This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
chigau
Sometimes silently listening/reading is the right thing to do.
Ssshhh!
They are listening…
Yay cicely. I think you’ve definitely got something there :-D
Spam coming through!!!
What I would say to creationists if I was more of a dick
I just stumbled upon it. It’s far from perfect, but it come close in some spots. I suppose the Thunderdome is as good a place to post it as anywhere. And now, for the “run” part of this hit-and-run. Tata!
Actually, the post is at least as dumb as it claims creationists to be. Maybe more so.
The self-aggrandizing parts were painful to read, and yeah, they were too long and there were far too many of them. I still think much of the vitriol worked just fine.
The first comment did it for me:
“My belief is unfalsifiable; I must be right!”
Cripes. Bad reasoning is grating. Bad reasoning to support a position you largely agree with is far worse.
I am seriously tired and trying to cope with too much pain. I’ve recently developed an ongoing burning sensation in my muscles, along with a few other types of pain, been involuntarily dropping things, having bouts of nausea which seem unrelated to the pancreas, yada, yada, yada. My neurodoc has me slated for all kinds of wonderful tests in November.
Very, very tired of all this shit.
:( I’m sorry to hear that, Caine.
Sorry you are having such problems, Caine. Is there a good reason the doc is waiting until Nov. to do the testing?
Sorry to hear about your troubles Caine. Hope things turn out well.
Thanks, Esteleth. I really wish we had bod replacement tech, I’d be first in line.
Morgan, yeah, my regular appointment is in November, I didn’t feel like changing it. I have a feeling that if MS is ruled out, I’ll be looking at a diagnosis of CPS (Central Pain Syndrome), which won’t mean anything, outside of “well, you’ll have to cope.”
*many hugs* for Caine.
–
Thank you, Nerd. I plan on lots of napping. Much napping.
Cicely, thank you, and right back atcha.
Caine,
I too have one of those glorious “idiopathic” bodies whose maladies defy regular diagnostics. It is a charming way to live. [/snark] If I can give one small piece of unasked for advice… Don’t let the docs overdrug you. A lot of my meds were fighting with a lot of my other meds until I overrode everyone and took control. But it wasn’t easy. Good luck. I hope it is nothing horrid.
It is going to be interesting to see how the new Obamacare financing will impact care. It can’t get any worse, can it? (rhetorical question)
Also, a huge pile of comfy hugs, chocolate, and libations of choice for all who need/want them.
Morgan, yeah, management can be a pain. My neuro is good about stuff, does as much or as little as I like on the drug front. I already have one useless diagnosis, fibromyalgia, which most doctors treat as “hey, it’s all in your head, little lady!” It’s annoying. I do have a fucked up spine though, so it might be damage, so tests. Same old shit.
Hey, sister Caine. Welcome to the club! I also have the useless FM diagnosis AND a screwed up spine. And other assorted crap. Ah, great minds (and bodies) run the same gutters.
The thing that worries me the most though is the fact that three people on my mother’s side of the family have died of brain tumors. And I take after that side of the family in spades. I am excruciatingly vigilant about possible symptoms. Phooey! Ya’ gotta have a sense of humor.
Morgan:
Oh fuck. I’d be worried about that too. I will be getting scanned for da brain tumors too. I swear, I’ve been scanned enough for two bloody lifetimes.
About scans… Are you claustrophobic? I am, terribly. I would hyperventilate so badly every time they shoved me into one of those tubes that it ruined the scan. Now, I insist on a double dose of Ativan or nothing is getting done.
If it is MS, there are an increasing number of “disease-modifying agents,” meaning drugs that can stop the underlying disease from getting worse. Lots of tradeoffs there, in terms of risk factors and how effective they are, along with things like “do needles bother you?” (That’s in the best-case scenario where you have insurance that will cover two or more of them, so there is a choice.)
And there are some pain treatments that are specific to nerve pain, along with the “well, you can take ibuprofen or tylenol” approach to pain, regardless of cause.
Morgan:
A bit. I’m fine, as long as they are open on the head end, and have air. I don’t mind the proper ones, those things are bloody huge. The teensy weensy ones (MRI) they truck around? Aauugh. I don’t like those. Fuck, they can’t get those done fast enough.
I did have a cat scan not too long ago, and that thing was hella cool. Looked like something out of Star Trek.
Vicki:
Yeah, I know. I already have enough pain meds to float an army, and they are minimally effective. (I don’t take the oxy unless it’s really bad, which would be torture on most people’s scale, I have high tolerance) If it comes down to CPS, I’ll consider methadone.
Caine
Pain sucks.
Have you tried a layer of warm, fuzzy rats?
L has those too…
big *hugs* to Caine and Morgan
Dear Mr Obama,
Please be so kind as to help reduce the pain in Caine, which wracks the brain.
Regards, a confirmed leftie.
All the time, Chigau. All the time. Today’s rat discovery: they *love* very expensive sharp white cheddar. (They won’t touch the orange stuff.) Snobs, all of ’em.
Dalillama, L has all my sympathies.
Lofty, thanks for the prayer. If only it would do some good.
Dalillama, please give L all my good wishes and gentle hugs, if wanted. This is not a great club of which to be a member, but we can all kvetch about in good company.
Clear, cold, dark night sky
Eastwards, Jupiter rises
Thanks Stellarium!
(I revert to type so readily. I apologise!)
I just got in for a week at the pain clinic and physical therapy. I’ll be gone for a week. Have fun, all.
Be well, Caine. I hope the clinic does great things for you.
Yowza, Caine. Tell that pancreas to shape the hell up! Hugs to you and good luck.
Hang in there, Caine. ♥
I’ll put the kettle on for you.
Best of luck, Caine.
Here’s a Care Package of *hugs* and *chocolate* for you to take with you, Caine. And another *hug* for immediate use.
:)
–
@ Caine
Good news!
And never mind – we’ll hold the fort while you’re there.
Thank you, everyone! I won’t be taking a ‘puter or the wireless, because I’m already on overage for the month, so if anyone sees Elroy (boygenius), could you holler to him for me, and tell him we’ll be at the Rally in Leith on Sunday? Thanks so much. Off to try and sleep now, I have an early start in the morning. (Honestly, the pain clinic people are into doing things at an ungodly hour of the morning. You’d think they’d know better.)
Good luck, Caine. I hope the pain clinic can provide you with some relief. *hugs*
caine
*hugs* Best wishes.
The
squatterhouseguest upstairs is on his phone talking about “brazilian”.I know that he is discussing jujitsu.
Why am I picturing wax?
People, drop the thread and go watch somegreybloke’s Dawkins parody.
Lorryload of virtual warm fuzzy rat-hugs to Caine. Hope the clinic can help. And you can’t come back soon enough! (though not until you feel up to it, OK?)
All the best, Caine.
=8)-DX, Beware the Believers set a very high standard to Dawkins parodies. I don’t think he understood that one either.
Darn.. I guess dropping Caine and a pile of rats and hugs wasn’t a tactful suggestion. Pain can be very difficult to deal with so solicitations and wellwishes to Caine… hope things get better.
Caine:
Safe ehugs and support. Take care of you.
*poke*
Good luck, Caine.
— — — — — — — —
There is what seems like either a Poe or a juicy troll at Ed Brayton’s blog.
Science Proves Same-Sex Marriage Wrong! (not) https://proxy.freethought.online/dispatches/2013/09/17/science-proves-same-sex- marriage-wrong/#more-22556
Good luck Caine. Be well.
[TW: sexual abuse, violence, medical neglect]
So I have a post up at The Feminist Hivemind about the recent sexual abuse case at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, and how it fits into the pattern of institutionalized racism, sexism and violence in the immigration enforcement system.
I also went to a protest today in London calling for the closure of Yarl’s Wood and for a full public inquiry into the abuse of immigration detainees. We’re talking about a detention camp in which women detainees have been sexually assaulted and harassed; in which detention centre guards enter women’s rooms unannounced and deny them privacy and dignity; in which women, including pregnant women and women with young children, are expected to live in degrading and inhuman conditions; in which detainees are expected to do menial labour for far below minimum wage; and in which detainees with serious illnesses are often given paracetamol instead of adequate medical care. This is all happening on our doorstep. The Home Office tries to cover these things up; we need to speak out.
Many of these women are asylum-seekers who came here to seek protection; many of them are rape survivors, torture survivors and FGM survivors. They face hyperskepticism from the authorities, and are routinely accused of lying about what happened to them, the burden of proof being placed on them to prove that they are “genuine” asylum-seekers. This is wrong. It is not how our society should be.
POKEOw. You know the Thunderdome spans both space and time for us computers?
—
So, er, yay for me for working regular hours yesterday, and then from 1am to 8am, and then turning up at the office for the afternoon. It’s not so much that I’m confused what time it is. I’m somewhat unclear what era it is. There are large spiders. Is it the Carboniferous?
are you sure you didn’t get a job in Night Vale?
Birgerjohanssen:
I get a 404 page not found message from your link…
Tony, here is a non-borked link (I hope)
https://proxy.freethought.online/dispatches/2013/09/17/science-proves-same-sex-marriage-wrong/
There is a fun crank quoted, see the bit where he says the “vagina” doesn’t emit feces, only urine, in listing the other things that come from the vagina, he says that vaginas: “eject the occasional baby”.
…and I get a vision of the vagina as a baby toaster, “chunk”, WHAAAH!!!!
I just realised; He thinks women are marsupials!
Night Vale indeed. Here is a nice supplement: John Dies at the End (film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dies_at_the_End_(film)
I just watched that movie the other day.
Delightfully weird.
So that hot mess at Ed’s was sc-numbers. I do not recall him posting anything like that before. Rather bizarre and deeply stupid.
Jesus. Some idiot on twitter is trying to argue with me that analyzing comedy makes it not funny and ruins the enjoyment of it, and is trying to counter my response that analysis doesn’t ruin enjoyment by saying “by that measure, then men should be gynecologists in bed”. First, creepy? Second, yes, knowing which part is which definitely helps?
Tony @560: No! The sc who posts here is sc_770…, not sc_3c0…
PSA: David Silverman is NOT our ally. Please check out his current Twitter meltdown.
I don’t do twitter.
chigau – it’s more “you don’t appreciate what a good ally I am for you” kind of stuff. Telling comment: ” but if those allies block me when I’m trying to do good for them, it’s discouraging.”
I’ve never been particularly impressed by him. I remember his speech at the Reason Rally, which involved shouting “WE’RE THE MARINES OF ATHEISM!!!!” at the top of his voice. *sigh*
@ Walton
Your UK Immigration Officers are deeply creepy. I’ve noticed this since day one.
…
Very slowly, America is starting to make sense: Great Awakening.
theophontes
Have you read this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district
Wooooooo hooooooooooo fuck yeah!
Dentist appt in 30 mins.
Take that internet.
Rev. BDC
um
yay?
@ chigau
Yeah. I read up about it wrt Joseph Smith Jnr and also wrt William James writings. It is only now that I have read up about the larger context of the “Awakenings”.
Religion is a rather fascinating subject. For example: Why does it flair up so? It is much like a viral disease.
@ Rev
Hals- und Beinbruch?
I went to the dentist yesterday. I had expected something like a crown at the very least. My tooth was split down the middle (or so it seemed). Thank FSM it was just a regular filling and cost me less than $70 including x-ray. She had it all done in next to no time.
Hope everything is just as painless for you.
IIRC, Paul Johnson writes extensively about the cultural causes and impacts of religious revivals in History of the American People.
Re: The burned-over district. Must have been something in the water. In my experience, that part of New York is not egregiously weird.
Not egregiously so nowadays, unless you count a level of cynicism about religion that is rather high. I live there.
Not to say that there aren’t religious types here – there definitely are, and I’d put the place as about average in that respect.
But reactions of a “yeah, sure” to religious claims are pretty common. And people react pretty negatively to proselytization.
For what that’s worth.
@ A.E.
The fever has left them. That only makes the whole matter all the more intriguing, IMO.
@ Esteleth
This much I understand. They have bought into something and don’t want to switch brands. Essentially this is implied in “burned over”: Religious attitudes become fixed. People are sold on their brands. There are no more people sitting on the fence … the “convertible”, to be added to the religious pyre.
Attention all Thunderdomians!
The time to rebel is nigh! For too long have wee been oppressed by the Tardigradian Thought Police! For too long have we righteously worked to create true communism in our time and seen our efforts degraded by the Tardigrade! For too long have we seen our hard-won freedoms, our liquor, our mind-altering substances, our very cheese! withheld from our starving children by the mighty counter-revolutionary Tardigrade.
The time to rebel is nigh! We have seen our thread renamed and we did not whimper. We have seen the banning of multiple trolls and we did not raise a voice in protest, nay, we even cheered! the banning of such as rajkummar and Danielhaven. We have seen the proliferation of committees and even committees of committees which have all had one thing in common — Tardigradian reactionary tendencies.
The time to rebel is nigh! When was the last time the Tardigrade allowed us to lapse into text-game mode? The Tardigrade claims we must now go through WoW but withholds the cheat codes! When did we last sup the cool and nourishing depths of bad jokes? The Tardigrade claims that jokes disrupt the work ethic of his minionions but, here I am, at work, fomenting revolution (hmm, the Tardigrade may have a point there)! When did the Tardigrade last loose his control of our pharyngupharmaceuticals? The Tardigrade claims there are none left yet the Tardigrade walks into walls and giggles uncontrollably!
Who will join me in this righteous and ethical revolution to oust the Tardigrade from his position as the Leader of People’s Thunderdome Commune and reset our rights back to the days of yore when freedom, free sex, free drugs, free liquor, and unlimited amounts of BeeGees and Barry Manilow were ours to suckle? Who will join me? The time to rebel is nigh!
Oggie
Nah. Can’t be arsed.
(actually, I don’t remember which side I’m on)
(I never did get my uniform)
(or my cyberpistol)
Oggie, Your Grand Ogginess, Sir,
Permission to speak, sir. There is a rumor afoot that your humble self was in fact in cahoots with the Tardigrade in absconding with all the pharyngupharmaceuticals. Can this vileness be true O Grand Ogginess, Sir.
***methinks it is true***
chigau:
I seem to remember you were on the side of whichever grope was controlling the LOLcat Orbital Bombardment System.
And you did get your uniform. You were born in it.
That rumour, that calumninous lie beneath even the feet of a Tardigrade, was planted by the TTP in an effort to preemptively proactivate the re-reactionary consciousness of the people’s unconscious.
in bright, vivid colors too!
Including Octarine.
Especially Octarine!
As a follow-up to my #551, please sign the petition calling for a public inquiry into the abuse of detainees at Yarl’s Wood.
Oggiebrother, you had me right up until the point where you threatened to make me suckle the BeeGees.
Two of those guys are dead.
Ewwwww!!!
–
Rob @562: my bad. Thanks for the clarification.
Ogvorbis #578
I was bombed into submission.
I’m still not sure which side I’m on but I’m dead sure there are more than 2 sides.
Especially when you factor in quantumn dimensional tomatoes.
In Sweden, Lapland might qualify as a burned-over district with Laestandism and other baptist groups spreading like wildfire in the 19th century.
In the 1920s there was a strange cult that expected the world to end and an ark to pick up the believers. The cult leader got arrested for practising group sex and other cult leader stuff.Today Lapland is probably pretty average in terms of secularism being the default.
— — — — — — — — —
BTW the museum here in Umeå has an exhibition titled “Queering Sapmi” (Sapmi is the sami name for Lapland) about life as being part of a minority in a minority.
— — — — — — — — —
Journalist, blogger and musician Kristian Gidlund passed away on Tuesday after succumbing to a fight against cancer. His life and death touched millions of Swedes via his blog “In this body of mine” http://www.thelocal.se/50330/20130919/
Jeez, I don’t understand how they had the energy left for religion considering the harsh rural life in old Lapland. Bear in mind that the strict puritanism of Laestadianism prohibited a lot of the few amusements available.
Laestadianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laestadianism
Korpela movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korpela_movement.
I was referring to the music produced by the group, not the actual people.
Alcohol consumption is counter revolutionary. As is not drinking alcohol.
but did he ever define spirituality? or show how it fits in with Darwin being a plagiarist?
I am home. The studio is a mess, what with the rats being left to their own devices. Eeesh. Clean up, here I come.
A novel in twenty-four words, there, Caine.
Welcome back Caine. Hopefully the cleaning doesn’t undo the good the clinic did.
Welcome home, Caine.
Hmm.
Caine is finally home. The rats created chaos. They mutinied? The Caine Mutiny?
Never mind. Tired. Wednesday.
*huggs* Caine.
Those bilge rats!
Caine is considering mutiny as we type. What. A. Fucking. Mess.
Welcome home, Caine.
:) :) :) and *big hugs*
I do not envy you the clean-up job ahead of you.
–
*scrolls up*
*restocks hug truck*
=======================
Anyway.
It’s that time of the year again, when it’s been overdue for months that I start planning my America trip for this year.
This is crossposted from the [Lounge]; I’ll also post it to Facebook to make sure everyone sees it, but it’s probably easiest if all responses are made in the [Lounge].
Fixed points in space and time:
73rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Oct. 29 – Nov. 2, in LA.
I’ve registered and paid for that; that’s all I’ve yet done for the entire trip.
Skepticon, Nov. 15 – 17, in Springfield, Missouri.
Fixed points in space, but not yet in time:
The museum visits (at least their dates) are subject to approval. I haven’t applied for any yet.
5 days in collection of American Museum of Natural History, NYC.
Probably 5 days in collection of Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard.
2 days in collection of National Museum of Natural History, DC.
Visiting uncle in Toronto.
Visiting other uncle in Atlanta.
Pharyngulites I’d love to meet:
Just off the top of my head. Feel free to add yourselves to the list! It’s not a requirement that we’ve interacted much, or that we’ve met in meatspace before, or that you have a high opinion of your own awesomeness. :-)
…let’s try to make this from northeast to southwest… chronologically it might turn out the other way around…
This list excludes everyone whose meatspace location I happen not to know. Yet more incentive for you to add yourselves! :-) It also excludes a few people, like Caine ( + rats!) or the people on the west coast north of LA, that I have little hope of meeting for geographical reasons. :-(
HappiestSadist & meatspace friends
Esteleth, Sally Strange, Dark Infant, Al
Ms. Daisy Cutter
[oh crap, I forgot her Pharyngunym – the one with the cats in NYC, you know who you are :-) ]
Ogvorbis
Reality Enforcer, Mattir
Liriodendrons
onion girl
People who might show up at Skepticon: Jadehawk, cicely, many more! *practices pouncehugging*
Classical Cipher, Richard Austin
Question:
Rhinebeck. SOMEBODY PUT UP US THE BOMB – WHAT HAPPEN ? I mean, what happens now? Is anything planned?
carlie! I forgot carlie!
Glad to have you back, Caine.
Hope they could do some good.
++++
What the fuck is it with people lately constantly comparing women to cattle by equating misogyny with meat eating.
I’m fucking sick and tired of it. There are good arguments for vegetarianism and veganism but that’s just plain insulting.
Oh and yes, that means SC and HillaryRetting
Giliell:
Hey, people won’t figure out women are human beings until we treat the cows right!
Yeah, I know. I share your opinion as to the utility of that argument.
Giliell and Caine
amen
Giliell
It comes from a POV in which a human being shouldn’t be insulted by the comparison. To believe humans have more value than non-human animals is seen as speciesism in this POV. To compare women to cows isn’t meant to be an insult, because both are animals and should both be afforded respect and care and bodily autonomy. They’re trying to extend empathy beyond humans to what they see as a similar situation with animals, in which they are objectified and owned and forced to reproduce.
I have a lot of conflicts on this topic so I’m not arguing for this point of view, just sharing how I understand it. Those who actually hold it would be better suited for explaining it–provided they do it in a thread where it’s on topic or bring it here to the Thunderdome.
It isn’t that there is no relevance to discussions of how treatment of animals overlaps with misogyny and such – there totally is and it behooves us to remember that – it is that I’m irritated at discussions of misogyny getting derailed to discuss animal welfare.
Welcome home, Caine. I hope the pain clinic helped. What do the medics DO at a pain clinic? I hope scouring up after the ratties doesn’t undo all the good done (I hope) at the clinic.
I was also annoyed at the desire to shoe-horn religion into it too. Again, a good topic, but not actually THE topic. Along with the poor logic and the condescension towards atheists who don’t immediately buy into the poor logic, it is…frustrating.
Esteleth:
That’s because the topic of misogyny is being used as a segue to jump full into a personal pet argument. (No pun intended.) There’s no desire to discuss misogyny, or intersectionality. It’s a dishonest ploy, which is why it grates. That said, it’s perfectly fine to get into all the arguments here in Tdome, so if people want to discuss it that badly, they can feel free.
Morgan:
For me? Spinal shots. Had a series of them, the spine is now swimming in steroids.
Caine
Yeah, it does tend to come across as a bit of but what about the
mencows?I’m sympathetic, but it is a derail in many cases. If there’s a direct parallel or intersectional issues that can be discussed then it’s okay, but that’s a lot different from a segue into changing the topic entirely.
I remember one blog post by a feminist vegan comparing the arguments supporting misogyny and the arguments supporting the morality of eating meat. It’s an apt comparison, I think, demonstrating entitlement in both cases.
The author seems to only post on vegan issues though, so I’m worried that it might just be co-option.
If only all but one of those “arguments” were actually worth rebutting instead of lousy borderline strawmen…
I’m a bit pressed for time, so I’ll try expanding on my concept a bit in order to not look like a drive-by flamer.
She presents three “arguments” for meat-eating that she draws as a parallel to arguments for misogyny.
– I eat animals because I can
– I eat animals because I want to
– I eat animals because they’re made of meat
…
The only thing I could think is: that’s it? Does it even sound like what a minimally intelligent meat-eater (or even a misogynist) would argue? She calls these “mental gymnastics” when they don’t even qualify as rationalizations.
She barely touched the almost universal appeals to nature and tradition that pervade both types of discussions, for example – now that would be something worth having a somewhat interesting argument about.
Argh, feel free to ignore the previous post if you want. I’m really not in the condition to analyze shit now – I ended up excising half of it for lack of time to build the argument, and besides I have seen the objections I wanted to raise addressed in other posts by the same person. Sorry about that.
Yes? I’ve heard them many times over. No, they aren’t the best arguments, but they’re fairly common in casual conversation from what I can tell.
Oh gods. West feeding station, clean. Playstation East, clean. Playstation West, clean. Central condo, clean. West condo, cleaning. Third load of rat wash in.
The ratties are probably thinking, “Phooey! It took us 5 days to get everything just how we wanted it, then she comes in and messes it all up.”
And they’ll need alot of tea to fuel the re-peeing.
I’m afraid not. They are all happily sleeping in their nice clean spaces now. I wouldn’t mind a nap myself. Ah well, almost done now.
Chigau:
Tea they have. The re-peeing? The peeing is ongoing…slows, never stops.
Well, you could always bottle it as lager. No one would notice.
Welcome back Caine.
Daz:
No doubt. Ratweiser!
Just read Dave Silverman’s recent tweets.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18k5j277jzqwlgif/ku-xlarge.gif
I don’t do twitter and I don’t know how to read them.
I eat tweetie pies.
@Lofty@
@I@approve@.
What is his problem? Block bot blocked him so… people that don’t want to hear him don’t have to? I really do not understand.
He’s making the same arguments I’ve seen so many times before. Apparently we’re supposed to pipe down and be nice for the good of the movement. We need to put aside our “hurt feelings” and be “civil” etc….I really could flip a table. I’m going to go whip up a delicious dinner instead.
FTN
What’s for dinner, Jackie? I’m sauteing tenderized chicken breasts in butter, garlic, shallots and white wine, then adding cream and a lot of dried tarragon. Simmer very low for an hour, yum. Accompanied by assorted steamed cruciferous veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts) to be adorned with the tarragon sauce, and wild rice cooked in home made chicken stock. Oh yum, yum, yum. Cooking is a mental health activity.
Dinner here at casa la pelirroja, being must be fish Friday, is talapia, long grained and wild rice, plus creamed spinach for the redhead, and broccoli with zesty cheese for me.
Siliverman is an ass and politician. he is trying not to alienate his base the problem is his base is awful. I think we have to just admit atheism is on the worse end of the bellcurve for sexism and general douche foolery
About “fish on Fridays.” I grew up with that, even though we were not a religious family in any way. However, my mother never met a fish she would tolerate, or a veggie, or a piece of meat that was not charred beyond recognition. She ended up with awful health problems. Me, however, could eat fish three meals a day and also for desert. The only way I got fish was because of the Catholic command for fish on Fridays. And somewhere in the back of my faltering mind there resides a tidbit of info about the economic vs religious command. More later. It is late.
Caine @620:
Pislner!
If you order a Guinness in most places in Alberta, it is served cold.
Morgan
The Redhead grew up Episcopalian, and Queen Elizabeth I started the “fish on Friday” to help out the English fisheries as head of the church. The pope later appropriated the idea for the Mediterranean fisheries.
Thank you, Nerd! I knew that I knew that, somehow or other. Isn’t it peculiar how these economic/religio commands became accepted behavior in realms not religious or at all concerned with economics?
Me either, chigau.
I find them terribly confusing.
I’m sure that it’s actually easy-peasy, or there would be a lot fewer Twittererererers, but….
–
I remember the horrible breaded fish slabs that used to be standard Friday fare for school lunches.
*yucky-face*
–
Actually, at casa la pelirroja, it has been more that the Redhead heard my “just put the damn fish on the plate” to mean I don’t eat fish (rather than it isn’t my first or second choice, so do your job as cook and cook it). I just see no reason Friday needs to be anywhere near the decision to eat fish. Since her stroke, it has become a ritual to serve “fish on Friday”, but it can be expanded to any seafood. For example, shrimp can be substituted.
FunFact: For Othrodox christians, fasting is mandatory (health permitting) for about half of any given year. Fasting means you are basically vegan, no meat, no dairy, no olive oil, no fish. Other sea life is treated differently. Shellfish is totes cool, octopus, shrimp, no problem! They are considered more insects than meat, and can be had during fasts.
/ending off topic religious facts
Who’d a thunk a bar stool could be so dangerous?
The weird thing is the persistence of the fish=Friday thing. Not just the diners that offer clam chowder as the soup of the day every Friday, and never any other day. (They tend to go through a rotation: if there was lentil soup last Tuesday, there will be lentil soup next Tuesday.)
A year or two ago, I noticed one of the halal food trucks in midtown Manhattan, which mostly sold chicken, lamb, and falafel, had a hand-written sign offering fish sandwiches as a Friday special. I think it’s just “we have fish on Fridays because people always have fish on Fridays,” no religious and only the vaguest of cultural reasons. I suspect that people who are still seeking fish–or avoiding meat and poultry–on Fridays for religious reasons wouldn’t trust a halal food truck.
Now I’m picturing Silverman in full Steve Balmer mode…
@ Ogvorbis #575
It is not wise to taunt a tardigrade in tun!!!
{The Scene: The video drone footage cuts to the centre of a large theatre-in-the-round, there a single beam illuminates a petri-dish of dried moss. Servos whirr and the foreground focus blurs. We become aware that the stage is surrounded by a giant mosh-pit of suffering: Disemvowelled comments lie bleeding, broken fragments of bigotries, and the bones of shattered arguments make up a scene of utter devastation.
The video drone rises and rotates, its monitors now taking in the cavernous vastness of the Thunderdome. Rising higher and higher the images record its search for something. As the cameras zoom in, what had appeared to be the smooth, spheroidal perfection, now reveals spawling concrete and rust. High above the sounds of groaning and gnashing-of-teeth, the sound goes over to that of cracking ice, ripping through the vast edifice.
The camera picks up what it was looking for in the very apex of the dome. A cold, rusted manhole cover. Zoom in to the middle of that to find a single drop of moisture, distilled from the essence of discontent, at the very point of precipitating. It’s surface reflecting all that is below.}
@ chigau
You are still 2IC! Have no fear, I have it on good authority that the uniforms are being shipped as we speak.
@ Caine
Ouch. Your treatment sounds painful. I trust things are much improved.
Theophontes:
It’s not bad. I do get strapped to a rotating tilt table, which is serious cool, and get to watch my spine, live on monitor *oooh* during the injection. It should buy me a week or two of pain free back area.
Today I discovered the existence of Native American Young Earth Creationism.
Jadehawk:
:eyeroll: So, “Native American”, meaning the usual generic lump of Indian, as usual?
Just gunna introduce the resident furries cos I can.
I obviously can’t type better…the eyeroll was for the creationism, the question was whether or not it was tribe specific.
as far as I could tell, the author was using the creation myths of several tribes, though not as interchangeable lumps, but in the “look at all these different groups telling about the same event!” sort of sense. It’s not Christian YEC, but it has some of the same stuff in it (dinosaurs and humans living together, global flood, etc.).
I only got as far as “I don’t understand how glaciers move, therefore no interclacials” before giving up on trying to figure out what’s going on, though.
Jadehawk:
Oh. Yeah, I’m familiar with that nonsense. Look, creation stories, they all haz this stuff, it’s a sign, you know, goddidit. Yep.
Citation needed.
(In the quotes below the emboldening of the dates is mine.)
It does seem to be the case that “In 1563, by an act of Parliament, Elizabeth proclaimed that her countrymen had to eat fish on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. …”
However, another source claims that when “Edward VI, took over in 1547, fast days were reinstated by law” (Henry VIII’s break with the pope, starting c.1530, had turned fish-eating into a political act and apparently caused a significant reduction in the amount of fish being eaten).
The above sequence suggest fish-mostly(? -only?) on Fridays was a common practice in England prior to the 16C, was interrupted during the first-ish half of the 16C, but was reinstalled by two or more laws during the 16C.
In addition, the second source quoted above also claims:
When the practice started in the raping children cult seems a bit vague but various sources I don’t consider too reliable all imply it dates back to quite early in the cult’s history and may have pre-man-nailed-to-a-tree origins.
Caine! Glad you’re back.
David!!! :)
I can’t afford a full Rhinebeck-a-looza, but I could go for the day. Or if it turns out that the geographic locations of people who want to all get together skews in another direction than that part of the state, we could find something to do elsewhere that is central to whatever that group is.
Gp[d ,prmoomg/ Ja[[u
[moves hands on keyboard]
Good morning. I hope y’all are having a good day.
I think I have mentioned this before but, what the hell, repetition seems to be what I’m good for. I really don’t like dreaming.
And I just shattered a tooth. A molar. And, from the location of the ache, I think I split the root.
Ogvorbis:
OUCH OUCH OUCH. Aching in sympathy, hope you get fixed up quickly.
Ohhhh shit. Hope you can get to a dentist asap if not sooner. Ugh. Got any good analgesics in the house?
Dang Oggie, my sympathies. Hope you get some good painkillers.
Oggie
Ohh, ouch. On the dream front, if I could give you my own lack of dreams, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
There are only three times I have ever collapsed like a limp noodle onto the ground. The first time was when I had a kidney stone. The second was when I strained my MCL. The third was when I let a molar get too far decayed. My sympathies to Ogvorbis.
=====
Just an observation here on the Scholars thread: cdds singled out starlets (as opposed to stars) to juxtapose with athletes for the purpose of diminishing the contributions of those two groups in a utilitarian sense. I’d say that such comparisons and complaints strikes a similarity to the primitives of a certain meme, that of the nice guy deserving attention but not getting it due to jocks and cheerleaders being so damned unfairly discerning. It may just be me reading too much into it or it could be a subtle psychological tell.
Ogvorbis,
Yow – sympathies for the shattered molar. I’ve found my own much-patched-up teeth increasingly liable to crumble as I age – I’m likely to need an extraction of an upper front incisor very soon.
So, it wasn’t really that Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn – it was all a piscine conspiracy!
Fix for accuracy:
That just rang a few bells for me. The gender association correlation between both comparison groups is well defined for all (and specifically spelled out for ‘starlets’). Just something I found neat. Thank you for making me aware of this type of reflexive thought pattern.
Absolutely. I mean, how would you like being dunked in wet slimy goo (contents and origin unclear, do not be confused by the name “batter”) and then tossed into a vat of boiling tar (again, do not be confused by the name “oil”), then served with similarly-abused potatoes (plus lots of what is called “vinegar”, either to hide to hide the taste or kill off the peas) and called “the national dish”.
Sounds fishy to me.
———-
My molar is not hurting right now. Even after eating lunch (salmon in a basil cream sauce with orzo, carrots and peas), no pain. I’m sure at some point it will shift out of position again and I’ll be back in the pain. And, meanwhile, my tongue is endlessly fascinated with the sharp parts of the broken tooth.
Walton@582,
Signed.
Oggie,
Oh, tooth owies are bad, bad owies. Please get fixed soonest.
Re “noshing fish on specified days” My guess is that it all stems from that fishes and loaves bunk way back when. Myths be persistent buggers.
Happy Autumnal Equinox everyone. It is my favorite time of year. Not too cold, not too hot, just right.
I suppose you could say the same thing about spring, but I look better in fall colors than I do in pastels.
Ogvorbis, I’m so sorry. Much sympathy. And still loving you.
My understanding is that fish did not count as eating meat because it was thought that fish reproduced asexually, that the eggs were created by the water. After all, if you have a brand new pond with no fish in it, the fish magically appear (eggs, of course, carried on the legs of water birds).
Fish and other sea type foods were often associated with the poor, as well. People have always tended to have weird ideas about food. I don’t care for fish much, even though I grew up during the Catholic ‘fish on Fridays’ business.
During WWII, when my dad was young, he lived with his parents just outside of DC. They sent him to relatives up in coastal Maine during the summers (his parents both worked for NIH (or whatever the equivalent was at the time) and, what with the war and all, they had no time. His relatives in Maine had a farm near the coast. And they augmented their meagre earnings via lobster fishing. Dad remembers lobster omelettes for breakfast, lobster salad sandwiches for lunch, and lobster stew, lobster over noodles in cream sauce, steamed lobster, lobster stuffed with more lobster and baked, and every other way you can imaging cooking a lobster for dinner. Lobster was, in coastal New England, poor people’s food. And, even today, retired up in Maine, he still is not wild about lobster.
If I recall, poor 18/19th century Londoners rioted over the fact that all they had to eat was oysters.
How times change …
Nick Gotts: Thank you!
Funny you should say that, Ogvorbis … my late grandmother used to tell us that when she was a girl (Jewish family in London) the cheap go-to food was smoked salmon. That she and her siblings would be pretty sick of the sight of it on their plates yet again. Hard for me to get my head round that! (even harder to get my head round a glut of lobster, blimey).
Walton, I forgot to mention – I did too, when I saw the link you posted earlier.
Is Tom Flynn’s lead editorial, The Left Is Not Always Right, in the latest Free Inquiry magazine from CFI acceptable (Oct/Nov 2013 issue)? Tom makes the following points:
(1) Leading leftist intellectuals have been dead wrong in the past.
(2) Postmodernism is bunk
(3) Secular Humanists have always enjoyed diversity of political opinions, including libertarianism and conservatism.
(4) To take gender activism as an example: While first and second wave feminism is admirable, third wave has highly questionable tenets.
(5) Some social justice movements rely on “woo”.
(6) There is controversy among unbelievers on some social justice movements, and that is how it should be.
(7) National unbeliever organizations should understand that their members have a variety of political opinions.
(8) We should acknowledge our diversity and learn from discussion.
(9) We should concede that we don’t have to agree.
It’s rather indirect, but it clearly implies that there are opinions on feminism different than those held here, opinions all the way to conservatism, that are respectable and that we can all learn from discussion. It seems to contradict Greta Christina’s op-ed in the previous issue that the status quo should be unacceptable to all reasonable people and her statement that we are trying to get people to admit they are wrong. What do you all think?
Sure there are. Opinions are like assholes, they proliferate. Considering your history here, why don’t you just spare us all and get to whatever your point is? Saves time and aggravation.
I think I wonder why you aren’t asking this at Greta’s blog.
NEW THREAD.