Instead of Johnny Depp & Meryl Streep, it'll probably be Steve Buscemi & Jessica Walter playing your parts.

Only one of them is performing at the Pussycat Lounge.

Be careful about the pronoun tense when you write that down. We don't know whether Karol's friends were slumming.

I think it might have been Thursday's paper.

It's very strange reading about your home in the news - we had a fire down the street, and saw it on the news at the same time as seeing it out the window.

So, you are a hypocrite? Duly noted.

If you say you weren't slumming, I have to believe you.

Now, where does this hypocrisy supposedly come in?

Are the different floors in my house occupying different realities? (Anyone who's heard us discuss the previous owner's notions of home repair might think so.)

Are my computers checking into different internets?

Is one of my computers a neo-con Republican? (They're both Macs, but I suppose that doesn't mean anything.)

It's very odd.

Karol, I know this will come as shocking news to you, but:

1. Musicians generally perform where they get gigs.

2. It's not generally liberals who spend all their time lecturing other people about Family Values or Sex Bad Sleazy Dirty. Liberals, in fact, generally maintain that other people's activities are their own business, as long as it's all voluntary and no one is getting hurt.

So, no, there's no hypocrisy in liberals being in a strip club, or in liberals snickering at that sight of a gang of "conservative girls" wanting to eat their cake and have it too--have the thrill of going to such an obviously sleazy place in a sleazy neighborhood, and still pat themselves on the back for being too good for that kind of place. Well, no, you're not too good for that kind of place. If by chance you didn't know when you set out, you knew well before you got there that it wasn't the kind place you were going to be telling Mummy and Daddy about over breakfast.

Ah, you've been hit by a handy-jerk, too, eh?

The guy who did the work on our house did well-crafted, meticulously built shit. As in "why the shit did he do it that way?" The house has two main electrical lines, one on the left side of the house, one on the right. It was apparent that our handy-jerk rewired the house at some point, with a new fuse box and everything to include 220 for the a/c, ... and left the house wired with two main sides, one on the left... *sigh*

I haven't heard your stories, but you have my sympathy.

Looking at the earlier events, the place looks outright criminal, a hive of scum and villainy, and an owner named "Gabriel Bertonazzi" would likely provoke helpless editorial giggling if seen in a work of fiction. It sounds the sort of place that an undercover Lensman would enter

knowing

Luckily, no Police Forces in the US have yet taken to using duodecaplyatomate, and trained Rigellian Cateagles are in short supply.

Anyway, sleazy isn't really the word.

Can we refer to is as a Zwilnik den?

More on topic, I'm very sorry to hear that this happened, and I hope that nothing further comes of it.

Have you noticed that there's always a strange stench lurking around when certain people come around to "defend" themselves? Kind of like the stench in Teresa's basement.

I think it's clear from her comments here that she wasn't slumming. She's obviously the sort of conservatarian with little patience for the sex-negative and drug-paranoid types who show up at places like JusticeSunday.com, for example.

The telling thing, it seems to me, is that, of all the myriad strip club venues in the great city of New York, she would choose to visit one with such a poor record of labor-management relations. Perfectly consistent with the conservative ethical system, when you think about it.

As a good leftist, I always "look for the union label" when I choose a strip club to visit. If it's not SEIU, then it doesn't get my money. So, it's helpful to know, for the next time I visit New York, that Sweet Cherry is 1) not a union shop, and 2) frequented by annoying conservative bloggers. I'll definitely avoid the place.

Teresa: You're not performing at the strip club, correct? Patrick's band is performing at the strip club? Are you in Patrick's band, as well (well. Not that it's "Patrick's band," as in he's the creative force behind it, but more in the sense that I simply associated the music with Patrick, that's all)?

Karol: are you from Brooklyn, or from Russia?

I thought the point of the end of the post was to note the connotation's in which the Sweet Cherry's been mentioned in the blog world. And I think the key word in that part of Teresa's post is "disingenuous." In each post by Karol and Jessica, the experience is spoken of with the "hee hee" tone, and the second-to-final sentence is what nails it. Jessica's blog posits the question: "How do you know you and your three nearest and dearest girlfriends just walked into a shady strip club in Sunset Park, Brooklyn?"
The answer, of course, is none of the ones proposed; the answer is that you don't know you just walked into the shady strip club. The answer is you know you're *going* to a shady strip club, and you know so *well* ahead of time. I'm quite nearly certain it didn't "Seem like such a nice place... until you noticed the bullet holes in the door." I'm also nearly certain that Jessica knew she was in a shady place long before she was asked if she and her friends were making a documentary. The tone of the post smacks of the "slumming" vibe: slumming, in this sense, used to mean deliberately visiting a "shady" venue not for the purpose of having a good time but rather to experience, vicariously, the shadiness. Then waking up the following morning in your own bed, going to work at your political pr gig, and blogging about the experience. (I also read some of the seeking of hipster credibility in the posts)

Not to mention, in Jessica's blog, there's a post about a bachelorette party. "Can someone tell me why a bunch of girls would think a good way to spend an evening is to shell out a hundred bucks for vomit-inducing food and dancing transvestites?"
Dancing transvestites sound like far more fun than bullet-holes. But that may be just me.

Jason: if you follow the links to the blogs, especially Jessica's, I think you'll see what Teresa means. I don't think "strikingly stupid" is a "bush league tactic." Although, "vapid" might have been a better adjective, or maybe "vacuous," or even a third or fourth v-word.

(wearily remounts soap box) One of the fundamental, perhaps the most fundamental, motivations of the "Right" is sexual hysteria. Look at their "issues": abortion is evil because it interferers with God's punishment for sex; homosexuals are evil altogether, and probably have more fun sex lives than we do; sex education (the surest, cheapest way to cut abortion rates) is evil because it's about sex; etc., etc.

It's about punitiveness and control. Sex is about being out of control. There is no more evil than interfering with the punishments for sex.

Wilhelm Reich used the term "emotional plague", and while he didn't have much in the way of constructive suggestions*, I really like the term.
* (Toward the beginning of the Bush II Administration, I re-read Mass Psychology of Fascism hoping for practical advice. It sharpened my understanding, but wasn't much use tactically.)

Dancing transvestites sound like far more fun than bullet-holes. But that may be just me.

Same here. I've never been shot at, but I've known some very sexy transvestites.

By the way, Bozo the Clown was quite offended at the Republicans using his name as an insult, partly, it's true, because Bozo was a Democrat. I think I read that in a column of the late Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle.

middle eastern peoples are evil because they control the mysterious and erotic falafel.

Miz isn't a careful reader. I didn't make fun of Karol or Jessica for going to a strip club. I have no problem with that. What I found distasteful about Jessica's writeup was its disingenuousness and its prurient tone.

I acknowledge that "vapid" or "vacuous" would have been better word choices.

I was particularly moved by "E)You feel somewhat violated after leaving the place." Wrong. Violated is what happened to the club's underage dancers. If you and your buds decide to have a little transgressive fun by going sightseeing at a waterfront dive that has bullet holes in the windows, and afterward you walk out with your wallet plus howevermuch virtue you had going in, you may feel unclean or grossed out, but you can hardly lay claim to violation.

j h woodyatt, I like the idea of dancing transsexuals with guns. It would bring a much-needed infusion of vril to the standard gun control debates.

(Rataplan, rataplan, rataplan, plan, plan.)

If she feels "violated," it's probably because there is a very thin fourth wall at such places. I might not feel that way, having actually worked very, very briefly in a strip club, but I can understand easily enough how someone would.

Is she really a "political consultant"? I can't fit the label with what I read in the blog. Have I mistaken a third-party advert for self-description? Or is it the latest label for a very junior worker in a politician's office?

There's nothing wrong with the giggly girlie-girl stuff, but it does clash with the label.

Actually, Dancing Transvestites Firing Guns sounds like a great band name, to me :-)

I don't think they have them at Missie B's. (our local drag q
queen perfomance venue..._

By the way, I've played guitar and violin in bands for the last five years here in New York and I know all too well how many venues there are to choose from, especially for a baby band starting out. I'd recommend getting your own hobby instead of promoting your husband's band at a venue where you'll be just one floor above topless dancers being 'violated'. Oh, but you'll be having a blast dancing and schmoozing with the crowd, won't you? Of course you will!

Here's a bit of advice. Maybe once you stop trying so hard people will start to like you.

Being a topless dancer doesn't automatically mean you've been/are being violated.

The specific reference was to the Sweet Cherry, where dancers were allegedly required to have sex with the boss in order to get a job. You may have noticed he's been indicted for rape. Would you tend to agree that those particular women might have been violated?

After reading our current visitors' blogs with their attendant twittering about sex, and considering the adolescent mind set that most of that party has regarding the topic, I think it's a reasonable conclusion.

When you add in the juvenile bullying (of entire countries, even), the insistance on dividing the world into us and them, the total lack of interest in how their actions will affect their future -

it reminds me of nothing so much as the least attractive bits of high school.

Admittedly, it's not as entertaining as the bigger Republican meltdowns further down the east coast, but it's a nice little sideshow. Anybody have some more popcorn?

You were? Cool. Hope it was at least mildly fun.

Bovril can indeed be made into a hot, beefy drink by adding boiling water, but it is sold as a black goo in a jar not unlike Marmite or Vegemite (apart from being the exact opposite on the Vegetarian scale), and it can be spread on bread before adding cheese and toasting for a tasty snack.

On the subject of toasting things, I have an American recipe book which makes frequent use of the verb to broil. From context and my Oxford dictionary, this appears to mean the same thing as the English to grill. Yes? No?

So now I'm curious: is "London broil" -- broiled strips of flank steak -- not in fact English, whether from London or Milton Keynes? (I wouldn't be at all surprised if it weren't.)

- London Broil took its name from London, England, but originated in the US

and if you can't trust a casual Google, what can you trust?

They simply googled their own names and found themselves here.

The adjectives I would use are clueless and useless.

Jane

Teresa has spare time?

*koff*projection*koff*

Linking the current tenor of this thread to its original subject of the crime next door... How about having some of the site's members dress up like old-style mobsters then having them visit annoying Republicans. I'd be nervous if John M. Ford/Hugo Weaving and James MacDonald/Tom Connolly showed up at my place and said:

"Ma Teresa wants us to take you for a ride."

I only hope poor old Chris Bonington doesn't find out.

I don't think it's anything new, especially from Republicans. Rush Limbaugh morphed the word into "feminazi" to convey his own feelings toward feminism back as early as 1993.

Lis, you know you're right i never did get around telling my mommy and daddy about the experience. But you know if i was a liberal i would feel all safe and warm telling my parents about it. Sigh... if only i didn't have to hide my deviant sexual desires from my parents the world would be a better place.

Margaret Organ-Kean,
When you write "When you add in the juvenile bullying (of entire countries, even), the insistance on dividing the world into us and them, the total lack of interest in how their actions will affect their future" you realize this is an instance of the pot calling the kettle black, right?

I didn't find Karol's post prurient. I was talking about Jessica's. Also, the prurience I perceived there wasn't about the sex, but rather about what a wicked low dive it was. Homo sum; nihil humanum mihi alienum puto, wherefore I am not a modern Republican.

Dave Bell, given the tone of her most recent comment, I have trouble believing she's a political consultant in any conventional sense of the term. Perhaps there's something else she's good at?

Niall, what Mike said. In currant US usage, the distinction between grilling and broiling is whether the food makes contact with the heating element. If it does, it's grilling.

Then you might like Killer Transvestite (realaudio) by Feo Y Loco. I used to run sound for them. I think they'd've loved to be booked above a strip club.

But you know if i was a liberal i would feel all safe and warm telling my parents about it.

*sigh* As fuzzy-headed liberals go, I'm pretty fuzzy, but I sure wouldn't tell my mom about going to a strip club, sleazy or otherwise--she doesn't ask about my sex life, and I don't ask about hers, and we're both quite happy that way. But that's rather not the point; the point is that I wouldn't make self-congradulatory blog posts about how I was slumming, either.

There's more I could say on this subject, but--and I realize this is a failure of my character--I just can't justify spending my time on trying to educate someone who refuses to think...

Obligatory killer transvestite content: anyone else read Killer in Drag by Ed Wood (yes, that Ed Wood)?

h, nd wht's "mssng th pnt"? Thnkng tht ths ws jst n ttck n sxl hypcrsy? f s, plnty f yr wn cmmntrs sm t hv mssd th pnt t. Fl fr t scld thm wy.

Those two are so... declasse

"Now there's an intelligent answer."

Add clueless. I read Jessica's 'trip to CA' post. She seems to think a few days in Palo Alto at someone's (large, very expensive) house and a few days in Big Sur have qualified her to speak about How Wonderful California Is. Not. Jessica, please stay in NYC and make those of us who live in CA happy.

"Here's a bit of advice. Maybe once you stop trying so hard people will start to like you."

Sweetie, honey, this one topic probably has more comments than one of your gals' blogs -- that is, if you Republican Ladies Who Slum actually allow comments to take place. (I'd sample one of those sites myself, but, you know, *cooties*?)

Who ever in the Wide Wide World of Sports wanted you to like this blog? Which person posting here is so desperate for your approval that he or she must change her posting behavior, right now, so as to keep his or her cache with your posse of kool kidz?

In terms of your tone and content, the temptation to say exactly what I feel would earn me instant dsmvwllmnt, and I'd rather spend a night in the company of drunken, neocon, faux-hipster slatterns than risk that, thank you very much.

Yes, I know, someone's done a better job of demolition, above....

cgy: Tht's splld "ccht".

Girls, if you can say that you didn't know what you were getting into when you walked into a place with a sign reading 'topless entertainment', you are truly clueless. It's right up there with 'gentlemen's club' and 'sports bar' for translation as 'the only females inside will be employees'.

And concerning your most recent post, the opinion isn't actually "these girls are stupid, and we are smart." The opinion actually put forth has been stated rather clearly several times, and I'd clarify it again, but you'll probably just ignore it, like you did the other instances.

But if I wasn't going to, I wouldn't post about it in my blog.

I realize that not everyone's mother reads their blogs or online journals, though mine does. But if there's something you don't want your mother--or your boss, or your ex-husband, or any other person--to know, don't post it to the Internet. They might find it, whether by looking for your name, or by accident, or because someone who knows you both offhandedly says "Did you know your daughter went to a strip club last week?"

Wll: frnds wth Jssc. 'm ls frnds wth Krl.

n n "ctl dbt" prsnl ttcks r frbddn. Hr tht's... ll nyn's dng.

Sms y knw hw t mnplt vry ngl, h? S lk lbrl.

You wrote:

As usual, where there is a debate featuring liberals and conservatives, liberals knock themselves out to argue their own stupidity. Yet another model right here. It's obvious from your obnoxious little post that you were trolling for hits and a bit of recognition.

Uh, Ari? Do you have any idea how much traffic a link FROM MakingLight generates? Trust me, Teresa and Patrick don't need any traffic.

I don't think you realize how little TNH has to troll for hits or recognition.

Or who PNH or TNH are in the first place. Or what they actually do in their day jobs.

A little research before posting can make all the difference between sounding clueless or informed.

Actually, Ari, that's not at all obvious, not to mention blindingly, stunningly wrong. Toward the end of August/beginning of September, MSNBC mentioned Making Light as a resource for survivors and victims of Hurricane Katrina. So Making Light obviously -already- has its share of hits and "a bit of recognition." Just because you've never encountered it before doesn't mean it wasn't already there.

Will: I don't think it's anything new, especially from Republicans.

No, it's nothing new. I was surprised that Larry found it novel enough to chuckle at.

As for the cockroaches scuttling around upthread: "clueless" doesn't even begin to cover it. Super-mega-giga-clueless, maybe.

Haha, wht lsrs.

Ditto Ari's entry just above..."trolling for hits and bits of recognition." ROFL, these people have no idea who they're even addressing! Clues, clues here! $0.25!

This is going round and round and I have better things to do with my life than responding to people who aren't listening. Better things, like trying to avoid a collision with someone who cuts my off very close when changing lanes and who then cuts me off when I change lanes again, all this because I have a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker.

Ta-ta...

the mysterious and erotic falafel

FUNNY!

Lr: m "cckrch"? Fr wht, dfndng my frnds frm hrtfl nslts by ppl wh dn't knw thm?

By th wy, wll nyn ctlly rspnd t my rgmnts? dbt t.

The sorts of conservatives that Karol, Jessica and Yaron are definitely aren't culturally clueless or uptight. They just find it personally advantageous to appear so, when it is convenient. For those keeping score, that's the hypocritical part. They can dress provocatively, yet object to sex ed being taught in school; they can call TNH a feminist in a mocking tone, yet take full advantage of the cultural changes people of her political stripe and her generation have wrought; object to high taxes when "Gluttony is so in this year" (priceless). Having their cake and eating it too; enjoying the thrill yet looking down their noses, just as other commenters have said, not only in strip clubs, but in life.

Um, I don't think you've actually made any arguments, Yaron. The nearest thing I could find was something like "All you liberals make ridiculous generalizations about your political opponents. This is something all liberals do."

That's where the clueless part comes in.

Can anybody tell me if cockroaches are known for their intelligence? Because then I would have to apologize to the species.

Lr: ths thrd ws nsty frm th vry bgnnng. nd... thr s n "xct ntr" t ths nslts. t's thrd-grd-lvl fr-fr-ll, f y hdn't ntcd.

I hate to counsel mercy when y'all are having so much fun, but I'm starting to wonder whether it's possible that these kids are literally unable to follow the conversation. Judging from their descriptions of what they think is being said, they're all low-resolution readers.

A predictable thing is about to happen to one of them.

You see that dot over there? That's the point you're missing.

For some reason the comments have taken on a very definite "us and them" feel between 'liberals' and 'conservatives'. The problem is that those labels are so vague as to be meaningless. Plus, as the cookie says, all generalisations are false.

Karol/Jessica/Ari/etc. - nobody here particularly knows you, what you like/dislike, what you're like off-line, etc. Please remember that you know just as little about the people here.

The amazing thing was, people were slamming into each other all around her and, successfully, avoiding her. Her expectations overruled Brownian motion.

Going to a place where people shoot guns, expecting to not get shot, and actually not getting shot is like that, only more so.

Me, I don't go to places with bullet holes in the windows. It's dangerous.

[I would like to thank 24fightingchickens.com for this insight. The specific article has been taken down, in hopes of publication. ]

They will be sodomized by a dinosaur?

Anyway, "political consultants" are ten a penny. If anyone wants some seriously fit totty, they should try "Trouble Consultants".

If this is true, I weep for the noble art of doing research, for it is truly one of the last bastions of non-partisanship.

Facts don't lie. People do. People can make the facts look like they lie, but in the end, facts are facts, and nothing can change them.

*scurries off to continue working with the Census data she is using for her grant writing*

It is true that when I read the fifth post, my first thought was "Wow, that was fast."

I almost regret it. Well, I regret the lapse of etiquette, not the possible accuracy of the term.

Yaron: "What's the point? That it's funny that Republicans go to seedy areas and find seedy behavior there?" This is an example of your fundamental missing of the actual point. This statement is most assuredly not the point. The point is that "these two girls went to areas they -knew- were 'seedy' and then blogged under the pretense (meaning, to pretend) that they were -surprised- to find 'seedy' behavior." I read the further comment about Republicans and sleazy sex as alluding to a previous post on Making Light, which discussed the phenomenon of conservative, mostly Republican authors, including but not limited to Scooter Libby and Bill O'Reilly, writing fiction which contains scenes of a salacious and lascivious nature when they are the ones (remember: -not limited to-) who most argue against sexual education. Who preach "family values" and "upright morals" but seek out entertainment at places they know are 'seedy' (the quotes in this sentence do not refer to statements from the bloggers).

I've mostly refrained from using big words for you. 'Salacious' and 'lascivious' mean having to do with lust and sex, mostly, with some negative connotation added. 'Connotation' an idea associated with a word.

(I note the above because I hope not to be misunderstood, and sometimes we say things we aren't explicit or clear about, which can reveal our beliefs. For example, you might find it interesting that, when you say "aggressive foreign policy," I understand you to mean "bombing the heck out of other countries without any real reason, which makes the rest of the world hate us.")

I know we started out being all about the dread horror of a neighbor possibly murdered, but Clifton said:
Every wannabe-hip parent dreads and rejoices in the day when they find out that their kids have become cooler than themselves.

And I just want to say something about that. Because I remember when my dad started asking me things about some aspects of popular culture (but he's still cooler than me). And I remember when I started getting stuff from my kids.

No dread for me, I was just thrilled. It was just like the first time my first-born showed me what he was doing in math and it was beyond what I had ever done. It's the same with the music and stuff. My second-born's the one who tosses me novels sometimes.

My kids are cooler than me, smarter than me, more competent than me, cuter than me (that part's not hard), and it's just really a great thing.

It's worth noting that Yaron has mentioned that he disagrees with Alison, but has yet to explain exactly what is so disagreeable about what she wrote. An explanation of why he disagrees would show that he does understand the point being made as well as show in what way it is invalid. However, that would require him to write something which fits specifically within the context of this discussion rather than some sort of generic statement (or templatized statement) which fits equally well anywhere. The latter is all that I've seen from him so far.

I'm in the process of learning how to play bridge and I find it extremely helpful when after we've played a hand, we all show our hands and the more experienced players break down what has just happened and what alternative plays I might have made instead. Perhaps something like that would be useful here to help Yaron and who else may drive-by make specific, credible arguments worth responding to in the name of maintaining civil discourse.

Lest we forget, of course, Teresa's article is not actually about those who have chosen to come here and fight. It's about a guy who was murdered in her apartment building. That she makes reference to a blogger who (based on a brief reading of referred links) was either callously disingenuous about the types of places she visits or was so genuinely clueless that she honestly did not know the type of place until it was too late is incidental. (It does, however, give some insight to the place where the guy who got murdered worked.)

Teresa and Patrick, I wish you guys the best in dealing with what must be a really creepy situation

I don't think I need to explain why the poster formerly known as Ari lost his vowels. Jsn (who was disemvowelled earlier) was within bounds the first time he posted, but the second time around, his remarks consisted of weary old insults (bad) that had nothing to do with the conversation (very bad). Yrn only strayed into abusive language a few times, but either he's arguing without reading the argument -- a disemvowellable offense -- or he literally can't parse what's being said here, and for the good of his soul and ours ought not be encouraged to continue.

Be careful about the pronoun tense when you write that down. We don't know whether Karol's friends were slumming.

Prounouns don't have tense. They have number. Teresa can't "be careful" because the language isn't built for it.

Yaron, Karol, Jessica, Ari: Here's my personal reason why, in case you're legitimately confused:

In order to conduct a rational debate of issues, it would be necessary to hold out hopes that, somewhere deep down inside, you and yours are essentially good human beings with a core of decency that can be spoken to. I live in the deep south of the U.S.A and I've spent the last 15 years listening to persons of your political persuasion reinforce one another's worldviews and I no longer hold out such hope.

By voluntarily associating yourself with the monsters that currently run this country, you have placed yourself outside the boundaries of civilized interaction. Your enthusiastic embrace of the unconscionable, the unethical, and the atrocious is de facto proof that there is no good in you to reach. I'll confess to some mild curiosity as to whether it's your mind or your spirit that is the root of your pathology, but I'd have to interact with you to figure it out and I'm honestly not that interested. In the same spirit that I set traps for vermin in my garage rather than attempt to negotiate with them, I decided several years ago that I'm done wasting my time playing word games with the likes of you.

Applause to TNH for cleaning house.

It's worth noting that Yaron has mentioned that he disagrees with Alison, but has yet to explain exactly what is so disagreeable about what she wrote. An explanation of why he disagrees would show that he does understand the point being made as well as show in what way it is invalid. However, that would require him to write something which fits specifically within the context of this discussion rather than some sort of generic statement (or templatized statement) which fits equally well anywhere. The latter is all that I've seen from him so far.

Maybe you should ask the administrator of this site, who hacks the comments of people she disagrees with. Talk about lack of interest in an actual debate.

Doesn't anyone here feel the least bit uneasy about this stunning breach of etiquette?

Don't read well, do you? Disemvowelling is for being rude to others without cause. You should google 'disemvowel' sometime.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That was obviously a shock."

"Not any more than everything else has been," he said.

He told us -- we were standing outside, waiting for our ride -- that on Wednesday night he'd come out of his apartment to find the club owner standing out front, sniffing around the door to the basement apartment. "I think he may be dead," he said.

Simon volunteered to go in and look -- at a guess, because he's a tenant in the same building, and the club owner was a stranger. He came out again, fast, and didn't notice the entry wound. I expect I'd have done exactly the same thing, and possibly thrown up into the bargain.

Another upper-floor tenant in their building was also in on our conversation. He said (approximately) that the circumstances indicated an individual, explicable cause for this murder, not a general rise in violent crime in our neighborhood.

We all agreed that people can get killed anywhere.

(If either of those neighbors show up here and read this, please forgive me if I mixed up your names or jumbled your quotes. I wasn't taking notes at the time.)

But I wasn't rude to anyone, which you could see for yourself if my comments weren't hacked.

I don't know why I'm still here, I must be a masochist.

(Long time readers of this site recognize that she disemvowel messages which are rude without cause, not messages with which she disagrees.)

Oh well. That's a shame.

Teresa and Patrick, you have my sympathies on the grisly discovery and aftershock. My usual addition to hot chocolate is either Amaretto or a shot of peppermint extract.

In this you are definitely not alone.

The "stunning breach of etiquette" was yours. You came stomping in here, yelling at people but not listening to them. That's bad manners. Debates have two sides, and engagement between. Yelling is just yelling. It was rudeness that lost you your vowels, not whatever virtues you imagine your arguments possessed.

Richard Anderson: You're right. There is of necessity some good in all things.

Just for clarification all that Karol or Jessica were trying to communicate that they had a good time in a place where people, such as yourself, might not associate evil, sex-hating, feminist-hating (cause you know strip clubs are great place to assert your feminism, except for sleazy ones like Sweet Cherry, because unlike the SF ones they aren't unionized) conservatives.

I honestly cannot make it through this sentence without getting lost, right about "might not associate evil, sex-hating, ..." The paranthetical comment about SF clubs being unionized leaves me especially confused. I can't even catch the gist of what you're on about, by that point.

Can you come again, more slowly? And you don't have to assume that I'm sex-worker negative. I worked in a massage parlor for a year, and am pretty comfortable with strip clubs, etc. That's not my hang-up.

One example please, because I really don't know what you're talking about.

I'm thinking, "science fiction strip club?"

Never mind...I'm slow sometimes...

When you're a conservative, apparently, there's never a feminist around when you need one. "It's a bit like calling a plumber," she said. I understand conservatives like to believe that civilized people have hired help to handle the dirty work, but really— I think they might be taking it to extremes here.

I have never entered a strip joint. I could identify several that I pass regularly, were I planning an evening out, and wanting to either visit one or avoid it.

Clear signs:

- The pictures of mostly nekkid, well endowed women all over the outside.
- The signs that say things like "Girls GIRLS GIRLS!!!" and "Table Dancing!!!!!"
- The lack of windows through which passers-by can peer in.*
- A serious looking bouncer**
- The name of the place may have sexual connotations, (i.e., Sweet Cherry, which sounds like the name a whore might use, and is probably a euphemism for nipples). It's conceivable that a sundae shop or a bakeshop might be called "Sweet Cherry," but if the establishment also has dark windows, a bouncer, and possibly a poster or graphic depicting breasts, it's a good bet that sundaes aren't on the menu (or maybe they are...) This isn't a reliable indicator—of the three or four such establishments that I can call to mind, none have really connotative names: Jilly's, Fillmore's, The Brass Rail (I suppose that one might be connotative?), and Remington (again, that's pretty obvious, I guess.) But all of these establishments have signage that makes the nature of the establishments quite obvious.

So I just can't see being all "Oops! I've entered a dodgy strip club! Little ole' me and my innocent eyes! I wonder if I'll emerge alive?" I think the conservative ladies really would have to be either quite dense, or deliberately disengenuous. And if you're going to play ditzy, you really have no call getting upset or indignant when people call you on it.

Also, if you deliberately enter such a place, you can't complain if you see and hear things that make you feel smutty, any more than you can complain that watching a skinflick makes you feel violated. Really. You signed on to see what you saw when you walked through the door. Violated is when you're taken out of seeing what you signed on to see, into doing or being done to, without your consent. So if you go into a club and someone gropes you, yeah, that's violated. If you invite a friend over for tea, and they pop a DVD into your DVD player and it shows a bunch of people nekkid and writhing and doing things you generally consider unspeakable, that's probably a violation too. But if you see nekkid people and hear sex at a sleazy club, that's just the establishment fulfilling the terms of its advertisement, isn't it?

This is totally unlike money laundering operations, which one can enter unawares (an acquaintance once tried to order a slice of pizza at a money laundering pizzeria, and was completely bemused when they didn't have any pizza, and made him feel most unwelcome).

So I'm curious...in other cities, are strip joints less obvious? I think I remember noticing one or two such establishments in London. I can't say where one would find them in Boston, and until recently I'd have had to ask where to find one in NYC.

*O.k., this alone doesn't necessarily mean that the place is a strip joint, or even dodgy, but it's one hint. The pictures and the signage are much clearer signs.
** Ditto. (Or is that ibid?)

I hope you and your neighbors recover from this. I can't imagine the debate has helped, though it may have distracted you a bit.

Not necessarily. But the ones I've seen in LA are generally free of windows, dark or otherwise. They may or may not say explicitly that they're a strip club. But windowless, yes, and frequently with a sign outside saying 'Girls!' (Some even buy billboard space: public advertising, yes.) One I go by on my commute has a sports bar in the back part of the building. Most of them seem to have the parking area discreetly tucked in back of the building.

Up until a few months ago, my wife and I lived in a seedy apartment building (that is currently undergoing yuppification) in what is still considered a high crime neighborhood (we had are car broken into, as did just about everyone else within five blocks). During our five years living there, we had several neighbors evicted for criminal behavior. If any of them died as a result, the management was very savvy about the cleanup. As the management was a bunch of crack fiends and louts, I suspect that no such thing happened. But it very well could have and everyone living there knew it and suspected that it would, any day now.

I'll never forget the night we came out to find our next-door neighbor standing on the street with his belongings strewn about him. He walked up, shook our hands and said, "I'll be seeing you guys, I'm off to spend 90 days in County!"

It's unfortunate that your neighbor couldn't have said the same thing to you, as absurdity is generally preferable to horror.

You really should listen to Teresa more carefully. You know what happens to commenters who don't listen to her.

"C'mon, Scott, H, give these kids a break. They're young, certainly, and full of the hubris -- and ignorance -- of youth, but to claim there's nothing good in 'em goes (IMHO) a tad too far in demonization."

Yeah, you're right. If the board had an "edit" function I'd change it from "no good in you to reach" to "not enough good in you to reach." For all I know they're kind to puppies or something.

But I stick by the basic argument. Life's too @#$ing short to waste time with these jerks.

I replaced "associate" with "expect to find" and got something that parsed, kind of. (Especially after removing the parenthetical expression, which does not help at all.)

It's also possible that she meant to say "in a place which people, such as yourself, might not associate with . . . conservatives" and forgot what she was trying to say in the middle of her sentence. That happens a lot.

Afaik, "cherry" is an old euphemism for (an intact) hymen.

Does this mean we think you're being kinda dumb? Well, yeah. It does. Sorry about that. Them's the breaks.

By the way, you misunderstood Jennie's piece, too.

It's "how dumb to you have to be to drink in a place with fresh bulletholes?"

Simple question.

Now I have the idea in my head of a strip club/ice cream parlor. But then, chocolate syrup turns me on.

Teresa and Patrick, belated but heartfelt sympathy for what must be a very trying time.

I think petitdove's sentence means we should associate conservatives with strip clubs, or rather, not dissassociate them with such places. I don't know that it conveys the author's true intention.

I tried to diagram that sentence, but ran out of paper and the willpower to interpolate missed words. I'd like to offer a bounty of a hand-bound book to the poster of a correct diagram as agreed by the consensus of the community.

I also think we are being rather hard on these children, for whom "conservative" is clearly a clique name rather than a political philosophy. I'd save the true opprobrium for those who commit capital intellectual crimes, chew'd, swallow'd and digested, such as teaching them that one can be for both lower taxes and an aggressive foreign policy. (Hint, Yaron: how do you pay for the army?)

Now I have the idea in my head of a strip club/ice cream parlor. But then, chocolate syrup turns me on.

I can think of a few people who would find the idea rather a turn on. Would the establishment also feature roller-skating servers?

And how do the gun-toting, dancing transvestites fit in?

Oh, and Yaron?

Teresa's very phonemes are as letters written in green fire across a dark sky to me. I may not always agree with what they say, but they generally get my attention. In this case, happens I quite agree with Teresa's assessment.

I have never feared to post my own take on things on Making Light. But then, I was raised to maintain a civil tongue and a respectful attitude in public discourse.

To me, the major point of the blog entry isn't "liberals vs. conservatives" or other label wars.

It's "how dumb to you have to be to drink in a place with fresh bulletholes?"

Simple question.

Maybe they believed old Bill when he said it was mice.

I'm surprised nobody took this up. Disemvowelling actually leaves the comments readable by anybody who wishes to go to the effort. I often do read disemvowelled comments when I weant to follow a conversation (because a turn usually takes place about the time of the disemvolling).

The point of disemvowelling is not to remove hateful comments. They're blunted a little by making the readers exert themselves to read them, and the disapproval of the moderator is registered, but the remarks are still there.

So, Yaron's first post looks, in part, like this:

Wll, 'm nthr cnsrvtv frnd f hrs, nd t fnd yr h-s-clvr "sd" jst chldsh nd ptty. Wht's th pnt? Tht t's fnny tht Rpblcns g t sdy rs nd fnd sdy bhvr thr? W lv n bg wrld - r crtn rs nly th prvnnc f lbrls? Bllsht. Y ssm tht, jst bcs thy'r Rpblcns, y knw crtn thngs bt thm. Jst bcs smn fvrs lwr txs nd n ggrssv frgn plcy dsn't mn nythng mr bt wh thy r thrws. Tht's th fndmntl msndrstndng lbrls hv bt cnsrvtvs, tht thy'r ll ptght nd cltrlly cllss - slly csd by nt ctlly knwng ny n rl lf, by th wy.

h, nd wht's "mssng th pnt"? Thnkng tht ths ws jst n ttck n sxl hypcrsy? f s, plnty f yr wn cmmntrs sm t hv mssd th pnt t. Fl fr t scld thm wy.

I can read that.

Look, here's something I disemvowelled on my own, so you can practice:

cn't blv tht lttl rch grls hv mngd t tk ll th ttntn wy frm ctl prl nd sffrng, gn

wow, it takes up so much less space that way!

I was not, that I recall, specifically raised with either. I was, however, raised to not argue something I couldn't defend. Seems to work OK.

(Also, I once again have "Bikini Women with Machine Guns" stuck in my head. And it's not even a very good song.)

I respect you for that, and I honestly wish that I could always follow that model (though I do try). It would also be nice if the proprietress of this blog, who wrote the original post calling a friend of mine "strikingly stupid", would follow it too.

abi - there's obviously scads of non-military spending that can be cut. There's also a good amount of waste in military spending that can be cut without much negative impact, but that's a story for another day.

Probably not. I'd like to say things about their writing skills, but the difficulty seems to be reading comprehension instead.

I'm under the impression that the whole trip to the strip club was something like 'I dare you to do it'. What I'd like to know is, was it really three weeks before the criminal-investigation story hit the papers, or was it after - because I can see these kids doing as 'dare you to visit this strip joint that just got busted'. Certainly Jessica's blogpost about it was at least three weeks after the criminal-investigation story, in her own words. But the date of the trip hasn't been mentioned....

How does one NOT slum at a strip-bar, exactly?

Strip bars aren't exactly the Algonquin Round Table. Or even a nice table at Chi-Chi's.

I don't think I've ever been in a strip bar and thought to myself, "Ah yes, this is precisely where I want to be at this moment. Let me savor the ambiance, chiefly consisting of a floor of ominous stickiness and 'Paradise City' blaring louder than I ever bothered to blare it when I was 12. I'm so inspired by the rather unfortunate amount of meaty scarring underneath Heather Autumn's hyperinflated breasts."

You're correct! I got out the Compact OED (it really isn't a party until someone's pulled out a dictionary), and there, under definition 5 ("fig a. applied to the lips, etc.") is definition 5 c. "Virginity, esp. in phr. to lose one's cherry; similarly, to take etc. a cherry. Also, the hymen; also a virgin.

Then there are also all the usages that refer simply to something red (blood, cheeks, lips.) Nothing about breasts or nipples at all.

You can do it almost everywhere. I've seen people do it on an ordinary residential street in a city, going into a corner restaurant or working man's bar as if it were the Exotic And Dangerous Gangsta Exhibit at a Los Vegas theme hotel. I've seen people do it at a flea market in an ordinary rural town. Or at the weekly get-together of a community, where they danced and sang and gave each other presents (a pow-wow). I saw people doing it at my college, thanks to a former Governor and President calling it a cross between a hippie pad and a bordello.

Here's a clue about how not to go slumming when you enter a place: shed your privilege and your pretensions to superiority. If they play music that isn't to your taste, maybe it's because they hear something in it that you don't, so listen. If they're presenting an image you find disturbing, maybe you're not looking at it right. If you can't get out of your own skull while you're there, maybe you belong somewhere else.

But for the most part, yeah, if you want to attract customers, the customers have to be able to find you. And entendre-filled signage helps.

Yaron: "Scads of non-military spending"? Such as, no doubt, prenatal care for poor women, or Pell grants for smart children of unemployed parents? I would really like to know what you consider unessential government services.

Also code words like 'Adult' and 'Pleasure'. I go past a store where the overhead sign has a picture strongly reminding me of the label of 'Zig Zags' and the name 'Little Pleasures' (at the hours I'm usually passing, it's closed, so that's all I see). On the occasions that it's open when I go by, they seem to specialize in 'adult toys'. If a place has a sign for 'Adult Entertainment', assume strippers at the very least.

in the old days of Times Square, "Bookstore" was code, but not for "Place to Find Dostoyevsky".

There's a bookshop of that particular old school across the road from my office. We long ago observed that the innocent enter normally and exit swiftly, while the guilty enter swiftly and exit normally.

The only clues to its true nature are that the covers of the books in the fully enclosed window display are faded almost beyond legibility, and that the posters that cover the door are not removed when the events they announce have passed.

>c: slmmng sn't gng t sdy plc. Slmmng tkng yr sprr tttd nd yr crtnty tht th wrld s yr Dsnylnd n wth y.

ddn't rlz t ll tht's wht thy'd dn. thght thy wr mrly dscrbng smwht ntrstng nght t. Th sdnss ws prt f wht md t ntrstng.

ddn't rlz tht ll lbrls sch s yrslf r mmdtly ssd "T Cl Fr Schl" Crtfcts mkng thm mmdtly bls bt frsh bllt-hls n th wlls.

>t's lkng t th ppl wh wrk thr s prfrmng mnkys pttng n shw fr y.

ndd! 'm sr mst strp-br ptrns vw th dncng nkd lds nt "prfrmng" nr "pttng n shw" fr thm, bt rthr s "xprssng thmslvs," prhps wrkng t nvl wy t splt tms thrgh th vhcl f rtc dnc.

> t's bng cshnd by yr prvlg.

Ys, ndd, ll Rpblcns nd cnsrvtvs r xtrmly rch. W ll hv trst fnds nd ychts nd Mrnng Btx njctns nd ccsnlly w rrng Mst Dngrs Gm hmn-hnts wth bdctd hbs.

W'r ll tht fckn' rch, bby. Hlf f th cntry r BLLNRS.

> t's thnkng tht f th plc s rdd, srly y wll b pssd vr bcs y'r nt n f ths ppl.

m, nt bng n wnr, mply, tc., why wld y nt b pssd vr? Ths ssms t's n llgl clb (Mm t Lcy: vn n Grg Stn Bsh's mrKKK, strp brs r gnrlly lgl), bt f t wr llgl, why wld thy bst th ptrns, xctly? Fr nt dmndng t s th Lcns t prt Nghtclb n th wll? r chckng wth th cty dprtmnt f cmmrc t mk sr t's vld?

By! Y sr d hv hgh pnn f yrslf. spr n dy t b s cl s y r b n sch sldrty wth sx-wrkrs nd llgl strp-br wnrs.

>t's rnnng nrrtn n yr hd whr y r th nrml bsrvr, nd ths gys r th frks.

plc wth bllt-hls s knd frky, Lcy.

h, wt: Tht's rght. Y'r frm "th hd." Mst lkly th vry dngrs Grmmrcy Prk hd, whr wrng wht ftr Lbr Dy cn gt y whckd, y.

>Hr's cl bt hw nt t g slmmng whn y ntr plc: shd yr prvlg nd yr prtnsns t sprrty.

Hr's cl rght bck: Try tht t yrslf. Thr s nt sngl wrd f yr slf-srvng rnt dsgnd t cnvy ny thr thght thn "'m bttr thn y r."

>f thy ply msc tht sn't t yr tst, myb t's bcs thy hr smthng n t tht y dn't, s lstn. f thy'r prsntng n mg y fnd dstrbng, myb y'r nt lkng t t rght. f y cn't gt t f yr wn skll whl y'r thr, myb y blng smwhr ls.

Ys, lstn t th msc f th rnbws, nd vry mrnng b sr t hg drm.

Grw th hll p, Lcy. Stp pntfctng t ppl wh thnk y'r n dt.

Just for clarification: all that Karol or Jessica were trying to communicate was that they had a good time in a place that people such as yourselves might not associate with evil, sex-hating, feminist-hating (cause you know strip clubs are great place to assert your feminism, except for sleazy ones like Sweet Cherry, because unlike the SF ones they aren't unionized) conservatives.

Karol and Jessica were trying to communicate X.
X == They had a good time in a certain type of place.
It was the type of place a certain kind of person would not associate with a certain other kind of person.
The first kind of person is people like most of us here.
The other kind of person is "evil, sex-hating, feminist-hating conservatives."

Yaron: Let go of the metaargument about Teresa's disemvowelment policy. It's her blog, and she'll disemvowel or delete any post that merits it, in her sole judgement. Not the public square; different rules apply. And I would defend your right to do the same in your blog.

If you go on to what you actually have to say about it -- for example, why you think it was inappropriate for Teresa to make the remarks she did about your friends -- and take a civil tone, you will be astonished by how civilly we engage you here.

I would point out to you two things, however: one, you're talking to someone who just found out that her neighbor was murdered with a single gunshot to the head; two, that he worked at the place (with bullet holes in it) that your friends went to for a lark.

I would also like to say that 'stupid' is one of the things we adults say when kids risk getting killed (or otherwise harmed) and are clueless that they have even done so. It's not always right for us to do that (and indeed Teresa has already said so).

Stop being sullen (e.g. "she's hacking my posts") and enter the discussion. You'll be surprised how well it works here.

c: g pss p rp.

Chllng f dssnt fvr-- >Ctch t!

By the way, Lucy, slumming works with people in addition to places--dating a cowboy because he might be fun to show off to your friends, for example--if you want to add to your very cogent definition. The word is used in this context in Dirty Dancing.

D y prdly rfr t th lcl T& jnt s "my scnd ffc" r "my sprt-rfrshng ttt grdn"?

D y rlly mgn tht th strpprs thr dn't thnk thy t r "slmmng"? D y thnk tht mny strpprs dn't spr t b smthng mr thn wmn wh tk ff thr clths t b pwd t by drnkn mn?

cld gt nt whl "Hw dr y prsm ths wmn hv n grtr sprtns, y, y, y LTST SXST!" jg, bt ths whl dbt s bsrd.

S, nc gn: Wh dsn't slm t strp br? Wh cnsdrs gng t, r wrkng t, strp br t b n lvtng ndvr?

Y gys r rlly gd t sptng crp n ndgnnt "Hw dr y!" tns >wtht blvng dmn wrd f t yrslvs.

'm hppy 'm cnsrvtv, nd cn jst sy wht ctlly blv.

s fr s th ctl sbjct, thnk y t msndrstnd th rgnl pst. dn't thnk Trs sd th wrd "stpd" bcs thy pt thmslvs t rsk. f s, hw mch stpdr wld Trs's nghbr b fr ctlly >wrkng t ths stblshmnt? cn't mgn tht ws th ntnt.

Txnn: t kp t nn-cntrvrsl, lt m sy frm sbsds nd gvrnmnt prk lk th "brdg t nwhr".

I had originally taken your question about slumming seriously. Here's my original answer:

"Slumming" is when you go someplace that you regard as being beneath you. So if I habitually dine at Le Sélect Bistro and think that this makes me A Certain Type of Very Select Person, and I deign to eat at Ghandi's Roti Counter one day, I may be slumming.

If I habitually eat roti from Ghandi's and think nothing of it, other than "These are soooo good!" and similar thoughts, then I'm not going to think overmuch of going to Albert's West Indian roti down the street.

If I habitually visit establishments like the Sweet Cherry, (maybe I'm a regular patron, maybe I'm a union organizer, maybe I'm a connoisseur of sleaze, maybe they serve a really good martini) I'm probably not slumming when I go there. It's just my usual hangout. If I don't, and think that it's the sort of place that People Like Me don't usually go (which, from the sounds of it, it is. I'm more a Ghandi's Roti kind of girl), then when I visit the Sweet Cherry, I may well be slumming.

Lucy's take on the term differed from mine, in that she placed greater weight on the notion of what People Like Me don't do—for her slumming is more a matter of how one sees oneself in relation to the place one is visiting. So, according to her definition, when I visited the Paradiso with the migrant labourers whom I was working, every Saturday night, and danced with them and hung out with them, because they were my friends and my co-workers on the farm I was working, even though I don't frequent the Paradiso regularly, I may not have been slumming because I figured the Paradiso, where the migrant labourers danced on Saturday night, was where I belonged at that time.

Having read your response, I'm rather annoyed that I wasted all that time on a thoughful answer. It seems now like you were simply asking the rhetorical question in order to make the point (which I deem incorrect) that one can't go to a place like the Sweet Cherry and not be slumming.

Dude, it's not slumming if you don't think you're too good for it. And if you think you're too good for it, why are you there, anyway?

Nobody said anything about your economic means.

Nobody was discussing you in particular.

And as a semi-regular contributor here, if I had to choose an idiot based on your contribution and on Lucy's, I know who would get my vote.

Ace: "A place with bullet-holes is kinda freaky, Lucy." Your mileage, Ace, apparently varies greatly from mine. Bullet-holes are extremely, utterly freaky. In fact, when I see bullet-holes in windows, or doors, I avoid those windows and doors. And I quickly avoid them, too. There is, in fact, nothing about a bullet-hole that makes me think, hey, this is the kind of place I want to be in; if anything, it makes me realize it is a place I want to be very far away from.
Which is where the word "disingenuous" comes in.

But like I said, your mileage may vary greatly from mine. You may have had terrific times in place riddled with bullet-holes, or bullet-holes might just make for an "interesting" night out that makes you feel slightly sleazy, and slightly violated, but not enough of either to keep you from giggling about it in a post.

I'm sure my mileage varies. I'm still the guy who prefers dancing transvestites.

nd tht's wht y d, spps? Y g t strp br nd mk t yr gl t "ndrstnd" wht th "rl prtcpnts" r "drvng frm th xprnc"?

Hypthtclly, lt's sy g t clb whr thy hv gy sckng ff dnky. nd lt's sy t's nt prly hypthtcl. m t ndrstnd 'm nt gng thr fr th pr lrd ttltn nd strngnss f t, bt t ttmpt t dvn wht phlsphcl stsfctn yr s gttng frm hs blwjb?

Srsly-- s tht wht y'r tllng m?

s tht hw y wtch prn? " wndr: s Jnn Jmsn nsrts tht cbbg nt hr sshl, wht knd f prsnl vldtn s sh skng t btn?"

Mn, y mst b ht nd hlf t dt

Thnk y, bt ddn't sk wht "slmmng" ws. Yr dfntns r qt vld.

m skng, rptdly: HW S PSSBL T >NT SLM T STRP CLB?

N n sms t nswr tht, vr. Bcs thnk t's jst s ldcrs. Y cnnt clm wth strght fc tht ppl g t strp clbs fr th ry phlsphcl dbts t b hd thr. Thy g bcs thy'r drnk nd rndy nd wnt sm swty tts shvd n thr fc.

Pls, smn, lbrt n ll ths "nn-slmmng" strp br xprncs y'v hd.

gn: Y'r wrtng thngs tht r ptntly bsrd, vn t yrslvs, n rdr t prv yr sprrty. nlk >thr strp br ptrns wh r thr t gt chp thrll frm shvng dllr bll nt thng-strng, y gys r ll thr s vngng ngls f Sccnmc nqlty t rlly "ndrstnd" nd "cnnct wth" th sx-wrkrs.

Pls.

And that's what you do, I suppose? You go to a strip bar and make it your goal to "understand" what the "real participants" are "deriving from the experience"?

No, you go to to the strip club/gospel chior/quilting bee because you are interested in what will go there. At that point, you are not slumming.

The girls in question would not have been slumming if they had been going to drink the drinks, chat to the patrons, or see the dancers. They weren't. They were going to watch themselves drink the drinks, chat to the patrons, and see the dancers. It's like Kundera's definition of kitsch - the last layer of self-observation determines the definition.

Now, the above is not actually true for me, Ace, but are you saying that it is inconceivable that it could possibly be true for anyone?

The girls who dance at this club are pretty much our friends. On their off nights, they've come out to my buddies' gigs. I don't paint them as the 'virtuous stripper' type: they're just people. Just like you and me and everyone else. Some of them are paying their way through school, some are supporting kids, some have drug problems. Usually, the only thing they have in common with each other is that, several nights a week, they get paid to dance around without any clothes on in a dimly lit bar.

So it's very possible to NOT slum in a strip bar. It's possible to NOT slum anywhere.

Prplxng qstns. dmt hv nt bn vgrs ngh n skng thm.

ddn't rlz tht rstrnts nd strp-brs wr prmrly ntndd s sclgcl ntr-wlks.

No one seems to answer that, ever."

Bzzt. I'm sorry, that's incorrect. It has been answered: If you're a regular patron of a particular strip club, you aren't slumming when you go there. If you're someone who regularly enjoys going to strip clubs, you aren't slumming if you visit one.

Plenty of people. I had a friend in college who worked as a stripper to pay her way through our very expensive private school. Not only was she not slumming because she valued the bar as a place where she could earn enough money to feed herself and pay her tuition, she habitually came home with stories of political leaders from both sides of the aisle lunching in her establishment. They weren't slumming either. They were having lunch to the accompaniment of pretty, dancing, naked girls. They weren't being smug or snide or arrogant. They placed value on naked girls who were willing to dance for them and then gave them money to express that appreciation.

If your sole experience of strip clubs is bachelor parties, you probably think all attendance is slumming, but for someone who regularly goes or works there, it's just their personal hangout. Girls who don't get something out of stripping, either in the form of money or attention or both, don't strip very long. I don't know any strippers who do it for the ironic, so-they-can-giggle-about-it-later reason.

Again, just because you can't see the value doesn't mean there isn't one. They might be mercencary, self-serving, morally reprehensible or disgusting values in your opinion, but that doesn't mean that the experience isn't in some way "elevating".

I am asking, repeatedly: HOW IS POSSIBLE TO NOT SLUM AT A STRIP CLUB?

I thought I had answered that. Let me try, one more time:

It is possible to not slum at a strip club if one feels, that the strip club is a normal place to be and/or that one belongs there.

If you're asking how it's possible not to feel that one doesn't belong there (or, how it's possible for one to feel that one does belong there), then the answers get a bit more hypothetical and complex. In my earlier post, I offered a few reasons that someone might feel they belonged in a strip club. For a couple more reasons, we may suppose that someone engaged in the club's illegal activities might feel that they belonged there, and be unfazed by the bullet holes. If one had been raised around dodgy establishments, one might feel that it wasn't slumming to visit one.

I'm sorry if you still don't understand. I don't think I can make it any more clear.

f jst g thr nc yr r s, thn 'm "slmmng" nd bd prsn wh lks dwn n ll th sx wrkrs?

BTW, y gys cn prtty p th lf f strppr ll y lk, nd 'm sr fr sm t rlly s smthng thy njy, bt 'm bttng fr mst t s jb thy hv tkn t f ncssty, nt t f sm dp sprtn t gt nkd fr drnkn mn, nd s, fr thm s wll, t s "slmmng."

Sm wnt t b thr. Mst wld rthr nt b thr, f thy cld fnd wrk tht pd thm nrly s mch.

O.K. -- Please, everyone bear in mind that this is just the random neurons firing in my brain, and I am not saying anything about anyone who has participated in this discussion or who might have been mentioned or who even heard about this discussion during that thing with the guy in the place.

But -- all this discussion of slumming put me in mind of this.

(http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05302005.shtml in case my rusty HTML skills foil the link above)

That is all, please return to your regularly scheduled argument.

pprct yr ffrts, bt th nly thng clr t m s tht mny ppl hr pt vry hgh prmm n bng "Mr Dwn Thn Th," nd r dtrmnd t prtnd tht vstng strp br >shld b n ct f ltrstc vldtn f th strppr.

t's nt, nd 'm brd. grw wry f scl wrk mjrs tryng t nstrct m n hw vry hp thy r nd hw vry nhp m fr flng t s hw hp thy r.

Lucy says: "Slumming taking your superior attitude and your certainty that the world is your Disneyland in with you."

Alison says:"people attending the festivities have an I-am-above-this-but-isn't-this-fun-in-a-seedy (or campy or post-hip) sort-of-way attitude."

Jennie says: "Dude, it's not slumming if you don't think you're too good for it."

The question has been answered three times. No discussion of non-unionized worker welfare, no notepads. The opposite has been implied by everyone answering the question--if you're having fun and feel comfortable, you're not slumming (that'd be #4).

However, the underlying assumption in the question seems to be that such a place is beneath EVERYONE, therefore, every person there is slumming. At every breast-loving rung of the socioeconomic ladder, that's untrue. But if you're noticing the bulletholes on the far wall and not the dancing ladies or the alcohol, you're probably not just there to unwind on a Friday night.

Surely, there's no need for you to increase your tedium level by hanging around with us "social work majors."

But then, if you normally attend polo matches and then you go to a baseball game to laugh while all the silly little boys in their silly little white hats run around in circles, is that slumming? Yeah, I think it probably is.

By the way, you need a firmer grasp of logic if you're going to try to produce an argument here that people will respect. You can't argue that strip bars aren't "sociological nature walks" and then turn around and try to argue that they should have "airy philosophical discourse" in order to have value. No one here is trying to argue that a stripper doin' her thang with a pole is modern art (although, um, hi, actually some of them really are pretty talented).

We're saying that for someone who isn't interested in art or philosophy or "airy discourse" (or even for some people who are, like the politicians I mentioned above), it's just a hangout (albeit with tits), like your local sports bar or martini lounge or wherever it is that you like to discuss whatever you like to discuss with your friends and therefore definitely not slumming.

You, me, the Sweet Cherry: fill in the blanks.

According to Lucy and her friend, no one should go to a strip bar unless they're going with a taperecorder and legal pad to take notes on the experience as viewed through the eyes of a stripper.

Again: You're writing things that are patently absurd

1. Although I have nothing against jeanie, I don't know her and therefore don't count her as a friend, exactly.
2. I most specifically did not say go there with a tape recorder and legal pad. The alternatives aren't "privilege tourist laughing at the natives"(Slumming) or "anthropologist." (the latter can overlap with the former) Nor do you have to be one of the locals. It's possible to be a visitor who is not slumming, anthropologizing, or joining. Just a visitor. Belonging to a marginal culture as I do, I spend a lot of my time in that category: just a visitor.

So, ace, you're sort of doing that thing -- you know that thing where a person makes things up, and says that the other person says them, and then laughs at the person for saying them?

I don't have much patience for it.

Oh, I just noticed: what does this kind of argument have in common with the original question"how does one NOT slum in a strip bar?" -- respect. The lack of it, that is.

I didn't see anyone doing this. I did see someone using the name Ace who has repeatedly failed to understand what was being said, and seems proud of not understanding. It isn't a liberal/conservative thing, Ace, it's an intelligent-and-thinking/not-intelligent-not-thinking thing. I know which side I think you're on.

When we got out from work to the burrito place two blocks over in 'Little Mexico' for lunch, it isn't slumming, because we do it fairly often and we like the food. If you did it, Ace, it would probably be slumming, because I think you'd be going with the idea of 'Here I am eating with all the illegal immigrants'.

I "meet" the most intelligent people here. Teresa and Patrick are so nice to let us come play.

I'd stand by my "watching yourself" definition - the difference between someone going to the burrito place to eat the food and going there to watch himself eat with the Funny Talkin' People.

Though that's a form of disrespect, focusing more on yourself that on what is going on around you.

Is incivility like libel, in that truth is a defense?

Frst f ll, nn f th ppl n qstn sd thy wr slmmng. Tht ws yr glss n t. ( sd thy'r slmmng, bcs thnk tht strp-brs r nhrntly slmmng plcs, fr rsns 'v splld t.)

Y gys jst cn't cncv f why wmn wld fl t ws nchrctrstc nd strng t nd p t sdy strp-br. Wll, hr's n bnk f th cl bt: BCS THY'R WMN, nd ls, nt lsbns. ( hv n d f lsbns g t strp brs; mgn thy d t sm xtnt, bt nt nrly n th nmbrs mn d.)

S, bsd n thr "Rpblcn" grls fndng strp-br t b strng plc t wnd p t lt t th nght, y ll gt t spt ff rghtsly bt thr "slz" nd "tcky sx" r, th ltrntv, lck f "rspct."

t sms strng-- y gys cn't gr n th rgmnt tht gts y thr, bt y'r ll qt sr f th cnclsn: thy wr wrng nd y r mch, mch clr nd mr "ccptng" thn thy r.

t's ls msng tht y kp nvtng ppl t "jn th dscssn" bfr dltng th vwls n thr psts. f nly w wld ll jn th dscssn by grng wth y, w cld hv trly nfrmd dbt wth th prdtrmnd cnclsn tht y'r rght.

vrybdy wns. Yyyyyy.

I mean, was it a dare? Were they ver', ver' drunk? Was it raining, and they just happened to be walking along there at the time? Were they stoned, and there was a big Hershey bar in the window? Did one of them suddenly go "I know, let's go and ogle some women!"?

I dunno. You come along, you ask lots of questions, then you don't listen to the answer and instead set up various strawmen to reply to. You're rapidly approaching the point where there's no real point in talking to you, because you just don't listen.

Please, prove me wrong. Actually make a reply which engages in discussion rather than making snide remarks.

And folks, I think Ace has gone meta. I think he thinks he's slumming by posting here.

Shh. Be vewy qwiet. He's a postmoddun perfowmance awwtist...

It's generally possible to put the people you find in a slum into one of two categories: 1) the people who live there; and 2) the people who are just passing through. (Exceptions to general rules are generally to be expected.)

People whose lifestyle involves regular patronage of [or working in, around or for] strip clubs should probably not be said to be "slumming" when they're enjoying the services of a place like Sweet Cherry. This would, presumably include Teresa's deceased neighbor— hallowed be his name— who apparently supplemented his income (or perhaps made all of it) as an employee there.

People whose lifestyle involves posting snarkily disingenuous comments on the web about visiting strip clubs in "designated crime areas" and belatedly discovering very late in the experience how charming the environmental ambience failed to be— those people might fairly be said to be slumming. Unless, of course, it turns out that one or more of them do this on a regular basis and the one posting the snarky comment is just an idiot.

When people wander into the comments forum of a fairly literate weblog and start waving the rhetorical equivalent of their naughty bits around in an apparent invitation to have a length and girth measuring contest, it shouldn't be surprising when the phrase "strikingly stupid" comes to mind.

Does any of this help answer your questions, ace?

Anoia or eunoia? ace ekes near to a-vowel (or a-uouuel, as they say in Veii). Lose? Loose? Looooooooose? It is all the same to Tee En Aich. I eye ace & wait. Ha-ha!

First post: 04:35 pm
Godwin Event Horizon: 06:46

Just missed the two-hour mark. Might type faster if he missed the vowels out himself and saved Our Hostess the trouble.

The Lusty Lady is not located in a "designated crime area" at all. It's at Kearney and Broadway, a block away from City Lights Books in North Beach.

Anyone can go there and not be slumming— well, anyone except maybe somebody who mustn't appear in public without a bodyguard.

I wonder if they'd read their posts better if they were ROT-13d.

Ad hominem -- as in your calling me and a poorly-identified batch of other people "sociology majors" as a way to discount our observations -- doesn't work when you don't know anything about the people you're talking to. When you look at the conversation and decide we all must be alike, it leads to serious mistakes in characterization.

I don't know a lot about a lot of the people who join in the conversation, but I know some things about some of them. As for myself: I wasn't a sociology major thirty years ago when I was an undergraduate. Nowadays, I'm an underemployed lumpen intelligentsia. It's pretty hard to slum from where I am.

As for Ace and Yaron, it's just too tedious for words. Where's a Billy Goat Gruff when you need one?

Teresa has retracted the word "stupid". The reference to your friends came at the end of a post about a neighbour of hers who was murdered, and the disparagement of their tone was coloured by the horror of that death. The "tacky sex" mention was a reference to an earlier post. I don't actually know any of the commenters here, though I have read a book or two by one or two of them: my impression is that to label them all as "liberals" is a touch inaccurate.

I can only envy this rainbow-scented world of theirs where Usenet never happened.

>Hv y ntcd tht thr's lwys strng stnch lrkng rnd whn crtn ppl cm rnd t "dfnd" thmslvs? Knd f lk th stnch n Trs's bsmnt.

My scnd cmmnt smply fllwd n prsdntl hh wth nthr. dn't mnd th clvr vwl rmvl tctc. Hwvr, thnk th vdnc shws tht Rndll's rspns dsrvs ts wn wp dwn wth th mst 'vwlltt.'

Srsly nw, 'm nt hr t dbt pltcs r scl stndngs. knw tht 'm n vl, prm-slmmng cnsrvtv nd tht mny f th rglrs n ths blg vw th wrld qt dffntly thn myslf. Gd. Mr pwr t y.

jst wsh mr ppl cld mk thr rgmnts nd bsrvtns wtht th blgtry snd rmrks nd/r bslss nm-cllng.

ctlly fnd ths pst ntrstng nd nfrmtv ntl th lst fw prgrphs. pn fnshng sd prgrphs, my mprssn f th pst s whl, nd ts thr, tk n sr flvr.

n smmry, 'll ffr n bt f dvc--Mtllc. Blck lbm. Trck . Gv t lstn.

(Oh, and since I missed the earlier thread: Teresa, you have my sympathies. I had to go through similar but much tamer things earlier this year and wouldn't even wish my weak gruel on anybody.)

The original impetus is understandable - "This blog post is making fun of me and my friends!" But really.

It's like watching cute little sharks or pit bulls, before they've grown teeth. But they're trying so hard to mangle and disembowel their target. So hard.

It's not an ideal situation when they do wot of what they do, either, but at least then the axioms have the potential of accessibility.

The idea that 'stupid' might be a situational condition of conduct, and not a moral judgment, was not brought into the world at low cost. No small sorrow to see it so blithely surrendered.

Now THAT'S a flamewar post!

Given the size of the city, and the fact that the DCAs have moved several times over the years - North Beach I think was an early DCA. And the unionization does seem to be a bit hit-or-miss.

I'm glad I can afford to take the train, but riding the bus isn't unthinkable.

Clearly these kids have more time than sense (psst, hey, kid, over here, I've got a white courtesy clue phone for you.... really cheap(opens big overcoat to reveal a selection)). The fact that they won't shut up is problematic.

Goddess I'm tired. I have four Big Projects that, because of people being late with stuff getting me, have turned into a Really Large Pile. And it's a kind of pile that one can only work so on and you have to quit because you'll start making mistakes.)

and looking at the higgledy piggledy's led to nearly uncontrollable laughter though I've read them before. Good for Jordin!

I still feel badly for you all, Teresa and Patrick. More hugs across the eways, and thoughts of peace and good will.

Bruce A. - Thank you for the junior - I must admit, I should have used it. But I was trying to be kind.

Petitdov - I supose you could argue that I'm the pot calling the kettle black based on the theory that I divided people into Republicans and everyone else, and used some unflattering terms to describe the current incarnation of the Republican party.

And you are, if one wants to be completely precise, correct.

Indeed, I am wrong because there are self-identified, elected Republicans who I consider adults and who I respect, such as Senator John McCaine and Sam Reed, Secretary of State for Washington.

Unfortunately, they, by most accounts stand on the fringes of the party and the center is occupied by the juvenile, thoughtless, vicious antics of George W. Bush Jr., Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay and their ilk.

I personally will be surprised if Sam Reed doesn't face a serious and Republican-backed challenger the next time he's up for re-election - because he had the audacity to rule fairly on challenges made in the recent Washington gubernatorial race, rather than rule only in favor of the Republicans.

You'd think if you wanted to present yourself as a party of moral and mature people, you would be proud to have a office holder who did the right thing rather than the expedient thing, wouldn't you? I am. You'd think that would be what you wanted in a candidate, wouldn't you? I would. But it appears that the Washington State Republicans can't quite grasp that. The people in charge of the party would rather have an office holder who remembered only that he was part of the clique - the in-crowd and behaved accordingly.

And if you want to know why the current crop of so-called Republicans running things make me so mad, it's because they won't stand by the principles of the party. They are fiscally irresponsible, they are military adventurers, and they believe whole-heartedly in government intervention in the most intimate parts of our daily lives. I used to be able to say that I was a Republican and while I didn't agree on everything with all Republicans, I at least didn't feel ashamed to say it.

For the last ten years or so, I've been ashamed to say I am a Republican, and for the last five years, I won't say it. That's why I'm angry.

Some late night thoughts about slumming. Slumming involves condescending to the people who live or work in the place you are visiting. Slumming implies contempt, ridicule, and just plain attitude. Slumming carries with it more than a hint of privilege. When you go to a place knowing that no one who lives there will ever mistake you for a resident, that's slumming.

I hope you and Patrick are sleeping better.

Richard Anderson: What's with all this talk about grilling? We're now into the braising season....

Speaking of which, I absolutely love this recipe of Tyler Florence's. Braised artichokes with pork sausage, lemon and sage? That's pretty much all you need right there in one pan.

Alison: I don't know how many here went to fairly conservative east coast top-25 universities in the last ten years (or spent time in the halls of Congress lately), but if you had, you would have encountered many Karols and many Jessicas.

Reading through the disemvowellment, yeah, I'd say you've pretty much got it pegged. Not speaking directly to the interlocutors (interlopers?) here, but of that type in general: what drove me insane was the combination of a classist component and a hypocritical component, but it's primarily the former that I found so vile. The basic thesis, whether explicit or no, is that there are Rules and these Rules apply to everyone except those Privileged enough to be in the right college/club/social stratum/whatever. Hence it's OK for them to, e.g., dress provocatively and have dirty filthy sex because the prohibition on sex only applies to Others. It's even ok for their friends to do that, so it's not your garden-variety Victorian hypocrisy that calls for ostracization of those who dare act publicly, it's pretty much straight up classism.

The hypocritical component, in my experience, was twofold. First, there's the rhetoric: the repeated invocations of, e.g., "no sex before marriage" by people who were merrily screwing their brains out when clearly what they meant was "no sex before marriage for you". For those who are Privileged, knock yourself out... with one caveat, which is the second component: acknowledgements of those deeds within the ranks of the Privileged is perfectly acceptable and indeed is often encouraged. Acknowledgements of those deeds to the Others -- in college, that tended to be people from the wrong social strata; in politics, the media is often the proxy -- is completely forbidden. It's sort of a variant on "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" or to certain Asian notions of "face"; as long as the knowledge of these acts stays within the correct confines you're in the clear, but woe betide you if it becomes truly public.

I should note a few other things as well, in a spectacularly grab-baggy fashion: while the female version of the species tended to be more open about this classist/hypocritical world-view IME, I'd guess that the actual practioners of it were pretty much at gender parity. [For some reason the menfolk were more... subtle (?!) in both their declarations and abrogations.] There's also an age-related component too: certain licentious activities are completely acceptable in a certain age-group (e.g. up to 25?) and then unacceptable thereafter, provided again you're in the ranks of the Privileged. A number of my female acquaintances not only espoused those Rules but then actually abided by them themselves, for which they had my admiration (if not actually support), so thankfully not everyone was tainted by this. And finally, I have no problem with people gallivanting off in tight clothing and having dirty filthy sex (or whichever act is the bane of their rhetorical existence) in the abstract, just in the ostensible denial of those acts to the Others while reserving them to the Privileged.

Finally, to TNH and PNH: My condolences to the family of the deceased, and to you as well for the trauma you're doubtless processing. I'd planned on swinging by the Concourse that weekend in the hopes of catching a few talks -- I live a few blocks away -- but duty called; now, I'm just regretting that I didn't have the opportunity to buy you a few drinks in preparation for your return.

I disagree with this formulation, as do I think a number of commenters upthread. You can be a visitor, an interloper, a gawky out-of-place tourist-type (*raises hand*) without slumming. I think your previous formulations were bang on, though: it's a question of whether you're there to participate in the experience, or to be contemptuously amused by those who are.

well I could see being reminded of the song Common People as it is a song about slumming. But why are you reminded of that cover in particular - surely you don't think that William Shatner and Joe Jackson were slumming by performing that song?

[1] a BBC comedy TV show loosely in the format of a 2-team music quiz.

Which is, like all kitsch covers, inferior to the original song by Pulp in just about every way possible.

There's a connection to be made between the Shatner cover of "Common People" and Anarch's comment about class and transgression, but I really need to go to work.

T: continued sympathies on the whole neighbour thing.

Jennie: Our local stripclubs are also very obvious, and have names like Chateau de Sexe and Super Sexe (except that it's written with one huge neon S, shared between the words, so it looks like a filename, Super.exe) and Cabaret des Amazons. Cabaret des Amazons has a huge pink billboard outside with a picture of a dominatrix.

As Hunter Thompson might say,"There is also a negative side."

Lizzy L:
Teresa, I understand why you disemvowel. But it makes me cranky when you do it, because I do try to read the posts, and it makes my eyes ache.

After trying to decipher a few of them, I gave up and trusted the judgement of the disemvoweller. This way I can skip over the abusive posts, but still catch the snarky responses.

Teresa, Patrick, I'm so sorry for all of you in the building, especially your most unfortunate neighbor.

My father, several decades back, was a high-level executive in the electronics industry. In those days, management--and especially management in companies based in Japan--was dominated by white males. As part of my father's job, he had to entertain other executives, sales reps., industry press, etc.

It was not uncommon to entertain by taking a group of men to a strip club or the Playboy club or a similar place. It was, to an extent, considered a normal part of doing business.

It's my understanding that strip clubs are still used for this purpose as well as all the others people have mentioned (plus the cliche bachelor party).

I've never been to a strip club but when it was still relatively new/uncommon, I went to several Chippendales shows (male strippers, in case you don't know). I even took my mother once. The atmosphere was, at the time, rather different than a traditional strip club. Not sure it still is . . . .

(At least one. Their usual billboard recently switched to a different woman and a different name; I don't know if this is a name change or a different place.)

(They open at 11 am, I believe, and I have often been curious just what it's like there at 11am on a weekday. I don't think I have the iron-clad self-possession necessary to find out for myself, however.)

Heat the oven to 300 degrees F. Rinse chicken thighs from your basic supermarket 8-pack, dry 'em, and stick 'em in an appropriately sized roasting pan. Slice a lemon into eighths and add to the pan, and add as well a separated head of garlic (cloves unpeeled) and a small handful of fresh thyme. Pour in enough olive oil to coat everything, and then indeed coat everything by mixing it around with your hands. Make sure the chicken is skin-side up, then pour in about a cup or so of white wine (if using a smallish roasting pan) and grind black pepper to taste over the works. Seal the pan tightly with foil, stick in the oven for two hours, then crank the temp up to 400 degrees, remove the foil, and bake for another 30 to 45 minutes -- until the chicken skin has browned and the lemon and garlic have become a bit scorched and caramelized. Take the pan from the oven, sprinkle with more fresh thyme, and serve. Man oh man, talk about simple to make and tasty. And when you walk into the oven-warmed and scented house after, say, spending an hour shoveling snow from the driveway...well hey, words fail me....

I have to say I really enjoyed the Shatner/Jackson cover of "Common People" when I first heard it a year or so ago. Shatner's phrasing and insouciance serve as a perfect foil to Jackson's palpable anger, and this anger -- almost as if Jackson was channeling his younger self from "Squeezing Out Sparks" -- is what saves and indeed elevates an otherwise irony-laden novelty. I'm not familiar with the Pulp original, but'll check it out....

I can't say that I've ever thought of a strip club as 'slumming'. But then, being a fuzzy-headed granola ex-californain liberal, naked people don't mean the same thing to me that they do to hip young republican snots who think age references and 'feminist' are worthwhile insults.

No, not because of the nudity. Not even primarily because of the commoner-than-they-should-be customers who can't understand that she's a topless dancer, not a prostitute.

Because she has to do it in seven-inch heels.

But if I lived closer to her, I'd go in sometime, to see her and the other women dance (which, yes, I would expect to enjoy--that I can see breasts in the mirror anytime doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing other women's, in appropriate circumstances), say hello to her, and be a decent customer, meaning I'd tip the dancers, not grope them. I'd do that partly because it sounds like fun, and partly because I've gotten to know her online.

This was mentioned upstream, but it's worth repeating: Ladies and gentlemen, if you come to a blog where the post in question is about the murder of someone's neighbor, and all you take from it is a sense of indignation at how someone mentioned [i]you[/i] tangentally, your value system is seriously fucked up.

Teresa, Patrick, I'm so sorry for all of you in the building, especially your most unfortunate neighbor.

And I can't think of a thing worth adding besides "hear! Hear!"

Serge - No harm, no foul. I'd much rather, when trouble- shooting, have someone remind me of the obvious - I've been know to miss it. I only responded in hopes that perhaps someone had some idea of what was going on.

Actually, cached page on the browser was my 1st thought as well. My 2nd thought is: are you using a proxy server?

I'm not being patronizing here, just trying to save time: in case you don't already know how to tell, you can look under Tools menu, Internet options, Connections tab, LAN Settings button.

If the "Proxy" box is checked, the problem may be that the page is getting cached on the server that's sitting between you and the nielsenhayden.com server.

Let ‘em buy drugs in their own neighborhoods, sez I.

Damned Bridge and Tunnel People!

I also liked Anarch's analysis of the modern right wing's real sexual mores. It sorts out a lot of behavior I've observed. For instance, almost all the Republican leaders who went after Clinton had personal lives and financial histories that wouldn't have stood up to that kind of scrutiny for ten minutes, yet they pretended to be shocked and affronted.

Ever noticed how the minute they've labeled someone a liberal, rightwingers think they're entitled to say "hypocrite" as well? Projection, much?

Love,

New Jersey.

Is it possible that they're genuinely shocked and affronted? I'm thinking of certain rabidly anti-gay politicians who turned out to be engaging in homosex themselves. It seems likely to me that they really do think homosexuality is wrong. They "just can't help themselves."

So I so now that, in addition to all our other faults, conservatives don't see liberals as full human beings. This coming from a blogger who felt the need to pad out a post about her recently-deceased neighbor with an unrelated attack on Republicans. And hacks the comments of just about every conservative who shows up to try to argue their side. And has apparently not a single good thing to say about her fellow human beings, conservatives.

Hey Teresa, I'm good friends with liberals; I've dated some; I work with them every day. So do the other conservatives who've written in on this post, at least the ones I know. All your attacks on conservatives have the air of abstraction to them. I'm curious to know, do you actually know any conservatives in real life? Who's the alienated one here?

So where's the skin off anyone's nose? You drive through Staten Island -- which you'll note is still NYC -- cross the Goethals or Bayonne Bridge, and get off at 13A, which is the next stop north on the NJ Turnpike. Lo, there's IKEA. You do your shopping and head home. A mile or two down the road you're back in NYC, having touched no more of the sacred soil of New Jersey than the faint layer of blowing dust that accumulates in the IKEA parking lot.

So it is, and I've just listened to iTune's allowable 30 seconds of the Pulp's "Common People." Based on this (perhaps unfair) snippet, I prefer the Shatner/Jackson version -- it's faster, interestingly varied in tone, and easier to dance to. ("I'll give it a nine, Dick.") And in relistening to the cover, I have to correct my comment upthread. Jackson is less angry than plaintive and even despairing, while Shatner moves through the song from insouciance to anger.

The lyrics of both versions pretty much nail the attitude behind slumming.

Gnrll, stpprs rn't ft, gl nd 40smthng.

www.wghtwtchrs.cm lk nt t.

Do I know any conservatives? I was raised conservative. I worked on more than one Goldwater campaign. My father was big into Republican politics. I am, heaven help me, a former state secretary of YAF. I've never asked, but I suspect that the majority of my relatives are conservatives. If you woke me in the middle of the night and asked me to state my political affiliation, I'm not sure I wouldn't say "conservative."

Got any other cheap and easy assumptions you need to get rid of?

But then, this is an educated, enfranchised and employed woman whose social group uses "feminist" as an insult.

Got any other cheap and easy assumptions you need to get rid of?

Just that you're childish and petty... I think that's it.

Laura, if that's true, wouldn't they think they should receive the same punishment for it they feel is appropriate for others?

I don't know. Maybe the only real sin is getting caught? Or maybe it's another case of "the punishment doesn't apply to people of my class."

I'm trying to imagine how they think, and failing miserably.

Yaron, my family runs from pretty far left (Green) to pretty far right (evangelical GOP). We don't do that sort of thing, because it comes back and bites. We like to be able to speak to each other at least occasionally.

Ad hominem attacks are so _elevated_, aren't they?

You know, I feel sorry for people who think only thin people are sexy. They miss out on so much fun.

Oops. We're laughing too hard. The Manager of Science Fiction has just stuck his head in to tell us that we're audible clear out in the elevator lobby, and could we please keep it down?

I'm sorry I couldn't type fast enough to take down everything Claire and Melissa said. On the other hand, it would only have shocked the menfolk if I had.

Please?

I apologise for doing this at a time when you're reeling from the death of a neighbor, and for taking every comment made about slumming etc to refer to Republicans and/or conservatives in general and me and my friends in particular. Please make allowances for my youth.

I am beginning to realise that when you folks go on about the definition of "slumming" you may have moved on to an interest in the meaning of words for their own sake, and may have lost interest, at least for the moment, in me and my friends.

You know, I went back and had a look at some of your earlier posts (as a way of breaking out of my masochistic fascination with this thread). There's some interesting stuff here.

Elizabeth, now, is a sockpuppet on its first outing, and was posted using a fake e-mail address. If anyone can perform further divinations on its IP address, 146.203.130.11, let us know what you find.

Whenever someone tries to explain slumming as "considering yourself better than those around you, and treating them like they're monkeys on display just for your amusement", someone jumps in with a point about how, "of course, nobody ever treats strippers that way."

I'm amazed nobody else has pointed this one out: We're not talking about the slummers treating the strippers that way. We're talking about the slummer treating the *other patrons* that way. "You're here for T&A. We're here to be superior to you because you watch T&A."

As for Yaron?

Don't whine about insults then call someone childish. You're just proving your opponents the more right about you. I've also looked back through your posts (Vowelled and otherwise), and yes, you've been using that word from the start. Then saying you haven't been rude.

OrgName: Mount Sinai School of Medicine
OrgID: MSSM
Address: One Gustave L. Levy Place
Address: Mailstop 1102
City: New York
StateProv: NY
PostalCode: 10029-6574

And yeah - this place loves words and wordplay, so an in-depth examination of the word slumming might have taken place regardless... It's just that kind of place.

Such a witty fellow this would-be doctor is. How compassionate. How wise.

=============

So who are these Republicans?

Just because someone favors lower taxes and an aggressive foreign policy doesn't mean anything more about who they are....

A more accurate way of putting that, Republican, would be "Just because someone favors strip mining the US Treasury while flushing America's international reputation doesn't mean anything more about who they are...." But who are these Republicans?

They're the few, those who think they're one of the few, and those who hope to someday be one of the few. Presumably our would-be doctor is one who hopes someday to be one of the few.

Bad news for you, Republican. You won't be. The few, the real ones, won't invite you to their parties. They won't share their power with you. They'll use you, laugh at you, and discard you without a second thought.

Listen, Republican: You may claim to be a conservative. You aren't. There isn't a real conservative in a carload of Republicans.

Sleep well, Republican. In the morning the dream will end.

You keep using the word "hacking" to describe Teresa's disemvoweling your posts.

Your posts haven't been hacked. They've been disemvoweled. That isn't a bug -- it's a feature of this site. Teresa sells tee-shirts advertising it.

Buy one, Republican. You can afford it. You can boast to all your little Republican friends how you were disemvoweled. I'm sure you'll tell them it was for your dangerous ideas.

Republican.

Ah, booth-babes! (They appear also at places like E3 and Comdex; at least one person I know gauges the product quality by the number of babes: the more babes, the lower the quality.)

I must admit, the first time I read Elizabeth's comment I just went "...whu?" and went over it. I didn't actually realise it was supposed to be an insult. She really needs to practice, whoever she is.

And isn't it a sad commentary on something or other that "she" feels that a fat 40 yo can't be objectified. (Hint: maybe we've got better things to do than hang around being objectified. I'd think it would be awfully boring, myself.)

I don't think the Japanese view the race queens in quite the same way. We need a Japanese speaker to be accurate on that, though.

Got url?

You're definitely slumming when you go to Republican blogs.

"What does that mean? Why does everyone keep saying that??"

James - you keep using "Republican" as if it's a hurtful word. I don't know if you realize this, but that's the party that tends to win national elections these days. Anyway I'm not a Republican, so that was a waste of a whole bunch of words. Also, "disemvowellment" is a form of hacking. I don't care what you call it, it's a violation of etiquette and there's a reason why the other 99% of blogs/message boards don't do it.

Also I never mentioned slumming. You're thinking of other people.

Also, in general, there seems to be a lack of self-awareness here across the board - people on your ideological side can and do say whatever nasty things they want and no one notices, while people on the other side have to adhere to strict rules of civility. I mean, do whatever you want, but don't imagine that one side here is above the fray.

Go tell your republicanisms to someone who's republican enough to fall for them.

I've occasionally mused on the idea of the Marital Status Fairy dropping in on the postal station where I work, waving her wand around, and turning everyone there single.

If that were the case... well, there are some pretty attractive women working there, that I wouldn't mind chasing after a bit.

But the woman there I'd most likely pursue with an eye towards a permanent relationship carries about sixty pounds of excess weight, is plain-featured, and taller than most of the men there.

But I worked next to her at another station for nearly a year, and I found her to be smart, funny, and... now pay close attention, "Elizabeth"... nice.

Sometimes it isn't everybody's fault, but it is everybody's mess, and by their mop-buckets shall ye know them.

No, it's a form of editing. You should be grateful Teresa isn't charging you money for the service.

p.s. Disemvowelment has only one ell.

Replace the "_______" with "waiter", "bartender", "chicken plucker" etc. A person may take a job with an eye toward something better in the future, without thinking that s/he is "above this'.

Am I slumming it when I go to conservative blogs to laugh at their intellectual and ethical poverty?

Yep! You're going to somewhere you don't "hang out" with a superior "I'm not one of them" attitude. That fits most of the definitions of "slumming" above. (I'm glad I'm not one of them, but I try to stay away from the truly idiotic blogs.)

(I mean, I assume you're not one of the folks who contends there should be no limits at all on any kind of speech online? Even in private forums?)

Also, I don't entirely understand why you're continuing to post so antagonistically. Could you explain?

Teresa, Patrick (though it seems mostly Teresa was upset, but I could be wrong)-- sucky experience. Sorry.

You are correct. C and Jsn talked about slmmng

"Torturer."

Thre first snarky republican bit was fine, since it was obviously directed at the Sock-Puppet, but I think the one where you hit Yaron directly might have been a slip.

He's a troll, don't get me wrong, and yes, he's (Or she's, whatever) dead wrong about disemvowellment, but he's also the wrong troll.

Although anyone who thinks that republican is something to be proud of because they steal elections hasn't been reading the news with any better comprehension than he has the rest of this blog.

Yaron, have you read the Bizarro Yaron? Consider - it made a lot more sense than you do.

When, if at all, are you going to respond to the point that this whole thing was started as part of the traumatic experience of finding a neighbour not only dead but murdered -- probably for working at a place your friends found a lark to visit and curl their lips at, unaware they were also flirting with death?

Yaron: Is that any different than people using liberal or Democrat as a perjorative?

Speaking of which, I was raised a Reagan Republican in the heart of Utah, was a Young Republican and a College Republican, and alas, would have probably voted for Bush the first time round if I hadn't somehow not got my absentee ballot whilst I was living in Canada. The first time somebody called me a "liberal" I think I blanched and twitched and spasmed and frothed, and then politely dissented with the person thus naming me. And ran smack into the wall of someone else's preconceived notions about what it meant to be conservative. To be fair, I've run into this on either end of the political spectrum, but by and large, I have to say my more extreme examples tended to hail from the right.

(At some point I seemed to have crossed an invisible line, and my still-fairly-conservative family all tend to regard me as having been possessed by aliens, and maybe if they pray enough, their Republican-voting daughter will be restored to them or at least go to church, where she will be told to vote Republican. Utah politics encompass a situation which I can only describe as like being born into a family where everybody cheers for a particular rugby team, and only that rugby team, on the sole pretense that the rugby team in question maintains that it looks out for their interests. It eventually becomes obvious that A) that rugby team is really terrible at rugby B) sometimes cheats C) treats other rugby teams with little respect and D) really doesn't care about winning the game for its loyal fans, but just throwing it to keep the bookies happy. And yet, everybody cheers for said team anyway, and reviles those who pick a team more to their personal taste, beliefs, and moral values.)

BTW, as another Elizabeth, that post by "Elizabeth" makes me twitch. Every time I see another person chastizing "Elizabeth", the little homunculi in my head curl up into a little ball and whimper, We didn't do it, we didn't do it, my precious."

A violation of etiquette? Who died and made you Quentin Crisp? (Hint: The answer is not Quentin Crisp, whose immortal memory I may have accidently maligned by referencing him here.)

As with homes and countries, rules on message boards and the etiquette by which the board is rule are both determined by the ruling inhabitants. One thing that may be considered rude in one man's house is a point of politeness in another. "When in Rome..."

As for the silly assertion that 99 percent of blogs and boards don't behave thusly, I would answer: No, many of them behave much worse. Disemvowelling does not mean that the content of your original post has been changed to reflect something it doesn't mean, nor has it been removed outright and totally censored. You keep missing the point there, it seems. All Teresa has done is make it so that I can skip that post easily if I want to. It's a visual cue, and it's also a form of social incentive: If you don't want your posts disemvowelled, don't engage in ad hominem attacks, hasty generalisations, put forth arguments which put words into the mouths of others or make faulty assumptions. Any of these seems to be a much ruder offense than disemvowelling.

Alternately, you could try explaining to him why it is that we don't have a high opinion of the current Republican party. Graydon's made a start on that one.

If someone else doesn't get to it first, I'm probably good for the explanation about how putting your writing online, and encouraging traffic to come to your site and read it, makes you susceptible to being reviewed; also, how we aren't obliged to have a good opinion of the prose and/or the ideational content in his friends' weblogs; also, why responding furiously to one's reviews is almost universally referred to as the A.B.M., or Author's Bad Mistake.

To bed now. I have a half-day at work tomorrow, and seven guests (five of whom will be staying here) coming for Thanksgiving dinner.

virtual slumming. I wonder about that.

Back there a ways I said the comments section of this blog is like a corner bar but that was wrong. It's more like Teresa and Patrick's home was on a corner with a lot of foot traffic, and their own backyard was open to view from both streets of the intersection. And they built a nice patio, with comfy benches and oh, I don't know, maybe a barbecue and definitely some nice fragrant flowering vines growing over what's left of the fence after they put in arbors with wide open arches all along the fence. So people wander in all hours of the day and night, because it's well-lit and comfy and the honeysuckle smells nice. And there's almost always somebody to talk to. But even though Patrick and Teresa go about their lives and they're only out there on the patio part of the time, and even though all these diverse people come and go all the time, it's still Patrick and Teresa's house.

Got that part? It's their house. They make the rules, which in this case is: be reasonably civil and listen to each other. That's pretty much it for #1.

And so after a while there are people who are used to coming here and they've been talking to each other for a while and gosh there's a wide variety of people here some of whom it would be awfully hard to have sitting at the same barbecue if they hadn't agreed on a few things to begin with, most of which they seemed to have worked out in the course of conversation. But there's been a few hairy scenes and Teresa's worked out this system of taking some of the edge off the worst of it in a way that's humorous and also allows the person to go on talking and calls attention to the breaches of ettiquette that bring it on. It's like making the rudest guy at the party wear a dunce hat, only less so, with extra added logic puzzles to amuse the audience. That's #2.

Somebody else do #3. I'm lazy.

I'm not going to explain #4 because that would be stupid. "I'm explaining to you that the rude thing you did was to not listen to the explanation of how the rude thing you did was to not listen to the explanation of what's rude and what we do about it around here." I can't bring myself to write that.

I'm going to bed now too. I had two days to clean the house and I did nothing whatever toward that goal and now I have no days to clean the house and three thanksgiving dinners to participate in, in three cities. And work tomorrow.

Now you've done it— you've invited me into the house. (I work on a principle similar to the popular one for vampires.)

Yaron writes: Also, in general, there seems to be a lack of self-awareness here across the board -

Across the board? Oh sweet Jeebus, do we ever love sweeping generalizations like that one.

Yaron continues: ...people on your ideological side can and do say whatever nasty things they want and no one notices, ...

Yes. Yes, we can. We do. We revel in it. And no one notices. Hell, do you realize what I'm saying and doing right now while I crack off this flame? I could tell you stories that would uncurl the cilia on your wigglers. And, of course, you don't notice. No one notices. That's the beauty. I'm a write-only device, baby!

Yaron continues: ...while people on the other side have to adhere to strict rules of civility.

This document specifies a neoconservatarian Best Current Practices for the neoconservatarian Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in neoconservatarian documents. Authors who follow these guidelines should incorporate this phrase near the beginning of their document:

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 666-9753bcp27BZ/6.

Note that the force of these words is modified by the requirement level of the document in which they are used.

Yaron concludes: I mean, do whatever you want, but don't imagine that one side here is above the fray.

Above the fray? The fray?

Child... you do realize that many of us here sharpen our own knives. You think this is a melee? Think again.

Take a look around. Have you noticed the number of players here who post without using cheap, throwaway pseudonyms? These are our real names. Do not make the mistake of thinking you can say and do whatever you want here and nobody will notice or care.

Google reads star from all and journals everything to an infinite persistent data store. Our great great grandchildren will be able to grep for our names and see what we wrote when we were young, dumb and full of lemon meringue.

Have you spent the last twenty years posting hundreds of thousands of words under your complete real name where every robot on the web can index it sixty thousand ways to Sunday? Near as I can tell— no, you haven't. But you still have the gall, the unmitigated nerve, the naked box canyons, to walk in here with your pistol and stamen fully displayed in front of an undifferentiated nickname and try to tell us that we are the ones that lack self-awareness.

Forgive us for laughing at you, but what else can we do?

"The magnitude of the two things (people you don't know going to a strip bar, murder) is so different that they shouldn't have been conflated in the first place."

Don't you get it? That's why people answering (and lurking) think you are behaving in a ridiculous way. Teresa and Patrick went/are going through a great deal of major yuckiness, and Theresa has used this forum to express some of it. So she made a snide comment, at the very end of two posts, about some of your friends. Give it a break. Deal with the issue that the posts are really about, and think a little about snide behaviour to people who have to deal with grief.

Re-lurking now.

Those who ignore context inevitably get things massively wrong. What does the sentence "Brutus is an honorable man" mean? By itself it means that Brutus behaves honorably. But in the context of Marc Antony's famous speech from Julius Caesar, it means quite the opposite.

Give it some thought.

Mmmm, of course. Like, say Ann Coulter does? You know, like when she says on national TV that "unlike a liberal" she has ethics? Or when she publishes books called Treason and How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Have To).

Or perhaps you mean the strict rules adhered to by the people with the bumper sitckers reading "Annoy a liberal--work hard and be happy". (Me, I want one that says "Annoy a conservative--be kind and think clearly". But that would be, you know, rude, so I don't have one.)

Or the strict rules of the people who bomb clinics that provide women's health services, even when those clinics don't perform abortions, those rules?

No, I know--you must mean the strict rules where it's fine for the President to lie in order to start a war of aggression.

I could go on, but I don't really feel like taking on the karma of being that angry right now, so I'll stop.

But as to the case at hand: Yes, it appears that Jessica is indeed strikingly republican. And it seems that her little friends are all strikingly republican as well.

As far as the pestilence of wicked bridge-and-tunnel New Yorkers, creeping back from their shopping trips with our fair New Jersey dust ensconced in their villainous lungs-those very lungs with which you castigate we suburbanites upon our occasional evening visits to your metropolis. . .

. . . I'm totally unable to finish that sentence without anticlimax. This is really embarassing.

Then, if you still think we're all a bunch of [censored] liberals, you may leave quietly.

I'd say that it is impossible to belong to this Republican party and be a person of good will. Can't be done.

Lies, murder, and torture do not fit under 'good will'. Fiscal profligacy could, possibly, in the general case, fit under 'good will' if it included a large side of clueless good intentions, but this particular fiscal profligacy won't fit under 'good will' at all, because it's one hundred percent pure-quill corruption.

You'd have more luck getting a blue whale into a bivy sack.

And the next presidental election, like the last two, will be decided by whomever it is who controls the unmonitored, unverified, criminal-penalties-for-evaluating, electronic voting machines. Even if some talking head has to get up on CNN and explain why the exit polls were forty percent in error, or -- much more likely -- why there were no exit polls this time.

Dear ghods, I love this place. Truly. Theresa, Patrick, thank you for allowing us to play in your sandbox, and thanks to all for the wonderful constructions built therein. I try not to read Making Light around other people, as trying to explaing the howling laughter at certain word pictures is sometimes impossible. JH, thank you. The above will be cherished, and re-used at an appropriate moment.

I think it's hysterical that the irony of my post was lost on most of you, the fact that we were women entering this establishment. We were women out to have a good time without having to pay an exorbitant fee.

So Teresa, now that there was a murder in your building are you planning on moving out?

We didn't agree with your point. That doesn't mean we missed it.

I can do this without going to a topless bar and talking later about how sleazy it was. There are bars that don't have exorbitant cover charges and don't involve 'sleaze'. You probably have at least one decent bar in your neighborhood. You could try a tapas bar, too. Have you tried birdwatching (look: pingpong balls! butterbutts!)?

See my recommendation to Yaron a little way upthread. You might enjoy something less threatening to your self-image.

I'd say that it is impossible to be a vocal Republican and be a person of good will. I know a number of people of good will who also happen to be Republican, some in public office. They have slowly grown silent over the last few years. Since evil florishes when good people stand silent, I hope the faint beginnings of discontent I am hearing continue to grow.

I lied.

So I had a dream the other night, induced by this thread. I am in a seedy old strip club. Cue up the “boom, chakka, boom” music. Out comes Ms. Teresa in a full PhD graduation robe. She walks up to the blackboard at the back of the stage and begins to make notations. She suddenly whirls and stalks to the front of the stage and says, “I KNOW you haven’t studied!” She then picks out guys and asks them questions for which they do not have the answers and brazenly walks up to one poor schnoock, pushes her glasses up her nose and purrs, “I bet you don’t even know what a dipthong is.” At that point a guy in the audience jumps up with a $100 bill in his hand and yells, “Disemvowel me Baby, I can take it!”

At which point I woke up giggling.

Words are wonderful things. And unlike people they don’t grow flabbly or get wrinkly if you leave them out in the rain (well if you want to quibble about that messy form of putting them in those book container things, go ahead and be my guest).

As some of my friends may or may not attest I am neither fat nor thin. But I will cop to being over 40. Hell, I’ll even go so far to say that I’m creeping ever so closer to the other end of the decade, so there. But just recently having had a brain scare I have always and continue to cherish that organ very much. And while certain body parts are a little creaky I’m not dead yet and the rest I leave up to the collective imagination of the universe and you can all mind your peas and parsnips.

The truth is, if we are lucky we survive to get old and wrinkly and some of us even figure out that it is our brains that help make us the sexiest critters on the planet.

Before I get off the soapbox, can I remind folks of the origins of this post and that our friends just went through a slight rehearshal of an episode of The Sopranos. A little slack here maybe?

--claire

Founding congressman of Earth Day, ran against Nixon for president in 1972, Marine (Korea: Navy Cross, two Purple Hearts, and a Silver Star), and a guy I could (and did) vote for. And I don't agree with that party's views.

No, it's not that we missed the irony. It's that we didn't consider the act as radical and hip as you seem to. Firstly, women going to a strip club may be unusual and risque in your circles, but is quite tame and cliched to many here. We're not shocked. Why, some of us worked long and hard to secure your right to walk into a strip club, newbie. Secondly, it was perfectly obvious that the establishment in question was in the kind of neighborhood that no one but an idiot would consider safe. You chose to go into what was obviously an unsafe environment for a bit of fun. That was frankly stupid, and if you don't see that, I despair of you.

Why is that supposed to be ironic? Is it that women are not supposed to enter strip clubs except as dancers and waitresses? Or is it just that *nice* women aren't supposed to enter strip clubs?

Jessica: You don't think you were in danger at the exact moment you went? Then where did the bullet holes already existing come from?

There's no magic moment between the first bullets and this latest one where you were magically sheltered from this place. There's no magical protection provided by the fact that you were innocent and harmless. In fact, the fact that you don't belong in a place like that makes you more of a target. since nobody would know where to look for you if you disappeared. You could have been raped or killed just for going in and giggling.

Thus, your actions were stupid. To talk about them as if it was a light flirtation with the lower echelons, and not a serious endangerment of your life, is incredibly STUPID.

(I do not say *you* are stupid. You may well be smart most of the time. There is a difference between a person who is stupid all the time, and a person who does one, or two, stupid things. In fact, we all do stupid things. This doesn't mean we're exempt from having that action called stupid.)

It doesn't matter how anyone votes in the next Presidential election. The votes are not being counted.

Worrying about how people would vote in some other universe where the votes are counted is pretty silly.

Bush's poll numbers right now are very bad among Democrats and Independents; they're still quite strong among those who identify as Republican, well over 60% approval.

Some of that might be due to an effective propaganda operation, but I think most of it is due to a combination of the brutality associated with dissent within the Republican Party, habits of loyalty, people possessing sufficiently loathesome personal views that they do approve of torturing "those people", looting the treasury, and so forth, and a certain lack of the moral will to admit error.

Respectfully, I'm afraid I disagree. Maybe they should be treated politely. But I'm afraid I have a difficult time treating with respect people who completely ignored the information in front of their faces, who ignored GWB's record as governor of Texas, who swallowed, hook, line, and sinker the outright lies about WMD, when the lies were presented with "evidence" that fail to suspend the disbeliev of your average reader of mystery novels, who ignored the incredible costs of the current war, and who voted the current group of thugs and theocrats (to borrow a phrase from Graydon) into positions of power twice.

I'm glad these people are coming to notice that the emperor is nekkid as a Sweet Cherry stripper. I'm sorry for them that their illusions are being shattered. I won't hector or harangue them more than I have just done. But I can't respect that kind of culpable ignorance, and that abdication of the responsibilities of a citizen in a democracy.

I'll refrain from name calling. But part of being a grownup is accepting responsibility for one's errors. The U.S. is currently in the hands of some truly vile people and some truly incompetent people. Those people didn't just get to be in charge on their own. And the people who voted for them had access to the information that they were thugs and theocrats (to borrow a phrase from Graydon). I'll have a lot more respect for people who admit that this mess is of their making, and who do their research before voting, but I can't really respect the culpable ignorance that they displayed.

Yaron, The people who go there all the time, work there, deal there, or just drink and watch the ggirls, *know* how to handle themselves in an establishment like that. They know the risks. They can walk the walk and talk the talk, because they belong. it's not slandering the dead to say he worked in a really low place, it's fact. It also implies that HE has the above survival techniques down, and he knew what he was doing.

Which only proves it's not a sure protection even for those who belong, who have a pretty good chance of getting by in a place like that.

So if someone who knows the territory and fits in can be murdered, how is someone like Jessica who goes in without any survival skills whatsoever supposed to be remotely safe?

Hmmm. Now might be a good time to mention that I wrote 'pistol' where I should have written 'pistil' and didn't catch it before I clicked the (POST) button. Sorry about that.

I strongly recommend you learn exactly what "slander" means. You're on a board full of writers. Definitions matter.

Do I think it is stupid to work in an establishment where people get shot at? If you have a choice about it, yes. Similar reasoning means I think my family members in the military and law enforcement are nuts, but I don't consider them stupid because they don't do it for a fun night out. Do you get that? That your going to such a place was stupid because you chose to do it for fun? Somehow, I don't think that's sinking in.

For the past X years (X is an arbitrary number. For me, it's 11; corresponding with Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Others may say it's 25, going back to Reagan's campaign against Carter. whatever.) Democrats have been debating issues, Republicans have been assassinating characters. When Republicans try to debate issues, the results are the Social Security Bamboozlepalooza (Josh Marshall's wonderful coinage) which collapsed in a heap of dung and straw and which must never be mentioned again if you are a good Republican. Republicans know this, which is why they attack exaggerated personality traits. This methodology reached its peak (or nadir, if you prefer) during the 2004 Republican convention with the Purple Heart bandages and related Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry.

The unfortunate aspect of this kind of politics is that it wins elections. It wins elections because the people practicing it appear stronger to the electorate than the party ignoring it.

Democrats need first and foremost to stand up and fight back, the way they did when Jean Schmidt attempted to smear John Murtha. At some point, the playing field will then be levelled, and we'll elect a government on the issues. But we're not there yet.

In Ohio, for example, if Democrats don't run against the corruption of Ney, Noe, and Taft, they don't deserve to win elections next year, regardless of whether more Ohioans agree with Democratic positions on Social Security, health care, balancing the budget, etc.

"My opinion is that the former approach, not the latter, is most pragmatic and likeliest to lead to success. The downside, as some might view it, is the potential alienation of the left wing of the party."

Hi Richard. I see your point, but I am afraid that I must respectfully disagree. Here's why:

I completely agree that the next election will be won by courting the moderate voters. However, I would tend to disagree that quiet, reasoned discourse is the best method of courtship. I would argue that hysterical slogan-shouting has been proven time and again to be a more effective tactic.

In particular, I feel that the success of the Republican party in the last several elections was due largely to their superior ability to center the debate on some carefully selected emotionally charged issues. The average voter doesn't give a shit about corporate tax policy, but if you show them a picture of two guys kissing they go berserk.

My thinking is that the current administration has presented us with a golden opportunity to sling a little mud of our own. Regardless of how you feel about, say, the Alaskan wildlife refuge, most people are going to recoil in horror when presented with an image of a guy being drowned in a bucket of his own urine.

I would respectfully suggest that success might best be achieved by focusing the debate upon the administrations unswerving support of policies that are inherently indefensible.

It's less intuitively obvious, but I would also argue that a certain amount of hyperbole in such discussions adds a useful element of theatricality.

Allow me to illustrate:

You're either against torture and imprisonment without trial or you're a bad person. There is no grey area.

There's been a certain amount of hand-wringing about the current lack of civility in American debate, both here particularly and in the world. I think what we need is less civility, not more. Dignifying the ongoing crimes of the administration by engaging in debate with the supporters of the crimes is a direct slap in the face to their victims.

Jessica, Yaron, Lin: I don't care at all about your positions on strip clubs, slumming, gay marriage, abortion or the national debt.

This administration has turned the U.S. into a place where torture and imprisonment without trial are OK. To whatever degree you support the filth responsible for such crimes, you are yourself filth. If that's not self-evident then no amount of wordplay is ever going to cure you.

This seems a bit hysterical to me. You're not Jessica's mother, you weren't along with them, and as far as I can tell you've never *actually* been to Sweet Cherry. Jessica's been fairly civil in this thread considering the amount of abuse that's been dumped on her blog. You may think her actions or writings are in poor taste; that may be, but it's surely her right to judge her own risk-taking.

In fact, in most places the naive outsider is at much less risk than the people who actually belong. The Fortune-Favoured Fool is an archetype for a reason: the outsider has no debts, no conflicted loyalties, no old grudges or betrayals, poses no particular threat to anyone's turf, and the locals don't really know if it's safe to mess with her. In fact, if she has a political patron with power, it's probably considerably less safe to mess with her than with Teresa's unfortunate neighbour; disappearances of privileged white women are generally investigated much more thoroughly than those of middle-aged unmarried titty-bar bouncers.

(I blithely assume Jessica is white. I don't actually know *that*, either.)

You assert Jessica has no survival skills. And she'll never get any if she never leaves the bubble of safety, whether she does it the way you'd like or not.

Uh, what did I write that caused you to put me in with Jessica and Yaron? If so, I want to retract and/or rephrase it.

Hmmm. I suppose it's possible the deceased might have been paying Sweet Cherry for the privilege of doing security work there— stranger things have happened in big cities— but I'm inclined to assume the more likely opposite flow of dollars in exchange for services rendered and risks assumed.

Though, like Aconite, I'll say I was underimpressed with Jessica's attempt at irony and just note for the record that if she thinks it's "hysterical" that most of us don't find her comments as pithy as she thinks they were, then she's got one damaged sense of humor.

Now if Jessica wants to roll down to Sweet Cherry and take a job there, then maybe your comparison will be a fair one. Oh wait. Maybe, Jessica's "not cut out for that kind of work," or she's getting a better rate for marketing her dignity in a skirt and heels in some Republican PR operation. (Doubtful, in either case.)

I think I can see the point you're trying to make with your recurring visits, but it's not coming across very clearly. You're really peeved about the "Republicans and tacky sex" comment our host made, aren't you?

"They can't all be into sleaze, can they?" she asked.

And here you are— one has to wonder— dating [?] a Republican. What would that make you? One wonders. (There was a previous thread here where we all had a great time deconstructing Scooter Libby's bad sex scenes in his novel. You might look for that, because a little context might help.)

Would you like to talk about the underlying issue? The weird mentality that Republicans and other conservatarians have with sex and morality? Or are you just planning to swing wildly at anybody who still hasn't come around to agreeing with you that Jessica is the dog's bollix and one hot piece of sheet music?

I am reminded - stop me if you've heard this one - of a debate in which the following exchange took place:

Hon Member: I am a member from the country. I have always been a country member, I will always be a country member.

Interjection: Yeah, mate, we remember.

Perhaps it's just a cultural thing?

In such situations, the term usualy applied to the naive outsider is "mark."

Yeah, well— sometimes you hit the target when you're aiming with your eyes closed.

jh: I actually read it as pistil the first time. Altho both variations are equally delightful.

This administration has turned the U.S. into a place where torture and imprisonment without trial are OK. To whatever degree you support the filth responsible for such crimes, you are yourself filth. If that's not self-evident then no amount of wordplay is ever going to cure you.

Calm down, please. Are these people all Bushies? How can you tell? Are we supposed to agree with you, just because you think we should? (BTW - I know Lin. She isn't a conservative, and she knows how to use a gun. I wouldn't want to argue with her. Think a much safer version of our hostess.)

Assuming that you don't work there (i.e., not the new bouncer), it's optional for you. If you want to go somewhere dangerous -- with bullet holes in the windows, for Pete's sake -- for fun, for "thrills" or whatever, and assuming you're an adult, that's up to you. But the rest of us are free to think such a choice is less than wise, and to express such opinions, even at the risk of our hostess disemvoweling us.

(I will admit that maybe not all places with bullet holes are dangerous. I have a bullet hole in my bedroom window. The family who lived here before me had a kid with a BB gun. I've never got around to having the window fixed or changed.)

Jennie, point taken: perhaps I confused "respect" with "polite." But frankly, I can see how otherwise intelligent, moderate Republicans might've believed the neocon's domino theory that posits a democratic Iraq will lead to a flourishing of democracy elsewhere in the region. (It's similar to the tack some liberals took against the Kirkpatrick Doctrine back in the '80s, arguing that the federal gov't should use its instruments of power to knock down authoritarian regimes rather than prop 'em up.) I can also understand the reluctance some might have of changing a commander-in-chief while a war is in progress. And through this understanding, I can discuss -- politely, with those who're willing to engage in discussion -- the problems that've derived from these beliefs. Where I live, and in other small towns across the country, that's going to be far more effective than calling someone an idiot.

And Scott H, maybe you're right (at any rate, I like your argument -- after all, smear and spin clearly proved productive for Rove and gang). Perhaps the wisest strategy would be to use a two-pronged approach: hyperbole at the national level, polite (and even respectful?) discussion at the local level.

Altho I have a friend with bullet holes, plural, in his closet. (Closet?) Yup, he's got this huge walk-in closet that's half clothes and half gun locker. He periodically test fires in the closet because it can't be heard from outside.

I lust after that closet. My friend says he's not sure if it's from the sheer size or from the guns in it. I can't decide either.

Did the bulletholes in question look recent?

BTW, 'ignorant' in this post is synonymous with 'unknowing'. Just to be clear on that subject.

I've been watching the back-and-forthing going on in this thread, and I gather the timeline of events is thus:

Jessica goes to a strip bar.
Jessica posts joking description of her visit.
Theresa's neighbor is murdered downstairs.
Theresa finds Jessica's post.

Important facts to remember: the neighbor worked at the bar Jessica visited. Said bar has bullet holes in the windows. The neighbor was shot.

I'm going to ignore all the 'Us vs. Them' politicking (tho' I'm tempted not to.) I don't think it really has much to do with the neighbor, Jessica, or Theresa. The fact that Jessica and Theresa fall on opposite sides of the liberal/conservative line is incidental (and inflammatory) but ultimately irrelevant.

I take Jessica's original post as a joke. It isn't well-written and it is in bad taste, and it displays an appalling ignorance of the area, the type of bar, and the particular bar, but other than that, it's the sort of thing I would expect an inexperienced girl of good upbringing to write as a joke. It's shallow, but within the limited confines of her own social circle, likely very amusing (in part for its very shallowness.)

Enter Theresa, still in shock from the neighbor's death. She knows much more about the area and the bar in question, and to her, the post is far more ignorant than it is amusing. But then, she's older and more experienced than Jessica, and likely doesn't have a taste for shallow humor, to boot. And let us not forget that the neighbor was shot--and there's no telling that the bullets that made the holes in the windows didn't do so after or before passing through a real, live human being.

Theresa cares about real, live human beings. Judging from the post about the neighbor, she cares about dead ones, too. Jessica's post came across as written by someone who was behaving *at best* in a vapid and/or vacuous way (Theresa's own words, which she acknowledges would have been more accurate than the 'strikingly stupid' phrase she actually did use.) I'll leave it as an exercise for the student what worse case scenarios might apply.

Theresa may very well have over-reacted to Jessica's post; Jessica and her horde of defenders certainly have over-reacted to her reaction. Several of the local Making Light denizens have over-reacted in Theresa's defense, but on a lesser scale than the Jessica horde, in my not-at-all humble opinion.

My sympathies regarding the situation with your neighbor, Theresa (and you too, Patrick.) I've never been in that position and I hope I never will be, and I hope this is your only experience with it, too.

I'm going to go lurk again. You can stop fearing me now.

Calm down, please. Are these people all Bushies? How can you tell? Are we supposed to agree with you, just because you think we should? (BTW - I know Lin. She isn't a conservative, and she knows how to use a gun. I wouldn't want to argue with her. Think a much safer version of our hostess.)

I was kidding, mostly--apologies for the confusion. The post right above it was an argument that hysterical slogan-shouting, not reasoned discourse, wins elections. The one you objected to was an illustration of the hysterical slogan shouting, prefaced with "Allow me to illustrate:" (it seemed cute at the time).

The bit with Lin was a screw-up—I was casting about for someone to demonize and I mistakenly saw her name. I’m guessing that either something above or something just below was objectionable and I misread the author, but I can’t find the particular example. I already apologized to Lin.

Things like this are why I don’t get to decide who lives and who dies.

That I understand quite well, being one who does it every so often. (And, since I do QC for a living, I see it too. If I could pass everything without having to have the mistakes fixed, I'd be less stressed. Life ain't like that, however.) You're safe.

Oh, sure. But a bit of picturesque fraud between friends is more of a "learning experience" and less of a "serious endangerment of your life".

I'm pretty sure Jessica and friends could afford whatever they were overcharged for drinks.

Wrong. I did not assert that. I assert that Jessica does not have the survival skill necessary to be in a strip club in a bad neighbourhood that is known for serious drug dealing, and dancers who've been raped or coerced into having sex to keep their job.

(I expect she has many of the survival skills she will need for her life, and is fully capable of developing others she needs as circumstances change. But frankly, these are not she survival skills I expect she'll ever need.)

There are chances and risks and things outside the bubble of safety its always worthwhile to pursue. I feel this isn't one of them.

I don't consider it within my rights to tell her not to go, or not to take chances. Particualrly since some chances I would ecnourage her to take.

It is within my rights to call stupid action when I see stupid action.

Teresa probably made the mistake of reading more of Jessica's blog than just that one post. It's possible she saw the one (on the same page as the other links) praising Paris Hilton for her fashion tribute to Lauren Bacall. That one made me want to claw my own eyes out with a rusty hand rake.

Reading this one might not help after that. I gotta say, for somebody with that kind of résumé to wander in here and try to use the word "feminist" as an insult, that's breathtaking.

Her kind of stooopid doesn't just grow in the wild. It has to be lovingly and carefully cultivated by professionals.

p.s. No more posts from me this weekend. I'll be away from the Internet for a few days.

Even if I did see bullet holes upon entering the club, which I did not, (and which everyone automatically assumed), just for the sake of argument, how many people smoke here? Did you know that smoking can kill you? How 'stupid' can you be?

Being in the near vicinity of something like that and being unable to do anything, really, to make it better, is to pile crazymaking on top of sadness.

There may be something to be said for the relative safety of the naive (I'm not, I don't think, remotely naive when in places I know, but all travellers are so to some degree).

I have been spectacularly, utterly lost in some of the dirtier urban sections of this continent, including a section of Brooklyn I was later informed was Not At All Safe, and all that's ever happened is that random concerned people walk up to me and offer directions back to somewhere safe.

Possibly I just have golden horseshoes up my butt...

Answers:
A)There are bullet holes in the window.

Your irony isn't coming through in your writing. Maybe you need to take a second look at your writing style.

You might also want to read what you've written, so you don't contradict yourself. Some of us antiques have memories longer than five minutes.

Whatever else you may think of this thread and its participants, the fact that it generated this sentence, in any context, is cause for a celebration of its existence.

Thank you for your irrelevant, poorly formed comparisons.

The amount of hostility I find here makes me certain you all have miserable lives.

But being a white-collar professional woman and yet using "feminist" as a putdown -- now that takes some cognitive dissonance.

Again: you need to check your writing style. It is implied in your blogpost that you saw the bullet holes at the time you were there. If that wasn't what you saw, you should have made it clear that the bullet holes were hearsay. We're judging you based on what you're writing, not what you're thinking. (Fuzzy writing is frequently a sign of fuzzy thinking.)

And the pretentiousness of all of the 'writers' makes me want to vomit.

Except Jessica now claims she never saw them herself.

It is a not uncommon word game by lawyers, salesmen, and others trying to persuade you, to give you a verifiable item, a second verifiable item and then a third item that is not verifiable, but because of the close proximity to two (or more) verifiable items, becomes "verified" to the listener/reader. Hence, we all assumed that Jessica herself had seen the bullet holes. When this word game backfires by having the unverified item verified in the negative, it calls into question the verifiability of the first group of items. In other words, did Jessica experience any part of the visit to the strip joing or was she simply told about the entire event?

I believe the word you're looking for is "pretension." It derives from the same root as the word "pretend," and generally is taken to mean a "false or hypocritical profession" (I just ran it through Google to confirm). For example, noting one didn't know one had walked into a shady strip club in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, until one saw bullet holes in the window, or was asked if one was making a documentary, or felt violated after leaving the place.

Interesting statement. How about, "stupid, savage, illiterate black guy"? That doesn't at all imply that the speaker thinks poorly of black people then?

PJ can you read?

The amount of hostility I find here makes me certain you all have miserable lives.

And the pretentiousness of all of the 'writers' makes me want to vomit.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I am speaking for myself here but there may be heads nodding in agreement. The amount of hostility you’ve brought is actually bringing a little extra entertainment to my happy life.

And while a few here believe there is no hope for you, you actually remind me of myself in my Usenet days: so I know there is a chance that you will take a step back, reassess everything that’s been said, and perhaps gain some wisdom out of this whole thing.

is a problem no matter what noun is placed at the end. And if the noun is used in such a way as to imply all those adjectives come with it every time it's used, it's hard not to think the writer believes those adjectives are part of the definition of the noun.

However, I keep getting the impression that what Jessica et al. seem to want from us here is validation. There's something about the tone, which seems to combine self-justification with defensiveness.
Therefore, although I realize I have no right to speak for anyone else here, I shall assume the role of Official Validator:
Yes, we've done dumb things ourselves. Yes, we've come to realize that they were dumb things. We have done dumb things that were also risky. We are glad that we have lived to tell the tale. We realize that it possible for otherwise smart people to do dumb things, some of which may be risky. We sometimes suspect that in talking or writing about things we have done, we may not come off as well in the ears and eyes of our audience as we'd like. Sometimes people we've encountered have failed to recognize our good qualities because they were so struck by our shortcomings. We have also found out that sometimes, when we thought we were clever and witty and amusing, other people have looked upon us and thought "Not only juvenile, but not clever, and none too amusing." Many of us have discovered that, no matter how wonderful and special our families told us we were, that there were people who weren't impressed. For the most part, we found this embarrassing, and hoped for reassurance that we weren't worthless dolts, and for the most part, we've survived to find ourselves useful and that some people like us.

There. You've been validated.

Now scram, because when Teresa takes a break from getting ready for houseguests and fixing dinner, I want to know what her menu is, and if there are any new recipes she's going to share with us. I suspect most of us would find that more interesting than watching you all come to terms with the fact that life is not fair, and that not everyone you meet will believe you're as cool and clever as you'd like to think.

Interesting statement. How about, "stupid, savage, illiterate black guy"? That doesn't at all imply that the speaker thinks poorly of black people then?'
it is generally understood that ending a negative list with a word that is considered to be nonnegatively valued implies that the word is also considered to be negative. Thus, while using the phrase black guy does not imply racism, the negative list you showed above would.

However if one has a list of highly positive words ending with a negative the question is raised whether the list is satirical or whether the negative is actually valued by the listmaker. for example for Dick Cheney a Republican might say call him a Brilliant, wealthy, patriotic, torturer and thereby confuse the rest of us as to what was actually being communicated.

Jessica, we're not all writers, or even 'writers'. However, I think I may safely say that most of the people on Teresa's vine-decked terrace are readers.

Bryan: Yes, that 'brilliant' certainly does confuse the issue. I think I would have settled for just 'bright'.

I agree.
Jessica et al. are coming off somewhat worse, but nobody involved in this whole sorry spectacle is exactly covering themselves in glory.

'Experience' is what usually comes with age. 'Wisdom' comes from experience; you'll get there in a few years. 'Virtue' is not usually incomprehensible, although it may be indescribable, and it certainly isn't limited to people of your political persuasion. (However, I certainly am not going to apply it to some members of our current government.)

As for contradicting our own arguments: you seem to think we're monolithic in our views. Look at the archives sometime and see what else we talk about when twenty-something trolls aren't amusing us.

There are, in fact, several people writing here, who don't all have the same opinions.

Could this possibly mean Jessica, petitedov, Yaron and others hang out with people who all have the same opinions on things? That having a group hang out together who have different opinions is not part of their experience? How truly appalling.

Eppur si scrive.

I've known many people who can't legally drink who are wiser and smarter than many old farts. I don't cotton to dismissing everything someone has to say by tagging them with an insulting stereotype.

I even sort of like Yaron. He can punctuate! God, that's rare. He sometimes responds to points made against him. Lately he's not been getting hugely flamey in the face of provocation. In the story of this thread I have in my head, he's fighting a rear guard action against a force he realizes is overwhelming, in defense of friends he realizes are fools.

Sarah Silverman does a highly yet invisibly framed shtick of a privileged, totally insensitive, utterly unconscious to the point of autism,

playing the stereotypical Jewish American Princess, with an emphasis on self-absorption, moral superiority based on the freakish genetic gift of beauty, amused intolerance for, ick, the many lesser others, and the quiet bravado that only really white, straight teeth can give. It's like her mantra is, "I'm cute, it's allowed."

[Snip]

Always at the center is the uncontaminated self, a creature of rapacious hunger for its own pleasures and utterly convinced of its own centrality. The devastating events of Sept. 11, for example, "happened the same exact day that I found out that the soy chai latte was, like, 900 calories. I had been drinking them every day. You hear soy, you think healthy. And it's a lie."

Stephen Hunter, "What won't 'Jesus' say?" WP 11.18.05, C4. Behind the wall, but link to excerpt

I can't say whether Jessica is attempting this level of unreliability, of irony, but her angry self-defense in these comments suggests not. The comedian does not get angry when her funny but reprehensible persona is criticized by others in the real world.

The phrase "the uncontaminated self" is interesting. It's originally Zen Buddhist, but Hunter seems to be using it in an ironic sense, more like the concept of "clearing the space" that Klaus Theweleit remarks in the Freikorps (German anti-Communist Nazi precursors). The Freikorper clears the space by mowing down Communist strikers; the Nazis cleared their national space of Jews.

Privileged people clear their personal space of poor people, minorities, and those who don't wear suits or display the required degree of light-hearted snarkiness. This space-clearing enables slumming, in which the slummers assume that their selves will not be contaminated by the sleaze they dip into. The Bush advocates and perpetrators of torture think that they will not be contaminated by the filth of the practice.

Teresa reacts as she does because her life, and Patrick's, have just been contaminated by death, in the most literal fashion, as a previous post showed.

If you think that Hunter's being anti-Semitic, take it up with him, not me; the uncontaminated self pathology can appear in anyone who is privileged: in the British of the Empire, for instance (I was reading Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts).

::makes a mental note to say something happy somewhere on the site now she's decided to join the posting::

On hefty forty-somethings as sex objects: two words: Mae West.

On zaftig Japanese car babes: I don't think the actual url ever appeared, and though I read Japanese I know little of cars. I'd guess, though, that there may be an explanation along the lines of a theory I once heard about Japanese female pop singers, who are more often cute or pretty than stunningly beautiful. Supposedly this is because a girl-next-door look is preferred, on the grounds that it makes the star more approachable as a romantic fantasy object (or, as the case may be, identification figure) for the fans.

I think I take issue with this. Yeah, a whole number of people's noses are out of joint, and hackles are raised. However, numerous commenters have tried mightily to inject notes of concord into the dissonance. And some of the rhetoric has been at its usual level, and some of the silliness has displayed moments of glory.

I give you Will Entrekin et al's dancing trannies with guns. I give you the mysterious and erotic falafel (can't remember whose it was, but the image is great). I give you Teresa's introduction of the word vril to the discourse, and the etymology of Bovril. I give you the thougtful, if emotionally charged, discussion of what might constitute slumming, and Lucy's lovely analogy for Making Light. And I learned that "cherry" is old slang for hymen.

Which is not to say that the depths haven't been pretty low. But this is still Making Light, and there's still pleasant company around these tables.

Every so often, usually when I'm talking with my mom, I get the feeling that we're both using the same words, but speaking entirely different languages. I've been noticing that happening here, rather a lot, in this thread. It seems that Jessica, Karol, and their mates use certain words in ways that differ from those in which others use them. I'm not talking the usual conservative/liberal thing here, I don't think. It's been striking

The ones I've collected are

slumming
hypocrite
etiquette
irony
violated

Possible other candidates include

hack
feminist
stupid

When I hang out with speakers of different dialects of English, we often spend a lot of time establishing what certain words mean--what's a "kip," is "toilet" a commode or a room or something you do when you're putting on make up, do I live down the laneway or through the alley sort of thing. But we've been unable to do that here, and I'm finding the level of mutual incomprehension fascinating, in a sad way.

Dear Jessica,
Just reminding you that this is not worth your time (or Yaron's). People here confuse age with wisdom and being a liberal with incomprehensible virtue. They don't see the hypocrisy of disavowelling (by the way i'm trembling as i type this) or the fact they keep contradicting their own arguments. They argue for hours on the meaning of the word "slumming" and then switch the argument to safety and our apparent stupidity. Because you see Jessica you are as transparent as they come - you are a stupid conservative middle class gal who is tricked by "white men thinking." PLEASE SEE THE ERRORS OF YOUR WAY BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE! Seriously this "intellectual" masturbation is not worth your time or mine.

I think it's interesting that Petitedov chose to overlook the more direct criticisms and take exception to a slander of her intellect which, as far as I can tell, didn't actually occur.

This strikes me as an instance of the principle that people tend to assign to others the motives which they themselves possess. For example, I've noticed that guys who habitually cheat on their girlfriends tend to be insanely jealous, assuming that the S.O. in question is sleeping with anyone who looks at them for more than a second or two.

Petitedov, honey, when people around here use big scary words or punctuate properly it's not because they're pretentious jerks engaging in intellectual masturbation. It's just sort of assumed that most everyone reading the posts "knows" what the "big" words "mean."

Uh, Are you a Republican? Because 'a Republican might say call him' was a pretty important qualifier in 'Brilliant' (of course the 'say' should have been dropped or punctuated properly in that line, so I can understand a misunderstanding. )

As for me I sure as hell wouldn't call him bright either.

It's really weird to see someone branded as capital-letters stupid just for visiting a place where you used to live. If you've actually been there, like Teresa, and hold this opinion, then that's fine. But if you're just imagining some 70s-movie-New-York hellpit, then I think it's a little silly to criticize so strongly--on this point only, of course. In other words, I agree that they were slumming and that slumming is gross. But I don't agree that they were insanely reckless to do so.

Maybe you've all been there, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Wouldn't be the first time.

If that's true, may I gently suggest that you are overreacting to an alarming degree?

Let's hear it for good old-fashioned stupid masturbation!

Petitedove: They don't see the hypocrisy of disavowelling (by the way i'm trembling as i type this) or the fact they keep contradicting their own arguments.

If you're really trembling, you're taking a discussion on a weblog way too seriously.

As for "the hypocrisy" of disemvowelling... Karol/Jessica/Yaron/yourself etc. keep calling people hypocrites, for some reason. To quote the Princess Bride, "I do not think this word means what you think it means".

For some reason, Ozy and Millie seem frighteningly recognisable...

So this is for Karol, or Jennifer, or Yaron, or Ace, or any of you who are still here. This is a bit long, I'm sorry.

There has be a lot of talk about slumming. I don't think it is slumming itself that is the problem... most of us have gone slumming at some point in our lives. Mostly it's just kind of smug and maybe a tad impolite.

What I think caught the attention of TNH here was slumming in such a terrible place. I want to answer an earlier question asked by Ace, and then pose the question that others in the thread may have been asking. I know it was my question.

How can you go to a strip club without slumming? You might go to a reputable one. You're in New York, go to Scores. Now I don't have an intimate knowledge of strip clubs, but I was once in a class with a guy who was a bouncer at Scores, and the place seems pretty legit. The girls are paid really well, and many of them are college students or models trying to break in. You can go there, appreciate the sexy dancing, and maybe wonder if you would dance on stage if it meant the difference between Yale and community college. You can giggle at the thought that most of these men could never actually date women this hot, and instead pay them hundreds of dollars for permission to oggle. You could also slum, and make fun of the dancers for dancing and the guys for throwing away thousands of dollars. I admit that the slumming would probably be more fun, because thinking about the social and cultural mores behind the modern american sex industry is not really a "party night" activity. I'm not made of stone here. Your choice, no harm either way. Going to scores or working at scores probably doesn't hurt anyone (barring some hideous dark secret I've never heard of).

Now the real question here, for me at least, is this: How can you enjoy slumming at a place as awful as Sweet Cherry? I can imagine heading out there with the attempt to slum "Hey guys, let's see what the absolute worst strip club in NYC is like!" But once inside I don't know if I would be capable of maintaining the aloof-ness that allows you to slum. Bullet holes and possibly underage and underpaid dancers working in an unsafe environment would kill my "party buzz" pretty quickly. I think I would leave feeling deep relief that I had made it out of a place which it was a poor decision to enter. I would also very likely wonder what economic or psychological forces could make a girl work in a place like that. I would consider writing a letter to the mayor or my congressperson asking for better health and safety checks for strip clubs. I realize this is not fun. But some times the badness is just so close that you have to give up your fun and admit you may have gone into a place that hurts people, and make a hurried exit. Maybe forget about it, never speak of it again. All those reactions are understandable. But I can't imagine having fun there, or speaking about it lightly after.

In most cases slumming is fun if impolite. In a place where so much horror and suffering takes place, where lives are very likely ruined (and possibly ended) it seems sort of incomprehensible. It is not your fault that lives are ruined there. It is not your fault that gun violence happens there. Maybe the girls who visited were already very drunk when they made it there, and none of this occured to them. I would myself find it hard not to let the despair get to me, not to feel compassion or fear.

We cannot fix every problem in the world, but we can try not to enjoy ironically another human's real-life despair. I have been very drunk only a few times in my life, and I know that alcohol affects others differently. It just makes me depressed, but it could be that those blog girls get that dreamy, problemness alcoholic state that allows them seperate themselves from the problems of the world. If so I can't begrudge them that. I'd like to think that Jennifer was very drunk when she went in and remained very drunk the whole time, and that her delight at the danger and exploitation was due to the disconnected state that drunkenness brings.

If any of you are still here I would really like to see a reasoned response to this post. I am not calling you bad people, but it is hard for me to understand how a young woman could enjoy a place like that.

What I wonder is whether there is now a central organisation, largely unrecognised, in each party, which feels that it doesn't have to listen to the subordinate interests. Have these central committees changed from servant to master, without gaining the feedback mechanisms that allow the broad mass of supporters to limit their actions?

Were I a Republican supporter in the USA, would the party I voted for be a party I actually agreed with, or is the current controlling faction hiding its true nature from the masses?

And is the organisation of the Democratic Party any better?

Mistake one: I replaced Jessica's name with "Jennifer" in the last post. Excuse me, I had just gotten off of a 9 hour night shift, and this thread has gotten me a bit riled.

I've finsihed the second half of the thread, so I have a few comments to add, partly to apologize for rashness and partly to clarify some points. Sorry for posting without reading everything first, I just had to get those damn ideas out. My initial post was based largely on the description of the club TNH presents in her post combined with Jess's blog post. I have very very serious issues with any trivialization of violence against women, and upon first read Jessica's original blog post seemd to do just that.

My image of Sweet Cherry is based on TNH's original post, complete with news reports and investigation details. I don't know how much of this is proven or immediately obvious. I also don't blame the unfortunate neighbor for working there. If you take a job in a place like that it could be to try to prevent the girls from coming to more harm, etc. Maybe it was the best job he could get. Sometimes you don't have a choice.

But what gets me is Jessica's apparently glee in linking to a story about sexual abuse. Maybe I cannot read the tone properly, but I am reading a subversive pleasure in the idea that you've been to an awful place. Maybe she didn't know how awful the place was when she entered, but she sure seemed to know on that 5/04/2005 blog post in which she links to an article about a police investigation of forced sex acts.

This isn't about liberal or conservative. I believe that if any of my conservative friends were to realize they patronized a place where things that bad happend they wouldn't be likely to blog about it cheerfully. They might blog about it to decry the sex industry, or to insist on harsher punishments for drug dealing, they might even claim that it stems from too much sex ed in schools, but I doubt they would have that OMG, top ten list, aint it cool? tone.

And that's where some of the outrage and sarcasm may come from. It's where my outrage, sarcasm, and hasty, slightly insane first post comes from.

Man, if that post was disemvoweled or deleted it would be a kind of relief.

Yaron, I'm sorry I left our discussion. Traveling and family have sort of gotten in the way. By now, of course, I've lost my train of thought. I would like to say that you remind me of myself in my early twenties, as well as certain young adults with whom I have daily contact: sheltered, but with hearts in the right place. I'm sure that's coming across as patronizing, but I really don't mean it to be. I think that if we'd "met" in other circumstances, we would have gotten along nicely.

Coalition, not organization. In the Republicans, yes. This is an unusual state for a US political party. In the Democrats, multiple coalitions, none in charge, which is why the Democrats don't do much. Multiple coalitions, usually in deadlock, is the typical state of US national politics; it's why we tend to act like, as George Kennan observed, a prehistoric monster which says "Ow!" ten minutes after its tail has been crushed. The unified coalition which now controls the Republicans at the national level is a collection of reactionary groups, with the nastier sort of corruption and pro-wealthy groups funding the mess. At the state level, typically, the dominance belongs to large "rural" property owners, except in very urban states. ("Rural" in the west includes extractive resource industries, which are nationally subsidized.)

Forgive me, I assumed from the italics that the phrase originated with Sara rather than Sarah. I still take exception to the phrase however, as it seems to speak of/reinforce a somewhat ignorant view of autistics. Most are quite well aware of the world round them, thank you. It's just experienced and therefor reacted to differently. Which I suppose is also the case with the "Princess" stereotype she's using in her comedy. I think it was the word "unconscious" that leapt out and pushed my buttons.

Off to turkey now. Happy turkey day to all (and just a generally happy day to non turkey day celebrators).

Now, apparantly I managed to miss the bit where it was indicated Karol knew the neighbourhood somewhat (That's what I get for reading Jessica's but not Karol's). That helps make the case for their actions being not-all-stupid, even going into the club in the first place.

But I'm with Lyons. He (She?) has articulated why I think this activity by these girls is stupid better than I did. Not because they went in in the first place, but because once they'd seen, they still had that cheerful tone. Sure, they felt a little unclean, but they didn't feel for the people there, and they were sure of their untouchableness. None of it was related to them.

I don't believe in fortune-favoured fools. Nobody's untouchable. If the worst that has happened to me is that my bike was stolen, I blame that on keeping my eyes open, being friendly without condescension or fear, and on not being a fool when I go out.

And the pretentiousness of all of the 'writers' makes me want to vomit.
This is too hysterical. Not knowing that several professional authors contribute regularly to this blog is, perhaps (barely), exusable. Not knowing the profession of our hosts is not.

I don't believe in fortune-favoured fools. Nobody's untouchable. If the worst that has happened to me is that my bike was stolen, I blame that on keeping my eyes open, being friendly without condescension or fear, and on not being a fool when I go out.
I've gone to many a strip club (not to mention after-hours clubs). I've been the only white guy in the place. And I've been welcome back, even though I'm pretty cheap compared to some, because I treat everyone there with respect. (For a totally different perspective, Z-Bone's has comments from customers and dancers that provide an interesting (to me, anyway) view into the clubs.)

I had heard a lot of people were saying Bush was a liar, but hadn't really believed it until now.

Paging Dr. Forrester? Dr Clayton Forrester? This sounds like an Experiment waiting to happen...

in the old days of Times Square, "Bookstore" was code, but not for "Place to Find Dostoyevsky".

There's a bookshop of that particular old school across the road from my office. We long ago observed that the innocent enter normally and exit swiftly, while the guilty enter swiftly and exit normally.

I used to work in downtown Bellevue, WA. The bank that I cashed my paychecks at was about half a block from Bellevue's only porn/sex shop. (All the residents of Washington State have just popped up like Prairie Dogs--"Not Bellevue! It's not possible!" Bellevue is what Stepford wants to be when it grows up.) Anyway, I was walking down the street to the bank when I saw a guy with an armful of videotapes, dark glasses, and a seeing-eye dog go in the store.

Of course I followed him in. Are you crazy? It's not often you get to see a live-action Monty Python sketch take place...

I arrived about twenty seconds after he did and got to listen to him spend the next ten minutes raising holy whacking hell with the guy behind the counter over the sound quality of the videotapes for rental. Hands down, it's the most fun I've ever had in Bellevue while wearing clothing.

Jessica: I know all these comments regarding your original weblog posts and comments about you and your friends here have been stressful to you. Clearly you've suffered through a torrent of abuse that's not been endured since the death of Little Nell. I just need to point out two small points that may wipe away that tear on your cheek and leave your face with that sunny smile we're all used to.

The amount of hostility I find here makes me certain you all have miserable lives.

Sweetie, dearest: my family was worth more than yours will ever contemplate, I read better books than you do, I associate with people who are smarter and quicker than you'll ever be, my wife is a better artist than anyone you'll know, I've seen more and better films than you'll ever consider, and I eat at any restaurant I want to without sweating the cost. I probably have better sex too--at least I have better conversation before and after, and I'll bet I have a lot more fun during.

And the pretentiousness of all of the 'writers' makes me want to vomit.

Good thing that nobody's forcing you to read any of the books or articles written or edited by the folks here--assuming an average reading speed you'd be chundering for days.

I do admit to a certain amount of curiosity, however: how do you ever manage to schedule time to come to this weblog and slag the people posting here? I thought that public relations consultants had to work like dogs in the runup for offyear elections...

Sorry Teresa, Patrick. Let me know what level of penance I'll need to do--or how many oranges to peel.

I arrived about twenty seconds after he did and got to listen to him spend the next ten minutes raising holy whacking hell with the guy behind the counter over the sound quality of the videotapes for rental.

Somehow I'm thinking "But darling - I only read Playboy for the -ahticles-".

It's on the Utah State Library for the Blind's magazine list, along with Boy's Life, Catholic Review, Martha Stewart Living, the LDS Church's magazine New Era, Rolling Stone, and Seventeen.

Penance, Bruce Durocher? Patrick spotted your comment first, and read it aloud to us with considerable relish. He's now going back and catching up on the rest of this thread. At random intervals, strange noises erupt from his office. I think he just found j h woodyatt's big post.

I've finally figured out what our visiting trollbits remind me of: that wonderful five-page cartoon PiscusFiche linked to from the comment thread of my Mary Sue post. The first three pages are the pertinent part.

Yesterday we had three houseguests. Today we only have one. Tomorrow, we have five.

This is an outstanding thread.

So Teresa, now that there was a murder in your building are you planning on moving out?

To the best of our knowledge, there's never been a murder in our building. Why do some people have so much trouble with the concept of adjacent row houses?

Well, for some of us, it's not something we see often. I remember seeing my first row houses. I thought them very odd. I think I was in my late thirties before I was invited inside one.

Nowhere near the shock of my first deciduous forest though. Until I was eighteen, despite pictures and intellectual knowledge of the difference, all of my forests of the imagination were fir and pine with alder and vine maple undergrowth.

I think this made more of a difference with Lord of the Rings than anywhere else. Even now, Mirkwood is still dark pines, the Anduin looks like the Columbia, and I suspect that Mount Doom (as played by Mt. Rainier in my head) is much larger than it should be.

Oh, good--I was worried since the first draft made Margaret say "Do you really want to be disenvoweled for something so trivial?" I thought it over and decided she was right: if I get disenvoweled I want it to be because I did something crass in proper Miles Vorkosigan fashion--with high explosives and lots of innocent bystanders.