Apparently there's some big football game going on today. I don't know, I don't watch football. I attended one football game my freshman year and failed to grasp the appeal of a sport that can't go unpaused for more than five consecutive seconds. It was a game against BYU though, so at one point the big screen in the stadium said "Win or lose, you still live in Provo. Nuff said." That was worth the price of admission. This was back when it was Romney Stadium, before capitalism ruined it. Now it's named Maverick Stadium after a chain of gas stations. I kid you not. I refuse to call it M------- Stadium. In all seriousness though, this is like the biggest weekend of the year for sex traffickers, so... I don't know what I expect anybody to do with that information, but it seems like something we should all be aware of.
As it happens, I am busy all this weekend with unrelated things like moving out of my crappy apartment, so I'll make this mercifully brief. I've kept forgetting to follow up on a post from five months ago where I reflected on how broken and hopeless I felt after being told much too late in life that a. oppositional defiant disorder is a thing and that b. I was diagnosed with it as a child. The only thing I have to add is that I brought this up in group therapy, and I can talk about this because I can talk about the things that I talk about in therapy, just not the things that other people talk about. My wonderful fellow group members were pissed on my behalf about the timeframe and circumstances in which I got this information. My wonderful therapist, who was considerably older than me, said that in his experience the majority of ODD diagnoses are wrong. It's basically a label that mental health professionals can attach to behaviors with zero regard for context or motivation. That's exactly what I thought when I heard the term, but of course I have no expertise to judge. And he said that even when the diagnosis is correct, most people grow out of it anyway. I'm cool with that. Psychiatrists aren't gods, and frankly the more I look back the more I feel like if the ones I saw were much good they probably would have been stationed almost anywhere else besides St. Lawrence County, New York. So for now, I'm going to go with the assumption that I don't have this made-up disorder after all. Because, as I detailed in my earlier post, it was far too late in life for me to give a damn about overcoming an alleged disorder that nobody could be bothered to tell me about for well over a decade, the only real difference this makes is that I loathe myself a little less than I did immediately after getting the unwelcome news. And maybe it turns out that I'm not quite too broken for somebody to love me someday. Nah, that's pushing it.
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My search engine optimization spree several months ago (shout-out to Mark Bell for the advice) appears to have finally paid off, as I am finally satisfied with the page views I'm getting. Less than a year ago I struggled to consistently break 100 and now I'm always somewhere between 300 and 2000. Sometimes I see that sometimes people who Google reasons to support the war on drugs find my page of sarcastic reasons to support the war on drugs. And sometimes people find my site, not sure specifically which page, by searching for black/African porn. If I could figure out why and replicate it on purpose, I could be getting millions of hits a day. And my review of "David and the Magic Pearl" has spiked in popularity for some reason. To my surprise, "In Defense of Pedophiles" still hasn't garnered much attention. That disappoints me because I had hoped it would be controversial enough to trick people into learning about an important topic. My little map at the bottom of the site, which is supposed to track all visitor locations but misses most of them because cookies or whatever, broke 3000 locations last month and that was exciting. I read this article about this documentary by an Indian featuring several other Indians claiming that "The Simpsons" character Dr. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is racist. And I don't want that to be right, because I consider "The Simpsons" to be one of the best and most clever shows ever made, but I'm forced to concede that it probably is. I'm in no position to say it's not racist when I'm not on the receiving end of it. I'll just say this, that in my particular case, I don't feel that watching Apu had any detrimental effect on how I perceive Indians or their culture. On the contrary, it seemed to me that Apu was one of the smarter people in a world of mostly doofuses. In the episode "Much Apu About Nothing", for example, we have this exchange from his test to gain American citizenship: Examiner: All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War? Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter... Examiner: Wait, wait... just say slavery. Apu: Slavery it is, sir. Prior to reading this article I didn't realize that Apu was voiced by a white guy. That certainly factors in. I think that in an world, we could all poke lighthearted fun at each other's accents and cultures and religions without being hurtful, as we do to a limited extent now. For example, in "Prisencolinensinainciusol", Italian Adriano Celentano sang a bunch of gibberish words that sound like English in a fake American accent. It wasn't controversial, I presume, because a. both groups are predominantly white European in makeup and b. Americans have never been oppressed by Italians, so no one would worry that this imitation was symptomatic of any deep-rooted prejudice. Imitating an Indian accent can have different connotations of the skin color difference and because Indians were oppressed by British for a long time. (It looks weird to not write "the British", but I'm not talking about all British people. How come I don't have to write "the Indians" but I have to write "the British"? That's stupid.) It's not going to happen, but if humans ever got to the point of eradicating true prejudice altogether and all such teasing became acceptable, that would be great. We could eliminate all teasing instead, but where's the fun in that? I tease my friends, I tease my favorite franchises, I tease my own religion and its culture and usually find it hilarious when others do so as well. But we're not at that point with the human race, so yes, it does sadly appear to me that Apu is more or less racist, though like I said my opinion doesn't really matter. I read this other article about how Hollywood drastically underrepresents and marginalizes women and non-white people. I won't call them "minorities" because that's increasingly an inaccurate term. Pretty soon white people will be the minority in the US, and since I'm not a Nazi I don't have a problem with that. Naturally, the asinine comments on the article by white and/or male people trying to rationalize why this isn't a problem were depressing to read. As much as I hate sounding like an SJW, defending this status quo is privilege at its finest. But, you know, it's ridiculous for these hoity-toity scientists to suggest that sexualizing women in the media causes women to have self-esteem problems, because men get sexualized too. Like all those muscular superhero guys. That's definitely the same thing, and since everyone knows men and women are exactly the same it's inconceivable that they could be affected differently. I wish I were making this idiocy up. Star Wars, in particular, has made great strides in this area, leading some children to gripe that even Han Solo will be a woman in his upcoming solo film. I hope that in a future day there will be no need for conscious attempts to put more diversity in movies, because it will just be happening automatically. But Disney, the Imperial ranks are exactly the wrong place for more female representation. Part of their shtick is that with very few exceptions they don't like women or aliens. Maybe the First Order is different. I would like to point out that I made both the protagonists in my manuscript female over seven years ago. I did this because I discovered that women, aliens, robots, and fantasy creatures were the only characters I could write with any feeling of investment and authenticity. And I never intended this as a huge feminist statement or anything, though the working title "Space Girls" may suggest otherwise. I knew there was a need for it after someone heard about them and expressed incredulity that they weren't lesbians. At one point I gender-swapped some of the characters to have more female representation, and I suppose that was a feminist statement. But most of the Earthling characters are, at least in my mind, white, and that's because I grew up surrounded by mostly white people and I'm still surrounded by mostly white people, so it was a subconscious thing and when the movie version is underway I'll make sure casting is open to people of all races. Speaking of my manuscript, here's the latest feedback from a test reader: Send a message like this to someone and make their day. They probably won't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure it will make their day. Moving on to even more cheery and uplifting things. I'm grateful to know that this attitude exists, and that some of my "friends" share it, because I wasn't afraid enough of women already and this really helps with that. (I'm being sarcastic.) In fairness, her remarks have been taken out of context. She goes on to explain "that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay". The fact that she herself isn't paying jack should hardly detract from the sincerity of these words. And of course, "[i]t's a microscopic risk in comparison to the issue at hand", which should be a source of great comfort to all the men who have lost their jobs and reputations and been incarcerated on rape convictions. It's not that you don't matter, guys, it's just that you don't matter. Because microscopic. But if you're lucky you live in a state that, after your innocence is discovered, will reimburse you less than minimum wage for the years of your life that they stole. And it really bothers me that Emily Lindin looks like Felicity Jones in this picture. I don't want the respect I hold for Felicity Jones to be tainted by mental association with this other person. Moving on again, don't be this guy. I haven't gotten so many likes on a comment in a while. Sarah Brightman - Jesu, Joy of Man's DesiringHere's Sarah Brightman again already to ring in the Christmas season. This version of this song is the sort of thing that, given the choice, I would listen to on my deathbed while happily drifting out of consciousness surrounded by my loving and beautiful dogs. Beautiful song + beautiful voice = aural perfection. A couple weeks ago Mackenzie was back from California where she spends most of her weekends for some reason, and I was sitting by her in church and she was wearing a funky skirt with two rings of pom-poms around it. The top leftmost pom-pom, closest to me, was badly disfigured by (I assume) all the people who had played with it. I tried to manipulate it back into its proper shape, touching only the pom-pom and that's all, but she huffed, loudly enough for the strangers in front of us to turn around, "Could you maybe not touch my skirt?"
"I was just trying to fix the pom-pom..." I said. The strangers turned back around, their interest already dissipated. "It's not fixable," she said. And then she gave me a quizzical look. "Are you afraid of me?" "Kind of," I said. "Sometimes I think maybe," she said, "but then I think no, he couldn't be..." I mumbled something. Probably "sorry". I don't remember. "Can you understand," she continued, "how it might be kind of awkward to talk to someone who's afraid of you?" "Yeah," I said. (Of course, the context would be completely different. As Margaret Atwood is often paraphrased, "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." And Mackenzie, an ardent feminist, must be acutely aware of this.) "What if you were afraid of them and they were afraid of you?" she went on. "Would that be easier, or would that make it worse?" "I don't know, I guess it would depend... When I talk to awkward people, it's just twice as awkward." "I sat by someone in Relief Society that you should talk to." "How do you know she would be scared of me?" "I can just tell. Let's see... that's her, in the blue dress. You don't need to like date her or anything, but I just think it would be good for you to talk to her." "Okay... "Go up to her and say, 'I like your dress.' And if she doesn't respond much to that, say something like 'Did you make it yourself?' And if she doesn't respond much to that, you're off the hook." "Okay." Alas, she slipped away before we could say anything to her. "I don't see her anywhere," Mackenzie said as she scanned the crowd. I did, but I opted not to mention it. Later that day, at ward prayer, I said, "Do you want to know why I'm scared of you?" "Because I'm a girl?" Mackenzie guessed without missing a beat. "No," I said. "I mean, yes, that's part of it, but not the primary part." "It's so strange that you're scared of girls but you feel more comfortable hanging out with them than guys," she said. "Normally, by this point, having known you for so long, I would be relaxed with you, like with Debbie -" "You aren't scared of Debbie?" "No. Did I seem like it?" "Yeah." "When was that? Was it like at the beginning of last summer, before we hung out all the time, or?" "I don't remember, it's been so long since we were all in one spot." "Well, anyway, the main reason I'm scared of you is that I feel like I always have to walk on eggshells to -" "Oh, yeah," she said, waving me to not continue, "you told me about that." "And then, yes, the other reasons are that you're a girl, that you're pretty, that you're - never mind." "What?" "Never mind." "No, what?" "I just was going to say that you're 'powerful' and stuff, for lack of a better word, but then you would think it was sexist of me to be intimidated by -" "No, it's only sexist if you - never mind." "What?" "Nothing." "How come you get to change your mind and not say things, but I have to say them anyway?" Mackenzie smiled. "Because I have the power in this relationship." ("Relationship" in the generic sense, obviously.) "And if I tried to seize more power, and be assertive and stuff, would you push back?" "Of course," she said. "That's how relationships work. They're a power struggle until someone comes out on top." Lesson learned. In the car afterward, Mackenzie asked, "Would it be all right if I criticized you?" "You do that all the time," I said. "No, it's more of just that we disagree," she said. (I feel like we actually agree 95% of the time, but she fixates on the other 5% instead and badgers me about it, and then as a result sometimes I play stupid and pretend to disagree just to mess with her.) "I mean, are you one of those people who would rather be told you have spinach in your teeth, or just find out on your own later?" "I believe it's important to know the truth," I said, "even if it sucks beyond belief. If you break me into a thousand pieces, I will rebuild myself into a better me." (Not really. Broken things don't rebuild themselves.) She laughed nervously. And we went on like that until in a very roundabout way she managed to convey what she had in mind. But that's none of your business. One day one of my coworkers and sometimes bosses who normally doesn't work as late as me worked as late as me, and offered me a ride, and I had such a delightful time that at the next such opportunity I straight up asked her for one with no remorse for the mild inconvenience caused. What follows is my memory's best approximation of an exchange that occupied most of the journey to my house. Her: Are you working tomorrow? Me: Yeah. Every day... Her: It'll be a party. Me: Really? What's the occasion? Her: Ummm... we're still alive and making money. That's the only occasion I can think of. Me: But we don't know if we will be... you never know, we could crash thirty seconds from now and both die. Her: You mean in the car, or like planets colliding? Me: Uh... I guess either way. Her: I don't plan on it. Me: People usually don't. Her: Maybe they should. Maybe we should all plan on dying and live like it. Me: I would be such a jerk. I would tell so many people how I really feel about them. Her: Past people, or present? Me: Um... mostly past. I like most of my coworkers. Her: Haha! That's good. If you have something to say to me, the door is open. Me: Um... um... I hate... the way you do your hair. [Note: This is not true. But at the time, I was drawing for inspiration off of an Indiana Jones comic where he's being strangled to death and he thinks something to the effect of, "This is it... and I never got to tell Marion how much I... I... I hate those awful red shoes she always wears!" More about him in a bit.] Her: Haha! What's wrong with it? Me: It's like a crime against humanity. Her: Haha! This is how it naturally is. Me: Then I hate the way God does your hair. Her: Haha! Sometimes I hate the way God does my hair too. I'll do it differently tomorrow... Anything else? Me: I hate your clothes. Her: Everything? Me: Everything. Her: A lot of times I just wear the company uniform. Me: Well, it looks good on some people, but not you. Her: What should I wear then? Me: Um... a paper bag. Her: Haha! A paper bag? Me: I guess it would match your eyes... Her: My eyes aren't brown. Me: No? What are they then? Her: They're hazel. Which is what people with brown eyes say to make themselves feel better. Me: What's wrong with brown eyes? Her: They're just boring... Me: And what do you dislike about me? Her: Chris, I don't like your height. Me: My height? [Note: I assumed she just meant that she doesn't like that I'm taller than her because she's short.] Her: If you were just an inch shorter, or an inch taller, it would be fine, but this height just doesn't work for you. Me: What if I gained weight and expanded out a little, to kind of balance it, would that help? Her: Mm, no, I don't think there's really anything you can do about it. Me: I see... anything else? Her: Your socks. They're just boring. Me: Oh... well, I have some black socks with hamburgers on them. Her: Really?? That's great! Me: I usually wear them to church, because they're black, but I suppose I could wear them to work... Her: You should, and you should roll your pant legs up so everybody can see them. Me: Okay... and you know, you don't actually have to change your hair tomorrow... Her: I was thinking about straightening it, but now I'm going to just to make you feel bad. Me: Thanks. Her: Of course. So she did, and I did the sock thing, and now we're friends enough that I just go talk to her every day without needing to come up with an excuse, and I just keep insulting her. She insists that she likes being insulted as long as it's not serious, so it's okay that I'm being unkind because I'm also lying, and it makes her laugh and gives me a warm feeling. Are all humans this weird, or just Americans? Speaking of Dr. Jones...VidAngel, a company that has elicited a disproportionate amount of rage from people who can't think of anywhere better to direct it, is back for the time being and released this video about the crap in Hollywood. I agree with most of it. Female objectification makes me sick and Ferngully scared the bejeebers out of me as a kid. I loved Jar Jar Binks, though. He was intended as a comic relief device for children and whatever you may think of him, he fulfills that role just fine. I don't think we should "protect" our children from exposure to him. And the other bit I take issue with is their aspersion on Dr. Jones' character in their criticism of "scenes where it's the good guy forcing himself on a woman", briefly showing clips from Zorro and Indiana Jones and James Bond where the alleged good guys are allegedly doing that. And in the case of Zorro and James Bond, this criticism is entirely warranted. James Bond, in fact, in his very first film (Dr. No), also set the very first precedent for a movie protagonist to shoot someone in cold blood and still be considered a "good guy", so he's just kind of a jerk in general.
But in this clip from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", Indy is not forcing himself on Willy Scott. In both the film and the novelization (which states this explicitly) it's quite obvious that he isn't trying very hard to reel her in and she isn't trying at all to get away. She could just shrug it off and keep walking away if she wanted to, but she doesn't. You've seen him using that bullwhip on bad guys, right? You know what it looks like when he's actually trying, right? Maybe wrapping it around her in the first place is a jerk move regardless - certainly he must have broken some hips while practicing it on other occasions - but I don't think it would be any worse than an unsolicited hug, which may be objectionable but certainly not put him in a category with those other two jerks. A much better and equally famous, albeit less visually provocative example to use would have been Han "Stop what?" Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back". The same actor, no less. And then there's every single movie where the man kisses the woman without asking permission, aka virtually every movie that has kissing at all. This problem runs deep. Does Indiana Jones routinely flout even the 1930s' accepted standards of archaeology with reckless disregard for artifact preservation? Of course. Does he habitually break the laws of every country he travels through? Pretty much. Does he consistently leave a trail of death and destruction in his wake? More or less. Does he fail to provide the timely grading, personal mentorship, and full attention that his students deserve? Usually. Is he a rapist? No. That is all. Thank you for your attention. International Women's Day was last week and I didn't say much about it but I did read a feminist article, because sometimes I read feminist articles and usually I agree with most of what they're saying (I'd say which parts I don't agree with but then I would be "mansplaining" and that would make me the worst person in the world), and then I read the comments and there's always some men chiming in with "But what about such-and-such issues that men face" and sometimes they're even legitimate points but that is not the place for them so they really just need to butt out and go raise them somewhere else. "Microaggression" is one of those words that sounds really dumb and has been overused and abused by the Anti-Free Speech Police to the point where it's difficult to take seriously but nonetheless represents a legitimate concept. In particular, bits of prejudice small and large, benign and malicious, run rampant against women in American society. I probably contribute to that without realizing, but I almost certainly do a much larger part in tipping the balance the other way. I don't hate men per se, and I like my guy friends just fine and don't wish to offend any of them, but I'm just being honest when I say that I have some misandry to work through. Given the choice, I would pretty much just associate with women and ignore men. This didn't go unnoticed by one friend a few years ago who remarked, "I know you're not comfortable hanging out with guys because you don't want people to think you're gay, but really, hanging out with girls all the time is what will make people think that." Being friends with women at work has been really great. Most of them are married. I thought friendships with married women were lame because every time a previously single female friend has gotten married, she may as well have died for all I'd ever see or hear from her again. But this has been different, and it's been a lot of fun and not very awkward at all, because they're not worried and I'm not worried and we can all just be friendly and not hold back out of worry about other things. I did get a little too careless about the stuff I was saying to one of them, though. I had no idea anything was wrong until one day out of the blue she got a funny look on her face and asked, "Do you... actually hate me?" And I was astonished and I explained that I was only teasing her because she started teasing me first, and she said "I'm pretty sure it was the other way around", but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because I wouldn't have just started teasing her unless I thought she would be okay with it. Which she is, now that we've established that I don't actually hate her. If I actually hated her I would just not talk to her. One of my favorite coworkers though, Malone, isn't married. She's in an open relationship. That's kind of why we met. My mp3 player was busted so instead I listened to her loudly telling people about her open relationship and I just laughed so much because open relationships are funny. They're like, I don't know, paying hundreds of dollars a month to live in a place that you'll never get to own. How silly would that be? So afterward I caught her and thanked her for the entertainment, and the next day I asked her to entertain me again, and she obliged, so that was cool. She's always smiling and acting happy and it really lifts the mood of the whole place and it didn't take me long to look up to her as a role model of that trait, happiness, that I want to emulate. I want to be that kind of person who radiates happiness and lifts the moods of places. But then it turned out she's kind of faking it because she's not particularly happy most of the time, so that's sad. One time she was gone for a few days and her friend didn't know why and I started to think maybe she had been in a fatal accident, so when she returned and said she'd been very sick I said "Oh, good." We recently all got emails about a new/newly enforced language policy that forbids: - Any type of slur including all racial, ethnic, religious, and gender-based insults Unfortunately this means that the black employees will have to stop making racist jokes about themselves. And now I'm slightly paranoid that in my naivete and blindness to my own cultural upbringing I'll say something that will be construed as sexist. Probably against men, though. - Slang including words describing sexual acts or relating to sex I was confused by this one. I think they only meant to forbid sexual slang, but the way it's worded seems like it forbids all slang. I would be all for that if I regularly heard words like "bae" and "YOLO" at work, but since I don't it would seem a bit drastic. This one makes me a little paranoid too. Everything is sexual if people choose to take it that way. The phrase "That's what she said" still pops unbidden into my head sometimes thanks to the guys in high school for whom it made up half of their vocabularies. - Language used to intimidate, bully, or berate an employee Again, here's why it's important to make sure someone is okay with you teasing them before you tease them. Sometimes context is everything. Of course, I'm never as mean to anyone in Utah as my friends and I were to each other in New York. An important cultural difference there. - Use of the "F" word I have never ever ever used the "F" word at work, but if I had, hypothetically, it would have been under my breath in response to the computer having issues, and no one would have heard it, particularly since my normal voice is already so quiet that no one hears me half the time when I'm actually addressing them. - String of profanities I have never ever ever uttered a string of profanities at work, but if I had, hypothetically, it would have been under my breath in response to the computer having issues, and no one would have heard it, particularly since my normal voice is already so quiet that no one hears me half the time when I'm actually addressing them. And does this mean that one or two profanities are okay? If they're not the "F" word? I'm still slightly confused. Anyway, this isn't going to affect me much but some people are going to really struggle with it. I feel for them. Mr. Burns & Smithers - Look at All Those IdiotsI listened to "The Simpsons Sing the Blues" a couple times this week and this is probably my favorite song from that album. It presents a good example of language that should not be used to intimidated, bully, or berate employees, and does not reflect my views of my co-workers so much as my view of the human race as a whole, but is simply presented here because it's catchy. |
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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