Messages

[Ultimately, as Lincoln said, we can't have a country half slave and half free.]

Speaking of Civil War comparisons...

If the prospect of "two Americas" is a problem for Mr. Griffin, it also troubles Brian S. Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative advocacy group. In an interview, he vowed to "roll back gay marriage" wherever it exists, adding, "Ultimately, as Lincoln said, we can't have a country half slave and half free."

After the proceeding, Mr. Valle's mother, Elizabeth Valle, said brusquely: "I'm in shock. His wife perjured herself."

Mr. Valle's wife, Kathleen Mangan-Valle, who was not in the courtroom on Tuesday, had testified that she reported her husband's Internet activities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including her discovery that he had considered her as a potential victim.

Not sure where the perjury thing comes from, I couldn't see a mention in the article?

I took that to mean the guy's mother thinks his wife lied on the stand when she said she'd discovered she might be a target.

The article doesn't say what evidence she had that he thought about eating her, though.

[it's probably not a concern for them]

Note, I'm not trying to make a one liner there, just show that it's probably not a concern for them. Will also see if I can read this a bit after the boss man goes home. (I'm leaving for work shortly).

This.  I've seen similar views from up-scale housing colonies in India.  Worse, actually - Indian slums are fucking horrifying, and the horror is compounded by the fact that they are everywhere.  And yet, the middle and upper classes who live in those colonies can't, or won't, see it.  They actually get angry when foreigners come to India and talk about all the poverty.

The fuck? Is this kind of like the "I don't see race" thing, but "I don't see poverty"?

It may be that the wealth divide is not that drastic in the UK, and I've seen relatively little of non-western countries but I really doubt I could sleep with that as my view. From either direction. Fuck no.

I think much of the reason rampant poverty is so tolerated/ignored in India is the caste system.  It's such a rigid hierarchy, and so huge, that there's almost always going to be someone below you and someone above you, and the culture really enforces the belief that that's how it should be.  And caste is something you're born into - no matter what you do, even if you manage to make it big somehow, your caste never changes.  It cannot change.  BIP, indeed.

[it's probably not a concern for them]

Note, I'm not trying to make a one liner there, just show that it's probably not a concern for them. Will also see if I can read this a bit after the boss man goes home. (I'm leaving for work shortly).

This.  I've seen similar views from up-scale housing colonies in India.  Worse, actually - Indian slums are fucking horrifying, and the horror is compounded by the fact that they are everywhere.  And yet, the middle and upper classes who live in those colonies can't, or won't, see it.  They actually get angry when foreigners come to India and talk about all the poverty.

I was more getting at that when changes come in this quickly and "effectively" (Not read much around it yet, do need to know more) there's often a lot of fucked-up fringe cases. It does seem a little odd that the only given reason is a shift in funding too. I would be a bit more open to this guy if he was identifying other factors.

Well, I don't know if the principal is covering anything up, as I've only seen this one article, but I don't see too much reason for suspicion.  He does admit that test scores are still below average in many areas, but I don't think that was the initial aim of this policy.  The primary goal, I think, was to reduce violence and behavioral problems.  Treating all the students like criminals likely led to a feedback loop in which the student body began to conform to those expectations.  Now that they're being treated like students again, it's not surprising that their behavior has changed.  I think, also, being given access to creative outlets, like art, dance, and music, probably also helped a lot.

[Orchard Gardens has one of the fastest student improvement rates statewide. And the students — once described as loud and unruly, have found their focus.]

Just caught this article.

That was when Andrew Bott — the sixth principal in seven years — showed up, and everything started to change.  "We got rid of the security guards," said Bott, who reinvested all the money used for security infrastructure into the arts.

The end result? Orchard Gardens has one of the fastest student improvement rates statewide. And the students — once described as loud and unruly, have found their focus.

THIS MAN IS THREATENING OUR PIPELINE!

From what I understand, Obama is hesitant because there are several unanswered questions about the evidence, including things like the exact provenance, the circumstances of the alleged attack, and so forth.  The last time we acted precipitously on intelligence about WMDs didn't end up going so well.

I don't doubt, also, that Obama would rather not get involved in another Mid-East altercation, though I've always assumed that our response to Syria crossing the line would consist of arming the rebels and/or bombing Syrian chemical weapon supplies.  But if it turns out the evidence is solid, Obama will have to act, in order to deter other states from developing and deploying chemical weapons, regardless of whether he himself wants to or not.

Given that our countries aren't all that friendly, could part of the reason why the FBI apparently repeatedly ignored the Russians' concerns be because they were coming from the Russians?  I wonder if some people in the FBI might've asked themselves why a Chechen would want to attack the U.S., and simply figure the Russians were trying to stir something up?

http://www.nationstates.net/the_cities_of_the_red_night

They only stayed 15 minutes, 20 tops.

That's because they had no hook to hang their shit on, and they couldn't hide from themselves that they looked like hayseeds.  Clowns, in this case.

Yeah, we were definitely not the audience they wanted or needed.  I still wonder why they came in the first place.  All I can figure is they were having a slow day in the Phelps compound, and it's only about a 40 minute drive from Topeka to Lawrence.

I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

That's what I was taught too.

I would assume it was the same in Israel, but I didn't know for sure how well developed literacy was in that region.  My guess would be that it is roughly at the same level as Greece etc, but since it's not a period of history I'm especially interested in or knowledgeable about, I don't know for sure.  And so I dislike assuming.

I don't know what it was like pre-Alexander, but after him, and especially after the Roman conquest, it was pretty much the same as anywhere else.

I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

All composition in antiquity was done with the understanding that the audience would hear it rather than see (i.e. read) it, since no more than 10% of people ever knew how to read and write.  Repetition is a rhetorical technique to aid with oral performance of a text - some biblical scholars now think gospel readings done in the house churches actually involved recitation from memory rather than reading from a written text, because everything in the first century was written in continuous script, no spaces or punctuation, everything in capital letters, very difficult to read for an audience, especially by candle or lamplight.

i've seen lots of mockery, and it doesn't seem to slow them down any.  i mean, it's worth it anyways because of the funny pictures to paste on the intarwebs, but i've not seen any evidence of this doing anything but rolling off like water on a duck's back.

i would assume that they think anyone mocking them is their enemy, and mockery from an enemy generally fuels resolve, no?

does it ever cause them to pack up and go home?

That's because the people doing the mocking generally tend to look like The Enemy.

What you WANT is people that look like professionals and/or good old boys doing the mocking.  Even better, people wearing Christian religious shirts and/or symbols doing it.

It's all about the message, and a good chunk of the message is delivery.

This makes me think of the two times I've seen the Phelpians in person.  The first time, they were protesting a Marilyn Manson concert - I tried to get one of them to autograph my Bible, but none of them would take me up on it.  The line of people waiting to get into the concert did all the things you'd expect, especially lots of same-sex couples kissing.  But I imagine to the Phelpians they looked exactly like The Enemy.  They stayed about an hour that time.

The second time, they were protesting my department's annual banquet.  I always thought that was an odd choice.  The religious studies department at KU is pretty liberal, and we held it at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries building - they had a sign that called it a "fag church" - and they seemed to have a beef with our speaker, Jonathan Z Smith, but I couldn't figure out what.  Maybe they don't like his work on comparison and religious traditions, or that he's a Jew who happens to have written a lot on Jesus and early Christianity?  Anyway, we were all dressed up for the banquet, a very professional-looking crowd, sipping cocktails while getting pictures of ourselves with them in the background.  They only stayed 15 minutes, 20 tops.

It gets more stupid at the bottom of the bill, where it defines sustainable development:

"sustainable development" means a mode of human development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come, but not to include the idea, principle or practice of conservation or conservationism.

The bill doesn't bother to define conservation/conservationism, of course.

I want to know who actually wrote it, but all I can see so far is that it came out of the Committee on Energy and Environment.