It's not that I care what someone wants to do, but it just doesn't look as pretty as a guy and a girl
OMG just think how pretty two guys would be!
1: That's basically the motivation for Twilight.
Anyway, it looks like you (HG) are reluctant to confront in situations where you hold a great deal of actual power over the potential confrontee. Probably a good sign, if you ever become dictator or something.
Hmm, that's insightful. I wonder what my discomfort is.
5: I think I might have had the same reactions you did, really. Not sure what that says either.
Maybe your checkout clerk was just acknowledging how many little girls are fans of Moldavian history.
Or actually I'd probably have said something about the age to somehow deflect, which is what I often do when strangers say weirdo sexist princess things. Which reminds me to tell my boss I can't be at work Wednesday since the kids go to the dentist and I'll finally get to find out what rage-inducing boy counterpart to the "princess chair" the dentist may have. That made me so mad last time, though not as mad as when he said he'd have expected Mara to be unadoptable and also that any progress she'd made must have been due to her awesome former foster family. I'm giving him a second chance because he's a good dentist, but fuck him.
While I'm quite sure Heebie is a serial non-abuser of power, 4 does not quite scan in relation to the post, as the poster does not hold a "great deal of actual power" over either a pair of students not in her class (universities can't stop students from having tasteless and stupid conversations with each other, unfortunately), or a random teller at the market. What's likelier in operation is that it's easier to confront and express frustration with people you know than it is to do with total strangers.
though not as mad as when he said he'd have expected Mara to be unadoptable and also that any progress she'd made must have been due to her awesome former foster family.
Oh my fucking god. What a prick.
So, I actually read #3 as the person talking about how kids that age are made of pure selfishness, and couldn't actually figure out how that wasn't true. Is it a sexist thing? Is that what I'm missing?
10: s/hold a great deal of actual power over/have a higher social standing than/
I read it as being specific to girls.
Everyone knows that little boys Punch's age are all about the giving.
I've heard the "me me me me me me me" trope other times before, applied specifically to girls/young women.
14, 16: oh. Huh. That wouldn't even have occured to me. Guess I'm just conscious like that.
For the record, I wouldn't have cared if the message was that young children are selfish. Sure! They are!
11: Yeah, because traumatized little kids who are afraid of men and thus hate to have a man pry their mouths open are obviously lifelong losers and probably mentally impaired. Ass. When I suggested that maybe she was just a better fit in our family than theirs, he said that some kids just grow up and she was lucky to have them. Which, um, is not my take on it, though they weren't actually abusive and not even neglectful but the standards you'd put on a biological family although I hold foster families to a higher standard. Okay, I'm getting mad again, but she's going to rock the teeth exam this time around, and not just because the other kids' teeth are somewhat messed up and hers are in good shape.
I mean, I totally believe it was specifically about girls. I just had no idea that was a thing.
19: I'll just go ahead and completely believe you without listening to that, if it's all the same to you.
I don't feel like you can really get it without spending three minutes with Toby Keith.
I went to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill at Harrah's in Vegas, once. I think that's probably enough.
21: At first I thought you meant the prettiness/gayness axis and I was sort of baffled. Must be bedtime.
Did they serve the beer in a mason jar?
10: True. But undergrads and grocery baggers are two classes where most members have very little power. It is disturbingly easy, in most states, for customers to fuck with the bottom rung of the service sector.
I'm with Tweety. I had no idea people said things like either 1, 2, or 3, to be honest. Not any more.
Well, maybe 2. And maybe 3. But not 1! it just doesn't look as pretty as a guy and a girl? What does that even mean?
Huh.
28: Because two girls is obviously prettier.
26: nah. It was a pretty generic Vegas bar. The strangest thing was probably the mix-CD of jock jam-ish dance music (hey, Sabotage! Oh, now is that Fatboy Slim?) that had improbably led to a totally jammin' dance party amongst the chubby, polo shirt-clad honkies.
What's weird about these things is that they were said within my earshot or to me. What's normal is for this kind of thing to get whispered and kept away from the obviously liberal PC police, as which I am easily identified.
31: Were you wearing Toby Keith's hat?
I can easily see not saying anything in situation 1, since you were essentially eavesdropping. In 2 and 3, you were addressed directly, so saying something is more allowable. In the check-out line situation, eh, people were in line behind you, you probably don't want to start an argument with the clerk in such a case; I might have said something mildly reproving or sarcastic, like "Or any little kid, really "
11: One more whine. My mother has repeatedly let me know that she thinks Mara didn't have any meaningful problems beyond her speech delays and so I shouldn't feel proud about any "progress" she's made but the asshole dentist is the only one to bust out the "unadoptable" term, which is extra stupid since he only met her once, though I guess she probably gnawed on him a lot or something. But what the fuck??
I think the key difference is that in 2, I knew I was amusing everyone around me, who are basically liberal people. And the offender knew he was on the losing end, and kind of knew he was toying with people when he tossed it out there, so it was within bounds to tear into him. If that makes sense.
My mother has repeatedly let me know that she thinks Mara didn't have any meaningful problems beyond her speech delays and so I shouldn't feel proud about any "progress" she's made
Ok, WHAT?! What the fuck? You're goddamn right you should feel proud of her. She's resilient and awesome, but you're providing a foundation, and WHAT THE FUCK?! I can't even tear into this properly because it's bullshit on so many levels. Of course you should feel proud of your daughter. Of COURSE your MOM should feel proud of you, for the job you're doing with your daughter. Jesus christ.
but the asshole dentist is the only one to bust out the "unadoptable" term, which is extra stupid since he only met her once, though I guess she probably gnawed on him a lot or something. But what the fuck??
The unadoptable line is so far over the top that it just leaves me dumbfounded. If I had to guess, he's saying that black children are unadoptable? But seriously, this is unbelievable.
13: But the weaker formulation doesn't work either. Outside a classroom or specific institutional situations related to the job, a prof simply does not necessarily have "higher social standing" than a student. And while it's true that the lower rungs of the service industry are low status, it's not true that any random customer can reliably or even probably have their way at will.
A differently-inclined person than Heebie, for instance, could have thrown a fit and demanded to see the manager and lodge a complaint in instance #3; the upshot of that is likely not that the teller gets fired on the spot, but that the customer is listened to politely until she leaves, at which point she's ignored. (This might be different if the teller had done or said something indisputably recognizable as an insult. But even then it's only a case of "might." There are plenty of people on the lower rungs of the service industry who frequently get away with being rude or sullen to customers. What they tend to get fired for is perpetual absenteeism or stealing, not impoliteness.)
Of COURSE your MOM should feel proud of you
You have a very different family life than I do, I see.
I made it 1:51 into that song. I'm embarrassed for the very quarter notes that agreed to participate in this bit of musical misery.
I like to think it's a good thing when I jump in and inform people that their tranny joke or racist commentary isn't wanted by me, and I used to feel all good about it, like, well, now *one* more person knows this isn't a safe space for hatred! or something self-righteous like that, but honestly, I have come to believe that people who say shit like this are so completely clueless that they take away nothing from this conversation other than that I am "irritable." And then I end up thinking about it for weeks, and wondering why I am giving off some kind of vibe that I'm going to be receptive to that shit.
I don't think we have enough examples of Heebie's wins and failures (kidding there) to discern a pattern.
The last time I had occasion to take issue with a stranger's words, I couldn't help myself -- she was so ridiculous and outrageous -- but I also got weirdly light-headed and flushed in anger, or so it felt, and wound up giving up after 5 minutes rather than let it develop into a full-blown fight. Fighting with strangers in public is not something many of us can do well.
39: My brother from an apparently similar mother!
Heebie, I think her specific complaint the most recent time was that I said that Mara's SWs agree with us that one more move would have been hugely damaging for her, while my mom thinks that since Mara is inded so resilient she's done well despite us rather than because of us. At least my mom hasn't made a huge deal about Mara not counting as her only grandchild since I didn't legally adopt. I think my dad has prevailed in that, or maybe it's just that Mara has totally endeared herself or that my mom now takes me semi-seriously as a parent now that I have two extras and so it's clear I'm actually making sacrifices. Whatever.
38.1 (the first two sentences) seem too absurd to argue with. "Higher social standing" does not mean "formal power to discipline." Students are conditioned to listen to faculty for a variety of reasons of varying soundness. There's a reason you can't date students even if they aren't in your specific class.
What they tend to get fired for is perpetual absenteeism or stealing, not impoliteness.
In my experience, if a service sector job pays significantly above minimum wage, you run a non-trivial risk of being fired for rudeness. A bagger* probably wouldn't get fired for that because they get paid to little to be that picky about them. However, there's no way for him to face discipline that doesn't have the risk of being fired.
* I read that as the teller was talking with HP but a different person of lower status employed solely to put things in sacks was at fault.
41: Of course no "vibe" is necessary, they just assume that what they're doing is normal and that you, being normal, will accept it.
It can feel good to confront, sometimes, but it can be psychically exhausting and it's useful to pick your battles. I think Heebie's pattern as recounted in the OP is a rational one, all in all: invest the energy where you're likeliest to have the most impact. Where people can often be brought up short in venting their racist or homophobic opinions is in the company of friends (or at least acquaintances) whose opinions matter directly to them and to their lives.
41: Presumably for "irritable" substitute "must be her time of the month."
42: It is a challenge!
19 = yikes! "Don't I get credit for putting up with you?" Also, "I want to be the center of attention for once! ...so that I can talk about how I'm never the center of attention."
37: I'm assuming it was the minimally-verbal-at-2.5 plus hostile-to-dentists plus black that made him think he could assume (and fucking say it in front of her) but the joke's on him now that she's adopted but also not on him in that even being just black and 3 is enough to make her "special needs/hard to place" in our state. (And I do think she has acrual special needs related to her early attachment/neglect/abuse, but she's spectacularly awesome on top of that and I'm fine with that too,)
The "Don't I get credit for putting up with you" part gives the whole song a tinge of Nice Guy. Dude, if you don't like the conversation with this lady, then leave already.
45: Students are conditioned to listen to faculty for a variety of reasons of varying soundness.
Ummm, no, not really. This sounds to me like something that's true of a high school or maybe a Bible College -- where the institution is a surrogate of parental authority -- and not at all (or far less so) of a university, for which it would be directly counterproductive to an institution's reputation and mission to try to assume that role. The most that can be said of the average post-secondary student body is that it's "conditioned" to listen to profs about course-relevant issues or (if they're planning on going beyond undergrad) to not piss off someone in their field; there are many reasons you can't date students as a prof, but that the students are "conditioned" to obey faculty in some abstract sense is hardly one of them.
45: In my experience, if a service sector job pays significantly above minimum wage
... it would not be the "bottom rung of the service sector." And not significantly easier to get fired for rudeness, actually. A little secret about the service sector: the managers and the people on the floor might agree on little else, but they both inhabit a world in which the customer is more generally presumed to be stupid or crazy than to be "always right." (I'm not saying this is right or wrong. It just is.)
54: But if you feel like trading in the sour passive-aggressiveness for an actual response, I'm all ears.
56: If you'd care to give a definition of "social standing" that looked like I could grapple at it, I'm all ears. There is a society, a university, in which things are hierarchical to a fairly large degree. You are, possibly, arguing that the higher social standing is of no import. I can't tell.
Wasn't there some internet-funny something-or-other about how dismissive it is to start a response with "ummmm, no"? I would google it, but that turns out to be impossible.
.33 s/b .333
59: See, I would find it way too confrontational to point something like that out.
58: PeanutFreeMom does it all the time, so I assume you're right.
57: If you'd care to give a definition of "social standing" that looked like I could grapple at it . . . There is a society, a university, in which things are hierarchical to a fairly large degree.
You already gave yourself a definition of "social standing" to grapple with: what you need is the kind of "social standing" to be assigned to profs in a university that would obtain to teachers in a high school, where the students in general are conditioned to obey the faculty as a cohesive body. Since this is not true of universities, whose hierarchies tend to consist of a range of overlapping authorities -- some of which can as readily be wielded by students against faculty as vice versa -- whose relationship to the student is much closer to that of business and client than surrogate parent, and whose overarching mission is at least putatively one of fostering free inquiry and independent scholarship, I am saying that you're wrong and that the authority of faculty members is far more limited and situational than you are assuming. The situation does not obtain on the average university campus where a random faculty member could walk up to a student in the gym and even necessarily be recognized as a faculty member, let alone have their opinion about the student's conversation with their friend be weighed as something meaningful.
61: I don't understand that person's twitter stream, but I know I don't like it.
58: Was there? That sounds awfully interzzzzzzz...
65: Ummmm, I think you mean "ummmm."
Hey, Lord Castock: Rick Perry 2012! Which is to say, I think we were both wrong.
67: When Henry over at CT said he was wagering on InTrade on a late surge by Newt Gingrich, I was skeptical. But who's laughing now, eh?
58: It was one of the standing moderation rules at Television Without Pity. Probably the only good idea that ever came out of the moderation there.
62: You are continuing the equate "social standing" with "authority" which is actually what I directly argued against. At a university, as opposed to a high school, you are really expected to listen to and given deference to professors because you, as an now-adult, recognize that your role in society is now to learn. High school students are watched and monitored. Undergraduates are supposed to be capable of free inquiry and independent scholarship because they are expected to have internalized enough respect for academia to be self-monitoring. They are conditioned, or in the process of being conditioned, to the norms of academia and the adult world. The relationship isn't business to client or surrogate parent to surrogate child. It is as common members of a flexible yet still readily readable hierarchy.
I had never seen PeanutFreeMom before. Some of that is hilarious.
But who's laughing now, eh?
Barack Hussein Obama, that's who.
70: You are continuing the equate "social standing" with "authority" which is actually what I directly argued against.
No, I'm not. I'm accepting your reframing of it as expected deference, but saying that is still wrong. At a university you're expected to listen to a prof in class, and senior figures in your field and your department. This doesn't extend to respecting their opinions about your own life and opinions outside the classroom or outside their academic specialty. The deference you owe them is institutional and specific to their academic relationship with you. It is not generalized. Outside the setting where they are instructing the student, they command no more deference than any other reasonably-accomplished adult.
You start with "accepting your reframing" and then end with "command no more deference."
74: "Command" in the sense that one "commands a room" with stage presence, right? I am not talking about literal commands, sorry if that was not clear from context.
"Deference" isn't exactly free from a connotation of "authority" either.
But, that's actually beside my point. My point, if I can recall it by now, is that a student is likely to take correction from a professor as instruction or authoritative regardless of the setting. That this authority is somehow social in nature is a secondary part of my point.
78: But, that's actually beside my point.
And really very bizarre, considering that you've now torpedoed your own choice of term a couple of comments later in order to avoid agreeing with me. But yes, I fully understand that you are talking about a diffuse form of social authority and not formal power to compel. Our disagreement is not about whether that's what you were talking about, it's that your application of this notion seems wrong to me.
My point, if I can recall it by now, is that a student is likely to take correction from a professor as instruction or authoritative regardless of the setting.
I know. And I think this is mistaken and not in fact much likely to happen in real life.
FWIW, Moby Hick's world doesn't look like any university I've ever been in. My experience has been much closer to Lord C's. The idea that a student would ever have taken my authority seriously on an issue unrelated to the subject I was actually teaching at the time? Er, no.
72: and me. Let's keep in mind who else was right. Looking forward to winning our bet, VW.
Students can be really weird about their professors in ways that are completely different from one to another. I've had some totally shocked to see me on the street, even though here at Hogwarts we all pretty much live on the same street. And they freak out and tell their friends in my other class, who tell me so-and-so was so horrified because she had been drinking and it was 2am and then Professor Bear was like right there oh my god. What do they think I was out doing at 2am?
But they also do things like write papers about race or gender because they think flattering what they think is my political stance is what gets an A. This often has tragic results, not just because they don't know my political stances, but also because they don't really know much about race or gender in our historical period, so they write really bizarre (and sometimes jaw-droppingly offensive!) things. And then I have to grit my teeth and say, "Surely, my dear, you did not actually mean that *all* Africans were enslaved during the seventeenth century. Surely you have heard of a very large continent, called Africa, where millions upon millions of free Africans resided then, and still do today?"
That's the weird thing about professor-chiding. It doesn't work because if they're saying ridiculous shit about gay people or black people or whatever they're saying ridiculous shit about, it's probably because they are far too clueless to be able to conceive of why it's a problem. So while they want to show me what amazing feminists they are, I still have to read all these papers about how Def/oe shows women how they have so many special powers because even at 50+ years of age, M/oll can still blackmail a drunken rapist for some extra dough. Girl power!!
I guess she probably gnawed on him a lot or something.
Clearly not enough. Should have drawn blood.
I have come to believe that people who say shit like this are so completely clueless that they take away nothing from this conversation other than that I am "irritable."
I think the cluelessness goes deeper than that even. They don't understand what's wrong with being racist in all white company, homophobic in all het company, etc. Like you don't make homophobic jokes to gay people because they'll be offended, but that's the only reason. I once pulled somebody up on a viciously racist remark and they actually said, "What's your problem, you're not black"?
FWIW, Moby Hick's world doesn't look like any university I've ever been in. My experience has been much closer to Lord C's. The idea that a student would ever have taken my authority seriously on an issue unrelated to the subject I was actually teaching at the time?
But keep in mind, Heebie U is full of Yes Ma'am No Ma'am I will Ma'am. My guess is that if I'd spoken up, the students would have performed contriteness and apologized profusely and explained that they didn't mean it that way, and then mocked me after I left.
62....Whose relationship to the student is much closer to that of business and client than surrogate parent
This is new, and Heebie's university may be more traditional and authoritarian. Texas Germans, you know.
General social status is one thing, chain of command and actual power are another. A generic MD in a public place has little edge over a generic truck driver, but a generic prof at a given college may or may not have an edge over a generic student at that college. (What would it be like at Oxford, Harvard, or Berkeley?)
re: 88
With the collegiate system, Oxford is a bit odd. Certain staff with a college, in particular roles, will have quite a lot of authority, in the chain of command and actual power senses. Senior academics in general may have some general social status.
30-something non-senior lecturers/TAs (as I was), have sod all of either. Particularly when you are dealing with students who may be much richer and believe themselves to have much higher social standing than you.
The Wiki leaves out Boris Johnson's escapades. He seems to have been a major shit in college, though.
A generic MD in a public place has little edge over a generic truck driver
See, I don't actually think this is true in a whole lot of contexts. Depending on personalities, too, of course.
Maybe I should have said "anonymous" public place, where there's minimum context. It may be that the US has become more deferential since I stopped paying attention.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/11/rim_chewed_restraints_flight_fracas/
From Alex' twitter stream. Social standing gone wild.
The Wiki leaves out Boris Johnson's escapades. He seems to have been be a major shit in college, though.
79: I did torpedo my own argument. "Deference" is what I was going for. Please stay back from the platform when the train approaches.
You know the story's going to be good when the words "restraints" and "chewed" are in the URL.
y'all are completely misinterpreting the Toby Keith song. You have to start with the awareness that the mainstream country music audience is mainly female and the whole genre is oriented toward wish fulfillment for that audience. The wish fulfillment here is an 'edgy', macho guy who *wants to open up and talk about himself*.
92, 93: It don't know how society has become more or less deferential over time, but once I was clearly past 30 to any stranger who passed me and dressed in white collar work clothes, I got better treatment from a large proportion of the people I encountered. And worse treatment from a smaller subset. And more people trying to sell me shit.
And more people trying to sell me shit.
This, for sure.
I tried to revert the suppressed "Thuggish Activities and Drug Taking with the Bullingdon Club" section of the Boris Johnson Wiki page, but I seem to have failed. I suspect that he's savvy enough to have minions watching that page.
Is the second sentence of 99 true?
If you want to listen to the Toby Keith song to find out, you go right ahead.
Notice I conspicuously excluded the third sentence. I'm only man enough listen to 1:09 in the video.
First you listen to the whole song. Then you go to the Toby Keith fan page and see who is leaving the comments.
Is the second sentence of 99 true?
Yes. Country music is basically romance novels.
I mean, not entirely. There are some mainstream bands like Rascal Flatts who are beyond terrible but somehow well loved by both men and women. But the bulk of it is for women, and I believe that statistically, most listeners are women.
Country music is basically romance novels.
Seems like there should be potential for crossover. Mills and Boondocks, maybe.
1 in the OP sounds like the kind of thing bible belt chicks say from a combo of homophobia and never actually having watched porn and not realizing that a fair amount of mainstream straight porn consists of a woman's vagina getting pounded away at like it's a catcher's mitt. So yeah, totally prettier.
I think it's that, plus trying to reconcile "homophobia is definitely not MTV-cool" with "homophobia seems alive and well with these other people we know and like".
Also, not strictly bible belt, insofar as they were Latina. But the basic point holds.
mainstream bands like Rascal Flatts who are beyond terrible but somehow well loved by both men and women
This is such a mystery. They are so very awful, and I say that as someone who is perfectly willing to sit and listen to most mainstream country music (even if most of it is objectively pretty bad). I know I guy who apparently is a huge fan of theirs, and I haven't really been able to look him in the eye since learning that fact.
and I haven't really been able to look him in the eye since learning that fact.
Awkward. Maybe try a different position so it's not so obvious.
If Megan comes back, I want her to get to work to make this happen.
The women maybe listen to the true love part, and the guys listen to the love gone wrong, why did I lose her, part, and the women believe that shit and dream on, and the guys know it's not true and get progressively drunker and then pick fights with each other. So it's perfect dysfunctionality music.
Studies Have Shown that if a bar plays a string of weepy country songs drinking goes up X%.
Incidentally, my sister says that her countryish substance abuse clients agree that whiskey alcoholics have and cause more problems than beer alcoholics. Beer drinking is sort of social and jolly to begin with and then resigned and defeated later on, whereas whiskey drinking is more Don't Tread on Me hair trigger wild and crazy thousand yard stare stuff.
Against all that, since I've been back here I've met quite a number of countryish classmates still married to their HS sweethearts, and some of them never finished HS either. There is a non-dysfunctional interpretation of country music.
Some American girls want everything in the world
You can possibly imagine
Kitty Wells, who was a great interpreter of songs about instability and heartbreak marinated in self-pity, had a long and apparently happy marriage.
Kitty Wells, who was a great interpreter of songs about instability and heartbreak marinated in self-pity, had a long and apparently happy marriage.
Sure, but how many short and unhappy marriages did she have to go along with it?
I know [a] guy who apparently is a huge fan of theirs, and I haven't really been able to look him in the eye since learning that fact.
I was wondering why you never look me in the eye, urple. {on preview, semi-pwned by 113}
That's Tammy Wynette, whose first husband was named Euple. Kitty Wells was apparently the reverse of TV ministers who preach harmony and live in despairing chaos. Maybe a Dorian Grey story actualized by a rural sorcerer there somehow.
Dolly Parton actually seems pretty well-grounded also, though her cover of Stairway to Heaven could do with more irony.
"They don't bother me, because I know I'm not dumb and I know I'm not blonde".
||
OT, but can anyone tell me why my progressive FB friends are FREAKING OUT about NDAA 1031 "Citizen Imprisonment Law", apparently about to be signed by Obama? I can't see it mentioned here or on many of the sidebar links, and I'd expect them to be blowing up about this rather than Newt's staying power.
||
We should be on it, but I haven't been reading news in any coherent way for the last couple of weeks, so all I know is vaguely "bad", not what's going on.
122: I mentioned it in the gun thread. Certainly freaky, although I'm inclined to agree with Lawyer Carp that most of the damage was already done in previous laws/rulings. The thing that freaks me out even more is that ICE can set up random checkpoints anywhere withing 100 miles of a border, or an international point of entry. So basically, if you live in a large city, with an airport, ICE could stop and frisk you at any time, with no probable cause.
I don't know if this was highlighted much outside of the radical scene, but some people feel there are developments which indicate a stepped-up planning process for civilian internment camps here in the CONUS. This I take with a grain of salt, but still.
Internment/resettlement want ad:
http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job-categories/legal-and-law-enforcement/internment-resettlement-specialist.html
Camp construction:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75133833/FEMA-CAMP-CONSTRUCTION-SPEC-RFI-for-KBR-11-16-11
The bill ratifies a lot of Bush's power grabs and civil liberties violations. In particular, if an American citizen on American soil is thought to be supportive of an enemy or of terrorism, he or she can be held indefinitely without counsel or charges. My summary is sloppy, but it's a pretty open-ended claim.
One of the controversies is about whether the bill is needed, since the Bush administration had already claimed these rights and the Obama administration hasn't renounced them and may have defended them. So one response has been "it's nice of you to say these things, Congress, but we don't really need your approval".
It's pretty close to an open-ended annullment of habeas corpus sitting on the shelf for any executive who thinks he needs it. There are arguments about this, of course.
You have to distinguish between country music after about 1985 and older country, especially before the 1970s. Comments like 115 have nothing to do with the last two decades or so of country. Modern country is a sappy inspirational/you-go-girl genre aimed mainly at lower middle class women. The remaining heartbreak songs are either apologetic (if sung by a man) or songs women can identify with (last one night stand with old boyfriend; tell-off songs).
This is new, and Heebie's university may be more traditional and authoritarian. Texas Germans, you know.
Texas German Socialists, thank you.
Anybody who wants to know about Texas German Socialists should read the long short story "Holiday" by Katherine Anne Porter. It's in a class by itself, even though she never could figure out a good ending. It shows a world you never knew existed.
And these socialists were authoritarian and patriarchal, as the story shows. Don't want to spoil it. Must-read.
126 gets it right. Kitty Wells is as representative of what's on country radio as the Stylistics are of what you hear on the urban stations.
Actually 131 would be more applicable to Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn. Kitty Wells (born 1919) is about five generations ago.
I agree with PGD about country music.
Jose Padilla's military confinement was ratified by the courts. True, Bush bailed before getting Supreme Court review, but I wouldn't be shocked to see this Court endorse it. Yasir Hamdi was a US citizen, after all, and that didn't help him. Or that Quirin guy.
There have been subtle differences in positions between Obama and Bush on particular issues, but the DC Circuit has more or less blown them away. Along with everything else.
So far as I know -- and I might be a couple of days behind -- (a) it's yet to go to conference (and Sen. Udall is a conferee, and says he'll fight) and (b) the president has threatened a veto. Not because he doesn't want the power supposedly conferred -- he thinks he has that already -- but because the bill mandates exercise of that power in certain ways.
I don't think it's proper to say that it's a repeal of habeas, or that it ratifies indefinite detention without charge or counsel.
Don't get me wrong, it's really bad. But the "charge" part is taken care of by the laws of war -- as found in Hamdi etc, if you're a member of the enemy force, or substantially support the enemy force, you can be held until the end of hostilities. IIRC, military counsel is specifically provided in section 1036(b)(2). Is section 1032(b)(1) still in the Senate version? It's not been my professional concern, so I haven't followed that.
Good lord, Moby. That plan in 114 is the best thing I ever saw. I will run that up to Division of Engineering as soon as I get back to CA. (I'm on a trip until January --that destination wedding that I talked about before, with my cousins.)
If California builds that, people will travel to have their wedding next to one of the giant squirts.
I've been more interested in 1031(d), but think that 1031(e) ought to quiet some of the more breathless reactions to the thing.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c112:2:./temp/~c112kPSuuN:e548990:
If California builds that, people will travel to have their wedding next toon one of the giant squirts.
134.1: I really suppose the answer may be too technical for someone who isn't a lawyer, but I'll ask anyway. If a person can be held without charge or counsel, what parts of a writ of habeas corpus are left?
I tend toward the alarmist interpretation, as always.
First off, whatever is authorized merely establishes a secure base from which further abuses can be safely launched. the fuzzy line is moved further in the wrong direction, but remains fuzzy and shows the way for the next move, and the recent practice has been that the executive is now on the honor system, as honor is defined by the likes of Bush and Cheney.
Second, having a practice endorsed by all three branches of government establishes it more securely de jure even though it doen't change anything de facto. The whole world, including the US, has now been declared the battlefield for an endless war against an undefined enemy.
Whether the law changes anything, I don't know. Maybe it was just as bad before the law passed. But that's not exactly comforting.
A person held without charge can petition for the writ. It is then up to the court to decide whether the person is lawfully detained. POWs don't have to be charged with crimes, or have committed crimes. They just have to have been a member of the enemy force, and the war has to be ongoing. (The Geneva Conventions provide for a procedure by which people who don't think they are members of an enemy force have a chance to challenge that. The US followed this in Vietnam and the Gulf wars, but didn't in the Afghan war -- until, after the Supreme Court said such prisoners had a right to petition for the writ, they conducted drumhead proceedings for every prisoner, and have do-overs if the prisoner won. Section 1036 of the Senate version creates a version of this; perhaps more robust than is in the Army regs, or the GCs.)
Now the person is going to have to get his own lawyer, and the lawyer is going to have to find a court that will hear the case. If the prisoner is in Norfolk, Leavenworth, or even GTMO, there's a court. If he's in Bagram, there's no court. And in Yemen, you have to tunnel to freedom.
Assuming good faith in drawing up the rules -- an assumption too far, I'll grant -- a prisoner who loses a 1036 determination is almost certainly going to lose a habeas case -- especially if Latif holds up.
141: Thanks. That clarifies things a bit.
I tend toward the alarmist interpretation, as always.
From glances at headlines, you should be watching Hungary if you want alarm.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdf
Veto threat. Claims about 1032 and 1033 strike me as going-to-the-mat worthy, while the objections to 1031, 1034, 1035, and 1036 probably aren't sufficient to draw a veto of themselves.
I'm really not on top of this, but I do think Emerson's right. What I keep on coming back to in these discussions is that until the War On Things That Make Us Jumpy started, there were basically two statuses: soldier and civilian. In time of war, an enemy soldier could be detained without any legal process at all as a POW, but that status was explicitly not for punishment for wrongdoing, and involved quite a lot of rights to good treatment, freedom from interrogation, and so on. A civilian, or a soldier who had disobeyed the law of war, could be punished or interrogated, but had to have a trial characterized by due process. Eisentrager looks like a gap in this dichotomy, but (a) I think it was wrongly decided, and (b) it was a tiny, tiny gap, clearly strongly influenced by the logistical difficulties of a World War.
What the Bush administration, followed by the Obama administration, has been doing, is opening up a third category -- none of the rights of a POW because they're not soldiers, none of the rights of a civilian criminal because they were 'combatants'. That third category really was new: just because the words 'unlawful combatants' had been used in that order before 2001 doesn't mean that they meant the same thing -- third category with no legal rights -- that they mean now.
I've been arguing all along that the Bush and now Obama administrations were getting the law wrong by claiming that this third category existed -- a bill like this, which effectively recognizes that category, takes another step toward the point where I have to admit that they're not getting the law wrong, the law has changed into something loathsome.
They just have to have been a member of the enemy force, and the war has to be ongoing.
But now, an endless war against an undefined enemy on a global battlefield is now a given. And the definition of what degree of support is sufficient to justify this treatment is vague. It wasn't just this one law.
To some in the DoD, demonstrations can be "low-level terrorism". Protestors at the 2008 Republican convention were prosecuted as domestic terrorists. I have read that the vast majority of PATRIOT Act prosecutions were just drug busts.
I agree that the DC Circuit has gone way way farther than Hamdi permits. The SC has declined petition after petition raising these issues. If they decline Latif, nothing in this bill matters one way or the other on the issues folks are raising above. It's a big deal in 1032 and 1033 because it prevents the Executive from using any judgment to ameliorate harsh applications: Obama signed on to earlier versions of this kind of stuff as a way to pander to fear and ignorance. His folks finally see that they've gone too far. The veto threat is real, and the vote on the Udall amendment shows that a veto would be sustained.
John, the 2001 AUMF is not broad enough for that stuff, and both this, and all the cases, are based on it. Yes, there's the sure prospect that the AUMF is being extended to Yemen and Somalia. But this isn't, legally, a war against a noun. It's a war against defined groups. And people who want to proclaim themselves members of those groups (eg AQAP) are going to have some real trouble. We're a long way from sending Occupiers to Bagram.
Counting on the Article I branch to preserve civil liberties has been foolish since the 1970s.
And people who want to proclaim themselves members of those groups (eg AQAP) are going to have some real trouble.
That's been something I've pondered on and off from years now. It is not obvious to me how you draw these lines* even if you were not out for quick political gain.
*For starters, lines between who has effectively announced they are a combatant and who is a loud asshole and who is an enemy noncombatant.
Which branch is it, Charley? Not Congress, you say. The Federalist Society branch, even if it decides correctly, which it might not, takes years to get around to anything. Anything they judge on will be moot, more or less, by the time they rule. By now, GUantanamo and the rest are a done deal. The lives have been ruined, the message has been sent, and the world knows to expect more of the same.
So basically we're left with an executive on the honor system, as though there had been no Constitution in the first place. The executive has a five-to-ten year window of freedom.
Sending Occupiers to Bagram is an end-point that I doubt will suddenly be reached, and for PR reasons it wouldn't be Bagram but someplace within the US. There are a lot of points between where we are now and sending occupiers to Bagram, and where on that line are there stopping points, and who would enforce them?
That's exactly why the right answer is to treat them all as criminals, with the rights of criminals, rather than to have invented the inbetween legal category of people without the rights of either civilians or soldiers. How do you legitimately tell who falls into that category if falling into it means you have no legal rights?
152 -- This is the right answer, in my opinion. Electing people who believe this -- not people who say they believe it, and then cave when confronted by the military/intelligence complex -- is a really big deal.
Failing that -- and failure in the political branches must always be assumed -- there's no choice but to have a decent judiciary, the first key to which is never, ever, letting Republicans have the Executive. Never. Ever. No hand-waving. This is necessary, but not sufficient, obviously.
GTMO isn't perfectly GC compliant in my view, and I have a pending matter to adjudicate that (and as a subsidiary question, whether section 5 of the MCA, which precludes prisoners from asserting the GC, is a Suspension). But it's a lot better than it was.
151 -- Sure, put good people in all the branches. Never ever do anything that increases the risk of worse people in any of them. I'm pretty disappointed in the President on this score, but (a) none of the alternatives are better and (b) I think he has been responding to his political advisers' accurate measure of the public mood with respect to terrorist suspects, and with respect to what leaky and not-loyal-to-civilian-control military intelligence types would be saying if he was following a policy I might endorse. That is, I think he has a solid majority on his side in this stuff.
Lives are ruined, but it's not too late to do the right thing.
OK, I guess what I missed was the degree to which it was tied specifically to the war against al Qaeda. Even though al Qaeda probably doesn't really exist, some kind of link has to be made to the Middle East and to some kind of military activity. That probably can't be mushed away completely yet.
Well, Latif is really bad, and while the detention authority derives from the AUMF, the holding will apply just fine to any other detention authorities, as they come along. It's way worse than this statute, which, I think, Sen. Levin has hedged around so much as to be, itself, not particularly meaningful.
(You'll recall that Levin outmaneuvered Graham et al on the effective date of the original habeas strip -- the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. He's a wily player.)
(Sorry to take over the thread like that.)
Well, you can't undo what's been done, and you probably can't keep it from happening again, and what else is there?
One or two changes in the Supreme Court, so long as we don't have a Republican president, could make a huge difference. The SC hasn't decided anything since 2008, and left open in the Hamdi opinion the notion that the understandings about wartime detention could unravel if the war became endless. A different SC might take one of the cases, and completely change what the Circuit has done.
And, obviously, changes in the Circuit are significant.
(And now I have a copy of what emerged from conference -- they changed all the numbering and some of the provisions -- and will send a copy to anyone who emails me)
OK, I guess what I missed was the degree to which it was tied specifically to the war against al Qaeda. Even though al Qaeda probably doesn't really exist, some kind of link has to be made to the Middle East and to some kind of military activity. That probably can't be mushed away completely yet.
Any protestor targeted by our government probably can be placed within a few yards of a "FREE MUMIA" sign, and "Mumia Abu-Jamal" certainly sounds like a Middle Easternish name.
You have to start with the awareness that the mainstream country music audience is mainly female and the whole genre is oriented toward wish fulfillment for that audience. The wish fulfillment here is an 'edgy', macho guy who *wants to open up and talk about himself*.
Modern country is a sappy inspirational/you-go-girl genre aimed mainly at lower middle class women.
You paint with far too broad a brush. For one thing, your demographic assertions are completely false: country music fans are about 48% male to 52% female.
I would suggest that country music seems more gender-stereotyped than many other genres, and it's more often very clear who the intended audience for a particular song is. And there are certainly plenty of songs aimed at exactly the audience you describe. But it's not even close to the "whole genre".
Huh. I remember an interview on NPR with a musician who was earning his keep in Nashville by churning out country songs for various singers, and he definitely said something like "I write wish fulfillment songs for women". Maybe that's where PGD got the notion, too.
Well, as I said in 163.last, there are plenty of wish fulfillment songs for women on country music radio. The guy is probably very successful. But I bet he doesn't write "most" songs for the "whole genre".
163: The key here, I think, is broadcast radio play, which is a fairly narrow slice of the country genre. As with crappy Top 40 dance-pop and crappy Top 40 R&B, crappy Top 40 country music is aimed primarily at teenage girls and suburban moms who miss being teenage girls.
I wonder if you could make an argument that default TV is aimed at boys and default radio is aimed at girls.
167: Hmm. I think TV is much less homogenous than radio, what with the market penetration of 100+ channel cable, so harder to pin down.
Mainstream radio in any genre is mostly indefensible, granted. But, here's the current chart of country hits. Mostly atrocious, and a number that are basically wish fulfillment songs for women, but not most. For example, "Camouflage" by Brad Paisley (an artist certainly guilty of singing his fair share of wish fulfillment songs for women) is an unlistenably bad song, but is clearly marketed to some odd subsection of the male demographic.
The country music audience is more into dancing than, for example, the grunge audience.
169: Mainstream country is so weird.
I asked Jenny to the prom
And her mom knew how to sew
So she made a matching tux and gown
From Duck Blind Mossy Oak
We took pictures in the backyard
Before we went to the dance
And the only thing that you can see
Is our faces and our hands
Camouflage, camouflage, camouflage
You should've have seen the way
It popped with her corsage
Camouflage, camouflage
Ain't nothing that doesn't go with camouflage
You can blend in in the country
You can stand out in the fashion world
Be invisible to a white tail
And irresistible to a redneck girl
Camouflage, camouflage
Oh you're my favorite color camouflage
Well the stars and bars offend some folks
And I guess I see why
Nowadays there's still a way
To show your southern pride
The only thing as patriotic
As the old red white and blue
Is green and gray and black and brown
And tan all over you.
171 -- Right, there's also that wounded pride contempt for the elites thing.
Brad Paisley is so, so terrible. Jesus christ.
Meanwhile, over in the "definitely not aiming for female wish fulfillment" corner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADC_6XFvIxk
Meanwhile, aiming for the least tempting description of a link ever, 175.
But if you don't click it, heebs, you won't get to meet Super Cracker.
169, 172: Yes, there is a small but steady stream of U R Doin' It Right/"Country Boy Will Survive" songs. For instance, recently from Justin Moore:
He can't even bait a hook
He can't even skin a buck
He don't know who Jack Daniels is
He ain't ever drove a truck
there's also that wounded pride contempt for the elites thing.
This is the one true constant across all of contemporary country music.
Well the stars and bars offend some folks
And I guess I see why
This is a startling concession on its own terms. It's finally 1992 in Nashville.
Oh man, someone linked on that on Facebook and I've been giggling at it for a week.
Brad Paisley is so, so terrible.
This is mostly right, although I like "I'm Gonna Miss Her".
Paisley is one of those country guys, and there are loads, who combine crappy songs -- from the perspective of someone who doesn't like much mainstream country -- with being really brilliant guitar players.
"Country Boy Will Survive"
Great song.
Paisley is one of those country guys, and there are loads, who combine crappy songs -- from the perspective of someone who doesn't like much mainstream country -- with being really brilliant guitar players.
He's been picking for a long time.
Interesting, since with the profusion of session musicians in country music, I'd think being a star singer who can also play the guitar well is like being a star pitcher who can also play the outfield. Almost totally irrelevant, in other words.
181: All the ones about getting warm in your house hit a bit close to home, because I always feel so smug when I put a spider outside instead of killing it.
187: they just come back in.
185.1: Although I forgot that it is "Can" not "Will"--the latter was used in the 9/11/"America" version.
||
If your job is working in the goddamn steno pool, is it too much to expect that you could center titles by some means other than putting in a whole bunch of spaces? There's a reason I don't use steno much.
|>
steno pool
Was your law office magically transported back to 1967?
I vote for Charlie Daniels for best/most enjoyable artist that's objectively reprehensible. "The South's Gonna Do it Again" came on the radio during my odyssey through traffic hell, and that's kind of objectively a good song, or at least a good a song as you can get with pro-Confederate lyrics.
190: if the person is elderly, that's probably how they were trained to do it.
191: If you want anything of any nature typed by anyone other than yourself, there are three typists in a room. Usually I don't bother them (except to scan things -- they have the only scanner). But there's no other secretarial support, and sometimes on a long brief I don't have time to do the tables of contents and authorities myself. Except editing this piece of shit is going to be incredibly frustrating -- she did all the hanging indents with spaces too.
I vote for Charlie Daniels for best/most enjoyable artist that's objectively reprehensible.
I think we'd need to put some definitions both on "artist" and on "reprehensible" in order to even begin having this conversation. However, re Charlie Daniels band, "Uneasy Rider" is one of my favorite songs ever.
And now my supervisor, who yesterday had me change the footnotes from 10 point to 12 point, thinks 11 point would be nice.
194 -- Ah, I see. That sucks. Like, really ridiculously sucks. I do love it that you call it the "steno pool" though; it makes me think you are sending things around the office via pneumatic tube.
195 -- oh, right, plenty of better candidates for better artist with reprehensible views. Charlie Daniels might qualify for "best pop music artist of the past 50 or so years with obviously reprehensible lyrics" though.
If you consider Charlie Daniels "pop music", I suppose.
However, I'd take the Odd Future crew over Charlie Daniels 10 times out of 10.
197: I dunno. If "reprehensible lyrics" include, say, gross misogyny, there's a lot of hip-hop that's going to score pretty well in your contest.
190: My students frequently make mistakes like that, but that is because they are technologically illiterate.
Charlie Daniels might qualify for "best fiddle-playing country artist with obviously pro-confederate lyrics that achieved crossover pop success in the past 50 or so years".
Serbian turbo folk could be pornographic and genocidally reprehensible but pretty interesting too.
Don't know if this one is genocidal.
190, 202: As a person who edits and formats documents for a living, I can assure you that gross ignorance regarding the most basic MSWord functions is a nearly universal disability. Please, people, I beg you: use the damned Insert Page Break function instead of hitting return 17 times.
Honestly, I don't care how old she is (and she is, fairly). The first thing I ever typed on was a manual typewriter, and it had tabs. Tabs aren't hard, and they aren't modern. And when you use them, they make things actually line up!
This singer is the girlfriend of Arkan, one of the worst of the Serbian militia leaders.
The international disco style doesn't appeal to most of us and I don't know about the lyrics, but her genocidal cred is as good as Leni Reifensthal's.
The devil went down to Priština,
He was looking for a soul to steal.
I don't know how to use half of Microsoft Word. Mail Merge seems inordinately complicated. (I can use the insert page break function, I'll admit, and I know how to center.) I find doing those "mini" documents for a chapter and then creating master documents incomprehensible.
However, I'd take the Odd Future crew over Charlie Daniels 10 times out of 10.
Oh, me too. I just assume those guys are kidding, though. Charlie Daniels seems serious.
206: did she use a consistent number of spaces for each indent?
212: I just figured out I could use find and replace on spaces! I felt like a minor genius, until I realized probably everyone else knows this.
In that case you should be able to search and replace... I'm not exactly sure whether you can enter tab as a character in a search/replace window, but there should be some way to do it. You could try copying-pasting in a tab.
215: You can search and replace all those sorts of things, but as Tweety surmised, she hasn't got consistent numbers of spaces or anything like that.
A little poking around suggests that ^t might work.
Oh, that was a sarcastic yeah right...
Does word have any sort of regex? It ought not be difficult to have it match any list of spaces longer than 4.
213: was there a range, more or less? If you replaced five spaces with a tab, then four, then three, you'd catch all those.
Substitute 'five spaces' with the max used for an indent, and 'three spaces' with the min.
Word totally has regex. You should learn it, it's fun.
And now my supervisor, who yesterday had me change the footnotes from 10 point to 12 point, thinks 11 point would be nice.
Don't you guys have a style guide?
Couldn't we talk about something fun, like genocide or the flesh-eating virus?