Reflections, Reflections

Today, inspired by a blogging thread over at After Grog (don´t ask me what it means, maybe an Australian ET?), I just needed to hear Di Quella Pira, by Verdi. It was like a thirst. I must have listened to it almost 30 times to quench the thirst, even though the "Di Quella Pira - Domingo" CD I have sounds like it was recorded by a cassette recorder coupled onto a buzzing mixer. I made a vain attempt to ignore all the static, usually failing, the grating noise dragging me down from heaven every time I started to fly up there. Not downcast by this unfortunate fiendish noise mixed with the music, I went on to find out what the libretto says.
I cannot listen to operas without knowing what in the world they are getting all worked up about.

The words are perfect for the music, something that does not always happen in opera. No surprise to find out Il Trovatore is the most bizarre story, which I find off-putting, like many other operas, everyone doomed, that turbulent, heart-wrenching scenario that menaces you in nightmares. If I wanted this kind of human darkness, I would watch the grotesquely violent R movies that are dysfunctional "entertainment" fodder these days. Or just watch the evening news.

Here is the Quella Pira situation, the plot that leads to this is much more bizzare:

Just as Manrico takes Leonora’s hand to lead her to the altar of the chapel, Ruiz rushes in with word that Azucena has been captured by the besiegers and is about to be burned to death. Already through the windows of Castellor the glow of flames can be seen. Her peril would render delay fatal. Dropping the hand of his bride, Manrico, draws his sword, and, as his men gather, sings "Di quella pira ‘l’orrendo foco" (See the pyre blazing, oh, sight of horror), and rushes forth at the head of his soldiers to attempt to save Azucena.

And then, when I was reading about the famous high C that no one ever told me about, what do I discover? The most amazing thing, old tenors cheat on the very high notes! Why am I always the last person to get filled in re these juicy opera tidbits?

The line, "O teco almeno, corro a morir" (Or, all else failing, to die with thee), contains the famous high C.

This is a tour de force, which has been condemned as vulgar and ostenatious, but which undoubtedly adds to the effectiveness of the number. There is, it should be remarked, no high C in the score of "Di quella pira." In no way is Verdi responsible for it. It was introduced by a tenor, who saw a chance to make an effect with it, and succeeded so well that it became a fixture. A tenor now content to sing "O teco almeno" as Verdi wrote it would never be asked to sing it.

Dr. Frank E. Miller, author of The Voice and Vocal Art Science, the latter the most complete exposition of the psycho-physical functions involved in voice-production, informs me that a series of photographs have been made (by an apparatus too complicated to describe) of the vibrations of Caruso’s voice as he takes and holds the high C in "Di quella pira." The record measures fifty-eight feet. While it might not be correct to say that Caruso’s high C is fifty-eight feet long, the record is evidence of its being superbly taken and held.

Not infrequently the high C in "Di quella pira" is faked for tenors who cannot reach it, yet have to sing the role of Manrico, or who, having been able to reach it in their younger days and at the height of their prime, still wish to maintain their fame as robust tenors. For such the number is transposed. The tenor, instead of singing high C, sings B flat, a tone and a half lower, and much easier to take. By flourishing his sword and looking very fierce he usually manages to get away with it. Transpositions of operatic airs, requiring unusually high voices, are not infrequently made for singers, both male and female, no longer in their prime, but still good for two or three more "farewell" tours. All they have to do is to step up to the footlights with an air of perfect confidence, which indicates that the great moment in the performance has arrived, deliver, with a certain assumption of effort -- the semblance of a real tour de force -- the note which has conveniently been transposed, and receive the enthusiastic plaudits of their devoted admirers. But the assumption of effort must not be omitted. The tenor who sings the high C in "Di quella pira" without getting red in the face will hardly be credited with having sung it at all.

Lovely. That´s why sopranos and tenors are the best.

Very funny. Do I look like Dan Rather? From a new blog called Dennis the Peasant - Help! Help! I am being repressed!

Just from the title of the blog, you can tell the guy can be funny.

Exasperated with obnoxious patients in the clinic where she's the office manager, my aunt put up a sign that read: "If you are grouchy, irritable, or just plain mean, there will be a $10 surcharge for putting up with you."

Clearly some people took the sign to heart. That same afternoon a patient came to her window and announced, "The doctor said he would like to see me every month for the next six months, so I'm going to pay all my $60 up front."

From "All In a Day's Work"

This is cool. Smart reactions such as SPW are starting to pop up in society.

One of the best essays on post-modern thought I´ve ever seen. I have been awed.

Two. One to change it and the other to wait for the world to revolve around him.

One of the best light bulb jokes I´ve heard, in my opinion. And God only knows how many consultants I´ve had to observe as being the slime of the world. And fool others into paying millions to them at the same time.

This article is worth thinking about. Not just because it´s one more example of science-babble that the cheap infotainment media has found a market for. There is so much junk-reporting of science studies out there, that I´m not even going to bother critiquing what they are reporting. But I think it´s important because of another point.

Dark thoughts can get you down in more ways than you are often aware of. So, it´s always a good thing to remember to do a reality check and see if you are not falling into a pessimism trap. On the other hand, playing dizzy Polyanna in grave situations can get you dead or in even worse trouble. The trick is not making either of these two mistakes.

Quote from Emile Zola (1840-1902) - Writer

I had seen the media do a big hoopla about this self-esteem study, thinking, "there we go again..." I would like to remind people that the media loves to take one single little study in a very complex field and throw it out in a sensationalist, biased way. You don´t know how this study was designed, and you don´t even know if there are a million other studies that show this is not so. You don´t even know what the researchers here defined as self-esteem, and what exactly were they measuring and how.

Self-esteem is a necessary psychological process for mental health and happiness. I don´t want to make this a treatise on the subject, but it´s just ridiculous to say "because some students with less self esteem have achieved something, self-esteem is a human throw away thing."

This study must make all the people responsible for destroying self-esteem in youngsters ecstatic, they now must feel less guilty, and less stupid. And aren´t there a lot of these kinds of people?

Don´t buy it, self-esteem is fundamental for *life*. It´s a fundamental role of any teacher to "fuel" it in their students.

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Update - Jan 31-2005- Response to AC´s comment to this entry. (Too big to write in the little comment window).

AC, hi,

I appreciated your comments. You actually wrote a lot in little space.
So, let me just say a couple of things. There are a million studies regarding self-esteem in people of all ages, demographics, etc. Published, reviewed, talked about, analyzed, etc. etc.

This statement that you made (that there were no previous studies on self-esteem) is lunacy. And where did it come from? From the stupid grrrr argh %$#@* infotainment misinformation article, yes? I saw a lot of people in blogs repeat the same thing! It was driving me crazy! People who never read a psychology study in their lives were being misinformed en masse. It´s like saying no one ever studied conflict, anger, depression. Psychology literature is filled with studies in these areas, including self-esteem!

Now, perhaps, there was something specific about the focus of this study where the researchers could claim it was something no one ever studied before, some detail. But to say no one has ever done a study on self-esteem is patently absurd. I suspect it was just a cheap tactic to get a lot of media attention for free, which I´m sure these researchers are delighted at. Which makes me even despise them more. Even though some things you mention do seem very interesting.

“If you want to say that self-esteem is fundamental, you can, of course — you just can't do it with a scientific basis at the moment.”

Actually, as I mentioned, there are thousands of articles that show self-esteem is fundamental, beneficial, and in certain instances, one of the variables that are life-saving in a crisis situation. This article has told you absolute gobbledygook regarding what exists and what doesn´t exist in terms of psychology studies. You are not going to make me list dozens of such studies here, are you? Take my word for it, or go to your university library, they´re there. You can probably find many on the Net as well.

“I'm not trying to be flippant or anything; it's just that my experience with self-esteem has never corresponded with the dominant paradigm.”

Didn´t think you were being flippant, quite on the contrary. I found your comments raised important points and I am glad the articles were useful to you.

I´m just lazy or I would have sat down and written a pretty post on self-esteem, serious, long, thoughtful, that explains to you other things I know about self-esteem, to give you perhaps the other side of the story, which may be different than what your other gf said too. Perhaps I will do it in bits. I would have some things to say about what is self-esteem, dynamics of self-esteem, your experience, and so on, but it doesn´t fit into 3 lines :-)

Maybe I will just wait for someone to do a nice critique of these studies and put the link here. :-)))

The sin of sloth is a most terrible thing... I´m lost...

Quoted on Evangelical Outpost - Outakes:

Two weeks ago Josh Claybourn mentioned he didn’t like “blogging about blogging” and found it "incestuous and self-serving." This week John Rabe weighed in by asking, “You know what I'm getting a bit sick of? Tedious blog posts about blogging."

I never thought I would hear someone considered barely legally coherent say something so stupid.

Blogging, which has exploded, is now on its own a huge field to be studied in every respect, sociology, communications, tech, psychology, politics, media, etc etc. Only very stupid people don´t have a single intelligent observation to make about blogging and the immense blog universe. Which, we can conclude, probably includes a lot of bloggers, given that blogging requires no intelligence, no thinking is necessary to apply.

If you can blabber, you can blog.

Another lovely discovery in the music sphere! Giuseppi Tartini, one of the masters of the violin. Actually I didn´t like some of the too baroquy things from him. Heard a piece that seems to enter other realms.

Flag burning, pornography and "equal protection," it´s all in
California...

As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, a lawyer's group is pressing for a "topless sunbathing" bill at the request of a female attorney who insists that it is sex discrimination to allow men, but not women, to go topless in public.

"At some point, men's breasts became liberated and women's didn't," Liana Johnsson said.

"This is the only thing left that men are legally allowed to do and, for women, they have to register as a sex offender. The real issue is there should be equal protection under the law," Johnsson told the newspaper.

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Dear Liana,
Is it something in the California water supply? Why not land on planet Earth where we do have issues such as child abuse, rape, homelessness, domestic violence, etc., that a non-frivolous courageous female attorney could spend their energy addressing, instead of your braindead "pseudo-equality" contests.

We know these other issues are just drivel to you, and you have no time for them, since you are already consumed with your next equality bill, "Stand up for your rights!" This is the one about the state violating your equal right to utilize restrooms openly standing up alongside other women.

We know... at some point, men became liberated and stood up and women didn't.
Or maybe it was the other way around, women sat down, or they both stood up and then sat down, I don´t know, I wasn´t around at the time. Anyways, time to "Stand to Reason!" Aren´t we glad you´re here to do it?

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Posted by cptham:
I gotta side with the feminists on the sunbathing issue...Sorry did I say that?
Alessandra:
You´d even organize and march on the Mall for them, wouldn´t you? ;-) a true defender of equal rights among us :-)

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Up North Lurkin': you better hope and pray for and age & weight limit...you don't want us old broads out there jiggling and flapping around!
Leben Frie:
I went to the french side of St Martin 5 years ago and wandered by mistake (really) onto a nude beach. The old men and women were really gross, middle age people weren't musch better, only the young looked at all attractive. All in all, everyone looks better with clothes on. There was a reason other than sin for God telling Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness.

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Posted by Effeminem:
I am forming a new political action committess: Scrapple Men for Unbiased Treatment of Topless Individuals. The first official act of S.M.U.T.T.I. will be to endorse the heroic struggle our sisters are undertaking in CA. They may not want physical support, but we can lend them our moral support. One day, I hope to stand side by side with all of these liberated women, for as long as one person suffers under the oppression of a bikini top, none of us are truly free.

Something or other mentioned in the Guardian got Harry (no, not Prince Harry) upset about how Britain is now becoming a "police state." Over at Chase Me Ladies. He is exorting his fellow bloggers to riot. Selected comments below:

Ralphy:
Riot? about some legal humbo? right.

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david c:
As an afterthought, the only way you'll get our countrymen out on the streets these days seems to be if you can somehow persuade them that the argument in question involves a fox.

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anonymous coward:
Personally, I think I would like to know what the definition of a police state is, before I decide that I live in one. It's hard to believe that a democratically-elected government, which subjects itself to frequent, fair, and free elections, could be called a police state.

But that's my personal opinion. If you want to give in to mass hysteria because the Guardian says so, hey — be my guest.

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Ralphy:
IDIOT!

yes, you AC. Police state is not your grandma's god damned notebook-defined oh her it is a cup of sugar bullshit. A police state is where you sir or madam are afraid of the bloomin cops. A free state is where the cops are afraid of you, sir or madam.

Definition of Police State. No, this isn't stalinist russia. This isn't life under the Taliban. This ain's your grandfather's big brother. To put it simply (and hopefully you see this through your paint-huffed head over there)

"Where the People fear the Government - you have tyranny;
Where the Government fears the People - you have rights." Thomas JEfferson.

Now, I ask you... where do we the people stand today.

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George Johnston:
The fuckers are still going to get back in though aren't they?

Yes, I hear they are going to import the voting machines used in Florida and Ohio. A minor amount of reprogramming (changing Bush to Blair) and the matter is settled.

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Alessandra:
"Where the People fear the Government - you have tyranny;
Where the Government fears the People - you have rights. TJeffy

Da man TJ forgot to mention the scenario where I live in. People here are too featherbrained to elect anyone to the government who can actually tie their shoelaces, so one is never exactly sure who to fear more, the huge menacing mob of morons (i.e. that lovely braindead liberal populus) or their equally frightful dimbat officials (all democratically elected by the mob, of course).

That´s why *I* live in constant fear.

The bros talkin ´bout a police run ´hood know nothing ´bout fear. A mass society without police is run by mobs, usually dressed in sheep´s clothing.

Have to say, though, it offers you variety. You can pick who to fear, like the color of your t-shirt. On Monday you fear the mob, on Tuesday, da police and on Wednesday, the elected mob officials... and so life goes.

“Look, I can’t promise I’ll change, but I can promise I’ll pretend to change.”

(Man talking to woman as they sit in restaurant cartoon.)

these are baby polar bears!

Bill in Washington - The Seattle Times

Yesterday, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, introduced House Bill 1467, which would require any employee, contractor or volunteer of a nonprofit organization to tell civil authorities if they suspect a co-worker of abusing or neglecting a child.
[...]
Currently, about 25 states include clergy among those required to report suspected child abuse or neglect, and about 18 states require such reporting from anyone.

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Why isn´t it mandatory everyhwere? What are we waiting for?

Secret deep connections between De Gaulle, California, Quebec, and Schwarzzneggrr revealed (in comments) and which prompted the following reflection:

Ten years ago, if you had asked me if I thought that Turminator Aggregatur Hulkinator ´Negger could even get elected to the local PTA, I would have said no dice. And now the man is on his way to have a chance to become the president of the United States. How the world does turn.

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
--Charles De Gaulle

The answer: Easily. "Bread and cheese," everyone is happy, add a little wine...

Just discovered wikipedia has a major entry on Troll! Could have never imagined, wadyaknow... Recommended reading. Excerpt:

Brief definition:
An internet troll is a person who sends duplicitous messages to get angry responses, or a message sent by such a person. The term derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" and ultimately from trolling for fish. It's use to refer to unwanted internet posts originates on usenet. The term is frequently abused to slander opponents in heated debates and is frequently misapplied to those who are ignorant of etiquette.

Trolling is often described as an online version of the breaching experiment, where social boundaries and rules of etiquette are broken. Self-proclaimed trolls often style themselves as Devil's Advocates or gadflies or culture jammers, challenging the dominant discourse and assumptions of the forum they are trolling in an attempt to subvert and introduce different ways of thinking. Detractors who value etiquette claim that true Devil's Advocates generally identify themselves as such for the sake of etiquette, whereas trolls often consider etiquette to be something worth trolling in order to fight groupthink.

Trolls are sometimes caricatured as socially inept. This is often due to the fundamental attribution error, as it is impossible to know the real traits of an individual solely from their online discourse. Indeed, since intentional trolls are alleged to knowingly flout social boundaries, it is difficult to typecast them as socially inept since they have arguably proven adept at their goal.

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Regardless of the writer's motives, controversial posts are virtually guaranteed, in most online forums, to earn a corrective or patronizing or outraged response by those who do not distinguish between real physical community where people are actually exposed to some shared risk of bodily harm by their actions, and epistemic community based on and a mere exchange of words and ideas. Customs of discourse, or etiquette, that originated in such physical communities are often applied naively by newcomers to the internet who are not used to the range of views expressed online, especially anonymously.

Troll food refers to replies to the original controversial troll posts, that the trolls subsequently use as feedback to throw more fuel to the fire of their posts.

"Please do not feed the Trolls" is a warning sign that other article readers post to warn newbies that the original poster is a troll.

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Motivation

Most discussion of what motivates Internet trolls comes from other Internet users who claim to have observed trolling behavior. There is little scholarly literature to describe either the term or the phenomenon. The comments of accused trolls might be unreliable, since they may in fact be intending to stir controversy rather than to advance understanding of the phenomenon. Likewise, accusers are often motivated by a desire to defend a particular Internet project and references to an Internet user as a troll might not be based on the actual goals of the person so named. As a result, identifying the goals of Internet trolls is most often speculative. Still, several basic goals have been attributed to Internet trolls, according to the type of disruption they are believed to be provoking.

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Proposed motivations for trolling:

* Self-proclaimed trolls and their defenders suggest that trolling is a clever way of improving discussion, or an alternative method of viewing power relations on large public wikis.
* Anonymous attention-seeking: The troll seeks to dominate the thread by inciting anger, and effectively hijacking the topic at hand.
* Cry for help: Many so-called trolls, in their postings, indicate disturbing situations regarding family, relationships, substances, and school--although it is impossible to know whether this is just simply part of the troll. Some believe that trolling is an aggressive, confrontational way by which trolls seek a sort of tough love guidance in an anonymous forum.
* Effect change in user opinions: A troll may state extreme positions to make his or her actual beliefs seem moderate (This often involves sock puppeteering, where the bad cop is a sock-puppet troll.) or, alternatively, play the role of Devil's advocate to strengthen opposing convictions [with which he or she usually actually agrees].
* Test the integrity of a system against social attacks or other forms of misbehavior: For example, blatantly violating terms-of-use in order to see whether any action is taken by the site administrators.
* Amusement: To some people, the thought of a 70-year-old Internet user being sent to a sexually explicit or gross image is funny.
* Wasting others' time: One of the greatest themes in trolling is the idea that you can spend one minute of your time posting a troll, causing 10 other people to waste ten minutes of their time, more or catalytically affecting lots of other people. Most trolls enjoy the idea that they wasted others time at comparatively little effort on their behalf.
* Domino effect: Related to amusement, but a more specific fashion: starting large chain reactions in response to one's initial post. Achieving a disproportionately large response to a small action is the general theme. This is similar to how a young child that goes missing (but is actually hiding) may act with glee, seeing a large number of people conducting a massive search in response to the supposed disappearance.
* Fight "groupthink": Many trolls defend their actions as, when a sort of conformism settles, shocking people out of it.
* Satire: In these cases, the individuals do not think of themselves as trolls, but misunderstood humorists or political commentators.
* Personal attacks against one particular user or group of users
* Overcome feelings of inferiority or powerlessness by getting the experience of controlling an environment.
* Self-promotion
* Lowering signal to noise ratio: On Slashdot, points that could be used to moderate interesting things up get wasted on moderating down things like ASCII pictures of the goatse man. This lowers the quality of comments at certain thresholds.

Since there is a wide spectrum of possible motivations for trolls, some of these functions being benevolent and others, clearly malevolent, to typecast users as trolls in the negative sense is often rash.

Some users of Internet forums are considered to be "trollhunters", or "trollbaiters". They willingly enter conflict when trolls emerge. Often, trollhunters are as disruptive as trolls. A single troll-post may be ignored, but if ten trollhunters "pounce" following a troll, they will drive the thread offtopic.

Regarding troll-related conflicts, there are five groups into which users might be classified:

* Trolls are users who actively provoke conflict.
* Trollhunters (or Trollbaiters) behave according to a principle of "second strike". They do not initiate conflict, but escalate it once it begins. Often they use other trolls as an excuse for their own misbehavior, and in many cases, typecast a user as a "troll" regardless of his or her intent.
* Ignorers seek to ignore the conflict, continuing with the topic at-hand. They usually express a nonchalant disdain for the troll, but do not seek actively to insult him or her. They behave like elders, issuing simple words of wisdom such as "Do not feed the trolls." or other phrases that generally mean the same thing: "Ignore the troublemaker and he will give up and go away." Although this type of response could be taken as passive-agressive Trollbaiter behavior.
* Moderators (not in the same sense as a "system moderator") seek to resolve the conflict, making all parties happy, if possible.
* Bystanders withdraw from the conflict. In particularly bad cases, they will leave the forum in disgust.

In the attention-seeking cases, trolls seek the conflict provided by trollbaiters, whereas in the "cry for help" cases, they seek the consolance and compassion offered by moderators.

The Media UK forums had to close down because of trolls and libellous postings, and the Digital Spy forums have a no-troll policy so as to stop trolls registering. Both use VBulletin software.

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Resolutions and alternatives

In general, popular wisdom advises users to avoid feeding trolls, and to ignore temptations to respond. Responding to a troll inevitably drives discussion off-topic, to the dismay of bystanders, and supplies the troll with the craved attention. When trollhunters pounce on the trolls, ignorers reply with: "YHBT. YHL. HAND.", or "You have been trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day." However, since trollhunters (like trolls) are often conflict-seekers themselves, the loss usually is not on the part of the trollhunter; rather, the losers are the other forum-users who would have preferred that the conflict not emerge at all.

Literature on conflict resolution suggests that labeling participants in Internet discussions as trolls can perpetuate the unwanted behaviors. A person rejected by a social group, both online and "IRL", may assume an antagonistic role toward it, and seek to further annoy or anger members of the group. The "troll" label, often a sign of social rejection, may therefore perpetuate trolling.

Better results normally ensue when users take the moderator role and describe more constructive behaviors in a non-judgmental, non-confrontational way. Trolls are excited by trollhunters and frustrated by ignorers, and neither of these emotions produce positive results for the forum. Engaging trolls results in "flame wars". Trolls frustrated by the "ignore strategy" may leave the forum (and either troll elsewhere, or become constructive users) or may become progressively more inflammatory until they get a response.

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Usefulness of trolling

A major debate on the Internet is whether or not trolls perform any useful function. Because troll is such a broadly-applied term, if all definitions thereof are to be accepted, the answer must be definitively, "yes and no".

Users performing many useful, but controversial, functions are often decried as trolls, and in these cases, so-called trolling may actually benefit the forum in which it occurs. For example, the presence of a radical right-winger described as a troll may allow a conservative lurker to feel more comfortable expressing her viewpoints, which seem very moderate in contrast. On the other hand, if trollhunters mount a flame war against this right-wing troll, the conservative bystander may feel less comfortable expressing her views, to the detriment of the forum. As much as trolls claim to fight groupthink, they may actually encourage it by solidifying opinion against them.

Trolls may also provide a valuable service by making people question the validity of what is read both on the internet and from other sources. Trolls show that expressing any opinion is as easy as expressing an informed and considered opinion and may get as much visibility. It is arguable that shock jocks, some newspaper columnists are trolling public opinion.

Even though useful content and productive users are sometimes decried as trolls, the general consensus is that pure "trolling" benefits only the troll and trollhunters, and has no place in any forum. Most forums reject the claim that pure and intentional trolling serves any useful purpose.

The Chinese characters for internet troll are made up of the characters for Internet (互联网) combined with the characters for provocation (拖) and learning (钓).

Trolls can also in some circumstances be a source of genuine humour, which depends entirely upon whether the troll is a good or a bad troll. It's usually fairly easy to spot the difference between such actions: a bad troll resorts only to weak uncreative arguments whereas a good troll will create a subtle set of arguments which draw people in with cunning twists to provide a thread of non sequitur humour.

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Copyright (c) 2005
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

Last week I went to an important job interview and although I had practiced answering many questions, I didn´t do too well. Why? I was being interviewed by a very stupid, sardonic interviewer. They are the worse.

An intelligent person being interviewed by a moron will not get the job. The worse thing is, the sneering interviewer stood squarely between me and any possibilty of talking to the Director whom I would be working for. My kingdom for a tête-a-tête interview with the potential Boss! Totally impossible in this case because moronic interviewer did not even work for the company that was hiring. She had total power to mangle the interview and not be held accountable in any way.

Where did I go wrong? Moronic interviewer asked, "“Tell me about your experience with X,"” where X was a really broad field. There I started my great practiced reply, beautifully highlighting important points very relevant to job in question, succinct, but enthusiastic and smart, everything those interview guides tell you to do. I thought I was going well until after 15 seconds, moronic interviewer *literally* half closed her eyes, staring into a vacuum, with glazed expression on her face which said, "“I´m not paying any attention."” I felt lost and doomed. Oh, frustration!

Reflecting after said interview I remembered one of the tips for interviews: clarify vague questions. Dang! Moronic interviewer was looking for one specific thing in a huge area and she was not interested in anything else. But instead of asking about it specifically, she tells me to talk about my experience in a very broad arena, which I have, and if I don´t happen to mention what she was looking for, she stops listening and I feel lost because supposedly I was answering her question correctly. Note to self: Clarify vague questions, clarify vague questions, clarify vague questions.

“Adapting to the style of interviewer.” I ventured a question about how my experience fit the profile they are looking for. Moronic interviewer replied with a sardonic little smile, "“I am only beginning to get to know you, can´t say."” Later, at the end of the somewhat brief interview, I ventured a few more questions about the job and the company. Moronic interviewer gave me a cold, nasty look which clearly spelled out, “"I pose the questions here. You are here to answer, not ask, do not transgress.”" She did concede a short reply to my questions and then I reinforced very quickly a few points about how my skills and experience fit the details she revealed. She gave me another sardonic little smile, which said, "“Ha! You just clearly did the wrong thing again.”" Or, "“You must be lying or trying to talk your way into the job.”" (Which I wasn´t and that´s why it was so frustrating). It was that kind of nasty look that only someone with a head full of prejudices about you slaps on you and doesn´t care if they are totally wrong. So how did I do in adapting to the style of the interviewer? Not so bad, not so good. As soon as I saw this was her style, I decided to forgo a lot of my questions about the job at this stage. And I felt the playing field was at about a 90 degree angle.

At another point, moronic interviewer who clearly was not knowledgeable in a certain area of my expertise, asked me, "“What was the procedure for X?”" Given that X is a term that can mean many different things, I asked her to clarify what she meant by X. Moronic interviewer then asked in a annoyed, petulant way, "“How was X done?”" as if I hadn´t understood the question itself. Oh, God! Help me... I politely rephrase, ask if she means X when in Y, to which she retorts X is X! In her mind, what is there to specify? Can´t I answer a simple question?

We go for round three, her irritation visibly growing, but finally she specifies X a tiny bit so that I can address the question. I answer that there were several procedures for different X´s, and give good examples of my experience with no less than three distinct X´s. It suddenly dawns on her that´s why I had been asking her to clarify so that I could answer the god damn question properly. She is vexed to realize that it was not me but you know who whom was being very dense regarding question in point. I try not let any of it dampen my enthusiasm and friendliness during the interview and the job prospect, but inside hopes were sinking, and I was pretty sure my chances were being mauled by the moron with each passing minute.

Can anything be worse than inflicting morons as interviewers on innocent people??


p.s. I give myself a 3 out of 10 in my ability to talk to said moron in this particular interview. There is no consolation. I can only think in a future replay of situation, at least I have room for improvement. But it won´t change what happened last week.

Today, we start a new series: "Why reading blogs is important - it´s the sheer quality of what you learn that makes it a golden experience," such as the last killer fact from Chase Me Ladies:

Australians slightly outnumber camels. There are 19,731,984 Australians, but only 19,074,168 camels.

If diplomacy broke down and there was -God forbid!- a war, my money would be on the camels. The Australians would have the advantage in guns and heavy armour, besides outnumbering the camels; but the camels could use their superior brain power to outflank their Aussie foe, and sow confusion in his ranks.

The best of comments:

Giles:
"the Bedouin call camels Ata Allah, or God's gift."

I guess we can then conclude that God hates the Bedouin.

---

Tim T:
What's your favourite camel? Dromedary or Bactarian

What happened to option c), 'Mentholated'?

---

Scott at Blithering Bunny:
>I actually quite like Australians. But I never met a camel who wasn't a complete a-hole.

Hutu-n, it's too late now to try to grovel. We Aussies like you as well, but the camels have suffered for too long from your poison barbs.

What do you think we do together in the outback all day long with so many camels? Have sex with them? No. Well, yes, but what else? They whinge all day long about you. Yes you, you coxcomb. The snide asides. The subtle putdowns. The hump jokes. They don't care that you think they have brains - what they want is compliments for their looks. That's what matters to them - they're very vain. Your bland indifference to their sexual charms has cut them to the quick.

The only way to shut them up about you is to wipe out you and your Southern English brethren. So, much as we think you're an amusing fellow with your round-the-world tall tales, we must join forces with them and declare war.

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David c:
I am not surprised to hear that the yin of the number of useful, hardworking and sober camels is more or less exactly balanced by the yang of the number of, well, you know who. Can we get camels behind central London bars? They'd probably serve you quicker and have better manners. Then we could ride Aussies across the desert until they drop from heat exhaustion. Fun all round.

J. Graham - from the National Review - has discovered some fundamental truths previously hidden from public knowledge about how severe cold weather destroys civilization in Fairfax County:

The low temperature of 12 degrees early Tuesday would have induced sunbathing in parts of Minnesota this week. But, in the D.C. suburbs, 12 degrees is apparently the temperature at which you can fry a public-school official's brain on the sidewalk. So it was announced on Monday night, right after Jack Bauer announced his intention to single-handedly save the world on 24, that any world-saving in Fairfax County would have to begin after 11, when, presumably, the school buses would all agree to start.

The dastardly Fairfax school buses, you see, were offered as the official reason for the delay. They might be hard to start. The buses two miles across the state line, over in Montgomery County, Md., are apparently more compliant and required no such coddling. Montgomery County schools opened on time, even though Maryland, last I checked, is a bit farther north than Virginia, and, presumably, even colder.

Look, don't take my word for this idiocy. This is what was posted on the school district's website:

All Fairfax County public schools will open two hours late on Tuesday, January 18, 2005 due to predicted severe cold temperatures in the morning. School-system buses are stored outside and this delay will give staff members the time needed to have all buses operational.

School buses, stored outside! Who'd have thunk it?

Over in Prince William County, also on a two-hour delay, an official said that if the buses wouldn't start, children might be waiting outside and suffer frostbite. Well, indeed, that would be very sad; everyone cares about children, except for maybe Newt Gingrich. But, temperatures weren't expected to rise much during the day. Indeed, at noon, it was still just 21 degrees, so the world's still not safe from frostbite, despite the best efforts of Prince William County. And no one has addressed the bigger problem, which is this: It's just January. There's more cold coming. How many half days can we sustain without widespread parental revolt?

Excellent article by Joseph Farah - WND:

"Inside Deep Throat" was produced by Brian Grazer, whose films include "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind." It is set to open theatrically in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and five other cities next month.
[...]
Without question the original movie had a profound impact on the culture. Shot for $25,000 and backed by mob muscle, the film desensitized millions of Americans toward pornography – today an industry raking in many billions.

Yet, the new documentary conveniently overlooks the harsh victimization of Lovelace, or Linda Susan Boreman, who in 1986 testified before the Meese Commission on Pornography that she was forced to perform in the movie.

"When you see the movie 'Deep Throat,' you are watching me being raped," she said. "It is a crime that movie is still showing; there was a gun to my head the entire time."
[...]
"Our film is not salacious or gratuitous. That scene needed to be in there." [said one of the producers]

No, not salacious. No, not gratuitous. This is a movie that needed to be made. Unlike "Deep Throat," this is truly a movie with real redeeming social value. The producers are only interested in truth – truth, that is, except about the real victims and real cost of pornography.
[...]
In 1980, Linda Lovelace released an autobiography recounting her ordeal. Her husband had forced her to perform sex on strangers. Then he forced her to do it on camera. Then he forced her to do it with a dog. But the ultimate victimization was "Deep Throat."

Three years ago, she died in a Denver hospital after crashing her car into a concrete post.

But the nightmare didn't end for Linda Susan Boreman. She's being victimized all over again – this time by so-called "mainstream" Hollywood filmmakers still determined to cash in and persuade Americans it was all a big laugh.

I would not be surprised if Grazer is some homo-fanatic liberal. No accountability, no personal responsibility, just a continuous legitimation of sexual violence and dysfunction. Or maybe he is another Jeff Jarvis/Glenn Reynolds, et al, liberal homo-fanatic conservatives.

The Hollywood system, like the tobacco industry, does not have a concept of ethics and responsibility. Given this movie, the Kinsey one (which did exactly the same thing this Deep Throat movie did - cover up a lot of real sexual abuse), that Girls Don´t Cry (blatant lie about the case and a renewed victimization of the woman killed), we will now enter into an area of mainstreaming sexual violence and abuse by total entertainment coverup. Which is exactly the same strategy that homosexual activists have been using to legitimize homosexuality.

Probably no concept has more currency in our politically correct culture than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America's noblest virtues has been so distorted it's become a vice.

There is a modern myth that holds that true tolerance consists of neutrality. It is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism.

The tolerant person occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No "forcing" personal views. Each takes a neutral posture towards another's convictions.

This approach is very popular with post-modernists, that breed of radical skeptics whose ideas command unwarranted respect in the university today. Their rallying cry, "There is no truth," is often followed by an appeal for tolerance.

For all their confident bluster, the relativists' appeal actually asserts two truths, one rational and one moral. The first is the "truth" that there is no truth. The second is the moral truth that one ought to tolerate other people's viewpoints. Their stand, contradictory on at least two counts, serves as a warning that the modern notion of tolerance is seriously misguided.

Three Elements of Tolerance

Many people are confused about what tolerance is. According to Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, the word tolerate means to allow or to permit, to recognize and respect others' beliefs and practices without sharing them, to bear or put up with someone or something not necessarily liked.

Tolerance, then, involves three elements: (1) permitting or allowing (2) a conduct or point of view one disagrees with (3) while respecting the person in the process.

Notice that we can't tolerate someone unless we disagree with him. This is critical. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.

This essential element of tolerance--disagreement--has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.

This presents a curious problem. One must first think another is wrong in order to exercise tolerance toward him, yet doing so brings the accusation of intolerance. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible.

Three Faces of Tolerance

Adding to the confusion is the fact that tolerance could apply to different things--persons, behaviors, or ideas--and the rules are different for each.

Tolerance of persons, what might be called "civility," can be equated with the word "respect." This is the classical definition of tolerance: the freedom to express one's ideas without fear of reprisal.

We respect those who hold different beliefs than our own by treating them courteously and allowing their views a place in the public discourse. We may strongly disagree with their ideas and vigorously contend against them in the public square, but we still show respect for the persons in spite of the differences.

Note that respect is accorded to the person, here. Whether his behavior should be tolerated is an entirely different issue. This is the second sense of tolerance, the liberty to act, called tolerance of behavior. Our laws demonstrate that a man may believe what he likes--and he usually has the liberty to express those beliefs--but he may not behave as he likes. Some behavior is immoral or a threat to the common good. Rather than being tolerated, it is restricted by law. In Lincoln's words: There is no right to do wrong.

Tolerance of persons must also be distinguished from tolerance of ideas. Tolerance of persons requires that each person's views get a courteous hearing, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth. The view that no person's ideas are any better or truer than another's is irrational and absurd. To argue that some views are false, immoral, or just plain silly does not violate any meaningful standard of tolerance.

These three categories are frequently conflated by muddled thinkers. If one rejects another's ideas or behavior, he's automatically accused of rejecting the person and being disrespectful. To say I'm intolerant of the person because I disagree with his ideas is confused. On this view of tolerance, no idea or behavior can be opposed, regardless of how graciously, without inviting the charge of incivility.

Historically, our culture has emphasized tolerance of all persons, but never tolerance of all behavior. This is a critical distinction because, in the current rhetoric of relativism, the concept of tolerance is most frequently advocated for behavior: premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, use of pornography, etc. People ought to be able to behave the way they want within broad moral limits, the argument goes.

Ironically, though, there is little tolerance for the expression of contrary ideas on issues of morality and religion. If one advocates a differing view, he is soundly censured. The tolerance issue has thus gone topsy-turvy: tolerate most behavior, but don't tolerate opposing beliefs about those behaviors. Contrary moral opinions are labeled as "imposing your view on others."

Instead of hearing, "I respect your view," those who differ in politically incorrect ways are told they are bigoted, narrow-minded, and intolerant.

A case in point was an attack made in my community paper on Christians who were uncomfortable with the social pressure to approve of homosexuality. I wrote the following letter to the editor to show how the modern notion of tolerance had been twisted into a vice instead of a virtue:

Dear Editor:

I am consistently amazed to see how intolerant South Bay residents are to moral views other than their own. Last week's letters about homosexuality were cases in point. One writer even suggested that your publication censor alternate opinions!

This narrow-mindedness and self-righteous attitude about sexual ethics is hypocritical. They challenge what they view as hate (it used to be called morality) with caustic and vitriolic attacks. They condemn censure by asking for censorship (there's a difference). They accuse others of intolerance and bigotry, then berate those same people for taking a view contrary to their own.

Why is someone attacked so forcibly simply for affirming moral guidelines about sex that have held us in good stead for thousands of years?

Not only that, the objections are self-defeating. The writers imply that everyone should be allowed to do and believe what they want and that no one should be permitted to force their viewpoint on others. But that is their viewpoint, which they immediately attempt to force on your readers in an abusive way. Those with opposing beliefs were referred to in print as bigots, lacking courage, disrespectful, ignorant, abominable, fearful, indecent, on par with the KKK, and--can you believe it--intolerant.

Why don't we abandon all of this nonsense about tolerance and open-mindedness? It's misleading because each side has a point of view it thinks is correct. The real issue is about what kind of morality our society should encourage and whether that morality is based on facts and sound reasoning or empty rhetoric.

Intellectual Cowardice

Most of what passes for tolerance today is not tolerance at all, but rather intellectual cowardice. Those who hide behind the myth of neutrality are often afraid of intelligent engagement. Unwilling to be challenged by alternate points of view, they don't engage contrary opinions or even consider them. It's easier to hurl an insult--"you intolerant bigot"--than to confront the idea and either refute it or be changed by it. "Tolerance" has become intolerance.

The classical rule of tolerance is this: Tolerate persons in all circumstances, by according them respect and courtesy even when their ideas are false or silly. Tolerate (i.e., allow) behavior that is moral and consistent with the common good. Finally, tolerate (i.e., embrace and believe) ideas that are sound. This is still a good guideline.

This is a transcript of a commentary from the radio show "Stand to Reason," with Gregory Koukl. It is made available to you at no charge through the faithful giving of those who support Stand to Reason. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©2003 Gregory Koukl

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UPDATE jan-27-2005

From Bob Kirk at Flowers in the Mud - a very nice text as well:

There are many competing currents in the sea of human thought. Sadly, that of the Western world appears to be an ocean growing far wider than deep. It is one that is Postmodern and evaporative in nature, where the supply of water is less than what is lost. Meaning has not yet been fully lost though it is in serious retreat. An image-driven society that argues emotion and preference while disdaining the endeavor for truth as confrontational and naturally offensive, is not long for retaining such an atiquated and frail concept. And yet while words and clarity are secondary to image and impact, we retain them out of necessity, since thought and communication are predicated on the word. Necessary evils.

After this and one further entry which will also deal with the question of same-sex marriage, I will have had my say. I'm not on a crusade nor am I consumed with this issue, though it is very important for a number of reasons. I do however recognize that the democratic government of this country, if acting democratically, will do as it will, right or wrong. As I said before, implied in democracy is the individuals right to voice, not necessarily the right to obtain. So I see this as an exercise of the very democracy that the government will act on, by voicing my opinion.

Again and again, I am amazed at North American public discourse and the adoption of argument that is ever-more shallow. The hallmarks of weak or non-existent arguments are generalization, oversimplification and misrepresentation. This statement is itself a generalization, but is only used here as being anecdotally descriptive - of what I have witnessed in my life. "Sound bites" and image manipulation for maximum emotional impact are primary in the toolbox of those who would be successful in swaying public opinion. Perhaps it is the natural fallout of such a postmodern society that has little time or patience or value for often lengthy, well-reasoned statements. Perhaps it's widespread laziness ignited and tweaked by the ease of obtaining information via media like the one you're now using that foster a "now" mentality. In both cases a conditioning of sorts makes it sufficient and even desirable to get our truth-fix from talking heads on CNN or short editorials in the Globe and Mail instead of investing the time to think, critique and evaluate. Cut the fluff, make a statement that has impact and move on!

What does any of this have to do with the proposed legal recognition of same-sex unions? It is becomming apparent to me that lost in all the rhetoric from both sides and clips of "activists" signs and shouting protesters is the issue itself. Issues that are periphery at best are confused into the issue and both sides wrangle over the case made or not made by these things instead of debating the issue and as individuals voicing their opinions and letting them stand or fall on their own merit. Lost in the exchange is truly whether the proposed action is right or wrong.

"Buzzwords" of irrelevancy fly furiously back and forth and carry with them emotional baggage that is coincidentally or intentionally manufactured to produce an impact against the opposition. The chief among these it seems, is the word "tolerance", followed closely by others such as "education", "open (mindedness)", "liberation" etc. None of these are offensive words or suggest anything that is opposed to justness or goodness - and so they're all the more effective when hurled with larger or smaller portion of their real meanings left behind.

How many times has the charge of "intolerance" been levelled at those who oppose same-sex marriage, independent of what specifically their objection is? Tolerance plays well in such a debate because the word implies a kindness or openness that in turn imply peace, respect and co-existence. What's not noble about that? But what if the one being critical of anothers "intolerance" finds themself standing only knee-deep in the sea of meaning with their surroundings draining fast? What becomes of the criticism itself and the desired impact as hoped for by using the criticism?

The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that tolerance no longer whizzes by meaning just the acceptance of all people as individuals, but is now encompassing of people and their positions. Tolerance has become primarily a statement that reflects on the one criticized, of their opinions of the opinions of others. To be tolerant in this existentialist world naturally is becomming to mean the acceptance of not only people but primarily any-and-every persons opinion. While short of an explicit endorsement, to be tolerant of opinions that diverge and disagree is to assent to them as valid, viable and therefore indirectly as true. No longer is one tolerant when they merely recognize that others will disagree, but when they accept that the opinion of those with whom we disagree is not wrong. In this way, tolerance is actually rendered meaningless as a term and as an argumentative buzzword. If those who object to same-sex marriage have their opinion and person dismissed as being intolerant because it disagrees with the critics own, then the critic has logically just become intolerant in the identical order and magnitude for exactly the same thing. Hardly compelling as an argument.

Further, tolerance never actually means the complete or absolute tolerance of all, and so becomes disingenuous and arbitrary. Those who hurl the charge are never, in my experience, tolerant of absolutely everyone in society. Indeed they do not tolerate murderers or thieves or any law breaker any more than the people they call intolerant, do. They call the cops just the same. There always remain people and actions outside of the law or outside of our own acceptance envelope that we are intolerant of.
[...]
So what relevance at all does "tolerance" as a criticism have to the same-sex marriage debate, if those issuing the charge of intolerance are themselves not tolerant of all people or positions of all people? It is nothing but a buzzword meant to illicit an emotional impact, caricature its target as necessarily in the wrong, and win public opinion for the issue without even addressing it. The waves recede and we find ourselves not in an ocean any more, but in the mud, facing the issue.

Education is used similarly. It does not mean the teaching of all, but only that which we endorse. Liberation does not mean freeing from all, but only from those things we feel are "oppressing". Openness and open-mindedness does not mean fair and careful evaluation of all propositions, but only those that agree or lead to agreement with those who advocate said openness.

[end of Kirk´s text]

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On Respect and Tolerance

Koukl said:

Tolerance of persons, what might be called "civility," can be equated with the word "respect."

Although Koukl explains further below that he means respect for the right to speak plus the right to debate with a minimum of civility, I think to equate respect to civility and vice-versa creates additional problems. Without civility, when two people who disagree confront each other, you have violence. But without respect, you do not necessarily have violence. If we understand that respect entails at least a partial agreement with or condoning of someone we disagree with, we fall into a contradiction. You will never respect someone who you believe is destroying what you consider moral and valid and true. But unless there is some amount of civility to have a debate or confrontation of views and values, there will be no debate, only violence. Which leads to Koukl´s continuing explanation of same:

This is the classical definition of tolerance: the freedom to express one's ideas without fear of reprisal.

We respect those who hold different beliefs than our own by treating them courteously and allowing their views a place in the public discourse. We may strongly disagree with their ideas and vigorously contend against them in the public square, but we still show respect for the persons in spite of the differences.

"We respect those who hold different beliefs than our own by treating them courteously and allowing their views a place in the public discourse."

Actually, this represents civility to me. You don´t respect the person, nor their views and values, you respect the right for a debate with at least a minimum of civility. Of course that does entail a certain respect for the other to exist and speak, otherwise you might as well take a gun and blow the brains out of anyone who disagrees with you.

"This is the classical definition of tolerance: the freedom to express one's ideas without fear of reprisal."

A state which only exists in fluffy politician speeches, and which humanity, except in some very occasional and small circles, has never yet experienced.

If that wasn´t obvious enough simply by the fact that Instapundit and Ed Cones bother to read the NYT, even more telling is how much they have the illusion that they can read.

Ed Cone:
I read the article. I was duly horrified. But when I got to the part where Roy goes all pervy, there was nothing to suggest that the Internet had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with his sickness.

Yes, he spied on his stepdaughter's IM conversations, and propositioned her online. But so what? This guy started getting his sick thoughts on the beach, or perhaps long before. He would have been listening to her phone calls and approaching her in the hallway if he wasn't wired. The Internet is a bogeyman trotted out to spice up the tale, but (in this case) without context.

Cheap shot, NYT.

NYT excerpt - "The Making of a Molester":

I asked about the Internet, whether it may bear any causal responsibility along the path toward offending. ''It's a fairly complicated issue,'' Berlin said, and one for which there appears to be, again, no solid research. ''I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Internet creates desire, but I do think it is creating significant difficulties.'' To some extent, he explained, it is merely a ''new and different vehicle'' for those who would offend against children anyway. But it ''provides temptation for some who might not otherwise have crossed the line.'' He added: ''There are three areas of concern. First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked -- leads to disinhibition. Second, there's a blurring of fantasy and reality. There's someone at the other end of the Internet conversation, but it's not quite a real person; there's a feeling of playing a game that can lead to actually doing what one otherwise wouldn't. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate'' moving over boundaries.

It´s about a means to disinhibition. Apparently a concept Instapundit and others can´t grasp. One more example of how Instapundit doesn´t have a single position on issues of sexual violence, dysfunction, or sexuality that is intelligent or responsible.

Note2: The NYT doesn´t have enough ethics to do a story on a homo molester. Nor on women either. Or other categories.

I listened for the first time to the entirety of Hoffman´s Tales by Jacques Offenbach. Although I knew a couple of the arias, what a lovely surprise! There are so many arias in the opera that are just thrilling. It surprised also me because I don´t like German opera composers, at least the few I know. Now I can say I don´t like all German opera composers minus one. As for Hoffman, whom I also have not read, after seeing the opera, will continue with no interest to do so.

My favorite song at the moment is: La Chanson de Paul, sung by Serge Reggiani.

Serge Reggiani, décédé en 2004, fait partie comme Yves Montand de cette génération d'italiens immigrés en France dans la première moitié du siècle. Il symbolise les beaux jours du Quartier Latin des années cinquante. Pour les artistes, pour le public, il représente le talent total, celui qui va de la chanson la plus noble (comprenez "poésie") au théâtre le plus exigeant (monologue) en passant par la peinture, la littérature et le cinéma.

Pure poetry.

This is such a cool question. If you don´t know the answer, you can do a search on the web for the answer, there is at least one psych professor that specializes in communication that has looked into this.

It took me a few reflections to reach my answer, which I will not post, so that you can think about it on your own. But ever since I first saw this question, I have never looked at people talking on the phone the same, specially cell phones.

As I was driving today in town, all of a sudden a big, hefty guy on the sidewalk grabbed my attention. He was having a major argument with someone, intermittently shouting things in an exasperated way on his cell phone as he bent backwards and lifted his free arm into the air, only to follow by hunching forward and vociferating something else. But what was really interesting is how he used his other free arm to the do the most animated gestures ever. "I´m telling you!" he bellowed, as he briskly shaked his pointed finger right into an invisible face. "You have no idea who that is!" he exclaimed as he thrust his free hand forward several times. Then he struck a pose with an expression on his face that said, "Reason with me, will you?" And he stayed frozen in the pose for a minute, until he quickly switched hands holding the phone, thrust his free open hand sideways as he bent forward and shouted something else. All of it, of course, in complete oblivion to all the dozens of passer-byers.

Even a comedy movie couldn´t have done it better.

You know You're Living In 2005, Our Jetsons Era, When. . . . .

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in business manner.

7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.

8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three
different companies.

10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.

11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.

12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.

14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your
coffee.

16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :-)

17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message to.

19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list; and now you're laughing at yourself.

21. You know you are already in the Post-Jetsons Era, when instead of forwarding this by e-mail (#18), first thing you do is zing it on your blog.

Actually, this is really the Jetsons Era zinger that hit home for me:
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your
coffee breakfast.

Could one ever imagine that someday something would come along that would override the sole reason for getting up in the morning and then going back to sleep?

Breakfasts are lovely. Speaking of which, time to rise and shine...

I don´t know much about this subject to opine, but I think people need to be a little more honest on where they stand regarding whatever religion they decide to label themselves as. Specially if they are big public, influential figures or in the religious hierarchy.

I think the Catholic Church doesn´t get more heavy handed more often because it´s afraid it will alienate more people from the Church. But that becomes increasingly problematic as people who don´t agree with much of what the Church preaches use the label for their own benefit. (Of course, this is an old problem outside and within the Curch).

Regarding this labeling issue, we hear so many people today saying they are Catholic when in truth they are only Catholic when they find it convenient, or once every week, or if it´s related to some social church event. It would be an improvement if such people said, "I´m 25% Catholic," or "I´m Catholic on 3 issues," or "I´m Catholic for about an hour a week on Sundays." At least that´s honest. But I don´t think the Church itself wants that much honesty.

Which is why it would be interesting if all politicians had to take the BeliefNet religion test. Imagine a politician who declared: I´m 50% Catholic, 40% Evangelical, 30% Jewish, 37% Islamic, 5% New Age. I think they would lose all votes inspite that being a more truthful description than one label only! :-)

And it is sad that people pretend to follow a certain religion simply to look good among their peers or to get some votes. Last note: obviously this religious self-labeling problem is not restricted to "Catholics" alone.

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Update: Jan-28-2005

Australia's Catholic Church is embroiled in a debate over whether the church should drop its insistence on celibacy for clergymen. A leading priests' association argues that doing away with the requirement could reverse a serious decline in numbers.

I am in favor. Get the homos and pedophiles out, get the saner married men back in. As long as the selection improves from what it has been in the past, as well.

It will be interesting to see how long the Church can insist on not having married priests since that is causing it to dwarf in seriously troubled ways. The only alternative to not admiting married priests is the new influx of Third World priests, which, much more than a few, are celibate only in name anyways.

This is only temporary. I am adding comments plus trackback (from halo), and taking out the old comments (from enetation). Halo says your previous comments are supposed to appear when you switch, but that didn´t happen. I am trying to figure it out. If I can´t, I will just delete the old enetation comments.

If you want to leave a comment, please use the middle Comment link next to the Trackback link (from halo).

UPDATE jan-25-2005:

Also, I´ve started to simply add comments to old posts, rather than creating new entries, whenever the subject is entirely related. This is because I want to organize my posts in a collection of reflections, rather than have 100 little entries. In case you are interested, just do a search on the word UPDATE and you will find the updates.

Perfect characterization from what I´ve read about the book - not sure if I want to read it, but it´s supposed to give you a good thriller diversion. Reading about the fights over the contentious historical claims has been for me already an entertaining bit. Probably more enjoyable than the book itself. I don´t think Tom Hanks has even half the charisma necessary to handle the role (mediocre casting already), although he will draw audiences based on his popularity.
It´s sad when financial greed corrodes doing things well in art entertainment.

«Harry Potter pour adultes»

From (Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 17).

"Jose Allen, a partner at the San Francisco firm Skadden Arps, is asking for $810 an hour.... Allen is a local partner of the giant, New York-based Skadden Arps firm -- whose Web site touts its commitment to pro bono law work." City officials are protesting the fees as exorbitant, but lawyers say the city can if necessary sell off surplus property to pay the bill. Total of fees: 9 million dollars.

On the other hand:

After more than five years, the district, facing the prospect of a costly trial, agreed recently to a settlement. The deal calls on the district to shell out $300 million over the next 10 years to make classrooms fully accessible to the disabled and blind -- and that doesn't include all the legal costs of the case.

Without knowing more details than what the article revealed, at least the lawsuit was for a good reason. And compared to the settlement amount, it´s not that huge (3%).

Put it this way -- for every $1 million, the district could hire 14 teachers, or 14 social workers, or 14 nurses, or 14 librarians, or 14 counselors, or 14 instructional aides, or 13 bus drivers or a year's worth of school supplies for 25,000 elementary school kids.

Yes, but if the district had through their own "goodness" figured it out that it was their obligation to make every school accessible, then not a single cent would have been spent on this lawsuit in the first place.

From the BBC.

Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has been pinpointed as the worst day of the year. Why Jan.24 you might ask?

The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January's pay day - and T is the time since Christmas. Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

They got it wrong, of course.
The correct formula for the day of misery is 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA*K - where K is the number of hours since your boyfriend last kissed you.

From CrimProf:

The Georgia legislature is considering making child sodomy a capital offense. Of course, Coker v. Georgia held that rape of an adult woman cannot be made capital, but the Court has never returned to the issue of whether sexual abuse of a minor warrants death. LSU CrimProf Stuart Green is quoted in the article talking about Louisiana's law which also provides for death for some crimes involving children. [Jack Chin]

If the court system wasn´t such a mess, I would be 100% in favor. Since it isn´t, it´s a much more complicated issue. The law also wants to raise the age limit from 10 to 12 years old.

There is this issue - I wonder how much this is a reality:

First, Green said, making child rape or sodomy a capital crime could create an incentive for child rapists to kill their victims, the best witnesses against them.

In a related note to this, I would prefer to see efforts and energy being spent to put child pornographers and users of child pornography behing bars for a very, very long time, rather than focus so much on the death penalty. It seems to me we have a state of almost complete lack of crackdowns on child pornography. Deliberate disregard. One last article I came across mentioned that many of the people caught using/distributing child porn in one of the last FBI blitzes didn´t have anything happen to them. I think they weren´t even charged. Society does nothing about fueling the culture and socialization of child sexual abuse and it wants to discuss details about an occasional punishment. Punishment is an important issue, but it becomes a problem to focus on it without focusing on prevention. Most of the abusers are not even charged at the moment. That´s what needs more attention and action.

Two violent homo women try to rape/torture another:

NORTHAMPTON - Two women (Rachel Ann Klobertanz, 22, and Augusta Claire Kendall, 22), one a Smith College student, pleaded innocent to rape and assault charges yesterday in connection with a sexual encounter that a prosecutor said started out consensual and turned into a rape involving handcuffs and knives.

What does this tell you about the mess of the minds of these women?

The woman went there voluntarily, despite the fact she had obtained a restraining order against Klobertanz in August, according to Loehn (the DA) and police reports.

The three had "several bottles of champagne" and then went to a bedroom where the three engaged in consensual sex, according to Loehn and police reports. During the encounter, the victim was placed in handcuffs, although she did not remember how, police reports state. After Kendall slapped her face, the victim told the two she wanted to stop, police said.

In case you didn´t know, Smith college used to be an all women´s college, don´t know if it still is and it´s full of homos and these people that think they have a really hip sexuality (read ignorant, dysfunctional, crude, when not violent as well) - what you see a lot on TV and porn.

And voilà the result.

"In an interview, Loehn, who had been with the Northwestern district attorney's office for more than 10 years, said while this case may be unusual, it is not the first time a woman has been charged with raping another woman here. It's unusual because of the level of violence that occurred, Loehn said."

I don´t see much of "unusual" in the case, what is unusual is that for once the media covered it and didn´t succumb to the blackmailing and social engineering repression from homo activists and other "we don´t want to know" pro-homosexuals.

This is exactly what I stated in the SM discussion and in all the homosexist/homosexuality discussions here. Talking about how violent non-heterosexuals are is not ranting, it is to shed light on what pro-homosexuals insist on lying about.

===============================
On a related note, in a beautifully worded comment from a police officer blogger in the UK, The Policeman stated:

What the police call “stranger rape” is mercifully rare. In contrast to sexual offences as a whole, which have increased in frequency as our society has become more liberal, open minded and tolerant.

This is such a nice insight:

Les films d'amour parlent rarement d'amour. Malgré les baisers et les larmes, malgré les mots et les yeux doux, malgré la jouissance crue ou pudique des amants, c'est même, la plupart du temps, d'une toute autre chose dont traitent ces métrages. On rêverait d'ailleurs d'un «dictionnaire des parades possibles», catalogue raisonné où figurerait de manière exhaustive la liste des expédients en la matière. Il y aurait des entrées à «supplice», «cruauté», «idéalisation», «romance», «fusion passionnelle», et même un petit quelque chose sous «guimauve».

"Aim high" has been my motto, 'said Sir Humphrey, 'all through my life. You probably won't get what you want, but you may get something; aim low, and you get nothing at all. It's like throwing a stone at a cat. When I was a kid that used to be great sport in our yard; I daresay you were throwing cricket-balls when you were that age, but it's the same thing. If you throw straight at it, you fall short; aim above, and with luck you score. Every kid knows that. I'll tell you the story of my life.'

(from Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh)

Whom I have never read by the way.

And, a man named Evelyn? :-P It should be a crime to do that to your son.

But the above is one the best things I bumped into today. Except for the stupid cruelty to animals bit, one must say. Oh humanity! Can´t even manage to say one inspiring quote without messing it up.

Fat to fit: how Finland did it - Guardian article talking about the secrets of their success:

Thirty years ago, Finland was one of the world's unhealthiest nations. Diet was poor, people were inactive and heart disease was at record levels. Now it's one of the fittest countries on earth.

[...]

The number of men dying from cardiovascular heart disease has dropped by at least 65%, with deaths from lung cancer being slashed by a similar margin. Physical activity has risen and now, Finnish men can expect to live seven years longer and women six years longer than before measures were brought in.

A most fascinating article for anyone interested in mass educational strategies to alter unhealthy attitudes and behaviors.

Notice all the strategies using the teams going into the locales and talking directly with the people. Face to face, buddy to buddy. Also all the positive incentive strategies:

"The biggest innovation was massive community-based intervention. We tried to change entire communities," says Puska. Instead of a mass campaign telling people what not to do, officials blitzed the population with positive incentives. Villages held "quit and win "competitions for smokers, where those who didn't spark up for a month won prizes. Entire towns were set against each other in cholesterol-cutting showdowns. "We would go in, measure everyone's cholesterol, then go back two months later, "says Puska. The towns that cut cholesterol the most would win a collective prize. "We didn't tell people how to cut cholesterol, they knew that. It wasn't education they needed, it was motivation. They needed to do it for themselves. "

Local competitions were combined with sweeping nationwide changes in legislation. All forms of tobacco advertising were banned outright. Farmers were all but forced to produce low-fat milk or grow a new variety of oilseed rape bred just for the region that would make domestic vegetable oil widely available for the first time. Previously, farmers had been paid for meat and dairy on the basis of the product's fat content.

It just seems that the unhealthy food industry is so gigantic (read even more enormously powerful) compared to the tobacco industry that banning certain types of ads or starting with warning labels seem like a dream. Farming incentives, however, are very doable in many circumstances.

UPDATE jan-19-05:

Recent surveys throw up some worrying statistics about children in the EU.

According the latest figures from the International Obesity Taskforce, 36% of nine-year-olds in Italy are overweight or obese. In Spain, 27% of children and adolescents are affected.

"The epidemic appears to be accelerating out of control," Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force, said last year.

"Things are worse than our gloomiest predictions."

Actually, one first step has been taken regarding ads in the US:

Kraft, the largest US food maker will also add a label to its more nutritional and low-fat brands to promote the benefits.

Kraft rival PepsiCo began a similar labelling initiative last year.


Kraft's new advertising policy, which covers advertising on TV, radio and in print publications, is aimed at children between the ages of six and 11.

It means commercials for some of its most famous snacks and cereals shown during early morning cartoon shows on TV will now be replaced by food and drink qualifying for Kraft's new "Sensible Solution" label.

[end of update]


"Entire towns were set against each other in cholesterol-cutting showdowns." This is a great idea if you can get a good number of people to be motivated into it. I can imagine certain communities in other places where they would probably try to see whose cholesterol would collectively increase the most. As in:

The closest thing to a British equivalent was tried out two years ago. Dubbed "Fat men in pubs " by Len Almond, the founding director of the National Centre for Physical Activity and Health at Loughborough University, the scheme was less ambitious than its Finnish counterpart - merely designed to find out what kinds of exercise middle-aged drinking men might consider. "We got them together and promised them beer the whole time they talked. They were very frank. Every one of them thought exercise was fine. Fine for everyone else that is, "says Almond. "There was absolutely no chance of even getting them to use their cars less and walk more. "

Absolutely totally key:

What is striking about the Finnish scheme to get people more physically active is the depth and breadth of its reach and the duration for which it has been sustained. It also hit the right tack from the off, first by selling enjoyable activities to people that happened to require physical activity, and second ensuring exercise was the cheap and easy choice to make.

Pleasure is key. Hardly no one will create a habit that is not at all pleasurable. It will backfire sooner or later, usually sooner.

Excellent point:

"People always talk about not having enough time. I think that's rubbish. If life is so busy you really can't squeeze in a brisk walk, your life is a mess, "says Fogelholm. "If people took the amount of time they spent watching TV on one day and made it their whole week's exercise, we'd have no problem. "

UPDATE - jan-20-2005:

Amazing!!!

The First Nonsmoking Nation
Bhutan banned tobacco. Could the rest of the world follow?

If it depends on me, yes!

So, how has Bhutan managed to pull off a nationwide smoking ban while other nations dither? Bhutan is a Buddhist nation, and many Buddhists believe smoking is bad for their karma. Then again, Sri Lanka and Thailand are also predominantly Buddhist, and plenty of people smoke there.

The answer lies not in Bhutan's religion but in its famous quirkiness. This is a country that has elevated contrariness to a national trait. Convention says an impoverished yet stunningly beautiful nation like Bhutan should welcome tourists with open arms—and count the dollars. Yet Bhutan restricts the number of foreign tourists (about 9,000 last year) and charges fees of $200 per day. Convention says that gross national product is the best measure of national progress. Yet Bhutan is aiming for another mark: What it calls "gross national happiness."

GNH is what every country should be primarily concerned with.

And if you need to blow off about a quarter of an hour, try this free online Cupid personality Test.

My results:

The Sonnet - Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLDf)
Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed?

---

UPDATE jan-20-2005

And if you are really not wanting to do any work and want to kill a little more time - check out this from BeliefNet - it will give you a percentage of how you fit in a large list of religious denominations!

From david c (Chase Me Ladies):

I quite enjoy your mouthing off as well, but I think reading poetry and cuffing foreigners are the only two unarguable civilised diversions left to a man in this godless, barbaric world.

Discovery - Did you know how George Orwell described his family?

Because of his background--he famously described his family as "lower-upper-middle class"--he never quite fit in.

Sweet.

Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the "jury pool from hell."
Why prospective jurors were rejected:

One man was high on morphine;

One man was almost a murderer;

One man was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. "I should have known something was up," he said. "She had all her teeth."

On the other hand, they were all honest (about revealing such things). What I find really scary are the people who are like this, or worse, and are not forthcoming. That is a real jury from hell.

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin's client was found not guilty.

What if she was guilty?

And continuing our series on "Why Homosexists are Wrong - Let Us Count the Ways:"

From American Spectator

Homo Sullivan quote:

As I've said many times, homosexuality is very easy to understand. It is exactly the same as heterosexuality, with the gender reversed. Gays, however, cannot expect straights to understand this all by themselves. It's up to us to explain, and keep explaining.

Ross Douthat:
This feels somewhat reductionist to me. It's one thing to say that homosexual attraction is more than mere sexual desire, and that it has an emotional component comparable to heterosexual ardor. But calling something "the same as heterosexuality, with the gender reversed" begs a very important question -- namely, what happens when you reverse the gender? Unless you think that men are the same as women, doesn't it stand to reason that male-female and male-male relationships are going to be very, very different? (And that the same will go for gay relationships versus lesbian relationships, for that matter?)

For that matter indeed. Heterosexuality is sacred. It is marvelous exactly because it is not a fanatical obsession with your own self/sex (coupled with a dysfunctional incapability of relating heterosexually to the opposite sex). We have two sexes and without the coming together of the two, we don´t have a human race.

Update jan-21-05:

From Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 16, 2004 - The end of the gay marriage debate?

Those of us who think this week's revolution is a terrible mistake need to do a much better job of explaining that the core question is not "Why shouldn't any couple in love be able to marry?" but something more essential: "What is marriage for?" We need to convey that the fundamental purpose of marriage is to unite men and women so that any children they may create or adopt will have a mom and a dad.

Marriage expresses a public judgment that every child deserves a mom and a dad. Same-sex marriage, by contrast, says that the sexual and emotional desires of adults count for more than the needs of children. Which message do we want the next generation to receive?

"Same-sex marriage, by contrast, says that the sexual and emotional desires of adults count for more than the needs of children."

Not of any adults, but of homosexuals. In this society, homosexuals are considered much more important than children.

I think the biggest problem with a lot of conservative thought on same-sex marriage is that it has already fallen for the liberal-version-of-reality. Namely, that homosexuality and heterosexuality are the same, and consequently, homosexuals deserve the same rights in every way. The root of the problem starts there, not with discrimination of rights. Homosexuality is not equal to heterosexuality, neither should it be undestood or legitimized as such. That´s why the rights don´t apply in the same way. Homosexuality is a state of developmental dysfunction. Instead of society bending backwards to submit to every homosexual dysfunctional demand, it needs to rethink the basis for these claims in the first place.

If you posit that "there is nothing wrong or dysfunctional with homosexuality and that it equals heterosexuality," you cannot coherently argue that homosexuals do not have a right to everything heterosexuals have. The problem is this is false. It is a legitimating and equalizing homosexist tenet, not reality.

It is the same with obesity. A lot of obese children and adults are bullied and demeaned because of their weight problem. This is not right. However, the minute you have fat activists, not only complaining about this bashing, but claiming that there is nothing wrong or unhealthy with being obese (even extreme obesity), but, on the contrary, that it should be upheld as an example of health, society has fallen prey to a lie. And the minute people who say being obese is patently unhealthy are sued for a hate speech/thought crime or are labeled "full of hate," then you know that things have really gone awry.

[end of update]

The problem with homosexism is that it attempts to erase from conscience even the most basic truths about life and human beings. If you have dysfunctional people who cannot have healthy heterosexual relationships and they start to justify their homosexuality as being healthy, the only way they can do this is to go into denial about 99% of reality. Not to mention reason and logic.

It is exactly the same with justifications of pedophilia. What is the first thing that a pedophile activist will say about pedophilia? "It is just a misunderstood form of love. And the pedophile attraction itself is healthy."


Instead of going to deal with all their problems, they just want to legalize and legitimize them. Anyone who questions the gay agenda is demonized with utmost hatred and violence.

We are seeing more and more examples of gay activists having turned into dogmatic control freaks – they will listen to no one. Most people who do not endorse homosexuality have no hate in their hearts. But society must bow down to every gay dogma or they will burn you at the “fake-hate” stake. Homos are manipulative peaceful. If you don´t submit to what they want, they turn ugly and vicious and bash people with other viewpoints to the point of destroying careers, lives, and reputations. This is something they “forget” to mention when playing the victim card.


Another related problem with legitimizing homo and bisexuality that is hardly ever mentioned, finally gets a bit of attention at the American Scene. Incidentally, I can remember having a conversation about this problem no less than 7-8 yrs ago:

Ross Douthat:
There's an increasingly commonplace belief, at least in the circles where I move, that anything the least bit odd (or "queer," if you will) in a male personality is best explained as a function of repressed homosexuality. If someone's the least bit effeminate, they're definitely gay; if they're bookish and sensitive, they're probably a closet case; and if they have any moral hangups about sex, especially if they're religious (I'll admit this last hits close to home), they're probably just repressing their shameful urges toward man-on-man action.

Thanks to homo activists wanting to shove homosexuality down society´s throat, this has become an obsession not only for slandering men as homos, but women as dykes in similar fashion. And it causes serious distress and damage to the targeted people. Obviously, no one cares about this, and the notion of people having a right to be "safe" from this is inexistent.

But if someone like Douthat is addressing it, it´s because it has gotten really bad. People would rather run away from the problem and what it entails, in order to continue fanatically legitimizing homosexuality.

None of this kind of stereotyping is new, of course -- it's the stock-in-trade of the high school locker room, and a reason why growing up can be so miserable for non-jockish, sensitive boys (gay and straight alike). But it's disconcerting to see it crop up among educated, well-meaning, self-consciously tolerant people...

The problem is what Douthat calls "educated, well-meaning, self-consciously tolerant people" are really just very ignorant, irresponsible, malicious, and arrogant people with a bloated idea of themselves. Pro-homosexuals have in many, many ways an extremely locker-room mind towards sexuality. And they think themselves so "progressive" and "hip" for it. Not to mention the self-righteousness.

This is one of the most striking social engineering features that homo activism has achieved in society. Additionally, thanks to a mix of the women´s movement with a new very sexist liberal culture, this male homosexist locker-room mindset has shaped more and more women´s and girls attitudes. We see a lot of young women specially who are a photocopy of this guys locker room type, even if they are not jocks themselves.

What's being erased is any masculine middle ground -- the ground of sturdy, affectionate male friendships, of gentlemanly conduct toward women, of unapologetic intellectualism. Or maybe it already has been erased. None of this is the fault of homosexuality, exactly . . . and as I'm sure Andrew would point out, telling gays to stay in the closet so that heterosexual men can feel comfortable with themselves isn't really an appealing option. But it's a depressing trend nonetheless -- particularly, I suspect, for the hetero women stuck choosing between frat boys and emo boys.

One thing at a time:
"What's being erased is any masculine middle ground -- the ground of sturdy, affectionate male friendships,"

"sturdy, affectionate male friendships" is what you have in heterosexuality. And it was not only that this was being erased, it´s being destroyed by forcing homosexuality into society as norm. Same for heterosexual friendships and women.

"of gentlemanly conduct toward women," - I think this depends on what circles you move in. It´s too hard to generalize one way or another, but I don´t see how it relates to homosexual social engineering.

"unapologetic intellectualism" - I don´t know what he was referring to here, criminalization of thought because of hate crime legislation?

"as I'm sure Andrew would point out, telling gays to stay in the closet so that heterosexual men can feel comfortable with themselves isn't really an appealing option." - It´s not a question of lying about your problems (i.e., closeting them). You go deal with your dysfunctions and then you are no longer homosexual and you don´t blame anyone for feeling uncomfortable with problems that you have.

Very, very similar to the SM defenders in this discussion.

---

Update Feb 6-2005

From comment on thread regarding same-sex marriage in Scrappleface:

Since 1973 the issue of declaring homosexuality OK by the APA has never been fully discussed.

And the same man who was instrumental in doing that, Dr. Spitzer, later did a bunch of studies that show sexual orientation is not unchangeable, presented in 2001:

"Contrary to conventional wisdom," he says, "some highly motivated individuals, using a variety of change efforts, can make substantial change in multiple indicators of sexual orientation, and achieve good heterosexual functioning."

He added that change from homosexual to heterosexual is not usually a matter of "either/or," but exists on a continuum--that is, a diminishing of homosexuality and an expansion of heterosexual potential that is exhibited in widely varying degrees.

But, Dr. Spitzer said, his findings suggest that complete change--cessation of all homosexual fantasies and attractions (which is generally considered an unrealistic goal in most therapies) is probably uncommon. Still, when subjects did not actually change sexual orientation--for example, their change had been one of behavioral control and self-identity, but no significant shift in attractions--they still reported an improvement in overall emotional health and functioning.

This study is believed to be the most detailed investigation of sexual orientation change to date, in that it assessed a variety of homosexual indicators. Previous studies have usually assessed only one or two dimensions of sexual orientation, such as behavior and attraction.

However the media and homo activists drum, shout, yell the first APA statement, and persecute, hush, censor the second.

Do the words intolerant and bigoted come to mind?

Also, the above parallels a lot of psychological reports of pedophiles, i.e. how much they can change.

I think psychology is what needs to evolve, if it is ever going to aid these people. And notice that motivation is key. And how many studies that add to the above have yet to be done?

from Narth (a really good organization, btw)

# posted by Alessandra @ 1/18/2005 03:21:00 PM |