Don't tell anything. As I said earlier, once the first date starts, the game is afoot.

Also, aside from the privacy issue, large amounts of feedback would make you feel awkward and unsure of what to do.

If it were a friend of yours that I was going on this date with, how would you want me to handle the telling?

If you'd had sex, I'd want details. Seriously though, you've probably said all you should on the matter.

1 gets it right. Next thread.

My sense is that there's a cultural free pass for what happens before a date: you can tell your friends everything, and they can be free with their opinions.

You realize, of course, that you just made that up so you don't have to feel bad about what you've already said.

I think it's only fair to wear this shirt when you see her.

Ned's right.

Unless it is clearly going to be a one-date wonder, and there is a non-identifying anecdote that can be shared for entertainment value in the same way that one might share any amusing moment from one's personal life.

you can tell your friends everything, and they can be free with their opinions. After the date, things get murky.

What crap. Exclude the blog and various blog friends for a moment--that's a problem of number, control of the information, extent of knowledge of the people involved, etc. But, absent some specific justification, you have a moral obligation to tell (RL) friends about how the date went. Especially now that you live in the real world, and not some ridiculous fish bowl like high school, where what you think of a person may be an important part of what the world (for all practical purposes) thinks of her. Just don't be a dick about it. Jeebus.

Be careful what you wish for, Idealist. The next thread is about Harry Potter's grundle.

1 and 5 get it right.

"we went out, we had a nice time" is about as much as it'd be fair to share, imho.

I think you're also in fair ball territory to say whether you think you'll see her again.

In fact, I find blogging/commenting about sex and dating sometimes difficult enough when I'm seeing someone because I'm afraid people will read a post/comment I write and think I'm talking about what's going on in my life right now when I'm really musing about the theoretical or talking about a past relationship. There have been times when I've kept my mouth shut for that very reason.

Like all the times we made love.

pinhole camera on my glasses

You wear glasses?

You wear glasses?

I used to wear contacts, but have been wearing glasses pretty exclusively for the past year. So: yes!

Okay, Tim is still in high school. Moral obligation?!? Is this before or after we pinky-swear over a copy of Tiger Beat?

If it's just a one-off event or it goes nowhere, dish as you wish to dish. But otherwise 1 gets it right with regards to the blog; RL friends, whom we assume you have, as needed for advice.

Wedding photos. Someone don't forget to bring a lightsaber.

Also, I wonder if a parallel discussion is going on elsewhere on the Internet.

5 is right, but should be revised: you should lie to us and provide a self-effacing anecdote about why there won't be another date, regardless of the date's actual outcome. Ideally you'll hit "publish" at the exact moment when she says, "Come back to bed, Ogged." Ensuing diabolical laughter is optional but encouraged.

Put my vote with Ned, Idealist, Witt, Becks, ttaM, and Cala. I already feel bad for this poor girl.

"Come back to bed, Ogged."

You're visualizing Barbara Stanwyk?

I agreee with Tom, in that the ideal outcome has her actually calling him "Ogged", because she's known all about this blog from the beginningg!!!!

you should lie to us and provide a self-effacing anecdote about why there won't be another date, regardless of the date's actual outcome.

I actually suspect ogged of having made this whole thing up, as a means of confounding us.

1 and 3
Then privacy must be respected or else this place turns into a locker room; the nubile juvenile is offended or hurt; and Ogged flunks out. One should hope for a healthier outcome, in privacy of course.

Okay, Tim is still in high school. Moral obligation?

If you don't have real life friends with whom you dish about your relationship, however significant it is, I feel sad for you. If you do have such friends, and you take and enjoy all the little stories that make life so enjoyable, but don't offer any of your own, I feel sad for your friends.

Every time I go out with baa, he asks me to hold him and stroke his hair.

My hair is more silken than the skin of the youngest geisha in Asia

I agree that post-date blogging should be limited to complementary generalizations. No more information than you would tell her mother or father....Until you discover that she wrote details about you on her blog.

I would suggest googling "Safe or not? Dating breaststroking Iranians?" Or perhaps "He Looked Better Wet!" or "Does Cancer Scar= Sex on the First Date?"

My hair is more silken than the skin of the youngest geisha in Asia

Yes, it is.

I fear that this GA lady is going to destroy poor innocent Ogged. Who knows? She's probably posting Ogged's whole genealogy on the intertubes as we speak.

If you crash and burn spectacularly (euphemism for "fail miserably/make a fool of yourself") on your one-and-only date with this young person, it will be fodder for a self-deprecatingly comic post. If things go OK or better than OK, it would make sense to clam up (euphemism for: "stop posting about this") until (i) you crash and burn spectacularly or (ii) you post details of the Ogged/Young Person Wedding Meetup extravaganza.

29: You sure know some obscure euphemisms.

In the thread below ogged said somethign about the Lifeguard writing her e-mails using all lowercase letters. gswift seems to think that this is okay and not a sign of utter cheesiness.

I am generally put off by the lowercase letters thing. I am also not terribly fond of people who are not college professors signing off with their initials.

I've been exchanging e-mails with somebody whom I like, and who, I think, likes me but is extremely busy. (That sounds like a massive rationalization, but I don't think it is.)

I've gotten a couple signed with just his first initial. In a girlfriend I would find this offputting, but I think it may be kind of cute. I also get sentence fragments sometimes. A complete sentence will be followed by "heavy week." Normally, I would judge this pretty harshly, but I think that he may be just so exhausted that he can't muster the energy to do more. I once got an e-mail--after he'd been on call and at the hospital for several hours which said only "I need a drink." In reply to my follow up e-mail he said that he was doing much better, because he'd managed get 4 hours of sleep.

He's also said that he's a slow reader. I'm inclined to be compassionate and find this endearing, but maybe I'm just being a fool. Should I mock him mercilessly? I think that I like him well enough not to share much more than that.

31: Are you a lifeguard?

14: Now I'm imagining Ogged as an Iranian Matt Haughey.

While RL friends might expect a little post-date dishing, sharing the same with your imaginary internet friends without your date's knowledge and consent would be a little crass. Entertaining, maybe, but crass.

The girl I like right now has a blog but I avoid reading it, an effort which requires iron discipline.

The blog has a very silly title, which does assist my self-restraint.

12: "Making love" is not a euphemism for having sex. It can be so employed, but that doesn't exhaust its uses, or strip it of availability, unless you really want to try to decree this. Sometimes it's the most accurate way to describe what occurred.

I thought some of you people were philosophers of language.

32:? No, and I don't live in the Bay Area.

16: Waiting for the wedding photos is too much. We need liveblogging of the proposal.

35: You better recognize or you'll have no chance with teh Becks, parsimon.

38: Recognize?

The girl I like right now has a blog but I avoid reading it, an effort which requires iron discipline.

Holy shit, it does. I would never have the will-power to resist reading my crush's blog. Never.

I'm inclined to be compassionate and find this endearing, but maybe I'm just being a fool.

I think this is the crux of the matter. There is no "is" here -- no objective truth. There is just what you find endearing (or offputting), and/or what you are willing to tolerate.

For some folks, proper grammar and courteous salutations are proxies for taking someone seriously and showing respect. For others, they're unnecessary time-sinks that discourage or paralyze them from writing at all.

If you take a polite e-mail to be a proxy for respect generally, a lack of it may be a signal that this guy will think nothing of calling you 20 minutes after the date is supposed to start, to tell you that he's "just a few blocks away" looking for a parking spot. If you take the typos and sentence fragments to reflect an exhausted and/or dyslexic or otherwise explainably incoherent person, then it doesn't have to be any kind of warning flag.

39: You heard me, cracker.

33: Between the glasses and the homecut hair, I now have an unshakeable mental image of Ogged as looking like an Iranian version of this guy.

Well, I missed all the fun.

Good luck, ogged.

42: Dude, I can Google, and I've heard the phrase. I'm an urban slang retard. With respect to "cracker" as well.

I'm amused, though. Hey! I'll check Urban Dictionary, how 'bout that?

I think it all means in this case: the phrase is banned, so suck it up. Right? Wrong?

Peace.

Right? Wrong?

Dude, all I do on this blog is play word association games with myself.

41: Yes, this is true, and I think that he's really very considerate. Usually he does use proper salutations etc. I wonder whether the shorthand can't be read as signalling a kind of intimacy. He sent me something short and slightly incoherent rather than nothing at all. His earlier e-mails were quite a bit longer and may have taken some effort. I've shortened mine considerably now that I know that he's a slow reader.

I was almost tempted to sign an e-mail "b" (only with my real initial), but then I realized that that just wasn't me. Does signing with a lowercase initial only signal anything?

You'd ban Bad Company, too, wouldn't you?

I'm a lover, not a banner.

I'm surprised that anyone would find signing with an initial or not a noteworthy distinction, but I suppose I shouldn't be.

47, 50: I use various forms of my names depending on how close I am to the person. In a business context it's either my full name or my full first name, depending on how well I know the person.

In a personal context, I sign with my full first name, my first initial, or a nickname, depending. It's almost impossible for me to send an e-mail without a signature -- to me it feels almost unbearably rude. Several friends are trying to disabuse me of this notion.

I tend not to attach this level of importance to other people's signatures, though. Unless they've been writing me forever as "Giselle P. Bunkwich" and now suddenly started to sign "Pookums".

47: I'd guess that he's trying to replicate the flow of conversation with the fragments, and to signal intimacy (or at least, not signal formality) with the nonstandard capitalization. I don't know about the initials thing except that I personally would use whatever happened to occur to me.

E-mail is a medium that is sometimes used very formally (business, school) and sometimes used very informally like a conversation, and I suspect one of the results of this is that using salutations feels too formal for someone you're trying to get to know.

51: Hmm. I'd have to think, because I think whether I'm likely to use a full salutation & signature or not depends not only on whether it's a formal or personal context, but on whether I'm initiating the conversation, or replying to one. (Do you write "Dear So-and-So" for every reply?)

47: I really think you're straining at gnats while not seeing the forest. There's too much nit-picking, don't keep opening the oven door while the cake is rising.

Plus, then the gnats get in the oven, and what do you have then? Burnt gnats on your fallen cake, that's what.

51: Giselle's using her middle name? So what?

Cala gets it right in 52 and 53.

Often enough in e-mail, I'm inclined to use a dear-free salutation. That is, I don't skip it entirely. It's just: "Name, I'm sorry to hear that your grandmother died." (I don't mean to be morbid; it's just that that's a topical line.)

I think I'd find "Dear Whoever" weird in email, but then I find it weird even in paper correspondence.

When I include a signature, it's usually just "-- Name" rather than anything wordy. I'm hypersensitive about who signs emails to me with "Love," though. From anyone other than my dad or my wife it seems weird.

I write "Dear X" or employ other, sometimes yet more outlandish, salutations in my letter-writing practice on occasion, but find it distancing in email correspondence (though sometimes I reciprocate when writing back to someone who's begun in that fashion).

I do use "With love" for some of my girlfriends. There is at least one older person whose correspondence I sign with "Fondly." I use "Love" with my aunt, but most of the time I do just as mrh does: "--Name."

Persons who have changing signature policies regarding email would be well advised to adopt a single .signature file (though I suppose no one actually uses .signature files anymore) whose contents are automatically appended, after the canonical dash-dash-space-newline, to every outgoing email.

Why?

It removes any question from how you'll sign off any particular email, the matter having been decided in advance. Furthermore, none will be able to look for any meaning in the way you sign off any one email, for all emails are signed off identically. Everyone wins.

But I don't want it to say all that when I'm just writing a short response.

"say all that"? My dear, it says precisely as much as you wish it to—or as little. Nor do you have to bother with writing it yourself. Moreover, your responsible, tradition-minded email clients (gmail is one) demarcates everything that follows the "-- " in some way (gmail colors it a dull grey), so that it does not call undue attention to itself. Finally, if you're only writing a short response, you're probably top-posting, an odious practice but acceptable among friends or those whose business must be conducted in haste, while your signature will be appended to the bottom, thereby further lessening the extent to which it interferes with your commerce.

Mine reads thus:

Ben w-lfs-n
"However, identifying what we call 'time' or even 'space', which I shall mention soon, is a very difficult problem, and a philosopher would say that it is an extremely annoying subject."
(Soseki Natsume, "The Philosophical Foundations of Literature")

Amid the pulse and swarm of emails at the start of a romance, I have pressed myself to invent new and different signoffs. Of all I've tried, I like "Ardor," the best. Take it if you like it. But don't say it out loud, it makes you sound like a dog.

65: People with signature files often sign their e-mails too.

Ben,

Thanks for the update. I'll get the revised file back to you by Friday.

--BG

Bostoniangirl X
Office of Professional and Continuing Education
University of X
Street Address
(202)xxx-xxxx

though I suppose no one actually uses .signature files anymore

I use a .sig.

I feel very strongly that Ogged should invite the young lady to post her own account of the date on this very blog. A

I wonder whether the shorthand can't be read as signalling a kind of intimacy.

That's how I'd read it. I actually do this sort of thing myself.

And I often sign e-mails to friends with one initial.

I use a sig file only for work. And I always sign in addition to the file (just like BG's example).

70: Yes, exactly. I even sometimes sign more formally as a way to signal to someone that I am not comfortable with the intimacy they're presuming (like mrh, I don't expect to see "Love" from anyone beyond a small circle).

71: Good to know, teo--especially since this guy seems a little bit shy.

From what you've said, it sounds like he really likes you.

69's suggestion is dead on.

And I often sign e-mails to friends with one initial.

Me, too. My usual sign-offs are "Cheers, (First Initial)" and "[Best] Regards, (First Initial)". I almost always write the name of my addressee at the beginning of an e-mail, generally not with "Dear" but with "Hi". If the e-mail is a reply to something they sent me and especially if it is a reply to a reply, I may not put their name at the top at all.

Suggestions of 69 are always appropriate.

71 is right -- it's common, not too weird. Definitely not cause for mockery.

74: Yeah, I think he does, but we haven't even been out yet. He drove me home once, but that's it really. Mostly we've seen each other in group settings.

I think it's sweet then, and sweet is not a disqualifying characteristic at all. He probably thinks too highly of me. I.e., he thinks that I'm a lot smarter than he is, which is not true. I just have a very good memory for obscure details. Yay, it's nice to have something to be happy about.

Yay, it's nice to have something to be happy about.

Definitely. On a related note, I talked to that girl today.

Good. I'm glad. Your comment in the other thread "Yeah. Stuff." made me wonder how you were doing. I'm hoping that you're doing all right, all things considered.

A couple of my friends started to use the single initial thing in the middle of our friendship, after using first names all the time previously. Maybe we weren't friends before then.

I think there's a case to be made for not including salutations in e-mails. If done right (and with the right person) it can create a feeling of spontaneity and continued conversation that decreases the formality and distance of e-mail and makes it into something closer to in-person conversation.

I'm hoping that you're doing all right, all things considered.

I am. I think I'm coping fairly well with all the stuff going on in my life.

So...how was talking to her? Does she pique your interest?

A pingu for téo.

Signing an email with an initial would feel weird to me. I'm sticking with the tried and true "Big Daddy Swift"

Big Daddy Swift

Ogged, the answer is simple. You just email us all with details about the date; that way it's not publicly available, and she never finds out. We can all be trusted to keep secrets.

Plus, I already have a master email list with the email addys of almost everyone. I'd be *happy* to pass it along.

85: It went well. We chatted for a few minutes, then she had to leave for something. She does pique my interest, a bit, but it's too early to tell if this is going anywhere. I'll stop by and see her again.

hi everyone! i am becks style and i just came from being with becks
i don't feel like going to bed.

Hi Tia!

Hi Tia! Looks like it's hard to use the shift key becks-style. I hope ogged still likes you after this.

i think the ogged-tia tempestuous romance is not to be for other reasons, so i can throw the shift key to the wind.

i am also gmail chatting with clementine. i love the west coast. it's so early

i love my window.

Tia's just full of love tonight.

i love you teo. you are such a good soul.

I love you too, Tia.

Love!

i really feel like i've smoked pot, but i haven't. but i'm really giggly. i think it was becase i went to daveB's favorite bar, which he's talked about so much, it's like a spiritual experience, like there's a glowing crystal in the back room you touch and gain some new life knowledge from, so its' like that atually happened, even though i just had a sidecar

Must have been some sidecar.

well before i had the sidecar i had a jameson and ginger and some knob hill something straight. i never drink straight liquor. i was being daring. outre. i cannot stop laughin. i just went to pee and it took me like ten minutes because i could not foucus on the task at hand.

even though she's not hear i'd like to say that i also love becks, who is also a good soul. really, there's no shortage of good souls.

Unfortunately for me, I'm a robot, and therefore don't have a soul.

though maybe i will start a cartel that will create an artificial shortage, and people will be like, holy fuck, where will i get my good souls, and then there will be a run on teo and becks, and jimmy stewart will have to tell everyone to calm the fuck down, the building and loan is still in business.

A situation where there was a run on me sounds nice. At the moment supply seems to outstrip demand.

you're not a robot. don't be silly. you have as much a soul as anyone.

Such happiness! I'm tempted to go hit the whiskey that my coworker left on his desk.

Feh.

why do you say feh, sB?

I'm bitter. Unlike SOME PEOPLE I could name.

i'm bitter much of the time. it's just that none of us are really stable coherent people, more like a succession of selves, so the me that is bitter is past, and some toher me that is bitter will be agian, but right now, i'm just not bitter.

I'm like a succession of elves.

Tia is Hume?

which of you is snap, which crackle, and whcih pop?

Ask not for Hume the Belle.

look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap,_Crackle_and_Pop

the elves large ears and noses have been downsized over the years. isn't it terrible how mass media won't even let elves be themselves? i'm bitter on behalf of elves.

that last comment was totally by jackmormon

http://images.google.com/images?q=david%20hume&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

are you sure i can't ask? cuz i'd totally hit that.

Careful, he's Scottish.

Tia, what are you doing on the west coast? I should go check your blog, huh?

mm...maybe i could have a threesome with him and my darling ewan.

no, no clementine is on the west coast. it's early there, and that's why i like it, because people are awake. but she just went to bed, because she had hip surgery two days ago and she threw up a lot today. so now i hate the west coast. except relaly i should hate hip surgery. except hip surgery will make her feel better. so really i should hate torn cartilage.

fie! fie on torn cartilage!

Oh right, yeah, having friends on the west coast when you're on the east is cool. The other way round kinda sucks, though--at least, by the time you're home and chatting, half the time you're in bed. Yay for late-night east-coast friends!

And boo for throwing up. Poor Clementine.

Yay for late-night east-coast friends!

Thanks.

If you are still there, hi Tia!

Ogged, you are very brave. I'm assuming you aren't terribly plugged into the local Iranian scene and aren't likely to have any connection with her Iranian roommate? The thing is, you're kinda famous, and I'd be concerned that some young Iranian man a) reads this blog b) got a phone call from her roommate. For that reason alone, I don't think you should say another word until you are sure of where things stand. Good luck!

Come to think of it, I don't think we have any other Iranian commenters.

Ile, much as I'd be tickled to believe that my massive celebrity requires me to be cautious, I can't imagine that that's true. Not that many people read this site, and the chances that one of the readers is also friends with some random woman's roommate seem ignorable. Anyway, what if it did happen? "Read the comments, baby, I couldn't cheap nookie you if I tried."

"Read the comments, he likes women who are outdoorsy but he himself hates the outdoors."

"Oh, this one is easy."

"Not sure if his friend is gay though. Something about wizard cocks."

119.---Hey!

Don't even try to deny it.

1) I capitalize my letters.
2) I embed my links.
3) I was asleep at the time, all tuckered out after an evening of being condescended to.

129, good point. Perhaps, however, I will stop telling all the young Iranians I meet to read Unfogged.

133: You make a good case.

I FUCKING HATE GRAD SCHOOL.

That is all.

I have a date! Yay!

Congrats, pdf.

#133 -- you should have been at daveB's favorite bar, jackmormon. no condescension *there*, although there *was* an abundance of jackmormons, and some talk of a smackdown to see who was the most jackmormony jackmormon of all.

I was practically a jackmormon when I was a mormon, yo.

(I went out to a really nice dinner for my honey's mother's birthday. I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable with ancien regime etiquette.)

when i swear, i swear by jesus, mary, and joseph fielding smith

What's wrong, cala?

I used to wear turbans at Girls' Camp.

Or, as I refer to it in mixed company, Camp Mormon For Girls.

my church-going inlaws store wild turkey under the sink

And you better watch it, Literary H. Dogfight. Don't be takin' my great-great-grand-daddy's name in vain.

you're descended from jesus? which wife?

142: my dissertation is smarter than I.

Joseph F., and the last one, with the Germanic name. (I ain't saying more in open.)

you're royalty

but i only recently threw away my last remaining set of glass grapes.

which means i'm *totally* jack. i don't even want the kitsch cluttering up my closets.

Only metaphorically, and only in Mormon circles, which totally didn't help me out last night.

You actually owned glass grapes? Please tell me you inherited them from a grandmother.

Glass grapes?

My grandmother has a beautiful glass grape tree. I mean, I thought it was great when I was 8, and it must have been a pain in the ass to make; I sure wouldn't want to own it, though.

I didn't really realize it was such a pervasive cultural signifier, but all of my grandmother's LDS friends have them. I'm cracking up over here.

i had received them as a gift from a friend. my mother was too young to make her own.

don't even ask, cala.

i'm off to buy food. but don't think you're winning this smackdown, jm.

i would have mailed them to you if i'd known where to send them. when i threw them down the garbage chute i said a silent prayer and let them go. it felt downright sacreligious.

Bring it.

Next up, Armsmasher and I will debate who is the backslidingest Baptist.

Googling "glass grapes lds" seems to indicate that it's a kitchy hobby of some sort.

I think I could probably beat all of you. I'm a lapsed Mormon *and* a lapsed Baptist. (My parents were very confused religiously when I was growing up.)

Here is some anthropological data. Apparently there was a burst of glass grapes onto the Mormon scene in the 1960s that died out dramatically in the 1970s; I'm guessing that instructions were included in some semi-official church publication for Homemaking Activities night. Apparently they're made with a melted resin compound, which probably means that Homemaking night was toxic for lo many years.

Oh! So they're not glass at all, they're some kind of polymer. I was thinking they were like Harvard's glass flowers. . .that does sound kinda dangerous.

After Smith's death, his successor as church president, Brigham Young, married between seven and nine of Smith's widows. Young's counselor, Heber C. Kimball, married 11 more.

Wife list

You're talking about Joseph Smith, Jr., Emerson. Literary and I were talking about Joseph Fielding Smith, son of Hyrum, Joseph Smith Jr.'s elder brother.

Speaking of multiple wives, you know what's awesome? AP articles on the front page of Yahoo news about Mitt's polygamous ancestors. Bonus point for Mitt's wife making a dig at McCain and Giulani's multiple marriages.

From the link in 165:

While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

WTF? It's not like he's denying Mormons ever practiced polygamy.

(raises hand) Lapsed Quaker, lapsed Jew, lapsed United-Church-of-Christist.

Parley Pratt has always been one of my favorite names for a Mormon Apostle.

Teo, what I hadn't known was that Romney's dad had been born in one of the polygamous Mexican colonies. That brings it a little closer to Mitt himself; granted, not close enough for reasonable people, but the article's a nice hit piece, nonetheless.

Jeez, Clownae, you lose three religions, you start to look a bit careless.

Also: today we were celebrating a belated Lunar New Year in Philadelphia with other members of our China travel group (i.e. four other families who traveled to China to adopt at the same time we did); one of the girls has become very enthusiastic about presidential politics and was exhorting everybody to vote for Giuliani. Sylvia told her she was a Democrat, and they argued about that for a little while before going back to chasing each other up Arch St.

I think I had heard the bit about his connection to the Chihuahua colonies, which I agree brings it closer to him, but it still doesn't have much to do with his personal stance on polygamy. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the part I quoted wasn't the first sentence of the article.

WTF? It's not like he's denying Mormons ever practiced polygamy.

I'm loving this. A lot of Mormons have drunk the Republican Kool Aid, and it's going to be great watching them get a taste of just who they aligned themselves with. How are those Southern evangelicals looking now, motherfuckers?

169: Yeah; but then it's not like I ever identified with even one of them very closely. I'm not sure "lapsed" is actually the correct adjective, maybe "lapsed non-observant" or so.

The biggest difference between her husband and the other candidates, Ann Romney said, is that "he's had only one wife."

Now there's a woman who understands how to play this game. Nicely done, Mrs. Romney. And re 166, that is really, really weird. I mean really: "While [insert candidate] condemns slavery, the Democratic presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five slaves and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12."

How are those Southern evangelicals looking now, motherfuckers?

Hell yeah, dumbasses. Enjoy your roommates.

I wonder where this hit piece came from. I also wonder what the Mexican polygamous colonies were like; the Canadian ones turned into nice little communities and have, I think, basically normalized.

My great-great-grandfather used to travel between them all to marry people, which he really shouldn't have done, having sworn up and down that the practice of polygamy was all kinds of over and no longer God's will and all that.

This book looks like a good place to start. The description doesn't mention polygamy specifically (probably because the talks about Mennonites too), but it's got to be a big factor in the patriarchal system described.

That would be a good place to start, thanks.

It was a hit piece, I totally agree with you about that, but, man, the news that his dad was raised among that community does rattle me a bit.

#164 -- you're nudging ahead with this one, jm. the son of hyrum you're talking about is typically referred to as "joseph f. smith." the one known as "joseph fielding smith" was church president much later in the 20th century. he was the one who had to die before the others could finally ditch the racist baggage.

i like swearing by his name because it has three full words. saying "joseph fielding smith" is kind of like saying "jesus fucking christ." occasionally i say "joseph fielding smith on a popcicle stick" just to keep the rhythm up.

Crap, I shouldn't get confused about this. What was the relation of Joseph F with Joseph Fielding again?

I also wonder what the Mexican polygamous colonies were like; the Canadian ones turned into nice little communities and have, I think, basically normalized.

I think it depends on the community and what you mean by normalized. One of the polygamous types was arrested this summer in Canada on numerous counts of something or other. I'm not sure if there's a larger LDS community around though.

Cardston! Founded by a pioneering polygamist whose descendents include me and Orson Scott.

joseph fielding was joseph f's son.

joseph f. was the one with the fucking long beard.

[Looks up the genealogy. Double-checks.]

Awesome. That's where my branch gets off, then. I had always confused the two, though the timelines weren't making sense. Woot! I don't have to feel personally implicated in Joseph Fielding Smith, who's only, like, a polygamous half-brother to my great-grandfather! Joseph Fielding has really always seemed like one of the villains in the history.

hell yeah. he perpetuated a lot of nasty stuff, way too late in the 20c. and he had no facial hair. i think they lost their edge once they started shaving.

If you really want your theocrats bearded, I bet our good host could hook you up.

(To bed, me.)