HylianTimelord
Why does this video have a comment section riddled with Religious flame wars? It's just astronomy, no blasphemy or bible bashing..,
deathtokoalas
it's probably because he's implying that the earth is more than 5000 years old.
the correct scientific answer is not atheism but agnosticism. we may conclude that the likelihood of a god existing is low, but the moment we make any declarations we're leaving science behind. we don't know, we can never know and there's no use in pretending otherwise.
what science can do is demonstrate that certain claims in certain texts are incorrect and in the process demonstrate that the texts are fallible. but this isn't testing the question of whether a god exists, it's merely testing the validity of scientific statements that appear in religious texts. in all fairness, the bible isn't really much worse than the works of aristotle - they're just wrong in different ways.
if you're arguing about claims, you're carrying on a meaningful discourse that can have a resolution. if you're arguing about the existence or non-existence of god, you're engaging in meaningless rhetoric that has no possible resolution.
you know, you could have shaved in front of her so she'd understand and save her the trouble of thinking her father has been replaced by an imposter. and, if you think she'll quickly get over it or forget about, you're wrong. i still have memories of the day my dad shaved, and i've never really been fully convinced he wasn't replaced.
i must confess: i may be the source of all of the hatred of 12 year-olds in the world, and especially on the internet.
you may have noticed that i use a turn of phrase semi-frequently. "what are you some kind of ____ or something?". it's mel brooks comedy, lifted from get smart. i've been using it as long as i can remember. i always use it ironically, but the nature of the irony shifts. so, if i say something very anarchist that i know most people would think is outlandish, i'll parody the reaction: "what is she, some kind of anarchist or something?". if i see somebody being naive in their politeness, it's "what are you, some kind of canadian, or something?". &etc.
i had a 12 year-old sister once, and i really mercilessly ridiculed her for being 12. "what are you, like 12 or something?". see, the humour is that she actually really was 12, so she had no way to defend herself against the accusation other than to collapse into fits of laughter. but, see, she found it so funny that she went off and accused everybody else of being 12....
that was 1996.
so, i may be responsible for this. if it's true, i must publicly apologize. now that i'm a little older, i understand that 12 year-olds have every right to be as frustratingly idiotic as anybody twice or even thrice their age. it's not fair to pick on them, specifically.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
as silly as this is, i actually think it brings up a good point. in a world where national boundaries are falling and nation-states are giving way to regional associations, leave it to scotland to demand independence.
the thing is i can't figure out what they want out of this, besides some vapid emotional attachment to some long dead cultural identity. because the scots need to protect their catholic faith. or their language?
the historic context of the anglo-scot fighting is generally over-simplified, to the point that people don't really get it. scotland was generally used as a conduit for papal interests. scottish independence was never a real option; they had the ability to chose between being vassals of the english or vassals of the pope. the pope was constantly seeking to punish the english. the catholic forces attacked repeatedly from the north. but all we ever hear about is how the scots have been colonized by the dastardly english, severely warping the entire discourse. papal propaganda is very widespread and seems to really capitalize on a certain level of historical ignorance.
i really don't think this is at all different. the french are prying scotland away, yet again. this really isn't a referendum on scottish independence (ffs, it's 2014), it's a referendum on whether scotland should integrate directly with the british or european economic and financial systems. to leave britain is to enter europe in a way that the british elite will never agree to.
Stark Clark
Scotland isn't a catholic nation, the largest religion is the Church of Scotland which is Protestant.
deathtokoalas
scotland has historically been a part of the catholic alliance, which was usually dominated by a french emperor that was a puppet of the papacy.
ach. i was being facetious...
Stark Clark
The Scottish reformation was in 1560. The English
reformation started in 1534, but was repealed in 1553 by queen Mary I,
which caused a rockier road to reformation including the Rising of the
Northern in 1569, which yes I realise was to put a Scottish catholic on
the throne, but it was then her son who finally started to try finish
reformation under the Stuarts in 1603 which led to the War of the Three
Kingdoms and the English Civil War.
deathtokoalas
the franco-scottish alliance was the scottish alliance that
preceded the anglo-scottish alliance, and took on pro-catholic and
anti-english traits at various points during it's history, most
prominently during the tudor period.
Stark Clark
The Franco-Scottish alliance ended in 1560 with the reformation during
the Tudor period. Then the Stuarts inherited the English throne and
finally but brutally and bloodily caused reformation in full in England.
deathtokoalas
right. that's the basis underlying the facetious nature of my comment.
i mean, what are you, an american or something? you seem to have no concept of irony or sarcasm.
REZOWNO
when you generalize countries to catholic or protestant you really are just using tribal logic at that point.
Stark Clark
That was not my intention
and it feels like you are twisting my words, my only point was that the
Church of Scotland is the dominant religion in Scotland. However a slim
majority of Scots are actually atheist/agnostic/irreligious so if
anything Scotland would be irreligious.
James Red
you can real off all your book knowledge about Scotland all you want but I who actually am Scottish and have lived here my entire life know that we are not a Catholic nation and that we do want independance to finally free us from the corrupt democracy that is Westminster! We make more money than the whole of the UK. We should be able to make our own decisions without requesting if its okay to English men way way down south.
deathtokoalas
do you really think it's the english that are stealing your money, rather than the bankers and shareholders not just in scotland but throughout the world? do you not think you might gain a thing or two in return for what you send out?
but, more to the point, how does taking the british out of the equation eliminate the corruption? why don't you realize the corruption is in the institution and will merely shift?
and has it crossed your mind that you may be better off working with the british to fight off the bankers and corporate managers than splitting yourselves in two, thereby making it easier to continue to beat you down?
if that's your answer, you're being divided and conquered.
but the scots are quite good at being conquered, aren't they?
Jordan Kay
I agree independence dosnt mean shit this day and age the global elite run it all.
wexfordam
Well all I know is the language was dieing out and they had to borrow or use irish phrasing to fill in gaps not 100% if that's a stupid rumour that people spread
deathtokoalas
that sounds like a false rumour. scots gaelic is a dialect of irish, and it is in irreversible decline, but it is not a lost or obscure language the way that, say, crimean gothic is. there's no deficit of source material and there are still several thousand extant speakers.....
....but they all live very far from the urban areas and the idea that the language is going to return to scotland as a spoken language is bluntly downright laughable. it's no longer spoken because it's lost it's utility. when a language loses it's utility, it becomes useless and ought to be forgotten. there's a place for museums and whatnot, but this idea of saving languages is just being conservative for the sake of being conservative. there's no benefit to anybody in it....
Saturday, September 13, 2014
deathtokoalas
fuck being cool. i'd rather be a dork.
and i'd rather hang out with the dorks, too.
there's nothing worse than hanging out with cool people, who demand you conform to all these childish social codes that you thought everybody forgot about in the tenth grade. being forced to conform to all these absurd conventions is like being sentenced to a short jail sentence, or going to church or something. it's really not enjoyable.
the reality is that the "cool people" are never going to grow up and dorks need to accept that and stop pretending they will. that's this guy's problem. no, she's not going to grow out of it. deal with it.
i'm for all the dorks banding together to ostracize the "cool" people out of existence. so, don't talk to cool people. don't date them. don't have sex with them. don't hire them. eventually, they'll go away.
that guy looks like he might be fun to hang out with.
on the other hand, i would go out of my way to avoid somebody who thinks like that woman does.
i'd much rather have seen him tell her to fuck off when she suggests they hang out.
"you think i want to hang out with a stuck up, full-of-themself, hierarchical piece of shit like you? go fuck yourself. call me when you're over yourself."
although, if it was me (in a past life), i wouldn't have gotten that far because i wouldn't have even stopped to talk to her. the closest i would have gotten to communication with a stuck-up piece of shit like that would have been a really nasty dirty look.
a girl like that will you drop you with the next fashion trend. you're nothing to her but an accessory to be taken in and out of her wardrobe. if indie boys were hot last season, and jocks are the new rage, you're gone as fast as the name brand on her purse changes.
it's the increasing process of commodifying everything around us, reducing every aspect of our lives to a capitalist relation with a market mechanism. it's going to define your relationships for your entire life. you should get an understanding of it.
P Vong
Do you really look like that in your picture...
deathtokoalas
i look exactly like that, in my picture.
Alanna Lancaster
poor you.
deathtokoalas
i'm trying to empower myself; your pity is very misplaced. i don't need your cool kid approval to justify my nerdiness.
i'm sorry, but all the viral videos are trash right now. i'm fed up with taylor swift and nicki minaj and jimmy fallon (i fucking despise jimmy fallon) and pewdiepie and ellen. stop sharing this crap. stop watching it. i mean, get your fucking tv off my youtube to start with, i don't want to see it. i don't want to even know it exists.
go forth and watch better youtube videos. give me something to troll! what you're watching is just shit, i can't work with this garbage.
it's kind of comical watching these. part of the reason the reporters are so easily intimidated by her is that they're just totally clueless.
she knows she doesn't have any more information on israel's spying to give them. they know she doesn't, either. yet, they try every stupid trick there is - like a freshman trying to get the TA's phone number.
again: this seems to be working right there in that room. but, it's very easy to deconstruct from a distance from the video.
so weird how sleeping patterns respond so quickly to the weather.
excluding a few nights where i was sick or mildly drunk, i didn't sleep much more than 4 hours a night all summer. that's normal for me. and it wasn't a hot summer. but as soon as the cold hits, i'm sleeping 10+ hours again.
there are two kinds of "two kinds of..." arguments. there's the kind that correctly interprets the situation as binary (and is usually trivial), and there's the kind that misinterprets a complex situation as something binary and subsequently completely ignores a myriad of subtle and synthesized positions.
or....
there are two kinds of "two kinds of..." arguments. there are the ones that are trivial, and the ones that are wrong.
wow. that usb card was $3.00 from a reseller in hong kong who isn't paying forty-three layers of white bourgeois parasites to distribute it to myself up in canada - with free shipping. no wonder the businesses are going under.
and they should go under. that's progress. fuck the capitalist distribution system, buy direct from asia...
i mean, what's more efficient:
a) the bourgeois computer store down the street randomly buys stock in an attempt to guess what people might want and is constantly under and over stocked as a result of not being clairvoyent, producing a much higher carbon footprint than is necessary. you, the customer, have to pay his mortgage for this "service".
b) i buy what i want when i want it at the same price that the bourgeois computer store does, don't have to pay his mortgage and reduce waste by only shipping over what's requested.
it'd be nice if we didn't have to buy everything from asia, but one thing at a time...
it's not like this is news, but the price differential has really become staggering and it's gotten to the point where it's hard to see how physical retailers can compete in any way other than the impulse factor of getting it right now.
i've said this before: this economy clinton set up where we create all these jobs selling things that are made elsewhere isn't sustainable. first the production jobs got sent out on purpose. next, the sales jobs are going to disappear as technology completely abolishes the need for humans to sit in stores and sell things.
as a socialist, it sounds like good news. but that's a lot of unemployed people, too, and it's going to require the exact opposite of the systemic adjustments that have been unfolding since clinton....
Friday, September 12, 2014
so, the grocery store is getting propertarian about it's shopping
carts. it's kind of hard to blame them, because people in the
neighbourhood aren't being good anarchists.
i was
thinking about it on the way home, and it's actually a great topic to
use in an introductory discourse. there might be this misperception that
it's unruly hooligan anarchists stealing the shopping carts. the actual
reality is that it's the anarchists that bring them back, because they
understand them as socially owned property. but, the fact that people
take them in the first place indicates a level of intuition towards the
idea of social ownership.
and isn't it obvious that
people ought to be able to take the carts home? i'm just not quite sure
why it isn't so obvious that they should bring them back. laziness only
gets you so far, here. i mean, i've walked by houses with four or five
on their yard, indicating they're not even bringing them back when they
get more food.
i might suggest it lies in the
perception of property. that intuition towards social ownership may be
overpowered by the enforced hierarchical guilt that keeps
propertarianism in place. that is, they may be "stealing" the carts
because they figure they ought to be able to use them, but then they
can't rationalize it, and figure once they've stolen it it becomes
theirs. then they just "steal" more. there could even be fear of
consequence regarding being caught "stealing" them when they bring them
back. but i'm just making wild guesses, and i'd really like to get a
better understanding of this.
me? i'm a good anarchist,
so i always return the public property as soon as i'm done using it, so
other people can use it. that's the basis of a system of social
ownership.
there's been a few times where i've been
halfway home, realized my neck was sore, pulled a cart off somebody's
lawn and then brought it back to their lawn when i was done. that's
taking temporary control of a public good and returning it how i found
it.
there's also been a few times where somebody has
asked me for the cart on the way back to the store and i've given it to
them - although i make sure they promise to bring it back to the store.
it wasn't even for groceries a few times. one woman had a broken
stroller and used it to get her kid home. another guy had a bag of soil.
that's the way this ought to work.
the thing is that
the level of social responsibility to make it work doesn't seem to be
absent. people are taking the carts home, indicating they get it. but
what's suppressing the responsibility to bring them back?
the
answer to this isn't locking carts down or whatever other silly
approach the store might come up with, it's talking to people and trying
to understand why they're not being good anarchists.
rigour is great and all, but it took me roughly three seconds to realize it's a blue whale.
i haven't heard rhetoric this strong in a long time. he really wants you to hate these guys. i wouldn't take much of what he says seriously, but i'd take the heightened rhetoric seriously. it suggests preparedness for a larger conflict. and we know the target of that larger conflict.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
so, i figure it's something like this...
"man. how are we ever going to get a third party elected when the top-two candidates are just bought to serve corporate interests?"
"what if we elect three people?"
"DUDE. that's fucking brilliant! then they can buy out the top-two, and we can still vote for the third! we gotta get this done."
"hey, it's not a microphone."
"shit. sorry"
a noble goal. but, what's stopping them from buying out five candidates?
there's no answer with a representative government. it's direct democracy or fascism. no, it is. it's binary. it's closed-minded. but it's true.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
it had nothing to do with the kid, the cat went for her throat initially. you're looking at a complicated reaction as a result of agitation, unfamiliarity, sitting posture (an easily accessible attack route to the jugular) and possibly getting glass in it's paws. but, what the cat was doing was trying to eat her, and the other one was hanging out hoping it'd get a bite.
i've been around a good number of cats, and an intent to eat me is something i've noticed in virtually all of them. it's never gotten to the point of being attacked like that, but i've met a few i wouldn't feel safe sleeping in the same house with without precautions. you can see it in the eyes.
what my conclusion with cats is is largely that they figure they're better off keeping you alive because you're feeding them daily. they may get a decent meal out of you for the start, but then what?
it's very common to hear about cats eating their owners if they die of old age. i gotta say it: if you decide not to feed one for a day or two, i'd make sure you have a good lock on your door...
you'll note that the first thing the gorilla does when it sees the chest-thumping is that it interprets it as a communication signal and checks for danger. when it notices there's nothing there, it demonstrates an embarrassed reaction that more or less means "shit. you got me.". that is, it interprets the display as a type of practical joke and feels foolish for responding to it. what the gorilla is then doing is trying to figure out what the fuck the kid is doing - you can see the eyebrows furrow down in a process of contemplation. it's only when the kid points that the gorilla gets pissed, interpreting the little punk as a little punk and ready to smack him for being disrespectful. alas, the glass...
the sun's come back a little. as i pointed out before, there's some research indicating that solar strength has some effect on the strength of the air flow in the north. the papers i was reading suggested it may in turn have some effect on the el nino in terms of influencing trade winds. that's of course ignoring that the el nino is itself about a warming ocean area. and, we are in fact seeing a mild el nino.
now, i don't want anybody jumping on me about this, so you have to go back to the old beaten weather/climate thing. the idea that the sun is modifying the climate is entirely debunked. the idea that the sun is the dominant factor in terms of the weather we see is beyond question - in terms of the actual science and just basic intuition. we didn't worship the sun all those years for nothing, after all.
this is the money graph, and you can see how the spots have come down, which you would expect to have an effect on the weather by decreasing the amount of energy introduced into the system. it *does* correlate, once you adjust for the effects of increased greenhouse gasses. now, we've seen a couple of warm years in the northern hemisphere over the last few years even in spite of this decrease in solar strength, and the southern hemisphere really hasn't slowed down at all (we get zapped by the sun differently due to the earth being tilted). but, for the last year or so, that substantial decrease in solar energy seems to be dominating the effects of increased carbon emissions. it's one thing to talk about trapping heat, it's another to cut off the source of the heat in the first place.
we're at a maximum right now, but it's very weak and might not disturb the existing patterns. so, you're looking at one of two scenarios for the fall and winter:
1) the increased solar activity is just enough to break up the vortex, in which case the dominant factor should be the el nino. where i am, weak el ninos lead to slightly cooler winters. but that's nothing like last year....
2) the increased solar activity is not enough to break up the vortex, but is enough to weaken it slightly. that's also an improvement over last year, but not by much.
i just want to add that it would be an error to get complacent about the situation. on the one hand, we know the sun is dying, but we generally think it's going to be millions or billions of years into the future before it burns out. however, it should really be noted that we really just don't understand these cycles well enough to know how strong they're going to be cycle over cycle. we know it has that saddle shape, and that's predictable, but how strong it's going to spike and why remains a complete mystery.
it's interesting to contemplate the idea of some force or entity turning the sun down a little for us to compensate for our errors, or even to stamp us out completely before we get out of hand, but these ideas are purely in the realm of imagination.
the cold kind of sucks, but in the greater scheme we've really just been lucky that the sun has decreased at the same time that we're dumping greenhouse gasses, allowing it to roughly balance out. we could very well continue that streak of luck, and if we do it might put off the upcoming apocalypse for a while. but, we have every reason to think the sun will come back to it's maximum levels and if that happens with a dramatically altered atmosphere the oncoming heat is going to be very fast with very dramatic consequences.
so, the main aim of what i've been doing since february is completing
what works out to be my fifth full length record, out of material that
was written over the course of 2001 but never completed to my liking due
to deficits in the technology that was available to me at the time. i
had suspected from the beginning that this would probably be a double
and have come to the conclusion this morning that it absolutely must be.
that
means i've expanded the scope a little to make the project more
encompassing. 85 minute doubles piss me off. if you're going to do a
double, fill up both discs! not with filler!
i kind of
wanted to do this anyways. the guitar project is now officially aborted,
and it really leaves the two remaining tracks as conceptually and
musically similar to the other ones. there's also the 9-minute vocal
epic, stress, which, while a little different, fits the overall theme of
the larger works. it would be incomplete of me to compile this material
without including it.
the first half of this is now
completed. this is final, in relation to the first disc. the cut-off
point is july, 2001 which is only coincidentally the halfway point;
what's more important is that it splits the year in half over the summer
(with school on either end) and separates a very solo period from a
more collaborative one.
1) written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014. sequenced on sept 9, 2014.
2) recorded in the first part of 2001. final editing on september 9, 2014.
4) written and recorded, 1999-2001. this file has not been altered from the original.
5) recorded in the first part of 2001. final editing on september 9, 2014.
that's what happens you stop drinking fluoridated water.
i don't know what's really going on here, but that freeze response from jay z is what happens when there is no chance for survival. that's some massive levels of intimidation coming from solange, right there.
..and kenya has an mra minister? i can't stop laughing...
and he smokes during press conferences? shit, i'm from just outside quebec, and they smoke in church but they don't smoke at press conferences....
ok, no, that's a pen. had me for a minute...
deathtokoalas
it's a question of using proportional amounts of force. yeah, she was coming at him, but he's a running back and she's not. i doubt he meant to knock her out, but it's not the point. in a situation like that, the much stronger person needs to be aware of how much stronger he is and restrain the person that's coming at him until they calm down.
the nfl is sending a message, and it's a worthwhile message to send, but you can't help but feel a little bad for the guy. i don't know the context, but i don't get a one-sided pattern of domestic abuse out of the video. what i get is basically an accident of self-defense coming out of a dysfunctional relationship.
after doing a little googling, what i'm getting out of this fiasco is really just another example of out-of-control, sensationalist media.
and it didn't just ruin this guy's career - it fucked his wife's life up, too. the supposed victim, that is - who realizes it's the kind of accident that happens when adults play rough with each other.
Amaalina
But if you closely in the beginning he hit her in the face and that's when she charged or walked towards him to hit him. But honestly I don't feel bad, no matter what you don't hit a women. He obviously knows his strength compare to hers.He has the option to walk away and leave.
deathtokoalas
she hit him before they got on the elevator, but i don't think there's any insight to be gained from figuring out who hit who first. what i would conclude from watching the video is that they have somewhat of a physical relationship and push each other around a little when they argue. that is not the same thing as assault or abuse.
generally, women that are battered demonstrate a healthy level of fear towards their partners. that's the point of the violence - to control. there's no indication of that in the video. she was entirely confident that she could lunge at him without serious harm, and probably would have escaped serious harm were it not for the enclosed space, where he doesn't have the option to back off that he might have normally taken.
i'm not suggesting he didn't overreact, but this isn't what the media is presenting it as.
Twinnie
That is in no way self defense. One, he has a bunch of weight on her, he's an NFL star, and he's a grown man. If it were self defense the spitting would have been enough. He punched her twice. Not only that, she was not even physically bothering him once they stepped foot onto the elevator. Self defense is a bullshit excuse right now.
deathtokoalas
c'mon - she obviously lunged at him, and he knocked her when she was on the way there. what you're saying is true - i stated it myself - but i think the error in your reasoning is that it's logical. in a situation like that, humans don't have time to carefully weigh all of the options that are available to them and come to a rational conclusion. instead, they break down to instinct, which is "fight or flight" and react on an impulse as to which is better for survival. the thing is he's trapped in the corner of an elevator. she probably jumps him all the time, and he probably generally backs off or dodges her - he is, after all, a pretty good running back, so he's good at that. but, when flight isn't an option, all that's left is to fight and what takes over is that instinct and what drives the behaviour is the impulse.
now, he could have and should have tried to restrain her as his "fight" response. but, that he didn't react in the best way possible doesn't mean it's a "vicious attack".
AfriSynergyNews
It is not clear that he punched her in the face until she charged at him. He may have spat on her.
True, he should have restrained her. Jay Z reacted in the best way with Beyonce's sister in the elevator. Ray reacted badly. If one or both of them were drunk, this can elevate latent behaviors.
deathtokoalas
i just watched that video and what jay z seems to demonstrate is the
"freeze" response to fight-or-flight. beyonce's sister really scared
the fuck out of him. ray wasn't nearly as frightened. also, it seems to
have been the other people in the elevator that were responsible for
restraining her, who weren't stuck in hormonal overdrive.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
meh. there's some logic to that, and it's applicable to most people you aren't building a family with, but relationships require a certain egalitarian basis to be effective. they can both - and no doubt did - realize the guy's superior strength. that doesn't mean she should be afraid of him, it means he's gotta be careful. on the other hand, she might be considerably more intelligent than him and they might both be aware of that. it doesn't mean she should talk down to him, it means she should be patient.
Isaiah From the Nati
If he a lot bigger DONT PICK THAT FIGHT. I'm 15 but u don't see me fighting big ass grown men then saying they should be punished cause I'm a minor
deathtokoalas
it's not a comparable situation though, isaiah. you're smart not to pick fights with bigger kids or adults, but in a relationship there's a basis of trust that has to transcend issues like physical strength. you'll understand that as you grow older.
Shaun17511
Jay Z was not "scared the f.." by Beyonce's sister and froze up, he was smart. Restraining someone often gets re-characterized as mutual combat, resulting in both parties getting arrested, or more often the case, just the guy. He was smart to simply take the blows, and let a third-party do the separating / restraining.
deathtokoalas
but, again, that is
not how people react in situations of conflict. what happens is your
autonomous nervous system kicks in, and you're driven by impulse to flee
if you can, fight if you think you have a chance and freeze if there's
no way out. there's a tremendous amount of ignorance about this in our
legal culture that really needs to be aggressively addressed.
jstoner6
When it comes to self defense you don't have to restrain yourself. I guess these two should learn to keep their hands to themselves.
deathtokoalas
i think they'll be ok if they just stop fighting in enclosed spaces.
Nonya Buzines
When tobacco companies say, " Tobacco is bad for your health and can cause cancer", and you still smoke. The tobcacco company is no longer to blame! What people seem to forget is that a white cop hits a black lady and they promote the cop, but I get it cops don't break the law only people in the NFL and in MMA.
Timmy Pelotte
what does this have to do with race?
deathtokoalas
i think the media coverage has a pretty strong racial context underlying it, even if it's not explicitly stated. the headlines seem to be barely a step down from
PRIMITIVE NEGRO SAVAGELY CANNIBALIZES WIFE
are your white daughters safe?
Jay J
Correct. A lot of the media outrage is fake. TMZ is out to make a quick buck at anybody's expense. She MARRIED him. Obviously she has forgiven and moved on. If she married him afterwards and admitted to instigating and contributed to the fight, then people outside the relationship need to stay out.
deathtokoalas
i think there's a place for friends and family members to react to warning signals. and i'd take it as one, no doubt. but we don't have any valid prerogative to sit here from a distance and make judgements on other people's value systems.
Jmichael
In what way almost the same? As I see it, what you are doing is "fanning racial flame" without one iota of proof. That's not right unless you can back it up with something besides inflammatory remarks--just who said "primitive negro or even IMPLIED it--besides you just now?
deathtokoalas
well, this very video is full of racist comments, if you'd take the time to look.
the american media has found more sophisticated ways to be racist, which deal with certain code words and contexts. it's engineered to be difficult to deconstruct, but it's there when you really disassemble it.
Nonya Buzines
What happened to that white cop that groud-n-pounded that black lady? Did he get a promotion? Another medal from the mayor?
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
what i'm trying to get across is that, while it might be true that he didn't hit her hard and the rail technically knocked her out, he should have been more aware of the potential consequences. legally, the concept in tort law is called "duty of care". it means he has a responsibility to ensure that he carries out "reasonable foresight" in ensuring his actions don't cause harm. if it was a stranger, i'd agree he should be responsible for medical costs.
Wilphart
I don't think his intention was to knock her out. I think he underestimated his own strength. His couple of swats (I don't think they were closed-fisted) were too much for her face. He didn't keep at it, or even seem angry; I think he was surprised when her feet fell out from under her. He got counseling, she forgave him, and they got married. I don't think it implies he's a serial woman-beater or that it will happen again. It has nothing to do with football, but I understand their money comes from fans, who have now seen the video. The media makes money at his expense, too, and that's the price of being famous. I don't condone what he did, but I feel sorry for him and wish the media would leave him alone.
deathtokoalas
the energy rush triggered in the fight response from the sns as a result of being cornered could very well have contributed to a slap that was much harder than intended. that's a lot of factors that neither of them had any grasp of as things were happening.
Monday, September 8, 2014
the thing about kids that do pranks like this is that they want to get punished. it's a status issue. the more you punish them, the bigger their trophy and the more they can brag about it. getting retributive is something that's going to make you feel better about yourself, not something that's going to address the issue or otherwise correct their behaviour.
the ideal "punishment" would be for them to sit in the auditorium as student after student walks up to the microphone and verbally berates them for it, followed by loud audience applause. this would get the point across that the behaviour isn't "cool" and isn't going to help them make friends or get laid. so, ideally, this parade would include their friends, family members, people they have a crush on, etc.
....and, yes, they should get community service, too.
it took me a while to figure out why the fuck none of the redditors had the block option up, then i realized it was more general and thought it was because i'm posting from a page.
it turns out that it doesn't work if you launch from youtube. the url is different. it might be because i'm a page.
solution is to copy the reddit user's id to a tab navigated to from directly inside google+.
i just blocked at least 100 of 'em. i hope it helps...
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Hjalmar Nyman
Anyone else get here from reddit
deathtokoalas
hi. can you and all your reddit friends reply on my profile somewhere so i can block you? thanks.
i'm jumping ahead just a wee bit, so i can get a better handle on the shape of things to come. this was an idea i was working out in the fall of 2001. inri032...
--
i don't
have an exact date for these files, so i'm picking november 11th. as
others were, i was concerned about the president abolishing the magna
carta after 9/11 and congress doing little more than helping him do it.
however, this was meant to be a more encompassing project that combined
harsh noise with political sampling that was pushing an anarchist
agenda. the name of the project (ftaa) was chosen as a pun - it could
either be the free trade agreement of the americas or about fueling true
anarchy in the americas. i ended up dropping the sampling aspect and
just focusing on the noise for the project's completion (which is the
ftaa release in mid 2004: jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa
), so i'm going to upload these two pilot tracks (with the sampling in
tact) as an introductory single and place them in this more topical
chronological space.
in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the
fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really
sucked the life out of the movement.
created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - noise generators, cool edit, sequencers, guitars
(electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, effects & processing,
digital wave editing, sampling, production
1) this one was built up out of the sequencer/sampler in cool edit, which
allows a user to create a melodic passage out of harsh noise. if the
sample is particularly harsh (as this is) the sequencing can get a
little messy, which is a bonus.....
the spoken word part at the end is some free trade protester on cbc. created in the fall
of 2001
2) so, the pun here is that it's a lot of guitars going off out of tune,
representing how the government is stringing us to dry by taking away
our rights in the (not so) chaotic aftermath of 9/11. one of the samples
is william de la hunt; i did not record who the other person is. created in the fall
of 2001
1) written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render
completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a
small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render
completed on april 27, 2014.
2) written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 4, 2014.
3) written early 2001. this render is actually from may 13, 2001.
4) written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001; the render is from june 18, 2001.
5) written late 2001. this render is actually from sept 22, 2001; it was very mildly edited for continuity on october 1, 2014. note that it was put through some reverb at that time.
deathtokoalas
i see john's still pissing people off...
lennon's treatment of women is complex and paradoxical. was he a piece of shit for the way he treated the women in his life? unquestionably. is this song a statement of solidarity? equally unquestionably.
there's a glaring contradiction underlying it, but it shouldn't negate the value of the song. lennon blamed his upbringing, the drugs, the money - a lot of things. he claimed he changed. i'm not sure the evidence indicates he ever did.
but he seems to have tried to.
consider this: perhaps john lennon was mirroring a more general social evolution, and perhaps he had some effect on it's unraveling.
but, he's dead now. and it's certainly possible to separate the art from the person that created it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asf4InKVo8k
fwiw, it's still true. and you should still be angry about it and want to do something about it.
John Stark
I certainly do think he tried in his latter years to become a better person, it is a shame we never got to see the man he could have become. This song in itself doesn't cancel out his failings to raise his first children in the way he should have. It does however show that he listened to Yoko as if she was his equal and was happy to proclaim her message to the world.
Daniel Howell
maybe there is something im not privy to here...how was he shitty to women? Really, Im coming with respect here, I just dont know what it is you are referring to. Because he divorced his first wife ?
deathtokoalas
john lennon's abusive relationships with both of the women that he married are well documented.
it's not that yoko worked her way into the sessions. it's that john wouldn't let her out of his sight.
---
(deleted post)
deathtokoalas
how many of the white boys in the audience are going to listen to angela davis say the same thing? it's one thing to say "don't speak for me when i'm standing beside you". it's another to say "don't stand up for me to people that otherwise wouldn't listen to me as a direct result of their existing prejudices".
there was a context to this idea and it had to do with agency. the argument is valid in that context. but you're misapplying it by taking it out of context. it was meant to give a direct voice to the oppressed, not to exacerbate and further racial segregation.
hey, i've still got a PIII kicking in my living room hooked up to the tv as a youtube box (my main pc is in the recording studio and i'm typing this on a much newer laptop...), but i pulled it up to the board max on ram (1 gb). old ram like that nowadays is worth pennies. and honestly? if firefox wasn't such a pig with resources, and so many websites weren't so picky about browsers, it'd be entirely useable as a day-to-day machine.
and load time is roughly thirty seconds if i take the large external full of mp3s out, and a little more than a minute if i keep it in.
somebody's gotta port off like firefox 2.0, do what sites like youtube need done for access without the whistles and maintain it for old machines....
but, if anybody asks about those old asus boards? yeah, they last. and that quantum fireball 20 gb drive from about 2001 is still spinning...
deathtokoalas
but, you're interpreting the world through a moral/religious filter and demanding it behave the way you deduce it "should" rather than interpreting it through an empirical filter of evidence and reacting to it the way that it actually is. this is a fundamentalist type of thinking (which was labelled "ignorance" in the enlightenment, but has undergone a rehabilitation in reputation since the boomers decided to scrawl over everything in magic marker) that is not going to be successful in eliminating the causes of rape, it's just going to lead to yet another group of self-righteous religionists scratching their head in bafflement over why their axioms don't work. it really seemed like we were past this kind of thinking. it's going to be interesting to see what a future historian writes about the collapse of empiricism and rise of faith-based reasoning in america over the last quarter of the twentieth century. for now, the question is grappling with how we return to empirical reasoning. unfortunately, we may have to learn the hard way...
there's no independent thought in this video, it's just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?
it's frustrating because it's not going to make women safer for them to walk around thinking they live in a utopia when the reality is that we're collapsing into the post-capitalist chaos of advanced neo-liberalism and self-defense is becoming more and more - rather than less and less - necessary.
there's a few things that all young women should have drilled into their head by the time they're ten.
1) there's no santa claus.
2) photoshop is ubiquitous and, no, nobody seriously looks like that.
3) babies come from sex. diseases do, too.
4) you cannot trust men not to rape you, no matter how well you think you know or trust them.
marx would have labeled this kind of thinking as "utopian socialism" and rejected it as delusional and consequently unable to meet the challenges that it intends to meet. he would have been right, too. whether his solutions were actually scientific or not is less clear, but he had the right idea in approaching social problems using the power of empiricism rather than the arbitrary, utopian dictates of moralism.
wollstonecraft's argument was always that women only seem less intelligent because they're kept in ignorance and that the solution is to educate them the way men are educated. it's such an obvious observation that it's hard to believe it took as long as it did to be taken seriously. it's a very sad - but entirely reversible - orwellian twist of history that feminism has now become the tool to keep women trapped within naive and ignorant utopian fantasy realities, where their little heads don't have to grapple with how awful men in the real world actually are.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
before the rise of the "new left" (which is right-wing liberalism masquerading as leftism), leftists would generally argue that "rights" are an imaginary concept that can only be enforced by an authoritarian state that will always prioritize the "rights" of the ruling classes. this goes back to marx' polemics against rousseau. the leftist approach is not to argue that we ought to have all these rights but to attack the social conditions that lead to the inequalities underlying the injustices.
you're technically correct when you state there's no contradiction between not assigning blame to the victim and suggesting precautions are necessary in a violent and unequal society. there's nothing inherent in the core ideas of feminism that equate the suggestion of precaution with victim blaming; in fact, if you follow the arguments of systemic patriarchy, the actual rational deduction is that it implies precautions are necessary. but this isn't what is being taught nowadays. it's a very common rhetorical approach (and logical fallacy fwiw, but i don't want to get into that) to hear young feminists make that connection (i have firsthand experience of it being taught) - and it's certainly made in the video.
when you hear somebody state "i ought to be able to wear what i want and feel safe", there's nothing really contentious about the statement. but there's a lot of things that ought to be true, but really only exist or ever will exist in our minds.
(deleted response)
deathtokoalas
the statistics are clear: most rapes are carried out by people the victim knows and trusts. sorry.
justforcomment1
We fight for how we want the world to be, to show it what it can be if we all work together. It's not a matter of ignoring what the reality of the situation is in the moment but wishing, striving and working towards it being other than it is. It's not an act of deluding ourselves, but one of hope. It's called progress and it applies whether you're talking about it from a scientific, economical or sociological standpoint. What it seems like you're advocating is stagnation because we should accept that the reality of it is immutable, point blank and period. As history has proven time and time again, that just isn't the case.
deathtokoalas
what you're doing is describing every failed utopian movement that has ever existed and learning absolutely nothing from the mistakes of the past. the world is not there for you to create anew, it's there for you to adjust and adapt to. this is the great insight of nineteenth century science, an insight that america has only ever fought against and that it's inability to accept will be it's ultimate demise.
hope is another word for delusion. it's not possible to build a workable, fair society on such nonsense - it's the tried and tested algorithm to push off advances to some future time, be it the next generation or some kind of afterlife, and spin around in perpetual circles. change must occur through analyzing data and adjusting strategies to react to that data, not by placing hope in the faith of social progress.
stagnation is what happens when you don't adjust to evidence - when you place your plans for the future in ideas like hope.
Shanockdotcom
Had I more than one like to give, I would give it.
deathtokoalas
i can agree that strategies are required to address rape. in order to develop those strategies, we need to understand it better. it's something that seems to come out of a combination of biological impulses and hierarchical social organization. from that basic understanding, what we need to do is abolish the hierarchical organization of society and develop pharmaceutical approaches that minimize those biological impulses. while we're studying this, it's important that we teach our young women how to minimize the risks involved - not to play into the lies that uphold the liberal state and expect that a hierarchical patriarchy designed to negate female rights and reduce them to vessels is somehow going to uphold them, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
i don't want to blame anybody for being the victim of somebody else's criminality, but if there's a point of failure here in getting the messaging across it isn't in what people are wearing or where they're going or in how much they're drinking - it's in falling for the lies of liberalism, and being tricked into thinking we live in a free society. any slave will tell you they ought to be free. but, there has to be a shift in the economic basis of society to allow for that. and, in the meantime, a slave needs to be careful if it wants to avoid being beaten - or take the beating as an act of defiance.
deathtokoalas
there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing. there's no doubt a partly cultural basis to this and it does need to be addressed, but an evidence-based response to that report would be that women need to take greater precautions for defense - even as various cultural concerns are addressed. what pisses me off isn't the suggestion of approaches - i advocate those - it's this idea of teaching teenagers that they don't need to protect themselves because they're protected by their rights, when the evidence suggests the exact opposite - that the system continually ignores and tramples all over their rights, and will continue to do so so long as it exists in the socio-economic context that it exists within.
this is why it's very difficult to talk about the state taking action, law enforcement responding or even the courts adjusting. we live in a patriarchal society that is designed to enforce male dominance. the role of the courts is not to abolish that existing order, but to maintain it. the role of the police is to enforce it. the role of the state is to exploit it.
...and, if you're going to challenge that order, it's going to beat you up.
like it or not, this neo-liberal fabric of society places that responsibility on the individual to avoid harm. that doesn't place blame in the victim, but it does mean it's absolutely necessary that young women understand the way that society is ordered - which is not an order of egalitarianism and social unity but an order of violent, competitive individualism and exploitation.
we don't live in a society where anybody can claim it's somebody else's responsibility to ensure their well-being, safety or responsibility. we live in a society where the individual must adapt or die. it's been designed that way very carefully.
i don't like that. i think we should fight to change it. but it's of fundamental importance that people understand it.
you can't change behaviour within the system, which produces the behaviour in the first place. you show up on the state's door and say "umm, guys, you're turning all our boys into violent, misogynist pieces of shit" and the state's response is "well, yeah. asia's pretty big, and we need some soldiers to conquer it.". you go to the state and say "gee, you're taking away reproductive rights. da fuck?", and the response is going to be "you're not making enough slaves for us, so we don't want you aborting anymore.".
all of this produces a context where being a woman is dangerous. denying that doesn't make people safer, it just creates a mindset that puts sheltered young women at risk - until they're forced to deal with reality in ugly, disturbing ways.
Mark
Oh I see what you mean. I agree with you but I think you can make a difference (although not a very big one) within the current system and that we should do that while we work to usurp the establishment. Is oppression here to stay as long as the current system exists? Yes but the oppression is in many ways growing more comfortable with time which is thanks to the hardwork of good people. Starvation is the lowest it's ever been, equality amoungst groups that aren't economic is the best it's ever been, and education and information are more accessible than ever. But you're right that sometimes these movements under the establishment can make people blind to real danger. The revolution isn't tomorrow but what can happen in the mean time is work to relive the oppressed but that has to be done responsibly. It is my opinion that revolutionaries should build alternative communities and then use them to help others thus showing and promoting a practical and alternative model, testing and exploring their hypotheses, developing a basis for revolution and providing intimedate help to those in need. I think this is also the path to a revolution that doesn't involve doing violence or forcing our ideas on others.
deathtokoalas
but just to address the religious aspect a last time: the root of her argument (it's all about choice) is not coming from any kind of social science, but from a basis in christian morality. all that stuff about choice is really just straight out of sunday school. we live in a system with all kinds of imbalances and injustices, then create rules to keep those imbalances in place. in most cases, crime is a result of those imbalances, not a choice to turn away from god.
it's important that we get back to understanding that if we want to actually address some of these issues, rather than just continue to stomp them out through police state tactics.
Mark
yes very true. Rapists come from their experiences they don't just out if no where decide to rape someone. In fact I'm sure that many probably don't understand what they have done. That said rapists and abusers are the ine group of people that I hate, I don't want to hate them, and I can see I'm not being reasonable, but when three of the four women I love have been victims of rape and all the women I love have been badly abused by men in some way I can't help but have an emotional response and it's hard not to blame their choice to do what they did rather than the forces that lead them there. That said liberal feminists do oppose many of the direct forces that create rapists which is useful. Victim blaming is one of those forces. However they are only symptomatic of deeper sociatal issues. Justice is a false idol but it's one that's very easy to embrace when you are as upset as I am about this issue.
deathtokoalas
i think the changes you're describing are the result of technology increasing distribution. i identify as a social anarchist, but i largely hold to marx' idea about revolution being in the mode of production. that is, i don't think there's really a way to change the existing order within the realities of existing productive capabilities. if you look at all of the places that have tried, they end up with the same thing - because it follows as a corollary of the productive order. there's little tweaks that can be made - should workers own their own factories? - but in the end, there's not a way to avoid that division of labour and the class divisions that come out of it.
i think the only thing that's going to really get us out of this is automation. we're getting to a point where we may be able to finally abolish the slave/worker class and take communal ownership of production, at which point the shape of society will irreversibly alter. it's not just the slave class that evaporates with automation, it's the managerial and financial sectors that oversee them that get abolished as well.
but, so long as we have the order we have, and so long as it continues to be enforced by the state to maintain it's own hegemony, there is not a way out of this besides taking matters into your own hands.
i don't know if i'd go so far as to deny an understanding. i'm not really comfortable with the normal feminist idea of rape as power. it's an idea that was kind of pulled out of thin air and then backed up with deductive philosophy - there's no science underlying it. the science seems to indicate that it's true in some cases, but really only extreme ones - serial rapists, serial killers...the really disturbed scenarios.
the science underlying date rape (the most common form of rape) is pretty conclusive that it's driven by sexual impulse, not desire for power or control. but there may be a hierarchical underpinning to the idea of date raping women, specifically.
we can be certain at this point that there's a biological basis for rape. we're not clear exactly how strong it is yet. i'm not one for using genetics to explain behaviour, but i'm a strong advocate of the idea of using hormones to explain behaviour, which are controlled by genes. so, that's an indirect genetic thing.
again, you've gotta go back to this kind of christian (or even randian) kind of thinking that explains all criminality in terms of bad choices, and reject it as unscientific. humans are driven by all kinds of impulses. we're not at the point where we can prove it yet, but the science is leaning towards the idea of certain genetic predispositions placing some men in heightened hormonal and cognitive states that they really can't control any more than a dog or a gorilla can. yes, that directly contradicts the idea of humans as rational beings - but it's an idea that's so obsolete now that it shouldn't even raise an articulated opposition.
there's a solution to this in hormone blocking. if the genetics can be identified, it could even be diagnosed before it causes problems.
but we have to start thinking about the problem in the right way before we can get to these solutions. and, in the mean time, we need to understand the depth of it (i mean, we're talking about 20% of women - indicating nearly as many men are rapists) and take steps to keep us out of harm.
the way i'd hypothesize the hormones working (and i'm basing it on studies i've read, but it's my idea) can be explained a little like this...
you've probably had sex a few times. you may have noticed (or you may have not, pay more attention next time) that there's a point where you get into it where you sort of just start going. you might want to call this something like "flow". it's probably the single most defining characteristic of good sex. but what is it, in scientific terms?
it could very well be a hormonal response that is taking over your consciousness and driving it to an end point of passing on those genes.
now, for "normal people", two things are true - or at least we'd like to think these things are true for most people:
1) that doesn't kick in until you're well into the process.
2) it's relatively easy to turn off. although if you're honest, you know it's a bit of a challenge sometimes.
i might suggest that some rapists (not all rapists. like any complex phenomena, rape has multiple causes.) experience this hormonal takeover before they get into it, and lack the ability to turn it off as easily.
again: i wouldn't really take that to the point of not understanding. i've read some case studies where you're dealing with rapists with fas or something (it's a significant problem in the canadian aboriginal community, for example) where there really is a lack of understanding, and it's something else entirely.
but the level of control may not be a simple as something that can be portrayed as a "choice" that should be "punished".
Amy
So, we should just accept rape as it is? The way it's treated in court, the way it's treated in the media, the way victim's are treated? You're cool with that? What a fucking complacent way to live.
deathtokoalas
that's not what i'm saying. what i'm saying is that the forces underlying rape culture cannot be removed through a shift in social attitude or pushing rhetoric, it's going to require an entire reworking of society from the bottom up. there's no bandaid solution to rape culture. you gotta blow everything up.
but what i'm really saying is that it's irresponsible to present this kind of messaging to young girls, and have them learn the hard way. i'm not going to blame a 14 year old for being a 14 year old, but i might blame laci for convincing her she has more freedom than the society we live in actually grants her.
PinkPenguinPajamas
But rape culture is exactly that. A social attitude. So by shifting the victim blaming attitude to an enlightened "hey, you're not going to get away with that" attitude, things will change. No, that doesn't mean that rape will never happen. And it certainly won't stop over night. The point is that the way these situations are handled will change for the better, and on top of that, the number of perpetrators will go down. Sexual assault or harassment will, unfortunately, never stop, but if we stop victim blaming and instead blame the person responsible, things will change.
And no, Laci's message is NOT harmful to young girls. What's harmful, and what will hinder the movement and make things worse, is telling a young girl "You shouldn't do that, you'll be asking for it," or "You did WHAT?! Well, of course he did that, you weren't very smart now, were you?". She'll cower down and be afraid her whole life, and that's no way to live. You don't live by the freedoms society grants you, you live by the freedoms the law gives you. And if anyone tries to take that away, you fight tooth and nail to prove them wrong and make them live with the consequences for trying to hurt you and keep you down.
I'm not saying go to town, get black out drunk in the ghetto in a bikini and a mini-skirt and then act surprised if you're assaulted (it's not the smart thing to do, but it happens). But by all means, if that happens, you don't let them get away with it. And that's the point of this video. Sexual harassment happens, but you don't let the assailants get away with it just because just because society says you were "asking for it". Don't settle because "that the way things are", push forward and fight back because that's not how they should be.
deathtokoalas
there's been a lot of studies done asking the question of if disincentives (or "deterrents") work in reducing crime, and the answer is that they very clearly do not. it's a christian-derived faith-based "rational" argument that does not hold up to any kind of empirical analysis. effective approaches will deal with issues of prevention from both angles.
PinkPenguinPajamas
While victim blaming and slut shaming women is a very Christian view, the US is changing. Tons of things that were thought scandalous and immoral are slowly changing to be more open and rational, even if some places are stuck in the past. The only logical thing to do is to change with the rationals, and if we feel that the progress is stagnant, keep changing for the better anyways. There is no reason to digress when progress isn't visible; it doesn't sense. It only ensures change will never come. Letting people get away with things when they're very clearly wrong only ensures that they will not pay the consequences, meaning they'll do it again and encourage others to act out as well. You have to be the change, and others will follow.
deathtokoalas
but you're not understanding that the empirical data makes it clear that tougher sentences have no effect on rates of recidivism. getting "tough on rapists" is not going to reduce rape, and nobody thinks it will except the fire & brimstone types listening to rush limbaugh.
the things that do have an effect on rates of recidivism have to do with social and economic factors and have solutions that lie in broadening the scope of social programs and rehabilitation measures.
further, all we've seen is social regress since about 1985. the period of progress that you're referring to is not just long over, it's largely been reversed.
Scott
so how about you present this almighty empirical data. Because up till now it's all just been rhetoric. Point me to the studies, show me the actual data. By all means make your points and present a view we can all benefit from. Show us the folly of our thinking. We need to know when popular belief and cultural tendency is out of step with statistical reality. But please don't tell me reality is different than what I think it is WITHOUT SHOWING ME REALITY! Because otherwise I might begin to think you're "just repeating the ideas of others as they have been presented with a collection of rolling eyes and snotty inflections because everybody knows that if you read something in a book at a university then it must be true, like, duh, right?"
deathtokoalas
this is a youtube comment section, i'm not sorting through journals searching for citations. if you'd like to contradict something, i'll take the time to rebut it but it's ultimately not my responsibility to educate you. sorry.
what you'll find, if you take the time to look into it, is that nothing i'm saying is contentious and that sources are mostly accessible through basic google searches.
Scott
"there was actually a report released yesterday or the day before that indicated rape statistics in the united states are increasing." Surely you could at the very least state which study you are referring to.
deathtokoalas
i think i saw it on google news. i don't remember the site that hosted the article.
this was quick to find, but i'm not going to spend my monday morning searching through journals, i already wasted all day yesterday doing this when i should have been mixing atonal choir parts...
deaathtokoalas
koalas demonstrate a perverse cuteness that cannot be tolerated by any advanced civilization.
i just want to clarify what "prevention" means in a way that is not oppressive to individual rights. i'm not really interested in standing up for rights theory, exactly, and i think the idea is being rather abused here - there's nothing in the universal declaration about the right to be drunk or the right to wear short skirts - but i do agree that trying to regulate that sort of behaviour is oppressive. i'm going to explain what not to do by way of example of something i once did...
i was out dancing in a gay bar in ottawa one night a few years ago, went down for a cigarette and bumped into somebody that offered to smoke me on a joint in the park. much marijuana is smoked in that park, and i didn't think much of it. i was also at the point in my gender transition where i was beginning to "pass", and wasn't yet really cognizant of the different social realities attached to existing sexually as a female in a public place. so, i went and smoked the joint.
a few minutes into the conversation, buddy pulls it out and starts whipping it. now, i'm an open-minded person - i actually reacted by laughing at him. i wasn't offended as much as i was amused. had he tried to touch me, that's a different story. and had i been somebody else, he could have gotten himself into some trouble. in actuality, by the time he was done, i realized that he was extremely drunk and wasn't really safe to leave passed out in the park. what actually kicked in was my sense of empathy; instead of knocking him out, i helped him back out to a safer place on the road with lights and a bench before i very briskly walked off.
he seemed more embarrassed by my reaction than sorry about it.
but, the behaviour is arguably legally harassment, and the situation could have been rather different if the dude was a more aggressive person.
now, if something unfortunate would have happened, would i be to blame for it? no. but, i can look back at the situation and conclude it wasn't a safe thing for me to walk to the park with the guy in the dark and smoke some drugs of unknown origin or content (although my nose is pretty good on the last one). i've shifted my behaviour since then, and would not do that again.
does that in some way restrict my "right" to get stoned in the park on a friday night? in some abstraction, perhaps. but, i realize that it's something i should be less haphazard about for the benefit of my own well-being. there's some give and take on the issue.
i recognize i'm only describing a small class of possible rape scenarios. i didn't know this guy. but, the idea can be extrapolated more generally in terms of protecting drinks, staying in lighted areas, being wary of the dudes you think you trust, etc.
and that point needs to be gotten across just as loudly as safe sex needs to be gotten across, as part of a basic sex education.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
it's not that i disagree with you. i do agree with you. when you say that you ought to be able to wear what you want and feel comfortable and confident and safe, you're absolutely right - you ought to be able to. this is essentially a logical type of thinking.
where i run into difficulties with the line of thinking is trying to extrapolate it from the point of logical reasoning to the point of empirical enquiry. you ought to. but can you?
i'm not going to pretend like the science is here, but it is currently leaning towards male sexual responses being inherently impulsive. we're not quite dogs. but, we might not be as different from them as we'd like to think. generally, this argument applies in less mundane circumstances than standing in line at a tesco, but nonetheless...
now, the reason this is important is that the problem is often framed in cultural terms - which is a logical argument. we tend to think that if we just spend a lot of time explaining to these guys that they ought to smarten up and be more respectful then they will - that our logic will be triumphant. and we look at dude a and dude b and say "if dude a can be respectful, why can't dude b?".
the upcoming problem that may be necessary to very difficultly grapple with is that dude b might be acting out of a different genetic configuration that puts him in hormonal and cognitive states that cannot be effectively transcended without treatment.
i'm not exactly saying that that's true. i'm very much hoping it's not true. however, i'm pointing out that it very well might be true, and the sum of evidence is suggesting that it may actually be likely to be true.
which brings you back to the is/ought issue. you ought to. but...
[something about a shirt in tesco]
before i start, i want to stress that there's a human in there somewhere that's ultimately just doing her job, which is to read press releases that she has little influence over the development of. let's not forget not to shoot the messenger.
but she uses a quite restricted set of very clearly defined soft intimidation tactics that are constructed via a combination of the age and gender of the reporter. as the question and reporter shifts, the body language does in a way designed to control the discussion. that's not the behaviour of a psychotic person; it's actually too controlled, to the point that it must be the result of strict training. it seems to be largely successful. if this was in a back room meeting somewhere, it wouldn't be so easy to deconstruct. but, the thing is there's a camera on her and people watching that aren't getting stared down or smiled at.
the problem with a press secretary that has such clear, forceful body language is that she advertises things she doesn't mean to. it's quite easy to pull out when she knows she's lying because she stares right at the reporter she's lying to. again: not a bad tactic, except the camera that's there to deconstruct it. it's also easy to tell when she's challenged or flustered because she begins stuttering rather badly.
i know this is meant for internal consumption, but you have to understand that every powerful state has somebody that's smarter than i am and is watching this and taking these notes.
ugh.
this isn't a biased video. it's just straight up taking shots of the situation and interviewing people on the ground. if it's pro anything, it's pro-reality. and, it might do some people - and the world that is on the brink of a world war - some good if you partisan idiots can get your head around it.
there's no justification for this kind of force. it's slowly becoming clear that poroshenko ought to have a date in the hague. but, it won't happen because he's on the side that's protected from prosecution.
"young lady", huh?
well, you're half right.
i guess i DO look like a teenager....
i think "young lady" applies to roughly 13-19.
i'm 33.
hey, kids. i got some bad news...
we're on the brink of a major global conflict and guess who's gonna fight it?
yeah. sorry.
but, hey, you could always fight your own government, instead.
it might be a good idea to get a head start on that.
why can't people fucking keep appointments?
no, i'm not going to sit there in a room full of contagious sick people and let you tell me i'm an hour early when i have a fucking piece of paper that you wrote with the appointment time on it - because then you're going to tell me you're backed up past my altered appointment time. i set an appointment because i didn't want to sit around for three hours and catch pneumonia while i'm there. in fact, you pressured me into setting an appointment in the first place - i was just wondering if you had my correct phone number, and would have been happy to wait for a phone call.
i get that they're understaffed, but don't fucking tell me that's my fault and that i'm early when i'm waving the card in front of your face. i don't care who you are, i won't be lied to like that. take responsibility for your bad planning, apologize and tell me you're backed up. i'll go sit outside. but you lie to me, and i'm going to storm out the door.
i've been hard at work on a very vertically complex piece for over a month now and am taking a bit of a break this morning to jump ahead just a little. this is next in the list. it's the first track to come out of a project i shared with a singer through the end of 2001 and the first part of 2002.
none of the versions here are final, it's just a lot of demos, but i find all of them worthwhile in their own ways.
----
rabit is wolf arose accidentally from the cynicide project (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations)
but produced far more material in the end. what happened was sean and i
showed up to a few jam sessions and the guitarist (jon - it was his
band) didn't, so we started writing some material without him...
initially, the intent was to include rather than exclude jon but he
quickly developed a disinterest due to a variety of obvious if never
fully articulated reasons. i was playing guitar parts on the demos,
which he couldn't deal with. we were doing joy division songs, which
were outside of his sphere of interest. we were writing without him,
which made him feel unimportant. we were talking about songs without
drums, which he wasn't interested in at all. etc. however, he did record
a guitar part (that i wrote) that was never replaced.
this is a collection of demos from the first month of rabit is wolf,
which includes multiple versions of the title track and a joy division
cover. in the end, none of this would be released in the form it's in
here (which is only available for download), but it creates a cohesive
(if short) introduction to what follows that is self-contained in a
historical context. stated differently, this is the first (post-punk)
incarnation of rabit is wolf.
written and recorded in the fall of 2001. compiled on sept 6, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
1) sean suggested the bass line ought to sound like this, from which the track was built. sept 1, 2001.
2) this is the first bass & vocal demo, recorded the day the track was written. sept 1, 2001.
3) i built this up on my own the friday night following the sunday it was written, in preparation for the next sunday jam session. sept 7, 2001.
4) as our guitarist was a no show
two weeks in a row, we decided to do a joy division cover rather than
write new material. i've left the track without drums to better fit the
feel of the recording, as none of the renditions on this single contain
drums by a very conscious choice to not include them. sept 9, 2001.
5) the song is thematically about somebody launching themselves off a bridge, so i thought it would be an interesting idea to produce a walk passage. this idea was never well received, as there were concerns that the synthesizer sounds too synthetic. but, i mean, it's a synthesizer, what the fuck do you expect it to sound like? sept 22, 2001.
6) the initial demo was a temporary mix to get some ideas across; it was realized from the start that the guitarist would want to do the guitars and the synths would need to be less rough. i didn't expect him to play the part i wrote, though, which was just a weird thing. in the end, this reconstruction did not end up being a final mix (i took most of the end out, which was only ever there on the insistence of the guitarist in the first place, and added an extra guitar part). oct 13, 2001.