I am dismayed to learn that I will miss this weekend's GoTopless event in my town, just as I missed the naked bike ride a couple of months ago.
Not to knock down my hetero street cred, but did you happen to notice that the site appears to be done by the Raelians. They are in the Affiliates and in two nearly hidden links at the bottom.
"GoTopless was founded by the Raelian Movement, which recognizes that life on Earth was created by advanced extraterrestrial scientists."
I like the way that is slipped in seemingly innocuously in the middle.
I noticed the apparent Raelian connection. It's not exactly subtle.
Men really shouldn't be permitted to go topless in public. It's so unseemly.
It is subtle if you only click on the picks.
Will everyone have to go topless? I mean, I will spoil the party without a whole lot of flys and presses.
8: I'm going to shave my back this week. That'll help.
I didn't even realize the Raelians were still around. Weren't they one of those suicide cults?
I hate airports. Don't mind flying at all, but taking off shoes and emptying pockets, leaving behind the Leatherman on my keyring or, worse, forgetting about it and getting nervous that security will notice, squeezing by suitcases because no one checks luggage any more...
Also, yay titties! I hope my sophomoric sensibilities won't offend anyone, especially not to the point of not participating.
Re: Raelians, even broken alarm clocks are right sometimes.
Raelians are the alien-worshipping free love cult. I don't think they're much into suicide.
"I suppose the only reason there isn't one in SF is that it's already legal here."
I don't think that's it. It's already legal in Ohio also and they are doing Columbus. After the court case (which I don't think had anything to do with Raelians), topless women would come downtown and advertise strippers.
Didn't we process through all this
a long time ago?
17: What's weird is that I looked at that guy's shots, don't remember whether I read the thread, actually saved one photo ... and it turns out it's the one ogged called the official titty shot of unfogged. Huh.
I'm going to have to regroup.
Shouldn't it be Raëlian? Maybe it's just casual Friday around here.
17: Bonus points if anyone can tell me what the phrasing of 17 is a reference to.
19: So there isn't a Genesis connection? Shit.
Hmm, maybe it shouldn't be Raëlian. Given that even their own website uses 'Raelian', I can only assume that some diæresis freak edited all of the relevant Wikipedia pages. At any rate, the Genesis connection appears tenuous.
Didn't "the official titty shot of unfogged" link originally go to a picture of a woman with here boobs draped on a keyboard? It doesn't seem to go there now.
I did recognize the wide-eyed in Manhattan shot on the Raelian site as being from the same collection.
I do really like that photo, though. It just says "Golly, me and my braids and my pale, corn-fed breasts never saw anything like this back in Kansas!"
Raelians are the alien-worshipping free love cult who claimed to have created a human clone, presumably to settle an argument.
GoTopless is committed to helping women perceive their breasts as noble, natural parts of their anatomy
Twisty handled this last week.
The wikipedia entry on Raëlism includes the dots over the e, and this interesting dependent clause: "women, who make up a significant minority in Raëlian Church."
the dots over the e
A diaeresis, rob.
30L I couldn't figure out how to spell it, so I said "dots" to avoid your ire.
From that wikipedia page:
Raëlism, or The Raëlian movement, is a UFO religion founded by a former French sports-car journalist and test driver named Claude Vorilhon.
I like the casual description of it as "a UFO religion."
22: Hmm, maybe it shouldn't be Raëlian.
No, it should be ℜ☣⋷⣇␇⑄⍾ñ
as in ℜ☣⋷⣇␇⑄⍾ñ's ❤ ⏔
max
['Which sounds like a awesome Pink Floyd album.']
So anyway, I got kicked out of a bookstore today.
Why? What could you possibly do to get kicked out a bookstore, besides walk in with a drink or food?
Well, it's a bit of an exaggeration to say I was kicked out of the bookstore entirely. I did get kicked out of the textbook aisles, though. For browsing, which is apparently not allowed.
So after that, I was not exactly inclined to hang around the rest of the store either, so I left.
For browsing, which is apparently not allowed.
Wow. That's absurd.
Isn't the point of a bookstore to encourage browsing?
You might have been learning for free. Think where that might lead.
I mean, I understand that a lot of university bookstores put tight limits on access to the textbook aisles. But it didn't seem like the aisles were off limits entirely; there were other students in there getting books. Apparently you're just supposed to go in, get your books, and leave. Which is a plausible policy, I guess, but it would have been nice to have a sign or something.
Isn't the point of a bookstore to encourage browsing?
You'd think so, wouldn't you?
The Phenomenology of Perception is really good.
The topic of this thread probably requires that I share stories about "Breast Fest" at Lefty Liberal College, but it's late and I need to go to sleep. Another time!
I mean, I understand that a lot of university bookstores put tight limits on access to the textbook aisles
I have bought the texts for classes I'm not in. I can't imagine I'm the only one who's done that. Besides, going and seeing what everyone is assigning for various classes is really very fun. You can end up taking a Russian lit class on your own or something. Silly bookstore that doesn't understand this.
50: I used to do this until a professor of mine I was close to talked about what a problem it was. A lot of textbooks are really expensive, and so the (usually struggling) bookstore only wants to order exactly as many as will sell. So freelancers going in and buying the textbooks for a class they're not in usually means that some of the students actually enrolled in the class don't get their textbooks timely and have to wait until the bookstore can reorder. This can mess up the initial weeks of the teacher's reading plan, plus small reorders are even more expensive for the bookstore.
I'm not saying the bookstore teo went to handled this issue well, but it's not silly that they care about that sort of thing.
Yeah, it's perfectly reasonable for bookstores to do this (although that is really the result of how screwed up the economics of textbook publishing is, but that's another issue...). I think it would make more sense for them to just not let students into the aisles at all, and have them give a course list to the bookstore staff, who would then go back and get the books. I think some bookstores do in fact do it that way. Or better yet, have students just order the books from the bookstore online and only come in to pick them up, which the bookstore I went to actually does, and which is probably how I'll get my books when I do.
52: I think that the internet has changed a lot of that. And, well, there is a difference between buying textbooks and texts. I'm not spending $150 on the O. Chem or Mechanical Engineering books. I'm buying the $10 used copy of The Master and The Margarita.
Since I flaked out on asking before, Teo, lemme ask now - are you in the same HP that houses the library of the former Idiot-in-Chief or a different HP?
max
['If so, is this a UP-area bookstore?']
are you in the same HP that houses the library of the former Idiot-in-Chief or a different HP?
Since I don't understand any of that, I'm guessing a different one.
The benefit of teaching history is that most of our books are pretty easily accessible. I've yet to have students have major problems getting books (well, there was a problem with a textbook, but textbooks are difficult). I never bought books from the bookstore past my first quarter or so of grad school, which was nice.
Perhaps also relevant is that the bookstore in question is one of those awful Barnes & Noble university bookstores with a terrible selection of non-course books and acres of overpriced school-branded t-shirts and such.
but textbooks are difficult should read, textbook companies are difficult. They were in the process of changing editions and made a mess of it.
I kind of want to boycott them now, but I'm pretty sure they're the only store in the area that stocks the books I need for my courses. I guess I could see if I could get the books online, but I'm not optimistic. They're pretty standard super-expensive textbooks.
The Master and The Margarita
Bulgakov plus tequila?
56: Since I don't understand any of that, I'm guessing a different one.
Not the one in TX, then.
max
['OK.']
Not the one in TX, then.
No, a different one.
62: I always do that. So embarrassing.
Not very hard, though. I don't think I need to close the windows.
I should go to bed. Good night, guys. Thanks for listening to me whine.
At least this rain seems to have brought an end to the mercifully brief miserably hot part of the summer.
For a day or so, anyway, then the whole process starts again.
Didn't "the official titty shot of unfogged" link originally go to a picture of a woman with here boobs draped on a keyboard?
Just about the only way to figure out what each of the 40 or so sections of English 1A/1B - which you had to sign up for during the previous semester, before course descriptions (aside from the general catalog description) had been finalized - was to check what books the textbook stores had ordered. I dropped one section of 1A in July before my freshman year - I'd signed up in April - when I saw the books on the shelves. I eventually dropped three other sections of English 1A/1B during my first two years - after attending once or twice - and ended up satisfying the composition requirement with Comp Lit 1A/1B.
I used to look at textbook sections to try to find out which translations of "classic" works in languages outside of English seem to be respected enough to use. Once enough used copies from non-textbook stores piled up unread at home, I stopped doing that.
For browsing, which is apparently not allowed.
It's not because they're worried that you'll buy one of the few precious copies of a book for a class you're not taking, it's because the don't want you checking out the book closely enough to be able to go buy it on the internet. There were big scenes at my university's bookstore last year when students were trying to take down the ISBNs from course books.
Kind professors will post the name, edition, and ISBN number of each of their required books online before the semester starts, so that the student can avoid being yelled at by the bookstore.
I'm skeptical of the explanation in 52. The publishers don't allow returns from the bookstores? I find that incredibly implausible.
74. Indeed. It's many years since I worked in an academic bookstore, but no major publisher refused returns (there were a few semi-vanity outfits which did, but they didn't appear on reading lists). I agree that textbooks are overpriced - it's a scam - but ordering estimated take up plus 5-10% is good policy because, you know, there are passing trade customers who want to learn stuff. (Filling the returns bin was a weekly ritual.)
I always confuse gotopless.org with gotopless.gov.
The challenge in SF is to get them to keep their shirts on.
The publishers don't allow returns from the bookstores?
52 makes no such claim.
Raëlism, or The Raëlian movement, is a UFO religion founded by a former French sports-car journalist
Which means that the answer to the question "just how annoying, deluded and entitled can sports-car journalists get?" is no longer "Jeremy Clarkson".
