I'm still hoping that rising energy prices will encourage a return to Zeppelins for long-range air transport. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I still hope.
Mike @75: hee. That one made my day.
Uh ... well, it's still a good post, Abi. Just ... that Patrick seems to have posted it. (Now how did that happen?)
BSD@10 - I took the "life shouldn't hurt" thing to mean the American freakishness lately about outlawing all pain. Schools not permitting play on the playground because kids could get hurt, that kind of thing. That kind of thing is driving me crazy lately; my son has kidney disease that's bound up with his allergies, and let me tell you, that focuses your attention on how American life doesn't provide a good basis for health. Failing to live because it might hurt is a delusion.
Kids play on playgrounds, and occasionally they fall and break an arm or something. You can react to that in two ways: you can accept it, say, "Well, my great-grandfather broke his arm there, too," or you can say, "OMG TOMMY IS STANDING ON A CHAIR OMG OMG HE COULD GET HUUUURT!" Americans, increasingly, are opting for the latter. Especially in schools.
That said, working to decrease suffering is a good aspiration. Kids shouldn't die of cancer, and I don't care how natural that is.
Serge, I chuckled a little thinking that "OMGWTF" might have been the first words on the moon -- then my heart skipped a little beat, as I realized how much better such a world would be, if that sort of thing could happen.
I swear, I have to stop reading alternate-history fiction before I just have a breakdown. I blame James Hogan.
Julia, it's not just infants, either -- it's everything having to do with raising children. If you don't spank your children, well, you're denigrating them for spanking theirs, because your failing to subscribe to their beliefs doesn't let them validate theirs.
And it's not just children. My wife had a lot of trouble at the university for having children instead of devoting her life singlemindedly to her physics career. Especially when our son got sick, her advisor was ... well, it was weird. The only possible way for my wife to succeed, in his eyes and in the eyes of many others, would have been for me to quit all work and become the faculty wife. (At the same time, though, she didn't need financial support because she had a husband. So ...)
People are always hostile when you fail to validate their worldview. I hadn't explicitly thought of it as cargo-cult thinking, but ... it is. Very nice post, Abi.
Oh -- in re fireworks -- here in PR, fireworks are the norm at midnight. We went up on the roof (we're on the top of a three-story building) and could see the entire city -- it was fantastic, and then the Front Tina, an oil tanker which has mysteriously been in port for two weeks, blew her megahorn right on the dot at midnight.
Talk about a high. I'm tearing up just remembering it.
2008 was fantastic for us. Still can't eat complex carbohydrates, but there's light at the end of the tunnel -- our son's nephrologist said, "Keep doing what you're doing, because I can't do any better; he's stable." Our daughter's Crohn's has remained symptom-free (over a year now).
Business-wise the entire year was insane, and I broke my yearly income record sometime in October. I think I've reached the limit for one-man technical translation, though. I have some ideas to increase my productivity, but I already got through 1.26 million words in 2008. Anything I can do that doesn't entail finishing my doctoral work in artificial intelligence is only going to be tweaks. I don't think I can do more than 1.5 million words.
2008 was the first year in a long, long, long time where I felt as though I'd finally gotten something right. I can only hope 2009 will be as good.
But on the larger stage: 2009 is the year we'll starting putting it all back together. It's patently untrue that we have nowhere to go but up -- but there's plenty of up to go. It's going to be a good year.
Have a happy new year, y un prospero nuevo año, all of you.
Except for the whole "living in the tropics" aspect, of course.
Leah @ 201 - I've not been following this thread very closely, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with your statement that there are people who believe that Miller's work is meant to send a positive message.
Of course, given that I haven't really read all of this, maybe somebody made this statement. If so, I suspect that person is just plain wrong. Miller doesn't mean to send a positive message; he means to entertain. If he means to send positive messages, I'm pretty sure that the subject of those messages is something other than healthy sexuality, and more along the lines of personal self-actualization or something.
Also, I don't think this came up in this thread, but MeFi has had an interesting thread recently on the Not Rape Epidemic -- the idea being that the author's experiences with demeaning sexual encounters didn't fit her (and society's) definition of rape, thus leaving her entirely without the mental tools to think about them. (I'm probably oversimplifying.)
I'm usually pretty impatient and tend to tl;dr a little too much when things get more than superficial, but the post is well worth the read. The idea that "no means no" is too restrictive to encapsulate actual consent is pretty close to the idea that "rape is a forced sexual encounter" is too restrictive to encapsulate sexually demeaning interaction.
In the author's case, when she was 14, a young man found her alone at home, and forced his way through the door, saying, "I can do anything I want to you." He forced her to the floor and groped her -- then left. It wasn't rape, so ... there was no evidence, she couldn't tell her mother (without getting in trouble for letting the boy in), and so on. Later, the boy went to prison for his participation in a gang rape.
The entire article is full of fascinating insight. A good complement to this thread, I think.
Linkmeister - yeah, it looks a little like that, except on a scale of centimeters instead of hectometers. Those rocks look smooth at the human scale, at least in the (beautiful) pictures.
As to adventurosity -- we're not actually as adventurous as all that. But since we decided, after a disastrous series of decisions between 2002 and about 2006, to stay put in one place in the world until we're solvent, we've been sort of chafing. We haven't left the island in a year now and it's like coiling a spring. Combine that with the fact that staying put really has begun to make us solvent, and it's damned hard not to pack up and fly.
I'm miserable today, but dermatitis heals. A good story like this one is food for the soul, though. It's what life is. This last year has been very ... mundane.
The damage doesn't feel so minor, today, Marilee. I itch!!! (My hate for urushiol burns with the heat of a thousand suns. Especially stealth urushiol from plants that shouldn't even have it. Mangoes are a great example of that.)
But yeah, it coulda been worse. In the end, we had a nice little adventure that compressed all the stress and fear of a major trip into four hours' time. It's a great way to bleed off the wanderlust until we have some more stability and money.
This Open Thread is kinda old, but here's a link to what I did on my Christmas vacation: The Great Guánica Accidental Off-Trail Trek of 2008. I'm still healing, but it was a great hike.
These are great! I 'specially love that accent!
It's been a looooong time since I had a physical workplace (well, I mean, except my desk here at home) or coworkers whose faces I've ever seen.
I sent a bunch of them Christmas cards this year, though. First time ever. I felt warm and fuzzy about it.
Lee @75 - but "his ilk" is third person, whereas "you people" is second person. Thus "his ilk" has the benefit of being inoffensive and kind of classy. Ilk, ilk. It's a good word.
Chiropractice. Chiropracticine. Chiropraxis.
Well, this discussion seems to be about spoon materials, so let me put in my vote for wooden. My wife doesn't like wooden spoons (some sad associations with child abuse) but they're the bees knees.
But what I really came to an Open Thread to say is this: We may be moving back to Indiana! (Now that I'm a Blue Stater hahahahahahaha!)
The reason is quite simple, actually. The economy has now crashed so very much that we can buy a house in Richmond, where my Mom lives, for $7,900. Yes, you see that number of digits correctly. Yes, I have that much in the bank right now. Yes, I'm paying $1000 a month for rent here in Puerto Rico.
I called my sister (whose office is in Richmond) so she can do a drive-by. She said, "Man, at that price, what must be wrong with it?" And I said, "Who really cares?" At that price it really doesn't matter if it has walls and a roof. (But Google street view assures me that it does.)
It's an ill wind that blows nobody good -- in 2012, I plan to be dedisenfranchised. Actually, in 2010 for that matter. I can't remember if Lugar or Bayh is up for reelection. There's a slight chance of unseating Bayh in favor of an actual Democrat. (There's zero percent chance of unseating Lugar. Even I like Lugar. It would be like unseating God, except worse, because I believe in Lugar's existence. We'll just wait for him to die, then we'll see about getting somebody new in that seat.)
Also: public libraries. I heap scorn on Indiana, but ... there are public libraries. Those of you who live in places where you don't have to question the existence of public libraries? Feel blessed.
Man, the stupid is thick in here today. Charlie, the notion that the trolls are bots makes my brain melt and wish I had more time to get back to my doctoral research. (Well, the AI field will still be there when I finally get the kids healthy and funded.)
Sarge, the tack you are taking is an insult to the philosophy I hold dear (to wit, "Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to post where they can bother me"). Clearly, having allowed you to post once was a mistake, and so I am perfectly justified in calling my pal Guido to break your fingers for a small fee, before your continued posting gets out of hand.
If you can tell me why what you said is any different from what I said, then you win a cookie. I personally think my cookie supply is in no danger. (Always assuming, of course, that you are human at all -- Charlie's humo(u)r notwithstanding, I rather think you are, though. What a sad comment on humanity that is.)
(Note: I also thought Sarge was Serge doing a little parody; it was shortly after seeing that slight difference in vowel that I noted the aforementioned density of stupid.)
Justin @38 - the first half of your post, referring to laws, was pretty good. It was the second half, implying that beatings were a warranted and sane response to an insult, where you lost coherence. Sorry, son. You're stupid.
"Why is this stupid?" you may be asking. Well, because extrajudicial beatings are not a legal response. They are, in fact, not part of due process. So the government response is not, in fact, warranted. It is thuggish and, well, to quote Sarge: primitive.
Others have said this, but crpniu @24: if you don't like it, don't be here. Go over to BoingBoing and complain that their posts aren't fun enough, or something. What is it with people who come to sites to complain about how the community does stuff? It's like going to, I dunno, CNN and complaining that they don't have enough impromptu poetry. Weird.
(It does make me want to try to come up with some coincidences involving shoes, though.)
And now we come to J. Maccabaeus @44, a particularly loathsome brand of stupidity. J, are you assuming that Muntadar Zaidi is a fundamentalist Muslim? If so: why? Because "all the towelheads are the same"? Do I have to point out why that is stupid? And then there's your usage of the phrase "Bush haters." That's where I can really pinpoint your idiocy. There's just such a bulk of semantics behind that usage that I know it's not even useful to engage with you -- because you're not just stupid, you're willfully stupid.
Look, J. We're going to save this country our way, OK? Your team ran it into the ground, and at this point even a stupid person like yourself has to realize that things are not going well. You're lying to yourself, J. And you're not helping America by doing that. So with all due respect (which, granted, is not much) get the fuck out of the way. You had your chance and you blew it.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 8 |
| 2008 | 95 |
| 2007 | 1 |
| 2006 | 7 |
| 2004 | 5 |
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