sundries

[rm]

I did not wake up with any bizarreness in the middle of the night last night. I also had rice with terriyaki sauce for dinner, which Patty had to make because I have not yet mastered rice, because anything else seemed too challenging. On the other hand, now I am cured.

Yay, thing that was fucked up with new lease is now unfucked up. Although management company person on speaker phone, with music playing, filing your nails (yes, I could hear the emery board), you completely suck.

There was also an incident this morning involving city inspectors and a caulking gun.

Stanley Fish on plagiarism. It is, of course, Stanley Fish, which is to say, argue amongst yourselves.

The Ebell Club, a woman's social club in Los Angeles was founded at the end of the 19th century to provide a substitute for university education to women who were usually denied such opportunities because of school policies and family financial priorities. Keeping the club going in a time of broader opportunities, however, is a challenge.

Diagnosing appendicitis.

Fed up flight attendant makes one hell of an exit. Who wants to bet his story gets optioned for a movie deal?

Oyster battle: they can help clean polluted waters, but gov't agencies worry that means tainted seafood will reach consumers.

In the weirdest, least comprehensible event in the saga of the downtown Islamic cultural center is the proposal by an anti-gay media personality of opening a gay bar catering to Muslims next to it.

Meanwhile, the MTA has approved this really offensive ad with images of the planes flying into the WTC that opposes said Islamic cultural center.

Everything I hear about Torchwood S4 is making me so excited. Yesterday's big news, at least in my book, is that it will be taking place 2 years after the events of CoE. We're not sure if that means Ianto and Steven's deaths, or when Jack takes off from earth six months later. But it's a really compelling amount of time to me either way, in terms of where Jack's head is going to be, and is really a random piece of info I've felt those of us who want to be writing speculative S4 fic really, really need. I am all over this detail. ALL OVER IT.

Last night on Buffy: It's the apocalypse sex episode! Hey, own your tropes. Also, jeez, how is Spike the only grownup around? And really, King ARthur? The sword in the stone, really? What's most ridiculous is the degree to which it works, at least in the moment of watching.

Tonight, White Collar and Covert Affairs.

Comments

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Out here in Colorado , some people liken the building of a Mosque at ground zero to building a gun range at Columbine high school. It's the only argument I've heard that addresses the issue without openly being labeled as a religious slam / anti Muslim / racist act and disregarded.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think it's a disingenuous argument and one that is about somwhat more effectively veiled Islamiphobia, which in the US is often, but not exclusively, linked to racism, and this is absolutely, positively not a fight I wish to have in my journal.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Understood. I thought that the statement was unique in looking at it as comparing two tragedies, without the introduction of religion/Islam/racism. The people I've had talks with are definitely not Islamiphobic (personal friends of mine, who I share mutual friends with who practice Islam ... oddly enough in the hacker scene ). I understand the logic behind thinking that it could be thinly veiled Islamiphobia, but I like to think that it's also possible to not be Islamiphobia at all.

I like to think that I am not Islamiphobic , and that I can view acts of politically inspired mass killing ( McVeigh/9-11 ) external of religion. It's easy to point and say 'oh no you aren't' , but that's the way the world is these days.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

It doesn't introduce religion overtly, but it's there by the back door, in the implication that a gun range somehow has a comparable function within a community to a mosque.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

While I understand what you mean I think you are really painting the devil on the wall here. I don't think it's safe or realistic to automatically assume that they were placing Islam and a gun range on par. They were putting two acts of mass murder on par. I grant that I was there for the conversation, and other people here were not - but I think that too many times the default path is to assume that people are inherently evil and bashing until proven otherwise. IMHO that is dangerous.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

But if the analogy isn't placing the mosque and the gun range on a par, it ceases to be an analogy and becomes meaningless a string of unrelated words. You might as well say it would be like building a swimming pool at Columbine if you're not supposed to draw some conclusion about equivalency here. I really think you're reaching.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

There are two locations. At each location an act of mass murder was committed. Building a structure on the location where the event happened that has a direct relation to the event ( Columbine Shooting -> Firing Range for high school kids , 9/11 -> Religious house of worship that the people who performed the attacks were members/taught hate ).

I think they are both being referred to as educational resources that people used as a basis to take action and commit acts of mass murder. It doesn't necessarily demonize either, but it does put them on equal footing as educational facilities that were (mis)used.

What I'm trying to say is that the people who are holding this opinion ( that they are on par ) are looking at it from a perspective of 'This is where the murders went to learn murder' , and less about religious bias or racism.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

If we're really talking about "this is where murderers went to learn murder," then the proper analagous case would be a flight school, not a mosque.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I really can't understand how you can't see the blatant religious bias in defining mosques - and not just a specific mosque but any hypothetical mosque - as a place where people go to learn to kill. The entire argument pretty much hinges on that understanding of the word; there is nothing neutral about its usage here.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Actually, McVeigh wasn't uninfluenced by religion.

http://ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15532

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I understand that. What I meant was being able to remove that factor and look at the whole picture outside of it. It's like saying " let's look at just the red blood cells. Ok now let's look at just the white blood cells." or in terms of listening to music isolating the drums and guitars and listening to just the vocals. Then turning the vocals off and listening to just the guitars.

Getting a feel for each component, and how it contibutes up the whole.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Thing is though - and I have a feeling we've had this conversation before - there's some things that just can't be plucked out of their context because it's the context that makes them meaningful. This goes especially in a case of an issue like this, where there's so much cultural, social, political and racial intersection - it's less like isolating a drumbeat (which can still stand on its own) and more like trying to start out studying a book by looking at only the vowels.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

The thing is , I'm an analyst. It's what I do.

Extract the cultural angle - how was this person raised, how were they taught by their parents/family? How did their school life effect them. What religion did they accept and how did they interpret it?

Extract the Social : What was their peer group like. What people did they ' hang out ' with, what was their influence on the person in question.

Extract the political : How did they vote, what party do they follow, how do they feel about the government and how it operates?

Then take all of these and make like a Venn diagram out of it. Look where they influence each other. Look for WHY they act/think/believe the way they do.

This is why I was dissecting the point of view of the people who object to the Mosque at ground zero , and/or are part of the offensive bus ad. why did they choose the symbols that they did, they are afraid, but what are they afraid of and why? Yes , yes a thousand times yes their points of view are " wrong " , but that's not a solution. Understanding why they think that way and undoing it is. Instead of just clubbing them to death , trying to understand why they feel the way they do. I come to understand why they feel the way they do - but that does not mean I agree with it. Unfortunately in the court of LJ it does, apparently.

I do this every day. Multiple times a day. I have learned to do this, and I'm good at it. I can remove my feelings from the process. When you are trying to crack the password to a hard drive full of KP you have to put aside the disgust and horror you feel and look at the person who put the lock in place. You have to understand them.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Well, the court of LJ may have misunderstood you because nothing in your discourse has suggested you think that they are wrong or that you've progressed passed the understanding and onto the undoing stage. I actually agree wholeheartedly understanding where people are coming from is a key part of engaging with them (and I haven't tried to club anyone to death, though you know anger isn't unjustified, especially where issues are personal for people) but there's a difference between understanding people and excusing them.

I can remove my feelings from the process.

You may be able to, but emotion - on both sides - is at the heart of an issue like this, which is why I'd respectfully submit tackling it like a data problem might not be as successful as you think it is.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Apologies to the people of Colorado, but no, that's not what it would be like at all. A more fair comparison would be like if they wanted to build a cathedral near the site of the Oklahoma City bombing... and people objected, because you know, Timothy McVeigh was Irish Catholic, and so that would be "disrespectful". Can you imagine anyone making that objection? No, right?

[delchi.livejournal.com]

This is a good point.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

You do know there IS a catholic church that was rebuilt right across the street from the Oklahoma City bombing? There is. There's also a huge statue of Jesus Wept right by there.

http://litbrit.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-demagoguery-fearmongering-and.html

[trinker.livejournal.com]

The comparable scenario would be a "flight" school.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

And in a hilarious, if only tangentially related, combination of all three things, my mom was shot at in Colorado for being a Moslem.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that it's in the realm of hilarious rather than tragic, by which I infer that she was shot at, wasn't hit, and wasn't cripplingly traumatized.

Ah, Colorado. Beautiful scenery, great skiing, ugly politics.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

No, thank god, she wasn't actually hit. She can laugh about it now, but her associations with the American Midwest aren't exactly the fondest, and rather understandably, she refuses to go back.

I think that pretty much sums it up. :/ My Coloradian family members and I have to ... agree to disagree about certain political issues. Like gun control. Or, you know, Moslems.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what's in the water in Colorado Springs, that it spawns such hatefulness. (I don't know how I avoided it, I went to high school out there.) Boulder evidently has a different water supply.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

Oh lordy, Colorado Springs. I have to say, I'm impressed by your miraculous escape. I considered applying to Colorado College for a while, when I was applying to university, but I have to admit, the location was a pretty big turn off. And my mom's stories certainly didn't help.

On the other hand, Boulder and I get along juuust fine.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I had a limited time sentence. (Boarding school)