disease” and shit. Oy.
Having chickenpox means the chance of having shingles later in life. With the vaccine, scientists are hoping it will be less likely.
Josh, thank you for being brave and telling your story. It’s almost like group therapy–it helps to know that others have gone through the same thing.
A. Rsays
Damn, a virology discussion and I missed it!
Josh: Anyway, it is possible to be exposed to Varicella without developing symptoms. I would recommend that you have a Varicella titer before receiving a vaccination.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
My Google Fu defeats me, A.R. What is “Varcilla titer?” Is that a test for exposure or something else? What bearing does that have on whether I get a vaccination?
A titer is an antibody count, it measures if there are Varicella antibodies in your system, and if yes, whether it’s enough to protect you from infection. Given that you are in the US, that one will propably set you back half the cost of a new car…
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Thank you, rorschach. And yes, it would likely cost me a down payment on a new car! Thank goodness I drive a 1966 Plymouth.
A. Rsays
Josh: like rorschach said, it measures the amount of antibodies you have in your blood to the chickenpox virus. If you have a decent healthcare plan, you might get it covered. Reactions to chickenpox vaccines in previously infected individuals are quite unpredictable.
Talk to your doctor, anyway. Maybe the shingles vax might be more suitable.
I just got $800 back from medicare, yay! I had to spend about $1100 to get it, boo! I’m just under the annual threshold for the safety net, so far, and I have more tests and appointments due. I’m going to actually make it there for the first time in my life.
(For non-Aussies, this is our version of universal health care. You get a fixed amount back per item. The amount back is generally less than the doctor’s full charge, but once you spend above a certain annual limit “safety net”, you get extra high rebates.)
Well, you didn’t miss much. Here’s the spoiler (hover to read it).
====
(On punk rock and creationism)
HR
Well, he is a rastafarian (that’s an ‘r’, not a ‘p’). I don’t know about his stance about creationism, but HR had a major falling out with MDC’s Dave Dictor because of the Bad Brains’ homophobia. The Bad Brains left the tour because of that.
Crudely Wrottsays
This place continues to amaze, confound, comfort and challenge me in a way that I cannot recall ever happening before. Unless one counts psychedelics or deep relationships.
I’ve been just lurking a lot lately since there are so many things demanding my attention of late. Reading (listening) to all of you brings up so many thoughts and inventions and desires that are almost instantly replaced by more of the same that I am lost in the collective dust.
What I want to say, that is, what I can articulate now, is that my life has changed in definite and measurable ways that I find most pleasant and profound. That is, the benefit of the accumulation of years is enhanced and accessorized (what? am I shopping for a new car?) by the time I have spent on this blog with all of you. I am more keenly aware of how life is experienced by others which gives me a deeper understanding of my own. As well, I have deeper understanding of how others experience life. Circles, cycles . . .
By virtue of the sharing of opinion and knowledge that occurs here I have put down not a few prejudices. Much to my delight and profit. Furthering my delight and profit I have come to possess an abiding affection for many of you. Affection that is tempered by a respect that you have well earned and is certainly justly due.
My abiding hope is that this continues.
So, aahhh, just thanks. Thanks to all of you for being honest and constant and providing a place for myself and all of ourselves to just hang. Hang and get better. Better in many ways, in all ways, unanticipated ways. Way.
I see we’ve ventured into much more serious territory. I don’t have much to say, except a question for Insipid Moniker. Is it an option, since you say he is or was a friend, to talk with him? Not so much to get his side of the story, but to try to talk some sense into him?
Josh, I never had Chickenpox either, even though I was in the house when my uncle had it. German measles (rubella), yes, but not chickenpox.
Crudely Wrottsays
Here’s something I’ve long suspected. Having a low credit score is not something that is intended nor is it a reliable indicator of overall worth. After all, there are many more influences than character that go into something as remote as ones credit rating. It’s called life.
In addition to the points acknowledged in the article I think that people with low scores have probably spent a long time without financial clout and have grown used to it. As a simple matter of personal survival they often develop a tolerant, good natured outlook towards their own monetary situation and this attitude is not constrained just to that. I’ve noted in others as well as myself that good humor isn’t constrained; it sort of goes into solution and permeates the whole person with regard to arenas of all kinds.
Weed Monkeysays
Josh, thank you for sharing. Caine, thank you for wisdom.
I figured as much. Given that trailers were shown for it about every 5 minutes, excruciatingly long trailers, I felt like I’d seen it already. After the movie was out, there were so many spoofs of it done, it wasn’t necessary to see it.
Here’s the spoiler (hover to read it).
Um, yeah. Didn’t miss anything confirmed.
Not so much to get his side of the story, but to try to talk some sense into him?
It might not hurt anything for Insipid Moniker or others to talk with him, however, don’t bank on the whole ‘talking some sense into him’. The man has already committed a crime and someone who is wired with an attraction to children, whether a pedophile, hebephile or ephebophile, this is not something which will go away. A talk may well scare him into realizing he has crossed the line into committing a sexual assault and that he requires help in order to live out his life without re-offending. It may also cause him to be more careful when it comes to choosing victims. One problem about having a talk with him is being unprepared for a seemingly heartfelt confession of remorse which explains it all away as a ‘terrible mistake’. Most people who do such things are manipulative and good at manipulation. Most of them are almost always considered to be good people, thought of as active, productive members of their community. That helps them to get away with their crimes.
It’s a bad situation. The best thing would be for him to be charged, so an investigation could take place. At least reporting him will start a record and the police will be able to check as to whether or not he has been reported before.
Hm, I didn’t interpret ‘student’ as ‘under age’, but considering the ‘big brother little sister’ relationship Insipid Moniker mentioned, you’re probably right.
And you’re probably right as well about the effects of a talk with him. So yeah, report him, kick him out, and hopefully the student will feel safe enough to press charges after some time has passed.
Good morning
So it’s 11-11-11 and people are queing up to get married, women are queing up to get a C-section.
There are things about humans I’ll never understand.
Josh
And all the other survivors here
Thank you for sharing.
Your stories are a gift to people like me who, fortunately, haven’t made those experiences.
They teach me about the prevalence, the realities and the importance of putting a stop to it, of not brushing things aside.
They are a burden, too, they leave a mark on me, they make me afraid, they make me sad, they make me cry.
That is not your fault! Please, don’t read it as a “stop it, your pain makes me feel uncomfortable”, that’s the last thing I want.
I think that is a burden all non-victims should get and take and transform into an obligation to end the damn rape culture.
Because those stories of “everybody knowing something and nobody saying anything” are the same everywhere.
There’s a pedophile living in the street I grew up in, the street my children are playing in.
The adults always supected something. Why did both his daughters leave the house as soon as they could, why do they hardly ever come to visit?
Why did his next door neighbour shout that if he caught him talking to his daughter alone he’d kill him?
Fuck, I was all over that neighbourhood, spending time in this house and that house (having a neighbourhood with lots of potential grandparents and few actual grandchildren certainly has advantages), it could as well have been his house.
When he was finally convicted everybody came forward how they knew something all along. So, oh, they knew something, but nobody ever said anything.
That guy is still the head of an important charity, he’s still a well respected member and former city-council member of one of the major parties.
Those idiots are not kicking him out because obviously a scandal, and questions about their own complicity would not be worth setting a symbol against child rape.
Fuck them, every one of them.
back to chickenpox
My own story is testimony that having been exposed to chickenpox doesn’t mean that you probably had them. Putting kids in the way of chickenpox deliberately was common before the vaccine, mostly because people knew how bad they can be a s an adult. So I was sent to my best friend to get them, I was sent to my cousin to get them, i was sent to school and kindergarten when there were break-outs, I never caught them. I was probably mildly imune against the locally prevalent stems. I caught them from my second cousin’s son who lives 800km away and it was not nice.
I’ve heard the hypothesis that the life-long imunity you usually get from the dieseases isn’t originally due to that infection, which leaves you with a basic protection, but due to getting “natural boosters” again and again when the disease is endemic, so some scientists speculate that with declining cases of diseases those who got their imunity from the actual disease would need booster shots as well.
Hm, I didn’t interpret ‘student’ as ‘under age’, but considering the ‘big brother little sister’ relationship Insipid Moniker mentioned, you’re probably right.
If she is an adult, he’s still committed a crime and obviously has a very serious problem, in that he’d rather commit sexual assault than try to develop or pursue a deeper relationship.
The whole business of it being a big brother, little sister relationship (at least on her part, which he has to be aware of) makes it even creepier to my mind.
Birger Johanssonsays
Hmmpff… the Omelas story sounds like liberal communist-nazist lefty brainwashing propaganda. Real Americans (TM) read Ayn Rand, no matter how boring the stuff gets.
I have just finsihed reading “Kraken”. Lots of mayhem in London. The Doctor would be proud (in one chapter they had two conflicting apocalypses going on simultaneously).
— — — — — — — — — — —
I had an idea. Why don’t you send postcards to your friends today, so they are poststamped 11-11-11. Generating fun early 21st century curio for collectors.
If she is an adult, he’s still committed a crime (…)
O, absolutely. No doubt about that. And since they had a student-teacher relation, I would’ve found even a consensual relationship suspect to the point where he would’ve been better off giving up teaching her.
Beatricesays
I have just finsihed reading “Kraken”. Lots of mayhem in London. The Doctor would be proud (in one chapter they had two conflicting apocalypses going on simultaneously).
Sounds like a fun read. Is that Kraken by China Miéville?
My guess would be The Kraken Awakes by John Wyndham, that fits the description well. But I haven’t read Kraken by China Miéville. (Yet. Should I?)
Beatricesays
SQB,
I was just guessing from various Krakens on wiki.
Insipid Monikersays
Josh,
Thank you for sharing your story. It makes me sick to my stomach to read things like that, but it also is one of the main reasons I’ve been working hard not to be a part of the problem. It’s also one of the reasons I came here for advice. I know that people here have personal and professional experience and a great deal of accumulated wisdom. The commentariat does not disappoint.
SQB & Caine,
She is an adult, but the big brother/little sister relationship predates both that and the two of them being at the gym. He is definitely aware of it and was, and this is giving him every possible ounce of benefit of the doubt, trying to take advantage of supposed infatuation which is still really screwed up.
I went ahead and spoke to one of the other instructors who is also a local police officer. He’s already filed a report and encouraged me to file one independent of him. I’m going to do that later today. I will push him to get counseling when we meet with him today, but I’m afraid that I’m gonna be too susceptible to a heartfelt confession or whitewash and so I’ll probably not have any contact with him beyond that.
Sincere gratitude for helping me be a decent person.
BTW, does anybody else notice how different the police reaction is to the students actually rioting in support of a rape enabler and the police treating peacful occupy protestors?
I completely agree with the advice to report the creep to the police. I would add that a written, personal account (a diary entry, perhaps even a copy/paste job from this thread) would not go amiss.
The importance of contemporaneous records is often overlooked.
(don’t ask if you don’t want an anecdote)
Carliesays
Why don’t you send postcards to your friends today, so they are poststamped 11-11-11. Generating fun early 21st century curio for collectors.
Brilliant! :)
Squeezy hugs for everyone, and a second for Josh. I love you all so much.
— — — — — — — — — —
Beatrice, SQB
It is Kraken by China Miéville. The many and varied baddies (and a cockney-swearing cop with supernatural abilities) are stirred into action as a preserved Archaetithus specimen is stolen from a museum; after this, all omens show the end of the world is near.
-Wyndham’s “The Kraken Awakes” is about extra-terrestrials (favoring a deep-sea biosphere) doing stuff that is bad for those living on terra firma.
Spoiler for Titanic: 1912 ship hits big object. Ship goes down. Water is wet.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
Stephen Fry: One of his best TV performances is in the series “Absolute Power”, about a PR company working for politicians, churches or celebrities and ignoring stuff like “ethics”. To the best of my knowledge it is not available on USA-format DVDs. Maybe some of you can put the best bits on YouTube?
Algernonsays
Chickenpox is two weeks of being itchy, miserable, looking hideous and feeling rotten. Who would do that to their kid ?
Also scars. I have ugly pox scars on my face from it. Not a bunch, but really do you want any on your kid?
Oh, and another hug for Walton, too. Just worked back upthread enough.
Beatricesays
Birger Johansson,
Thanks! I’m going to a book fair this evening, so maybe I’ll look for it.
I hear they’re having huge discounts. Wasting money before getting the first paycheck is such a bad idea, but… books and I need a French dictionary and grammar. And there’s discount!
I’m in trouble.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Mixing lubes is not always a good thing. Some mixtures can even become rather sticky.
My inner 13-year-old giggled.
can’t believe someone stuck with the Saw franchise all the way to VI.
Ah, the wonders of free-market capitalism. Who could be against it?
I just want to apologize again. I shouldn’t weigh in on complex moral issues with my first emotionally-driven instinctive reaction.
I disagree, Walton. My first reaction, upon reading the account, was similar to yours (though I would also have suggested the creation of a paper trail). The reaction you garnered (or I would have garnered were I not writing this hours later) was instructive for me in a positive way, just as it was (I assume?) for you. Emotionally-driven reactions are part of who we are as humans — recognizing the reaction for what it is, and adjusting for it, is what makes us adults.
Snow is often aesthetically pleasing, I like it in pictures.
I actually really enjoy driving in snow. The drive from West Yellowstone to Teton Village to Cody, in a mid-June snowstorm, in a minivan, was one of the most funnest (not necessarily most enjoyable, but most fun) drives I’ve ever done. And passing the huge pickup truck with the massive tyres was just icing on the cake.
Chickenpox is two weeks of being itchy, miserable, looking hideous and feeling rotten.
Not to mention the scars I still have on my face. Not many, but they are there.
So it’s 11-11-11 and people are queing up to get married, women are queing up to get a C-section.
There are things about humans I’ll never understand.
Well, at the very least (and I say this as a husband and father who cannot remember anyone’s birthdays, and I have to take of my wedding ring to remember my anniversary), it makes it easier to remember the birthday and/or anniversary, right?
Why don’t you send postcards to your friends today, so they are poststamped 11-11-11.
But here in the US, it is a federal holiday. So the post offices are closed. (And I get double pay today).
==========
To all who served in the military, and especially those who survived physically, mentally, and ethically intact, happy Veteran’s Day / Remembrance Day.
Silisays
pelamun says:
Yeah, a neighbour’s kid had shingles in his teens. Told me too if the rash came “full circle” he’d die. German name of the disease was poetic too, “belt rose”.
The Danish name translates to Hellfire.
Silisays
Esteleth – don’t crucify yourself (it’s so damned messy!).
And there’s just no way you’re ever gonna get that last nail in.
Ahh, the Rev beat me to it:
The Nigel Tufnel Day Appreciation Society and Quilting Bee in Favor of Declaring & Observing November 11, 2011 as Nigel Tufnel Day (in Recognition of Its Maximum Elevenness)
Silisays
Mr. Fire says:
By the way, I’m getting involved in U.S. politics for the first time. Going to volunteer.
Elizabeth Warren for Senate (MA). I want to see Scott Brown’s republican ass booted into the stratosphere.
And there’s just no way you’re ever gonna get that last nail in.
I actually did LOL.
Carliesays
We are having our first big snow now. There was previously a day where there was a little snow at work but not at home, so I don’t count that one. After dodging the huge flakes to get to the car this morning, I got in and found that Bing Crosby was singing White Christmas on the radio. Hee.
Carliesays
… and what he was doing on my radio, I’ll never know. : [ )
(that was a Groucho Marx emoticon)
Silisays
SteveV says:
The HF plant was not a pleasant place. The fume had etched the glass on the instruments to such an extent that a wipe over with a damp rag was needed to read them.
I seem to have survived the three months that I worked there (before moving on to the cadmium refinery) as it was over 45 years ago!
I … I’d rather like to try that kinda job …
Carliesays
I’ve worked with HF for many years, but in small quantities. To keep it from being too scary, I’ve always had large quantities of neutralizer piled up in the fume hood all around the area where I work in case of errant drops, and am sheathed in neoprene and a face guard the whole time. I would not like working somewhere that uses larger than the half-liter bottles.
JBliliesays
And the GOP (the glob) succeeded in opening a hunting season on these magnificent animals in MN.
What a moronic activity. “Wow, look at those wonderful, huge birds! Hold my beer, I need to shoot one!” Mental pygmies, all the way down.
I have a lab report due in 6 hours and I haven’t started it yet. But the damn internet won’t let me go!
Estelethsays
Morning, all.
Following my normal routine, I opened the day with reading the Times. And now, I’m blubbering over this story, about a couple, both disabled, who married over their families’ objections and took care of each other until the end.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson just tweeted: “Yup. Any time written hh:mm:ss mm/dd/yy won’t repeat for 100yr. Evidence something can be rare yet completely uninteresting.”
Starstuff, go write that lab report! The Internet will still be here when you get back. And close all the irrelevant windows: the links are in your browser history.
I hope that comment up at the top about sandhill cranes tasting like whooping cranes was a joke.
Ingsays
You’ve obviously never faced a chimpmunk in the depths of a nut binge.
You’re making a fallacy that because I didn’t mention it, it isn’t included in the set.
Silisays
Catching up on The Daily Show: What the hell kinda shirt is Clint Eastwood wearing? It looks like the collar of a polp shirt, two sizes too small, and then it’s all scrunched up by the tie is a half (if not full) Windsor. I’ve seen people dress badly before, but never with such panache. The man looks like he’s ready for the retirement home with locks on the doors.
–o–
SQB says:
I actually did LOL.
I can’t take credit. I stole it wholesale from Neil.
Silisays
*polo, not polp
Ingsays
@Sili
I read that as polyp.
Was very curious what sort of shirt he was wearing.
lipwigsays
@Crudely Wrott #169
Thank-you for putting into words all the thoughts I have about TET. Even though I lurk more than I post, your words describe exactly how I have come to feel about this amazing group of people here.
@Josh #125
Your story and your need to tell it released a tusnami of emotions. There are 2 or 3 or 4 or 5… experiences that I have had that I am slowly starting to realise were rape and that I was not to blame.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
You’ve obviously never faced a chimpmunk in the depths of a nut binge.
When I was at a fire in Idaho . . .
Sorry.
[[[WARNING: FIRE STORY!!!!! FIRE STORY!!!!!]]]
Okay.
When I was at a fire in Idaho, I was stationed at a checkpoint at a pass with a magnificent view. Wonderful place to be.
The turnout where I parked was infested with chipmunks and Least Ground Squirrels (yeah, I know, buying them would be cheaper). Apparently, previous SEC2s had been feeding them as, when I arrived, they were well trained to approach the human in the truck and look cute. I tried ignoring them. At one point, I was deep in my book and I felt something on my boot (I was sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open, dangling my leg out the door). I reacted by kicking my foot. And I looked out to see a ‘munk or a gs sailing through the air.
I got very, er, familiar? with the rodents up there.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
The turnout where I parked was infested with chipmunks and Least Ground Squirrels (yeah, I know, buying them would be cheaper).
And that should be: “The turnout where I parked was infested with Least Chipmunks (yeah, I know, buying them would be cheaper) and Seven-Lined Ground Squirrels.
A. Rsays
Father Og: What kind of ground squirrels do you have with seven lines? Ours 13! :)
My lab report is nearing completion with a little over 3 hours left until it’s due. I think I’m getting pretty good at doing assignment at the last minute.
I guess the Republicans don’t care if Cain sexually assaults women. Big surprise.
Ingsays
Ugh in happier news
I’m planning on running a system lite, Sci-fi game using a D&Dlite system I play tested at comicon which seemed to work better for mixing story telling and all.
I have two people from my group on but would like to get a crew of 5 if possible. If anyone here is interested let me know. E-mail is Ingdamnit at gmail system
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
What kind of ground squirrels do you have with seven lines? Ours 13! :)
Beats the hell out of me. They are in Idaho, Washington and Oregon and the locals in all three places call them 7-lined ground squirrels. And they are very different form the Least (yes, buying is cheaper) Chipmunks — longer body, and the striping is solid, not dashed like the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel. And they were definately not Uintah Ground Squirrels. So I don’t know.
Silisays
Ing says:
I read that as polyp.
Was very curious what sort of shirt he was wearing.
That at least would have been interesting in a Björkgaga kinda way.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
And the GOP (the glob) succeeded in opening a hunting season on these magnificent animals in MN.
What a moronic activity. “Wow, look at those wonderful, huge birds! Hold my beer, I need to shoot one!” Mental pygmies, all the way down.
Seriously, once you cut off the skinny neck and the long shanks, how much meat could there possibly be on a crane?
No cranes here that I know of, but down the Vedder River is a heron reserve. I’ve liked herons ever since one joined me fishing and shared my catch. They really do look like pterosaurs, or at least the popular public image of a pterosaur.
Yesterday at the river I had a heron AND a kingfisher land near to my cooking fire and watch me for a while. I’m sure there’s a Kipling story in there somewhere.
I’ve resolved this year to try not to let the whole winter depression thing get me, and I figure the best way to do that is to spend a LOT of time outdoors. That would explain why I’m pretty much bankrupt on the last few threads.
Umm… really, really loud. That’s the thing I forgot to mention.
First Approximationsays
Actually, I guess that was just a general poll or something. Apparently, among just Republicans, it’s even more split:
Cain – 18%
Romney – 15%
Gingrich – 15%
I see it’s soon gonna be Gingrich’s turn as the forerunner in the Republican’s wacky search for a candidate not named ‘Mitt Romney’. Seriously, this whole thing resembles some sort of unholy hybrid of reality show and speed dating.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Sili: Canadian. I get the feeling there might be a slightly different attitude towards wildlife and hunting in Canada than in some portions of the states.
Maybe Gingrich will be a like McCain in 2008 – after a near implosion of his campaign, he comes back to clinch the nomination from Romney’s jaws…
Rey Foxsays
Primaries start in about two months.
Great, that will be just what I need to kick the winter doldrums. *thbbbbt*
Crudely Wrottsays
Laughing Coyote, here’s a True Nature Story ™ that I know you will appreciate.
I was fishing a creek in NW Wyoming on a hot summer afternoon. The breeze had been mild and variable. I’d put a handful of rainbows in the creel when I was joined by a kingfisher. Had the pleasure of watching it catch a small trout and land on a nearby willow to whack the thing to death against a branch and then fly off to, I assume, feed babies.
I noticed the breeze pick up a bit in fits and starts as it will do on a hot day. The kingfisher returned and as I paused to change lures I watched it hovering in search of more prey. At the same time I saw that a small whirlwind had formed off to my right and was swirling down a mild slope towards the stream. The kingfisher didn’t see it, occupied as it was.
Sure enough, the dust devil slid down the hill and over the stream between me and the bird. I was surprised to note that the devil (heh-heh) turned downstream and caught the bird unawares. Poor fellow was thrown for a loop-de-loop and was spun about and moved near fifty yards downstream in just a couple of seconds. It fought the air and, once free, descended to water level and was gone in a flash. Didn’t see it again that day.
As you might imagine I had quite a laugh over the sight and that evening enjoyed fish nearly as fresh as its hatchlings had enjoyed. I still chuckle at the memory.
CJOsays
“Whiskers marked milestone in evolution of mammals from reptiles”
Awesome. (I called this, in a long-ago now-obscure blog comment at scienceblogs. The authors of the paper for some reason have not acknowledged their debt.)
Thanks for the link. It’s interesting work
Crudely Wrottsays
@ lipwig, #225:
Yeah. Really something, innit?
Confirms the old adage that says if you pay attention you just might learn something.
I am grateful not only for this blog but also for the fact that at sixty I still have the curiosity and delight in learning that I had at ten. You might even say I’m blessed by not having “grown up”.
I, and I hope you, find such a state desirable and in no need of change. ;^>
Does anyone have a good article about the assault on women’s reproductive rights?
I’m in charge of the topic for freethinkers next week and I need some reading material to provide for people.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Crudely Wrott: Cool. On reflection I think the one I saw last night was the first I’ve seen in a while. Odd, considering the proximity of the river.
Does anyone have dippers where they live? Those are cool little birds. Easily overlooked and very ordinary to the common eye, but they do some pretty cool stuff.
I went ahead and spoke to one of the other instructors who is also a local police officer. He’s already filed a report and encouraged me to file one independent of him. I’m going to do that later today. I will push him to get counseling when we meet with him today, but I’m afraid that I’m gonna be too susceptible to a heartfelt confession or whitewash and so I’ll probably not have any contact with him beyond that.
That’s great news, IM. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have your police officer instructor have the talk with him?
We have flocks of Canada geese migrate over my marina/lake. One time I heard this odd and vehement honking from several of the geese and I looked up in time to see a very loose formation with one goose knocking into another causing that goose to tumble in what looked like a Lomcevak. Honking furiously all the way.
My best guess is they ate some fermented something or other and were all drunk.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
The Sailor: That’s pretty odd. I wonder what could have caused that short of someone tossing them bread soaked in rum or something.
A. Rsays
The popular culture example is fermented berries, but I suppose fermented corn or grain might do it. (Poss. ergotism?)
TLC, well, they are generally herbivorous and it was Fall.
I guess they could have gotten into a weed patch, and that explains the loose formation, but not the bobbing and weaving;-)
Crudely Wrottsays
@ TLC, Yes. Dippers are common on many high country rivers. I haven’t been in that country for a few years but I did see what I think were dippers on tributaries to Great Bay, New Hampshire, a couple of months ago. My brother and I took his boat out and I saw birds that looked, and exhibited flight characteristics that strongly suggested that bird.
My father used to call them “duck butts” by virtue of the “dipping” behavior they show when perched on a rock mid stream. I was so thrilled to observe that they actually fly underwater in fast moving streams. Imagine being able to do that!
Another of my favorite critters. What a marvelous way to exploit a niche. I gather that the cleverness we humans claim as a sign of higher intelligence is not as exclusive as we might like to assume.
SteveVsays
Some hippy friends of mine had their “weed patch” invaded by their escapoligist goats.
The goats did a fair bit of bobbing and weaving for a while.
Crudely Wrottsays
With respect to drunken geese, I once observed honey bees feeding on a thistle blossom that was way past its prime. A half dozen of them were buried deep between the wilting flowerettes and didn’t fly off when I shook the stem or prodded the bees with a twig.
Thus emboldened I stuck a finger into the blossom in the midst of them. Imagine my surprise when two of them climbed up my finger and then fell back onto the flower with their legs flailing in the air!
They were sloshed to the gills on fermented nectar!
Ever since I’ve wondered about gathering a basketful of late summer thistle blossoms and trying a sample myself.
From what I remember, sandhill cranes aren’t endangered, but they’re protected in Florida.
####
Copied from my Facebook wall:
Apparently radio stations have started the Christmas music already. And, as usual, they’re playing the same dozen songs they always play.
So: What are your favorite nonmainstream Christmas songs?
Some of mine:
Jonathan Coulton, “Chiron Beta Prime”
“Weird Al” Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”
“Weird Al” Yankovic, “The Night Santa Went Crazy (Extra Gory Version”)
Tom Lehrer, “A Christmas Carol”
Arlo Guthrie, “The Pause of Mr. Claus”
I was debating throwing this one in:
Mr. Hankey and Kenny McCormick, “The Most Offensive Song Ever”
(Parts [in brackets] are sung by Kenny and are therefore muffled)
o/`
The virgin Mary was sleeping when angel Gabriel appeared
He said, ‘you are to be the virgin mother’ and Mary thought that was weird
[Mary said, ‘I’m not a virgin, I blew a guy last year’]
But then Gabriel said to Mary, ‘My child, have no fear’
[‘Cause you can suck all the dick you want] and still be a virgin, Mary
[You can suck all the dick you want] and still not be considered flawed
[Although you went to town, and sucked some semen down]
You’re still a virgin in the eyes of God…
o/`
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Crudely Wrott: Yes! Amazing isn’t it? At the Vedder River, almost anywhere I walk up or down I’m guaranteed to come across a dipper or two. Another name for them is Ouzel.
If the dipper was a fossil species, would we have any clue at all to its river lifestyle? Or would we just write it off as another small generalist songbird?
Shucks, Crudely, they were just getting a buzz on.
I don’t think our fellow denizens of this planet get high by accident. We all deserve a break from reality.
I firmly believe this. Once I saw a group of about three crows around a tipped over Tim Horton’s cup, taking turns to sip at the coffee puddle.
It’s been a tough week here in Lake Wobegon, but I ended it on a high note. 122 files of retinal layer tomographs, with “the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one” programmed and generated by yours truly, which came to a whopping 17+ thousand images and graphs.
Now I haz my grog with a swill back.
ringtailedlemuriansays
My “Animals eating cannabis” anecdotes ~
1) I had a rabbit that discovered the 12 oz of hash balls (that I’d discovered on top of the toilet cistern in my Indian hotel room).
It only ate about an ounce (thinking they were droppings?) before I realised. It ran madly, unstoppably, around the room for about 15 minutes. And then it died. (Probably of exhaustion/heat stroke/stress rather than poisoning).
2) A friend was laying out the food for her sister’s wedding. Took a break, had a smoke, and left the hash on one of the tables. Her terrier found it, ate it, and went bezerk. Ran up and down the tables charging through the food at high speed. Ruined everything. She had great difficulty concocting a believable explanation for the dog’s behaviour. She even had to pretend to take it to the vet. (The dog survived).
Crudely Wrottsays
Sailor: “Shucks, Crudely, they were just getting a buzz on.”
I LOLed. OK, I just snortled a bit. No, I did LOL!
Some years ago, Coyote, a train carrying seed corn derailed in Wyoming’s Big Horn mountains. Since the corn was carried in open cars it was left in drifts up to eight feet deep alongside the tracks. Of course, it immediately began to ferment.
Soon there came reports of drunken bears lollygagging on the tracks and interrupting traffic. Because of the prohibitive costs of removing the corn in such a remote area, the railroad simply sprayed the corn with diesel fuel.
Not long after, reports of drunken bears recurred. The resourceful bruins had dug down below the fuel spoiled corn to get the last of the fermenting kernels.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Even Yogi and Boo Boo know that.
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
First Approximation and other physics types:
I may have come up with the ultimate physics nerd joke. I was explaining to a junior engineer the shitstorm revolving around a certain piece of electronics that failed in a recent test, and I noted that the failure was as much a matter of politics as electromagnetism. Hmm, I thought, grand unification of electromagnetism and politics–it must be governed by the symmetry group SU(2)xU(1)xO(shit).
Trust me. It’s funny if you are a physicist.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I’ve always heard that cannabis has to be ‘activated’ by heat before it can actually cause effects, and if you eat it it has to be cooked to be ‘activated’. I’m not sure how true that is, but that’s what I’ve always been told.
My starling once ate half a joint, stole it from me and flew away, swallowing it before I could get it away from him. He did not appear to enjoy the experience, infact he got violently ill and puked. Poor bird scared the crap out of me, but he recovered after an hour or so of just letting him relax in his cage with plenty of water.
Now whenever he steals, he just makes me chase him around a bit before dropping whatever he’s grabbed. I also take better care to keep ashtrays emptied and clean.
What are your favorite nonmainstream Christmas songs?
My favorite Xmas tradition is Trailer Trash’s Trashy Little Christmas Show. My favorite song is “Real Live Doll” but it doesn’t seem to be available on-line. Do You Hear What I Hear/You Really Got Me Now
ringtailedlemurian, good lessons to be learned. NEVER leave your drugs out.
ringtailedlemuriansays
me, above – “bezerk” … wtf? berserk, ofc.
ringtailedlemuriansays
I’ve always heard that cannabis has to be ‘activated’ by heat before it can actually cause effects, and if you eat it it has to be cooked to be ‘activated’. I’m not sure how true that is, but that’s what I’ve always been told.
I’m a bit sad after following threads regarding the ban on ritual animal slaughter in Holland(unless the butcheries employ approved stunning techniques) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13947163
I’m seeing claims of xenophobia, assertions that halal/kosher slaughter is more humane than standard EU slaughter practices(they’re not), holocaust references, all that jazz. Ugh.
A quote from Splengler at Asia Times:
Those who reject religious arguments – as do the majority of today’s Europeans – should nonetheless ask by what measure they gauge the value of animal suffering. Jews observe the ancient dietary laws because they believe that God asked them to do so. Whether or not the Hebrew Bible was given to Moses on Mount Sinai by God, the rules it set forth for kindness towards animals had no precedent in human affairs. And the influence upon ethics of this innovation cannot be overstated. If we must respect animal life – not only physical suffering, but even the emotional sensibility of animals – then we must respect human life and dignity all the more.
Am I interpreting this correctly when I think he’s saying that in order to respect animals we have to respect the beliefs and wishes of the religious(even when we don’t accept them) and give them special permission, outside of the law everyone else has to follow, for them to… torture animals?! That unfounded religious fee fees are more important than an animals right to not feel intense pain and to not suffer an unnecessarily prolonged death. I don’t even
1) I had a rabbit that discovered the 12 oz of hash balls (that I’d discovered on top of the toilet cistern in my Indian hotel room).
It only ate about an ounce (thinking they were droppings?) before I realised. It ran madly, unstoppably, around the room for about 15 minutes. And then it died. (Probably of exhaustion/heat stroke/stress rather than poisoning).
:-( :-( :-( :-( Poor bunny.
======
And of course it’s not too early for Christmas music! According to Garfield, an authority on such matters, the Christmas season begins on Labor Day. :-)
Rumtopf: I’m dubious about the ban. Given the amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe (fuelled by xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment; see the growing support for neo-fascist Geert Wilders and his party, for instance), I’m suspicious of the assumption that all the supporters of this law are really motivated by a desire to protect animals. Obviously, the fact that some of its supporters have xenophobic motivations doesn’t necessarily mean that the law is wrong; but in the present European social context, it seems like a very specific and targeted attack on the religious practices of two oppressed and discriminated-against minority groups.
Really, there is no such thing as “humane animal slaughter”, and we shouldn’t pretend that any of us can take a moral high ground in this respect. Whether to eat meat or not is an individual choice, but all of us – both vegetarians and omnivores – have to face up to the fact that all modern industrial-agricultural practices cause serious animal pain, suffering and death. (This is true even for vegetarians, since arable farming involves animal deaths too.) If you really want to save animals from needless suffering, there are a great many things one can do that will have far more impact than banning a specific type of animal slaughter: working to end factory farming, for instance, and giving up eating meat as far as possible.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
RingtailedLemurian: Interesting. There is, of course, a way I can test it out, with myself as the subject. :)
Another stoner ‘debate’ I run into is roaches. Most of us tend to hoarde our roaches, I’ve heard some claim that the THC is ‘concentrated’ in them somehow, and I’ve heard others claim that the THC gets burned off by that point. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle, it’s simply more economical to hang on to roaches.
cicely, Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniacsays
Evenin’, Thread. I just spent the day catching up on the sleep I didn’t get all during the week, and it feels great!
–
What part of “the GOP” did you not understand?
Weeeelll, speaking for myself, pretty much the whole thing. I hear their words, but the sense escapes me.
–
Well Rumtopf, the problem is that Muslims in Europe are a disadvantaged minority. More often than not, these campaigns against certain practices associated with Islam are just thinly disguised xenophobia. Just look at the campaigns against building mosques, or about wearing the hijab in public.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate reasons to oppose those practices, but one just has to be careful lest those campaigns stoke xenophobic sentiments, and further alienate the minorities implicitly cast as barbaric.
In Germany, in 1995 a court ruled that ritual slaughter was not necessary according to its interpretation of Islamic law, thus allowing Jewish butchers to continue the practice, while barring Muslim butchers from doing so. In 2002 this was overturned by the Constitutional Court, so the religious exemptions persist there.
Over at Balloon Juice scav wrote this comment IRT a post on GOP candidates: “Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall Who really is the nuttiest of them all?”
“For there are many axes of measurement in the multiverse, many rooms in my father’s house and a hell of a lot of rings at this circus.”
ringtailedlemuriansays
TLC –
RingtailedLemurian: Interesting. There is, of course, a way I can test it out, with myself as the subject. :)
Well, I wouldn’t wish to spoil your fun, but I can assure you that heat is not needed to “activate” anything. Google “bhang”.
And anyway, the cannabis plant produces these chemicals to deter insects and animals from eating it. And these creatures obviously don’t heat the plant before eating.
This story pretty much gives the gestalt of NaturalNews’ coverage.
The events in the story actually happened, in a sense. A farm put together a dinner and sold tickets, which put it into the same regulatory category as a restaurant. Since they weren’t obeying the health code, they had to destroy a bunch of food.
Read this and you’ll get the full flavor of just how fucking stoopid these people can be.
“#3 – Flu vaccines often contain live flu viruses and actually cause the flu as a way to worsen the flu season and scare more people into buying vaccines”
“#6 – Prestigious U.S. hospitals are widely engaged in black market organ trafficking and organ transplants”
“#8 – Commercial chickens are routinely fed arsenic, and commercial cows are routinely fed chicken poop”
“#11 – The U.S. government routinely conspires with pharmaceutical giants to conduct criminal, inhumane medical experiments on innocent people”
“Hot Topics” from that site: GMOs, Vaccines, Health Freedom, Cancer, Diabetes, Vitamin D.
I can only imagine the stupidity in those articles (I’ll stick with only imagining it because I’m not really up for that level of stupidity at the moment).
ringtailedlemuriansays
holy shit
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wasn’t that excited. I’d earlier that day swapped a denim jacket (that I’d bought for £1 in a London charity shop) for half a kilo of “Manali Cream”.
And, bizarrely (as I was in Manali, the hash capital of India) the stuff I found was “Afghani”. What kind of idiot smuggles hash to Manali?
I’m sorry, I flubbed that comment. I do recognise that some supporters have xenophobic motivation and dont give a rat’s ass about animal welfare, that’s a given. I meant to say that some people are making claims that the animal welfare issues are -completely- bogus and a government cover for xenophobia.
Also, I’m well aware of the problems with industrial farming and make my own efforts(I’ve gone as far as to volunteer on a small meat farm, helped out with lambing, patrolled the pastures for sick/lame animals twice daily, witnessed a small scale abatoir in operation and I like to think I know how farming is as its best based on this experience) but I’m specifically focusing on religious slaughter methods right now. If the religious are exempt from regular welfare laws then even ending factory farming practices won’t make a difference. It’s worth keeping in mind that halal meat makes up a significant amount of the meat sold(apparently a lot of it unlabeled) where I am. The Farm Animal Welfare Council and the RSPCA have both addressed the issue with the opinion that religious slaughter methods that dont use stunning are cruel. It’s a popular topic in the UK at the moment, facing all the same criticisms and no doubt being supported by bigots for all the wrong reasons as well.
Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they’ve never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and “good for your health.”
Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs. In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more — simultaneously!
….and, ummm,….. I forget the third. EPA?
Anyway, yeah, Natural News is like alternative medicine’s World Net Daily.
For Santorum, there is the prospect of damaging political fallout: On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that, while serving in the Senate, Santorum sponsored Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defense coordinator at the heart of the scandal, for a “Congressional Angels in Adoption” award, citing his work with a nonprofit group he founded for foster children
Half of my library holds came to fruition:
so now I have three weeks to read 1000 pages of Stephen Fry and 300 pages of Stieg larsson.
wheeee
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Chas:
I love ‘em.
Seen ‘em in California a few times and once in Wyoming.
So cool.
The Ouzel or Dipper is like a little natural wonder reserved for people who observe. To anyone who just takes fleeting glances, it’s just a plain boring unremarkable little thing.
I had a motorcycle once. I drove it very fast. That’s why I don’t have them anymore. But if I were to do it all over again I think I’d do it like this.
>humungous grin<
Imagine the sound of this sucker going down the road. A sound that once was cause to take cover. Today the sound elicits not fear but the pointing of cell phone lenses.You know you want one. Trouble is there is only one.
is it just me, or have the most recent comments disappeared? i seem to remember a number of comments on different threads that are no longer there, incl the blog post about the server update…
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
have the most recent comments disappeared?
Most definately. A whole conversation, including many typos, about how many lines are on different ground squirrels has been swallowed by the web. Tpyos is pisssed. Raelly pised.
First Approximationsays
Free Thought Blogs must have had quite a bender because it has no memory of last night.
Anyway, I saw this on Why Evolution Is True and thought you people might enjoy:
Oh, and over at Choice in Dying, Eric takes apart not only this piece by Andrew Brown, but another in which Brown seemed enormously chuffed to find a few “mistakes” in Steve Pinker’s new book. What’s curious is not only that the “mistakes” aren’t mistakes, but matters of empasis or interpretation, and, more important, Brown reviewed the book without having read it. What a Kw*k-like behavior, and how unconscionable for a professional journalist. [Emphasis added]
Carliesays
lipwig, I’m so sorry. Hugs if you want ’em.
First Approximationsays
BTW, I find it hilarious that Kw*k is banned at The Interestion, Pharynugla AND erv. When you have such different groups of people telling you get the fuck out it really says something.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
I have no idea if Scripps-Howard is pulling a very early/very late April Fools joke, or if this transfer is real: the moon landing sites have been transferred to the National Park Service. In 1999, NASA asked that they be declared National Historic Landmarks. In 2000, the NPS said no. So now NASA has just signed it over to the NPS?
Oddly, the only article I can find, anywhere, is the Scripps Howard editorial. The NPS website, and the internal NPS intranet, has nothing on it. Weird.
I see the ‘upgrade’ has well and truly fucked everything up. *sigh*
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
When you have such different groups of people telling you get the fuck out it really says something.
Well, to him it means that everyone else but him has severe mental problems and needs professional help. Some years ago, I worked with a woman who went into a downward spiral with bipolar disorder (it was eventually diagnosed as such). She, in a division meeting, said, three different times, “I’m okay, you’re not!” To different people each time.
She finally left about a year after she brought a loaded revolver to work.
chigau (---...---)says
hello
heklo
is this thing on?
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Hello, chigau.
chigau (---...---)says
Hi Father Og.
Are the comment numbers missing their left-most character on your screen. or is it just my netbook?
changeable monikersays
Well, well, well; GWB on Iraq: “This confrontation is willed by God”.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Are the comment numbers missing their left-most character on your screen. or is it just my netbook?
Yes, they are. However, on this computer, ther are always like that. My home computer shows all three diggits.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
changible moniker:
From your link, I especially like
Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
Yet here in the US, I have ceased to wonder about superficiality or fanaticism in belief when it comes to conservatives. Must have been a wakeup call for Chirac.
He is The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Rothesay and the Great Master of the Knights of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, among many others.
But in a dusty ceremony in a Masai village in the shadow of Kilimanjaro on Wednesday, the prince was bestowed a new honour by a tribe… Now the heir to the British throne is also to be known as Oloishiru Ingishu, or “he whom the cows love so much they call for him when they are in times of distress”.
With the title, given by Mathayo Rimba Olemirai, the senior elder at the village of Majengo, came a three-legged “olorika” stool fashioned from baobab wood and a bead-wrapped knobkerrie called a rungu, handed only to revered elders…
The Prince and the Duchess were visiting Majengo to see British-funded work helping Masai girls continue from primary to secondary school, and other projects advising on fresh ways to earn money for the Masai, whose nomadic way of life is threatened by climate change and increased commercial farming on their ancestral pasturelands.
“I very much look forward to hearing about how the government responds to your concerns and these challenges,” the Prince told the village chiefs.
“I think I realise, probably more than many, after 30 years or so of trying to draw people’s attention to the challenges and problems that so many communities will face and are facing due to climate change.
“I’m enormously grateful for the club you have given me – the stool may have to wait a little bit – but the club will enable me to wage an even fiercer battle against the issues of climate change.”
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Now the heir to the British throne is also to be known as Oloishiru Ingishu, or “he whom the cows love so much they call for him when they are in times of distress”.
So he’s now a veterinarian, as well?
chigau (---...---)says
Until the latest upgrade I saw all the numbers.
KGsays
Yeah at least hunt something that takes some gonads to face down like a bear or wild pig or moose. – Ing
I say if you’re going to hunt, play fair: fight the beast in hand-to-paw/tusk/antler combat!
KGsays
Tomorrow, son and I are going on a wildfowl and wader identification walk at Montrose Basin, where said birds stop for r&r on their southward migration. No cranes likely to be present, unfortunately.
Beatrice, anormalement indécentesays
Hm, I was wondering why there were no new comments since somewhere around the time I stopped reading last night.
changeable monikersays
“the puzzled French leader […] asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal.”
Noting that Lausanne has faculties of both “Social and Political Science”, and “Biology and Medicine”, I think Chirac picked the wrong department …
Oh, now I remembered. When I was at the book fair yesterday, I saw “See, I told you so” by Rush Limbaugh in a used books box. It was crammed between a Danielle Steele novel and some other drivel. Kinda weird to find a book by him in Croatia. I only ever heard of him when I started reading Pharyngula.
Also, I bought two French grammar books and no novels. I’m proud of my own restraint.
Also, I bought two French grammar books and no novels. I’m proud of my own restraint.
I have such a hard time exercising restraint when it comes to books. Lately, not even thrift shops are safe for me. The last one I went to, I came home with three bookbags full of bookses. Cheap prices, but still, it adds up.
Also, for my classes I’m now reading about the dismal failure of US efforts to combat human trafficking and forced labour of migrant workers. More than ten years ago there was a statute passed (the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act of 2000) which was supposed to provide benefits and immigration relief to trafficking victims, and prosecute traffickers. But it hasn’t worked; most trafficking victims still get treated as criminals and/or undocumented migrants, and detained or deported, thanks to (a) ignorance on the part of police and immigration officials, and (b) a lack of adequate funding for the NGOs and lawyers who help victims. (The DoJ is supposed to provide federal funding for legal assistance for trafficking victims, but the funding is only available for victims who get “rescued” by law enforcement, so, in practice, the majority of victims don’t get any help.)
This is a feminist issue too; it’s estimated that 80 percent of trafficking victims worldwide are women, and many trafficked women end up in either forced sex work or off-the-books domestic labour, where they are likely to be abused and assaulted.
(Sorry for the OT… but I figured some people here would be interested to read about this, and explaining it to other people also helps me learn the material.)
Mr. Firesays
At Elizabeth Warren’s speech right now.
awesome
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Sent to to me by a very good friend:
If a man has an aparment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers, we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats, we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we put them on the cover of Fortune magazine and pretend that they are role models.
changeable monikersays
*tumbleweed*
ringtailedlemuriansays
*tumbleweed*
err, ok, a Tommy Cooper joke (that’s vaguely connected to what ftb has been up to today) –
“I’m on a diet.
A whiskey diet.
I’ve lost 3 days already”
and my thought for the day – there can never be too much footage of penguins getting out of the sea in a hurry.
(Where is blf?)
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Ah. Bad jokes. That I can grok.
Went to the doctor. Told him that I was worried about my weight. I told him that I hadn’t been able to see the twig and berries for six months. He told me I should diet. And I shot back, “Doesn’t matter what colour I dye it, I still won’t be able to see it!”
changeable monikersays
I went to the doctor. I said “it hurts when I do this.” He said “don’t do that.”
I wont trust them. But how do you know you can trust me? And how do I know I can trust you?
chigau (...---...)says
Since we are all PZ sockpuppets we can trust …
OK. I’m confused;
If I am you and you are me and we are all together …
I’m guessing we should all just have a *hug*
I’m listening to music too! I just saw this band live on Wednesday. They were really good.
theophontes, feu d'artifice du cosmopolitismesays
@ Josh 125
*hugs* Kudos.
Also some Good News (check your email & mailbox) … Teh Trinket ™ is on its way. I will be intrigued to see what you and the East Coast horde think it is. It is not edible (not really) though if you look carefully, you will see that I may be wrong…
@ Starstuff 216
11/11/11
Very big in China. 11/11 is the day for single people, a bit like valentines day, so this year is more “significant”. The obsession with numbers here is something to behold. Many buildings lifts skip the numbers 4, 13, 14, 24, 34 etc. Lucky numbers are 8,88 and especially 888. Also 168. Architecture is a minefield, not just from numbers, but from Feng Shui too … and vegetables even!
[animal intoxication] Reminds me of this old SA movie. The fruit of the maroelaboom falls onto the ground and ferments. Then all the animals start eating them and all shit breaks loose. (Reminds one of a late night at the Pharyngula Saloon.) My dad designed a machine to remove the nut kernels from the fruit. Part of the process in making Amarula (if anyone wants to taste the stuff: linky.) Link to movie segment here.
It intrigues me because I really want to get a science-themed tattoo: an image of the earth from space with a stylized diagram of the various layers of the atmosphere.
I’ve posted a couple of times lately about bringing home Carl Zimmer’s Science Ink. It’s utterly fabulous. I went through all the photos he posted at The Loom before the book was published.
Gotta say, I am enamored of the rat in underpants which charmed Mary Roach, but I have more turtle tats to get and a beautiful rat skeleton first.
chigau (...---...)says
wow
it’s like nothing ever happened
Pteryxxsays
Caine: I’m glad you’re here. Having read Insipid Moniker’s story, now that the thread’s back up, I have to ask re a situation of my own.
When I was a kid, I got groped similarly by a neighbor of my grandparents. He had us play a game and used it as an excuse to put his hand down my pants. I used the Death Glare on him, he stopped, I told him his game sucked and left as fast as I could. But I know this guy was a repeat offender, because HIS OWN KID had just warned me not to play games with him (and I didn’t understand what that meant).
Compared to the other abuse I’ve had, this incident hardly registered on me. I’ve remembered it recently with learning about abuse and all. I’ve got no doubts that this guy should be reported.
The question is… how?
I’ve never met those people before or since. The guy was just a neighbor of my grandparents with a similar aged kid. I’ve walked past what I think is the same house, which has changed owners at least once over the decades. I’m not even sure what year the incident happened, as I was somewhere between 7 and 12 at the time. And I’m a freak in a fundamentalist community in rural east Texas; I probably have less than zero credibility here.
Any suggestions for how I could make any sort of useful report?
Any suggestions for how I could make any sort of useful report?
In this situation, I’m sorry to say I don’t. This happens all the time, unfortunately, adults remembering an incident when they were a kid, but not any pertinent details.
Unless you have some way to connect to this person (or his kid, which would be around your age now?) or someone in your family would know who you were talking about, there isn’t a good way to find out this man’s current status or record. Also, depending on your state’s laws, what happened to you most likely ran out its statute of limitations long ago, so if you do find out the information you need, you’d be able to talk with a detective, but I’m not sure if you’d be allowed to report once the statute has passed.
Do you know any people, personally, who work in sex crimes, social work, counseling, anything like that? Know any cops? Because I’m not familiar with how things work where you are, you need better advice than I can give.
Sally Strange, OMsays
Oh yeah, I remember you talking about that Caine. But I never clicked through to the photos, shame on me.
But I never clicked through to the photos, shame on me.
The book is absolutely fabulous. Great writing, great tats, great photos. I’m even in love with the cover of the book, which you can see here (2nd photo).
Pteryxxsays
Caine, the only counselors I know are through the shelter network, mostly in Dallas… there’s one, my original intake counselor, in the rural area. Maybe I go back and mention it to her?
Sally Strange, OMsays
Definitely got to put that book on my birthday wish list.
theophontes, feu d'artifice du cosmopolitismesays
@ Caine
Surfing teh web from the link you provided, I have now discovered Tardigrades can live in outer space (also mentioned in the link – try googling: “tardis tardigrades”). And that they come in amazing shapes … Linky to Tardigrade pics (TARDIS is about # 14 in the series.) Wow!
“I’d call for all the chemists who’ve ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio.”
“Not that it’s what you’d call a perfect compound in that regard – despite a lot of effort, it’s still not quite ready to be hauled around in trucks. There’s a recent report of a method to make a more stable form of it, by mixing it with TNT. Yes, this is an example of something that becomes less explosive as a one-to-one cocrystal with TNT. Although, as the authors point out, if you heat those crystals up the two components separate out, and you’re left with crystals of pure CL-20 soaking in liquid TNT, a situation that will heighten your awareness of the fleeting nature of life.”
–
Aren’t birthdays spent at work the best…:-(
The recent posts thingy seems broken..
So, how is everyone ?
Crudely Wrottsays
. . . falls headlong through door that up till now wouldn’t open despite my pushing and banging . . . loud noises and the billowing of dust . . . looks around . . . gets unsteadily to feet brushing trousers and shirt . . . says, “Oh. Hi.”
. . . ambles about as if nothing had happened . . .
I doubt that your pink ladybrains are poor. ‘N fact I know so by virtue of you demonstrating same. Survivor you are.
Yeah. Pink Floyd and spawn. Unbeatable combination.
I bought the Umma-Gumma album (two long playing records!) just about forty three years ago. Careful With That Axe, Eugene scared the whey out of me on the first listen. The fact that I first heard it in a darkened room while working on some high school homework might have had something to do with it. Waters can do some screaming, eh?
There is no mention of Peter Roebuck in South Africa yet. You may want to click on these later to see if there is an update:
Mail & Guardian : http://mg.co.za/
News 24 : http://www.news24.com/
@ Caine
That should be wielding, no?
Fixed, thanks Caine. (I guess Tardigrades are not well known for their intelligence.)
Tethyssays
Wielding a saucerful of secrets, or a wee batch of black dragons?
Roger Waters is an amazing musician. Too bad he isn’t part of Pink Floyd anymore. David Gilmore might be one of the best guitar players in the world, but it just isn’t Floyd without Roger.
Crudely Wrottsays
And a river of green
Is sliding unseen
Beneath the trees
Laughing as it passes
Through the endless summer
Making for the seas
Cicely, I just read that and was going to post a link to it when I got to the bottom of the the thread. Most amusing!
Re HF and fluorine. As I recall from Asimov’s article about fluorine, the first four chemists who managed to isolate fluorine (or to pry fluorine out of mineral compounds?) were killed by it. The one who succeeded had a rich father-in-law who enabled him to buy tubes, valves, and containers made of nickel.
Sandhill cranes:
Lesser, Grus canadensis canadensis, 400,000 (most numerous crane in the world)
Cuban, G. c. nesiotes, non-migrating – Critically Endangered: 300
Florida, G. c. pratensis, non-migrating – Endangered: 5,000
Mississippi, G. c. pulla, non-migrating – Critically Endangered: 50
Canadian, G. c. rowani, 50,000
Greater, G. c. tabida, almost 70,000 (recovered from a low of 1,000)
Hey, glad to see the server is up again.
Did your email subscriptions experience some kind of black hole as well? Looks like they’re still there though, under “Manage your subscriptions”
I’m trying to decide between “Mördare utan ansikte” (“Faceless murders”) and “Män som hatar kvinnor”(Swedish title “Men who hate women”, English title “The girl with the dragon tattoo”). I’ve got the various language versions all lined up, but in order to practice Swedish pronunciation I thought about getting an audiobook version for one of them…
I know that in “Mördare utan ansikte”, Wallander expresses some disgust about the Swedish immigration policies which are too liberal for his taste. Mankell is probably not xenophonic, given his life story, but I’m a bit afraid about this aspect of “Mördare utan ansikte”.
On the other hand, “Män som hatar kvinnor” is about misogyny, and the author also had had personal experience in this area, that is that he witnessed a rape and never forgave himself for not helping the victim. Again, a bit apprehensive about how the issue of sexual abuse and misogyny is portrayed in the novel.
Larsson is obviously Larsson. Mankell I find a compelling read as well, but for other reasons, he is more a child of Sjowall and Wahloo, while Larsson’s trilogy compels us mainly because of the interaction of the fascinating 2 main characters. I mean, come on, what internet nerd loser wouldn’t want to have someone like Salander as their best mate and confidante ? Whereas Wallander, or Gunvald Larsson or Martin Beck, are not exactly characters to go crazy about.
Again, a bit apprehensive about how the issue of sexual abuse and misogyny is portrayed in the novel.
It’s handled well, albeit graphically and realistically. There are definite triggers in Män som hatar kvinnor. I found those aspects easier to deal with in the book than I did the movie, of course, I could put the book down when I needed to do so and walk away for a while.
I wouldn’t say it’s gratuitous, either. There are some very important issues throughout all three books, which have to do with privilege and power dynamics when it comes to things which happen to Lisbeth. As for the murders, that’s separate and the mystery wrapped around them is interesting.
Come to think of it, Martin Beck is not too dissimilar to Mikael Blomquist in a way, is he…
How I dread Christmas, when we will have the Hollywood version of Män som hatar kvinnor before us.
thanks for your input. The two novels are both the first one in a series, and also take up issues that are important to me. And definitely, both authors are worth reading, so I’ll probably read both of them anyways. I might just go with the one for which I have a printed copy (e-books are great, but you know tangible and tactile, or what was the word, haptic ?). Finishing even one Swedish novel will take me a looong time, so I’ll have the opportunity to visit my Swedish relatives anyways and buy the printed version of the other one.
The meme of “goats on fire” was before my time, but I couldn’t help noticing this news report that the United States government will stop counting the goat population effective immediately (and to some foreign policy experts that is apparently a sign of American decline, because a goat census is one of the indispensable trappings of superpowers. Who knew?)
[architecture] Interesting piece of Americana. The squaring of Circleville (after S. Kostof). The towns inhabitants weren’t to keen on the original circular layout and started modifying the layout to the new configuration over the course of several years. What else is Circleville (Ohio) famous for?
Winston Chuchill’s famous saying: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”, seems to be only partly true. From the same beginnings, they will be transformed by degrees to match the underlying mental states of their inhabitants. Linky to more Kostof.
The two novels are both the first one in a series, and also take up issues that are important to me.
The Sjowall Wahloo books are still up there with the finest crime novels ever written, even if you ignore their social context and the inherent criticism of aspects of the Swedish society. Mankell, while a bit of a shock jock, still delivers great suspense and garnishes it with some amount of critique of Swedish society, while Larsson to me just created this whole universe that is miles apart from any other crime writer’s effort.
As to the upcoming movie, Daniel Craig just isn’t a soft-spoken intellectual (Blomquist) that’s never going to work. Rooney Mara we don’t know, but she is not Noomi Rapace, and I think at this point casting anyone other than Noomi as Salander is like casting Courtney Cox as Ripley. Rapace is Salander, Gary Cooper is the Sheriff in High Noon, and Sigourney Weaver is Ripley.
Anyway, good night.
ChasCPetersonsays
First time I can remember Scienc FreeThought Blogs being more fucked up than me on a Saturday night.
Brown reviewed the book without having read it. What a Kw*k-like behavior
What a fabulous opportunity to link once again to this!
A slideshow of science-themed tattoos.
Photography credit for #15: *ahem* me. The live lizard lives in my exish’s garden.
The entire online gallery from which the book was drawn (swidt?) is here.
Tardigrades can live in outer space
Well. I think it’s more accurate to say that they can survive exposure to outer space. While tolerating the ridiculously cold cosmic-ray-infested near-vacuum they are not exactly doing anything one could call ‘living’. Try g**gling ‘anhydrobiosis’ for the details.
setar, too lazy to log in on his blackberrysays
Liberalism is and always has been about taking the unjust and ridiculous head on and without mercy. Complacency, subservience and the dressing-up of ideas in a “polite” costume is and always has been the way of the regressive wing, for reality is the bane of their existence.
The greatest perversion of liberalism in public parlance is that modern liberals are somehow different; that somehow between 1968 and 1980 these roles underwent some magical reversal never before seen in history. Liberalism has been discredited not for its ideas, but for giving in to the demands of the aristocrats for having been removed one peg when they yet remain safe by many leagues while a good many starve in our pitiful excuse for civilization.
If our liberal forefathers could see us now there wod be scathing rebukes of the Republican Party from Smith, a new edition of Common Sense for Occupy Wall Street from Paine, and a new Progressive Party from FDR. What passes for liberalism in the global political halls is nothing more that lip service countered by varying degrees of lesser lip service. True liberals are mostly voiceless, likened to the professors of women’s studies and stoned hippies with the grand majority of their grievances and solutions posted – and thus deemed discredited in the mainstream by such posting – on ‘alterbative’ or ‘independent’ sites, with professionals liberalism confined to the “opinion” hell that has come to define politics in the postmodern era.
This is a cause for outrage – but that, it seems, is not the quality of a liberal, even when we are on the brink of extinction in the political wild short of that crass and unbecoming thing caLled revolution.
I personally hope global warming kills us before we end up in Oceania.
Silisays
Henning Mankell or Stieg Larsson?
Maria Lang
ChasCPetersonsays
John Haughty, via Coyne:
if we think carefully about this central religious teaching it should lead us to conclude that any universe related to the inexhaustible self-giving love of God must be an evolving one. For if God is infinite love giving itself to the cosmos, then the finite world cannot possibly receive this limitless abundance of graciousness in any single instant. In response to the outpouring of God’s boundless love the universe would be invited to undergo a process of self-transformation. In order to “adapt” to the divine infinity the finite cosmos would likely have to intensify its own capacity to receive such an abounding love. In other words, it might endure what we now know scientifically as an arduous, tortuous and dramatic evolution.
Viewed in this light, the evolution of the cosmos is more than just “compatible” with theism. Faith in a God of self-giving love, it would not be too much to say, actually anticipates an evolving universe.
Can you believe this shit?
Wait, I think I found the problem: “if God is infinite love giving itself to the cosmos,…”!
chigau (...---...)says
Cosmic masturbation!!!
Antiochus Epiphanessays
[crank]It is not cool to complain about the contents of a blog that I’m not being forced to read, but I guess I’m just an asshole. So here goes.
I don’t care to read essays on why people are atheists—if they have any reasons that are really novel, they are likely to be bad reasons. Atheism is the only reasonable worldview. The good reasons for rejecting belief in the supernatural have been exhaustively published. Atheism is a “no-duh” position. Reading these is a little like reading how people have come to the conclusion that the Pacific Ocean is made of water. The more interesting question is why the great majority of people in the world aren’t atheist. That’s the one that keeps me up at night.
And also, given that copious, high quality literature exists and is available at low prices, how can anyone stand to read Stieg Larsson*?
[/crank]
I guess this morning, both the dog and I are just dying to have someone throw a shoe at us.
*The stories make for OK movies, I admit.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
the United States government will stop counting the goat population effective immediately
Damn. That sucks.
Goats are whole plant grazers. They can, if not moved constantly over a very wide area, hasten desertification in marginal ecosystems. Keeping track of the number of goats (and also the type of goats (apparently, some are less damaging than others)) is a good way to monitor environmental degredation, as well as building up data to push for agricultural and pastoral behavioural changes.
(And I just reread what I wrote and realized that I really do sound like a beaurocrat sometimes).
While tolerating the ridiculously cold cosmic-ray-infested near-vacuum they are not exactly doing anything one could call ‘living’.
Spoilsport.
Can you believe this shit?
Replace the word “god” with “The Sun”, replace “love” with “solar radiation”, “graciousness” with “energy” etc, and it all suddenly makes sense again…
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
AE:
I tend to skim them, looking for an interesting story within the post. But then, there are some posts from our Master that I tend to just skim over. It’s not like PZ has software that tracks how long we look at each part of a post, right?
Antiochus Epiphanessays
Father O: I’m just a grouchy little man before I drinks my coffee. I normally don’t read or post until after that time, but my wife is out of town, I’m responsible for the fucking dog, which monkeys with my routine. I was in a particularly hateful mood and caffeine free when I first logged into the interwebs.
But I had coffee and am better now. Please forgive me.
Ingsays
I’m responsible for the fucking dog,
Dyslexic reading of this==Coffee on monitor.
Carliesays
DudesLadies check it out :Jailbreak the Patriarchy, a browser extension that changes the gender in whatever you read just so you can see the effects of gendering and make it blow your mind.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
But I had coffee and am better now. Please forgive me.
No need for an apology to me. Hell, I was partially agreeing with you.
A. Rsays
Wow, FtB has some work to do on the server swtich! Anyway, spent yesterday doing some amateur paleontology in the Silica Shale formation in Sylvania Ohio, so I didn’t suffer from the switch as much as others did. :)
Carliesays
AE – interesting; I have exactly the opposite approach. Nothing bores me more than the essays that start off “I was always an atheist because religion is STUPID” and then go from there. No duh. Good for you, ace. Congratulations on happening to be born in a family and/or culture that is relatively free from religion to start with.
But the essays that feature people who really had to struggle with it, after being raised in religion, fascinate me. Probably in a narcissistic way since that’s my story as well, but also just to see how the mind works. It’s interesting to me to see how deeply people can be made to believe stupid shit, and how much effort it takes to deprogram oneself from said shit after it’s taken such a hold. It’s also interesting to see how it affects relationships and social structures etc., because that’s a big part of it all as well. I think stories like those are the ones that could, en masse, give clues as to ways to loosen religions’ hold on society.
Pteryxxsays
Examples of “Jailbreak the Patriarchy” text gender-swapping app on famous book blurbs:
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA: “Chiyo is only nine when he and his brother, Satsu, are virtually sold to a stranger by his mother. Chiyo’s unusual beauty lands him an apprenticeship in one of Kyoto’s best-known okiya,or geisha houses, while the plainer Satsu is led to a run-down part of town where he will be forced into prostitution. Except for a momentary reunion many months later, the brothers never see one another again.”
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA: “A novella,tells the story of an old fisherwoman, Santiago, and her long lusty struggle isn’t so much over one fish, but the act of living—living fully, actively, robustly.”
LOLITA: “Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. She also likes little boys. And none more so than Lolita, who she’ll do anything to possess. Is she in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is she all of these?”
From AskMen.com’s “Why Do Nice Girls Finish Last?”:
You hear this over and over again: Nice girls finish last. Men just don’t want a nice girl; they want the jerk, the bad girl. So you think to yourself, “I’ve got to learn how to be a complete player. I’ve got to learn how to put men down. I’ve got to learn how to not call him, how to make his want me. I’ve got to play games. I’ve got to create attraction that way — that’s what’s going to work.”
An excerpt from Steve Harvey’s famous Act Like A Gentleman, Think Like A Woman:
“We need to talk.”
For a woman, few words are as menacing as those four — especially when a man is the one saying them and she’s on the receiving end. Those four words can mean only two things to women: either we did something wrong or, worse, you really literally just want to talk.
A commentor on the original app also mentioned the Joe Materno scandal. >_>
changeable monikersays
@ChasCP, #451: God is cosmic inflation.
I have to disagree. Scripture clearly states (Col 1:17) that He is the strong nuclear force. (“by Him are all things held together”.)
According to a CNN anchor and multiple pundits, the Herman Cain sexual assault story is just a distraction from the real issues; it’s just a symptom of our celebrity obsessed culture. Apparently, a presidential candidate sexually harassing and assaulting multiple women isn’t a real issue.
juliansays
Look at it from their perspective, StarStuff, this no different than the Clinton business. Obviously consensual sexual acts between two adults is the exact same as sexual harassment.
Father Ogvorbis, OM: Delightfully Machiavelliansays
Apparently, a presidential candidate sexually harassing and assaulting multiple women isn’t a real issue unless said candidate is a Democrat.
Added to that for you?
And, as has been stated, this is worlds apart from either Edwards or Clinton.
AE, I tend to skim the Why I’m an Atheist essays, but I see their value. There are a lot of people out there who were born into and raised in religion, and a lot of people who are still struggling trying to get rid of religion’s effect on them. Such essays can reach out and touch deeply, helping more people to reach the light of atheism. Yeah, it’s old hat for a lot of people, but I think they do more good than anything else.
Yeah, it’s old hat for a lot of people, but I think they do more good than anything else.
And they bring in some fun chew toys.
Rey Foxsays
I think I’ve heard from one or two people, but what do others around here think about the word “cunt” strictly as a word for the female genitalia? I think it’s roughly equivalent to “cock” in the realm of sex words.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
Part of the process in making Amarula (if anyone wants to taste the stuff: linky.) Link to movie segment here.
Already tasted it. It was great! The flavor kinda reminded me of peaches and cream. Or creamy peaches. Or something along those lines.
If I was more of a ‘math’ person, it would be interesting to figure out just how many fermented marula fruits an elephant needs to eat before intoxication sets in.
Personally, I find it’s rather too tainted by use as a term of abuse. Pussy, too. Sadly, this criterion doesn’t actually leave much usable as a neutral descriptor. Pretty much everything’s either clinical, cutesy or abusive.
happiestsadistsays
As far as the whole “cunt” term for female genitalia (or, rather, for vulvas/vaginas), I think it’s a matter of preference. Some people prefer the term, some hate it, for a huge variety of reasons, all of which are valid. Mine is a cunt. Someone else’s might not be.
Carliesays
Rey – I agree with Alethea on cunt. It’s a harsh-sounding word in the first place, and for me it’s hard to even imagine it without the sneer of contempt that it’s so often accompanied by. It makes me reflexively wince. To me pussy’s a nice word, though, probably because I haven’t seen it used as a pejorative nearly as often.
chigau (...---...)says
Rey Fox
I think it would take me a LONG time to shake off the other aspects of the word “cunt”.
Ms. Daisy Cuttersays
I don’t have a problem with either “cunt” or “pussy” as a term strictly for genitalia. Both can be extremely hot in written erotica. But that’s very much a YMMV thing.
Pussy has come into Australian vernacular via the American. It does sound like it could be pretty friendly – if your first encounters with the word didn’t mean weakling, loser etc. I wish I did like it, because there really aren’t good options.
what do others around here think about the word “cunt” strictly as a word for the female genitalia?
Haven’t we had this conversation a dozen times already?
I’m fine with it as a term for vulva/vagina, but only in private, as it’s way too entwined with insulting, degrading, demeaning language. It’s more often used for that purpose than as an all purpose genitalia descriptor.
When one looks at most of the slang/euphemisms for vulva/vagina, a lot of it falls into the insulting or dehumanizing categories.
We’d have to go back a long way to get to use of cunt as a plain name for vulva and nothing else again.
Estelethsays
*tiptoes in*
So, we’re back up? I stayed away yesterday, having been alarmed by PZ’s Twitter.
Rey Fox, “cunt” refers to the vulva (or possibly just the vagina), so I’m not sure what it could be other than “strictly a word for the female genitalia.” WRT being equivalent to “cock,” not really. The former is much more vulgar and is used as a single-purpose insult in a way that the latter is not.
I wish I did like it, because there really aren’t good options.
Muff is used quite a bit here, which I don’t mind. It’s generally used when talking about oral sex though, as in muff diver.
Privately and personally, I use velvet.
chigau (...---...)says
How about “quim”?
Carliesays
I just got a robo-call from the NRA, and didn’t even get a fight. It started off with a guy ranting and raving about gun laws and I don’t know what, and finally got to a survey. The question was “Do you agree that it’s wrong that the UN is on American soil, attacking our gun rights?” I hit the button for “no”, hoping that would send me to a person who would try to talk me out of it (or at least a tree of “would you change your mind if we told you that…” options). But no, then they just said “thanks for taking our survey” and hung up. Cowards.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I’ve always like the word ‘cunt’ in the past, which I’d say is an argument for dropping it. It’s a nasty vicious word, at least whenever I’ve used it.
In fact, it comes out of my mouth kind of awkward-like unless I put a nice snarling or hissing aggressive emphasis on it. If I try and say it neutrally, it just sounds weird and unnatural, like a baptist minister trying to ‘curse like a sailor’.
On a related note, it’s interesting that, in the past, many of the Anglo-Saxon words we now regard as (to varying degrees) profane and dirty simply seem to have been ordinary descriptive terms. Magpie Lane in Oxford, which was the centre of prostitution in the city in medieval times, was called Gropec**te Lane until the eighteenth century. So, too, my primary school class giggled at the fact that the medieval English poem Sumer Is Icumen In contains the word “fart”, in a rather matter-of-fact context.
At a guess, I’d assume that the identification of these words as profane today has to do with class. After all, most of the biological terms we consider to be gross and profane (fuck, shit, cock and so on) are of Anglo-Saxon origin; and, of course, Anglo-Saxon was the language of the common people, while French and Latin were the languages of the educated classes. But I’m not a linguistic historian, and I’m probably oversimplifying things (I imagine pelamun or David M will chime in with a more detailed and accurate explanation).
changeable monikersays
I’ll chime in with a simpler observation (being a simple sort, although one who’s walked up and down Magpie Lane many many times). For UK-nian blokes of a certain age, the equivalent would have been one’s “own”.
Tipping the velvet refers to cunnilingus. I’ve always hated ‘boy in the boat’. A boy? Really? :eyeroll:
Cunny is an old usage, deriving from cunt and the days when it was used as a descriptor. It has a softer sound, but I don’t know that using it would be any good, as I doubt it would be long before it had the same implications as cunt or pussy do now.
Rey Foxsays
for me it’s hard to even imagine it without the sneer of contempt that it’s so often accompanied by.
Truthfully, I only like it if it’s being spoken by a woman referring to her’s, or that of another woman with whom she is intimately acquainted. It is mostly misogyny that taints* that word, but then, misogyny is the reason that we can’t have a lot of nice things.
* Yes, you all may snicker now
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)says
I’m watching a japanese flick called ‘Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword’.
Anyone else here ever watch a Zatoichi movie? I quite enjoy the character. I know the whole ‘disabled warrior’ trope is pretty damn cliche, but it’s fun. Good guys, bad guys, heroics, adversity being overcome, lots of swordfights, it’s pretty enjoyable.
Rey Foxsays
Ugh, not cunny please. That sounds like what a pedophile would call it.
Bleh.
I had planned on getting work done today, finish paperwork.
Instead, the fucking -80 in the lab failed. So I spent the past 4 hours rushing about, finding a backup freezer, and transferring everything.
So tired.
PZ: You know that the “Quick link to The Endless Thread” links to the last episode, right?
@tethys
He’s got diarrhea
Esteleth: I’m SO sorry you had to deal with that! I had the compressor go out on our -20 about a year and a half ago and recently our -80 started making a really loud noise. I was all about taking whatever actions I could to prevent any sort of failure on the -80 because most of the labs in my department have moved to another building while they’re being renovated, so I have no idea what I’d do if ours were to go bad. It turned out to just be a problem with the bearings on one of the fans and my boss is still gloating about how he “fixed” the freezer with WD-40.
Sandhill Cranes are strange birds. The high school I went to was built in their habitat, so we always had a bunch of them walking around on campus. They would walk across the sidewalk and everyone would have to stop and wait for them because you’d get in big trouble if you harassed them.
I wonder what they taste like?
But they’re so vertebratey, aren’t they?
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
@#8
Punk rock, the creationism of music.
(No, I’m not a fan.)
Clearly you’re not a music fan, because the creationism of music is country. (Relatedly, Alt Country is the Intelligent Design of music.)
Esteleth: That sounds like a nightmare. We haven’t lost a -80 yet (crossing fingers), but we did have a streak of -20 losses. One completely defrosted overnight…
And, of course, since commenting above, I have had 6 separate people come to me going WAAA WHERE ARE MY SAMPLES despite the fact that I posted a sign (on the door of the freezer) explaining where everything had been moved to and emailed everyone as well.
*throws up hands*
Esteleth: What was in the freezer? We had plasmid vectors in temporary storage in our -20s.
Esteleth @ # 12 – Why were you eating hands?
The -80 contains everything from frozen cells (human, non-human mammal, bacteria, spores, etc) to antibodies to media components to vectors.
Biological engineering detritus, basically. Plus chemistry stuff.
Esteleth: Oh, so basically random stuff people put in the freezer because it was the only one available? One of the people I’m working with a scary incident with a liquid N2 freezer (not a Dewar) a few years back. Apparently it was leaking like crazy and cracked the floor under it. The best part was that the freezer was in a BSL-3 lab where they were working with a rather nasty strain of Anthrax (not Ames)
Punk rock, the creationism of music. – mythusmage
Nah. Punk rock is obviously the punc eek of music.
Grumpyoldfart:
I’ve never tasted sandhill crane, but I have acquaitances that go hunt them every year. They say that the flavor is kind of a cross between Whooping Crane and ‘Akikiki.
My 3-yo loves that music, because it’s what her Disney Princess doll plays. Not conflicted at all, oh no.
(In fairness, she is also a huge fan of the Jetman Grand Canyon video. And *dogs and cats*.)
I’m dual-posting from the Penn State thread, because this analogy is so gripping (and it was being discussed here too). John Scalzi
We keep our most valuable samples in Dewar’s. Can’t quite trust the electricity or freezers. One minor incident after a power outage, (a squirrel ate thru the insulation of the underground building mains. Fried squirrel, it’s nut just for breakfast anymore), led to me being being introduced to 2 guys in bunny suits who stripped me naked under the emergency shower in the hallway. It’s not as much fun as it sounds.
I had come in to reboot my servers. That’s the last time I investigate an alarm in the wet wing.
Umm, that should have been “a Dewar”, we only keep the profs in Dewar’s.
Uff, I’m finished.
That was more than I thought, but I think the candy canes came out pretty well for a first try.
Hmm, correct me if I’m wrong here…
Eighteenth-century counterpoint is the Deism of music
Post-Romanticism is the Sophisticated Theology™ of music
Delta blues is the old-earth creationism of music
Jazz fusion is the theistic evolution of music
Easy-listening is spiritual-but-not-religious music
Anything atonal or written by a communist is the atheism of music
Sailor: What are you working with that would require that kind of Decon?
A. R, I’m not sure what all they are working with. I’m in the retinal imaging and psychophysics wing. I’m willfully ignorant about most of what goes on in the wet wing.
Sailor: Likely something nasty if they used BSL-3/4 decon.
Carlie, I remember discussing the Omelas story in an ethics course, and it definitely feels apt.
Aaargh.. where are my wings!
Thrash metal is the Satanism of music. ;)
11/11/11
The Parable of the Young Man and the Old
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned, both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets the trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
(Wilfred Owen, of course.)
Poetry using biblical imagery on an atheist site? Why the hell not?
I’d like to point out that, although I cannot deny wearing a bunny suit, I have never stripped a stranger naked under the shower.
I do recall being told by the gas meter reader (I was escorting him around the plant) that he had accidentally stepped on the platform of the emergency shower in the HF plant. He said that being drenched with 50 gallons of warm water whilst being deafened by the siren and scared shitless by the guys from the med centre spoilt his whole day.
I believed him.
Where does that leave Ween?
A. R, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s over caution. They do have a lot of bio-signs on their doors, but we have LASER radiation signs on our doors that say something like (I see them so often I can’t recall exactly what they say) ‘Radiation hazard: LASER (insert power and freq here) avoid beam exposure. And then we ask the subject to sit down and stare into the LASER.
We got gigged a few years ago by the NIH. We’re pretty over compliant now.
Unless it might identify you, may I ask, where do you work?
What about pre-communism russians like Borodin or Mussorgsky ? Agnostic?
SteveV, it was 4 in the morning and I think they were worried about re-contamination if I handled my clothes.
p.s. the water was NOT warm. Shrinkage!
Well, while the rest of you are nattering about inconsequential matters, I will express my gratitude to P-zed for bringing that video within my ken.
The music is from one of Tchaikovsky’s big ballets (Nutcracker, Swan Lake, or Sleeping Beauty – probably Swan Lake) and while the cranes aren’t dancing and flapping in sync with the music, it’s still a pretty good fit of music to scene.
Now if only human ballets had some of the spaciousness of those scenes!
PS: Sibelius wrote a piece called “Scene with Cranes”.
Godless muslim communist fascist post-modernist atheists, all of them.
A. R, it would completely out me. I’m sure I’ve posted enough personal things here that the NSA could identify me, but not so much for the common internet hack. We also do animal research and have been targeted before ARA.
RFW, it’s from Sleeping Beauty
The Sailor: OK, yeah I can understand that. My college doesn’t do the type of animal research that would get us targeted by ARAs thankfully.
A. R, neither does mine, but it doesn’t stop them.
Oh, well, if we’re discussing the arts, the late great William McGonagall is the [insert religious metaphor here] of poetry.
ALAS! noble Prince Leopold, he is dead!
Who often has his lustre shed:
Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School,
Which proves he was a wise prince. and no conceited fool.
Methinks I see him on the platform singing the Sands o’ Dee,
The generous-hearted Leopold, the good and the free,
Who was manly in his actions, and beloved by his mother;
And in all the family she hasn’t got such another.
He was of a delicate constitution all his life,
And he was his mother’s favourite, and very kind to his wife,
And he had also a particular liking for his child,
And in his behaviour he was very mild.
Oh! noble-hearted Leopold, most beautiful to see,
Who was wont to fill your audience’s hearts with glee,
With your charming songs, and lectures against strong drink:
Britain had nothing else to fear, as far as you could think
A wise prince you were, and well worthy of the name,
And to write in praise of thee I cannot refrain;
Because you were ever ready to defend that which is right,
Both pleasing and righteous in God’s eye-sight.
(Written to commemorate the untimely death of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, Queen Victoria’s fourth son, who died in 1884 from haemophilia at the age of thirty.)
A collection of McGonagall’s poems can be found here. The highlights of his work include the famous “Tay Bridge Disaster” of 1879:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
It’s fucking snowing! Fuck that shit. I hate snow, (there, I’m just gonna say it), if it’s cold enough to snow I should be living somewhere else. But nobody will pay me to live there. My dream job would be
doing researchbeing paid with health & retirement for a job I love on Antigua. (Actually, on my sailboat in the bay of English Harbor;-)Why don’t you ahead and buy Victoria’s bloomers?
Sailor,
We’ve gotten nutters on my campus complaining about the embryonic stem cell work and the animal lab.
One nutter who was an undergrad demanded a discount on his tuition equal to the proportion of college funding that goes to stem cell research. Got very flabbergasted when the administration explained to him the concept of “grants.”
Of course, the animal lab is under such tight security that I was chatting with a student and mentioned it offhand and they reacted with shock. “We have an animal lab? Seriously?” A junior. Biology major. Didn’t know.
Someone should reach into their pocket and toss a quarter at that person.
[NSA employee takes note of The Sailor’s complaint about snow for further triangulation]
I dislike snow as well.
I prefer Elvis McGonagall
Religious morality in action, folks…from Lawyers, Guns & Money’s discussion thread on Jerry Sandusky:
If you hover over that asshole’s username and click through to his website, you’ll see that he purports to be a relationship counselor. How nice.
That’s an intriguing definition of arts there Walton.
@CR, Tchaikovsky; I should have known …
The music is the Garland Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Sleeping Beauty. It’s in the first act.
It was my ballet teacher’s favorite piece, so I got to hear it.
And hear it.
And hear it.
And hear it.
It’s lovely, but, honestly, if I never hear it again, that’s fine by me.
Alright. It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to go dancing. :D :D :D
If I’m back on tonight, it’ll be in 3 hours or so.
I prefer people who actually produce music, which puts me at odds with rock critics and people who think adherence to some ideology makes you a deep thinker.
Here’s a better Tchaikovsky waltz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CShopT9QUzw
And my favorite waltz of all: Dvorak: Serenade for Strings in E Minor, Op. 22 II. Tempo di Valse. The sound quality is meh, but it’s Youtube.
Nerd:
The HF plant was not a pleasant place. The fume had etched the glass on the instruments to such an extent that a wipe over with a damp rag was needed to read them.
I seem to have survived the three months that I worked there (before moving on to the cadmium refinery) as it was over 45 years ago!
Well, we’ll see if that just masked the problem or fixed it.
In such a critical setting, I’d suggest finding out what exact bearing lubricant is needed, and whether there are any bearings missing or debris has gotten into them. (Or if not the bearings, whatever component is really the squeaky wheel.)
Note also that if all the old lubricant was not washed out by the WD-40, thing may actually become worse. Mixing lubes is not always a good thing. Some mixtures can even become rather sticky.
Really, these sorts of things should receive some PM anyway.
You may be wrong, I may be right, I may be crazy.
Best waltz (well, minuet) ever is at 3:35 on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7wxj5cw2o
IMNSHO, of course.
HF(aq) does a lot more than weaken your bones! (Unless we were discussing HF(g))
WD40, in the long term, is a solvent, not a lubricant. There is a reason my company switched to another actual lube for our helicopter rotors. 25 years ago.
I’ll see your bird and raise you two cephalopods.
Bam!
Read ’em and weep, featherbutt.
Crudely Wrott, I laughed out loud, (OK, I snortled a bit).
Jefferson 10yr Straight Rye Whiskey
thumbs up
Given that the boiling point of HF is about 20 ºC (room temperature), both are there. That is one scary material. And I have used it in reactions. Scared me more than hydrogen cyanide.
Yes that’s exactly what think of when I think of Jello Biafra, Kevin Seconds, Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins and HR.
Nerd: Whenever we work with HF (which is only for one obscure procedure) we do it in chilled fume hoods.
You really don’t want to see one of the deaths in Saw VI.
Mr. Fire:
I can’t believe someone stuck with the Saw franchise all the way to VI.
@ Brownian
“We play ALL kinds of music on this radio station. Country AND Western…”
I can’t believe people watched Saw.
I can’t believe anyone watched saw from the beginning!
Caine:
Didn’t – just heard about it. I watched the first one and realized I was undergoing more torture than any of the characters.
Hope that restores some of your faith in me :)
I can’t believe people watched Titanic.
wait this isn’t a place for movie pet peeves?
By the way, I’m getting involved in U.S. politics for the first time. Going to volunteer.
Elizabeth Warren for Senate (MA). I want to see Scott Brown’s republican ass booted into the stratosphere.
Mr. Fire:
It does. :) I was like you, watched the first one and declared it enough.
Re the WD-40, I learned enough from the -20 ordeal that I didn’t just let my boss squirt some in there and forget about it. I had the refrigeration people come take a look at it (state institution, therefore state dealing-with-things pace) and they’re waiting on some replacement parts that they’ll put in it. I’m loving my promotion- instead of having to remind my PI about the old -20 and explaining why it would be a good idea, I was able to just get the people to come fix the thing.
Rev. BDC:
I didn’t see it. I was sick to death of it before it even opened, there was so much advertising for it. Bleargh.
Has someone recently requested to join PET? We have someone who has requested without telling us her ‘Nym here.
I had to watch it three times *bleargh*. At least it was in a different language each time. I was always looking forward to the scene where this one passenger pleads for help, to see what kind of accent they’d give her (the one who cries out “captain!”).
Katrina, I haven’t seen anyone mention PET lately.
Pelamun:
I think that qualifies as extreme torture.
Carl Zimmer’s Science Ink is just fabulous. I learned a lot and the ink is great.
Caine,
Well, at least the company was enjoyable.found in every town This was still a time when cinemas were a big part of social life for many people. I used to have this notion that for a place to be counted as a town, it needed to have a cinema. That’s no longer a viable condition (if it ever was).
Sorry for the edit error. “found in every town” should have been deleted.
Well, as ghastly as the content is, I think it’s got some value for people interested in filmmaking; say what you like about James Cameron, he’s got very high production standards – and it shows.
Though, with that in mind, it’s probably more interesting to watch a ‘making-of’ documentary; that way you avoid most of the schmaltz.
[PSA]Brian Greene has a four part series on PBS Nova covering his book The Fabric of the Cosmos. Theoretical physics for the non-physicist. Link for part one and part two. [/psa]
Sandhill Crane family behind the building where I work. 22 seconds.
Been watching it Nerd. Really good.
I thought I remembered something about Sandhill Cranes. They needed to learn their migration route. And did so, with the help of an ultralight plane.
I’m not really sure how to start this other than it’s a shitty situation and there are many people on here who’s opinions I’ve learned to value. Just whining and looking for advice.
***Trigger Warning: Nothing graphic, but I don’t know what might trigger anyone and I would feel like a waste of space if I did it accidentally***
I spend some of my free time as a martial arts instructor and the head instructor and I just had a student complain about inappropriate touching by another instructor who she has a big brother little sister relationship with outside of the gym. Lingering massages, grappling with heavy breathing and no other students present, never quite touching her breasts or genitalia, but touching around them. We’re meeting with him tomorrow to take his keys and ban him from the premises before he can interact with any other students. The only reason we’re not calling the police is she did not want us to.
That’s the basic situation. Problems I’m having are that they instructor is, or was, a friend. We spent significant time together outside of the gym and I had him mentally tagged as one of the ‘good guys’. It makes me sick and angry because I feel like he betrayed my trust, but also because I can feel myself wanting to make excuses for him and blame the victim, which I know is fucked up and wrong. I also just don’t know how to deal with the friendship. Should I just cut him out of my life? I honestly feel like that would be the easiest thing for me to do. Or should I confront him more continually, try to talk about the personal issue and try to get him into counseling? One makes me feel like I’m just distancing myself without really helping him or the victim and the other makes me feel like I’m somehow condoning his actions by keeping any relationship with him intact.
Sorry to throw this wall of text out and ask you guys for answers, but my head is spinning right now. Should we make this public knowledge to hold him accountable, or should we respect the student’s expressed wishes and keep this quiet? I’m working on it with the other instructors, but I’d really appreciate any insight you folks have.
I’ll probably head to bed soon to sleep on this, but I promise I will read replies. Thank you, and sorry again.
The latter. Absolutely. No question.
(Because if the victim doesn’t want it made public, it isn’t fair to put her through that extra pain and stress.)
Bonnie Raitt – I Can’t Make You Love Me
(I don’t like the video, but I love the song and her performance.)
I did. I emailed onion girl, who told me to message her on FB, and I never got a reply.
You might want to reconsider that, Walton. What about the potential danger to other students? What about the harm that might be averted if other young women are alerted to a predator among them (yes, I realize that one must be confident the allegations are true before publicly accusing someone, that’s a given)?
There are ways to make this information known without revealing the identity of the complainant. Her wish that others not call the police is not the sole consideration, and it does not necessarily outweigh other ethical considerations. I don’t know what the right answer is in this situation, but I don’t think it’s nearly so airtight as to warrant an “absolutely; no question” response.
Insipid Moniker:
Speaking as a survivor, I’d say you have an ethical obligation to report him to the police at the very least. You do not need to name the victim to the police, however, neither you nor her know with any certainty that she is his only victim.
Refusing to name the victim to the police will most likely hamper any action they can take, however, a report will be made and there will be a record, which is incredibly important.
Yes, you should make it public knowledge and hold him accountable. As uncomfortable as this is for all involved, other people are at risk and staying quiet is not only encouraging this man, it is giving assent to his behaviour. His behaviour will not stop. It will continue and it will escalate.
I know just how fucked up this is for you and every one else involved, but please, I beg you, don’t become part of the problem here.
I’d suggest this. She doesn’t want to go to the police. That’s her right.
But – if he applies for a position elsewhere and puts your place down as a reference and they call? Absolutely say why he was asked to leave. Don’t name names (they shouldn’t ask, in any case) but make sure he isn’t able to move to a new place, keep doing what he was (or take to the next level).
If you see he’s somewhere else, maybe put an ear to the ground and see how he’s doing? Maybe this experience will chastise him and he won’t do it again. Keep an eye out, and if you think he’s up to this again, mention it (again, don’t name names) to TPTB there.
You’re right. I retract it. Forget I said anything.
(I should not have weighed in on this topic with my instinctive reaction. Our instinctive reactions are not always necessarily the right ones, after all. And I also really, really, really don’t want to have any kind of debate with anyone about anything right now.)
Walton:
Your priorities are so fucked up that you are the problem. You are one of the people that guarantees there will be more victims.
Bah. Upon reading Caine’s response @100, I’m retracting mine @101.
Sorry about that, Caine, you’re absolutely right.
Oh no. Please, please tell me we’re not moving into “shuffle him off to somewhere else and hope he changes his ways” territory. Not here. Come on folks, don’t break my heart.
I find it incredibly unlikely any amount of chastisement is going to make this guy change his ways. Sounds like a rapist in the making (perhaps already one in fact).
I figured it was an instinctive reaction, Walton, and I know it came from a place of reflexive empathy for the victim (do admit, Caine).
Caine, I just retracted it at #102. I’m sorry. You and Josh are right. Please forget I said anything.
I have been suffering a severe depressive episode over the last week thanks to a bad reaction to a medication. I have been posting about this on PET, as other people will confirm. This is why my behaviour is not currently rational or well-thought-out.
Esteleth:
No problem. It’s a shitty situation for everyone involved, there’s no question about that. However, this man is not going to stop. If this is his first time in acting on his fantasies, the time to stop him is now. If it isn’t his first time, he needs to be investigated, stat.
Walton:
Just saw that, Walton. I’m sorry for jumping. I’m really sorry you’re having such a lousy time with your meds, that’s got to be extremely difficult to deal with. {hugses} for you and I hope you get this situation resolved as quickly as possible.
Caine,
I know that. I know that.
Dammit, I know better than to say shit like that.
*shakes head*
Sorry again.
I’m very sorry indeed to hear about the depression, Walton, and I do know what it’s like. Since you’re aware enough of how these issues play out I’m confident you’re availing yourself of all the mental health services available at your school and in the community.
Caine,
In all seriousness thank you. One of the main reasons I came here is that I don’t trust myself not to be part of the problem without even realizing it. I’ll make sure a police report gets filed.
Thank you all for the responses. I’ll keep checking back.
Esteleth – don’t crucify yourself (it’s so damned messy!). These discussions are instructive for all of us; they help us identify and root out the unhelpful reactions we all have.
Yes – I’m lucky to have a really good psychiatrist (hence why I’m on meds in the first place) and things are generally getting better. (I’m incredibly, incredibly fortunate compared to a great many people with similar problems.)
But my mental health condition is why I’ve been trying to avoid the thread, since I’m not in a position to deal with the stress of getting into arguments.
Glad you’re feeling more certain of what to do, Insipid – good luck.
Then you should leave here and find some stress-free, non-provocative activity until your head levels, Walton. Now be good and go! Check back with us, but go to some place with ponies. And unicorns.
Esteleth, it’s really hard to deal with these situations. Not only is it a major shock for those involved, there’s an instinctive reaction to bury it, much like you’d bury a smelly, decaying corpse. You just want it gone. Fuck, I know that, I’ve felt the same way.
What got to me immediately was the “Lingering massages, grappling with heavy breathing and no other students present, never quite touching her breasts or genitalia, but touching around them.” because there was instant recognition in that for me on a personal level. I saw the family member who spent years raping me doing that to a young woman (little sister of my uncle’s gf) more than once and knew what it was leading up to. While I couldn’t manage to speak out about it and simply say what was going on, after about the 5th time I saw this happening I screamed at the top of my voice and made up a bunch of shit about how much I hated her, yada, yada, yada, basically scaring the shit out of her and her sister, so she didn’t come over to the house anymore.
Insipid Moniker:
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. ♥
Yeah, it’s hard.
I just remember this incident from years ago. I wasn’t personally affected, but a serial pedophile was caught in my hometown. Basically, everyone who knew what he was doing wanted to pretend that if they scolded him and sent him on his way, then it would be okay. Of course, they didn’t say anything. It took WAY too long to get this guy. He didn’t even have powerful friends or anything – people just wanted it to go away.
Like I said, I wasn’t affected and I didn’t know any of his victims. But it happened. I was in his favored age range at the time.
Dammit. Yes, I know I’m being melodramatic and crucifying myself, but dammit.
Esteleth:
I’d say it’s rather obvious it did affect you, deeply. You don’t need to be assaulted to be affected by such actions. You can still experience fear, shame and guilt without being touched. It’s part and parcel of how these people operate and how much they depend on silence or people choosing the route of “private scolding.”
Um… hi…
I’m at my parents house… I was gonna make a nice light-hearted post about seeing my folks & my grandparents again, but I think I’ll just quietly mosey off to bed and leave you to it.
Caine, let me just say: thank you for being willing to share your perspective with Insipid Moniker as well as anyone else who might be reading. It adds so much clarity to a situation that, as you say, is quite muddy and confusing. So thank YOU, thank you, thank you. ♥ ♥ ♥
On the subject of hydrogen fluoride.
The whole “Things I Won’t Work With” category on that blog is hilarious. The entry on thioacetone was the funniest, IMNSHO.
Yes. I never set eyes on the guy, he never touched me.
But it did affect me, of course. It affected the whole town.
One positive (I guess) thing that came out of it is that when, several years later, the Catholic priest scandal broke, and the local priest took the opportunity to give a vehement statement about why touching a child like that is never, ever okay and also emphasized that kids should feel 1) that they didn’t do anything wrong and 2) that they can confide in someone and get help and see their attacker face justice. He also listed the phone number of the local office of Children’s Services and the victim’s hotline. He said this from the pulpit, in his Sunday homily.
My family isn’t Catholic, but damn did that reverberate. Apparently his bishop tried to reprimand him for it (something about “intemperate language”) and basically got told to fuck off.
Sigh. I think I need to take a step back for a bit. The recent Penn thing is dragging a lot of this emotion back up in me, I think.
Sally:
Oh, so right back at you. {Squeezles Sally half to death}
I hope it’s fun for you, visiting the parents & grandparents. Sounds like a nice break.
I’ve wrestled with this for months, and I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing – I get a knot in my stomach just typing this. But I do feel an obligation to say it out of solidarity with the others here who’ve been much braver than I have. And to add to the general effort of waking people the fuck up about rape and rape culture. I have no intention of getting any more specific about this than what I’m about to write, and I don’t want expressions of sympathy or comfort.
I was raped 20 years ago when I was 17. It was a date rape that started out as a slightly drunk mildly sexual encounter with a man I was very much interested in. It ended with me being drugged up to the point of being unable to resist while my attacker went far beyond mildly sexual.
I never reported it, and because of the usual reasons. I was ashamed – why was I acting like a drunk tart to begin with around someone about whom I should have known better? What did I expect since I was being a cock tease earlier in the evening? Who would believe me anyway since I didn’t go any further than a few feeble “nos” before I just decided to lie there take it and get it over with since I was in no condition to fight. What cop would have cared anyway – I was a faggot and I had it coming.
What happened to me wasn’t nearly so brutal as what some others here have experienced — it could have been far worse, and, thankfully, it’s a very distant memory with edges dulled by time. But I don’t like the thought that I might be complicit in perpetuating the silence about rape and rape-enabling culture. That’s the only reason I’m saying this.
I just want to apologize again. I shouldn’t weigh in on complex moral issues with my first emotionally-driven instinctive reaction. It was irresponsible of me.
The guy’s a poet.
Knock it off, Walton:) You’re the only person I know who can turn apologizing into a full-blown neurosis. You have nothing to apologize for. Now go and get off this fuckin’ thread and do something comforting for your psyche!
You’re definitely doing the right thing, Josh. No worries on that front. Thanks for the solidarity.
Good night everyone!
We get a few of those cranes that hang out around the local library every winter, just chillin’ with the local Roseate Spoonbills, herons and egrets.
Punk is what?
Just for that:
The Descendents
Bad Brains
Josh:
Thank you for sharing your experience. I know it isn’t easy, however, it is incredibly important and helpful to all those survivors out there. For every person willing to come out about their experience, it helps to add strength to all the voices, it helps to push back against rape culture and those who would defend and uphold it, it helps give strength and support to those who feel so very alone in their experience.
Thank you.
Walton:
Stop it right now or I’ll have Patricia lock you up with the Pullet Patrol™. Talk about royal ponies and unicorn rainbow farts or something else that’s soothing and happy.
Tough shit. You will get some anyways. Deal with it.
Seriously, you already know this but, everyone who has been through such an experience should tell their story. This is so even the most hard headed denialist cannot get away with just hand waving away the wide spread problem.
Josh, I am happy that you feel safe enough here to gather your strength. Thank you.
Oh, and take this:
Gorilla Biscuits
7 Seconds
Inside Out
Insipid Moniker, I am chiming in a bit late but here it is. File a report and keep away from him. Even if nothing comes out of this report, it will leave a paper trail. It is very likely that your friend is not the first person he did this to nor the last. Part of how he gets away with what he is doing is by being charming and friendly. It makes you question if he is a predator and makes it more likely he will get away with it.
Good luck.
This is exactly right. And I’d go a step further – those of us who have been through such a thing have a moral obligation to do so for people who are in weaker or more vulnerable positions. That is, if and when we can. That’s what has been eating me about this; I’ve tried to conduct myself as an open book about being gay and being an atheist from a very young age. Because I know that a big part of changing an oppressive culture is simply the act of refusing to deny who you are. People in more dire and threatened circumstances need that from those of us who can afford to be brazen. It’s almost a Kantian categorical imperative for me.
I’ve been ashamed for some time that I couldn’t bring myself to live up to that when it came to my rape. There are complicated emotional reasons for that, but in the end it is a duty that I was shirking.
Walton, would it make you feel better if we talked about monarchy?
Oh yeah, and Insipid Moniker, I concur with the other threadziens, even if you don’t mention the victim’s name, a paper trail is a wonderful thing in helping to secure a conviction in another case, or if the current victim should come out about it and press charges.
I was disgusted to find out that people shoot them, even though there are only about half a million left in the world, which makes the northern subspecies not threatened. What pleasure can there be in shooting a slow-moving dust mop?
Woah. I’m off poking around looking for youtube videos to post and heavy shit goes down.
Walton, Josh, thank you for sharing yourselves. Like the dissection of godbots and randroids, your revelations of these things (depression, rape) may not seem to have immediate effect, but I’m certain that they are reaching people who have been or are in similar circumstances and touching them. At the least, letting them know they are not alone or the only ones.
Anyways, in case my videos or words fail to cheer, let’s talk about rocks. Or royalty. Or throwing rocks at royalty. :p
Be well.
Josh:
Josh, as I said in #131, sharing your experience is very helpful and a good thing to do, however, no survivor should ever feel they are shirking a duty by not speaking up about their experience.
Everyone has complicated emotional reasons behind their experience and one thing survivors don’t need is to feel they are obligated to speak out. I’ve found that people speak out when they are able and when they feel secure and safe enough to do so. That’s one of the reasons people talking about their experiences is helpful, it provides solid support and safety to others. All that said, it should never be felt as an obligation. Survivors deal with enough shit as it is.
So is “Night on Bald Mountain” the hellfire & brimstone of music?
Sailor, I can see why the whole decontamination thing would make one nervous.
Has anyone else commented that the guy who caught the coach raping a kid in the showers should have not only reported him but stopped him, preferably with a few blow to the head, and called the parents?
Strange as it is to say, I am proud of the fact that this blog, thanks to the constant efforts of many of the regulars, is thought of as a safe place for many of the other regulars and lurkers. (How many people have delurked just to share their story and give thanks? It is humbling.) How often does this happen outside of an explicitly feminist site?
That is all. I do not want to get too gushy and self congratulatory.
Sailor, surely some of those Bahamian banks have servers that need to be cared for.
Caine, you’re right, of course. I should clarify that it’s a duty I feel on myself and that I impose on myself alone. No one else. I do hope everyone will contemplate (by themselves, in their own heads) whether they can speak up.
Janine:
You aren’t being either one. A lot of people here are unsung heroes for working quietly and consistently on making Pharyngula a good space, a safe space for all kinds of people. You have consistently spoken out, for years, about GLBTI issues, Carlie has consistently spoken out, for years, about the effects of language and on the list goes. We have a lot to be proud of here.
Josh:
I know. It just hurts my heart that you felt this onus. It’s all difficult enough as it stands, without having that in your head. I hope at least that part of it has been eased for you now.
Snow is often aesthetically pleasing, I like it in pictures. However, the minute that nasty cold stuff gets anywhere near my shivering bod, the love-fest is over. Kill it. Kill it with fire.
(With due consideration for the resulting run-off, of course.)
–
Given the sheer numbers of the completely clueless (all those MRAs on all those threads….), perhaps Insipid Moniker’s friend also needs to have it explicitly spelled out to him that he is a problem, exactly where he has gone wrong, and given some useful links to an education.
–
Walton, *hugs and chocolate*. At least you are aware of what is going on.
And, at the risk of being accused of “enabling” your monarchy mania, here’s a “mandala” for cheerful meditation. :)
–
I wholeheartedly agree, Benjamin, and you’ve quoted some of my favorite bits! The “shrapneliferousness” part makes me snortle loudly every time I read it.
If/when he bows to pressure and publishes a book of these gems, I’ll be there with cash in hand. Priorities!
–
*hugs* for Josh
—
*mild head smack* for Walton
—
This “inappropriate touching in the dojo” thing has made me profoundly unhappy so I’m going elsewhere…
—
I have not yet purchased a ticket for The Rocky Horror Show in my city but am leaning toward a Sunday Matinée; going dressed as a Church Lady (a costume) or going dressed as a Bag Lady (how I usually dress).
As to chickenpox lollipops and pox parties, from the last edition.
1. What else is going to be on that lollipop ? Anything from hand-foot-and-mouth to meningitis or influenza, the sky’s the limit.
2.Vaccination uses weakened wild virus, pox parties spread…just wild virus. The chance of developing a more serious complication is about one in fifty.
3. Chickenpox is two weeks of being itchy, miserable, looking hideous and feeling rotten. Who would do that to their kid ?
4. Having the disease seems to lead to lifelong immunity. Vaccination, as far as we can tell now, has 9 out of 10 people still protected after up to 25 years. And there are booster shots of course.
Rorschach – I’m one of those unusual adults who’ve never had Chicken Pox. Should I worry? How imperative is it that I get vaccinated?
Can someone fill me in on this Penn State thing ? Students are protesting in their thousands to have the coach ” I wish I had done more” guy reinstated ? Am I missing something ?
Hi Josh ! That’s up to you of course, but we know that chickenpox in adults may take a more severe course than in children or adolescents. Are you sure you haven’t had it ? That stuff is so contagious that usually by age 16 most kids have been exposed to it.
No. You’re naturally astounded at the obscene triumph of tribalistic loyalty over empathy with the actual victims. Welcome to USA-Land. Sigh.
Yes, I’m sure I haven’t had chickenpox, even though my siblings have. Considering that I’ve seen the horrible effects of shingles on my older adult friends, I guess I’ve answered my own question. Duh. . .I should get vaccinated at the next Dr.’s appointment. “Luckily” for me those occur so frequently anymore that should be a breeze. . .lol.
Insipid Moniker, do you and your friends have any sway with this guy to get him to go for counselling, since it’s costing him his job(?), well position anyway, and may be in fact struggling with himself?
Josh, yes you definitely should mention it to your doctor, perhaps in advance so they’ll make sure it’s in stock. And Twinrix, the Hepatitis vaccine, if you haven’t had it.
I’d say it’s likely then that you have had it as well. But that’s advice from one internet person to another, so don’t listen to me !
And I’m stealing your line about tribalism…I find this rather unbelievable.
Yeah, after seeing people defend Roman Polanski, the Catholic Church and now this I have to ask what the fucking hell is fucking wrong with some people?
I won’t; don’t worry. I’ll be sure to Ask My Doctor(TM):)) While I’ve certainly been exposed to the chickenpox virus, I’ve never had any manifestations of the actual disease. Believe me, I’d remember that. What that may mean medically I have no clue, but it sounds like I should just get myself a good round of vaccinations and boosters soon. Especially since they’re all “get your flu shot if you have heart disease” and shit. Oy.
Having chickenpox means the chance of having shingles later in life. With the vaccine, scientists are hoping it will be less likely.
Josh, thank you for being brave and telling your story. It’s almost like group therapy–it helps to know that others have gone through the same thing.
Damn, a virology discussion and I missed it!
Josh: Anyway, it is possible to be exposed to Varicella without developing symptoms. I would recommend that you have a Varicella titer before receiving a vaccination.
My Google Fu defeats me, A.R. What is “Varcilla titer?” Is that a test for exposure or something else? What bearing does that have on whether I get a vaccination?
Thanks!
A titer is an antibody count, it measures if there are Varicella antibodies in your system, and if yes, whether it’s enough to protect you from infection. Given that you are in the US, that one will propably set you back half the cost of a new car…
Thank you, rorschach. And yes, it would likely cost me a down payment on a new car! Thank goodness I drive a 1966 Plymouth.
Josh: like rorschach said, it measures the amount of antibodies you have in your blood to the chickenpox virus. If you have a decent healthcare plan, you might get it covered. Reactions to chickenpox vaccines in previously infected individuals are quite unpredictable.
Talk to your doctor, anyway. Maybe the shingles vax might be more suitable.
I just got $800 back from medicare, yay! I had to spend about $1100 to get it, boo! I’m just under the annual threshold for the safety net, so far, and I have more tests and appointments due. I’m going to actually make it there for the first time in my life.
(For non-Aussies, this is our version of universal health care. You get a fixed amount back per item. The amount back is generally less than the doctor’s full charge, but once you spend above a certain annual limit “safety net”, you get extra high rebates.)
(On Titanic)
Well, you didn’t miss much. Here’s the spoiler (hover to read it).
====
(On punk rock and creationism)
Well, he is a rastafarian (that’s an ‘r’, not a ‘p’). I don’t know about his stance about creationism, but HR had a major falling out with MDC’s Dave Dictor because of the Bad Brains’ homophobia. The Bad Brains left the tour because of that.
This place continues to amaze, confound, comfort and challenge me in a way that I cannot recall ever happening before. Unless one counts psychedelics or deep relationships.
I’ve been just lurking a lot lately since there are so many things demanding my attention of late. Reading (listening) to all of you brings up so many thoughts and inventions and desires that are almost instantly replaced by more of the same that I am lost in the collective dust.
What I want to say, that is, what I can articulate now, is that my life has changed in definite and measurable ways that I find most pleasant and profound. That is, the benefit of the accumulation of years is enhanced and accessorized (what? am I shopping for a new car?) by the time I have spent on this blog with all of you. I am more keenly aware of how life is experienced by others which gives me a deeper understanding of my own. As well, I have deeper understanding of how others experience life. Circles, cycles . . .
By virtue of the sharing of opinion and knowledge that occurs here I have put down not a few prejudices. Much to my delight and profit. Furthering my delight and profit I have come to possess an abiding affection for many of you. Affection that is tempered by a respect that you have well earned and is certainly justly due.
My abiding hope is that this continues.
So, aahhh, just thanks. Thanks to all of you for being honest and constant and providing a place for myself and all of ourselves to just hang. Hang and get better. Better in many ways, in all ways, unanticipated ways. Way.
Love, Crudely.
I see we’ve ventured into much more serious territory. I don’t have much to say, except a question for Insipid Moniker. Is it an option, since you say he is or was a friend, to talk with him? Not so much to get his side of the story, but to try to talk some sense into him?
Josh, I never had Chickenpox either, even though I was in the house when my uncle had it. German measles (rubella), yes, but not chickenpox.
Here’s something I’ve long suspected. Having a low credit score is not something that is intended nor is it a reliable indicator of overall worth. After all, there are many more influences than character that go into something as remote as ones credit rating. It’s called life.
Linky
In addition to the points acknowledged in the article I think that people with low scores have probably spent a long time without financial clout and have grown used to it. As a simple matter of personal survival they often develop a tolerant, good natured outlook towards their own monetary situation and this attitude is not constrained just to that. I’ve noted in others as well as myself that good humor isn’t constrained; it sort of goes into solution and permeates the whole person with regard to arenas of all kinds.
Josh, thank you for sharing. Caine, thank you for wisdom.
And now to something completely different:
Eagles of Death Metal – I Used To Couldn’t Dance (Tight Pants)
SQB:
I figured as much. Given that trailers were shown for it about every 5 minutes, excruciatingly long trailers, I felt like I’d seen it already. After the movie was out, there were so many spoofs of it done, it wasn’t necessary to see it.
Um, yeah. Didn’t miss anything confirmed.
It might not hurt anything for Insipid Moniker or others to talk with him, however, don’t bank on the whole ‘talking some sense into him’. The man has already committed a crime and someone who is wired with an attraction to children, whether a pedophile, hebephile or ephebophile, this is not something which will go away. A talk may well scare him into realizing he has crossed the line into committing a sexual assault and that he requires help in order to live out his life without re-offending. It may also cause him to be more careful when it comes to choosing victims. One problem about having a talk with him is being unprepared for a seemingly heartfelt confession of remorse which explains it all away as a ‘terrible mistake’. Most people who do such things are manipulative and good at manipulation. Most of them are almost always considered to be good people, thought of as active, productive members of their community. That helps them to get away with their crimes.
It’s a bad situation. The best thing would be for him to be charged, so an investigation could take place. At least reporting him will start a record and the police will be able to check as to whether or not he has been reported before.
CW:
Love right back at you. ♥
Weed Monkey:
:D Tight pants are easier to dance in than tight shoes. Just sayin’.
Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins on Hitchens. Does anyone have a link to the full IQ2 debate ?
Aawww, thanks so much, dear Caine.
Now I can go to sleep with a smile. :)
And so, to bed.
Hm, I didn’t interpret ‘student’ as ‘under age’, but considering the ‘big brother little sister’ relationship Insipid Moniker mentioned, you’re probably right.
And you’re probably right as well about the effects of a talk with him. So yeah, report him, kick him out, and hopefully the student will feel safe enough to press charges after some time has passed.
Good morning
So it’s 11-11-11 and people are queing up to get married, women are queing up to get a C-section.
There are things about humans I’ll never understand.
Josh
And all the other survivors here
Thank you for sharing.
Your stories are a gift to people like me who, fortunately, haven’t made those experiences.
They teach me about the prevalence, the realities and the importance of putting a stop to it, of not brushing things aside.
They are a burden, too, they leave a mark on me, they make me afraid, they make me sad, they make me cry.
That is not your fault! Please, don’t read it as a “stop it, your pain makes me feel uncomfortable”, that’s the last thing I want.
I think that is a burden all non-victims should get and take and transform into an obligation to end the damn rape culture.
Because those stories of “everybody knowing something and nobody saying anything” are the same everywhere.
There’s a pedophile living in the street I grew up in, the street my children are playing in.
The adults always supected something. Why did both his daughters leave the house as soon as they could, why do they hardly ever come to visit?
Why did his next door neighbour shout that if he caught him talking to his daughter alone he’d kill him?
Fuck, I was all over that neighbourhood, spending time in this house and that house (having a neighbourhood with lots of potential grandparents and few actual grandchildren certainly has advantages), it could as well have been his house.
When he was finally convicted everybody came forward how they knew something all along. So, oh, they knew something, but nobody ever said anything.
That guy is still the head of an important charity, he’s still a well respected member and former city-council member of one of the major parties.
Those idiots are not kicking him out because obviously a scandal, and questions about their own complicity would not be worth setting a symbol against child rape.
Fuck them, every one of them.
back to chickenpox
My own story is testimony that having been exposed to chickenpox doesn’t mean that you probably had them. Putting kids in the way of chickenpox deliberately was common before the vaccine, mostly because people knew how bad they can be a s an adult. So I was sent to my best friend to get them, I was sent to my cousin to get them, i was sent to school and kindergarten when there were break-outs, I never caught them. I was probably mildly imune against the locally prevalent stems. I caught them from my second cousin’s son who lives 800km away and it was not nice.
I’ve heard the hypothesis that the life-long imunity you usually get from the dieseases isn’t originally due to that infection, which leaves you with a basic protection, but due to getting “natural boosters” again and again when the disease is endemic, so some scientists speculate that with declining cases of diseases those who got their imunity from the actual disease would need booster shots as well.
SQB:
If she is an adult, he’s still committed a crime and obviously has a very serious problem, in that he’d rather commit sexual assault than try to develop or pursue a deeper relationship.
The whole business of it being a big brother, little sister relationship (at least on her part, which he has to be aware of) makes it even creepier to my mind.
Hmmpff… the Omelas story sounds like liberal communist-nazist lefty brainwashing propaganda. Real Americans (TM) read Ayn Rand, no matter how boring the stuff gets.
I have just finsihed reading “Kraken”. Lots of mayhem in London. The Doctor would be proud (in one chapter they had two conflicting apocalypses going on simultaneously).
— — — — — — — — — — —
I had an idea. Why don’t you send postcards to your friends today, so they are poststamped 11-11-11. Generating fun early 21st century curio for collectors.
O, absolutely. No doubt about that. And since they had a student-teacher relation, I would’ve found even a consensual relationship suspect to the point where he would’ve been better off giving up teaching her.
Sounds like a fun read. Is that Kraken by China Miéville?
My guess would be The Kraken Awakes by John Wyndham, that fits the description well. But I haven’t read Kraken by China Miéville. (Yet. Should I?)
SQB,
I was just guessing from various Krakens on wiki.
Josh,
Thank you for sharing your story. It makes me sick to my stomach to read things like that, but it also is one of the main reasons I’ve been working hard not to be a part of the problem. It’s also one of the reasons I came here for advice. I know that people here have personal and professional experience and a great deal of accumulated wisdom. The commentariat does not disappoint.
SQB & Caine,
She is an adult, but the big brother/little sister relationship predates both that and the two of them being at the gym. He is definitely aware of it and was, and this is giving him every possible ounce of benefit of the doubt, trying to take advantage of supposed infatuation which is still really screwed up.
I went ahead and spoke to one of the other instructors who is also a local police officer. He’s already filed a report and encouraged me to file one independent of him. I’m going to do that later today. I will push him to get counseling when we meet with him today, but I’m afraid that I’m gonna be too susceptible to a heartfelt confession or whitewash and so I’ll probably not have any contact with him beyond that.
Sincere gratitude for helping me be a decent person.
Insipid Moniker
Good to hear.
BTW, does anybody else notice how different the police reaction is to the students actually rioting in support of a rape enabler and the police treating peacful occupy protestors?
How about appreciation?
I completely agree with the advice to report the creep to the police. I would add that a written, personal account (a diary entry, perhaps even a copy/paste job from this thread) would not go amiss.
The importance of contemporaneous records is often overlooked.
(don’t ask if you don’t want an anecdote)
Brilliant! :)
Squeezy hugs for everyone, and a second for Josh. I love you all so much.
A bit smallish, otherwise it would be a fit for an Eldritch Horror: “Researchers track half-billion year old predator” http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-track-half-billion-year-predator.html
— — — — — — — — — —
Beatrice, SQB
It is Kraken by China Miéville. The many and varied baddies (and a cockney-swearing cop with supernatural abilities) are stirred into action as a preserved Archaetithus specimen is stolen from a museum; after this, all omens show the end of the world is near.
-Wyndham’s “The Kraken Awakes” is about extra-terrestrials (favoring a deep-sea biosphere) doing stuff that is bad for those living on terra firma.
Spoiler for Titanic: 1912 ship hits big object. Ship goes down. Water is wet.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
Stephen Fry: One of his best TV performances is in the series “Absolute Power”, about a PR company working for politicians, churches or celebrities and ignoring stuff like “ethics”. To the best of my knowledge it is not available on USA-format DVDs. Maybe some of you can put the best bits on YouTube?
Also scars. I have ugly pox scars on my face from it. Not a bunch, but really do you want any on your kid?
Happy Nigel Tufnel day
It goes to 11
Here’s a taster
“Absolute Power”
Oh, and another hug for Walton, too. Just worked back upthread enough.
Birger Johansson,
Thanks! I’m going to a book fair this evening, so maybe I’ll look for it.
I hear they’re having huge discounts. Wasting money before getting the first paycheck is such a bad idea, but… books and I need a French dictionary and grammar. And there’s discount!
I’m in trouble.
My inner 13-year-old giggled.
Ah, the wonders of free-market capitalism. Who could be against it?
I disagree, Walton. My first reaction, upon reading the account, was similar to yours (though I would also have suggested the creation of a paper trail). The reaction you garnered (or I would have garnered were I not writing this hours later) was instructive for me in a positive way, just as it was (I assume?) for you. Emotionally-driven reactions are part of who we are as humans — recognizing the reaction for what it is, and adjusting for it, is what makes us adults.
I actually really enjoy driving in snow. The drive from West Yellowstone to Teton Village to Cody, in a mid-June snowstorm, in a minivan, was one of the most funnest (not necessarily most enjoyable, but most fun) drives I’ve ever done. And passing the huge pickup truck with the massive tyres was just icing on the cake.
Not to mention the scars I still have on my face. Not many, but they are there.
Well, at the very least (and I say this as a husband and father who cannot remember anyone’s birthdays, and I have to take of my wedding ring to remember my anniversary), it makes it easier to remember the birthday and/or anniversary, right?
But here in the US, it is a federal holiday. So the post offices are closed. (And I get double pay today).
==========
To all who served in the military, and especially those who survived physically, mentally, and ethically intact, happy Veteran’s Day / Remembrance Day.
pelamun says:
The Danish name translates to Hellfire.
And there’s just no way you’re ever gonna get that last nail in.
Ahh, the Rev beat me to it:
The Nigel Tufnel Day Appreciation Society and Quilting Bee in Favor of Declaring & Observing November 11, 2011 as Nigel Tufnel Day (in Recognition of Its Maximum Elevenness)
Mr. Fire says:
Say hi to Joanie.
I actually did LOL.
We are having our first big snow now. There was previously a day where there was a little snow at work but not at home, so I don’t count that one. After dodging the huge flakes to get to the car this morning, I got in and found that Bing Crosby was singing White Christmas on the radio. Hee.
… and what he was doing on my radio, I’ll never know. : [ )
(that was a Groucho Marx emoticon)
SteveV says:
I … I’d rather like to try that kinda job …
I’ve worked with HF for many years, but in small quantities. To keep it from being too scary, I’ve always had large quantities of neutralizer piled up in the fume hood all around the area where I work in case of errant drops, and am sheathed in neoprene and a face guard the whole time. I would not like working somewhere that uses larger than the half-liter bottles.
And the GOP (the glob) succeeded in opening a hunting season on these magnificent animals in MN.
What a moronic activity. “Wow, look at those wonderful, huge birds! Hold my beer, I need to shoot one!” Mental pygmies, all the way down.
The rich really are different!
Good luck, Beatrice.
Hugs to Walton
— — — — — — — —
It looks as if P Z;s beard is a symbol of mammalian superiority over the scaly ones:
“Whiskers marked milestone in evolution of mammals from reptiles” http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-whiskers-milestone-evolution-mammals-reptiles.html
Other cool stuff:
-Giant planet ejected from the solar system http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-giant-planet-ejected-solar.html
-Helping robots hold on http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-robots.html
-Study reveals clues to how humans became sociable http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-reveals-clues-humans-sociable.html
The Sailor, thank you for that moment of NSFW WTF awesomeness.
And I’m going to start saving my money.
I have a lab report due in 6 hours and I haven’t started it yet. But the damn internet won’t let me go!
Morning, all.
Following my normal routine, I opened the day with reading the Times. And now, I’m blubbering over this story, about a couple, both disabled, who married over their families’ objections and took care of each other until the end.
SQB, I probably should have mentioned it was NSFW;-)
Sailor: Er… wow. *blushes*
Neil DeGrasse Tyson just tweeted: “Yup. Any time written hh:mm:ss mm/dd/yy won’t repeat for 100yr. Evidence something can be rare yet completely uninteresting.”
He’s awesome.
I love Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I’m actually writing a blog post about the 11/11/11 obsession right now.
@Jbillie
Yeah at least hunt something that takes some gonads to face down like a bear or wild pig or moose.
In honor of this numerical day, here is a song by Come from their debut album, 11:11; Brand New Vein.
You’ve obviously never faced a chimpmunk in the depths of a nut binge.
Starstuff, go write that lab report! The Internet will still be here when you get back. And close all the irrelevant windows: the links are in your browser history.
For all your toilers in IT: hilarious IT video.
I hope that comment up at the top about sandhill cranes tasting like whooping cranes was a joke.
You’re making a fallacy that because I didn’t mention it, it isn’t included in the set.
Catching up on The Daily Show: What the hell kinda shirt is Clint Eastwood wearing? It looks like the collar of a polp shirt, two sizes too small, and then it’s all scrunched up by the tie is a half (if not full) Windsor. I’ve seen people dress badly before, but never with such panache. The man looks like he’s ready for the retirement home with locks on the doors.
–o–
SQB says:
I can’t take credit. I stole it wholesale from Neil.
*polo, not polp
@Sili
I read that as polyp.
Was very curious what sort of shirt he was wearing.
@Crudely Wrott #169
Thank-you for putting into words all the thoughts I have about TET. Even though I lurk more than I post, your words describe exactly how I have come to feel about this amazing group of people here.
@Josh #125
Your story and your need to tell it released a tusnami of emotions. There are 2 or 3 or 4 or 5… experiences that I have had that I am slowly starting to realise were rape and that I was not to blame.
When I was at a fire in Idaho . . .
Sorry.
[[[WARNING: FIRE STORY!!!!! FIRE STORY!!!!!]]]
Okay.
When I was at a fire in Idaho, I was stationed at a checkpoint at a pass with a magnificent view. Wonderful place to be.
The turnout where I parked was infested with chipmunks and Least Ground Squirrels (yeah, I know, buying them would be cheaper). Apparently, previous SEC2s had been feeding them as, when I arrived, they were well trained to approach the human in the truck and look cute. I tried ignoring them. At one point, I was deep in my book and I felt something on my boot (I was sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open, dangling my leg out the door). I reacted by kicking my foot. And I looked out to see a ‘munk or a gs sailing through the air.
I got very, er, familiar? with the rodents up there.
And that should be: “The turnout where I parked was infested with Least Chipmunks (yeah, I know, buying them would be cheaper) and Seven-Lined Ground Squirrels.
Father Og: What kind of ground squirrels do you have with seven lines? Ours 13! :)
the above should read “ours have 13”
My lab report is nearing completion with a little over 3 hours left until it’s due. I think I’m getting pretty good at doing assignment at the last minute.
Those crazy Republicans just cannot make up their minds. New poll results are out about the choice for GOP presidential nominee:
Romney – 23%
Gingrich – 19%
Cain – 17%
Paul – 10%
Perry – 8%
Undecided – 17%
So it looks like the sexual harassment scandal did effect Cain and the Republicans party still doesn’t want to settle on Romney just yet.
Actually, I guess that was just a general poll or something. Apparently, among just Republicans, it’s even more split:
Cain – 18%
Romney – 15%
Gingrich – 15%
Perry – 8%
Undecided – 17%
I guess the Republicans don’t care if Cain sexually assaults women. Big surprise.
Ugh in happier news
I’m planning on running a system lite, Sci-fi game using a D&Dlite system I play tested at comicon which seemed to work better for mixing story telling and all.
I have two people from my group on but would like to get a crew of 5 if possible. If anyone here is interested let me know. E-mail is Ingdamnit at gmail system
Beats the hell out of me. They are in Idaho, Washington and Oregon and the locals in all three places call them 7-lined ground squirrels. And they are very different form the Least (yes, buying is cheaper) Chipmunks — longer body, and the striping is solid, not dashed like the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel. And they were definately not Uintah Ground Squirrels. So I don’t know.
Ing says:
That at least would have been interesting in a Björkgaga kinda way.
Seriously, once you cut off the skinny neck and the long shanks, how much meat could there possibly be on a crane?
No cranes here that I know of, but down the Vedder River is a heron reserve. I’ve liked herons ever since one joined me fishing and shared my catch. They really do look like pterosaurs, or at least the popular public image of a pterosaur.
Yesterday at the river I had a heron AND a kingfisher land near to my cooking fire and watch me for a while. I’m sure there’s a Kipling story in there somewhere.
I’ve resolved this year to try not to let the whole winter depression thing get me, and I figure the best way to do that is to spend a LOT of time outdoors. That would explain why I’m pretty much bankrupt on the last few threads.
If Motörhead did doom it might sound as awesome as this.
Earthride – Mr. Green
@Coyote
It’s not about the meat
Then it’s stupid.
Earthride – Fighting the Devils Inside You<3<3<3
he Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus) says:
What part of “the GOP” did you not understand?
A couple of years ago I had the chance to play stuff like Earthride, Kyuss and Weedeater at a club before the bands started – headliner was Fleshpress. It felt like this: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2050
Umm… really, really loud. That’s the thing I forgot to mention.
I see it’s soon gonna be Gingrich’s turn as the forerunner in the Republican’s wacky search for a candidate not named ‘Mitt Romney’. Seriously, this whole thing resembles some sort of unholy hybrid of reality show and speed dating.
Sili: Canadian. I get the feeling there might be a slightly different attitude towards wildlife and hunting in Canada than in some portions of the states.
Aren’t sandhill cranes endangered?
@ First Approximation
It does seem that way. They’re running out of time to play around though. Primaries start in about two months.
Maybe Gingrich will be a like McCain in 2008 – after a near implosion of his campaign, he comes back to clinch the nomination from Romney’s jaws…
Great, that will be just what I need to kick the winter doldrums. *thbbbbt*
Laughing Coyote, here’s a True Nature Story ™ that I know you will appreciate.
I was fishing a creek in NW Wyoming on a hot summer afternoon. The breeze had been mild and variable. I’d put a handful of rainbows in the creel when I was joined by a kingfisher. Had the pleasure of watching it catch a small trout and land on a nearby willow to whack the thing to death against a branch and then fly off to, I assume, feed babies.
I noticed the breeze pick up a bit in fits and starts as it will do on a hot day. The kingfisher returned and as I paused to change lures I watched it hovering in search of more prey. At the same time I saw that a small whirlwind had formed off to my right and was swirling down a mild slope towards the stream. The kingfisher didn’t see it, occupied as it was.
Sure enough, the dust devil slid down the hill and over the stream between me and the bird. I was surprised to note that the devil (heh-heh) turned downstream and caught the bird unawares. Poor fellow was thrown for a loop-de-loop and was spun about and moved near fifty yards downstream in just a couple of seconds. It fought the air and, once free, descended to water level and was gone in a flash. Didn’t see it again that day.
As you might imagine I had quite a laugh over the sight and that evening enjoyed fish nearly as fresh as its hatchlings had enjoyed. I still chuckle at the memory.
Awesome. (I called this, in a long-ago now-obscure blog comment at scienceblogs. The authors of the paper for some reason have not acknowledged their debt.)
Thanks for the link. It’s interesting work
@ lipwig, #225:
Yeah. Really something, innit?
Confirms the old adage that says if you pay attention you just might learn something.
I am grateful not only for this blog but also for the fact that at sixty I still have the curiosity and delight in learning that I had at ten. You might even say I’m blessed by not having “grown up”.
I, and I hope you, find such a state desirable and in no need of change. ;^>
Does anyone have a good article about the assault on women’s reproductive rights?
I’m in charge of the topic for freethinkers next week and I need some reading material to provide for people.
Crudely Wrott: Cool. On reflection I think the one I saw last night was the first I’ve seen in a while. Odd, considering the proximity of the river.
Does anyone have dippers where they live? Those are cool little birds. Easily overlooked and very ordinary to the common eye, but they do some pretty cool stuff.
Insipid Moniker:
That’s great news, IM. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have your police officer instructor have the talk with him?
We have flocks of Canada geese migrate over my marina/lake. One time I heard this odd and vehement honking from several of the geese and I looked up in time to see a very loose formation with one goose knocking into another causing that goose to tumble in what looked like a Lomcevak. Honking furiously all the way.
My best guess is they ate some fermented something or other and were all drunk.
The Sailor: That’s pretty odd. I wonder what could have caused that short of someone tossing them bread soaked in rum or something.
The popular culture example is fermented berries, but I suppose fermented corn or grain might do it. (Poss. ergotism?)
TLC, well, they are generally herbivorous and it was Fall.
I guess they could have gotten into a weed patch, and that explains the loose formation, but not the bobbing and weaving;-)
@ TLC, Yes. Dippers are common on many high country rivers. I haven’t been in that country for a few years but I did see what I think were dippers on tributaries to Great Bay, New Hampshire, a couple of months ago. My brother and I took his boat out and I saw birds that looked, and exhibited flight characteristics that strongly suggested that bird.
My father used to call them “duck butts” by virtue of the “dipping” behavior they show when perched on a rock mid stream. I was so thrilled to observe that they actually fly underwater in fast moving streams. Imagine being able to do that!
Another of my favorite critters. What a marvelous way to exploit a niche. I gather that the cleverness we humans claim as a sign of higher intelligence is not as exclusive as we might like to assume.
Some hippy friends of mine had their “weed patch” invaded by their escapoligist goats.
The goats did a fair bit of bobbing and weaving for a while.
With respect to drunken geese, I once observed honey bees feeding on a thistle blossom that was way past its prime. A half dozen of them were buried deep between the wilting flowerettes and didn’t fly off when I shook the stem or prodded the bees with a twig.
Thus emboldened I stuck a finger into the blossom in the midst of them. Imagine my surprise when two of them climbed up my finger and then fell back onto the flower with their legs flailing in the air!
They were sloshed to the gills on fermented nectar!
Ever since I’ve wondered about gathering a basketful of late summer thistle blossoms and trying a sample myself.
Shucks, Crudely, they were just getting a buzz on.
I don’t think our fellow denizens of this planet get high by accident. We all deserve a break from reality.
From what I remember, sandhill cranes aren’t endangered, but they’re protected in Florida.
####
Copied from my Facebook wall:
Apparently radio stations have started the Christmas music already. And, as usual, they’re playing the same dozen songs they always play.
So: What are your favorite nonmainstream Christmas songs?
Some of mine:
Jonathan Coulton, “Chiron Beta Prime”
“Weird Al” Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”
“Weird Al” Yankovic, “The Night Santa Went Crazy (Extra Gory Version”)
Tom Lehrer, “A Christmas Carol”
Arlo Guthrie, “The Pause of Mr. Claus”
I was debating throwing this one in:
Mr. Hankey and Kenny McCormick, “The Most Offensive Song Ever”
(Parts [in brackets] are sung by Kenny and are therefore muffled)
o/`
The virgin Mary was sleeping when angel Gabriel appeared
He said, ‘you are to be the virgin mother’ and Mary thought that was weird
[Mary said, ‘I’m not a virgin, I blew a guy last year’]
But then Gabriel said to Mary, ‘My child, have no fear’
[‘Cause you can suck all the dick you want] and still be a virgin, Mary
[You can suck all the dick you want] and still not be considered flawed
[Although you went to town, and sucked some semen down]
You’re still a virgin in the eyes of God…
o/`
Crudely Wrott: Yes! Amazing isn’t it? At the Vedder River, almost anywhere I walk up or down I’m guaranteed to come across a dipper or two. Another name for them is Ouzel.
If the dipper was a fossil species, would we have any clue at all to its river lifestyle? Or would we just write it off as another small generalist songbird?
I firmly believe this. Once I saw a group of about three crows around a tipped over Tim Horton’s cup, taking turns to sip at the coffee puddle.
Benjamin, hence “I did not have sex with that woman”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
It’s been a tough week here in Lake Wobegon, but I ended it on a high note. 122 files of retinal layer tomographs, with “the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one” programmed and generated by yours truly, which came to a whopping 17+ thousand images and graphs.
Now I haz my grog with a swill back.
My “Animals eating cannabis” anecdotes ~
1) I had a rabbit that discovered the 12 oz of hash balls (that I’d discovered on top of the toilet cistern in my Indian hotel room).
It only ate about an ounce (thinking they were droppings?) before I realised. It ran madly, unstoppably, around the room for about 15 minutes. And then it died. (Probably of exhaustion/heat stroke/stress rather than poisoning).
2) A friend was laying out the food for her sister’s wedding. Took a break, had a smoke, and left the hash on one of the tables. Her terrier found it, ate it, and went bezerk. Ran up and down the tables charging through the food at high speed. Ruined everything. She had great difficulty concocting a believable explanation for the dog’s behaviour. She even had to pretend to take it to the vet. (The dog survived).
Sailor: “Shucks, Crudely, they were just getting a buzz on.”
I LOLed. OK, I just snortled a bit. No, I did LOL!
Some years ago, Coyote, a train carrying seed corn derailed in Wyoming’s Big Horn mountains. Since the corn was carried in open cars it was left in drifts up to eight feet deep alongside the tracks. Of course, it immediately began to ferment.
Soon there came reports of drunken bears lollygagging on the tracks and interrupting traffic. Because of the prohibitive costs of removing the corn in such a remote area, the railroad simply sprayed the corn with diesel fuel.
Not long after, reports of drunken bears recurred. The resourceful bruins had dug down below the fuel spoiled corn to get the last of the fermenting kernels.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Even Yogi and Boo Boo know that.
First Approximation and other physics types:
I may have come up with the ultimate physics nerd joke. I was explaining to a junior engineer the shitstorm revolving around a certain piece of electronics that failed in a recent test, and I noted that the failure was as much a matter of politics as electromagnetism. Hmm, I thought, grand unification of electromagnetism and politics–it must be governed by the symmetry group SU(2)xU(1)xO(shit).
Trust me. It’s funny if you are a physicist.
I’ve always heard that cannabis has to be ‘activated’ by heat before it can actually cause effects, and if you eat it it has to be cooked to be ‘activated’. I’m not sure how true that is, but that’s what I’ve always been told.
My starling once ate half a joint, stole it from me and flew away, swallowing it before I could get it away from him. He did not appear to enjoy the experience, infact he got violently ill and puked. Poor bird scared the crap out of me, but he recovered after an hour or so of just letting him relax in his cage with plenty of water.
Now whenever he steals, he just makes me chase him around a bit before dropping whatever he’s grabbed. I also take better care to keep ashtrays emptied and clean.
Honorable mention.
What are your favorite nonmainstream Christmas songs?
My favorite Xmas tradition is Trailer Trash’s Trashy Little Christmas Show. My favorite song is “Real Live Doll” but it doesn’t seem to be available on-line.
Do You Hear What I Hear/You Really Got Me Now
Reindeer Love
Nothing says Christmas like drinking, dancing, and debauchery.
ringtailedlemurian, good lessons to be learned. NEVER leave your drugs out.
me, above – “bezerk” … wtf?
berserk, ofc.
You were misinformed.
berserk has an interesting etymology. It’s not as interesting as assassin, but I like useless knowledge.
The Darkness – Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN4HtiSzBY4
Bitter, twisted, what could be better?
I’m a bit sad after following threads regarding the ban on ritual animal slaughter in Holland(unless the butcheries employ approved stunning techniques) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13947163
I’m seeing claims of xenophobia, assertions that halal/kosher slaughter is more humane than standard EU slaughter practices(they’re not), holocaust references, all that jazz. Ugh.
A quote from Splengler at Asia Times:
Am I interpreting this correctly when I think he’s saying that in order to respect animals we have to respect the beliefs and wishes of the religious(even when we don’t accept them) and give them special permission, outside of the law everyone else has to follow, for them to… torture animals?! That unfounded religious fee fees are more important than an animals right to not feel intense pain and to not suffer an unnecessarily prolonged death. I don’t even
STOP WITH THE XMAS MUSIC! Even the contra-music is too, too, toooo, soon. /rant]
:-( :-( :-( :-( Poor bunny.
======
And of course it’s not too early for Christmas music! According to Garfield, an authority on such matters, the Christmas season begins on Labor Day. :-)
OK, tonight I’ve also been listening to:
Martha Argerich: Beethoven’s Sonata Op.53 “Waldstein”
and:
Moving Shadow 98.2
One of these things is not like the other.
One of these things is not quite the same?
Sailor
Whats the matter Mr Grumpy Gills/Just keep swimming
;D
Apparently everyone on the right side of the pond is in bed, because no one’s mentioned “Fairytale of New York” yet.
If I’m so minded, I might also listen to a bit of K&D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCU36y5utlw
(link? apparently required)
Ahem, Ray, some of us are just flippin’ trax for your DJs to spin. (It was first heard in Sweet&Vicious in NY.)
Oops. “Rey.” Sorry!
Rumtopf: I’m dubious about the ban. Given the amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe (fuelled by xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment; see the growing support for neo-fascist Geert Wilders and his party, for instance), I’m suspicious of the assumption that all the supporters of this law are really motivated by a desire to protect animals. Obviously, the fact that some of its supporters have xenophobic motivations doesn’t necessarily mean that the law is wrong; but in the present European social context, it seems like a very specific and targeted attack on the religious practices of two oppressed and discriminated-against minority groups.
Really, there is no such thing as “humane animal slaughter”, and we shouldn’t pretend that any of us can take a moral high ground in this respect. Whether to eat meat or not is an individual choice, but all of us – both vegetarians and omnivores – have to face up to the fact that all modern industrial-agricultural practices cause serious animal pain, suffering and death. (This is true even for vegetarians, since arable farming involves animal deaths too.) If you really want to save animals from needless suffering, there are a great many things one can do that will have far more impact than banning a specific type of animal slaughter: working to end factory farming, for instance, and giving up eating meat as far as possible.
RingtailedLemurian: Interesting. There is, of course, a way I can test it out, with myself as the subject. :)
Another stoner ‘debate’ I run into is roaches. Most of us tend to hoarde our roaches, I’ve heard some claim that the THC is ‘concentrated’ in them somehow, and I’ve heard others claim that the THC gets burned off by that point. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle, it’s simply more economical to hang on to roaches.
Evenin’, Thread. I just spent the day catching up on the sleep I didn’t get all during the week, and it feels great!
–
Weeeelll, speaking for myself, pretty much the whole thing. I hear their words, but the sense escapes me.
–
Well Rumtopf, the problem is that Muslims in Europe are a disadvantaged minority. More often than not, these campaigns against certain practices associated with Islam are just thinly disguised xenophobia. Just look at the campaigns against building mosques, or about wearing the hijab in public.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate reasons to oppose those practices, but one just has to be careful lest those campaigns stoke xenophobic sentiments, and further alienate the minorities implicitly cast as barbaric.
In Germany, in 1995 a court ruled that ritual slaughter was not necessary according to its interpretation of Islamic law, thus allowing Jewish butchers to continue the practice, while barring Muslim butchers from doing so. In 2002 this was overturned by the Constitutional Court, so the religious exemptions persist there.
(oh here’s an article about the 2002 verdict
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1761846.stm)
Over at Balloon Juice scav wrote this comment IRT a post on GOP candidates: “Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall Who really is the nuttiest of them all?”
“For there are many axes of measurement in the multiverse, many rooms in my father’s house and a hell of a lot of rings at this circus.”
TLC –
Well, I wouldn’t wish to spoil your fun, but I can assure you that heat is not needed to “activate” anything. Google “bhang”.
And anyway, the cannabis plant produces these chemicals to deter insects and animals from eating it. And these creatures obviously don’t heat the plant before eating.
Does this count as a Christmas song?
The Pogues
axes of measurement
:snort; I’ve been reading to much fiction featuring dwarves.
I’m so bored. Everyone I know is busy tonight and the internet is not entertaining me at the moment.
Rey Fox @282
I did.
17 minutes after you did.
I’m always amazed, and scared, of the Konservative Klown Kar.
Oh Yes. and about the only one I can listen to.
.
.
.
.
And if anyone links to Slade’s chrissy song, I will hunt them down, wherever they hide, and vomit in their lap.
TLC:
I see our Venn diagram has found its intersection.
Roaches should definitely be saved.
Or eaten.
One.
holy shit
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is an excellent story
Goddamn it, another Venn intersection.
I love ’em.
Seen ’em in California a few times and once in Wyoming.
So cool.
rtl:
You’ve been fraternising with the colonists again.
I just made my 111th tweet, on 11/11/11. Ooooooo.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space,
O(shit) of course is isomorphic to a spin group and has its own Lie* algebra.
* It’s not pronounced “lee” here.
*sigh*
NaturalNews is at least as wacky as Fox News, and getting up there with WorldNutDaily and Rapture Ready.
I wore corduroy the last two days, and then on 11/11/11, I put on blue jeans. I guess I’m just a damn contrarian.
tweets are for birds
:-P
Not the Pogues, but Kirsty MacColl (and Johnny Marr, and Talking Heads):
What’s NaturalNews?
Dammit, that’s annoying. Sorry. Again.
This story pretty much gives the gestalt of NaturalNews’ coverage.
The events in the story actually happened, in a sense. A farm put together a dinner and sold tickets, which put it into the same regulatory category as a restaurant. Since they weren’t obeying the health code, they had to destroy a bunch of food.
NaturalNews went apeshit.
Do I really need to read beyond the first three words of the title? “Health department tyrants[…]” haha! That’s silly.
… it gets better.
Read this and you’ll get the full flavor of just how fucking stoopid these people can be.
“#3 – Flu vaccines often contain live flu viruses and actually cause the flu as a way to worsen the flu season and scare more people into buying vaccines”
“#6 – Prestigious U.S. hospitals are widely engaged in black market organ trafficking and organ transplants”
“#8 – Commercial chickens are routinely fed arsenic, and commercial cows are routinely fed chicken poop”
“#11 – The U.S. government routinely conspires with pharmaceutical giants to conduct criminal, inhumane medical experiments on innocent people”
*facepalm*
“Hot Topics” from that site: GMOs, Vaccines, Health Freedom, Cancer, Diabetes, Vitamin D.
I can only imagine the stupidity in those articles (I’ll stick with only imagining it because I’m not really up for that level of stupidity at the moment).
I wasn’t that excited. I’d earlier that day swapped a denim jacket (that I’d bought for £1 in a London charity shop) for half a kilo of “Manali Cream”.
And, bizarrely (as I was in Manali, the hash capital of India) the stuff I found was “Afghani”. What kind of idiot smuggles hash to Manali?
Oh, my. They’re part of the Cult of Ron Paul, too. This site cannot be real. It’s just too much.
These articles are very poorly written.
I’m sorry, I flubbed that comment. I do recognise that some supporters have xenophobic motivation and dont give a rat’s ass about animal welfare, that’s a given. I meant to say that some people are making claims that the animal welfare issues are -completely- bogus and a government cover for xenophobia.
Also, I’m well aware of the problems with industrial farming and make my own efforts(I’ve gone as far as to volunteer on a small meat farm, helped out with lambing, patrolled the pastures for sick/lame animals twice daily, witnessed a small scale abatoir in operation and I like to think I know how farming is as its best based on this experience) but I’m specifically focusing on religious slaughter methods right now. If the religious are exempt from regular welfare laws then even ending factory farming practices won’t make a difference. It’s worth keeping in mind that halal meat makes up a significant amount of the meat sold(apparently a lot of it unlabeled) where I am. The Farm Animal Welfare Council and the RSPCA have both addressed the issue with the opinion that religious slaughter methods that dont use stunning are cruel. It’s a popular topic in the UK at the moment, facing all the same criticisms and no doubt being supported by bigots for all the wrong reasons as well.
Ben Geiger
Why do you even go there?
That Natural Nonsense site also has stuff about chemtrails!
Their motto: BELIEVE ALL THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES!
Oh, Mike Adams. I remember him. PZ blogged about him going apeshit after he lost an internet award for tweeting (seriously).
Here are some quotes from him:
….and, ummm,….. I forget the third. EPA?
Anyway, yeah, Natural News is like alternative medicine’s World Net Daily.
chigau:
Because an idiot on Facebook (who I started following for political reasons) linked to it.
The world must know about the stupid woo site. To the blog! (I have theme music, but only in my head)
I blogged. And I did a meme.
Oh just what the world needs, more health woo.
Hope this gets in before outage.
A friend, who is quite religious, and I were joking around the other day and he told this one:
(He laughed as hard as I did.)
catch you all on the flip flop
BATTLE STATIONS! WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOOP
eewaaaewwaawoopwoopwoop
(sorry)
Looks like Santorum has another problem
source
Half of my library holds came to fruition:
so now I have three weeks to read 1000 pages of Stephen Fry and 300 pages of Stieg larsson.
wheeee
Chas:
The Ouzel or Dipper is like a little natural wonder reserved for people who observe. To anyone who just takes fleeting glances, it’s just a plain boring unremarkable little thing.
Has the flop flipped?
>tap tap tap Test One Two Hello Is This On?<
If so. then this. If that’s agreeable then this.
*seminal songs in my life — your mileage may vary but, hey, the dude can sing as well as play*
On the side that may smart for a lifetime.
I had a motorcycle once. I drove it very fast. That’s why I don’t have them anymore. But if I were to do it all over again I think I’d do it like this.
>humungous grin<
Imagine the sound of this sucker going down the road. A sound that once was cause to take cover. Today the sound elicits not fear but the pointing of cell phone lenses.You know you want one. Trouble is there is only one.
Anyway, Back to Black
Maybe daddy was wrong Rehab
But then again, You know I’m no good
Way too late for All My Lovin’, sadly.
But Amy might still love you tomorrow
is it just me, or have the most recent comments disappeared? i seem to remember a number of comments on different threads that are no longer there, incl the blog post about the server update…
Most definately. A whole conversation, including many typos, about how many lines are on different ground squirrels has been swallowed by the web. Tpyos is pisssed. Raelly pised.
Free Thought Blogs must have had quite a bender because it has no memory of last night.
Anyway, I saw this on Why Evolution Is True and thought you people might enjoy:
lipwig, I’m so sorry. Hugs if you want ’em.
BTW, I find it hilarious that Kw*k is banned at The Interestion, Pharynugla AND erv. When you have such different groups of people telling you get the fuck out it really says something.
I have no idea if Scripps-Howard is pulling a very early/very late April Fools joke, or if this transfer is real: the moon landing sites have been transferred to the National Park Service. In 1999, NASA asked that they be declared National Historic Landmarks. In 2000, the NPS said no. So now NASA has just signed it over to the NPS?
Oddly, the only article I can find, anywhere, is the Scripps Howard editorial. The NPS website, and the internal NPS intranet, has nothing on it. Weird.
I see the ‘upgrade’ has well and truly fucked everything up. *sigh*
Well, to him it means that everyone else but him has severe mental problems and needs professional help. Some years ago, I worked with a woman who went into a downward spiral with bipolar disorder (it was eventually diagnosed as such). She, in a division meeting, said, three different times, “I’m okay, you’re not!” To different people each time.
She finally left about a year after she brought a loaded revolver to work.
hello
heklo
is this thing on?
Hello, chigau.
Hi Father Og.
Are the comment numbers missing their left-most character on your screen. or is it just my netbook?
Well, well, well; GWB on Iraq: “This confrontation is willed by God”.
Link.
Yes, they are. However, on this computer, ther are always like that. My home computer shows all three diggits.
changible moniker:
From your link, I especially like
Yet here in the US, I have ceased to wonder about superficiality or fanaticism in belief when it comes to conservatives. Must have been a wakeup call for Chirac.
The Prince of Wales becomes “he whom the cows love”.
So he’s now a veterinarian, as well?
Until the latest upgrade I saw all the numbers.
I say if you’re going to hunt, play fair: fight the beast in hand-to-paw/tusk/antler combat!
Tomorrow, son and I are going on a wildfowl and wader identification walk at Montrose Basin, where said birds stop for r&r on their southward migration. No cranes likely to be present, unfortunately.
Hm, I was wondering why there were no new comments since somewhere around the time I stopped reading last night.
“the puzzled French leader […] asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal.”
Noting that Lausanne has faculties of both “Social and Political Science”, and “Biology and Medicine”, I think Chirac picked the wrong department …
In which Rush Limbaugh continues to be a sexist scumbag. (In other news, bears continue to relieve themselves in wooded areas.)
Oh, now I remembered. When I was at the book fair yesterday, I saw “See, I told you so” by Rush Limbaugh in a used books box. It was crammed between a Danielle Steele novel and some other drivel. Kinda weird to find a book by him in Croatia. I only ever heard of him when I started reading Pharyngula.
Also, I bought two French grammar books and no novels. I’m proud of my own restraint.
I know this feeling soooo much. Thank FSM for e-books..
Beatrice:
I have such a hard time exercising restraint when it comes to books. Lately, not even thrift shops are safe for me. The last one I went to, I came home with three bookbags full of bookses. Cheap prices, but still, it adds up.
*sigh* Apparently the federal government is planning a crackdown against medical marijuana dispensaries in California.
Right on the heels of disturbing findings about the extreme racial inequality of the “War on Drugs”.
Yeah, healthy. Despite using marijuana. I guess the implication flew right over their head, from all the crippling fear and worry for pot smokers.
Walton:
Nothing new, I’m afraid. DEA raids on legal medical marijuana shops have been going on since they were set up.
Hell, it’s legal to grow frigging hemp here in ND, but the feds continually raid the few farms that do and destroy the crops.
Also, for my classes I’m now reading about the dismal failure of US efforts to combat human trafficking and forced labour of migrant workers. More than ten years ago there was a statute passed (the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act of 2000) which was supposed to provide benefits and immigration relief to trafficking victims, and prosecute traffickers. But it hasn’t worked; most trafficking victims still get treated as criminals and/or undocumented migrants, and detained or deported, thanks to (a) ignorance on the part of police and immigration officials, and (b) a lack of adequate funding for the NGOs and lawyers who help victims. (The DoJ is supposed to provide federal funding for legal assistance for trafficking victims, but the funding is only available for victims who get “rescued” by law enforcement, so, in practice, the majority of victims don’t get any help.)
This is a feminist issue too; it’s estimated that 80 percent of trafficking victims worldwide are women, and many trafficked women end up in either forced sex work or off-the-books domestic labour, where they are likely to be abused and assaulted.
Not to mention that it isn’t just trafficking into and within the US that’s a problem; there’s been a growing problem with private contractors trafficking workers from the developing world to work in exploitative manual jobs on US military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, something few people are aware of. Many of the contractors providing food-service and cleaning on overseas bases rely on trafficked migrant labour.
(Sorry for the OT… but I figured some people here would be interested to read about this, and explaining it to other people also helps me learn the material.)
At Elizabeth Warren’s speech right now.
awesome
Sent to to me by a very good friend:
*tumbleweed*
err, ok, a Tommy Cooper joke (that’s vaguely connected to what ftb has been up to today) –
“I’m on a diet.
A whiskey diet.
I’ve lost 3 days already”
and my thought for the day – there can never be too much footage of penguins getting out of the sea in a hurry.
(Where is blf?)
Ah. Bad jokes. That I can grok.
Went to the doctor. Told him that I was worried about my weight. I told him that I hadn’t been able to see the twig and berries for six months. He told me I should diet. And I shot back, “Doesn’t matter what colour I dye it, I still won’t be able to see it!”
I went to the doctor. I said “it hurts when I do this.” He said “don’t do that.”
And Worst. Magician. Ever.
I love a bit of Tommy Cooper.
I snowed.
When the kitteh tried to go out she stopped in her tracks and gave me a dirty look.
We do this every year.
Wow. Is that some kind of superpower?
I dreamed that it snowed and when I awoke it was so.
What else am I to conclude?
Spooky premonition? Overheard weather forecast? Experience?
Irony? A joke?
really?
is it back?
too excited to log-in
Yay! It’s back up.
StarStuff
yeah but everyone else is still
stuck in their podsout in the real world.I wish I was out in the real world, but there’s nothing to do tonight (other than getting drunk while talking about football).
I’m not talking about football.
StarStuff
almost an hour
don’t trust them when they return
they’re all pod-people
I wont trust them. But how do you know you can trust me? And how do I know I can trust you?
Since we are all PZ sockpuppets we can trust …
OK. I’m confused;
If I am you and you are me and we are all together …
I’m guessing we should all just have a *hug*
Ah, I see. So I should trust you because I am you?
Is it? Is it really back?
Once burned, twice shy
Maybe.
But also because you are me.
You grok?
youtube contribution:
Big Pig – I Can’t Break Away
One is one
And two is two
You are me and
I am you
(This was my personal warm-up song when I was a goaltender, specializing in breakaways)
oh jeez
now i hafta get specific
(remember: pod-people)
I’m listening to music too! I just saw this band live on Wednesday. They were really good.
@ Josh 125
*hugs* Kudos.
Also some Good News (check your email & mailbox) … Teh Trinket ™ is on its way. I will be intrigued to see what you and the East Coast horde think it is. It is not edible (not really) though if you look carefully, you will see that I may be wrong…
@ Starstuff 216
Very big in China. 11/11 is the day for single people, a bit like valentines day, so this year is more “significant”. The obsession with numbers here is something to behold. Many buildings lifts skip the numbers 4, 13, 14, 24, 34 etc. Lucky numbers are 8,88 and especially 888. Also 168. Architecture is a minefield, not just from numbers, but from Feng Shui too … and vegetables even!
[animal intoxication] Reminds me of this old SA movie. The fruit of the maroelaboom falls onto the ground and ferments. Then all the animals start eating them and all shit breaks loose. (Reminds one of a late night at the Pharyngula Saloon.) My dad designed a machine to remove the nut kernels from the fruit. Part of the process in making Amarula (if anyone wants to taste the stuff: linky.) Link to movie segment here.
Cool! A slideshow of science-themed tattoos.
It intrigues me because I really want to get a science-themed tattoo: an image of the earth from space with a stylized diagram of the various layers of the atmosphere.
@ Sally
Those are awesome!
Sally:
I’ve posted a couple of times lately about bringing home Carl Zimmer’s Science Ink. It’s utterly fabulous. I went through all the photos he posted at The Loom before the book was published.
Gotta say, I am enamored of the rat in underpants which charmed Mary Roach, but I have more turtle tats to get and a beautiful rat skeleton first.
wow
it’s like nothing ever happened
Caine: I’m glad you’re here. Having read Insipid Moniker’s story, now that the thread’s back up, I have to ask re a situation of my own.
When I was a kid, I got groped similarly by a neighbor of my grandparents. He had us play a game and used it as an excuse to put his hand down my pants. I used the Death Glare on him, he stopped, I told him his game sucked and left as fast as I could. But I know this guy was a repeat offender, because HIS OWN KID had just warned me not to play games with him (and I didn’t understand what that meant).
Compared to the other abuse I’ve had, this incident hardly registered on me. I’ve remembered it recently with learning about abuse and all. I’ve got no doubts that this guy should be reported.
The question is… how?
I’ve never met those people before or since. The guy was just a neighbor of my grandparents with a similar aged kid. I’ve walked past what I think is the same house, which has changed owners at least once over the decades. I’m not even sure what year the incident happened, as I was somewhere between 7 and 12 at the time. And I’m a freak in a fundamentalist community in rural east Texas; I probably have less than zero credibility here.
Any suggestions for how I could make any sort of useful report?
Pteryxx:
In this situation, I’m sorry to say I don’t. This happens all the time, unfortunately, adults remembering an incident when they were a kid, but not any pertinent details.
Unless you have some way to connect to this person (or his kid, which would be around your age now?) or someone in your family would know who you were talking about, there isn’t a good way to find out this man’s current status or record. Also, depending on your state’s laws, what happened to you most likely ran out its statute of limitations long ago, so if you do find out the information you need, you’d be able to talk with a detective, but I’m not sure if you’d be allowed to report once the statute has passed.
Do you know any people, personally, who work in sex crimes, social work, counseling, anything like that? Know any cops? Because I’m not familiar with how things work where you are, you need better advice than I can give.
Oh yeah, I remember you talking about that Caine. But I never clicked through to the photos, shame on me.
Sally:
The book is absolutely fabulous. Great writing, great tats, great photos. I’m even in love with the cover of the book, which you can see here (2nd photo).
Caine, the only counselors I know are through the shelter network, mostly in Dallas… there’s one, my original intake counselor, in the rural area. Maybe I go back and mention it to her?
Definitely got to put that book on my birthday wish list.
@ Caine
Surfing teh web from the link you provided, I have now discovered Tardigrades can live in outer space (also mentioned in the link – try googling: “tardis tardigrades”). And that they come in amazing shapes … Linky to Tardigrade pics (TARDIS is about # 14 in the series.) Wow!
A new “Things I Won’t Work With” is up! Here’s a couple of selected choice bits:
“I’d call for all the chemists who’ve ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio.”
“Not that it’s what you’d call a perfect compound in that regard – despite a lot of effort, it’s still not quite ready to be hauled around in trucks. There’s a recent report of a method to make a more stable form of it, by mixing it with TNT. Yes, this is an example of something that becomes less explosive as a one-to-one cocrystal with TNT. Although, as the authors point out, if you heat those crystals up the two components separate out, and you’re left with crystals of pure CL-20 soaking in liquid TNT, a situation that will heighten your awareness of the fleeting nature of life.”
–
*tap tap* Is this thing on again?
*stumbles into thread after an evening of mansplaining*
Yay…its working again! I need a stiff dose of logic with a chaser of reason.
Aren’t birthdays spent at work the best…:-(
The recent posts thingy seems broken..
So, how is everyone ?
. . . falls headlong through door that up till now wouldn’t open despite my pushing and banging . . . loud noises and the billowing of dust . . . looks around . . . gets unsteadily to feet brushing trousers and shirt . . . says, “Oh. Hi.”
. . . ambles about as if nothing had happened . . .
Yes, it was a dicey twenty odd hours.
Everyone seems to be on holiday. This is what happens when the powers-that-be try to fix stuff. Perhaps now is the time to make a mad dash for power…
Thread withdrawal is a terrible, terrible thing.
–
Pteryxx:
I think that’s a good idea. She’d be able to give you a much better idea of what you could possibly do.
Theophontes:
I read that! Water bears are amazing creatures. That latest tattoo someone got of one (photo at The Loom) is amazing too.
Rorschach, it’s your birthday? Happy Birthday!
Sure as shit is. But, then, we are survivors. We’ll probably continue to survive.
It’s a good thing that head asplodey isn’t fatal. I’d have never made it to adult-hood.
Eldest daughter spent a whole two hours with me earlier tonight. Timeless.
We talked about YHWH and Haysus. We listened to Pink Floyd. We recalled earlier days. We hugged.
Which just goes to prove that there are other things to do when the site goes down.
I am so in love.
Tethys, keep your head together.
Ok. I will keep my poor pink ladybrains intact and not discuss male privilege without the horde as back-up.
It sounds like you had a lovely evening with your daughter.
Pink Floyd is a favorite of my spawn and I too.
Thanks Caine !
Oh, and Aussies, in case you haven’t heard yet, Peter Roebuck found dead in Cape Town
I doubt that your pink ladybrains are poor. ‘N fact I know so by virtue of you demonstrating same. Survivor you are.
Yeah. Pink Floyd and spawn. Unbeatable combination.
I bought the Umma-Gumma album (two long playing records!) just about forty three years ago. Careful With That Axe, Eugene scared the whey out of me on the first listen. The fact that I first heard it in a darkened room while working on some high school homework might have had something to do with it. Waters can do some screaming, eh?
Gotcher back.
A new server needs a new nym … ¡Viva la Revolución!
That should be wielding, no? Otherwise, very scary, very revolutionary!
I have finally gotten around to reading The Poisoner’s Handbook. Good stuff.
@ Rorschach
There is no mention of Peter Roebuck in South Africa yet. You may want to click on these later to see if there is an update:
Mail & Guardian : http://mg.co.za/
News 24 : http://www.news24.com/
@ Caine
Fixed, thanks Caine. (I guess Tardigrades are not well known for their intelligence.)
Wielding a saucerful of secrets, or a wee batch of black dragons?
Roger Waters is an amazing musician. Too bad he isn’t part of Pink Floyd anymore. David Gilmore might be one of the best guitar players in the world, but it just isn’t Floyd without Roger.
Cicely, I just read that and was going to post a link to it when I got to the bottom of the the thread. Most amusing!
Re HF and fluorine. As I recall from Asimov’s article about fluorine, the first four chemists who managed to isolate fluorine (or to pry fluorine out of mineral compounds?) were killed by it. The one who succeeded had a rich father-in-law who enabled him to buy tubes, valves, and containers made of nickel.
Sandhill cranes:
Lesser, Grus canadensis canadensis, 400,000 (most numerous crane in the world)
Cuban, G. c. nesiotes, non-migrating – Critically Endangered: 300
Florida, G. c. pratensis, non-migrating – Endangered: 5,000
Mississippi, G. c. pulla, non-migrating – Critically Endangered: 50
Canadian, G. c. rowani, 50,000
Greater, G. c. tabida, almost 70,000 (recovered from a low of 1,000)
I noticed that too (got those 2 in my newsfeed). Quite peculiar.
It is the weekend though. South Africans are holy about their time out.
Hitchens 1 : God 0
Hey, glad to see the server is up again.
Did your email subscriptions experience some kind of black hole as well? Looks like they’re still there though, under “Manage your subscriptions”
I’m not sure if it’s wise, tweaking the Walton’s obsession, but I can’t resist.
Argh. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2059831/The-Queens-hidden-cousins-They-banished-asylum-1941-left-neglected-intriguing-documentary-reveals-all.html
oh yes, to the fans of Swedish detective novels:
Henning Mankell or Stieg Larsson?
Both?
I’m trying to decide between “Mördare utan ansikte” (“Faceless murders”) and “Män som hatar kvinnor”(Swedish title “Men who hate women”, English title “The girl with the dragon tattoo”). I’ve got the various language versions all lined up, but in order to practice Swedish pronunciation I thought about getting an audiobook version for one of them…
I know that in “Mördare utan ansikte”, Wallander expresses some disgust about the Swedish immigration policies which are too liberal for his taste. Mankell is probably not xenophonic, given his life story, but I’m a bit afraid about this aspect of “Mördare utan ansikte”.
On the other hand, “Män som hatar kvinnor” is about misogyny, and the author also had had personal experience in this area, that is that he witnessed a rape and never forgave himself for not helping the victim. Again, a bit apprehensive about how the issue of sexual abuse and misogyny is portrayed in the novel.
Larsson is obviously Larsson. Mankell I find a compelling read as well, but for other reasons, he is more a child of Sjowall and Wahloo, while Larsson’s trilogy compels us mainly because of the interaction of the fascinating 2 main characters. I mean, come on, what internet nerd loser wouldn’t want to have someone like Salander as their best mate and confidante ? Whereas Wallander, or Gunvald Larsson or Martin Beck, are not exactly characters to go crazy about.
Pelamun:
It’s handled well, albeit graphically and realistically. There are definite triggers in Män som hatar kvinnor. I found those aspects easier to deal with in the book than I did the movie, of course, I could put the book down when I needed to do so and walk away for a while.
I wouldn’t say it’s gratuitous, either. There are some very important issues throughout all three books, which have to do with privilege and power dynamics when it comes to things which happen to Lisbeth. As for the murders, that’s separate and the mystery wrapped around them is interesting.
Speaking of detective novels, I recently finished Ian Rankin’s The Complaints. It was enjoyable and on the quieter side.
Come to think of it, Martin Beck is not too dissimilar to Mikael Blomquist in a way, is he…
How I dread Christmas, when we will have the Hollywood version of Män som hatar kvinnor before us.
Rorschach:
Pfffft, I dismissed it as soon as I heard it was in the works. I was more than happy with the original movies and have no desire to see the remake.
rorschach, Caine
thanks for your input. The two novels are both the first one in a series, and also take up issues that are important to me. And definitely, both authors are worth reading, so I’ll probably read both of them anyways. I might just go with the one for which I have a printed copy (e-books are great, but you know tangible and tactile, or what was the word, haptic ?). Finishing even one Swedish novel will take me a looong time, so I’ll have the opportunity to visit my Swedish relatives anyways and buy the printed version of the other one.
The meme of “goats on fire” was before my time, but I couldn’t help noticing this news report that the United States government will stop counting the goat population effective immediately (and to some foreign policy experts that is apparently a sign of American decline, because a goat census is one of the indispensable trappings of superpowers. Who knew?)
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/10/decline_watch_americas_goat_population_to_remain_a_mystery
Japanese netsuke carving of a …
Netsuke
@ pelamun
[architecture] Interesting piece of Americana. The squaring of Circleville (after S. Kostof). The towns inhabitants weren’t to keen on the original circular layout and started modifying the layout to the new configuration over the course of several years. What else is Circleville (Ohio) famous for?
Winston Chuchill’s famous saying: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”, seems to be only partly true. From the same beginnings, they will be transformed by degrees to match the underlying mental states of their inhabitants. Linky to more Kostof.
The Sjowall Wahloo books are still up there with the finest crime novels ever written, even if you ignore their social context and the inherent criticism of aspects of the Swedish society. Mankell, while a bit of a shock jock, still delivers great suspense and garnishes it with some amount of critique of Swedish society, while Larsson to me just created this whole universe that is miles apart from any other crime writer’s effort.
As to the upcoming movie, Daniel Craig just isn’t a soft-spoken intellectual (Blomquist) that’s never going to work. Rooney Mara we don’t know, but she is not Noomi Rapace, and I think at this point casting anyone other than Noomi as Salander is like casting Courtney Cox as Ripley. Rapace is Salander, Gary Cooper is the Sheriff in High Noon, and Sigourney Weaver is Ripley.
Anyway, good night.
First time I can remember
SciencFreeThought Blogs being more fucked up than me on a Saturday night.What a fabulous opportunity to link once again to this!
Photography credit for #15: *ahem* me. The live lizard lives in my exish’s garden.
The entire online gallery from which the book was drawn (swidt?) is here.
Well. I think it’s more accurate to say that they can survive exposure to outer space. While tolerating the ridiculously cold cosmic-ray-infested near-vacuum they are not exactly doing anything one could call ‘living’. Try g**gling ‘anhydrobiosis’ for the details.
Liberalism is and always has been about taking the unjust and ridiculous head on and without mercy. Complacency, subservience and the dressing-up of ideas in a “polite” costume is and always has been the way of the regressive wing, for reality is the bane of their existence.
The greatest perversion of liberalism in public parlance is that modern liberals are somehow different; that somehow between 1968 and 1980 these roles underwent some magical reversal never before seen in history. Liberalism has been discredited not for its ideas, but for giving in to the demands of the aristocrats for having been removed one peg when they yet remain safe by many leagues while a good many starve in our pitiful excuse for civilization.
If our liberal forefathers could see us now there wod be scathing rebukes of the Republican Party from Smith, a new edition of Common Sense for Occupy Wall Street from Paine, and a new Progressive Party from FDR. What passes for liberalism in the global political halls is nothing more that lip service countered by varying degrees of lesser lip service. True liberals are mostly voiceless, likened to the professors of women’s studies and stoned hippies with the grand majority of their grievances and solutions posted – and thus deemed discredited in the mainstream by such posting – on ‘alterbative’ or ‘independent’ sites, with professionals liberalism confined to the “opinion” hell that has come to define politics in the postmodern era.
This is a cause for outrage – but that, it seems, is not the quality of a liberal, even when we are on the brink of extinction in the political wild short of that crass and unbecoming thing caLled revolution.
I personally hope global warming kills us before we end up in Oceania.
Maria Lang
John Haught
y, via Coyne:Can you believe this shit?
Wait, I think I found the problem: “if God is infinite love giving itself to the cosmos,…”!
Cosmic masturbation!!!
[crank]It is not cool to complain about the contents of a blog that I’m not being forced to read, but I guess I’m just an asshole. So here goes.
I don’t care to read essays on why people are atheists—if they have any reasons that are really novel, they are likely to be bad reasons. Atheism is the only reasonable worldview. The good reasons for rejecting belief in the supernatural have been exhaustively published. Atheism is a “no-duh” position. Reading these is a little like reading how people have come to the conclusion that the Pacific Ocean is made of water. The more interesting question is why the great majority of people in the world aren’t atheist. That’s the one that keeps me up at night.
And also, given that copious, high quality literature exists and is available at low prices, how can anyone stand to read Stieg Larsson*?
[/crank]
I guess this morning, both the dog and I are just dying to have someone throw a shoe at us.
*The stories make for OK movies, I admit.
Damn. That sucks.
Goats are whole plant grazers. They can, if not moved constantly over a very wide area, hasten desertification in marginal ecosystems. Keeping track of the number of goats (and also the type of goats (apparently, some are less damaging than others)) is a good way to monitor environmental degredation, as well as building up data to push for agricultural and pastoral behavioural changes.
(And I just reread what I wrote and realized that I really do sound like a beaurocrat sometimes).
@ Chas
Spoilsport.
Replace the word “god” with “The Sun”, replace “love” with “solar radiation”, “graciousness” with “energy” etc, and it all suddenly makes sense again…
AE:
I tend to skim them, looking for an interesting story within the post. But then, there are some posts from our Master that I tend to just skim over. It’s not like PZ has software that tracks how long we look at each part of a post, right?
Father O: I’m just a grouchy little man before I drinks my coffee. I normally don’t read or post until after that time, but my wife is out of town, I’m responsible for the fucking dog, which monkeys with my routine. I was in a particularly hateful mood and caffeine free when I first logged into the interwebs.
But I had coffee and am better now. Please forgive me.
Dyslexic reading of this==Coffee on monitor.
DudesLadies check it out :Jailbreak the Patriarchy, a browser extension that changes the gender in whatever you read just so you can see the effects of gendering and make it blow your mind.No need for an apology to me. Hell, I was partially agreeing with you.
Wow, FtB has some work to do on the server swtich! Anyway, spent yesterday doing some amateur paleontology in the Silica Shale formation in Sylvania Ohio, so I didn’t suffer from the switch as much as others did. :)
AE – interesting; I have exactly the opposite approach. Nothing bores me more than the essays that start off “I was always an atheist because religion is STUPID” and then go from there. No duh. Good for you, ace. Congratulations on happening to be born in a family and/or culture that is relatively free from religion to start with.
But the essays that feature people who really had to struggle with it, after being raised in religion, fascinate me. Probably in a narcissistic way since that’s my story as well, but also just to see how the mind works. It’s interesting to me to see how deeply people can be made to believe stupid shit, and how much effort it takes to deprogram oneself from said shit after it’s taken such a hold. It’s also interesting to see how it affects relationships and social structures etc., because that’s a big part of it all as well. I think stories like those are the ones that could, en masse, give clues as to ways to loosen religions’ hold on society.
Examples of “Jailbreak the Patriarchy” text gender-swapping app on famous book blurbs:
source
Examples from recent articles via Jezebel:
source
A commentor on the original app also mentioned the Joe Materno scandal. >_>
@ChasCP, #451: God is cosmic inflation.
I have to disagree. Scripture clearly states (Col 1:17) that He is the strong nuclear force. (“by Him are all things held together”.)
On having a close personal relationship with god: http://theoatmeal.com/pl/top_tweets/god
UGH. Anybody with a Disqus account want to throw in here? The mansplainers, especially the odious Jim Bishop, need a pallet of putrescent porcupines.
@ Ms. Daisy Cutter
I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. They’re not worth being pissed off over.
Fuck CNN. Just fuck everyone on their stupid channel. I don’t even know why I watch this shit.
According to a CNN anchor and multiple pundits, the Herman Cain sexual assault story is just a distraction from the real issues; it’s just a symptom of our celebrity obsessed culture. Apparently, a presidential candidate sexually harassing and assaulting multiple women isn’t a real issue.
Look at it from their perspective, StarStuff, this no different than the Clinton business. Obviously consensual sexual acts between two adults is the exact same as sexual harassment.
Added to that for you?
And, as has been stated, this is worlds apart from either Edwards or Clinton.
I’m just tired of hate and sexual assault against women being ignored or, worse, written off as unimportant.
Unfortunately, to many in the US (and possibly a majority of males), it is written off as unimportant because of who it is, not what it is.
Clinton? Sex, sax, and Socks. Permute at will.
AE, I tend to skim the Why I’m an Atheist essays, but I see their value. There are a lot of people out there who were born into and raised in religion, and a lot of people who are still struggling trying to get rid of religion’s effect on them. Such essays can reach out and touch deeply, helping more people to reach the light of atheism. Yeah, it’s old hat for a lot of people, but I think they do more good than anything else.
Good morning, I see things are still flaky.
This is not as good as the alot, but it has something going for it: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/c_word
And they bring in some fun chew toys.
I think I’ve heard from one or two people, but what do others around here think about the word “cunt” strictly as a word for the female genitalia? I think it’s roughly equivalent to “cock” in the realm of sex words.
Already tasted it. It was great! The flavor kinda reminded me of peaches and cream. Or creamy peaches. Or something along those lines.
If I was more of a ‘math’ person, it would be interesting to figure out just how many fermented marula fruits an elephant needs to eat before intoxication sets in.
Personally, I find it’s rather too tainted by use as a term of abuse. Pussy, too. Sadly, this criterion doesn’t actually leave much usable as a neutral descriptor. Pretty much everything’s either clinical, cutesy or abusive.
As far as the whole “cunt” term for female genitalia (or, rather, for vulvas/vaginas), I think it’s a matter of preference. Some people prefer the term, some hate it, for a huge variety of reasons, all of which are valid. Mine is a cunt. Someone else’s might not be.
Rey – I agree with Alethea on cunt. It’s a harsh-sounding word in the first place, and for me it’s hard to even imagine it without the sneer of contempt that it’s so often accompanied by. It makes me reflexively wince. To me pussy’s a nice word, though, probably because I haven’t seen it used as a pejorative nearly as often.
Rey Fox
I think it would take me a LONG time to shake off the other aspects of the word “cunt”.
I don’t have a problem with either “cunt” or “pussy” as a term strictly for genitalia. Both can be extremely hot in written erotica. But that’s very much a YMMV thing.
Alethea:
/snerk
//is 12
I considered my word choice carefully :)
I take it you’re unfamiliar with Eric Gill.
Pussy has come into Australian vernacular via the American. It does sound like it could be pretty friendly – if your first encounters with the word didn’t mean weakling, loser etc. I wish I did like it, because there really aren’t good options.
Rey:
Haven’t we had this conversation a dozen times already?
I’m fine with it as a term for vulva/vagina, but only in private, as it’s way too entwined with insulting, degrading, demeaning language. It’s more often used for that purpose than as an all purpose genitalia descriptor.
When one looks at most of the slang/euphemisms for vulva/vagina, a lot of it falls into the insulting or dehumanizing categories.
We’d have to go back a long way to get to use of cunt as a plain name for vulva and nothing else again.
*tiptoes in*
So, we’re back up? I stayed away yesterday, having been alarmed by PZ’s Twitter.
Rey Fox, “cunt” refers to the vulva (or possibly just the vagina), so I’m not sure what it could be other than “strictly a word for the female genitalia.” WRT being equivalent to “cock,” not really. The former is much more vulgar and is used as a single-purpose insult in a way that the latter is not.
Alethea:
Muff is used quite a bit here, which I don’t mind. It’s generally used when talking about oral sex though, as in muff diver.
Privately and personally, I use velvet.
How about “quim”?
I just got a robo-call from the NRA, and didn’t even get a fight. It started off with a guy ranting and raving about gun laws and I don’t know what, and finally got to a survey. The question was “Do you agree that it’s wrong that the UN is on American soil, attacking our gun rights?” I hit the button for “no”, hoping that would send me to a person who would try to talk me out of it (or at least a tree of “would you change your mind if we told you that…” options). But no, then they just said “thanks for taking our survey” and hung up. Cowards.
I’ve always like the word ‘cunt’ in the past, which I’d say is an argument for dropping it. It’s a nasty vicious word, at least whenever I’ve used it.
In fact, it comes out of my mouth kind of awkward-like unless I put a nice snarling or hissing aggressive emphasis on it. If I try and say it neutrally, it just sounds weird and unnatural, like a baptist minister trying to ‘curse like a sailor’.
On a related note, it’s interesting that, in the past, many of the Anglo-Saxon words we now regard as (to varying degrees) profane and dirty simply seem to have been ordinary descriptive terms. Magpie Lane in Oxford, which was the centre of prostitution in the city in medieval times, was called Gropec**te Lane until the eighteenth century. So, too, my primary school class giggled at the fact that the medieval English poem Sumer Is Icumen In contains the word “fart”, in a rather matter-of-fact context.
At a guess, I’d assume that the identification of these words as profane today has to do with class. After all, most of the biological terms we consider to be gross and profane (fuck, shit, cock and so on) are of Anglo-Saxon origin; and, of course, Anglo-Saxon was the language of the common people, while French and Latin were the languages of the educated classes. But I’m not a linguistic historian, and I’m probably oversimplifying things (I imagine pelamun or David M will chime in with a more detailed and accurate explanation).
I’ll chime in with a simpler observation (being a simple sort, although one who’s walked up and down Magpie Lane many many times). For UK-nian blokes of a certain age, the equivalent would have been one’s “own”.
The Darkness – Holding My Own.
Related: Tipping the Velvet? Boy in the Boat?
cm:
Tipping the velvet refers to cunnilingus. I’ve always hated ‘boy in the boat’. A boy? Really? :eyeroll:
Cunny is an old usage, deriving from cunt and the days when it was used as a descriptor. It has a softer sound, but I don’t know that using it would be any good, as I doubt it would be long before it had the same implications as cunt or pussy do now.
Truthfully, I only like it if it’s being spoken by a woman referring to her’s, or that of another woman with whom she is intimately acquainted. It is mostly misogyny that taints* that word, but then, misogyny is the reason that we can’t have a lot of nice things.
* Yes, you all may snicker now
I’m watching a japanese flick called ‘Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword’.
Anyone else here ever watch a Zatoichi movie? I quite enjoy the character. I know the whole ‘disabled warrior’ trope is pretty damn cliche, but it’s fun. Good guys, bad guys, heroics, adversity being overcome, lots of swordfights, it’s pretty enjoyable.
Ugh, not cunny please. That sounds like what a pedophile would call it.
Rey:
That’s an interesting take…
sort of.