One way to look at it would be to consider what that money would be spent on it if didn't go to you.
The people who should really search their souls (but won't) are those who give money to frats.
There's always that brother who booked the band who loves the fact that you played that Free song, who makes you feel like you're just there deploying musical talent.
It's annoying how path-dependent this sort of thing is. Having a bunch of college students live together in an off-campus house is a perfectly sensible thing to do; doing it through a long-enough lived organization that it can successfully own the house they live in is also sensible. Screening occupants for rough social compatibility and throwing parties together? Nothing wrong with that, either.
And yet the history of actually existing fraternities makes them overwhelmingly sound like a terrible, terrible idea, when there's no reason that they had to be.
5
... when there's no reason that they had to be.
That their membership consists of young single men away from home?
How do you all feel about sororities?
As experienced by this non-frat member, frat parties are awesome! Loud music, drunken dancing. Mating rituals going on all around you. And lo mejor, if you embarass yourself in front of a girl, it's OK, because in the morning neither of you will definitively remember the other! You can just find another girl and embarass yourself all over again.
Which is not to say that frat parties don't have a dark side... seems like there's always creepy stuff going on on the top floors...
There is something to 6.1. I remember one dorm where many of my friends went to school being described as "the largest all-male dorm on the East Coast", and wondering why the hell anybody thought that was a good thing.
Well, yeah, my wistful thoughts about how frats didn't have to be a bad thing are largely driven by my college co-op, which was organized sort of like a frat but was coed.
But I don't know that it's fair to assume that any all-young-male organization is going to be a horror. In practice, lots of them seem to be, but it can't be a necessary outcome.
It should be abundantly clear that I feel very uncomfortable taking money from the fraternity system. I can't see what good it does nowadays.
Pays your rent?
How do you all feel about sororities?
Well, they don't go around committing sexual assault all that often.
9
But I don't know that it's fair to assume that any all-young-male organization is going to be a horror. In practice, lots of them seem to be, but it can't be a necessary outcome.
Maybe not necessary but likely? Is the behavior of fraternities unexpectedly bad?
How do you all feel about sororities?
they promote eating disorders; you can say that for them. daughter x was very interested recently to learn about the existence of eating disorders. at my all-girl's prep school, in my class of around 60, four were hospitalized--think how many came close but didn't quite need it. there was honestly a whole bunch of puking in the bathroom after lunch, for real. that ain't right.
But I don't know that it's fair to assume that any all-young-male organization is going to be a horror.
Unless you can actually name one that isn't, I'm afraid it's fair.
Maybe not necessary but likely? Is the behavior of fraternities unexpectedly bad?
I think it depends on how low your expectations are. in my first year in college a girl on my floor got raped by two frat boys who followed her back to her room from a party, talked their way past the security without leaving their names, and stopped her door before it closed completely. her roommate interrupted during the second guy's performance and they bolted. another girl on my floor got raped while at a frat party. IIRC there were no more than 30 of us on the floor, co-ed, so that's a pretty high rate of getting raped by frat boys. and at colu/mbia, one of the least fratty colleges ever.
I think all-boy/young men groups always turn out lord of the flies, so I support having girls' high schools, and then importing girls from other countries to go to school with the american boys, so they can be socialized properly without wrecking up our fine young ladies. great opportunity for young el salvadorean women, everybody wins.
15
I think it depends on how low your expectations are. in my first year in college a girl on my floor got raped by two frat boys who followed her back to her room from a party, talked their way past the security without leaving their names, and stopped her door before it closed completely. her roommate interrupted during the second guy's performance and they bolted. another girl on my floor got raped while at a frat party. IIRC there were no more than 30 of us on the floor, co-ed, so that's a pretty high rate of getting raped by frat boys. and at colu/mbia, one of the least fratty colleges ever.
This seems like the sort of evidence you all would object to if frat was replaced with black.
I think things go wrong when you have groups that are the same age, as opposed to having a range of ages all having to co-exist. For example, a k-12 school of 1000 kids vs. 1000 8th graders (or 5th graders, or 11th graders, etc.), even if they're all broken into small classes.
Our town apparently use to use the latter model for 4-8th grades. Everyone went to their own little elementary school. Then there was a city-wide school for 4-5th graders, another one for 6-7th graders, and possibly just one for 8th graders. (This is all before I moved here.) All I've heard is that everyone that grew up here hated those schools (but of course, I hated my traditional middle school so, too.)
16: People don't volunteer to be black.
I lost track of my point.
Regarding frats, specifically, I think these kids mellow out a lot when they get in the workplace and are expected to interact with people aged 23-70 equally well. Or at least, Jammies' little brothers both went from acting like petulant 13 year olds to vaguely socialized 19 year old when they graduated college and got into the real world. The older of the two, who is now 28, actually acts like a decent 23 year old now!
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I really shouldn't have spent any time skimming that CT thread, but I was surprised to see what may be an actual believer in "God, the collapser of wave functions."
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This seems like the sort of evidence you all would object to if frat was replaced with black.
Holy smokes do I hate the find-and-replace argument. it looks like an attempt to create an argument by analogy, but it really just plays on the audience's discomfort with talking about race.
When liberals look at high crime rates for blacks they can point to things like lack of opportunity and discrimination. You can't possibly point to these factors when it comes to frat boys.
If you are going to create an argument by analogy you need to spell out analogies and disanalogies. You can't just play find-and-replace.
I used to believe that. I've always been surprised how uncommon it is. It allows for almost arbitrary miracles within the laws of physics.
21 is pretty tendentious if you replace "analogy" with "genocide".
Also: even if you set aside the rate of sexual assault and binge drinking in frats, and on top of that set aside the hazing, you still have to deal with the fact that one of the stated purposes of frats is cronyism in the job market. Exactly what good do these institutions create?
Also: even if you set aside the rate of sexual assault and binge drinking in frats, and on top of that set aside the hazing, you still have to deal with the fact that one of the stated purposes of frats is cronyism in the job market. Exactly what good do these institutions create?
Also: I believe these things are worth repeating.
I really shouldn't have spent any time skimming that CT thread
This is pretty much a standing sentence.
Berkeley has roughly the same number of students in each of the co-op system, fraternities, and sororities. Which makes it an interesting case study. They still play to stereotypes, as far as I can tell.
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I can't believe I watched that whole tennis match. I should sleep.
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I can't believe I watched that whole tennis match. I should sleep.
You're not the only one.
21
When liberals look at high crime rates for blacks they can point to things like lack of opportunity and discrimination. You can't possibly point to these factors when it comes to frat boys.
But you can point to prejudice and confirmation bias. Once you have the notion that frat boys are particularly prone to certain types of bad behavior it is easy to view the world in that way. Note in 15 it is not completely clear the rapists were frat boys or how much what actually happened has been distorted as the story circulated.
I really shouldn't have spent any time skimming that CT thread
This is pretty much a standing sentence.
hey, that's not...wait, it's totally true, nevermind.
16 is even more astoundingly tone-deaf when you realize the relatively distinct character of traditionally white vs. traditionally black fraternities and sororities in the US.
At least in my secondhand experience, the black ones are much, much lower-key, less focused on alcohol, and are even less focused on parties in general (still parties, but more dancing and fewer drinking games). They also tend IME to have closer ties to their community service projects (i.e., not just standing out the street corner collecting cash for "kids with cancer" but actually doing projects in the communities in which they are located).
no, james, the rapists were frat boys, did violate the standing security policy by not signing into a dorm not their own, were caught by the roommate, and were suspended for a year after an internal investigation (typical bullshit college face-saving maneuver.) the girl's room was next but one to mine, and I talked to her and the roommate within 12 hours of the occurrence. what the fuck do you want, photos? in the second case, it's certainly possible that someone I knew came back to the dorm common room crying and white with shock and said she'd been raped at this frat party by a particular bro, but was totally making it all up because she's a giant slut. I didn't see her do so with my own eyes but I had a number of reliable witnesses. again referred to some bullshit university discipline commission and fuck-all was done.
OT: I revere the Duke of Windsor's style as much as the next menswear geek, but that Madonna-directed (?!?!) movie about Edward VIII and that horrid woman Mrs. Simpson looks unbelievably crappy.
33: agreed black frats have a (well-deserved IME) reputation for having a different focus and tone, in general. not that there's no partying, but there's a legacy from the days of "our fraternity needs to show black men can thrive at universities." having to be the best, all that.
hey can anyone go presidential and tell us all what the fuck skull and bones is up to? none of my relatives who are members will spill. naturally I assume they worship cthulu, but there has to be more to it than that.
Madonna-directed (?!?!)
o dear lord, no.
36: Ron Rosenbaum's articles about S&B are pretty interesting.
35. I'd sort of assumed it was crappy. Do you have hard evidence?
Hark, the herald angels sing
Mrs Simpson's pinched our king!"
36
agreed black frats have a (well-deserved IME) reputation for having a different focus and tone, in general. not that there's no partying, but there's a legacy from the days of "our fraternity needs to show black men can thrive at universities." having to be the best, all that.
How about hazing? I seem to recall hazing issues at black frats and it is easy to find an article (albeit from 1994) suggesting widespread problems.
Somewhere between being beaten with a cane so hard that it broke, and between being pummeled, poked with needles and branded on his arms and chest with a red-hot iron, Wardell Pride had a numbing thought.
35: Will Wallis be swanning about with Ribbentrop, one wonders? I think . . . she's the hero of Madonna's movie?
39, 41: Wallis is, apparently, the hero, according to the trailer, along with a fresh-faced young modern-day heroine in the inexplicable framing story.
33 and 36 are insane, at least based in my friend's stories of the national conventions of his black fraternities. He and his brothers actually jointly owned a strip club for a while. Out of control hazing, partying, etc. Maybe a little less valuing if being visibly wasted, but that's about it.
I was briefly sort of in a frat, pledged and dropped out. The hierarchy turned me off. I also lived in an all male dorm in college (it was the best -- it was all the guys who'd turned their forms in late). Also I liked my all boys junior high school a lot. Honestly I think a lot of the benefits of same sex education for women are equally true for men.
The Film 2012 review of it, the Madonna/Simpson film, said that the direction was perfectly competent, a couple of the performances (Riseborough, in particular) good, the sets and costumes good, and yet the film basically total shit. Woeful script, inexplicable framing story (as above), etc.
44. Yeah, I suppose the thinking was that if The King's Speech could win awards there was an untapped market for this shit. But George VI and his missus were just dreary, whereas Edward VIII and Mrs S. were dreary and icky. Me, I'd have gone for Tum Tum and Mrs Keppell - prettier costumes, better sex, cameos for Queen Victoria and the Kaiser...
15:
I think all-boy/young men groups always turn out lord of the flies, so I support having
girls' high schools, and then importing girls from other countries to go to school with the american boys, so
they can be socialized properly without wrecking up our fine young ladies. great opportunity for young el
salvadorean women, everybody wins.
You stole my next column !
25: that one of the stated purposes of frats is cronyism in the job market.
Yes, they are a useful tool for identifying and forging candidates for some of the middling orders of the minions of capital. Clean up the ones that make it through and have them go forth and sell ERP software.
At my college the white and black frats had equally bad reputations.
The only person I know who sells ERP software only spent one semester in college, and wouldn't have joined a frat in any case.
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Sausagely has become A Trend. Not in a good way.
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Without the fraternity system, there would be no gay porn.
50
... Not in a good way
I wasn't impressed with Elk's analysis. He seems to feel that companies like Ikea become successful by finding innovative ways of exploiting workers which for the most part isn't true. And which suggests he buys into Marxist gibberish about exploitation and surplus value.
And Yglesias doesn't spending a lot of time talking to workers because his readers (like me) aren't much interested in what they have to say.
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This is a bleg. After a couple of years out of academic philosophy, I'm attempting to rebuild my interest/aptitude and have been, fitfully, reading through stuff in areas I'm not familiar with.
Anyway, I'm on a bit of a historical tip at the moment, and while I've plenty of books from Descartes on, and a decent number of Greek things, there's basically a massive gap, from the patristic period right through to the early modern.
Anyone recommend some decent books on the period in between? Augustine, the 'Scholastics', Renaissance stuff?
It can be scholarly, but shouldn't presuppose Latin or Greek.
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53: Assumes facts not necessarily in evidence.
I'm with LB in 5 and 9. I lived in a co-op style arrangement in college as well, coed and living in the same house, but (a) there was no hierarchy, (b) there was no hazing. There was an informal vetting process which worked itself out much like any checking out of a potential housemate would.
Surely factors (a) and (b) account for a lot of what can go wrong with frats or sororities, black or white. ? I don't quite know where to place the whole deal having to do with being a national organization, with official and lifelong membership, some confabulated reputation to uphold, and so on.
No one is much interested in what you have to say, either, James, so it all works out.
54: I wasn't impressed with Elk's analysis.
Try the Jaycees instead.
Apple was his example of an exploitive company, and he's right about them. Ikea was an example of an exploitive company that met resistance. There are lots of special problems with Ikea, since its a Swedish company which came to the US to exploit cheap labor.
Elk wasn't speaking to you, of course, Shearer. He was speaking to non-neoliberals who were wondering which way Yglesias was going to go. He's always been more likely to go in the neoliberal direction, but the Slate job has clinched the decision for good. There was no one other than Slate willing or able to promote Yglesias, and neoliberalism is a good fit at Slate.
Compared to Jonah Goldberg or Wonkette or McMegan or even Ezra Klein, he had enough potential to make the question interesting. That's probably why he was so slow to make the big time.
From my sister's ever-loving computer.
55: This book comes recommended in that blog post; there may be other stuff on the site if you search the archives. (I usually find his judgment pretty solid, fwiw, although lord knows I can't keep up with the reading regimen.)
60
Apple was his example of an exploitive company, and he's right about them. ...
Apple is not mentioned in the story. And Apple isn't successful because it is particularly skilled at exploiting workers.
... There was no one other than Slate willing or able to promote Yglesias ...
You know this how?
re: 62
Ta. That looks interesting.
People seem rather more exercised about the careers of bloggers than the produce would merit.
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Hey everybody: I had the privilege to attend a discussion on Friday night about incarceration and prison abolition, with a focus on women and transgendered prisoners. It was extremely informative and moving.
Did you know that the number of women in US prisons & jails has increased 800% since the beginning of the Drug War? Women are the fastest growing segment of the US prison population. Also, here in Minnesota, the total cost of imprisonment now works out to about $65,000 per prisoner per year. The majority of people, especially women, in prison are there for non-violent crimes. Overcrowding is extremely severe in many prisons. The vast majority of prisoners' serious health problems are never treated.
Some of the presenters were from a local organization that I have long admired, the Women's Prison Book Project. They work to send books and magazines to women and transgendered prisoners. They get about 500 letters per month requesting books. The vast majority of prison libraries are unfunded or underfunded. The law libraries especially are always out of date. Prisoners' access to libraries is strictly rationed, and is contingent upon everything being totally perfect, i.e. no lockdowns (a form of collective punishment). Also, in contrast to what is portrayed in popular culture, very few prisoners have access to any sort of educational programming while they are incarcerated.
www.wpbp.org
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I can't argue with your persona and with Shearer both at the same time, Flippanter. Head will esplode.
60: Yglesias did quit the Atlantic, which is way more pro-neoliberal than Slate. I think it is less that he's changed, and more that he's opining on topics where his opinions were stupid all along.
One of my fellow first-year students in grad school inexplicably lived in a frat house. (Apparently if you join a frat you can keep living in their house as a grad student.) A couple of times he took me to their parties, where inevitably there'd be one of the students from my TA section. Without exception, they were always the worst students, and without exception they would challenge me to see who could drink faster. I would always think, "Dude, I'm old and I've been drinking for years. Of course I can drink faster. You're 19. Your mom can drink faster than you."
Because Yglesias had to wait as long as this to be promoted, when he's more talented than a lot of others. The only alternative explanation is that Yglesias turned down offers more desirable than Slate's. His various earlier less-neoliberal employers could not match Slate's offer.
Since you are opposed in principle to any suggestion of the possibility of exploitation there's not much point in arguing with you about particular cases. (I confess that my response was not closely tied to the article linked.) Yglesias was retailing the classic neoliberal / Austrian creative destruction theory of industrial organization with special reference to Romney's career, and supporters of that theory would like what he wrote.
Dude, I'm old and I've been drinking for years. Of course I can drink faster.
I got my share of this in my mid-30s at law firm things. Silly kids, should just stay off the damn lawn.
I see DeLong just retweeted one of your comments, John.
Know what's more boring and predictable than reading MY? Reading conversations about MY. Flip's right. The MY rookie card isn't worth anything now, and isn't ever going to be worth anything.
Remember personal info, goddammit!
67: I don't think the musing in 65 is particularly worth arguing with, if that helps. It's not very rich in content.
But that Times piece compares MY to George Plimpton? I would have thought that would get flip shaking with rage, as much as his louche lack of affect would allow, anyway.
70
Since you are opposed in principle to any suggestion of the possibility of exploitation ...
Not really, just Marxist gibberish about all profit coming from exploiting workers. I think the NCAA exploits its performers.
For reasons which I do not understand, DeLong and I have a good relationship.
The point with Yglesias isn't that he is wrong. It's that these are the people who get promoted. With the media we have, we might as well quit dealing with politics and just sit back and watch the show. Everybody complains about Fox, but it's the whole show. Krugman and DeLong are the far left.
76: his louche lack of affect
See, why can't I have some of that? It would be so great. Maybe if I lived in some decaying Rust Belt town, with at least one good bookstore, and a good dive bar, and an old-fashioned diner. And maybe a pool hall like the "Two Brothers & A Stranger" one in The Color Of Money, and a big apartment like the one Gabriel Byrne has in Miller's Crossing (except with more plants); maybe then I could just slowly sink into the mould.
73
... The MY rookie card isn't worth anything now, and isn't ever going to be worth anything.
So you think it is safe to conclude that Yglesias is a bust? Seems a bit early to me.
72: When DeLong pulled out one of my comments on CT last week for a post, I got way more excited than I really should have.
71: I wonder where the idea comes from? It's not universal -- at around the same time I knew a bunch of Korean ESL students, and they all agreed that their dads could drink them under the table.
When I was in college, I thought we were terribly wild and transgressive, until I met some older people who'd been in college in the late 60s. Holy shit!
... that's life;
If you want good friends, it's gonna cost you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuaLS1TZNxI
77: Marxist Capitalist gibberish that reduces all radical analysis to some cliches about all profit coming from exploiting workers
FTFY!
79: He's faking it. Most of the time he's commenting through a thick veil of tears.
You know, this life isn't so much a Vale of Tears as a Vale of Assholes (Latin valle rectum).
About a month ago MY said something about the conflict between factory workers and owners not being politically relevant, which I read as, "See this neo-liberal shark? I'ma jump it!"
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You know, all respect and solidarity to the people of Mozambique and Malawi, but "Intense Tropical Cyclone Funso" totally sounds like it should be some kind of down-market carbonated fruit punch.
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I expect Yglesias to be successful at the Slate level, which is pretty successful. It's possible that neoliberal contrarianism itself will be enormously devalued in coming decades.
I think may will turn out that Yglesias' tweet is being misunderstood. I wouldn't be surprised if what he means is that the aggregate level of unemployment is determined by the Fed, not heroic CEO job creators.
83
... that reduces all radical analysis ...
Not all but the stuff in the link.
73: Know what's more boring and predictable than reading MY? Reading conversations about MY.
Sir! I do say!
Oddly, Ed Kilgore, taking Steve Benen's slot at Washington Monthly, made a barely veiled remark recently about Yglesias (and Douthat, I assume).
And while I admire and envy prodigies who come out of Harvard with high hosannas and began instantly counseling the nation, there should be some room in the chattering class for those who have spent evenings explaining the federal budget process to Rotary Club audiences in rural Georgia, or worked the graveyard shift in a potato chip factory.
I was surprised.
More 55: Pasnau's Metaphysical Themes: 1274-1671 is pretty damn impressive. I haven't read it all the way through because it's too long, and I haven't bought it because it's too expensive. Still, the parts I've read are good and fun, and it's amazingly erudite.
I think that Kilgore has always had a somewhat populist streak.
Populism is only just barely coming back to life. Most of the intelligentsia and political pros and a pretty good chunk of the Democratic rank and file are still aggressively anti-populist.
91: That's a good point. Take someone like Charles Pierce, who's a good writer, and has been around journalism for like 20 years. There's no conceivable way he ends up on the NYT or Washington Post editorial pages.
78: With the media we have, we might as well quit dealing with politics and just sit back and watch the show. Everybody complains about Fox, but it's the whole show. Krugman and DeLong are the far left.
John, what do you think about the impact (if any) the Occupy movement has made on public discourse?
Forgive my carefully formal language there, but really: no inroads made? I can't quit yet.
re: 92
Thanks! Long is probably not what I'm looking for -- I'm doing a survey of 2500 years -- but I've taken a note, ta. It does look good.
those who have spent evenings explaining the federal budget process to Rotary Club audiences in rural Georgia, or worked the graveyard shift in a potato chip factory.More than anything, this reminds me of that Charles Murray quiz we've all spent the last few days mocking.
97: I doubt that was Kilgore's intent.
Occupy may change things.
It's amazing to me that American homeowners lost 15 trillion dollars in equity and retirement saving, more or less, with no rebellion after 3-4 years, but they did. Occupy speaks to them. The Teaparty and the media deceive them. The Democrats ignore them. We'll see.
Murray is a racist populist with conservative or libertarian biases. Kilgore is a fairly mainstream Democrat who proposes a more populist approach. I believe that he's allied with Carville and Mudcat Somebody. I don't really trust any of those guys, except compared to most of the other Democrats and all of the Republicans.
I think Occupy has already changed things, frankly, and not in the way that the Tea Party did. I dearly hope that the movement endures; it nearly brings me to tears that it's made as much of an impact as it already has.
The Democrats don't ignore them (the Occupy movement), by the way. Obama's fairness theme for reelection picks up from them.
I got pretty into the first few chapters of Popkin's History of Skepticism last semester. Not exactly what you're looking for, but...
76: I never knew G.P. or his sainted father, so my regard for them is distanced, professional history notwithstanding.
As for "louche lack of affect," I take "louche" as a compliment, although if pressed I should assess my public affect as "diffident and distractedly boyish."
Flip is only milky and opalescent in private.
I think Occupy has already changed things, frankly, and not in the way that the Tea Party did. I dearly hope that the movement endures; it nearly brings me to tears that it's made as much of an impact as it already has.
I agree with this 100%.
101,107
And Lassie, carried by grievous error and cargo plane to the Northern tip of Siberia, struggles through the desert of Mongolia, the teeming masses of India (gaining perfect wisdom in an ashram), through Persia and Turkey, across the Bosporus and over the Alps, does great service carrying toddy to the trenches, finally swimming the English Channel to return to pining Roddy Mac, who had never lost hope. Oh bravest doggy!
The idea and image of the the thing rather than the thing itself makes the liberal misty.
Let me know when OWS scares parsi and teo, and they turn against it. Then I might get interested.
OT: Dean Martin's Matt Helm is almost criminally relaxed at every moment. Had the man nerves at all?
Two OWS related posts from Richard Estes
Tears Gas, Rubber Bullets, and Mass Arrests in Oakland
Estes Contretemps with Jane Hamsher Hamsher thought, or pretended to think, that pseudonymous Estes was a corporatist troll for objecting to the way some elitist OWS sites are treating the homeless.
Back to reading about Paris 1871, farther than which, though very similar in style, this movement will have to go to influence capital and its tool Obama
David Gregory is a terrible person and an ass:
Why doesn't that appear to be a more poll-tested position, which is if you really want shared sacrifice, then the middle class should pay taxes, too. I mean, roll back the Bush tax cuts for everybody rather than looking at the, you know, just having the rich pay more, which you look at polling and see that you have some political for. If it's shared sacrifice, why not say to everybody, everybody's going to have to do with less in terms of a social safety net, in terms of taxes and all the rest.
Idle thought of the day: Is there any world in which people are *better* served by having to ask their mentors and employers for letter after letter of support or reference? I know my young people badly need the money, but every time I have to do a letter for a piddly $500 or $2000 scholarship or program I get a little more angry at a system that is set up to force them to grub constantly for all the little pieces of money they can, instead of being able to, I don't know, concentrate on their education or something.
It wouldn't be so bad if every single one of them didn't have their own dumb online forms, forbidding me to cut and paste or upload a PDF of the letter I've already written.
And don't even get me started on Teach for America and the other programs that unethically encourage marginal applicants just so they can brag about how selective they are.
Stupid system. Really, is there a world in which this dog-chasing-its-tail makes sense? I think not.
If this is now one of those threads where we just start posting whatever, I'll wonder if anyone else dislikes the look of most instagram photos.
111: I have given serious consideration to doing a few charts showing the sacrifices that middle-income people have been making over the past 30, and especially the past 4, years. I really think that some vivid visuals would help to change the conversation.
I may yet do it, although I have ten or twelve other projects lined up before that that actually relate to my job.
Who schedules a meeting for 8:15 in the morning? Is that what people with real jobs have to put up with all the time?
115: It's best when your day starts with a conference call with Europe at 6 am and continues (not "ends") with a conference call with Asia at 10 pm, because after a few days of that you lose the will to struggle under the weight of the slab of marble-hard concentrated bullshit crushing the breath from you.
Samir Amin reviews the latest volume from Immanuel Wallerstein. Excellent
The social struggles of the disadvantaged against the power of the exclusive beneficiaries of the new liberalism (a power which is linked to a conservatism that is gradually moderating, in that it accepts evolution and modernity) compel advances that are both political (universal suffrage) and social (freedom of workers to organize, denied at the beginning in the name of liberalism). Nevertheless, the European socialism that crystallizes in this context will be, in turn, gradually integrated with capitalist modernity through the evolution of liberalism, which consequently becomes "centrist" and capable of adopting social postures. The conservatism of the state itself--the Bonapartism of the Third Empire and Bismarck in Germany--is used to speed up the evolution of the liberals themselves. In my opinion, it remains the case that this evolution, which crowns the success of centrist liberalism at the end of the nineteenth century, cannot be separated from the imperialist position of the centers in the world system of capitalism/imperialism.
Liberalism = imperialism and war
We're reading The Marraige Plot in book club, and I haven't started it, but I can't shake the feeling I'm going to hate it. I think I hate writers who write about novelists, academics, or thinly veiled versions of themselves. If you've read it, am I going to hate it? Maybe I shouldn't ask.
Oh damn. I'm not near a comptuter, either, to go patch that up.
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Extrapolations from small datasets:
1. Based on a ten-minute walk: Wisconsin residents spit in public about 10^5 time as much as other Americans.
2. Based on my Facebook wall: we will hit the singularity at which the entire internet becomes people re-sharing things that George Takei found amusing within the next 24 hours.
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118: I've never read that. BUT! You hate campus novels, heebie?! Insanity. No Groves of Academe, Pictures at an Institution, Eating People Is Wrong, Lucky Jim, Straight Man, etc.?
Let me know when OWS scares parsi and teo, and they turn against it. Then I might get interested.
Oh, WTFever, bob. If you want your revolutionary movement, this is it. Take it or leave it.
Who schedules a meeting for 8:15 in the morning? Is that what people with real jobs have to put up with all the time?
No, at least IME meetings are not usually scheduled any earlier than 9, although in our office most people do start work at 8.
I'll wonder if anyone else dislikes the look of most instagram photos.
I'm not all that fond of it.
111: The media really has it in for the middle class. I'm a little puzzled by why that is, but they viscerally hate anything that's a middle class entitlement, or a tax increase on the rich that doesn't hit the middle class as well. They're not big cheerleaders for policies that benefit the poor, like the EITC, or SCHIP, but they don't seem to be involved in a relentless campaign to destroy them, either.
127: Fear of association? The media is (now) mostly middle-class precariously working for the upper-class, and they have internalized the need to betray no loyalty to their own? The working media by definition still have jobs, and survivors' guilt has caused them to assume that only employment is morally justifiable?
...Also, doesn't a lot more actual money flow to the middle-class? Maybe the editors are just putting the vitriol where the highest potential savings are.
100
Murray is a racist populist with conservative or libertarian biases. Kilgore is a fairly mainstream Democrat who proposes a more populist approach. I believe that he's allied with Carville and Mudcat Somebody. I don't really trust any of those guys, except compared to most of the other Democrats and all of the Republicans.
Since Mudcat Saunders apparently sleeps beneath a Confederate flag bedspread perhaps the difference from Murray is not so great.
115: Thanks for posting that, I knew had a 7:00 this week, and checked and turns out it is tomorrow morning. This week I have meetings M,T,W,Th: 7, 7:30, 8:30, 7. Friday as usual has nothing early (in part because we are often picking up the Aussies* in the early calls and avoid their Friday evening).
*WA variety.
99
It's amazing to me that American homeowners lost 15 trillion dollars in equity and retirement saving, more or less, with no rebellion after 3-4 years, but they did ...
That's because your arithmetic is off. People don't care so much about paper losses offsetting prior paper gains. Actual out of pocket losses to homeowners (as opposed to their lenders) have been considerably less.
127, 128: Divide and conquer. The upper middle class doesn't have enough money to buy elections, but it has enough money and education to have a public voice -- if it lines up with the rest of the population, it could take on the wealthy. So long as the middle/upper middle class perceives the welfare state as a pure drain on it, which it has no benefit from, it will think of its interests as lining up with the upper class, not the working class, and the upper class is safer.
Populism in the Democratic Party is associated with Southernism for reasons that are not clear to me. It may be that the Populists were the least reactionary Southerners ever (the Southern New Dealers were pretty dubious).
Go fuck yourself, Shearer. My sister lost all the equity on her house plus about a third of her retirement IRA. She cares, but doesn't know which way to turn and I don't know what to tell her, since the Democrats are in the pocket of finance. Mostly we're just trying to figure out a way for her to survive, whether via bankruptcy or foreclosure we don't know.
Probably the biggest experienced significance of this is the destruction of individual and family plans for retirement.
I think I hate writers who write about novelists, academics, or thinly veiled versions of themselves.
Actually, I rather like John Irving.
The upper middle class doesn't have enough money to buy elections, but it has enough money and education to have a public voice -- if it lines up with the rest of the population, it could take on the wealthy.
Indeed, I think this is part of what's going on with OWS, and why it scares the hell out of the plutocrats and their lackeys in the media.
118: My maybe similar pet peeve is novels that ask you to read something else by an imaginary other writer (who is secretly the actual writer! Ok not secretly but the conceit drives me mad for some reason.) So like I wanted to fling...um...um...the A.S. Byatt book about graduate students researching some oh so wonderful author from the past that everyone loved one year and then they turned it into a truly risible film with Aaron Eckhard, because so many PhD students look like him...I started to say Obsession but that's a Thompson Twins song and I mean Possession, right? Oh I forgot there was a verb back there: ...across the room, forcefully.
This also means I'm probably doomed never to read Pale Fire beyond the introduction.
Apparently also not Thompson Twins.
111: The media really has it in for the middle class. I'm a little puzzled by why that is, but they viscerally hate anything that's a middle class entitlement, or a tax increase on the rich that doesn't hit the middle class as well. They're not big cheerleaders for policies that benefit the poor, like the EITC, or SCHIP, but they don't seem to be involved in a relentless campaign to destroy them, either.
The American poor have already been so fucked over, it is almost impossible to do anything more against them without actually going around punching people in the face. This is my working assumption.
The poor are also probably fairly invisible to the upper class. Plus, there's not much left to cut and I'd bet most of the rich would prefer not to see themselves as monsters. The middle class on the other hand appears to have nice things already, so why can't they cut cut cut.
Possession drools; Pale Fire rules.
Possession was all the rage when I was in college, but I only finally got around to reading it in 2005.
When I did my overall impression was: "Hugh...this is a David Lodge novel with delusions of grandeur."
This also means I'm probably doomed never to read Pale Fire beyond the introduction.
My twin! I adore Lolita, but can't abide Pale Fire.
Smearcase, I'm sorry to have taken Pale Fire back! Don't consider it doom. It's a really good book. I just need my notes for my independent study student.
I'm meh on Lolita, but adore Pale Fire and Ada. I thought about having Independent Study Guy read Ada but 700 pages of pornographic incest might be a bit much for me conversationally.
But wait Lolita uses the same gimmick.
111: Gregory was notably awful this morning; he also pressed the notion that gov't investment in alternative energy was pretty much the same thing as what Romney did with Bain Capital, 'cuz, you know, it's all venture capitalism.
Well, no, Bain is in private equity investment, and that is different, sorry. David Axelrod (the interviewee) should have called him on that.
146: As what? It seems very stylistically different to me from much of his other work.
148: the frame of being the work of another writer?
(I've never read Pale Fire, incidentally)
127: The media really has it in for the middle class. I'm a little puzzled by why that is
FWIW, I'm pretty sure David Gregory, anyway, was dutifully fulfilling his he said/she said function, giving voice to the 'argument' from the other side.
I don't in the least say that the mainstream media doesn't have it in for the middle class in various other ways(they're the primary targets of advertising, after all).
The John Ray frame is kind of a different beast, though.
How do we feel about Look at the Harlequins?
AWB: I had it for six months--your recall of it has nothing but nothing to do with my doubts about getting through it. I read the introduction immediately, and enjoyed it, and then got to the poem and just was not feeling it.
I've never read The Hours, but based on the awfulness of the movie it's got to be among the worst offenders in this genre.
JP, if one your W. Aussies is the author Tim Winton, please tell him I really loved Breath. Cloudstreet was OK for me, but certainly I understand the appeal to a larger readership.
155: Then go right to the notes, and refer back.
Although those notes, in conformity with custom, come after the poem, the reader is advised to consult them first and then study the poem with their help, rereading them of course as he goes through its text, and perhaps, after having done with the poem, consulting them a third time so as to complete the picture.
157: If he ever comes on the phone I'll be sure to mention it*.
*Who am I kidding, I'd never remember; I cannot even recall the excellent drink JRoth** recommended the other evening***.
**JRoth complements my lack of food and mixed drink knowledge quite well.
***Brief meetup report: JRoth left his sick wife, I my job, and Cosma whatever the hell he does all day, to be exposed to a bit of somewhat satisfactory science. Moby freeloaded by showing up for drinks without the learning part. Among other topics, JRoth expressed curiosity with regard to teo, and we filled him in to the best of our ability.
OT: Attention reprobates, degenerates and pervs:
I have now, thanks largely to your malign influence, met two women through OKC. They both seem very nice, the one I met this evening perhaps slightly nicer.
With respect to this situation:
1. In the words of Steve Dallas after he changed the name of "Deathtöngue" to "Billy and the Boingers" under Congressional pressure, "Nobody give me any trouble."
2. The woman I met this evening* suggested, at the end of our get-to-know-you** for tea and cake, that we might meet for a meal during the week. What would be the optimal follow-up tactic? An e-mail this evening? Tomorrow morning? Suggesting lunch or dinner, at her convenience, on Tue., Wed., Thur.?
3. I hate you all.
4. See item (1).
* Laugh it up, animals.
** Precisely the term used for introductory meetings with investment bankers and prospective investors. This is depressing or, I guess, charming, if you're crazy.
No Groves of Academe, Pictures at an Institution, Eating People Is Wrong, Lucky Jim, Straight Man, etc.?
Easy - never read 'em! Who knows what I'm basing this on. John Irving irritates me. Maybe Saul Bellows too? Maybe Wallace Stegner and Crossing to Safety which I ended up not completely hating?
I have a stereotype of a male writer who is just too pleased with himself by half, painting a smirkingly troubled-but-actually-glorious picture of being a writer or in academics or both.
160: I'd say e-mail tomorrow morning suggesting lunch later in the week.
160: Email now proposing one specific time. Least hedging, maximal mutual face.
Count me in as loving Pale Fire, Lolita, and Ada. But I also love The Defense, Transparent Things, and Invitation to a Beheading.
Transparent Things reminds me of As I Lay Dying in that B grade movie kind of way. Love those books.
Are you sure that doesn't send the wrong message? I'd email at 11:18 am, to come across as interested but not over-thinking it.
163, 164, 166: God damn it, people, now I'm twice as anxious.
I love Lolita and Invitation to a Beheading, and couldn't follow Ada but it seemed pack full of things I might like explained to me.
160: we might meet for a meal during the week. What would be the optimal follow-up tactic? An e-mail this evening? Tomorrow morning? Suggesting lunch or dinner, at her convenience, on Tue., Wed., Thur.?
What are you saying? Did nothing suggest itself in the course the getting-to-know-you?
Well. Email not tonight (too soon). Tomorrow. Suggest Thursday evening for dinner.
160: email on Friday suggesting breakfast tomorrow.
167: Intentionally misspell a word in your email, then send another email correcting yourself, and then a third second-guessing whether the second email was too much. Trust me.
OT: professional acquaintance killed himself. Left five kids behind. So sad. Recently lost a political race to another friend of ours. Ug.
Play hard-to-get, Flip. It works in all the RomComs.
I think it's actually anxious people who play The Rules. Also, now is a normal time to plan the week.
Just send it, flip; if she likes you it will make her happy.
Wow, Will, that's terrible news. I'm sorry.
Oops. Sorry flip. Not trying to steal your lovethunder. Go forth and be merry.
Of course, if you *really* liked her, email tonight to say that you really enjoyed that! and would much like to have dinner on, say, Thursday, if convenient of course. (I'm big on Thursday.)
No, no. Swap phones with her, but neither of you realize it. Then get struck by lightning and switch bodies but keep your mind. Realize you never understood quite what it was like in another's shoes before. Kiss.
I think it's actually anxious people who play The Rules. Also, now is a normal time to plan the week.
People who are insufficiently neurotic to manufacture their own crazy.
172: Jesus Christ, that is horrible.
"Lovethunder" would be a good name for a band.
Mention Will's acquaintance in the email to her.
Oh my, Will. All I can think of is his family's shock. So sorry.
Mikey shows you how to get it done (from Swingers).
In my mind's eye you people were more helpful.
185: Weirdly, I thought that too. Not that you mention him directly, but just as a sort of 'I'm a bit distracted' note.
Flip, I'm with clew in 175. Don't over-think. Check your calendar for conflicts and send her some "I'm free on X" choices so she can check hers in turn and get back to you.
Will, that's horrible. That couldn't just be over losing an election or appointment. No?
Don't overthink it, Flippanter! Not that you should listen to me; my track record at successfully dating anyone I haven't already known for at least a month is abysmal.
On the theory that you don't want to be with someone who analyzes the time an e-mail is sent extremely closely, e-mail her between 3 and 4 this morning. Then, analyzed at great length her response to determine if she analyzed the time you sent your e-mail.
Note: Do not refer to the time sent in your e-mail, and especially don't say you were up late because you couldn't stop thinking about her and the prospect of seeing her again fills you with unbounded energy.
Second note: I have actually composed e-mails late at night for professional purposes (job applications, inquiries, whatever) and then woken up at 8 or 9 to send them - making sure that the timestamp showed 8 or 9, usually requiring an inconsequential edit like adding and erasing whitespace - so that I'd appear to be someone who keeps reasonably regular hours. And then gone back to sleep.
189: Sooner is nicer, flip. I don't think there's much difference between tonight and tomorrow, though. (Although if you might want to luncheon with her on Tuesday, actually, maybe tonight is better.) Or you know, tell her the blog you hang out on has brought you the revelation that life is short and uncertain and would she like to fly to Paris with you this weekend?
I'm with heebie and parsimon. Definitely make the email about will's acquaintance.
Be the ball not really caring, Flip.
I have a stereotype of a male writer who is just too pleased with himself by half, painting a smirkingly troubled-but-actually-glorious picture of being a writer or in academics or both.
Some of the very best campus novels are by women..."Groves of Academe" (Mary McCarthy), "Moo" (Jane Smiley), and several classics by Alison Lurie .
Note: Do not refer to the time sent in your e-mail, and especially don't say you were up late because you couldn't stop thinking about her and the prospect of seeing her again fills you with unbounded energy.
Right. If you have to explain the timestamp say you couldn't sleep and were masturbating to pornography.
Or you know, tell her the blog you hang out on has brought you the revelation that life is short and uncertain and would she like to fly to Paris with you this weekend?
That's a much better spin on it than parsi's.
Flip, if you don't jump on this opportunity ASAP someone else might get her. It's like buying a house. Are you free for breakfast tomorrow morning?
Will, very sad...sorry.
OK, reprobates, I just e-mailed her and suggested dinner Tuesday or Wednesday, indicating that I would be happy to travel to a place convenient to her.
Definitely say that you want to luncheon.
(insert banned smiley-thing here)
Probably you should ask her if it's appropriate to insert the banned smiley-thing before just plowing right ahead.
OT: The Grey is pretty good. The end may be problematic for imbeciles.
202: That's the way, Flip. Now, if it turns out the restaurant is twenty uphill miles away, leave time for replacing a slipped chain and use lots of Ban.
202: indicating that I would be happy to travel to a place convenient to her.
You slut.
202: It's going to be damned agonizing waiting for her response. You should probably schedule working out, just in case.
Just send an email saying you have wonderful etchings at home and you're wondering when would be a good time for her to come over and enjoy them.
Isn't there supposed to be something about Mutumbo? Third date?
Now quickly send a follow-up email as somebody else attesting to your many fine qualities.
208: I would be embarrassed to reveal how often I quote to myself the barbarian character in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy:* "You can never have too many knives." "Better to do it than to live with the fear of it."
* Which is pretty good w/r/t five out of six POV characters, not a bad score, really.
210: You have the recognition signals worked out? Mickey Mouse ears work well IMX.
What's the betting line on "Funny, turns out she's moving to Sweden?"
I tend to feel that if you like someone you should go ahead and express that, and if they don't like you, they can go ahead and express that. No sense in putting it off, either way. Good job on the follow-up. Not lunch, for sure, on a second date.
You should probably schedule working out, masturbating to pornography just in case.
If you guys want to start a second thread where you just dine on my pain make fun of me in my hour of vulnerability without my inhibiting presence, well, you know, Godspeed.
In my mind's eye you people were more helpful.
The first rule of asking for dating advice from Unfogged: do not expect to receive useful advice. The second rule: do not take any of the advice you do receive.
What is the making of shit? You think you have so much more dignity than the rest of us fools that you can't go out with a new person? Plenty of us either are or have been single and talked about that. I don't know where the shame thing comes from. What exactly is the pain in having gone out with people and liking them?
215: I think I said something brief but stupid like "I enjoyed meeting you." Succinct but positive enough, if not deathless?
212 On the off chance that she has read it, I'm suggesting not mentioning that you were inspired by that character when e-mailing her.
218: After all the advice we gave you, teo? Y'all are an ungrateful lot, I will tell you what.
219: Obviously one shouldn't have to look for love and companionship; it she they same should fall from heaven without grubby effort or self-consciousness on one's part.
What exactly is the pain in having gone out with people and liking them?
The awkwardness at the start of the meeting, worries that whatever feelings there are won't be mutual, general neurotic attitude towards life?
220: I think the follow-up is more important. I've had first dates all about how I'm the most extraordinary charming princess ever encountered and that does not in any way mean they want to see me again. The follow-up says what you want to say, and the sooner the better in case of not having been particularly expressive in that direction.
After all the advice we gave you, teo?
Where do you think I learned those rules?
The awkwardness at the start of the meeting, worries that whatever feelings there are won't be mutual, general neurotic attitude towards life?
[Curls up in ball on floor, humming that Mogwai tune from the end of Miami Vice.]
223: That is a recipe for celibacy. I can tell you all about that process, should you be considering joining the order.
224: Yes, pain from the difficulty of doing it, but not from one's friends, as if they were born secreting their own source of unconditional love.
225: That's what I said in the e-mail, before the boring stuff about scheduling. Didn't want to get too wordy.
That is a recipe for celibacy.
It's a cookbook! A cookbook!
227: STOP THAT! GET UP! That is no way for an intrepid Nazi hunter to act.
(AWB and I are separated by what, forty years or so? The advice is much the same tho'. Take it.)
Someone should write a road-trip movie script starring Flippanter, teofilo, and AWB. They could travel the country and have interesting dating experiences we learn about.
Or go on a killing spree. One or the other.
Good job on the not asking her to lunch, by the way. I would probably have read that as scheduling a "I like you but not that way" discussion, but then, as a commenter on this blog, I am by definition also neurotic.
"YOU'RE PRETTY. I LIKE BOATS. AAAAAHHH FOOD" is succinct and not unromantic. Advice for next time, or an immediate follow-up never hurts.
This seems like the best strategy. (The "Voicemail" one.)
Some of the very best campus novels are by women..."Groves of Academe" (Mary McCarthy), "Moo" (Jane Smiley), and several classics by Alison Lurie .
Yes, but they don't fit my stereotype.
as if they were born secreting their own source of unconditional love
Oh wow that's what that was. Man. I was way off.
I thought it was poop!
Huh. Don't worry about it. You're an interesting man. Don't overthink it, and don't try overly hard, and listen to the woman herself. Assume you're not in this to get laid, but to meet someone you actually want to spend time with. C'mon, you know this.
Semi-seriously, this is a complete online dating win. A couple of days from agonizing over a profile to a date with someone you like enough to want to follow up with? That's spectacular.
If you feel like you are trying to hard, you're probably not trying hard enough at not trying hard, so try harder and not trying. If that doesn't work, you might be overthinking things, so just focus on not trying to try hard to not try hard, and then think hard about whether that's not working for you.
It's amazing Sifu ever got married at all, from the looks of it.
Have you sent the follow-up email about the grammatical or spelling error yet?
Adding: Not that marriage is the be-all and end all. At all.
It's not just about you, you know. The hopes of the entire Unfoggetariat are tied to this date.
Probably only include your regular resumé with the email, Flip; she already knows what you look like, and your skills at stage fighting and tap will be evident when the time comes.
Does OKCupid still have the thumbs up/thumbs down system? Or can only women on the site see that now?
It's really more of a portfolio of your best works than a resume, though.
Thundersnow helpfully points out, "If she's interested in going to dinner, she'll say yes whether you email tonight or email tomorrow morning."
Have you sent the follow-up email about the grammatical or spelling error yet?
No, but I sent a text noting the prior dispatch of the e-mail, in case I misheard her e-mail address. I think I'll go see that movie wherein Gina Carano beats up all those guys now.
I think I'll go see that movie wherein Gina Carano beats up all those guys now.
High Fidelity? Wait, no, I'm confused.
No connection, he hastily added, anti-Freudian-ly.
What if you have the wrong phone number and email?
249 "If she's interested in going to dinner, she'll say yes whether you email tonight or email tomorrow morning."
These things are so counterintuitive.
253: We already exchanged a few coordinating texts in connection with the tea and cake.
Oh shit, heebie has a good point. You should probably post a missed connection, and then print that out and find her apartment so you can show it to her.
255: What if she changed it after your date?
What if she's also going to the same movie? You should probably map out a weird route and wear a trenchcoat and shades.
257: Wait, what if she has? Aw man.
And order a large tub of popcorn.
Would it make you happy if I just stayed home and read Wedgwood's The Thirty Years' War? By myself?
240 gets it exactly right, by the way. Good job Flip.
Have you sent the follow-up text asking if she got the follow-up email about the spelling error?
240 -- He hasn't told her yet that she'll Never Measure Up. Probably a good idea to omit this from the profile, and the get-to-know.
For god's sake, man, you are not fourteen, and what Thundersnow says is absolutely right. Go do something else, and the reply agreeing to a dinner time will show up in due time.
240, 264: Well, I know how to win over the ladies.*
* No I don't.
Hey, she just texted back suggesting lunch on Wednesday.
Wait, is the suggestion of lunch a bad sign?
God damn it.
Remember, if you have sex while she's pregnant, you can make a baby which has sex with the already there baby, and then she'll have twins. This happened to my sister, but then the twins also had sex in utero and she had her own grandbaby.
269: Is it ambiguous whether or not she saw the email? Don't respond yet; I've got the most marvelous advice but this margin is too small.
Does OKCupid still have the thumbs up/thumbs down system?
You mean QuickMatch? That's still there, but I don't think anyone uses it anymore; I got a few dates out of it when I first joined, but that avenue has dried up.
And mazel tov, Flip. You've even motivated me to get off my ass and actually proactively message a couple of women.
269: I'm sure it's fine. Just have a few drinks first to take the edge off in case things go south.
91: Kilgore drives me crazy. Where is Benen going?
269: Lunch is, in and of itself, not a bad sign. Canceling dinner plans for lunch means you're about to get dumped, but if that were the case here she just wouldn't have bothered to write back.
Wait, is the suggestion of lunch a bad sign?
NO. It means she wants to see you again in the light of day, that's all. Maybe she's cautious for any number of reasons. You've had lunch(eon) with people before. Don't sweat it.
Just have a few drinks first to take the edge off in case things go south.
Flip, he's telling you to go down on her at the restaurant. You'll need more than a few drinks.
Bring abalone.
On the first dinner date? That's moving awfully fast.
271: She texted "Great to meet you too! I will write back later! Wed lunch may be best," etc.
what Thundersnow says is absolutely right
This is probably not the sort of mental image I should share, but Stanley? Since you started calling your girlfriend Thundersnow, and what with the things you talk about doing together... in my head, you're dating a horse. Thundersnow is totally a horse name. (A very impressive horse name, of course. Appropriate for the finest Arabian steed. But she's definitely a horse.)
Shit. Flip, have you been using the right font?
281: [Looks around quickly like a cornered animal.] "Font"?
Oh christ there are fonts involved? What a nightmare.
279: tbh, it sounds great. Enjoy the adrenaline!
269: Isn't she the one who suggested another meal this week? She probably has a group of friends telling her, "Not dinner yet! You'll look too eager!" or something. I should not be listened to here, since I have no familiarity with the sign system.
It means she wants to see you again in the light of day, that's all.
Which may mean she's testing for vampirism. Better rub on some body glitter in case she's looking for a vampire.
274: Benen is going to be a producer for Rachel Maddow at MSNBC. And a sometime content provider of some kind, I gather.
Now she's playing hard to get? You should ask for a résume.
279: She's being properly cautious. No big deal. If you can schedule it then, fine, if not, suggest another time.
So Flip, what are you going to wear to lunch?
285: I have to worry about her friends? I'm rustier than I thought.
I initially misread 290 as "what hat" and thought "yeah!"
I think oudemia is right in 285 about the lunch thing. The text of the text sounds like she's busy, but totally friendly, and here's what's not on the agenda: moving immediately to dinner on Saturday night and the hott sexx and then it's over.
I declare this a good sign, actually.
Are you in the flickr group? I think you have some homework.
Jesus, you're not going without boots, are you?
Won't SOMEone just send her the link to this thread?
Put down the brown Doc Martens, Flip. He means real boots.
Off the top of my head: a suit, I guess, in a subtle black-on-grey Prince of Wales check, with black J.M. Weston wingtips, a white or light blue shirt with James Bond cuffs, a white pocket square and a navy or black tie if I go the tie route.
She will write you later, anyway, and more data will be available.
303: yes. No need to get a salad, but definitely order off the menu. Eating your clothes is for a third, fourth date.
I have to wear makeup now?!?!
She wore a little subtle lip color. No obvious foundation or eye shadow. Maybe a little eyeliner. Not that I note such things.
After that, presumably, comes eating your date.
I have actually composed e-mails late at night for professional purposes (job applications, inquiries, whatever) and then woken up at 8 or 9 to send them - making sure that the timestamp showed 8 or 9, usually requiring an inconsequential edit like adding and erasing whitespace - so that I'd appear to be someone who keeps reasonably regular hours. And then gone back to sleep.
Google did an April Fool's joke about being able to send e-mails dated the previous day. I want them to add a feature where you set a specific time when you want it sent.
She wore a little subtle lip color. No obvious foundation or eye shadow. Maybe a little eyeliner. Not that I note such things.
In other words, she's pretty good at applying the makeup. Steady hands are good!
in my head, you're dating a horse. Thundersnow is totally a horse name.
LB said it first! (But I was thinking it for months.)
I'm sure she's a very nice horse.
Taken up particle physics recently, BG?
I wonder if she'd have responded differently to just e-mail instead of text/e-mail. With better experimental design, we might be able to test this next time.
Catching up on the thread:
Geeze, will, that's horrible news. My condolences.
Flip: Lunch is good! It's a perfect intermediate step. See, it didn't matter at all that you sent it with the curly font and the polka-dot background.
Also, 299 is totally amusing because I'm sure my beloved would be able to tell you in about that much detail what he wore on our first date, but I have no idea because I am abysmal at noticing these things. I could tell that they were nice fabrics, though.
Google did an April Fool's joke about being able to send e-mails dated the previous day. I want them to add a feature where you set a specific time when you want it sent.
BG is probably too young to remember the America Online "Flash session" feature in which you could set your computer to automatically dial up and send/receive messages at a certain time.
"Bosoniangirl". You've switched to particle physics?
Maybe not a tie for lunch.
Also, you do realize that if you uncharacteristically wear something dressier for your date, odds are high that at least one person in your office will start a rumor that you are a) interviewing for other jobs, or b) dating.
Not that that should stop you.
The Other Ballad of Thundersnow.
That'll teach me take a break to grab dinner.
odds are high that at least one person in your office will start a rumor that you are a) interviewing for other jobs, or b) dating getting arraigned.
I use Boomerang (the add-on discussed in the link from 315) and it works great. It also has the option of returning a conversation to the top of your inbox at a certain time if the other person hasn't responded to your most recent message. Which is great when you're trying to get people to do things for you: scheduled badgering!
Just to be clear: I am not, in fact, dating a horse.
It also has the option of returning a conversation to the top of your inbox at a certain time if the other person hasn't responded to your most recent message.
And here I thought having the "days elapsed since last reset" counter on your Tivo was bad enough.
Just to be clear: I am not, in fact, dating a horse.
So what would you call it?
"A spirited horse which only a strong hand could .....something something. Could Stanley provide the........ something something this fine horse demanded?"
Incredulous LBJ Aide: We can't come right out and call him a horse-dater!
LBJ: No, but we can get him to deny it.
Back to Flip: You do realize this is the cockblockingest place one could ever imagine, right? So teo's 218 (which I deem to not be dating advice on paradox-avoidance grounds) should be folowed.
At this rate Thundersnow might actually have to comment here in order to alleviate concerns.
As I explained in a different context about a week ago, we cannot be sure that everyone here has Flippanter's best interests at heart.
If Thundersnow wants to be a horse, let her. It's not like it's man on dog or anything.
And that was very ungracious of us, Stanley. So back to the OP, I assume you always give them "Play That Funky Music, White Boy".
Species is a social construct anyway.
332: Stripper/dancers used to love that song. Longer, so more tips, no hard workout.
Hey, I have Flippanter's best interests at heart, to the extent that I know them, which is not much, granted, but I cannot stand to see a grown man who is otherwise fine cringe and twist himself into knots over having a few meetings with a woman. For heaven's sake.
It makes me indignant, apparently.
Hi, thundersnow, if that is you.
I have Flip's best interests at heart and, since my heart is not parsley's, it follows BY LOGIC that she does not have his best interests at heart.
So do horses type with their hooves or their noses?
313 and 319: I didn't get the joke before I googled it.
Thanks Sifu, for the link to Boomerang. I still think it would be awesome if you could send something on Saturday and have it appear as though you had sent it on Friday.
I HAVE AN INTEREST IN FLIP'S HEART
349: Man walks into bar with his girlfriend horse.
Bartender says: We don't serve horses here.
Man says: That's OK, I was going to have the duck.
Bartender says: Fine, but the horse has to leave.
Man: But it's a talking horse with a keen knowledge of politics.
Bartender: Prove it.
Man: How do you register a no vote in Congress?
Horse: Nay!
Man: Name an Ohio Congressman who resigned in disgrace.
Horse: Ney!
Bartender: Get outta here you fraud.
Outside the bar.
Man: Why the long face?
Horse: I guess I should have said James Traficant.
A corollary to 333 is that you don't have to tell us shit either.
Not since the "I'll write back later" text, but that was only about 2.5 hrs. ago. Waiting until tomorrow morning wouldn't really be playing hard to get on her part, but I intend to be anxious and nervous until she replies nonetheless.
One fears that her email reply included all sorts of grammatical and spelling errors, and Flip just doesn't know what to do now, besides adjust his wardrobe for the luncheon.
357: Wait, the sigh in 354 is a reflection on not hearing back between the hours of 9:30 & midnight on a Sunday night from a person you've met once?
No, 354 is a reflection on how pitiable my anxiety's trail of comments is, one showing of Haywire later.
Speaking of which, is it really possible for a woman to corn-row her own hair?
Flip's nerves will fray until, well, I don't know what. It's kind of late, actually.
I intend to be anxious and nervous until she replies nonetheless.
Strong work. Keep it up.
Thanks, kid. Watch and learn.*
* Do neither of those.
In times like these, one must strive to keep down that stiff lower lip.
I have one word for you, plastics "sprezzatura".
Lie back and think of skydiving, Flip. Let time pass, and good things might come. Best of luck on your date.
I hated what little I read of Possession, which made me feel vaguely guilty given the unstinting praise it gets, so I love you all now. Even heebie, who's revealed herself in this thread to be totally evil.
Groves of Academe is fucking funny.
I intend to be anxious and nervous until she replies nonetheless.
Nah, you should pass the time booking a table at the Olive Garden for when she says yes.
And Heebie loses the totally evil title to chris y.
360: Yes, definitely, though I'm skeptical I could ever manage even if I had cornrowable hair. I am not too great at cornrows as it is, but I can flat twist like nobody's business.
369: Possession wasn't great. The secret-history stuff has been done better by others, like Michael Frayn and Tim Powers, and the animus against "The Feminists" was quite striking (though maybe justified in the context of early 90s academia).
Possession wasn't all that bad. The inconvenient abyss between the modern protagonists and their Victorian counterparts was especially obvious in the movie, with Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle being a billion times more sympathetic than Harvey Dent and Madame Goop. Anyway, shouldn't you people be complaining rather more about the novel's rather obvious "evolution" of the modern male protagonist from blunted, droning researcher to his own man poet? Byatt made her contempt for researchers and archivists a little obvious.
I really, really liked The Children's Book but Possession never did much for me, maybe because I was 15 or so when I read it.
I liked Possession when I read it, although I'll cop to some wan page turning during the long poems, and yes, I know that (is one of the things that) makes me a bad person.
||I am ordering some bespoke baby shoes right now. Don't mind me while I plan my window designs and overlook the Wburg Bridge.|>
Possession was one of those books which I read, found somewhat engaging at the time, but which left barely an impression beyond a vague memory of the plot and the "framing".
377: There were long poems? I'm sure I did the same.
378: They aren't bespoke if the cordwainer isn't making a new pair of lasts* for the client's feet.
* Per Lobb: "The last comes first."
Bespoke shoes are terrifyingly expensive, but I imagine little soft-stitched baby shoes, not so much.
Bespoke shoes are terrifyingly expensive....
Tell me about it. Every time I read a quote in menswear blogsylvania from one of the better-known makers, I lose a pint of blood.
Still, as they say, for that price you do get two shoes.
135
Go fuck yourself, Shearer. My sister lost all the equity on her house plus about a third of her retirement IRA. ...
So you can just make up some ridiculous number like $15 trillion and if anyone challenges it, it's suddenly all about your sister.
Oh, these aren't particularly expensive, and as flip notes, not truly bespoke. But they will be adorable and green and I dig them and have you seen the mess that is mass market kiddie shoes???
re: 382
Yeah. I suppose it follows a similar price differential to suits. With bespoke getting on for an order of magnitude more expensive than good-quality non-designer over-the-counter stuff.
Flippanter:
Make sure you ask her whether she wants to sex Mutumbo just to make certain that she isnt an Unfoggeder!
386: That's a plan that can't possibly go wrong!
Sometimes one is amazed that any Unfoggeteer (and, to be sure, one does not except oneself) has had sex, much less managed to marry and/or produce offspring.
383 -- Whatever the numbers, it seems to me that the more important point is the lack of understanding/explanation of the mechanism by which 'rebellion' might restore bubble level real estate or equity market values. Trying to make sure there aren't future bubbles isn't going to cut it.
Emerson's sister, and everyone similarly situated, wants her lost money back. A new housing bubble, facilitated by ever looser money, and restored portfolio value, which would follow from record corporate profits, seem pretty obvious ways to get going in the right direction.
Kids camping out on the courthouse lawn, complaining about Goldman Sachs, doesn't seem all that likely to get this job done, even if they do 'change the conversation.'
'change the conversation.'
I saw Romney the other day talking about "the 1%." I didn't pause by the TV long enough to figure out the context, but I was pleased nonetheless.
388:That is the difference between liberal/moderates and revolutionaries.
Liberals look at existing mechanisms, structures, rules, and institutions and adjust their goals to fit the system. No single payer because no 60 votes. Liberals get a lot of small successes, which they think confirm
Radicals set a goal and say damn the torpedoes. Single payer or die trying, find out how along the way.
Radicals
1) Goal and Commitment
2) ???
3) Achievement.
Moderates
1) ???
2) Tools and Methods
3) Success!
Tell me which is the crazy.
As far as Emerson's sister, she will not get her money back, but completely subsidized single-payer and socialized everything else would probably help a lot.
388 completely confuses me.
the more important point is the lack of understanding/explanation of the mechanism by which 'rebellion' might restore bubble level real estate or equity market values.
I do realize that many people feel that the answer to our troubles is to return to our previous ways, but those ways were obviously leaving a great many people behind, and are unsustainable, in my view.
A new housing bubble, facilitated by ever looser money, and restored portfolio value, which would follow from record corporate profits, seem pretty obvious ways to get going in the right direction.
What are you saying? Are you trolling?
383: Her house was worth $5 trillion, and her IRA was worth $10T. Do the math.
Sorry, no, that doesn't work at all. Emerson is obviously wrong.
391.3: I did notice that almost no-one under 30 expected to ever be able to buy a house, by the end of the bubble (and how could they, if common wisdom seemed to be that house prices would always go up faster than other assets? And that assumption was already priced in?)
391 -- I'm saying that people who lost a bunch of money they were counting on for imminent retirement want their money back. Is that so difficult to get?
You want them to want something else? What? And how's it going to solve their imminent problem?
Can they get their money back? Home value maybe not, in anything like a reasonable time period. 401k? That's a better bet. Mine was in February 2011 just above the earlier peak, which was in October 2007. It's risen and fallen since then, but is now back above the 2007 peak. (And I've shifted to less volatile vehicles.)