This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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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
Tethys
Urgh. Yes. Aside from the fetishization of the Sexually Irresistible Black Man stereotype, it really served as a grand illustration of how absurd it was that all of the other characters were visibly indistinguishable from modern day northern Europeans. Well, visibly indistinguishable from extremely tall and sexy and lacking-in-much-body-hair modern day northern Europeans.
1. My sister and I found a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear in a box of books that my parents were sending to Goodwill when I was about 11. We purloined it, and over the course of several weeks took turns reading it to eachother in secrecy, laughing ourselves into muted conniptions. A crappy book that I have terrific memories of.
2. I just finished The Handmaid’s Tale for the first time. Wow. I wish I had read that sooner.
@cm, 18:
I am not sufficiently immersed in physics to recognize this special case of d = Vi*t + .5*a*t^2, but I did get it pretty quickly.
Thank you for the serious, serious laugh.
There is an antidote to Ayla and her swain, you know.
Please start with People of the Wolf by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear. They are archaeologists. They are also intelligent and erudite folks. I used to drink beer with them many summers ago.
The book picks up the journey of a neolithic tribe just after they have crossed the Bering Straight land bridge and try to venture south in search of game. Their main obstacle is a mighty wall of ice that seems uncrossable. The characters are believable, the magic seems quite normal from their point of view and the whole is full of archeological lessons that inform as well as create a sense of respect in the reader for the survival skills and deep knowledge of those people of the past.
The dialog is surprisingly sophisticated. To hear it spoken anywhere today would be unremarkable but when I was first reading People of the Wolf I found it slightly odd and I brought it up with the Gears one evening over beers at the local saloon. “They sound too much like modern people in their speech to me”, I ventured.
Kathy fixed me with a bemused expression and [paraphrasing from memory here] with kind patience said, “You know, don’t you, that they had the same brains that we have today? They had the same intellectual tools that we have. Really, these tools aren’t something new, some recent invention. We, today and for millennia, haven’t anything to brag about when it comes to brain power.”
The Gears are nothing if not prolific with some forty odd books between them. If the setting and period of Clan of the Cave Bear are intriguing to you, please avail yourselves of the ongoing series of “people” books which now number sixteen. I’ve only read the first four but they were of consistent quality and most enjoyable. Plus they have the added pleasure and utility of leaving the reader a little more educated about North American archeology and much more respectful of those who came before.
Plus, you’ll get that nasty taste out of your reading mind! ;^>
Go here.
I felt myself micro-blush as I read this.
♥
Whereabouts in meatspace are you? Alternatively, are you coming to Skepticon?
Fun fact: Poland drifted east for a thousand years till Stalin put it back to where it had started. Western Poland is now mostly settled by people who speak some mixture of eastern dialects.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwww.
Wouldn’t surprise me. :-)
Paleolithic. Neolithic means there’s agriculture.
I was gifted a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear by Racist Grandma. Which…prepped me for its content.
I was not disappointed in that.
And yes, I there is someone in my life I refer to – not to her face (easy, since I haven’t set eyes on her since 1991) – as “Racist Grandma.” It is accurate. “Racist Bircher Teabagger Abusive All-Around-Jerk Grandma” would be more accurate, but that’s a mouthful.
@David M:
I am in western British Columbia – I spend time both on Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland. Still have US citizenship and cross the border semi-regularly into Wash & OR.
Any conferences will have to wait til I have disposable cash – sadly that may not be until law school is over.
Happily that is only 18 months away.
Crip Dyke, you’re welcome. :-)
I was going to go with terminal velocity (Vt = √2Gh) but time-to-live seemed … more salient.
—
David M:
That made my inner geologist twitch. :-)
That made my inner historian twitch, too. :-/
*headdesk* and you said so several times earlier today or yesterday on SciAm. I’m really bad in connecting names on the Internet with meatspace. :-(
In purely geographic terms, it’s disturbingly accurate.
Here is a cool animated map where you can watch this happen.
Map of Europe 1000 AD to present with timeline
Tethys #511
Thank you.
That animated map thingy is wonderful!
David M. @ 505 —
Paleo- not Neo-.
Erm, yes. Thanks for the correction.
Busy day, dashed it off.
Now I know the source of that lingering suspicion that something was amiss . . .
___________
I hope you have a fantastic trip when you come to the western frontier. (What’s left of it, that is.) May you return home with large tales to tell us all, many photographs and a bumper crop of new friends and connections.
Mesmerizing! Thanks, Tethys!
–
From the Department of Seventy Years Ago:
http://io9.com/watch-the-second-world-war-unfold-over-europe-in-7-minu-1440082473
Made with Microsoft Paint™. Impressive.
Brought home a Cuisinart burr grinder today. Does a nice job.
Caine, you are finally getting rid of your Scottish accent?
Caine, forwhy do you want to grind burrs?
–
Some variation on nettle soup?
–
Ogvorbis & Cicely, none of the above, and I’ll keep my lack of Scots accents, along with the occasional aye. :D According to those who know these mysteries, a burr grinder is the only proper way to turn coffee beans into ground coffee. Tried it out this evening, works very well. Mister actually drank a cup of whole coffee, brewed to proper strength. I’m impressed.
This here device: http://www.cuisinart.com/products/coffee_makers/dbm-8.html
Caine at 468:
We went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization this weekend; the entire first floor was First Peoples, and it was fantastic. Huge amounts of space and information for each nation, showing each as separate groups with their own customs and traditions and histories. I was extra thrilled to see the Tlingit area, as that was the nation that stood out the most for me when I was a kid reading my Childcraft book of indigenous americans, and I hadn’t ever seen any info on it in any museum I’d been to. Much better than anything I’ve seen in the US, and moreover the entire museum was done with the idea of evoking when people first arrived, not Europeans.
Oh, Ayla and Jondalar. My first
eroticaporn.ledasmom at 497:
The part at wich I finally couldn’t take her awesomeness was when she invented hand lotion, I think.
Surprisingly accurate fanfic.
Oh god, Mellow Monkey, that’s hilarious. “muttering about ‘lucky Thonolan'” indeed.
PZ, why oh why did you have to start a rape thread now? :sigh:
Speaking of books which definitely do not suck, I decided it’s time to re-read one which I found absolutely brilliant the first time around. Despite it being a slender volume (270 pages), the content is very dense, so it’s one of those I always wanted to read again, just to make sure everything soaked in. So, I think it’s AFK time for me with The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture by Jonathan Sawday.
I didn’t discover Auel until I was in college — I’d heard it was popular, somebody told me it was fascinating and accurate (liar!), and I was into evolution, so I gave it a shot. I was aghast. What dreck. It was the worst book I’d ever read, for a little while.
That was the year I also picked up The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, though. That was the worst. Tolkien should have staggered out of his grave to club Brooks to death with the rotting stumps of his hands.
I promise I’ll stop starting rape threads when people stop raping and supporting rape, OK?
Okay, PZ. And I know, I know. Just griping about the time, been a stressful day. I know for you, too.
PZ:
Yikes. I’ve had people try and talk me into reading Brooks, but I never have.
Oh dear. I’d nearly forgotten that The Sword of Shannara existed and now I’ve been reminded of that miserable reading experience once again.
I think I still had a copy of it floating around somewhere when my house burned down. Coincidence? I think not.
Yup.
Tolkien-zombie eliminating Brooks.
goodbrainzgood
What really galled me about Brooks is that it was my year of biochemistry: this horrible grueling courseload. A bunch of people told me it was a great book, and I held off reading it, promising myself that it would be my spring break present. It was also my goddamn birthday. So I finished my last final, stretched out on my bed, and read the first page.
What the fuck was this?
I read the second page.
The whole book is like this? WTF?
I skimmed ahead. It went on and on in the same vein, like a rotting zombie version of literature, and there was no brain to destroy. It was horrible. I actually, literally threw the book across the room, then stomped over to pick it up and dump it in the trash.
You know when Dan Brown and the DaVinci Code showed up years later, I wasn’t surprised. There are books that suck from the first sentence on, and they inexplicably get picked up by major publishers and promoted like heck, and people buy them and like them.
Terry Brooks is seriously liked by a fair amount of people, or maybe it’s just a small amount and I run into all of them.
As for Dan Brown, for the life of me, I just do not understand what it is that people actually like. It makes me more than a bit bats that someone like that can sell a fucktonne of books, when there are very good authors out there, languishing for a lack of attention.
Sword of Shannara, HURL.
Plus, illustrated by the brothers Hildebrandt.
Hurl again.
I couldn’t believe anyone could get away with Brooks’s blatant plagiarism.
According to the wiki on The Sword of Shannara:
It took seven years to rip off Tolkien, badly? Now I’m extra glad I’ve never read anything by him. That also reinforces my refusal to pay attention to the NYT bestseller list.
Huh, also from the wiki on TSoS:
I’m…amazed he said that.
Uh. Mission not accomplished?
No wonder TSoS was such utter rubbish.
I’ve made coffee every morning for more than 20 years the same way.
French- or Italian-roast beans in the freezer,
one of these,
one of these,
one of these.
Except for an epic mess a couple times a year, it’s perfect. So I don’t change it.
(Oh, except that I was recently given one of these, but a regular old stovetop teakettle works fine.)
Chas, I’ve never found the little spice grinders to do a good job with coffee beans. I do have two of those type of grinders in the house though, for spices, and they work splendidly for that. I’d be lost without freshly ground cumin.
Mmmm. Freshly ground cumin – sounds great.
Butbutbut… can you really get them clean in such a way that you can use the same spice grinder for more than one spice?
inquiring minds want to know…
Crip Dyke:
Yes, you can, but it’s a pain in the arse. Boiling water, scrub with soap, then a couple of vinegar rinses followed by more hot water does the trick. I have one that’s dedicated to cumin, so I don’t worry about it. :D
That’s right. IIRC, one of the schoolteachers (Barbara and Ian) asked “Doctor who?”, possibly in that very first episode. Perhaps in answer to Hartnell saying something like: “You can call me ‘the Doctor’.”, but my memory may be faulty here.
Walton@438,
Thanks, I actually read your excellent post before seeing this comment.
I’m too ashamed to admit how far I got in Auel’s crapic. I haven’t read any of the O’Gears’ books, but in similar vein recommend Björn Kurtén’s Dance of the Tiger and Singletusk, which deal with AMH/Neandertal contact in Scandinavia of about 35,000 b.p.
*possible spoilers if you haven’t read them follow*
The moderns are patriarchal, and generally racist in their attitude to the “trolls”, while the latter are matriarchal, extremely polite (always addressing each other using honorifics translated as “Miss” and “Mister”), and attracted and even awed by the former’s juvenile features – they refer to them as “the gods”. Hybrids are possible and often unusually gifted, but sterile (in which respect, of course, the story is outdated), and since such hybrids have low status among the moderns but high status among the Neandertals, the latter are dying out.
PZ
I know that feeling…
It’s one of the big advantages of ebooks: You can get a sample. There’s a great many books I discovered I don’t want to read that way.
++
A slow reading disappointment as a youth were the books by Wolfgang Hohlbein
Oh man I loved the first one I read. And the second one. And the third. By the fourth I had this feeling of “I’ve read this before.” By the fifth one I went reading like:
boy-protagonisz: check
benevolent police officer: check
small-scale authority-figure villain: check
the mother/ the woman: check
betrayal: check
I didn’t pick up a sixth one.
Some will regard this as heresy, but that’s how I felt about Harry Potter. Great start, but by the third or fourth I was getting really bored with reading the same narrative arc every single time.
I read _Clan of the Cave Bear_ a long time back, and may have tried a few of the others. I found a copy at a garage sale a few months ago, and couldn’t get interested enough to go on after the first few pages. The writing was just too stilted.
My mother adored the Clan of the Cave Bear books – that was around the time I learned that my mother could have very questionable taste in books. She read all sorts of great sweeping epics of dreck – anyone remember that series of doorstops named for the states ? On the plus side she did inspire a love of reading – just not reading the things that she read.
Um – The Sword of Shannara didn’t seem that bad to a kid who hadn’t read Tolkien yet. Plant a voracious reader literally in the middle of nowhere (Wyoming) with no other reading material but horse breading journals and a small stash of series romance novels and Sword of Shannara almost seems like literature. I don’t feel too bad admitting that I enjoyed it, though I would probably want to use it for kindling if I ever try to re-read it.
This also does nothing to explain the NYT or its bestseller status – except to suggest that perhaps too many people have the reading skills of elementary school students and have never really read Tolkien.
pHred:
Yes, by Jake Somethingorother. I still see those in thrift stores now and then.
I remember reading Sword of Shannara as a young teen and noticing that it was very, very, very derivative of LOTR. (As is a great deal of “high” fantasy fiction, to be honest.) Despite this I think I quite enjoyed it, though it’s been years since I read it.
As for books which are good in isolation but repeat the same plots over and over across the series: Redwall is a good example. I read all of those books as a little kid, and they’re good stories and fairly well written, but I wouldn’t advise reading more than two or three in a row – every single story has the same tropes and essentially the same stock characters. And it does get a bit dull that characters’ goodness or badness and other characteristics seem to be defined entirely by species. (The characters are anthropomorphic animals. Stoats, weasels, rats, ferrets and foxes are the bad guys, while mice, hares, otters, hedgehogs, squirrels, shrews, voles and dormice are usually good.)
? Really? There are entire journals?
I mean, I don’t begrudge anybody the occasional horsemeat cutlet, but…
(hail tpyos)
>:[
@Walton:
There was a good rat in one of the stories.
@my 554:
Blaggut from “The Bellmaker”
Kevin is right. (Blaggut was the searat who was marooned with his captain and found himself at Redwall, as I recall.)
And there was also at least one bad shrew, though I forget his name.
Please allow me to leave The Wheels Of Time.
*steps back to see if people take the bait*
Our Squidly Overlord:
Word.
–
Caine:
A wise decision! I applaud your good sense.
I wasn’t able to finish the thing, and soon traded it off for something more readable. I deeply resented that I had paid New Book Prices for it….
(Later)
Twilight.
*sound of vigorous barfing*
–
How do they make the Horses hold still while they bread them?
Fried, or oven-baked?
:) :)
–
Swimming Horses
I read the first of those, realized that it was basically a page-by page ripoff of Eddings, and went and reread the Belgariad instead.
Chester is still alive. :phew:
Dear Satan,
I am writing to ask that you designate an extra circle of Hell for those who leave saucepans to “soak” with half an inch of water in them.
Yours hopefully,
Daz
PS: Extra-hot pits for those who do this after making porridge.
Well, that will teach me not to try and type a quick note before class.
OTOH as far as I am concerned a horse breading journal would have come in pretty handy after Snickerdoodle threw me through a barbwire fence.
I blame the student papers that I am grading. :)
Caine @549
I am glad to hear that. I tried looking for them on Amazon (do you know how many books have state names in them – eek!) and started to wonder if I was hallucinating.
Yay!
–
Caine:
Good news.
Safe hugs for you and yours.
Reminds me of this.
cicely,
Fifty Shades of Grey
*runs away*
Yay for Chester!
*careful soft pets*
pHred, I may have the wrong author. John Jakes is who I was thinking of, but the whole state thing, were you thinking of books like Chesapeake and Hawaii? Because that’s James Michener.
Cicely, Ogvorbis, and Beatrice, pilamayaye from Chester and myself. He’s still not fussing about having to take his meds, so he’s feeling poorly indeed. As soon as he tries to shove a syringe in my face, I’ll know he’s feeling better. :D
Chas, you are a colossal asshole.
Do you wake up each day trying to be a complete asshat, or does it come naturally to you?
Tony @ 572, don’t let it bother you. Chas has to nit, nit, nit, not only for himself, but his pals. I don’t think it’s worth the trouble trying to explain that sexism is bigotry, therefor gendered slurs/insults come under the no bigoted slurs rule. Chas isn’t into rules, so nitting is natural, eh?
Tony
Please just hushfile him if you can’t ignore him.
He can not help it, and no amount of explaining is ever going to magically make him NT.
Non NT people are all about rules and right and wrong. It is not our fault that many aspects of social interaction are invisible to us.
Nitting is a common thing for NNT people. We literally get stuck on details, and cannot continue until the detail is understood.
Tethys, pardon me for pointing this out, but you’re projecting. Chas is perfectly aware of what he’s doing, that’s why he puts little things like “oops” in his comments. It’s a form of rebellion, I just don’t think it’s worth getting worked up about. At any rate, it’s fine to talk about how you process stuff, but please don’t make that assumption about Chas. He’s just enjoying playing rules lawyer.
@PZ, 546:
I felt the same, but I pressed on. After book 3 I was disappointed and worried that it would be 6 books of the same story arc with a 7th where the big V finally succeeds in his primary aim from books 1 & 2 only to encounter a magical version of the old 10 ton counterweight falling off the crane.
But in book 4 things ended differently – the story arc had been the same, but the ending was substantively different. I think that was the worst book for me – it coincided with a lot of adolescent angsty whining (which only got worse in book 5). While probably adding some verisimilitude, reading the angst didn’t make the books fun, and the recycled plot, well, it was the low point.
Book 5 had a new plot, though obviously the angstiness reached its acme here. 6 & 7 returned to good reads for me.
All in all, I do love the series, but cutting out a whole book (say, #3) and incorporating some of the more important character development from that book into the ones before and after would have been better from my point of view. While #2 did have essentially the same plot, the mechanisms employed in 2 reveal it to be different in important ways, and there’s good foreshadowing there.
But yeah, end of book 3 through most of book 4 I was really, really waiting for an overdue shift in plot and worrying it would never come.
The Coffee in Freezer Myth.
Arrgh. Really, Bora?
http://monicacatherine.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/this-happened/
Oh, FFS. That’s depressing (@578). And, y’know, given my level of depression, that’s really saying something, to imagine that there’s something that could make me feel even less optimistic and happy.
Fuck’s sake.
@Techys
Ok look, Chas’s problem is not that he’s Non neuro typical so how about you stop defeinding his assholery.
Because why, exactly, Tony!?
My…my pals? I honestly can’t imagine whom you have in mind here.
You don’t read so good sometimes. The whole of my point was that not every ‘gendered’ slur is ‘sexist’. It’s a real stretch to claim that calling somebody a ‘dick’ is in any way ‘bigoted’. Is it worth the trouble for me to try to explain this?
Ing: have a nice day.
(hey, where’s chigau to ask you ‘who’s “Techys”‘?)
(hey, where’s a threadcop to enforce the third-person Rule?)
Caine
Exactly. Ignoring the nitpicking as the best strategy was the central idea I was going for.
Yeah see my point, Chas’s problem is that he’s a colossal fucking asshole.
Whatever.
Fuck. Fine. Be assholes to each other and fight over stupid shit endlessly all you want.
Always, always take the bait and leave no opportunity to savage your opponent unused, for this is
THUNDERDOME
Tethys:
I would use hushfile in a heartbeat, but I have no idea if that is available on an Android phone.
Oh what I don’t get some benefit of doubt that I can’t help it like, Chas does?
Fuck off
O RLY?
not in an airtight container, it can’t.
Evidence for this counterintuitive assertion? The whole point of having a freezer is that it slows down the “break down” of organic compounds.
Oh, my. Semiliteracy of this sort does little to bolster my confidence in your source.
I don;t buy expensive gourmet coffee; I get the bulk supermarket-brand stuff. By the time it’s roasted as dark as I like it, it makes little difference imo.
Tony
I have no idea if its available for android. Im on an unsupported OS myself, and I really miss the option.
@Tethys
Sorry for telling you to fuck off
But still, jesus fuckign christ
hey, Tony!, are you going to let me know why you think I’m a colossal asshole? Or are completely groundless slurs OK as long as they’re not (gasp! clutch!) gendered?
@Chas
Eh I think that was me, and I’m bored talking about you so no.
Well, I’m totally convinced that you can’t be an asshole. Sure has been great watching you show how not to be an asshole today. I’ve learned so much! Thanks, Guru Friendly!
Ing
It is impossible to give you the benefit of the doubt if you are currently attacking me because I dislike endless acrimonious threads full of petty personal vendettas.
I believe it was PZ who compared reading those threads to taking a cheese grater to your nerves.
In other words, I do not give a fuck who is an asshole, or who isn’t an asshole, I am just sick to death of the argument.
Then how about not fanning the flames?
S’okay. I ignored that part.
Ing
I was replying to Caine and agreeing that ignoring it is the best strategy.
How is that fanning the flames? How does that involve you in any way?
Big fishy
*shakes head slowly*
unbelievable.
Anyone interested in discussing the (admittedly slightly nuanced) points that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a word being ‘gendered’ and that ‘gendered’ and ‘sexist’ are distinct concepts?
How about whether nuanced nonpersonal disagreement = being a colossal asshole? (Ing: see #572. Surprise! It’s not about youyouyou!)
eh, never mind, I’m going to go catch the end of the Dodgers game.
Look I no longer care, I’m out
Fuck off Chas.
Do you know how fresh your coffee is? Most people not buying direct from local roasters, don’t.
If you are buying fresh roasted coffee immediately freezing in deep freeze non-defrosting freezers then that link says, yep it could make a slight difference.
Buying bulk coffee of indeterminate age, freezing, removing from freezer exposing the rest to moisture and air and refreezing, not much difference.
Quick show of hands, o fearless warriors for all that is right and good arguing in this thread: When the colossal, sociopathic assholery of this place caused me to decide to walk away from posting here with a significant impact to my ability to stay slightly behind on my bills, which of you aside from Chas actually checked in with me beyond a pro forma blog comment when PZ essentially told you to?
There were two others beside Chas, and they know who they are. If your ‘nym doesn’t start with C, you aren’t one of them.
I’m still feeling the effects of having been driven away from this place by the fucking relentless shitheadedness. You people arguing: you made my fucking workplace hostile enough that I had to walk, and am now facing getting utilities shut off, etc. That’s despite the express wishes of the proprietor.
Yeah, pile on Chas for being annoying. Whatever it takes to distract you from the fact that to a first approximation, this place is full of abusive little shits. As difficult as walking away has been financially, at least I don’t have to be you.
Well. I’m glad to see you around these parts again Chris.
Sorry it is in these circumstances. And I’m sorry to hear about how things are hard for you.
Lofty, that is indeed a Big Fishy.
–
Chris, I’m sorry.
As far as I know, I didn’t contribute to the situation that led to your need to leave…but I’m still sorry.
–
Chris Clarke
I find this place full of refreshingly direct people. (except Chas and a couple of others)
Then I’m not the target so YMMV
BDC: No, I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care how fresh my coffee is. I buy the bulk beans because I can afford them and they turn into coffee that I like just fine. I freeze them because that’s what I do. It can’t possibly hurt. Also I find that the added brittleness makes them grind better.
Chris, thanks. (However, these particular horses are so long out of the barn that they’ve gone
feralWild and are subsisting on cheatgrass and locoweed.)Lofty, do you find me indirect or not refreshing? And why should I care how you find me?
btw, should any abusive little shits, or others, want to do a solid for Chris Clarke, here‘s a good place for it.
oh Sven
Chas:
Neither do I, can’t afford it. If I could, I’d be buying up Kenya AA, I love that stuff, but it’s very expensive. Well, expensive to me, at least.
I had some thoughts lately [insert ominous music] about gendered insults that are pretty close to what Chas wrote. He actually summed up nicely some doubts I had about relative sexism of gendered insults based on men.
I don’t use any of the words here, and don’t mind that they are unwanted here, but since Chas was called out for a comment about it… I’m just adding (hopefully not any fuel to the fire) my opinion.
Oh, and I buy cheap ground coffee. Habit.
Beatrice:
Yeah, I’m not too far off from both of you. Even so, if we have to call out things like b!tch and so forth, gotta call out the other side, too. It’s little difficult coming down on something like dick though, when it’s commonly used by just about everyone.
But what’s served by using the word? It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of non-gendered words we can use, so why even open that door?
Re: “dick”
As I’ve seen it, it’s entirely so we don’t appear hypocritical to our detractors that we ban all gendered insults. Our detractors don’t understand privilege and power and when we use “dick” as an insult, then they come out with the claims of hypocrisy cause we care so much about sexist terminology, but only when it’s applied to women.
It’s not worth the headache explaining relative privilege and power, so why not just ban all gendered insults?
@Chris Clarke:
I’m sorry to hear about your financial problems. Right now I can only offer *hugs* and commiserations since I’m also having financial problems.
Reasonable enough. The freezer / coffee thing is fresh* on my mind because I just got into a big argument with a family member because they turned down coffee I made at my house. They didn’t like that I didn’t freeze it.
Needless to say, familial argumentation ensued.
*yep i did that
re: “dick”
A friend of mine came up with an excellent swear word the other day: “cockwart”
Quote: “An asshole is both necessary and useful. A cockwart isn’t”
Chas @587:
Not sure if this of any relevence at all (if not, just ignore me), but it still might? Anyway, that sentence went to hell.
I smoke cigars. I buy large numbers because the good cigars are cheaper that way. Which leaves me with more cigars than fit in my humidor. On the suggestion of a friend, I put a mazzo of twenty cigars, still in the original sealed package, in the freezer.
A month later, I thawed them and tried to smoke one. It fell apart. The oils in the wrapper and binder had leached out (probably into the filler), and they were brittle and tasteless.
Luckily, they were not high-end cigars (Bahia B-lines), so no great loss. Did piss me off, though.
Caine,
Yeah, but the whole point is that the other side is really disproportionate to this side, so I’m not sure how much sense it makes to treat them the same.
And now that I’ve refreshed..
Kevin says why it makes sense.
(Except where you still have to waste time explaining to people why calling someone a dick is a no-no. )
Chas
Seconding this. If you’d like to help out with the Coyot.es Network, you can also donate for its operating expenses here.
I’m not one to easily send messages directly to people, largely because I always fear that I’d just come across as invasive and annoying and I hardly expect people IRL to remember who I am, let alone people who would only know me as a commenter online. Instead I’ve been following Coyotes Crossing through my email, and that’s rather invisible and anonymous in comparison to actual communication. I am sorry, Chris.
@ Caine
You might want to check your mailbox towards the end of the month. I have sent the ratties some bubble wrap to play with.
;D
Theophontes:
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, thank you! I’m sure any incidentals shall be appreciated by da Mister. :D
Kevin:
Yep. We had a number of complaints on that score, alone with the usual chorus of “ooer, hypocritical!” to deal with.
Chris,
I added you to G+. I’ve checked out your blog and twitter a few times. I don’t contact anyone online personally. Maybe you make it a practice to email people from here to check on them all the time. I don’t. I’ve had my own fucking problems to deal with and my own bills to pay. Shit is rough all over. If you are honestly sore that you did not get personal, individual attention from enough of the “colossal, sociopathic assholes” here, I don’t know what to tell you, especially since you seem to hold such a low opinion of us all. Why exactly would you want to hear from us if we’re such shits? Also, how Chas treated you personally has nothing to do with his behavior here or the arguments he makes. I’m sorry you’re hurting, I certainly know what that feels like. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. I wouldn’t want to make your dark days any darker, but if you think you are the only person doing a tour of their own personal hell right now, you are mistaken. I may as well have a summer home in mine and rather than see this place as awful, I see it as one of the safest spaces I have ever found. I like you, Chris. I think you’re pretty damn awesome. But, I’m baffled at your anger and where it is directed.
As to “dick”: While like the racial slur “cracker” it just does not have the same impact as other slurs because of the lack of abusive history behind it, I avoid it these days. It is still a gendered slur. I’ll call someone an infected dickhole though, much as I’d call them a butt boil. It implies that they are irritating, gross and I wish they’d go away. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know. I’m working on my behavior. It’s a process.
Chas, the arguments you are making sound just like the ones I get from people calling me “the PC police” etc. for asking them not to used slurs like b*tch and c*nt. Whenever I suggest that gendered or ablist slurs are no different from racial slurs, I tend to get dogpiled on PDQ. In fact, one man took it upon himself to follow me so that every time I left a comment, he would be there to tell everyone what a crazy, evil feminazi I was. So if people don’t want to have this argument with you AGAIN, I understand that. I am positively battle weary, myself.
Kevin, actually I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what those assholes think of me. I also avoid such slurs irl, because I actually prefer not to sound like a bigoted asshole and I believe that gendered slurs do hurt people.
Caine @570 –
This was bugging me enough that I kept working at it until I finally found them! Hooray ?
It was the “Wagons West” series by “Dana Fuller Ross” which is a publishing house pseudonym for Noel Gerson among others. There are 24 of the darn things. I finally remembered the bang at the end of the names (like Wyoming! ) otherwise this was about to totally defeat my Googlefu. Mom had some of the Michener books but they were in a different pile – with the inevitable Shogun and The Thorn Birds.
I got yelled at and told I was a terrible person because I didn’t cry at the end of The Thorn Birds miniseries. I still get a nervous twitch if I see pictures of Richard Chamberlain.
So – that was all still better than Twilight. Not sure what that means. If anything at all.
Jackie,
I contact online people personally, it’s fairly commonplace for people to do so. Whether you do or don’t though doesn’t speak to the ongoing over the top hostility which marks much of the interactions here, when it would be nice to see thoughtfulness more in play.
Pardon the formatting lack, on the road. No, not driving.
Chris,
C’mon back to Pharyngula, overlord permitting, and avoid the T’dome. Place a few strict rules on responses to your posts (like no asshattery and such) and dive in. I heartily miss your writing here although I follow your other venues. Garner some needed revenue and don’t let the bastards grind you down.
I wish you well.
You’ll need to be more specific. My behavior here dates back 7 or 8 years, to before there was a ‘here’ here, and includes, in addition to many many arguments of various degrees of acrimony, an OM, frontpage links from the ECO, and stuff like that. You probably don’t know even 10% of the relevant history, so maaaaybe you don’t know what you’re talking about? Just a thought.
But feel free to address my arguments, if you can demonstrate that you understand them.
Undeniably. My question: so what? Almost all people are gendered too. In some languages freaking spoons and pencils are gendered. So what?
No lack of consistency there! How ’bout this: you work on your process, I’ll work on mine.
Then you don’t either read or think very clearly. You missed the part, for example, where I unequivocably reject the use of sexist slurs.
(And, really, the prissy asterisks are kind of stupid. Words are just words unless they’re used as slurs.)
Racist. Ableist. Gendered. Sexist.
hmmm…Cookie Monster?
You seem to think that people have had THIS argument with me BEFORE. Can you link it? No? Then shut up; thanks.
But why do you believe this? Who is hurt and how if I call, say, John Boehner a ‘dick’, or, say, you a ‘prick’?
Chris Clarke @ 602
“Only two” people have followed?
Because when you left here I added your other site to my RSS feeder and click through there every time you post. But I comment rarely here and not yet at all there.
That seems like a silly detail for me to nitpick in the face of the rest of what you’re talking about. But I was taken by surprise by it. Off guard. Aback, even.
Spam filter avoidance.
ah. yes. of course.
That was silly of me then; I apologize.
Chas sure is a tiresome one.
When the 90% of history that people might be unaware is virtually irrelevant to whether or not your current behavior is irritating, smug assholery? A Courtier’s Reply in regard to Pharyngula commenting history? Gee golly gosh.
Have A Great Day, Sven.
Chas, I wasn’t talking to you in the first place. I’m not going to now. Go piss up a rope.
Oh wait, I did talk to you.
Sorry. I had already forgotten.
My bad.
You can still piss up that rope though.
Nitpick*: I don’t agree that “dick” isn’t sexist. However, I don’t think in most contexts it’s harmful. When you call a person a dick, you are in fact comparing a person to an anatomical feature 1) that only one sex has, and 2) for the purposes of shaming** that person. However, because people with dicks have had advantages over people without them, this is not really inclined to harm those who are not the direct target of your insult. Because their junk-situation has only been an advatage. Completely context dependent. If there were a society in which people with intromittent organs were oppressed systematically, caling someone a dick would be harmful to those whom you didn’t intend to harm.
Maybe it isn’t relevant, but I have good reasons for rarely using the term “dick” at all, much less as an insult. But these reasons are not relevant to this discussion. I have nothing to lose from dropping “dick” qua penis from my vocabulary.
Are we raising awareness here, or are we simply legislating? Because the latter is for squares.
And also, maybe it isn’t relevant to this discussion, but I think Chas adds a unique perspective to the commentariat that I have mostly enjoyed. While we’re weighing in (once again) on the merits of Chas. Perhaps that makes me a cockwart, but it is what it is.
*Heaven forfend.
**Insulting, riling, provoking, what-have-you. You’re not being nice, is the point.
pHred:
Huh. Never heard of him or those books. I guess that’s a good thing, eh?
Well, I’m gonna pour a glass of Drops of Jupiter, and catalog more books at my librarything.
Rodent of Unusual Scale.
From.
Sigh.
I think I’ll go back to my meeting.
cm:
Absolutely adorable.
Howard Bannister:
I think you may have misread Chris. He was talking about people who followed up with him personally, after his leaving Pharyngula.
Fuck it. I can’t deal. Done
I’ll leave everyone alone
soothing cuteness for Ing and anyone else who needs it. Baby tapir and a sweet kitty named Caine.
Tethys:
Well, that’s all kinds of wrong…
;)
My “current behavior” was not specified. I asked for specifics. You’re not supplying them either.
Look, I just don’t buy straight assertions, from anybody about anything, but especially vague ones without clear referents, and most especially vague ones without clear referents about me. If you can’t explain why you think what you think then you ought to keep it to yourself, in my view. And if you can’t or won’t respond to direct questions or requests for clarification about what you just said, then why in the everloving fuck are you saying things in the first place? (eh, Tony!?)
ow! My eye-rolling muscles!
AE: thanks, ya cockwart.
Anyone else want to take on the duty of writing the essay that is apparently required to explain to Chas why he comes off like an ass?
So.
Cute.
!
–
I’m of two minds on the use of “dick” and “prick” as slurs.
On the one hand, it is undeniably comparing a person to a reproductive body part (but one that doesn’t have opprobrium comparative to the female reproductive organs that are pejoratively analogous), and one that many of the owners themselves endow with quasi-Magic Powers and cast as a symbolic stand-in for the man himself. On the other hand, how is this not punching up, which is acceptable, with, again, the penis as proxy for the man, and for The Man (and for The Agency And The Privilege for Which They Stand)?
–
Antiochus Epiphanes, #633:
Given all this, it’s not clear to me why you consider it sexist, so I’ll share my perspective on it.
It seems to be implied that dicks are instruments of aggression/oppression. They’re for raping, or otherwise “getting your way (inappropriately),” as the dick/rape metaphors already tend to be stretched way beyond the scope of sexuality or even sex crimes. Compare it to how “pussy” is used as passive, prone to or deserving of victimization. So I’d say if you call someone that, you’re (perhaps inadvertently) supporting that concept of dickishness. Indeed, what other insulting concept of it is there, besides the absurdly-literal meaning of “male genitalia,” if not the stereotypes about masculinity and gender roles and assorted other sexist bullshit? Is it solely or primarily men who are harmed by it? Probably not, but it does also harm them. In any case, looked at this way, whether or not men are oppressed systematically is beside the point, because they (I should say “we”) wouldn’t need to be the ones harmed in order for it to be harmful.
In most contexts, I don’t think people really think about it all that much. But those implications are nevertheless still there, in the atmosphere so to speak. So as usual with language or concepts, what real effects it has may not be utterly clear or easy to identify, but it certainly isn’t a positive way of making people think or talk about themselves.
I’d say referring to penises themselves with the word isn’t really a problem, at least as long as the people concerned in the conversation are comfortable using it. Some prefer certain terms, many don’t especially care, and there doesn’t seem to be much to talk about in terms of ethics on that front, since it’s hard to see how that could cause any real harm. I don’t like the sound of the word so I don’t use it, but that’s just an aesthetic preference of mine which doesn’t harm me (or apparently anyone else) if it’s violated. (Consider it literally a claim about “tone.”)
However, talking about people as dicks definitely changes the meaning, as I tried to say above: by depersonalizing them as a body part, it’s attributing to them that part’s functions or purposes or properties (or what someone thinks those properties are). I guess it’s possible someone thinks of dicks as gross-looking or dirty or some property like that, but I’ve never seen it applied to a person that way. Nor have I seen anyone called a “penis” for that matter, probably because it doesn’t carry the right sort of aggressive connotations, even though they’re (at least ostensibly) supposed to mean the same thing.
Nasty Dan
Tethys #647
Did you see?
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2013/10/16/lullaby-time/comment-page-1/
Chigau
I did!
Johnny Cash and Oscar the Grouch was a perfect unexpected find, how could I not share it?
@consciousness razor:
I’ve heard people called penises before.
By five-year olds, but still.
Caine @ 639
You’re entirely right. Thanks.
Caine @634
Nope, I don’t think you are missing anything much. I would be terrified to imagine how NDN or First Nation people would be portrayed in them. It’s probably terrible since the ‘hero’ is a wagon master.
Strange thing is that this is making me long to go visit Mesa Verde – it was one of my favorite places as a kid. I loved running around in the cliff houses there.
—— * * * ——
Giliell, in case you are interested …
My daughter’s new clothing came in the mail yesterday. She likes the tops (whew!) but we tried the leggings and they lasted for about 15 seconds before she became hysterical and needed to pull them off (sigh). She tells me that they bonk on her legs and it doesn’t feel good. She won’t even keep them on long enough for me to figure out what that means. The underwear touched her belly (too high) so that isn’t looking good either. The worst thing about this is that she doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe the problem and I don’t know how to help her. She feels terrible about all of this and gets reduced to tears in the morning most of the time.
So – I have a half dressed daughter and we are still late to school every morning. It was so much easier in the summer – she could wear soft shorts or skirts. She still wants to do that but is going to freeze to death if I let her. I am running out of ideas. Tights are “too tight” … pants are too scratchy … we were really hoping that the cotton leggings would work.
cr: I hadn’t thought all that carefully about why I find the use of “dick” to be sexist, but I like to think if I had, I would have come up with the same argument that you articulate above. Or something like it.
I never use the word “dick” to describe an actual penis for aesthetic reasons, the same way that I never refer to feces as a “poo-poo”. I’ve kind of turned over a new leaf, where I’m trying not to think the worst of people all the time*, and part of that is refraining from insults**…so, “dick” as a formerly rarely used pejorative is now a never-used pejorative.
*This is for my own mental health more than anything else.
**Although I seem to still give offense readily enough. The point is, I’m not trying to.
Confession: I’ve never used the word “bitch” as a pejorative*, but I have difficulty ridding myself of “son of a bitch” as an expletive. I must say this to myself 30 times a day.
*As an adult anyway. I may have as a kid, but only in the early phases of learning to be profane. It was in my vocabulary as a verb until fairly recently (5-6 years).
anteprepro:
No. As Chas stated, there’s a lot of history at work here. Besides, Chas may be an ass, but so are a lot of people here. I’m an ass much of the time. I am trying to improve on that (as in not being such an ass), and it’s slow work.
Also, I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, outside of a few touchy subjects, Chas’s contributions are often very good ones and I’ve learned a lot from him over the years. When it comes to those contributions which simply cause an eyeroll, eh, eyeroll and move on. For those who simply can’t cope, I suggest using a killfile.
Caine, as much as I admire you, I don’t think you’re an impartial monitor.
Weed Monkey,
To be fair, who would be?
Weed Monkey:
I’m not speaking as a monitor. Thunderdome is a specifically monitor-free space. I’m speaking as another member of the commentariat, that’s all.
And no, I am not impartial either. I suspect it’s a large part of why the monitor system makes me nervous. In any event, frequent commenters carry weight with others that grows from our past words here, Chas no less than others. That the words I remember most vividly from him differ from those that affect others here is an almost certainty, to be reminded of this difference seems a good place to start.
Dhorvath,
Seconded.
Caine,
I suspect you know I don’t believe you, or any other monitor, can do this.
Dhorvath:
Which is why, in the Off Topic/Monitor thread, it was decided that the monitors will go with standard templates, reminding people of the comment rules, and that’s all. That doesn’t leave room for personal opinions when the monitor hat is on. When it’s off, we are allowed to comment as plain folks, and that includes our opinions on whatever.
Exactly. We are all seen differently by different people, and of course, some people latch onto to certain things said, while others latch onto other things said, which are completely different. *shrug* I don’t think one view should necessarily weigh over the other, but that’s me.
Dhorvath:
Well, that’s your privilege. I’m not going to waste nth amount of time trying to convince you otherwise.
Caine,
I am not trying to argue that you ought not comment in the Thunderdome, I realize my last comment may read that way. My apologies.
It’s bloody jarring seeing Sven’s BS pass by just because.
Timing. Sigh.
Weed Monkey,
Fair, I haven’t been involved in the whole conversation. Back to lurking then.
Dhorvath
Here is where I get confused. I mean, really? I respect Caine a lot, so I admit I probably sometimes give more weight to her words than somebody else’s, but that also depends on the circumstances, topic, other participants of the conversation, how good was my day, etc. Her monitor status doesn’t come into it.
I won’t argue that it can have an effect on newbies who read the monitor list and now worry about stepping on wrong toes, but doubt how much it really affects people who have been here longer and know each other.
Beatrice,
I have stepped on enough toes for the morning. I walked this path with Caine before, she has made it clear she doesn’t want it walked again.
I guess I should have refreshed before posting.
Dhorvath, don’t feel obligated to answer if you’d rather discontinue this line of conversation. I’d also rather you didn’t go back to lurking.
Dhorvath, no apology needed. We’re good.
Weed Monkey:
Because? Because why, he’s a member of the commentariat? Because we have no rule about someone being an ass? Because…
Also, I guess we aren’t reading the same page, because I haven’t seen Chas getting a pass on his comments or his attitude, or anything else. If you feel like telling him he’s full of shit, go for it, no one is stopping you, and no one is under any obligation to let it pass.
I simply think it’s a waste of time and energy, and Chas has contributed constructively in the past, even does so now, in between grouses and grumps. I’m not saying that just for the hell of it, either. Chas has singled me out many a time to be the target of sheer assholery, and it’s gotten under my skin plenty. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t contributed here.
I don’t care if people want to continue arguing with Chas. Argue away, please! I simply dropped my pennysworth into the matter.
… and again
Dhorvath:
Huh? You’re free to talk with me all you like. As for stepping on toes, mine are fine, didn’t get anywhere near them.
How different do you think this is from before there were official monitors?
I sent emails to PZ before I was “given permission” to do so.
I think I’m the one who should leave. Ah, I have much shit to do anyway.
I’m sooooo sllllooooooow toooooday.
So: cute sloths
Caine,
♥ to you and the rattlets.
Yay sloths.
Beatrice:
Aaaaw, thank you. ♥ to you, too. Little Beatrice was working her adorableness this morning, getting me to hand feed her scrumptious baby food. She’s a charmer, that one.
Or was that a typo? Slors
On that note, my rats will now take food from my face, for a while they wouldn’t even visit my hands for treats.
:wanders into studio, looks at shelf which needs cleaning up, and organizing:
Oh gods, I don’t wanna.
Just wanted to remind everybody that not everyone with a dick is a guy.
Meanwhile, I laughed at Antiochus Epiphanes comment about not using words like “dick” and “poo-poo”. While I do use words like “potty”, “poo-poo” and “boo-boo” regularly because of my kids, I’ve never called male genitals a “dick” in front of them. We don’t use nick names for their body parts. It’s for practical reasons, but I confess that hearing a small child with a speech impediment try to say “testicles” is adorable. I’m not laughing at the connection between childish words and nick names for our junk. I’m laughing because I sometimes wonder when I’m going to be among other adults and call a train a “choo-choo” or ask if anyone needs to go potty before we leave. I already speak to the kids in one word commands when I’m super tired. “Here. Stay. Cookie?”. I blame that on too much time running around with my dogs. To make matters worse, the hubster and I seem to have developed our own language over the years, consisting of quotes and inside jokes. My chances of ever sounding like an articulate adult dwindle a little more everyday. Oh well. : /
I don’t know about anyone else, but when someone has irritated or even pissed me off in the past, that taints future interactions I have with them. Sometimes little to no attempt is made to view the situation on its own terms. Rather, baggage from the past infects decisions in the present. Having read the comments in the Dome over the last few days, I came to realize I made a mistake.
Chas:
I apologize for calling you a colossal asshole. That was uncalled for and unwarranted. I’m sorry.
Thank you, Tony; I appreciate that.
We’re good.
Sounds as if she’s grinding out a stat increase in am RPG.
“If I wiggle my nose 120 more times, I’ll have enough points to level up my adorableness. That’ll give me a +2 bonus to any charm human roll.”
Confession: “bitch” was never a major player in my arsenal of profanity, but I often find myself muttering “sonofabitch” as an involuntary expletive (rarely a pejorative). I want to stop that. The most effective approach thusfar seems to be in favoring other expletives. But still. I have a long road.
Dhorvath:
D’aaww, they trust you. Amelia will run right up, pry your mouth open and steal whatever your eating, on basic principles of thievery. That, and the assumption that anything we’re eating must be good.
@ Tony
If it cheers you any, I have had huge, HUGE, disagreements with Chas. Rather embarrassingly, I cannot remember what my arguments were. I guess I’ll just leave it at that then.
Shit. I submitted two comments with the word “b*tch”* in them, and neither appeared. I though maybe it was my browser, which often does such shit to me. I realize now that they probably went to moderation. Apologies, PZ for the hassle.
*But the full orthographic entity.
LykeX:
They are bloody born with that in play!
I am really avoiding that shelf…
“If you can’t [or won’t] explain why you think what you think then you ought to keep it to yourself, in my view.”
what? nah. I think you mean ‘inferred’, not ‘implied’. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but your interpretation is, I think, far from universal.
So awesome. I get off on imagining the existence of other such places up some isolated slot canyon someplace that haven’t been found since their abandonment.
Ever been to Chaco Canyon? Also awesome.
lol. You call this shitshow “passing by”? And this was for making a substantive point that has actually generated useful and interesting discussion!
Caine, while I have no doubt that that’s true from your perspective, and probably from an objective perspective (and, ok, once or twice from my own perspective), you should know that the reverse is also true (from, obviously, my perspective). Nevertheless I do appreciate the kindish words above.
I have opinions about every frequentish commenter here. Some I respect and like a great deal. Some I don’t respect and actively dislike. Some I respect but don’t like much. There’s a few for whom I can’t muster much respect but kind of like anyway. And there’s plenty who move around among categories. I try to take people as they come to me, and I see no point in explicitly sharing my opinions.*
That’s why I requested that my own personal rule (no talking about other commenters in the third person) be instantiated in Teh Rulez. Because there’s no good but much harm that can come of it.
*(except in a couple of rare cases when I was moved to tell somebody directly what I thought of them because they had seen fit to do the same to me. But I can only recall doing this at Ing and Josh, and maybe? Caine and probably sgbm back in the day. And there ended up being no point to it, so I won’t do it again.)
NEW THREAD.