- Above: A poster for “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” by scratchboard artist Nicolas Delort. More info about the poster (including alternate versions) here.
- A round-up of some well-reasoned, civil critiques of #GamerGate.
- And here’s another #GamerGate Link Roundup, this time from Brute Reason.
- We’re All Tired Of Gamergate
- At least 8 women in gaming have had to flee their homes due to threats.
- The Only Thing I Have To Say About Gamer Gate | Felicia Day
- Actress Felicia Day Opens Up About GamerGate Fears, Has Her Home Address Exposed Minutes Later
- Did you know that Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and others have been involved in a major wage theft scandal? The companies conspired to not compete for employees, so that wages would be artificially held down. The conspirators included George Lucas and Steve Jobs – people who clearly didn’t have enough money already. Assholes. Pando Daily has an archive of their stories on this subject.
- Occupational Licensing of Strippers Isn’t Just Unnecessary, It’s Dangerous – Hit & Run : Reason.com
- The People’s Climate Change – Windypundit Shorter Windypundit: When right-wingers claim climate change doesn’t exist, that’s the fault of left-wingers for using left-wing rhetoric or advocating left-wing policies. The idea that right-wingers are responsible for their own choices and views is, it seems, inconceivable.
- Voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee dropped 2012 turnout by over 100,000 votes – The Washington Post
- EconoMonitor : Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog » Could We Afford a Universal Basic Income? (Part 2 of a Series)
- “Yes means yes” is about much more than rape – Vox
- In defense of John Grisham – The Washington Post
- What Happens When Hasidic Jews Go Secular — Science of Us
- Ursula K. Le Guin on Being a Man | Brain Pickings
- Immigrant Rights Groups: Obama Administration Runs ‘Deportation Mill’ in New Mexico
- Protests Greet Metropolitan Opera’s Premiere of ‘Klinghoffer’ – NYTimes.com Appallingly, the protests have succeeded in getting the producers to cancel a planned nationwide broadcast on movie screens.
- Serena and Venus Williams Battle More Body-Shaming
- The common law tradition says that shopkeepers have no right to discriminate : Lawyers, Guns & Money
- New Research Exposes Myths About Voter Fraud
- Kurt Busiek Addresses the Misconceptions of the Marvel/Kirby Legal Dispute
- South Carolina prosecutor argues that “Stand Your Ground” law doesn’t apply for victims of domestic violence.
- ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: More Men Are Raped in US Than Women? Spoiler: No.
- To say: “we fought the war on poverty and lost” is to reveal your contempt for facts.
- You can fight City Hall (but if you take them to court, they get lawyers, too). A good post about the claim that a city is trying to take away the first amendment rights of Christian Churches by issuing a subpoena.
- Obama’s war on leaks – and on free speech – is unbelievable
- Whites are more supportive of voter ID laws when shown photos of black people voting – The Washington Post
- Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong – The Washington Post
- MRAs please take note: A comprehensive study of shipwrecks has shown that “Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared with men.”
- Chart of the Week: Politicians Following, Not Leading on Same-Sex Marriage
- The evidence on travel bans for diseases like Ebola is clear: they don’t work
- Studies suggest the overwhelming motivation behind voter ID laws is hyper-partisanship, not racism.
winning the pumpkin carving game forever. seen in williamsburg this weekend. pic.twitter.com/vWxUBaKVGN
— Rachel H. Smith (@rachelholliday) October 20, 2014
Re: The Death of Klinghoffer (which I have not seen and have no opinion on), my understanding of the ADL-compromise was that the opera was planned to be simulcast internationally, and the ADL was concerned that in certain nations the meaning they would take from the opera might be decidedly more malign than the opera’s authors would have hoped. I don’t know if there were also plans for nationwide distribution of the opera.
Ah, yes, gamergate.
Because clearly, the best way to draw attention to the pressing problem of corruption in video-game journalism is by viciously attacking women, hounding them out of their homes and jobs, posting stolen naked pictures, and sending threats of rape and murder.
The thing is, of course, there’s no problem that requires that … but could there possibly be a less important hill to die on than video-game journalism?
Clickhole has a perfect summary of #Gamergate for those of you who aren’t familiar, btw.
—Myca
That’s a poor paper because it fails to answer the crucial question: if both women and men were in full blown “individual survival” mode and acting only for themselves, would there be a differential survival rate (and if so what would it be?)
(I assume there would be, especially for older times. This has much less to do with their gender and much more to do with their social situation, dress, and other issues. Stick women in heavy multiple petticoats, corsets, etc. and one would not expect them to survive as well. Stick them below in steerage with the kids so they need to carry kids up stairs to get out, rather than starting on the smoking deck with the men; ditto. Stick them in a world where they have little opportunity to engage in athletics, ditto. And so on.)
So as a result that’s sort of a pointless paper. To conclude that women were worse off overall says nothing about anyrelative benefits as a result of their gender, unless you also have evidence of a known “no help” class. It’s like: if we give an extra 10 feet to a bunch of octogenerians to outrun a forest fire, we’re helping them even if they die at a higher rate than the 40 year olds.
That’s only assuming that the question we’re trying to answer is, “were women helped in their shipwreck survival by the social mores of the time?”
Since Ampersand was addressing this specifically to MRAs, I think the question might be something more like, “Did women all survive shipwrecks due to the noble sacrifices of men who died like dogs so the ungrateful misandrist hussies could waltz through life without a care in the world?”
—Myca
I left a comment somewhere else, once, along the lines of “Women are more likely to survive shipwrecks in the modern day. Turns out things related to equality, like learning to swim, are more helpful for women’s survival than chivalry.”
But to answer g&w’s criticism, the paper says:
And then they try to test it (MS here is “main sample”, all their shipwreck data excluding the Lusitania and the Titanic, which had previously been well-studied):
And to get back to my equality argument,
The 7.3 is the number that should be compared to the 9.6 percentage points from WCF. So actually WCF is slightly more helpful, at least if we compare everything from the 1920s or later; they don’t really have the statistical power to divide their sample further. Which I can only say is a good thing (yay for fewer people dying in shipwrecks!).
Also, just to highlight: in their full sample of 18 disasters, only 5 gave the women and children first order, including the two most famous (the Titanic and the Lusitania). That’s 5 of the 10 pre-WWI shipwrecks. (edited this paragraph for correctness and additional info)
Since ‘women and children first’ was always a sexist policy, we should be delighted to see that it was ineffective as well as unfair. Good riddance to the toxic notion of chivalry and the notion that men owe women anything more than they owe their fellow men.
Yesterday I found out that a former employer died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (human form of Mad Cow Disease). So that was weird.
A rabbi in DC was arrested for setting up a hidden camera to film women showering before entering the mikveh. I used to sometimes attend this synagogue. (I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Modern Orthodox — there was an independent minyan where I was more comfortable — but it was within easy walking distance of where I lived, and the lay-led Carlebach services on Friday nights were nice.) My cousin had him as a professor in an ethics class. http://tabletmag.com/scroll/186304/prominent-dc-rabbi-arrested-for-voyeurism
Ruchama – That’s a pretty terrible story. Apparently he would encourage his female students to use the mikveh.
Something someone said on another thread (don’t want to say what it was, lest I spoil the fun) reminded me of the color-changing card trick. Blew my mind.
Actually, it’s about ethics in games journalism.
“the notion that men owe women anything more than they owe their fellow men.” But women are their “fellow men.”
I analyzed a ‘working version’ of that shipwreck study two years ago in posts at Feminist Critics here and here. Without reading the PNAS version line for line, I can’t be 100% certain that the authors didn’t make subsequent adjustments that might have partially addressed the criticisms, but given that the comments here appear to be continuing to understate the impact of the ‘women and children first’ (WCF) phenomenon (as the working paper did), I suspect that the points are still just as valid:
In other words, chivalry (i.e. the issuance of the WCF order by the captain) increased female survival rates by 500% during that era (at a cost of diminishing male passenger survival rates by 25%).
* “WCF Era” being my term for the period of 1850 to 1918.
Ballgame:
This is called (pdf link) the “motte and bailey fallacy,” where people make an interesting but indefensible claim (that throughout virtually all of history “women and children first” meant men were more likely to die in maritime or natural disasters), and then when it is criticized they retreat to a defensible but relatively trivial claim (during a limited era, considering only those shipwrecks in which a captain ordered “women and children first,” women had a survival advantage), and then act as if the original claim has been defended.
Now, that’s unfair to you, since you yourself have (afaik) never made the strong claim about “women and children first,” and so you’re not shifting your position. However, when I included that study in this post and said that MRAs should take note, I was referring to the strong claims I’ve seen MRAs and anti-feminists make (including in your blog’s comments), not the much more modest claim you’re defending here, which I have literally never seen anyone but you make.
A LOT of MRAs and anti-feminists have made “female privilege lists,” in response to the “male privilege list” I compiled years ago, and they often email me to let me know. As a result, I’ve read dozens of these “female privilege lists,” and the “women and children first” claim is a staple of these lists. Never once have I seen it mentioned with any limitations at all as for era, or any acknowledgement that on real shipwrecks “women and children first” has been the exception, not the rule, nor any acknowledgement that other social factors (like clothing) worked to make women more likely to drown. It is always stated in a way to suggest that this is a universal, ongoing, and unambiguous female privilege. A few examples:
The female privilege checklist — iVillage
The Female Privilege Checklist | WIHE.com
Female Privilege Checklist
Female Privilege Checklist | Balance of Power
18 Things Females Seem To Not Understand (Because, Female Privilege) | BuzzWok | Stories With A Good Taste
Some reasons Why being born male is not a "privilege" – Imgur
From an essay on “A Voice For Men”:
The writer is clearly making a broad and wrong claim, not the very hedged and narrow claim you’re defending in your comment. And that’s the claim I had in mind when I included that link in this post.
Does ability to swim really play that much of a role in surviving a shipwreck? I’m certainly not an expert on this, but I can’t remember hearing all that many shipwreck survival stories that involved swimming to safety, unless the shipwreck was very close to shore.
Speaking from a position of no actual knowledge whatsoever, I would guess that the ability to stay afloat until you either find floating debree large enough to float on, or get rescued, would make a difference. And I could see how trying to tread water in a full dress & associated underthings – let alone a corset – would be more tiring than trying to do so in a shirt and tie.
I just tried googling for stories of people who survived shipwrecks by swimming. Not scientific at all, but most of the stories I was able find were very recent, and people who were extremely strong swimmers (like, people who’d been swimming competitively for years), in warm water, and within a mile or two of some sort of land. I’d think that, for a shipwreck in the north Atlantic, just about anyone who didn’t get on a lifeboat would be dead from the cold whether they knew how to swim or not, and no matter what kind of clothes they were wearing, unless another ship to rescue them came along really quickly.
I’m doing a comic called “Smallbug Comics”. If anyone can read it and give feedback (good or bad), that’d be swell. :)
http://tapastic.com/series/smallbug
I’m also on tumblr as well
http://bakertoons.tumblr.com/
ballgame:
An interesting read, thanks for those posts. I think you’re wrong in your conclusions, however (which probably won’t surprise you!). I do have some bias here, but I think that manifests in my desire to double-check your numbers, not in any of the following analysis–but I acknowledge that I wouldn’t have been as likely to check something that agreed with me.
You say in the second linked post,
I don’t know if this is a difference between the version you saw and the final version we’re discussing, but in the PNAS version, they do take this into account. They have several hypotheses about what could affect survival rates, and they test each hypothesis individually. When they do that with WCF they find it makes less than a percentage point of difference in survival rates. But they also investigate a joint model that includes all of these effects: a model that allows for differential survival rate depending on post- or pre-WWI status, speed of sinking, WCF order, etc. The 9.6 percentage point difference I quoted above comes from that joint model. So that 9.6 percentage point difference is saying, when we include the differential survival from all these other effects including time of shipwreck, there’s about 10 percentage points that can attributed to WCF alone. If they were trying to obfuscate the difference time of shipwreck made, they would have quoted the 0.9 percentage point difference as their main conclusion. Their analysis is more mathematically robust than anything I’m going to do in the next few paragraphs. (While I do statistics sometimes for my job, I don’t ever have to regress on binary variables like this, so I don’t have the setup to redo their analysis using only passengers–which I think they should have done, though the passengers+crew measure is important too.)
I wonder if the data has been updated a bit since you did your analysis: I get 27% for female passengers but 30% for male passengers. However, I excluded children (when known), and I’m not sure you did, so that could also explain the difference. All the rest of my numbers are just discussing the survival rates for adult (or age unknown) passengers, so no crew and no known children.
I get 45% women to 28% men with WCF, and 13% women to 33% men without. But there’s large variation in how much WCF helped. Survival rates for the ten shipwrecks in question: WCF orders: the Birkenhead, women 100%, men 27% (but that was 7 women to almost 500 men); the Titanic, women 73%, men 19%; the Lusitania, women 37%, men 38%; the Northfleet, women 4%, men 27%; the Arctic, women 1%, men 19%. Without WCF orders: the Golden Gate, women 26%, men 42%; the Princess Alice, women 18%, men 20%; the Atlantic, women 13%, men 46%; the Empress of Ireland, women 11%, men 26%; and the Norge: women 10%, men 28%.
The sole reason that women have a higher survival rate than men for the wrecks with the WCF orders is the Titanic. Without it, the survival rate for women is 27%, and men is 32%–exactly what it was before for the men, plus additional women surviving. However, that’s still a change in gender balance, so it’s still probable that there were women who survived, and men who didn’t, because of the WCF orders. Again, really the right way to do this is the way the authors did it in the paper, not the numbers I’m throwing around here–just adding up survival rates ends up weighting things really weirdly and ignoring other important differences between shipwrecks.
Now, the Titanic was a huge shipwreck. I don’t want to downplay the fact that a lot of men died willingly to save the women and children on the ship (and some not so willingly: there are reports of officers firing at men who tried to disobey the WCF order). But I hope that list illustrates that it was a true outlier: no other shipwreck with more than a handful of women had women more likely to survive than men. Even parity was rare (one WCF and one no-WCF had it, more or less); and it was also quite possible for even shipwrecks with a WCF order to lose many more women, proportionally, than men. (The two lowest survival rates for women were on shipwrecks with WCF orders. Of course, one of those was by far the lowest survival rate of any shipwreck studied. The fact that the analysis still shows a differential survival for women when WCF orders were given means that probably those two were among the most dangerous of the shipwrecks studied.)
Also, shipwrecks with WCF orders had higher survival rates on average than shipwrecks without. The WCF order did change the balance of who survived, but even if the ratio of male to female survival rates had stayed the same, the increased overall survival rate would have meant a women’s survival rate of about 19%.
Still, though, the takeaway points here: one, you’re right that the analysis would be more robust if they looked at male passengers only, in addition to the passengers+crew numbers; two, it’s wrong to say that the current analysis doesn’t account for the fact that WCF orders were only given during one period of time–it is accounted for, just in a mathematical way that’s different from analyzing the two groups separately; three, simply adding up total numbers of people who survived isn’t the right way to do this kind of analysis, though it can help you see some patterns by eye which you should then investigate with better mathematical tools; four, I also agree that the headline (women had lower survival rates) doesn’t necessarily address the point about WCF orders, and I thought that the first time I saw it too, though I think the paper is actually much more nuanced than the headlines in discussing what that does and doesn’t mean.
Just curious – How did the shipwreck study account for the massive drop in the use of maritime transportation by civilians?
My guess is that most of the women now on the seas are cruise participants – a scenario which skews older, and which means that the number of small children at sea has probably also plummeted.
They didn’t, AFAICT. But they have very few recent shipwrecks–the four most recent are 1986, 1994, 2008 and 2011. A cursory Google search says the 2011 ship was a river cruise ship, the 2008 ship was a ferry (in a typhoon), the 1994 ship was a cruise ferry, which is apparently a thing that exists, and the 1986 ship was a passenger ship.
#14, “In Defense of John Grisham”–makes a lot of good points (I agree that watching child porn and molesting a child should not receive the same punishment), but it was troubling to see the phrase, “16-year-old women”. 18 has been the age of adulthood in the US for a long time (and Balko is US-based). I just don’t see any reason to use that phrase except to try to make your case look better than it is.
The whole “I question the news value of this update [that Grisham’s friend was looking at children as young as 10, not just 16-year-olds]” lowers my opinion a bit, too. The frequency with with people will make excuses for themselves/their friends is relevant to understanding the way that people who view child porn, and their friends who give them some degree of social license to operate, work, even if it’s not directly relevant to policy.
Assuming that the (in this case nonexistent) 16-year-olds did appear in a pornographic or sexually suggestive video consensually, then yes, knowing that video is out there is probably less traumatic than a few years in prison. But I do think it makes sense to keep the legal age for porn at least 18 even in places where the age of consent is lower. If you’re not old enough to vote, I think you’re not old enough to appear in porn. In some ways the consequences of appearing in pornography are more serious than the consequences of having sex. (At least, if you don’t get pregnant or contract an incurable STD.) It can follow you around a long time. How long? This long.
Not knowing anything but what I’ve read in the papers, I’d speculate that Grisham’s friend may have lied to him and other friends about exactly what he was arrested and convicted for. (According to a story I read, the friend’s case was not reported on in detail in news stories published at the time). I imagine that a lot of convicted child molesters would lie about exactly what they did, if they can.
For my BSA Troop I pretty much am the unit’s aquatics specialist. I’ve taken survival training, life saving training, etc. (BSA requires this for adults running wilderness aquatics trips), and I’ve ended up in the water by surprise a couple of times. So I’ll say this:
Amp is right when he says that being able to swim to a piece of floating debris, or a lifeboat/liferaft can be critical. You don’t have to be able to swim to shore, you just have to be able to swim to something that can keep you afloat. And it’s important in that if you know you can swim and have had practice at it, you won’t panic when you hit the water. That panic itself can be fatal. Non-swimmers have more than once drowned in water they can stand up in because they panicked.
In fact – this last August I took some young men up into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota just south of the Canadian border. While on a day trip out of our campsite to go fishing we got caught in the middle of the lake in what quickly blew up to be a 30 – 35 kt squall. Over we went! But everyone was able to swim (if you can’t swim 100 yards, you can’t go on a trip like this), so they got to the canoes and held on until we washed up against an island. My point being that very often you don’t have to swim far, but you do have to be ready and able to swim when you need to.
However, if you don’t get to a life raft, rescue boat or piece of debris big enough to get you out of the water in a relative short period, then swimming won’t make much of a difference. Water sucks the heat out of your body pretty fast, even relatively warm water.
RonF: Yes. I was trying to look up a piece of information I was once told (I think on a whale watch or lighthouse tour or something)–that if you fall in the ocean in Maine and you’re not right near the coast, you’ll die of hypothermia in less than an hour if you can’t get out again. I did find confirmation that hypothermia can occur in relatively warm water. (As warm as 60 degrees F? As warm as 68? Some risk for anything less than 70?)
I wrote a post about Lynne Cox earlier this year. No one is completely sure why she’s able to survive in water that would kill other people, but it seems to be some combination of genetics, level of body fat, and practice.
I am trying to hire someone, so I have an ad up online. It’s obviously for a law office. The last line is is really quite clear: “if interested, contact me by email at ____.”
LITERALLY 60% of the people who contact me have not read the ad. I have Facebook replies. I have Facebook private messages which read only “how part time is this thx.” I have responses (if you can call them that) which are misspelled, informal, and pretty much everything else. One of them is an offer to barter work if I provide a restraining order defense for a friend.
Amazingly, most of those people probably think it’s fine, or don’t recognize that they are instantly ending up in the “no, are you kidding?” pile. And I can’t tell them, of course, because they would think that it was I who was the problem.
Sigh.
g&w,
Only 60%? How I long for that low a number.
closetpuritan:
Yes. Hypothermia can occur in water which is surprisingly warm, though the onset is longer. You can get hypothermic in 80 degree water if you stay in long enough.
Hypothermia occurs insanely fast in cold water. Especially if you move, because moving keeps pushing new cold water up against your skin and so it chills you faster. A good cutoff is 50 degrees. Because the water lags so far behind air temperature, you can have a 75 degree sunny day where the water is 50 degrees.
That sounds all well and good and perhaps it may seem like a great day to go out and service your mooring. But if you fall over in 50 degree water (which can persist far into spring and early summer in some places) you are surprisingly likely to die. Without a life jacket you have about a 50% chance of drowning if you try to make it 50 yards.
Also hypothermia hits your extremities first, which is to say that you may retain the ability to move your arms and legs (so you might think you could swim) but not the ability to properly cup your hands and close your fingers (so you really can’t.)
G&W:
I empathize. While I’m not reading responses to a job ad, I did just finish grading a set of papers and it’s amazing to me how many of them—pretty close to 80% or 90%—clearly neither paid attention when I went over the text of the assignment in some detail nor read it for themselves before they actually started to do it.
Lucky for them (I suppose), they will have a chance to rewrite, though I sometimes wonder if I should end that policy, since some significant portion, I know, figure they can turn in a lazy first draft, get comments and then hand in a better second draft. It rarely works out for them, since the second draft often ends up being what a first draft should have been, but I still end up having to read both drafts—which in too many cases ends up feeling like a waste of my time.
Jake: This one is way worse than usual because I didn’t follow my normal screen.
Usually I post an ad in the help wanted section with a short description, referencing a detailed job description on my website: “For full details and application instructions, see complete ad at http://www.ginandwhiskey.com/jobs .”
Then the screening starts, because you can’t just surf to it; you have to type it (there is no “jobs” link on my home page.) People who don’t understand how to type an address are screened out.
Then, I have a long ad (space online is free.)
And in the ad, I have a specific section titled “HOW TO APPLY.” I give an email address to use. I tell people what they must put in the subject line. I instruct them to include their documents both as attachments and inline text. And I clearly state that if you don’t follow those directions you will not get a response. I have a fairly computer heavy job so anyone who doesn’t know how to attach shouldn’t apply. And then as a bonus I can look at what they attach. The smart ones use PDFs. The other ones use .rtf. Then you get the ones who think it’s fine to send me a .docx file, and the rare ones who think it’s OK to send .wpd or Pages files. This allows for one of my better computer-knowledge-screening interview question: “why did you choose that file format to use? What else did you consider using?”
Usually I keep the reallb bad stuff closer to 30%
Thanks for the Dore’-inspired pumpkin patch. I enjoy it every time I check back on this thread.
I’m working on sending out job applications. Right now, I’m getting irritated at some schools that have “excellent research record” in the “required” list, and “strong record of undergraduate teaching” in the “preferred” list, and the schools don’t even have graduate programs in math. Also, one community college where the application requires some really specific stuff — like an hour-long exam for a certain class, plus a detailed syllabus for another specific class, plus about three different essays about working with diverse student populations — that would probably take me about ten hours to do. I am not putting in ten hours for application materials that can be used for only one application.
Ruchama,
Don’t know which part(s) of the country you’re applying in but if NY is an option, I’d say you should look at where I teach, if we’re hiring in math. If you’re interested, let me know and I will be in touch.
I’m applying pretty much everywhere that’s in or near a major city that’s hiring. I’m in a pretty rural area now, and rural life is definitely not for me.
@22 closetpuritan:
I agree with your point re: the Balko article on John Grisham. I’ve read articles by Radley Balko before back when he was on the Agitator, and I have never seen a longer, more goal-post moving defense of “old white men” and their crimes. The first thing that irked me in that article was the age-moving. A 16-year-old “woman” is still a child, and deserves the protection of being one. And that’s on top of an already age-moved example: Grisham mentioned 14-year-old girls and said they weren’t the same as 10-year-old boys when it came to pedophilia. Apparently, it’s okay to molest girls but not boys – maybe they were asking for it. /sarcasm
The whole article spoke of someone who is adamantly defending something that doesn’t need to be defended. And John Grisham of all people should know the law doesn’t apply to electronically-created images that don’t involve real children.
gin-and-whiskey:
Sure. Growing up, I often swam in the Pacific, which varied annually in my area between 37°F and 40°F, when the AIR temperature was 80°F in the shade. The routine was: 10 minutes or so in the surf, splashing around, 10 or 20 minutes out, building sand castles, 10 minutes or so in the surf, repeat until exhausted, put on more sunscreen, nap, start the cycle over again.
My reply to the next paragraph is mere quibbling; I agree that hypothermia happens quickly in cold water.
Once, when I was around twelve, I went swimming in a glacial lake at an elevation just above 8000 feet. The lake had been frozen until about three weeks before, when the ice broke up. The water felt cold, but I was used to swimming in cold water (see above). I was in the water for several minutes — easily long enough to swim 50 yards — before I started to shiver and got out. After awhile in the sun, I got back in. Again, it was several minutes before I started to shiver and got back out. I was wondering what was wrong with me; usually I lasted longer in the water. It was during my third time in the water, again for several minutes, that I saw a small iceberg float by, and looked over to the north slope above the lake, where ice was still dropping periodically into the lake. I got out, and didn’t feel so bad about myself.
In other words, the lake water was juuuust above freezing, probably 33°F.
Now, I was a young and healthy kid, but I was (and am) no physical prodigy, and I was lightweight and skinny as a rail with very little body fat, actively swimming; I think any adult with normal circulation could have outlasted me just by having twice the mass and a lower ratio of surface area to mass.
So, I doubt your 50% mortality rate in the conditions described. 50°F? Please. In the spring, I dip in 50°F water routinely for five or ten minutes, and never once have come near death.
—–
Having written the above, I googled “hypothermia water temperature chart” and found this. For 40-50°F water, they give an “Expected Time Before Exhaustion or Unconsciousness” of 30-60 minutes. For an “average-sized, lightly clothed adult in 50°F (10°C) water”, they give a survival time for treading water of two hours (roughly, acknowledging that “The rate at which a body cools varies with body size, age, gender, water and air temperature, waves, wind, water currents, and other factors.”).
Though I have never taken it beyond the first sign of hypothermia (onset of shivering), I’d say that accords reasonably with my experience.
Grace
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/only-a-scientist-could-fumble-so-badly-the-gift-pope-francis-just-handed-science/
I am curious what everyone might think about this piece on a rather large bit of cultural change that happened this week that could affect a billion or so people. Is social change an all or nothing thing, are some cultures more or less prone to change and is culture an excuse for resisting progress in the first place?
Brian, that is not much of a change: it’s been the official policy of the Catholic Church that there’s no conflict between evolution and Christianity since 1950, and no conflict between creation and the Big Bang since shortly thereafter. (There’s no official policy that evolution is correct, though; it’s just that Catholics may believe either evolution or creation and still be within the church’s interpretation.) Catholic schools have taught evolution for many years, for example. The big change here is the Pope officially pushing one side, but it’s the side that’s been winning, at least in the US, for a very long time.
Do people think the Pope speaking in favor of evolution and the big bang will change anyone’s mind about them? My impression is that the vast majority of young earth creationists and anti-evolutionists are protestants and aren’t going to care what the Pope says on the subject.
And at last count, young-earth creationists made up around 42% of the U.S. population–far from the ‘minor fringe group’ that we like to tell ourselves they must be.
I’m a little skeptical of that figure; I think that the 42% is a mix of actual young-earth creationists, and people who are just indicating that they’re a member of the conservative tribe.
Or, I HOPE that, anyway.
At least one of the surveys I’ve seen just asked something like, “How old is the earth?” and gave several choices. I would think that at least some portion of the people who picked the “Young Earth” answer are actually just science-illiterate, rather than taking a stand on the issue. Which is still worrisome, but it’s worrisome in a different way.
An upsetting news story from Canada that might be of interest [Content / Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of physical and sexual assault and abuse in the links]:
Jian Ghomeshi, the (now former) host of the popular CBC radio show Q, was fired by the CBC on Sunday. He is a talented interviewer, and I appreciated his approach to popular culture. On Sunday, he made a long post on facebook claiming that he was being fired for engaging in consenual BDSM activities.
On Monday, the Toronto Star published an article describing allegations by four women who had declined to go on record that Ghomeshi had verbally, physically and sexually assaulted them: CBC fires Jian Ghomeshi over sex allegations. Also on Monday, Ghomeshi filed a $55 million dollar lawsuit against the CBC for breach of contract and defemation; the Toronto Star’s article about the suit includes a link to all the court documents: Jian Ghomeshi lawsuit says CBC made ‘moral judgment’ about his sex life.
On Wednesday, the CBC radio program As It Happens interviewed a woman who was not one of the four who experiences were described in the original Star article. This woman, who likewise chose to remain annonymous, described her own experiences of abuse by Ghomeshi. Also on Wednesday, Dan Savage posted an interview he did with a woman who had had a consenual BDSM relationship with Ghomeshi.
Then today, the Toronto Star published another article, saying four more women had come forward after their intial piece with allegations against Ghomeshi, bringing the total up to 8 – Jian Ghomeshi: 8 women accuse former CBC host of violence, sexual abuse or harassment. One of the women, an television actress and Captain in the Royal Canadian Air Force, was willing to be named publicly.
The whole situation is heartbreaking; he was a commentator whose perspective and pinache I admired, and to learn that he has abused so many women for so long (the current allegations span from 2002 to the present) without any repercussion until now is a travesty. There is no way that the CBC only just learned of these allegations. And every one of the women he assaulted or harassed were employees of the CBC or fans; he absolutely abused his position of power and fame to seek them out, and then relied on the same power and fame to protect him from consequences. Reading the accounts of the women is just chilling and made my skin crawl.
TL;DR: Jian Ghomeshi, popular (former) CBC radio host, was fired. He made a statement claiming it was because of consenual BDSM activities, and filed a $55 million lawsuit. Thereafter, many allegations of harassment, and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse and assault by women fans and other CBC employees came out. Read this article in the Toronto Star for the latest horrifying details.
Thanks for summarizing that story so well, Dragon Snap.
I want to recommend one additional article – Do You Know About Jian. It’s a long read, but very good. Here’s a sample:
“I think that the 42% is a mix of actual young-earth creationists, and people who are just indicating that they’re a member of the conservative tribe.”
If only.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
Copyleft, thanks for the link.
Unless I missed something, the percentage of people who believe in evolution not guided by God is increasing, but it’s because people who believe in evolution guided by God are dropping the God part, while the people who believe in young-earth creation are holding steady.
A couple of points.
First of all, other polls – most notably, the Pew poll – have found lower numbers than 42%.
Secondly, Scott Alexander is worth quoting at length on this:
Third of all, Josh Roseanu suggests that there are fewer young earth creationists than the Gallup poll makes it seem, and that question wording has a significant effect on how people answer – for instance, people are more likely to believe “animals” evolved than that “humans” evolved.
And, finally, two pieces arguing that these poll results are partly driven by loyalty to the Republican party:
Why Republicans Don’t Believe In Evolution Anymore | ThinkProgress
Tribalism, Biology, and Macroeconomics – NYTimes.com
Because, hey, it’s an open thread and I can nit-pick: that’s not an accurate description of dark matter, which is mildly amusing in an article discussing people’s understanding of science. :) (Now, dark matter is much less well-established than evolution, and may not be the accurate description in the end–though that looks less and less likely as the years go on; but if it is true, A, all dark matter theories say it barely interacts with the regular world, and B, while you could have a planet-sized clump of dark matter associated with the Earth, you could not have dark matter cities or dark matter people.) Getting this wrong isn’t nearly as egregious as not believing in evolution, though–more like, say, not understanding how photosynthesis works, while understanding that it happens.
I think it would also be accurate to say “most people don’t think about the origin of the Earth very much.” I’d put this result [edit: that some large fraction of people believe in literal Creationism] with the sort of result that says a majority of Americans don’t like flag burning, or whatever, but when you ask them how important that belief is they say “not at all.”
The whole social bubble thing totally covers one hundred quintillion, because it makes the 1/2 number meaningless. I can’t speak to what Scott Alexander’s personal social circle is like, but in my experience virtually no one has a social circle that’s remotely close to representative of the country as a whole – but that might just be my own social bubble… :). I’m an extreme case on this particular question because I’m an evolutionary biologist, but I also don’t deliberately avoid young earth creationists, and virtually no one I interact with on a remotely regular basis is one (either known or suspected) – the only ones I can think up off the top of my head are extended family members. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people in the country who are. It reminds me of various people saying things like “I don’t know anyone who voted for Bush – I don’t see how he got elected” (or Nixon, or Clinton, or Reagan, or whoever – I’m sure it’s been said about pretty much every election).
And I will say from personal experience, I do encounter a lot of people when I travel who are creationists. When I was interviewing for jobs, when I go to meetings now, etc. and I’m asked where I’m traveling by cabbies or fellow plane passengers or whatever and I tell them I’m an evolutionary biologist, I get pushback from a significant minority (maybe 25-30%, if I had to make a half-assed guess…?). Sometimes I just say I’m a geneticist instead if I don’t want to deal with the conversation (which is true – I’m just an evolutionary geneticist).
The poll I cite when I teach evolution is from Science in 2006 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5788/765.full); it’s about nine years out of date, but I doubt the numbers have changed that much in that time. It also doesn’t specifically address “creationist” vs. “young earth creationist,” but it’s still informative – and disturbing – with regard to the US vs a lot of the rest of the western world.
Happy Halloween, folks!
Feel free to post images (or links to images, if the comments program won’t let you post images) of your own costumes, either from today or from past occasions.
Ah, this must be your ‘Portland Hipster’ costume. ;)
Great costume!
Why is your costume “brian on a typical day “? ;)
Aaaaand my nephew went as Nikki Menaj. In blackface. My sister doesn’t see the problem.
It’s not just strangers who do this shit.
Jake, pics or it didn’t happen. For all we know he intended it as an ironic comment on other people in blackface? ? I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
A friend of a friend dressed as Vanessa Huxtable one Halloween as a kid, with blackface. Her parents did understand what was wrong with it, but somehow decided that dealing with horrified neighbors would be easier than explaining the history of blackface (or just saying no) to their kid.
I give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s a kid. I suspect everyone here would. (Jake didn’t suggest that the kid had bad intentions.)
But that’s not the point.
Even with good intentions, wearing blackface is hurtful to other people. If I throw a rock just for fun, not intending to hurt anyone, and it hits someone on the head, that I didn’t have bad intentions doesn’t mean that the person I hit wasn’t hurt.
One thing that’s interesting about the Jian Ghomeshi case is that not only is there no plausible way to allege “gold-digging” on the part of the women coming forward, Jian Ghomeshi is suing CBC and could be accused of gold-digging. Let’s see if that makes one bit of difference to the people who normally accuse alleged victims of gold-digging…
While I never listened much to Jian Ghomeshi’s program, I did hear the episode with Brianna Wu recently, so there was a bit of additional, “Hey, I know that guy…” weirdness. There was even more “Hey, I know her…” weirdness when I heard that Brianna Wu was driven from her home, because I’ve seen her speak a few times at Boskone.
A couple years ago I found out that a guy I’d went on 3 dates with when I was 15 and knew from community theater had been charged with statutory rape of a 14-year-old (when he was in his mid-20s), which was disturbing. When I mentioned it to a couple coworkers (one male, one female), they started talking about how a lot of teenagers wear lots of makeup and look older than they are… and while that may be true, I found it a little disturbing as a response to what I was saying.
And, uh… I just googled him to see exactly what age he was at the time of the offense, and I guess he’s been dead for a year.
I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot less victim-blaming and disbelief with this Jian Ghomeshi story than I usually see when famous men are accused of things like this. There was some the first few days, but as more women came forward, it seemed to die down. I’m not entirely sure what makes this case different. (When I first read about it, I thought that I’d never heard of him before, but then I read that he used to be in Moxy Fruvous, which made, “Oh, THAT guy!” click in my brain.)
Ever read a plot summary that makes you say, “this may be the greatest story I will ever hear?” Check this out.
“Phillip Romilly is a poor art teacher in London. He finds out that his wealthy cousin Douglas has been seeing his girl friend Beatrice behind his back. He strangles Douglas, throws him in the canal, and assumes his identity. Douglas had booked passage to America for the next day, so after a pleasant sea voyage Phillip arrives at the Waldorf Hotel in New York as Douglas Romilly. An hour after checking in he disappears again, and assumes yet another identity, one that his cousin had set up for himself. Douglas was facing massive financial problems, and he, too, had planned to avoid his problems by getting lost in the crowd in New York. Now, in chapter two…. (Summary by Maikki) ”
That audio books like this are free make me mind the gradual macular degeneration a lot less.
https://archive.org/details/cinema_murder_0807
That sounds awe-inspiring.
Praise for the blogroll — and especially, just at the moment, If gender isn’t a binary, we’re all both oppressed and oppressor.
My favorite line from the above, quoting Rani Bakr:
Fucking fantastic.
—Myca
Chain letters from the White House. I know too many gullible liberals – I am up to seven. And the old 78 cent per dollar meme is the cherry on the cake.
Allow me to follow the White House advice. I’ll spare you the links, though, because they did not get them right in the original… who vets this stuff?
Women who work full-time still earn just 78 cents for every dollar that men earn. That’s why President Obama supports the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help women fight for the equal pay they deserve.
And that’s why President Obama was in Rhode Island today. He spoke about what we can do as a country to help women succeed, saying, “We have to raise our voices to demand that women get paid fairly.”
So if you agree that women deserve equal pay, here’s one of the best ways you can help make it a reality: Forward this email, and share the message on Facebook or Twitter.
PS. Ouch. I have to check the box that I am not a spammer. It’s for a good cause, I guess.
I’m just happy to know that someone other than myself and Charles uses the blogroll! I think it’s quite a good blogroll, as blogrolls go, but I’m never sure if anyone sees it.
I have more thoughts about the Jian Ghomeshi situation and everyone’s interesting comments on it here, but I have limited time right now, so I just wanted to say that the blogroll here is how I discovered The Pervocracy, for which I am thankful. And I found Alas through its listing on the Angry Black Woman blogroll, back in early 2009, so I would say that blogrolls have certainly done very well by me :)
I voted, and got a sticker. I still miss the old voting booths, where you’d pull the lever and all the gears would turn and the machine would make a nice satisfying ker-THUNK sound. Coloring in little bubbles and putting the paper into a scanner (which doesn’t even make a whirring scanner noise!) is not the same.
I voted. No, I did not vote a straight GOP ticket. For one thing, in the 5 Cook County county-wide offices and the 50-odd people on the judicial ballot, there are no GOP candidates, only Democratic ones. People who complain about America’s two party system should move to Cook County and see what it’s like in a one-party system. And I once again voted for the Dem candidate – the incumbent, no less – for the House. But then, he voted against the ACA.
The most interesting race was for Governor of Illinois. 4 of the 8 predecessors of the (D) incumbent have done or are doing time for felony convictions. The incumbent was a Good Government reformer type who became governor by accident when he was elected Lieutenant Governor to give the ticket a reformist appearance and then became Governor when the sitting Governor was impeached and removed from office (and later became our latest Governor to be convicted of a felony). He was then elected 4 years ago by a margin of less than 1% of the vote (~32,000 out of 3.7 million). From what I see in the ads that the incumbent has run, his GOP opponent eats babies for breakfast before spending the day being driven down the street in a solid gold limousine, occasionally stopping to get out and beat minorities, elderly, poor people, abortion doctors and union members. That all sounds good to me, so I voted for him. It’s expected to be quite close.
Senator Durbin (D) is also up for re-election. His opponent, one Mr. Oberweis, is a dairy products producer and retailer who managed to – in his 5th try at public office – win a term as State Senator and has spent the last 2 years trying to parlay that into a Federal Senate seat. Oberweis is going to lose, big time. But I can heartily recommend his ice cream.
Here in Illinois the balloting choices are between a touchscreen machine or a paper ballot scanner. Having worked in I.T. most of my life I went for the paper ballot scanner. I’m also mindful of the stories I have recently seen of people in Illinois who have used the touchscreen machines during early voting periods to attempt to vote for a GOP candidate – one such person BEING a GOP candidate – only to watch the machine register a vote for the Democratic candidate. Those machines are just too easy to hack and unlike the scanners there’s no paper trail.
“Mama, don’t let yer babies grow up to be Gov’nor….
Make’em be drug dealers and investment bankers and such….”
This is quite funny.
EXES
Sorry, red state residents. It turns out that it was the Moops, after all.
https://archive.org/details/whats_wrong_chesterton_librivox
Sometimes it is comforting to realize that “now” has always looked like the worst it has ever been.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/204849?redirectedFrom=translator#eid
I’ve been struck by how people use language this weekend, so I’ve been wasting time on the Oxford English Dictionary site. That THIS is how I amuse myself may reveal more about me than I intend.
BUT… Did anyone know “translator” can mean someone who repairs shoes?
a. One who transforms, changes, or alters; spec. a cobbler who renovates old shoes.
1594 Merry Knack in W. C. Hazlitt Dodsley’s Sel. Coll. Old Eng. Plays (1874) VI. 566 As long as Jeffrey the translater is Mayor of the town.
1638 R. Brathwait Barnabæ Itinerarium (new ed.) To Transl. sig. A6, That paltry Patcher is a bald Translater.
a1658 J. Cleveland Gen. Poems (1677) 23 I’m no Translator, have no vein To turn a Woman young again.
1693 Humours & Conversat. Town 77 The Jolly Translator, of Shoes, I mean, not Authors.
1700 T. Brown Amusem. Serious & Comical x. 130 The Cobler is Affronted, if you don’t call him Mr. Translator.
1851 H. Mayhew London Labour I. 198/2 I’m a ‘translator’..by trade.
1886 Daily News 15 Oct. 3/6 ‘Translators’, who cunningly metamorphose..old leather almost into new goods.
b. transf. pl. A ‘translated’ pair of shoes. slang.
1851 H. Mayhew London Labour I. 51/2 To wear a pair of second-hand ones [sc. boots], or ‘translators’ (as they are called), is felt as a bitter degradation.
THAT is quite a drift from the 12th Century origin…
Pronunciation: /trɑːnsˈleɪtə(r)/ /træns-/ /-nz-/
Forms: Also ME–15 -oure, ME–17 -our, ME -ore, 15–16 -er.
Etymology: < Old French translator, -our, French -eur (12th cent. in Godefroy Compl…. (Show More)
One who (or that which) translates.
a. One who translates or renders from one language into another; the author of a translation.
13.. in Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1878) 25/1101 Of al translatours in to latyn He was flour enditour fyn.
Here’s a very interesting and clear chart listing specific facts about American income inequality, by quintile.
Don’t be put off by the (apparently quite conservative) website; the article itself is quite factual and informative.
ETA: I don’t think this article is necessarily the right place to look for solutions, but it’s a well stated place to get some initial facts
Also: Holy shit, I had no idea that there was a veritable monster of a sci-fi commenter going around and trashing authors. While hiding behind a variety of fake names. And getting advocates for her/his cause (nobody really knows who it is, now.)
And apparently also targeting NK Jemisin, whose books I really liked.
This article is worth a read.
Here’s another one which i have not yet read.
Yes — as you know, I am her Secrets Keeper; you are acquainted with how the spell operates, are you not?
lol.
No, seriously:
1) Requires Hate (a/k/a Winterfox and other names) has been identified as “Benjanun Sriduangkaew.”
2) “Benjanun Sriduangkaew” has made written submissions and presents as a lesbian Thai writer AFAIK.
3) From what I have garnered, Benjanun has obtained some benefits from that presentation, at least in certain circles.
4) Given “Benjanun’s” predilection for lying, including false aliases, sockpuppetry, and other such things, people are reasonably wondering who “Benjanun Sriduangkaew” actually is. And they are reasonably also wondering whether the person behind “Benjanun Sriduangkaew” is in fact female, lesbian, and/or Thai (since Benjanun has lied about almost everything else.)
The Internet is a very interesting place.
The first part of this, definitely. The second part I’m less sure of–AFAIK female and Thai have been constants across the identities that are known (not sure about lesbian) which reduces, IMO, the probability that those characteristics are false.
I sort of want to separate out two things here. One is that this person engaged in abusive attacks on other people; the other is that they were an “organized, hardcore identity abuser” (to quote a discussion on the AbsoluteWrite forums that’s also worth reading, especially the last couple of pages, though note that it was started a month ago before some of the now-known details were public). I’d rather focus on the abusive-attacks part, personally. While people who do the identity abuse thing can be very harmful to the people they interact with closely, it’s the organized attacks on other people that make this case harmful to the community as a whole. IOW, if a person with one constant name had engaged in those attacks, that would still be a large-scale problem; if a person had NOT engaged in those attacks, but had had the kind of revolving and unconnected identities involved in this case, it would be an issue for the people who thought they were friends with one of the pseudonyms, but less so for the larger community.
I’ll also leave open the possibility that RH/BS is a small group of people– does anyone have a feeling for an upper limit how much damage a single smart energetic person can do?
For completeness’ sake…. can we be sure RH/BS is human?
I don’t know whether they’re constants. I do know–professionally–that lying liars gonna lie, lie, lie. And Benjanun seems to be solidly in the “lying liar” camp. I guess we’ll see: at some point Benjanun will surely show him/herself.
True, but people doing this sort of thing need to maintain a plausible but false identity for a long period of time, so usually their lies are well-salted with the truth. My gut feeling having run across this kind of thing before is that the person is probably female and probably has some sort of Thai background, but, of course, I could well be wrong. Suppose we won’t know for a while.
If it turns out that she was also Tüssi, Iseter, Wahr, & etc, I’m going to be so pissed.
—Myca
[Bryan] Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day [11/17/14], Oxford University Press
lady.
This word has become increasingly problematic. Though hardly anyone would object to it in the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” or on a restroom sign, most other uses of the term might invite disapproval — depending on the readers’ or listeners’ views about sexism. It isn’t a skunked term, but it’s gradually becoming something like one. And this process has been occurring since at least the mid-20th century: “I don’t know any word that has been so beaten down in modern usage as ‘lady.'” Edward N. Teall, Putting Words to Work 286 (1940).
The linguist Cecily Raysor Hancock of Chicago observed in 1963 that Americans are divisible into three groups when it comes to using “lady”: (1) those who use “lady” in preference to “woman” when referring to female adults of any social class (a group that has steadily dwindled); (2) those who generally use “woman” in preference to “lady,” but who use “lady” in reference to social inferiors; and (3) those who use “woman” uniformly regardless of social class or familiarity, except in a few set formulas such as “ladies and gentlemen.” See “Lady and Woman,” 38 Am. Speech 234-35 (1963). Hancock rightly notes that “the use of ‘lady’ at present apparently gives more sociological information about its user than about the person described,” adding: “‘woman’ is probably the safer choice of the two.” Ibid. at 235.
——————–
Quotation of the Day: “‘Lady’ carries with it overtones recalling the age of chivalry: the exalted stature of the person so referred to, her existence above the common sphere. This makes the term seem polite at first, but we must also remember that these implications are perilous: they suggest that a ‘lady’ is helpless, and cannot do things for herself. In this respect the use of a word like ‘lady’ is parallel to the act of opening doors for women — or ladies. At first blush it is flattering: the object of the flattery feels honored, cherished, and so forth; but by the same token, she is also considered helpless and not in control of her own destiny.” Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place 25 (1975).
Demetri Martin:
—Myca
Well, I read this recently, and it’s kind of disturbing to me…
Americans Are Working So Hard It’s Actually Killing People: The jobless recovery means massive speedups for many workers you depend on
Oh, and I meant to comment earlier: I do use the blogroll. (Thanks for putting me on there, BTW!) I ended up sharing that “We’re all both oppressed and oppressor” post with my sister.
Not just “aren’t going to care.” The flavors of protestantism that tend to be young earth creationist also tend to be pretty anti-Catholic. My guess would be that a lot of them, if they pay attention to this news at all, will view it as one more reason that Catholics aren’t “real Christians.”
I use it, and I’ve gotten at least a few blog hits from it. (At least, I’m pretty sure they were hits from someone clicking Kelly Thinks Too Much on the blogroll versus clicking my name in a comment.)
@KellyK: I’ve clicked from here to your blog. I think I may have first heard of your blog elsewhere, but the blogroll helps let me know when you’ve posted.
Saw this comment by a writer/artificial intelligence expert I like, and I thought a few of you would get a kick out of it IF anyone reads these things…
https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10152879208114228?fref=nf&pnref=story
For anyone who hates Julian LeBlanc, and/or thinks he’s a prick, you will be highly amused at this.
LeBlanc’s lawyer made the mistake of trying to suppress negative commentary. That never goes well. And it goes even worse when the opposing lawyer is Mark Randazza.
Read the whole thing.
Brian:
Hmmm. I had a thought and wrote it down; it is, “I should remember to pick up some cheese at the grocery.”
But I can’t decide if that’s a Aragorn thought or a Sauron thought. Frankly, I suspect that both of them are absolute crap at keeping their fridges stocked.
But I suppose it’s definitely the sort of thought Sam might have, so I’m probably all right.
G&W:
That’s hilarious! Thanks for posting.
One correction, though: Julian LeBlanc is a fairly harmless-seeming actor. The asshole rapey PUA dude is Julian Blanc.
Oops! perhaps you can correct my post for me so other folks don’t get confused….? It should be “Julien Blanc” everywhere. I was too busy laughing at the letter to check for typos ;)
Well, say it aloud in your best Adam West voice first, and then in your best Vincent Price. Which sounds more natural?
http://funny-pictures-quotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/funny-pictures-did-someone-order-freedom.gif
BTW re: your post about Oklahoma. I think it’s time we invade the Red States and lay down some freedom, old school white trash style. I’ve had enough of that sort of nonsense, haven’t y’all?
brian: Isn’t that basically what we did in the 1860s?
closetpuritan, I’m a very old fashioned person. I like my politics like I like my oil paintings; 19th Century.
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/paintings/French19thcentury.html ;)
So what happens when Aragorn uses Andùril to cut the cheese?
nobody.really:
It seems to me that (I presume) Ms. Hancock had a rather odd idea of what the word “lady” means or how it is used. I have especially never observed the use of the word “lady” to denote someone of inferior social status. I generally have seen it used (and have used it myself) to denote someone who I would regard as having superior attributes – those of courtesy and dignity, to begin with.
It seems to me that Robin Lakoff is making a presumption regarding the reasons why someone holds doors open for someone else that is unwarranted. I don’t hold doors open for people because I think they are helpless. I do it out of common courtesy, especially in situations where it would otherwise shut in their face just as they got to it.