Ruth Margalit, in the New Yorker:
Four teen-agers huddle together, striking a severe pose like a boy band. In the background, just overhead, a sign looms: “Arbeit Macht Frei.” A girl kneels down next to some austere-looking, moss-ridden stairs. Wearing a black beanie and red lipstick, she makes a duck face and an inverse peace sign as the camera snaps. Two girlfriends draped in Israeli flags stand side by side, smiling, in a snow-topped forest. The caption reads, “#Trablinka #poland #jewish.” Underneath, a single comment: “Oh my god, beauties!!!”
The Instagram era has now brought us the selfie in a concentration camp. Or, as the phenomenon was identified in the title of a new Israeli Facebook page (translated here loosely), With My Besties in Auschwitz. The page, taken down on Wednesday, culled from real-life photos—most of them also taken down recently—that had been posted on social-media sites by Israeli kids on school trips to Poland. From the self-absorbed faux seriousness of some (meditating on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau!) to the jarring jokiness of others (hitching a ride by the train tracks!), the pictures have fed a perception of today’s youth as a bunch of technology-obsessed, self-indulgent narcissists…
Or then again: For all that you tried to wipe us out, we are still here!
? Martin
One of my work projects this year is to close an achievement gap between our male and female students. A few months of research have yielded some really enlightening results. They reinforce what I’ve repeatedly been told anecdotally, but it’s solid data in a well controlled context. What wasn’t surprising was the ability to measure the gap, or even that I could find some mechanisms to erase it, but the magnitude of the gap was surprising as was the straightforward effort needed to eliminate it. I thought it would be harder. I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
A very good video was posted today which is very much along the same lines. It’s worth sharing.
bago
Dominic wrote an article that he’s quite proud of.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/queer-issue-2014/Content?oid=19946096
? Martin
@bago: Should be. One of the things I remain most proud of from Gov Brown was signing AB 1266 considering how recently Prop 8 passed in this state. What I’m even more proud of is how few parents I’ve heard complain about it, and how many are supportive. This is a relatively friendly LGBT area, but things are moving much faster than I expected.
Fred
The young can dance past the graveyard because it seems so far away. In twenty years they will have a different view. Don’t judge their laughter too harshly. It is the dawning recognition of mortality and the first attempt to address it.
max
Or then again: For all that you tried to wipe us out, we are still here!
Or then again, they’re just normal kids, like all the kids their shocked elders used to be.
max
[‘Instagram: the fogged-up computer-assisted public mirror.’]
srv
Kids are just adults without all the baggage.
dance around in your bones
Gads, I finally got the grandkids to sleep and then their parents came home and now I can’t sleep and nobody’s fucking awake and
I just saw a pizza commercial and now I am craving pizza. Like that will happen.
Anyway, I listened to The Dutchman by Steve Goodman that Omnes said made him emotional; and I also want to thank @efgoldman: for his comment about stroke (I don’t want to say ‘victims’ exactly) people who have had a stroke having an issue with their tear glands….and thus crying for no apparent reason.
Me, I think my dad had lots of reasons to cry but I never knew which particular thing it was. I would have liked to know that.
Ok, lights out, I should go to bed. Thanks, Juicers, for being there when I needed you all today.
Betty Cracker
@dance around in your bones: Condolences on your loss.
My particular brand of insomnia seems to strike during this blog’s dead zone also — too late for the night owls, too early for the early risers.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: Wutya mean too late for the night owls?
Betty Cracker
@BillinGlendaleCA: Present company excepted! ;-)
Joseph Nobles
Bobby Womack at Glastonbury last year: http://youtu.be/-1XvIcTdwjs
BillinGlendaleCA
The night owls get a couple of pics:
San Fernando Valley Sunset
Americana at Brand in Glendale, CA
Steeplejack (tablet)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Chemtrails, man!
Very nice. What camera?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (tablet): Samsung Galaxy Camera 2. It’s got a big screen that my “not young eyes” can see.
dmsilev
@Fred: I went to visit Auschwitz when I was about that age (this was in the early nineties) and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Not at all a laughing matter and not a laughing place, about as far away from it as you could possibly get. Glad my parents brought me there to see it once, but would not willingly go back.
raven
It’s not THAT early.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: If I had known you were bored I would have gotten up at my usual time (4 am) instead of snuggling with my wife for an extra 45 min.
Nahhhh, no I wouldn’t.
WereBear
And these kids could be have the same reaction. Black humor is rife in the more dangerous professions (police officers, doctors, bomb disposal units) for the same reason.
I was the kind of kid who would have tried to handle my emotions with humor. It often got me into trouble and misunderstood, too.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s not 4am yet.
OzarkHillbilly
Meanwhile-
A prisoner in Florida who has spent 28 years on death row has had his murder conviction and death sentence overturned after DNA evidence destroyed the prosecution case used against him almost three decades ago.
Paul Hildwin, 54, will remain on death row as he waits to find out whether the Florida authorities intend to prosecute him for a second time after the state’s supreme court vacated his conviction and sentence and ordered a retrial. In a 5-2 ruling, the majority of the court said that “we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that a significant pillar of the state’s case, as presented to the jury, has collapsed.”
Because…. proving the state wrong is a capitol offense?
raven
RIP Bobby Womack
Been down so long, getting up didn’t cross my mind
I knew there was a better way of life and I was just trying to find
You don’t know what you’ll do until you’re put under pressure
Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester
Baud
I just read that Apple and Google are planning on ditching the standard headphone jack. There shall be much griping and gnashing of teeth when that comes to pass.
BillinGlendaleCA
Two more pics before I retire for the evening:
SF Valley Sunset with more chemtrails
Another view of Americana
raven
@Baud: Forbes:
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: rock on
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: 5:33 here now. After 25 plus years of swinging a hammer starting at 7 or 6 am, my body is permanently locked into waking up at 3-4 am. I don’t even have to set an alarm.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I use a Bluetooth headphone. Look ma, no wires.
ETA: The price differential between wired and the LG wireless ones I got was not that great. So I went with the BT headphones.
Baud
@raven:
I’ve started getting into Bluetooth headphones. Hate having to remember to charge them, but the absence of wires is great for working out.
raven
@Baud: I’m hoping if my VA claim goes through I can get come of the bluetooth hearing aids. My buddy just paid $6000 for a set that are totally Apple integrated.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Mine tell me the battery level when I turn them on, just charge them when i get back from my walk.
dmsilev
@WereBear: That’s fair enough.
What struck me about the place was how banal it looked from the outside. Sure, there was the barbed-wire fence, but it could have just been any random military base with a bunch of barracks and so forth. And then you went inside the buildings and saw the exhibits. A whole room filled with empty cans, all labeled ‘Zyklon-B’. A big room filled with locks of human hair. Another one filled with the suitcases that the victims had brought with them. And so forth.
Baud
@raven:
One day, we’ll all be wearing in-ear Bluetooth devices and Google glasses.
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Do you have a recommendation? I’m looking to upgrade my headset. I’d like one that can handle a lot of sweat cuz I’m a sweater.
WereBear
@raven: The man will be missed in this household.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: very nice.
BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: I went to Germany when I was in college. I went with a group being lead by my high school German teacher. We wanted to go to Dachau while we were in Munich. She wouldn’t take us, she lived through the war and the aftermath. She even got a medal from the guy with the funny mustache.
BubbaDave
@? Martin:
Goddammit, I read the comments. I KNOW better than to read the comments. But it’s not yet 6AM, and my brain was weak, and I read the comments.
Now I hate all humanity and want to exercise my 2nd amendment rights to shoot all YouTube commenters. So… another typical Saturday, I guess.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I have the LG Tone-Pro headset, they’re really comfortable. I did get the Comply tips. They’re foam and handle sweat and ear wax(I know it’s kinda gross) really well. The headphones don’t have any area, maybe the switch, that could get wet. The usb/charging port has a really good cover. I’ve not had any problem with them. Had them about a month.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks.
Baud
Early morning LOL
They should call their project the Human Centipede. (Warning: Do not Google.)
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@BubbaDave:
Never read YouTube comments. They make you wonder how we got past the Stone Age.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Best Buy entry for the LG Tone-Pro
WereBear
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: It’s my sincere hope they ARE all 13 year old boys, because that’s a curable condition.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@WereBear:
Good thought. I’ll try and hold on to it the next time I have a post-apocalypse vision of them whining themselves to death in front of a dead computer.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks. I was looking at something similar but didn’t think it would stand up to sweat. But I’ll check them out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Truth is, we never really got past the stone age. Our stones are just a little more technologically sophisticated now.
Iowa Old Lady
@? Martin: Great video.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@OzarkHillbilly:
True, that. The downside is that all of our stones are made in China now.
Frankensteinbeck
Put me down for ‘narcissists’. Put me down for this being same as it ever was, like @max said. And because people are not one monolithic thing, I’m sure plenty of kids have @dmsilev‘s reaction.
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I do hear YouTube has the stupidest and nastiest comment section on the internet.
Frankensteinbeck
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m not sure this is true. Evolution can work pretty fast, but more importantly humans have evolved to be behaviorally adaptable way beyond any other animal. The knowledge we’ve built up since the stone age is more than technology. We consider unacceptable and barbaric now moral attitudes that were enlightened a hundred years ago. The process has sped up with technology increasing communication, but it runs (slowly and in fits and starts) all the way back. In the stone age, the Holocaust would have been stupid because it didn’t direct genocide widely enough.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Frankensteinbeck:
Excluding conservatives – right?
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: We are adapatable… as engineered, so to speak. However, in practice, we have cultural pressures to shut that down for the benefit of power grabbers.
For instance, I assume that almost every wingnut I encounter was beaten as a child, because every single time I get to know them, I discover it is so. This creates a highly inflexible human, in defiance of our true template.
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: This is all true, but in reply, I offer page 23 A of any local paper, where all the stupid little indignities we inflict on our fellow human beings get reported. For instance shooting somebody in the face for pissing/defecating on a gravel bar.*
*true story, never got the straight of whether the guy was taking a dump or just a leak, didn’t matter really, he was just as dead and either way it was just as stupid.
MattF
A little ‘Go perform an unnatural act on a nearby orifice’ among Virginia Republicans:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-republicans-find-unity-elusive/2014/06/27/4ae69796-fd7c-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html?hpid=z2
NotMax
Teenagers acting goofy, immature, irreverent or even with attention-seeking stupidity?
Hoocoodanode?
Morzer
I don’t know if any of you were following the Stonekettle Station saga, but on June 20th Jim Wright posted a mighty, epic and righteous discourse entitled “Thieving Bastards”:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/06/thieving-bastards.html
WereBear
@Morzer: It’s a real conundrum that Mr Wright delineates very well.
I’m in the throes of this same dilemma… the widespread ignorance that, for people who put content on it, the Internet is not “free.” Google, in its infinite wisdom, suddenly made me hot and now my bandwidth bill has doubled, and the increased traffic is starting to find all the weak points in my website infrastructure. All of this costs money.
I’m doing my best to monetize the traffic, but it’s not as easy as slapping up an adstream. John can get away with hip & ironic with the wingnut ads here, on a political site, but as a homegrown Internet Cat Guru, all I have is my experience and my credibility. Putting up an ad which directly contradicts my own advice makes me look mercenary and untrustworthy.
And yes, there are “free” sites, and they put up the advertising. OR you run the risk of years of work just vanishing… poof!
I wrote a book, I have a bigger and better one in the works, we have cat products we sell, and I’ve been slowly building up some ads for products I can endorse.
And I still get people unsubscribing every time I send out a newsletter. You put ads for your own products in it! You ask for donations! All you care about is money!
No, it’s my hosting company, Apple dealer, and Internet provider; the commerce organizations that make your petulant words possible… they are the ones who want money.
Me? I’m not getting paid at all at this point!
Morzer
@WereBear:
I hear you. I do find it amazing how offensively self-righteous people are about their suddenly discovered “right” to free stuff.
Baud
@WereBear:
Why am I seeing all these dog ads on your so-called cat site?!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
No worse feeling than getting a FYWP after you’ve chiseled out a long comment.
Morzer
@Baud:
Getting those red error messages out of the granite is one total mofo. And don’t even get me started on my hatred for people who ruin, absolutely ruin, good marble with emoticons. I tell you, sometimes I want to go all Suarez-Juarez on them.
WereBear
@Morzer: Thanks. I’m STILL running a deficit when it comes to tech costs… the human-hours I’ve put into it? Purely karmic kompensation.
@Baud: :)
Baud
@Morzer:
Yep. And granite autocorrect is a bitch.
Morzer
Another day, another conservative charm offensive without the charm:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/27/ohio-man-arrested-after-friends-parade-ar-15s-through-neighborhood-spouting-racial-slurs/
….
My enthusiasm for my future Korean life grows exponentially when I reflect that you just don’t get clowns like this in Seoul.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: I sympathize with the writer to the extent people republished his piece without attribution (which is intellectual property theft) or with attribution but as if it were a column produced for their own for-profit site without his permission (which is fraud and theft of labor). That said, the rant linked above strikes me as a bit hysterical. Jesus Christ. It’s a fucking blog post.
Culture of Truth
[ WAVES RAKE ]
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
Heh. Never occurs to them that they are complaining because money is something they care about as well.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
I think what really set him off was Mike Malloy and little buddies implying that he should be grateful for Malloy using his work without attribution and being thoroughly rude and dismissive when he emailed Malloy to complain about it. I dare say you might feel similarly if it happened to you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Morzer: Korea? What takes you there? (more than a little jealous)
Ben Cisco
@BillinGlendaleCA: Newegg link.
Morzer
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am a-movin’ my bones to Seoul to live there full-time with the fully Korean Madame Morzer. I am excited, nervous and wondering if supplies of bacon and grits can be obtained in them there furrin’ parts.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: It sounds like Malloy (whom I’ve never heard of) attributed the piece and told people where to find it online but didn’t get permission to read it on his podcast. I can understand being angry about it, but comparing that to “rape” strikes me as a bit over the top. YMMV.
mai naem
I remember reading about some general knowledge test of US HS students had quite a high percentage thinking that the US fought against the Russians during WW11.I am sure Israeli students are way more knowledgeable about WW11 but maybe their attitude is just different towards WW11 because it was so long ago.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
I’ll agree you on the rape thing, partly because I think it’s a comparison which is chronically over-used and one which, fundamentally, I think shouldn’t be used except in the most serious of circumstances. The more people trivialize rape by comparing it to much lesser evils, the more difficult it is for actual victims of rape to find help or justice.
OzarkHillbilly
@Morzer: Amazon brother, delivers anywhere. My wife is from Spain and she dearly loves Jamón ibérico (Spanish ham) (it is melt in your mouth good) which we can get delivered here in the heart of the Ozarks. Of course, the good stuff can cost more than $100/lb. so we don’t often indulge that taste of hers.
Bacon might be difficult but you should be able to get pork bellies there and you can make your own bacon from it (I have a kick a$$ recipe for it)
There is always the possibility that once you sink your teeth into some of those Korean delicacies you might forget all about bacon.
Nahhhhhhh, that was really silly of me to even mention that. Forget bacon… that’s as likely as forgetting your mother.
ps, now I am really jealous, Korea, with a native, doesn’t get better than that.
NotMax
A friend wanted to meet in town, as we were both running errands there today, and he insisted on stopping in at a fast food place because he had a 2-for-1 coupon.
All I wanted was coffee, but he was strenuously insistent that we break bread together. Hard to pinpoint exactly, but it must be somewhere around 2 or even 3 years since last eating any such fare.
Now am sitting bolt upright at 3 a.m. along with what feels like a concrete anchor in my gut.
(Note to self: Just keep repeating that this too shall pass.)
OzarkHillbilly
@mai naem:
I think you mean so far in the future. ;-)
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, but it’s his fucking blog post.
Practically the first thing at the top of the Stonekettle Station site is a link to “Sharing material from Stonekettle Station,” which lays out Jim Wright’s policy—which is not unreasonable at all. He doesn’t have a problem with people excerpting a snippet, with proper attribution and a link to the post at his site. The sticking point is that people took his (long—2,300 words) piece in its entirety without asking him and posted it on their sites. Why not quote a piece and then give a link to the “righteous rant at Stonekettle Station” or whatever? If anyone thinks that is unreasonable or that he is being “hysterical,” fine—they can skip it and deny him the awesome boost of publicity on their Web site. He may be tilting at windmills, but he has a right to be pissed off.
He may have stepped on his own dick in one respect: one of the “good” sites that he apparently authorized is Americans Against the Tea Party, which is one of those sketchy (to me) sites that aggregates content from all over and formats it to make it appear that it is all the work of AATTP “contributors.” And every article on their site is accompanied by a “Repost” button that seems to give some bogus imprimatur to “freely syndicate” the articles from there. Juan Cole, for one, apparently got the Wright piece from there.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: See? All things in moderation.
NotMax
@mai naem – @OzrkHillbilly
Gee whiz, one looks away for just a minute and completely misses WW 3 through 10.
Tempus fugit, indeed.
Morzer
@OzarkHillbilly:
I might just have to hit you up for that bacon recipe one of these fine days. I am really looking forward to exploring Seoul and discovering its hidden treasures, although I suspect I shall often look like a rather large version of Twoflower in downtown Ankh-Morpork (note to self: invest money in sapient pearwood baggage carrying device with attitude).
Bobby Thomson
@Morzer: Dude needs to get a grip. If he wants to protect his rights in his work, there are things he can do that he didn’t do, as well as tradeoffs associated with them. And if he wants to pay his bills, he could have leveraged this into more lucrative enterprises. If he wants to discourage anyone from publicizing him, though, he’s doing a bang up job.
He also needs to make up his mind whether it was never about the money or whether he’s upset about not being able to pay bills because he’s not seeing any coin up front for this. His latest blog post is consistently inconsistent about that.
Southern Beale
Gee, nobody could have anticipated that in the wake of Texas’ radical anti-abortion law, there’d be a rise in black-market DIY abortion pills across South Texas.
Hoocodanode?
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: It’s not the expectation of attribution I find hysterical; it’s the terms he used to describe the reprinting of his blog post without permission, e.g., comparing it to rape.
Bobby Thomson
@Steeplejack: It’s not just about attribution. He’s saying pretty corrosive stuff about people who gave him full attribution.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly:
share, you please to must.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: Like the original the complaining post is very overwritten and needs an editor, badly. The guy also needs to take a fucking chill pill. If he wants to sue, he should definitely sue and like other blog writers he should explore his legal options. But the hysteria and the comparisons to rape are really overblown and the violent rhetoric is absurd and, frankly, disgusting. I get why people “liked” his original post so much but that, too, rocketed from very good points to hysterical self regard.
People get screwed over. They get screwed over all the time. You didn’t–really. You got heard on an important topic of the day. People read your work and celebrated you for saying it. Many a professional writer has died without that much recognition.
aimai
@Morzer: Congratulations! Best Wishes for this new life you are entering on!
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker:
Not really, Betty. It’s a picture of everything in the world for anyone who creates anything, anymore, and it started in places like music. I’m really not surprised that this is hitting bloggers and becoming obvious to everybody, but it’s a systemic problem without any obvious answer.
If you make anything, the effort you take to make that thing (whether it’s going to war, learning to paint, anything) is effort you can’t spend on self-promotion. Then some guy takes your thing outright, and with the effort they saved by not creating a thing, they riff on it or even just take it and put it out their as their own (like the guy with the for-pay podcast: now that’s a strange thing to see anymore! I bet you that guy’s not covering his costs either)
And the person who is riffing on or just stealing the thing, is the one who gets ‘all the ad revenues and all the popularity’. They’re the one with thousands of dollars of adsense money. Then Google kicks them off for no reason, manufacturing some excuse, and doesn’t pay them, in order to save money on AdSense, which apparently is not making ITS money, in turn. (I suspect Google == Enron, in the long run)
None of it’s really working. I have no idea where it’s going. But Jim Wright’s lamenting a disconnect that’s a very serious thing: this idea that internet celebrity is its own value, and must magically lead to a functional society where people can afford to eat and buy a cardboard box to live in. Wright’s seeing the lie in that, and because he’s a military guy who did actually go and suffer and fight and risk physical harm (over more lies), he feels that his ‘real world’ cred entitles him to something. That, combined with his ability to write persuasively (shown by the viral cred… at least until he started firing off broadsides at ‘viral’ itself!) makes him feel it’s WRONG for some guy to take the ‘thing’ he made, and get paid for what Jim did.
Assuming that guy even is getting paid in real terms (which isn’t anything like guaranteed).
It’s crabs in a bucket, but it’s crabs all the way down. I’m not sure what it’s going to take, but I see it all as ‘decline of freemarket capitalism and the belief that the mosh pit is the proper model for society’, and it’s gotta break, sooner rather than later.
I suggest we eat the rich and burn their money for warmth =D
AnotherMildred
Hey, If this Survivor can dance at the camps, with his kids & grandkids…
Morzer
@Applejinx:
First catch your billionaire.
aimai
@Applejinx: You are right that writers and artists whose work appears for free on the internet are struggling to be able to monetize their work–and that this has been going on for a long time. Huffington Post was literally built on the backs of writers who were never paid for their work. Its part of the modern “intern” and speculation economy in which each individual must simultaneously build and market their brand, under the illusion (sometimes the illusion, sometimes very clear about the failures of this model) that exposure will magically lead to remuneration.
I think of it more as the lie of the underpants gnome’s business partner–the con man who tells the gnomes that between the first step (collect underwear) and the last step (profit) lies a second step that is undefined. Amateur or young writers and artists are told:
1) Produce
2) Disseminate or let someone else disseminate your work
3) Profit!
But there is no necessary connection between two and three and, in fact, its very hard to get from two to three. Maybe its impossible for most people to be seen, or heard, or market themselves from 1 to 3 but there is no clear pathway from 2 to 3.
Still, Wright made an enormous tactical error in believing that what people want is to pay for his commentary. They don’t. The correct pathway for “military guy comments on military issues” is to give away some of the commentary but market your brand on the strength of it and sell the next piece or sell yourself as an interview subject.
Instead of going ballistic on the net with a badly written piece and childishly threatening people on facebook (and then keeping track of who came to the site, really?) He should have had a representative contact Malloy and ask for 1) remuneration and 2) a chance to discuss his piece on air. He could have ended up speaking for a lot of people on air and possibly selling a column or two to someone who does pay for the work.
WereBear
@aimai: Excellent points, aimai.
To monetize oneself, there must be something to sell. Write a book, shoot a video, create a product of some kind, and advertise yourself and your products.
While it is a daunting task, the opportunities have never been more egalitarian. I know many musicians who are happy with touring and selling through their own efforts and fan outreach. We have a live music scene in New England that just keeps growing the more the music industry pushes bland pop and lack of choice.
Likewise, writers don’t have to convince a skeptical and now celebrity-obsessive publisher to take them on. They just put the stuff out there and see who wants it.
It’s never easy to be caught between two systems… and that’s what we have going on right now. Gutenberg II, Electric Boogaloo.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I myself stopped reading at about the 59th paragraph.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
I assume most people in America were abused as a child, conservatives and liberals. One of our culture’s quirks is an obsession with covering up for child abuse. We shift blame to strangers and pretend the vast majority of crimes against children aren’t inflicted by their guardians. We openly argue that parents should have levels of control over their children that count as abuse. Child abuse is close to never discussed in our public discourse, and when it comes up the solution offered is usually that parents should exercise even more power over their kids – mostly the opposite of a healthy solution.
On the other hand, beating your children with weapons is at least formally acknowledged as bad, and multi-generation families that live together where the patriarch reserves the right to have sex with every female member are very rare. So we’ve come a long way in the last hundred years.
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
That’s hard to answer, since in the last five years I’ve seen them regress in a wave of insanity to immediate post-WWII attitudes, themselves a regression in response to a brutal cultural trauma. Still, most of them don’t believe that other white races are subhuman, or that other sects of Christianity and Judaism are as evil as they think Islam is. So there’s progress.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hey, man, I didn’t say we aren’t still fucked up. The Reagan Era in particular launched a wave of embracing cruelty as morality. I’m just sayin’ we’ve improved since the stone age!
jefft452
@Baud: “They should call their project the Human Centipede. (Warning: Do not Google.)”
I actually bought that when it was in the remainder bin, I was expecting a cheezy creature feature like “mansquito” or “dinoshark”
Yeah, Do not Google
WereBear
I think it was once far more common. I know a number of parents, including my own, who did a 180 with Dr. Spock, disciplining their children basically the opposite of the way they were reared.
It seems to come down to Authoritarian mindset. You either get away, or you’re trapped into a World Without Thinking.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I subscribe to the John Cole view of rape analogies. I wish I could find the original, but I the google failed me this morning.
Paraphrasing Cole: You know what’s like rape, you stupid fuck? Rape!
Liberty60
@Fred:
I find this very perceptive. I also don’t get too upset at callow and seeming insensitive behavior of young people- or rather, I see it as an opportunity for us olds to offer a different perspective instead of condemnation.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Exactly. Best troll smack down ever.
J R in WV
@Morzer:
Yes, but Seoul is only smoething like 37 miles south of the DMZ border with North Korea, and they have all kinds of weapons, including a crazy leader!
Best of luck! So glad you will be able to keep us posted on the new experiences!