We’ve noticed some of you making friends on these comment threads. We’ve noticed a few of you making less than friends, too, but you tend to sort these things out on your own. The point is, often Open Source commenters aren’t talking about the world or the show, but about themselves. And each other. And this is also good. A mob has emerged and it knows itself: the Guttersnipe Coalition.
Ah, guttersnipes. Yes. A man who calls himself Nikos — who lives on our comment threads and evidently doesn’t sleep much — was called a “guttersnipe.” Some etymological research revealed that “guttersnipe” means “street urchin,” and Nikos decided:
It quite marvelously suits little ol’ rabble-rousing, sacred-cow-attacking, anti-elitist, democratic me.
Nikos, in a comment to Open Source, 20 March 2006
He decided to wear that name like a badge of honor, and he invited the Open Source community to join him. Many did. And now that several of you have asked for a place to discuss broader, site-wide issues (or anything else you want), we offer Guttersnipe Alley.
All are invited. Membership is free. Honor is earned. So we turn this thread over to you, for whatever you want. We’ll renew the thread every month or so, and we’ll come up with a better system soon. So: Meetups? T-Shirts? A militia?
Sleep?
Who needs sleep?
Sleep = time not spent reading, writing, and running. And blogging.
Well, jests aside, my cheeks are flushed. But that’s okay because it segues nicely to this from Brendan’s invitational lead-in: “We’ve noticed a few of you making less than friends, too, but you tend to sort these things out on your own.�
Right. Which is why I am pleased to reiterate that in addition to being a Guttersnipe I am also a Proud and Founding Member of the ROS Mea Culpa Club.
Yes, it’s true that I take up an awful lot of room in the clubhouse – and that’s what I deserve for being a hot-headed ignoramus with an overly itchy “Submit Comment� trigger-finger.
But it also means I can advocate the club’s biggest benefit: relief from guilt!
So, any of us who transgress the laudable etiquette that folks like Potter and Allison so carefully cultivate (like me) might find that an electronic application for membership to the Mea Culpa Club is much more soothing that it is demeaning.
And: Membership is Free!
I’ll do my best to leave plenty of room for others. It’s a comfy clubhouse, and can expand into cyberspace to near infinity.
And just to prove my sincerity, I’m just now fixin’ to apologize to Jazzman.
Again!
can we put guttersnipe on coffee mugs? Better yet, will you do it so we can give you some money? I, for one, want to wrap myself mummylike in Open Source schwag.
Brendan says, its not that many are not talking about the show or the world . . . . but the vast majority are not . Many threads simply spiral into the same drivel one can find on any lefty blog like Kos – the monotonous one-sided droning would be justly classified as “ideological masturbation” if it weren’t for the fact that it is moonbats stroking each other rather than themselves.
I’ve got a hint – it’s boring.
maybe guttersnipe might mean something else in these threads?
OPEN INVITATION
ROS MEET-UP
“NOT ONLY GUTTERSNIPES ”
MAY 7TH, 2006
ANACORTES, WA
GERE-A-DELI DELICATESSEN
502 Commercial Avenue,
Anacortes, WA 98221
Phone: 360-293-7383
2:00 PM
map:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=502%20Commercial%20Ave&city=Anacortes&state=WA&zipcode=98221&country=US&title=%3cb%3eGere%2dA%2dDeli%3a%3c%2fb%3e%=1
Or come to the Anacortes Ferry Dock beforehand where Nikos and babu will pick up peggysue to bring her downtown — oldtown Anacortes style –to the deli.
An ROS procession!
More later and please come. It’s my birthday (a big one).
Nikos,
Stop apologizing this is great and are you sure your car is running? I’ll meet you on the curb across from the Port Townsend Ferry Dock at 10:45 so we can get on the 11:15 boat to Keystone. Yes? What should I look for? I’ll be on the little black Vespa.
Babu: sounds good. I’ll check back just before the date to make sure you’re not in the hospital because some fool SUV rolled you on the Vespa. And I’ll know then which vehicle I’ll be in. It depends on how many other folks want to car-pool.
(psst! I like apologizing! I’m humble but not enough — a wee bit short of a proper quantity of humility, so apologizing is like weight-lifting-for-my-conscience. And better: it sets an example.)
babu: Thanks for posting details for our northwest guttersnipe get together. what time at the Anacortes ferry? Maybe we should start with coffee mugs and work up to forming a militia.
Thanks Brendan
It’s only still just dawning on me that on this thread it’s okay to chit-chat. Sooo…Babu, I ride a road bicycle in the summer, but only on the lesser traveled roads. And the thought of riding a motorcycle terrorizes me (had a school friend who died). Which doesn’t mean that I’m writing this only to applaud your courage (although I do because to cycle-phobes like me it’s a marvel), but what will happen on May 7 if it’s one of those dreary, rainy days out here? Is the Vespa safe to ride in rain?
PS to Brendan: this thread is a real gift. Thank you a thousand times.
Guttersnipe Alley is the perfect place for this sidewalking, moonbatting, little old me.
Thanks Brendan.
Wish I could join the northwest loiter. Another time, I’m sure.
Btw, are there any other guttersnipes in Tokyo?
Nikos, do you know what happened to WD? Did he reality_bytes_it? Or is this mold on sale at Wal-mart?
I enjoy ideological masturbation… a lot… several times a day… with people watching. No ill side effects and its cheaper than therapy. I do draw the line at moonbat fetishes. My inner Bonobo just won’t go that far.
– Sleepy Guttersnipe
So if a substantive discussion degenerates into back-and-forth sniping, can the rest of us ask the offenders to take it off-line, perhaps to this section of the site?
Whew! Anybody got a towel?— (that Jewish Lobby thread).
One entry found for guttersnipe.
Main Entry: gut·ter·snipe
Pronunciation: ‘g&-t&r-”snIp
Function: noun
1 : a homeless vagabond and especially an outcast boy or girl in the streets of a city
2 : a person of the lowest moral or economic station
- gut·ter·snip·ish /-”snI-pish/ adjective
I take it that meaning #2 was the insult’s intention although the results have sometimes been #1 ( people leaving these parts)
Does this thread allow us to descend : not have the pressure to hold things up to any standard ( ie have it out with folks)???? Like “hows ‘ bout mestin’ in Guttersnipe alley cause I ‘m gonna punchoo in ‘da nose”
Nikos:
Not to worry; all I have is the vespa. Anyway it’s not gonna rain on May 7th.
Are you asking for a fall-back plan? But I love this plan.
peggysue:
If we get the 11:15 boat to Keystone we should get to the Anacortes dock by 1-ish, you think? Should we look for you at the short-term parking right up behind the terminal? If you take the 11:10 boat from FH, you’ll beat us there by a little. This is the ideal version. We’re talking about 3 ferry connections. I better check the Keystone tide table.
dat was spose ta be “hows ‘ bout meetin’ in Guttersnipe alley cause I ‘m gonna punchoo in ‘da nose�
BTW yesterday morning my “better half” couldn’t stop laughing at this in case you have not run into it:
http://www.theboxset.com/message/
Lisa Williams:
If there was a ferry here from Watertown we’d pick you up. Ideas?
Potter, “otsukaresama”
It is a common phrase of parting at the end of the day and means “you dear tired soul” or “thanks for your effort”. There isn’t one good term in English to capture the nuance exactly. Anyway, you get one big OTSUKARESAMA from me for your always firm yet gentle guidance. It reminds me to not respond too quickly with my 2 boys when they go a little wayward.
avecfrites, I hope we can just ask them to take it off-line. This might be place, though I don’t know if this alley deserves the stench.
Just deleted two comments, above. Keep it civil and constructive, people.
I guess I just tested the limits.
Thanks Sidewalker– appreciated.
Brendan: Should a thread be ended because it is not strictly on topic but related? Other threads have morphed.
What are the boundaries on ROS when people feel strongly but differ and need to “work out”? Is ROS too nervous about what might happen that has not happened yet? It seems to me things were “choppy” but not that bad– not that I wanted to go on for 300 posts.
For sure there are other things here and elswhere to focus on. That’s not the point. This thread was not that old, but right from the beginniing of it I sensed staff nervousness in Brendan’s on air warning to “be nice” to each other. How are we going to grow up?
Oh my…
Hey Brendan,
I don’t really understand the “Features” feature. Sometimes there are active exchanges going on and they disappear. You have to know to click the “Feature” link in another “Feature” entry. Could you put a permanent link to the Features on the front page? And how do you decide when something is a feature but will never be an on-air topic? (I think the Oglala sovereignty issue and the rights of SD women to go the Oglala nation is an interesting and worthy topic for a show, but it was only a temporary feature.)
allison, here is the link, but I still need to get back to you on that discussion. Need a clearer brain for that than I have had in the past few days.
http://www.radioopensource.org/fire-thunder-challenges-south-dakota-abortion-ban/#comments
Brendan and David,
When I asked a moderator to step in, I didn’t expect that the bathroom curtain would come down and lock all that sour air in. Eventually it would have just drifted out an open vent. I was thinking more in terms of a few stern words to keep on topic and a postal zapper if necessary. What gives?
Sidewalker: Winston’s around – he recently suggested a show: http://www.radioopensource.org/suggest-a-show-march-2006/#comment-8642
In fact, I’ve been trying – unsuccessfully – to emulate him by laying low for a while.
Oh well. Someday soon my new novel’s between-drafts gestation will come to a sudden end, and then I really will lay low here on ROS…
What’s that sound…?
Ah, yes, a building crescendo of cheers from computer-readers all around ROS Nation!
CCM: from one bonono admirer to another – what’s a moonbat?
Potter: I do think this Alley might be a good place to ‘take fights’ – but politely, if that’s not comprehensively oxymoronic. If somebody gets my dander up, I’d rather make a fool of myself here than on the topic thread.
Not that I have much in the way of self-control in any event…
Babu: our fall-back plan is May 21…I think…or was it the 28th?
In any event: if your faith is rewarded — it doesn’t rain on your birthday — I might have to reconsider my disbelief in supernatural entities. Well, weather entities anyway.
Anyone ever read Douglas Adam’s So Long And Thanks For All The Fish?
Remember the unwitting Rain God who drove trucks for a living? And despite what everyone said about sunny weather, he hated the words ‘sunny weather’ because he never, ever saw it?
Because the rain clouds clustered around him lovingly?
Sometimes – not nearly as much as reputed, but nevertheless – living in the Puget Sound region is reminiscent of the truck-driver rain-god.
Allison: it’s a couple of extra steps to find the ‘missing threads’ in the Archives, and so they effectively fossilize once they drop from the home page. But if you tell me you’ll be posting again on the Cecilia Fire Thunder thread – which is still open, unlike the Israel Lobby Thread – I’ll make a point to go there and read whatever you write.
David: I can’t say I disagree with your decision on the Israel Lobby thread, even though I reckoned it still offered the likelihood of a bit more illuminatory gold in its increasingly stony veins. But the same vein seemed to have led us tunnelers into the bottom layers of an abandoned rubbish pit too. Which translates to: ‘thanks for your moderation’.
Brendan, hereafter please assume an implicit ‘THANK YOU’ and electronic kiss from every post I make on this awesome new thread.
Italics! Apologies!
I’m guessing it stems from omitting one lousy stinkin’ ‘/’ (backslash).
We haven’t had a Feminism show in a while, and that’s not a criticism because, after all, ROS only airs 16 evenings/month.
So, I feel no compunction from offering this shining gem from the KUOW archives:
http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=10472
Gloria Steinem, in fine form. Better than ever, in fact.
And an honorary Guttersnipe to boot. To find out why I deem her worthy of Guttersnipe inclusion, listen to the hour!
Nikos: “CCM: from one bonono admirer to another – what’s a moonbat?”
Haven’t the foggiest idea. I suppose I have a slightly prudish inner Bonono! I missed the deleted comments. I hope my little riff didn’t cause the problem. A lesson to me to keep it out of the locker room. My apologies to all if I added some beligerent energy here. Perhaps this was some spillover from another thread? I stayed out of the Israel Lobby thread. I can see heat a mile away on that one. I’ll I can say is I wish I had seen what Potter said. He’s one of several constructive souls that appear on ROS forums. Potter, if I haven’t said it before, you firm patience is awesome and it’s noticed.
Nikos: “I might have to reconsider my disbelief in supernatural entities” Oh no. You’re not gettin’ in that easy! You’ll get an extra run through the cosmic spanking machine amigo. :^)
Watch your language Nikos…. ( 11:26)
Please teach me how to fight politely a little better because to tell you the truth I have been trying very hard.
I am very grateful to Sidewalker for the Otsukaresama. Maybe I need a break. I am going to have my hand operated on soon- maybe that will do it… one word here and there.
Before ending a thread there are other options including warnings, censoring posts, even censoring parts of posts.. Democracy ( sorting out) is messy sometimes.
On another thread on a similar topic one of the staff butted in with ” this is the same ‘ol same’ol” which I resented for one because it was not and then so what? Different words, different people– not quite the same ol same ol and we felt we were getting somewhere.
I love it when Chris says to check out the “fast and free conversation on our blog”. It gets a big smile from me. I love it.
I don’t want to feel that there are nervous armed guards at the door as I am invited in– and as I try very hard to put my best self forward ( though not always). That said- I admit that I too need some taming at times… and need to make my apologies. But it never arrives at that with a door slam.
From Wiki:
Guttersnipe: A bird of prey encountered in Grubbo-by-the-Sea in Beyond Zork.
And if you know what Beyond Zork, you’re likely an old timer like me. Remember Feelies? Sheesh that was centuries ago.
CCM: since you’re so nice (I mean that sincerely), I’ll do it for you:
“Nikos, when it comes to religion, you are a clueless jackass.”
Ah! It feels good to read it even when I express the sentiment on your behalf!
Btw folks, this thread is the place to work through our hurt feelings. I am willing to absorb any and all castigations.
Have at it. (Just keep Brendan’s presence in the backs of your typing minds.)
Oh, Potter! David didn’t end the thread because of YOU! I think he was reacting to stuff that landed last night — and that was likely to breed more barnyard manure than it was worth. (IMHO)
“Otsukaresama” to Potter and CCM alike.
Potter and Sidewalker:
Off-topic, in general, is fine. On the Israel Lobby thread, it was the combination of being off-topic AND increasingly vitriolic that made us pull the plug. Our basic rule is that threads should be civil and constructive. To a large extent the thread had lost both of those qualities — or was in danger of it.
Having said that, and sticking by this particular decision, we’re obviously figuring out this moderation thing as we go, which includes taking cues from our community. Perhaps the next time we’ll let the waters get even choppier…
Babu & Nikos: May 7 – I’ll be at the picinic table outside the Anacortes ferry terminal by the short term parking lot.
Nikos: Did you listen to Gloria Stienem last night on Speakers Forum? I absolutly loved it! She’d be a great OS guest.
Potter: I love it too when Chris says the blog is fast and furious… (not that I want to be the furious part) I echo an appreciation of your calm way.
Thank you David– thanks first of all for listening. My posts on this thread, to tell you the truth were moderate compared to my emotions. I was pissed. I agree that threads should be civil and constructive but sometimes you have to arrive at that place and it’s the trip there that makes it rewarding. I disagree that that thread had actually lost those qualities but I agree there was a danger. I felt you were too nervous about what MIGHT happen. That is not the “fast and free… all over the globe” conversation that Chris beams about ( love that). When you catch on more what are you going to do? You ain’t seen nuttin’ yet. Avoid emotional topics to be safe?
To tell you the truth I am amazed that you have done shows on this particular topic ( 3 at least) given the volatility of it. We have lost some posters and been called names in the process. Perhaps that accounts for the nervousness. Still twice on the recent thread you shut down posters complimented ROS on how civil the discussion was! So seas got choppy!
Thanks very much for this thread. “A good thing ” ( Martha Stewart).
Thanks Nikos. Sometimes things can be said in another language that cannot be said in English…. like “oy gevalt”.
Okay I think I’m done with this one….. out for a walk,
oy gevalt pronounced, oy-gev-OLT
“May a great power intervene on my behalf.” Used in desperate situations like when you get a call from the IRS or your dog digs up the neighbor’s prize rose bushes.
Potter: the ‘Israel Face to Face with Hamas’ thread is still open for comments in the Archives: http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/#comments
If you’ve stuff to post for the closed Israel Lobby thread, and you tell us here that you’ve done so there instead, I promise to go there and read it.
Maybe it’s a detour – and maybe just enough of a detour to disinterest the bulls who want to lay down all that redolent barnyard manure.
David (& Brendan, & Katherine, & Robin, & Greta, & Henry, & Julia, & Chelsea, & Jay, Jim, Joellen, Vanessa, Mary, Kevin & Chris – whew!): can we perhaps expect a few more contributions from the ROS staff on this topically neutral thread? It would be nice!
Otsukaresama to Peggy Sue and Babu, too!
Heh… the etimology of “guttersnipe” reminds me of my days as “Lydonista” during the War for the Soul of The Connection. Like our current guttersnipes, Lydonista started off a flung-down pejorative and got usurped into a badge of honor.
Brendan: sooner or later you’re going to break down and turn this thing into a full-fledged bulletin board just like the original Connection website. (“Do not resist mortal, the guttersnipes are bigger than you are!”) Then you’ll really have your hands full, but you’ll also be proud as hell.
By the inspired word of the Guttersnipe, I’ve been dipped in liquid and highly alcoholic redemption. I have seen the light. I am reborn. I am not that which I am.
Now if I could only think of something interesting to say.
Where’d I put that damn glass? Oops.
Gin Upsetter; thanks for the chuckles!
KenLac: ‘Lydonista’, huh? I was a Connection junkie, but don’t recall that. Nice!
omigod (or for nikos, omysecularhumanist)… I thought for the heck of it I would look up Guttersnipe in my Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and the first definition (really, I’m not trying to start anything) is as follows – in (1869) 1: street Arab – then it goes on with the other definitions of the term already offered here.
all the more curious I found this on the Online Etymology Dictionary.
1857, from gutter (n.) + snipe (n.); originally Wall Street slang for “streetcorner broker,” attested later (1869) as “street urchin,” also “one who gathers rags and paper from gutters.” As a name for the common snipe, it dates from 1874 but is perhaps earlier.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=guttersnipe&searchmode=none
also from Online Etymology Dictionary
long-billed marsh bird, c.1325, from O.N. -snipa in myrisnipa “moor snipe;” perhaps a common Gmc. term (cf. O.S. sneppa, M.Du. snippe, Du. snip, O.H.G. snepfa, Ger. Schnepfe “snipe”). The O.E. name was snite, which is of uncertain derivation.
An opprobrious term (cf. guttersnipe) since 1604. The verb meaning “to shoot from a hidden place” is first attested 1773 (among British soldiers in India), in allusion to hunting snipe as game; sniper first attested 1824 in the sense of “sharpshooter.”
“guttersnipe — since 1604. The verb meaning “to shoot from a hidden placeâ€?”
That’s us, baby!
We shoot with words from the privacy of our pc’s!
Awesome!
Lydonistas were/are a group, not too large ( we might still be roused) and Kenlac and I are members. This group formed when Chris and Mary had their stand-off with WBUR. We were very upset being deprived of the nourishment of the show, it’s inimatable host, producer and staff. And so we gathered to sooth ourselves and to plan how to get Lydon back on the air. We have a “secret cave” ( online) where we meet to discuss things if we need or want to still to this day. We have had gatherings as well.
My full nom de guerre/plume was “Potterwithasorethumb” which was literally my problem as I overuse my hands and hav thus achieved arthritis. So it’s painful to post here sometimes in more ways than one.
We are so happy for this show.
Anyone else posting here under another name that was a Lydonista? I do miss you folks.
Shaman and Abbie are two others that post here now and then.
I’m also a former Lydonista or should I say Old Sanity.
Nikos – here is a definition of a moonbat (not to bait poor Brendan again but this thread contains a particular sub-culture of that species that must be lured to this thread so that they don’t irritate everyone else!)
Moonbat is a political epithet coined in 2002 by Perry de Havilland of Samizdata, a libertarian weblog.
The terms was originally rendered as ‘Barking Moonbat’, suggesting that certain issue seem to trigger a reflexive response from some people much like wolves howl at the moon (i.e. the term evokes the traditional association between the moon and insanity). It now enjoys great currency in the conservative and libertarian blogosphere as an all-purpose insult for modern liberals (in the American sense of the word), war protestors, and other ideological opponents. It is similar to the epithet Idiotarian . . .
According to de Havilland, a moonbat is “someone on the extreme edge of whatever their -ism happens to be.” Adriana Cronin defines the term as “someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency.” This term has long been used to describe protesters on the political Left,
Moonbat was frequently used to describe those of any political persuasion who believe in conspiracy theories. Examples include those who believe that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were engineered by George W. Bush, or that the US invaded Iraq to drive up oil prices or under the directions of Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonbat
“This term (moonbat) has long been used to describe protesters on the political Left”
thanks for the definition… I will henceforth consider it a compliment of high regard.
“here is a definition of a moonbat (not to bait poor Brendan again but this thread contains a particular sub-culture of that species that must be lured to this thread so that they don’t irritate everyone else!”
What if I am lured to this thread ( a sort of “guttersnipe coop”) AND I then go and “irritate everyone else”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiotarian
then you be “however, it has come to be associated much more strongly with its use by warbloggers, right-leaning, and libertarian bloggers in criticism of the political left.”
At least three ROS regulars (mostly Guttersnipes too) have in the past few months expressed interest in examining the 18th century American Constitution’s democratic efficacy in a 21st century world of multinational corporations with octopus-like global resource extraction machinery that dehumanizes billions while ignoring the living standards of any but the richest.
This thread is the perfect venue to carry out such a citizen’s examination and to float novel ideas for constitutional change. It might seem an impossible task – yet all throughout history, fewer have accomplished more with less resource than this. (And: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained�.)
As a starting line, I recommend Daniel Lazare’s The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy @ http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-0156004941-0
(Additionally, a now ‘MIA’ blogger called ‘Constant’ invited us to her/his blog for a similar errand @ http://constantpated.blogspot.com/2006/03/constitutional-convention-archive.html , so it’s not like we’re alone in our constitutional discontent.)
Carroll – and everyone else too – I’ve just posted this: http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-8998
Uh…Duh!
Please ignore the dumb Greek Guttersnipe posting comments like the one above this one in the WRONG THREAD.
Sorry.
PS: this is effectively a multi-purpose thread,as in: “several of you have asked for a place to discuss broader…issues (or anything else you want), we offer Guttersnipe Alley…” as one Brendan Greeley sez in the heading above.
So, if you want to hash out other issues here — like constitutional discontent — I can’t see the harm, especially since we can always place the intent of each post here in a title.
For that matter, this thread could serve as a ROS Book Club, too.
Maybe we’ll get a mention on Oprah someday!
Nikos..
“And no matter which party holds sway, the corporate interests lead the politicians by their noses – noses that only smell lucre.
The American republic has hence become a sham.”
You are right it has.
I am hooked….Guttersnipe Alley would be right down my alley.
Someone, a fellow guttesnipe, moonbat, idiotarian, got through to the President. Is this a polite enough exchange?
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5701&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
above selected from complete transcript;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060406-3.html
Last night I noticed that the “convergences” thread had ballooned
ROS Meetup Anacortes Folks—What a nice group you have! I wish you all a wonderful gathering and I am hoping for pictures of it. You all live in a most beautiful part of the country. ( Actually if we have sense not to wreck it- we have a most beautiful country sea to sea.) I have never been to WA but I have seen photos. All the islands out there….. that’s what all the ferry talk was about! I know there are some great gardens out there because of the very favorable climate for growing.
Sorry I can”t leap over.
I guess I was a latent Lydonista. I stopped listening to radio until Christopher came back. His are the only talk shows – radio or tv – that I’ve ever paid attention to. I enjoy the fearlessness.
Potter sez:
———-
I can’t speak for ROS, but I have experience in this area. I run a blog based community/news website for the RL community I live in; it’s called H2otown. Of course, people have differences of opinion about things like taxes and schools.
I made the decision early on that I wasn’t going to allow personal attacks, ethnic/other group slurs, or profanity. I wrote a post about it in part to give guidance to the community about where the boundaries were. The post introduced what the community calls the Three T’s: truthful, tactful, transparent.
The reason that I did this was to make H2otown accessible to the maximum number of people in the community. Letting people call each other names may be an expression of free speech, but it also means that some significant segment of people in my town will not feel welcome there and will not participate. In my experience, the first people to leave were women and people over the age of 55. Since I’m a woman and I hope to grow old, I didn’t want to create a community exclusively of young men, much as I like them.
H2otown is like a virtual public park in my city. Some forms of behavior have to be proscribed in a public park, because if they aren’t, parents won’t let their kids go there, and lots of people won’t visit because they find it unpleasant or threatening. Pretty soon, only one set of people are using the park.
I’m not sure if I’m interpreting your comment correctly, Potter, but I don’t think that requiring people to refrain from personal attacks and namecalling prevents them from growing up — I think it causes them to grow up.
I encourage people who have strong feelings and really want to let ‘er rip to start their own weblogs. I have even helped some of them in the setup process, and I point to their weblogs. I also point to their new blogs and encourage people to visit. I’m willing to point to posts that I wouldn’t publish on H2otown. Heck, I write things on my own blog that I wouldn’t print on H2otown. I’ll point to things I won’t publish on H2otown because I do feel that there is a psychological distance between something I point to on another site and something that appears on the H2otown “letterhead.” People who don’t want to see it don’t have to click.
Lisa, thanks for your helpful response and this chance to clarify (I hope) something complex and difficult to manage.
You said: I’m not sure if I’m interpreting your comment correctly, Potter, but I don’t think that requiring people to refrain from personal attacks and namecalling prevents them from growing up — I think it causes them to grow up.
What I was asking for. I was NOT asking to simply allow folks to make personal attacks. Heavens no! I have not, or I have tried not to. or I don’t THINK I have that is. ( You see what I mean?)
Sometimes it is hard to know when you have stepped over that line, when what you have said is taken personally, mis-taken personally. It’s not as simple as calling someone a jerk. By the way I notice above that new words ( more sophisticated ones) are being recruited to avoid blatant name calling like “moonbat”. It slips by, it’s subtle, but the intent is still there.
SOMETIMES when arguing a point with someone neither you nor they know where the issue begins and ends and the person begins. There have been some very clear examples ( no question about it) when someone has made an ad hominem attack on another. Those stand out and we have called them. But there are all those little subtle things that skirt that or that may lead up to it. That is what I think David was reacting to when he shut down the thread. And everyone has a different thickness of skin.
We have had areas where these “convergences� happened before, right from the beginning, and we have backed away, resolved, apologized, excused ourselves, forgiven and supported others. Thus, in place where we were being perhaps less nervously watched we have been given the chance to grow as civilized bloggers.
This does not mean that we will not get close again. This is especially true when you have an “open house” and are inviting people in. You never know who is going to walk in and pull your chain. So, just as in real life, you try to be careful, but sometimes you slip or you are having an off day. There should be room for self-correction or for your co-bloggers to gently guide you back. If the management is nervous and shuts down the thread however this never happens.
On the particular thread that was just closed that I refer to we had some new posters with strong opinions that were in strong opposition to those of some “regulars”. The conversation was indeed more “fast and freeâ€? ( and all over the globe). Three new people applauded the discussion and complimented us on it however. This was also a chance to show that we can live with opinions that differ. One new poster expressed himself very well actually. He is young, but he expresses himself well, he’s deep. What did he make of the censure of the thread?
I admit it was a challenging thread. The meister probably should have stepped in with warnings and perhaps a censoring or two early on. We had a lot going. All of us were getting loose—I do not question that. We did need some management. But I would not have erred on the side of closing the thread ( nor do I think Sidewalker was asking for that) and then offering us to take our “sermons and ire� to the “Immigraton or Beckett� thread. That was an insult, I felt. ( Maybe I have thin skin, sorry David.)
Don’t forget it’s natural, without any rules or warnings posted ( that I know of) especially for new commentors for folks to test the waters. I just tested the waters myself above.
I also do not want to scare old people ( I am one of them) or young people ( we have a 12 year old! Hello Frederick!) away. The general tenor around here is respectful, very respectful. But again this is not a small community board. The issues are very broad ranging.
So Lisa, I do not want to “let er rip�.
As good ’ol Nikos wrote on that censored thread : After all, as H.L. Mencken said: “To every complex problem there is a simple solution…and it’s wrong.�
Despite Brendan’s open invitation to use Guttersnipe Alley as “a place to discuss broader…issues (or anything else you want)�, I’m having qualms about the propriety of using this thread as venue for conversing on this post’s real topic.
It’s not that the post doesn’t live up to the Guttersnipe idea – or ideal! – it does.
But this is more than a social, chatty type of topic. It could dominate the thread to the detriment of many other uses. On the other hand, this thread is likely to host many diverse conversations, especially many non-emotional ones.
So here are a couple of options for the ROS Nation to vote on here and now. This ‘first ballot’ might set a precedent for future use of this thread, or, of course, we could simply by evolution of habit and custom transform the precedent over time to another ROS ‘culturally’ accepted use of the thread.
Keep in mind that this thread is meant to be an ‘everything’ venue – and yet not become pirated by one topic. So…
If we label the posts with Topic in a title, people can simply skip over whatever their not interested in. This offers the advantage of drawing in new folks to the topic. And, for the most part, I think I favor this.
However, the Immigration Stories thread is already slowing down – no posts since last night (as I write this at 11:00 AM PDT), and this post’s topic is the next step of a conversation with Carroll that began in the Immigration Stories thread – so, we might be better off pirating that thread rather than this one. Yet even so, we’d eventually need to abandon that venue for greener pastures, since folks simply don’t keep up with threads as they slide down the Recently Aired column and into the oblivion called Archives.
My working solution right now is to post this here and there – and then, after your reactions to the initial exchanges of conversation, we’ll get a sense of the ‘first ballot.’
The ROS staff’s opinion would be very, very helpful too. Perhaps Brendan would like to see the experiment play out for a few days before structurally guiding our efforts.
Constitution
Perhaps we should begin a critique of the government-as-constituted by recalling that in its inception it was revolutionary and yet a compromise that clung to the ‘head of state’ concept in the form of an elected presidency instead of a monarchy.
It feared the population’s ignorance as much as it recognized the people’s sovereignty.
It safeguarded the wealth and property rights of the new nation’s leadership class at the expense of the lower classes. This constitutional emphasis on wealth-protection has grown over the many decades since.
A rich source of food for thought is Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights – http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-1579549551-0
“Hartmann…describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment—created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves—and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as ‘artificial persons.’ but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were ‘persons’ and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.
“As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world’s wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world’s citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They’ve become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they’re steering it by their prime value—growth and profit and any expense—a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders—Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike—envisioned for America.
“It’s time for ‘we, the people’; to take back our lives.�
Hartmann stops short of advocating a wholesale constitutional overhaul, but I don’t.
The most important goal is a system allowing multiple parties from which the electorate can shop between a wide diversity of political philosophies and policy options.
The two-party state is not sanctioned in the Constitution, yet it is the Constitution’s misbegotten and unintended mongrel child. The two-party state is in one important way worse than the one-party totalitarian model: it seems to offer choice, yet doesn’t on the most fundamental operations of society and economy.
The many poor folks who lived in single-party states knew damn well they had no real choice.
We seem to think we do.
Concerned citizens let’s talk. Let’s collaborate. Let’s begin something meaningful – not mere moonbatting.
Let’s germinate a new way out of our two-party entrapment.
Our current constitution’s drafters and signers intended to curtail political parties. The situation wasn’t terribly unlike Iraq now where none of the factions dare submit to the others – thus parties were viewed then as political pariahs to be avoided if at all possible. Individual and independent representatives were deemed preferable to those linked to strong parties. This might have seemed sensible in the context of an 18th century agrarian country just beginning to shake off an imperial/colonial yoke, but was naïve in foresight. The platitude ‘strength in numbers’ is a social truth, I’m afraid, and so the development of political parties was inevitable.
The result, however well-intended in its inception, is a bloated government run by a ‘soviet’ of two instead of one. Instead of multiple and healthy parties representing an ideologically diverse and vividly distinct spectrum of political thought and possibility, we are stuck with two thought-impoverished animals. Both of these creatures focus on more on raising money for the election of individuals instead of on representing the policy options that voters can shop through to find the slate of candidates most representative of the voter’s political sentiments. Neither party can set aside their obsessive focus on pandering in favor of simply representing political philosophies founded on integrity. Meanwhile, the Elephant operates much as the Donkey except that it also seeks ideological domination from which it can bully with (fatuous) claims to ‘realism’, while quietly championing and advancing the interests of its richest contributors. And, being wholly without conscience, it doesn’t much care how many other, less powerful real people it ignores and tramples in the process.
So, this initial and tentative offering concludes with the suggestion that we discuss the greater inherent democracy of parliamentary systems that elects legislators not as individuals but from party slates.
AND: Multiple professional political parties offering real policy differences and diverse options wouldn’t need the new ‘fourth branch of government’ called lobbyists – who corrupt while drafting not merely policy but law.
Honest to goodness professional political parties can draft their own policies. Just as they do in Europe.
(The Senate is a whole nother animal. It requires a treatment in a later conversation.)
PS: another excellent – and more Republican – source for thought is Kevin Phillips’s Wealth and Democracy http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0767905342-1
To read the above post without the BoLd mistake, click this:
http://www.radioopensource.org/immigration-stories/#comment-9032
Lisa Williams: Could you broaden the three T’s for me ( truthful, tactful, transparent)?
Or, better yet:
http://www.radioopensource.org/immigration-stories/#comment-9035
Sheesh.
Potter, I’m not sure if I am the young newcomer you were referring to, but even if I’m not I’ll offer my thoughts on the closing of the thread. The waters had certainly become choppy, mostly due to my running argument with (I forget the exact combination of letters, but it began with a W). I can understand the desire to keep the discussion friendly, or at least civil, as this was part of what drew me to the thread in the first place. On the other hand I was having a great time sparring (I have a competitive streak). I think in the end the discussion wasn’t so bad as to warrant the closing of the thread, though it may have gotten there soon. I would have preferred more time to explore the issue, as it is rare that people are able to discuss this conflict at such length with so much depth, and so little name calling.
I’m with you Dayan on that. Yes you are the one I would like to have hangiong around. The other poster might have been handled. But there was more than one getting too close to the edge. I can’t write a long post and I want to read through the thread but we all were sparring and skirting closer to that edge than we usually do. There are a few emotional issues that do this. This is what makes for so many posts on a thread. There is a lot to explore with those who hold different opinions obviously.
We are probably going to get around to the abortion issue. That’s another one.
Religion… evolution — we’ve been at each other on that but it’s been fine.
Dayan, thanks for sticking with it after the closure of the Israel Lobby thread. If you haven’t already, you might benefit from reading through this:
http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/
Potter might want to check it anew too.
Otsukaresama to you both.
I don’t know how I missed it but I’m glad it’s here. I take some pride in being the first to sign on with Nikos as a guttersnipe. I’ve seen a lot of dictionary definitions of guttersnipe but none really fit us as a group. I think we have the right to define ourselves. How about: A community of rabblerousing misfits who have strong and diverse opinions and don’t mind expressing them. ROS is in the process of defining itsself. I’m proud to be a part of it and am glad for all of your voices. Thank God for Brendan. I feel comforted by his “invisible” presence.
Sheesh, I go to work for 48 hours and all hell breaks out.
Please consider this a
PLEA FOR SHORTER POSTS HERE — WITH SUBJECT CALLED OUT
I’m having a lot of trouble with these big blocks of uninterrupted text. They’re frustrating and off-putting (to me) since I know there’s really good material in there….
Also, the ‘guttersnipe schtick’ is starting to feel like an ‘us and them’ dichotomy. I love and identify with outre the spirit but sense the (negative) line it’s drawing in the mud.
“Concerned citizens let’s talk. Let’s collaborate. Let’s begin something meaningful – not mere moonbatting.
Let’s germinate a new way out of our two-party entrapment.”
Nikos: I intuit a certain disconnection between your guttersnipe half and your ‘concerned citizens let’s talk’ half.
I identify with this and have come to think of it (in myself, anyway) as emblematic of a sort of “guttersnipe versus the goliath State weariness. With many good fights behind me, how to pick the next one?
babu, I’m having a hard time writing tonight, but I can say this much: the Guttersnipe identity is, for me, all in good fun. We can substitute Moonbats or Bonobos or Ros-bots if we want. Anything.
And it doesn’t have to be Left vs. Right either — but the majority of concerned citizens using this forum are progressive, it seems to me.
More importatnly, the constitutional issue really shouldn’t be one-sided. If my own personal ideal party existed in this country, it would be Social Democrat — but that’s just me.
Why not, for the country’s vast and consistently misled center, a Christian Democrat Party — not fundamentalist, but as generally and mildly progressive as most Americans really are? (And keep in mind I’m no friend of institutional religion, so my idea of ‘Christian Demcrat only mimics the European models.)
Why can’t the center have a real party? The Donkey and Elephant fight over the center, but only by inflaming fear, ignorance, and prejudice, and to the detriment of the country as whole. Multiple parties, governing in coalitions, would offer the nation not merely real choice but a vibrant and innovative political debate.
I’m so unhappy with the government as constituted I can barely keep my stomach settled.
Every new election year we say things like “Let’s take the country back!” — yet fall short every frickin’ time because the de facto two-party state is in collusion to keep the debate confined to their richest contributors’ mandated limits.
Screw them.
Let’s talk. Let’s stir something up and see if it doesn’t spark a larger fire.
At worst, we’ll all be wiser for the discourse.
At best, we’ll create a government For The People. For a change.
So yeah, no limits on participation. Republicans probably won’t find this appealing because they love the status quo — but we need centrists. And together, Center and Left, we outnumber the selfish Right anyway.
Let’s do it.
How ’bout ‘Ros Bats’? We fly both day night, and scare dickens out of the conventionally-minded.
Lydonistas were a small subset of Connection connoisseurs — hyperfans, perhaps? A Lydonista was something between a staunch, hardcore defender and an on-line agitator — we were willing to get our hands dirty and fight the good fight, both at the old Connection website (back when it was free and open, not the neutered, locked-down Gordon-era version) and at ChristopherLydon.org.
And fight we did — my specialty was tactical strikes against anyone who disparaged the quality of the show , as well as occasional research missions against a certain someone who consistently posted complete factual whoppers regarding Lydon’s past.
The battle actively raged for almost two years before everyone on both sides started to feel like we’d said everything there was to be said more than a few times. It was fun, infuriating, invigorating, stressful, emotional, and I’m oh so glad there’s no longer a need for any of it. (Although I hope we can all get together and do something for the 1 year anniversary of Open Source, since many Lydonistas were inadvertently denied their opportunity for celebratory closure through the launch party last year.)
Hi- Ken- thanks for the above. You were always very articulate. Yes we did put a lot of energy into fighting the good fight.
I take your point about a gathering.
I am not a club joiner. I did become a Lydonista because it was a natural thing and from the gut at the time.. out of emotion. I was reluctant to be a “guttersniper” but de facto I guess I am. The reason is precisely this clubbiness, us and them stuff. ( I wanted NATO to disband for this reason but I now see the benefits.) Still we are all individuals here. I don’t want anyone to call us all this or all that (moonbat). Folks should feel welcome to wander in here freely. Perhaps the only thing that should define us is our agreement that we have to ultimately get along and find a way. Sometimes it’s not apparently civil or constructive either( that’s me again on the above, I think it’s a cultural thing)- but that is the direction we must go if we want this forum/ blog to be something worthy and for it to have a “good reputationâ€?. My guess is this will not be easy.
****Since I registered here way at the beginning, I do not know what it is like to register now. Can someone tell me if there are any rules of behavior that you have to click “yes” and agree to to be allowed to post?
On Nikos constitutional subject, I notice Israeli politics and have been finding myself actually envious of their more responsive form of democracy (though they complain about it). Even the British have my envy. I love it when the PM stands before the House of Lords or Commons and there is all this shouting and reaction over what he is saying from the gallery.
We have too few parties. I am coming around to feeling this gets us stuck ( as now). The Israeli’s have too many parties by contrast. But they have to agree to a coalition to govern. Both the Brit and Israeli systems seem to be a lot more nimble in that these coalitions can change quickly. That’s good for democracy and bad for stability perhaps. Here we are stuck, waiting for an unpopular President and his increasingly unpopular agenda to pass. In the meantime it’s not like no harm is being done. This second term Bush presidency (which was very close again, even questionable) has brought us changes that we will be dealing with for years to come including the shift in the Supreme Court balance ( which will now reflect the views of the general population less and less ) and urgent environmental issues for instance.
In short, I would like to have the government represent us more, not less and less. What about national referenda on various issues, even non-binding ones ( instead of polls)?
On the structure of this section: If we are going to post on various topics here perhaps we do need further organization, maybe a general thread to chat and introduce an issue that can go off onto a hidden branch .
I think the idea of giving titles to these posts ( and maybe nesting or listing) would work better with this forum within a forum, or blog within a blog- a sort of “cafe”. I like the show threads as they are. This one however would be for chatting with each other or starting our own discussions perhaps unrelated. (These topics could also be mined for show ideas.)
This web site is becoming very rich day by day in it’s collected offerings. The blog part probably is already quite a job for staff to monitor completely. Perhaps we need, if we do not already have, a “civil defense force”. Or maybe a panic button to push for the fire department to come with their hoses? We can warn each other prior to things coming to that.
Clubbishness
Potter, thank you. Keep in mind that the Guttersnipe thing in its inception was about the value of activist, concerned-citizen blogging. ROS is home to this activity, and we gave it a subcultural identity. This is good and fun but needn’t nor shouldn’t devolve into clubbishness or conceit. Taking on a noun someone intended as a slur is a form of good-natured humor, and it gives our activism a sense of purpose or focus through a satiric identity.
(And it got us a new community thread too!)
So it seems to me that the challenge of creating new identities – like claiming Moonbat or memetically adapting it to something like Rosbat is simply another way of deflecting criticism, and/or turning a negative sentiment into a positive reaffirmation of our purpose here.
It can and should be funny, not harmful or exclusionary. Who knows? – we might, over time and just for fun see the development of ROS ‘political parties’ called MoonBats and Mammoths and Jackasses – but they can all be Guttersnipes too.
Hell, I’m already thinking of a way of turning this – “Imbecilian� – into something politically humorous, from that ‘Idiotarian’ slur. Why not? I already call the shouting moralists on cable TV like Hannity and O’Reilly ‘Benitos’ in honor of their ideological granddaddy Mussolini.
Maybe this is going too far – or maybe it’s just fighting back against people who dare to write junk like “Is Modern Liberalism a Kind of Mental Illness?� As long as it’s funny, I don’t think it ought not be censored.
So, maybe my full ROS name is ‘Guttersnipus Moonbatticus Nikos’ (family, genus, species). Why not?
And, ultimately: who cares?
On the other hand…
I don’t feel ‘eligible’ to give away the Guttersnipe identity. Those who answerwed the rallying cry that night have as much right to it as I do.
So, maybe we’re all Rosbats first, and Guttersnipes, Mastodons, and Mules second.
And no matter what, we’re all individuals with equal voices and much of value to share with one another.
Just to be clear: if any of a more rightist persuasion feel that the ‘Guttersnipe’ identity is too left-leaning, feel free to ask for it to include you too, and/or draft a mascot of your own.
It’s all in good fun, folks.
We can humorously preface our posts with stuff like:
“Speaking from the Mastodon Right…”
Or
“As a Mule-ist centrist…”
or, “Sniping from my leftwing gutter…”
Is it corny?
Sure, but it also lets eveyone in on the fact that you’re not taking your role too seriously, or beginning a rabid polemic, or whatever.
Humor, even lame humor, can work wonders to cool off intense reactions in venues of public debate like this one.
That’s how it seems to me anyway, speaking from the experience I’ve accrued in my gutter…and in the orchard of the Rosbats too.
I would like to leave some food for thought on the many comments made here..especially this one:
“Why can’t the center have a real party?..asked by Nikos.
I tend to think that most Americans are by nature “centrist” beause of our original american value system. However, the extremes, who are the squeaky wheels get all the attention because they are the loudest. And the extremes are adept at inciting and seperating people from their common sense by getting people to become emotional instead of rational and choose sides. You can’t debate with the extremes because they don’t use logic and you can’t answer illogic with logic so the debate never stays on the real point.
Depending on a person’s idea of themselves and their ‘values” for example…the extremes can turn every issue into a fight of opposites by presenting every issue as either -or.
The immigration debate is a good example….anti-immigration = racist…..pro immigration = american values.
The Israeli debate is another one…pro palestine rights= terrorist enabler….anti-israelis occupation = anti-semite.
The economic debate is another one….anti-union =belief in the american capitalist system that made america great……..pro union = socialist leanings or anti-business.
I don’t think the internet political world is the total answer to cleaning up the goverment and restoring balance and common sense in this country.
But, after looking around for four + years at blogs, sites and etc….I have seen nothing in the way of a “plain American” site that doesn’t represent one party or another or one special interest group or another.
Why?….I have compared the progressive field of the left from sites like DKos to democrats I know, and the right ideology of sites like Redstate and Powerline to the republicans I know in my area, and neither of them represent what I hear from both democrats or republicans on the ground out here in real life. They are both considered extremes to most ordinary people.
There are a lot of reason for this we could list and I will leave it up to someone else to go into….. but the only quick solution I see to head off the abberation at work right now is for some figure to emerge that will simply tell so much of the truth politically that people will be shocked back to reality. I am not holding my breath however…most likey this country will have to fall thru the floor before some Happy Warrior steps forward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_bat
Fruit bats are pretty, can fly, and are unobjectionably herbivorous.
Here in the ROS word-orchard, we bats feed on the ideas of one another and of the staff and their guests.
Did I mention that we’re pretty and get to fly, too?
Carroll, thank you. First: this is just my preference, but I meekly request that this thread carry as little of the Israel/Palestine debate as possible. Opinions for that volatile topic can be redirected here: http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/#comments
Oh! You’ve done it (I just discovered it while writing this). Okay, ’nuf said.
Constitution
One reason I’m jestingly advocating this ‘political mascot’ silliness is to subliminally plant an idea that we here on ROS do something we can’t do in the reality of the two-party state: think true to our political sentiments.
I sense gobs of centrism here in people’s comments, but have no way to quantify it because there isn’t a party affiliation that correlates to it.
So, maybe one fine way to explore the constitutional question is to have people who think of themselves as centrists discuss their ideas and discover their commonalities and differences.
The Center might prove much bigger than I can guess from my leftist gutter – but I want to know the truth, and not merely guess.
The reason I’m suggesting ‘Mule’ for this is because mules are crosses between two other kinds of animals (including the Donkey).
So now I’m not subliminally suggesting it anymore but doing it openly instead.
Centrists, declare yourselves! Show us your moderate views!
Don’t let us Guttersnipes dominate the Rosbat Orchard!
Brendan got it wrong:
I did not call Nikos a guttersnipe:
Here is the full exchange:
From the Fukayama interview:
“sidewalker Says:
March 20th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Why is Chris getting caught up in a discussion on why America can’t be a better empire?
fiddlesticks Says:
March 20th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
“Why is Chris getting caught up in a discussion on why America can’t be a better empire?�
Because he is a responsible commentator and not a guttersnipe poster. ”
Nikos, as usual inserted himself into someone else’s discussion. This doesn’t make him a guttersnipe, it makes him a meddler.
There is your next show Brendan: On meddlers, busybodies, and yentas.
Look up the meaning of each term
Political Spectrum / Constitution
Some more muckraking from your resident annoying Meddler
:
Do the priorities of political movements like this apply to American centrist sentiments?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Canada#Principles_and_policies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Labour_Party#New_Labour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia#Policies
Are they distinctive enough to warrant representation here in the USA?
What would a Centrist foreign policy look like? (Let’s leave the Middle East out for this preliminary survey.) I expect it wouldn’t vary much from the current foreign policy, so…
After reading through the links above, how would those principles affect these issues:
Domestic policy?
Economic fairness?
Social safety net?
Urban policy?
Taxation – flat, progressive, very progressive?
Choice?
Government involvement with manufacturing enterprises?
Small businesses?
Religion’s involvement in policy crafting?
Education funding priorities?
Other?
Constitution
In the Frozen Republic, Daniel Lazare mentions mid- to late 20th century constitutional modernizations in Australia and New Zealand, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden (he leaves out many others), and then writes:
“The new buzzword in certain European circles was ‘transparency’, meaning a government apparatus whose workings were clear, simple, and instantly apparent to the typical voter. Rather than conference committees, pocket vetoes, filibusters, and all the other maneuverings that Americans had come to see as the essence of politics, the idea was that debate should be open and up front, concentrated in a single chamber, with no artificial distinction between legislative and executive functions. The people who made the laws would carry them out and would be instantly answerable for their actions. Since responsibility would be clear from the beginning, there would be minimal opportunity for excuses or passing the buck. The one thing democracy could not tolerate was complex and tangled lines of authority.�
(pg. 179)
Add to ‘filibusters and conference committees’ the new plagues of earmarks and lobbyists, and then ask yourselves: Why should we be content with an unresponsive and bloated government that wastes trillions while doing the bidding of the few instead of the work necessary for the good of the many?
Why are we content with this system?
Can’t we have a state of the art 21st century democracy?
fiddlesticks
Where did Bredan say you called Nikos a guttersnipe? After your insult towards me, Nikos kindly stepped in and humourly turned that remark into a badge of pride. You may call him a meddler, but I call him a mate.
Whose got it wrong?
The irony of all this is that Brendan actually created this thread, in part, to keep your kind of snide personal remarks off the other threads. So far, it seems to be working.
alley oops. Above “Bredan” should read “Brendan”.
This is an open forum, not a private conversation. So anything that one person says to another can be responded to by anybody else. That is what has been happening here and that is what goes on in general all over the blogosphere. And there is generally good nature about it.
I don’t know how to deal with people who have a naturally confrontational/accusatory style. I am not (by self training) confrontational by and large but I do get near it or am guilty of it, or skirting close. The “take a deep breath” thing ( time to notice your own reactions) works most of the time. Maybe I am being generous by saying it’s a “style”. It’s a bad habit.
Potteranalysis: http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/#comment-9105
Potter,
I like your analysis. It is very old-worldly. I have found in Japan that everything just takes more time to change since all the roots are more firmly planted than in colony and immigrant nations. Even companies take a much (or they used to) longer view. They don’t (didn’t) axe workers just because quarterly profits are down.
Instant change, instant gratification and instant social engineering is only good for the polititians’ sound-byte, not for the local people. who need to work things through since they have to go on living with each other.
Thanks sidewalker;
I was just perusing Haaretz and noticed that they are finally putting down some guideline for their “Talkbacks” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=704032&contrassID=2
Here is the list:
Political orientation will have absolutely no bearing on whether a comment is posted or rejected.
Comments containing the following will be automatically disqualified:
1. Personal attacks, vulgarities and profanities directed at other respondents.
2. Statements terming Israelis or Palestinians and their leaders Nazis, or accusing them of genocide or ethnic cleansing.
3. Statements which may be construed as urging attacks on Israeli or Palestinian leaders, officials, security forces or civilians.
4. Comments of an anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab or other racist nature.
If you believe that we have applied the guidelines unfairly or in error, we invite you to write to bburston@haaretz.co.il, and your complaint will be seen to promptly.
Bradley Burston, Editor
Haaretz.com
I don’t know if they have the staff to read every post and make decisions however. There is a lag time before a post appears ( if it appears). It may not appear as well because of something I call “logjam”: too many people trying to post at once so I think posts go down a black hole. They have also limited the number of characters you are allowed. People are posting “parts 1-2-3″ to their spiel. Also because of the logjam problem, people are posting the same message more than once to be sure to get through. But that is a forum that is really “fast and free around the globe” and now it has been somewhat restricted. We will see. The “working out” that goes on there is very valuable.
Did everyone hear this weeks weekly radio address from the president of the United States?
http://weeklyradioaddress.com/
Now, is that really GWB talking?
Potter, I liked the comment of one poster who said that if the editorial staff had followed the rules you mention, then many of the contributions by jounalists would not have been gone to print. I guess some people are just given a license and a platform to be outrageaous and insulting. Then there are those who try to raise such a platform in a public space just because they think they can.
Constitution
Nikos, have you read Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in and Age of Diversity, by James Tully? In the book, the larger question he addresses is “Can a modern constititution recognize and accommodate cultural diversity?” As he says, “The question is not whether one should be for or against cultural diversity.” (Since this diversity is already is an undeniable fact.) “Rather… what is the critical attitude or spirit in which justice can be rendered to the demands for cultural recognition.
He points out several claims:
those of nationalist movements (e.g. French Canadians, Kurds),
those of supra-national associations,
those of longstanding ethnic minorities (e.g. Latinos, Blacks),
those of multicultural voices (newer immigrants, refugees, exiles),
those of the feminist movement, and those of those of Aboriginal and idigeonous peoples (e.g. Hawaiians, Native Americans).
He does not mention claims of gays and lesbians, but I think we could include them as well in terms of the politics of cultural recognition.
He writes that what they share is the injustice of an alien form of rule. What they seek are appropriate forms of self government where they have greater ability to make social rules that fit their customs and ways. They also share the belief that their cultural identity is critical to who they are and that their cultural values should be reflected in the governance of their society.
He rejects notions of both modernist homogeneity (e.g. America as one people) and post-modernist heterogeneity (We are all different). The former is just used to mask the cultural values and ideology that forms the basis of a modern constitution. The latter is just a way to ignore or wash away the legitimacy of claims of cultural others and thus return to the “empire of uniformity�.
There are many practical questions that arise from his account. One is how to avoid the reification of cultural groups. Another is how to accommodate so many claims and still hold the nation-state together. But the key point is to recognize the unjust arrangements of many existing constitutions in an age of diversity and accepting the need to begin a participatory process to create a fairer framework for a world no founding patriarchs could have imagined.
Aside from Potter, no one else has offered an opinion of the propriety of this thread as the ‘Constitution’ venue. Please do not feel abashed from it. I’m still uneasy about it – and I had a new idea today that I/we can implement if consensus or preponderance of opinion suggests that this topic is too big for this thread.
My 2 cents on the personal attack thing: in light of the recent evolution of our etiquette here on ROS, the latest bout of ’em read more like character hara kiri than character assassination.
They say more about the poster than the target. As CCM would say: best just to ignore ’em.
So thank you sidewalker, but let’s just not respond anymore.
(Or, let’s turn it around with humor. Like aikido.) I feel embarrassed for those who participate in it. Honestly. We can’t stop ’em from posting, but we can do the next best thing by not dignifying those who resort to attacks with responses.
Sidewalker: thanks for the book tip. I do recommend to you the Lazare book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0156004941/002-7919812-6315255
Potter: thanks for stepping up with your latest analysis. I’ve been hoping for such a thing for days now.
FIDDLESTICKS SAID: “There is your next show Brendan: On meddlers, busybodies, and yentas.”
You left out “Butinskis”
And “Nudniks”
.
KenLac Says:
April 9th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
“FIDDLESTICKS SAID: “There is your next show Brendan: On meddlers, busybodies, and yentas.â€?
You left out “Butinskisâ€? ”
Did I leave you out? Poor baby!
sidewalker Says:
April 9th, 2006 at 4:58 am
fiddlesticks
“Where did Bredan say you called Nikos a guttersnipe? After your insult towards me, Nikos kindly stepped in and humourly turned that remark into a badge of pride. You may call him a meddler, but I call him a mate.
Whose got it wrong?
The irony of all this is that Brendan actually created this thread, in part, to keep your kind of snide personal remarks off the other threads. So far, it seems to be working.”
sidewalker, this thread is an exercise in nonesense.
I am glad to see that it makes you so happy. it really does suit you, and Nikos.
Have fun, y’all.
Potter Says:
April 9th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
“And “Nudniksâ€? ”
that too!
anymore Leo Rosten terms you care to post?
I wonder if it is possible to flintknap a fossil guttersnipe ? If you have one let me know.
Posting Options
So, what I like about using this Alley for miscellaneous issues is that it has the potential to generate more interest than if we shunted the miscellany off to side threads. (Which we still might. I’m thinking that the old Frank Rich thread could carry the Constitution conversation.)
On the other hand, this Constitution issue sticks out so much here because the Alley is so new that the Constitution issue is more or less alone of the side issues – notwithstanding (rightfully) persistent traces of the volatile Israel-related posts.
I’d like to instigate a sort of Book Club on this thread, so that we can rave about our current and past favorite and most thought provoking books (and post links to them at Powell’s and or Amazon, etc). Peggy Sue, to name the only one of us I can think of off the top of my head who works in a bookstore, might have some choice offerings for us.
So hopefully as this thread begins to carry ever more miscellaneous conversations, the Constitution topic won’t seem so dominating.
Or, not.
I’m pensive about it. Well, for now, here goes…
Book Club + Constitution
In The Frozen Republic Daniel Lazare doesn’t stop short of calling American reverence for the 18th century Constitution a form of ‘religious faith.’ I’m afraid I have to agree with him. We are as uncritical about the Constitution as we are many religious conventions. It’s secular heresy to question the effectiveness of the government the venerable old document provides to us.
Yet, and as Lazare deftly illustrates, modern parliamentary democracies implement the will of their peoples transparently and with an accountability utterly lacking in the American system. No European government – except the hybrid British – would or could have survived all the gaffes, lies, fiascos, and neglects of our current national government. They’d have been held accountable and their governing coalition would have fractured. Hurricane Katrina alone would have brought the neglectful edifice crashing down.
Here’s a relevant section from Lazare’s pages 187-8, and 192, of the US government in the aftermath of Watergate:
(Begin quote)
While religious faith (in the Constitution) proved useful in drumming up opposition to Nixon, it promoted a sense of constitutional fatalism that in the end proved debilitating. By constitutional fatalism, I mean the widespread belief that the ways of Washington are permanent and unchanging, that the average citizen is powerless to alter the essential structure of the government, and that the power will always be divided precariously between the executive and legislative branch.
Congress was incapable of leading, incapable of governing, incapable of even managing its own affairs. Rather, it was only carrying out instructions dictated by the Founding Fathers some two centuries earlier. To expect it to do anything more was simply impossible. As Bentham had once observed, no dictatorship was more terrible, more unyielding than a dictatorship of the past.
This sense of constitutional fatalism is uniquely American. Outside of Iran and a few other fundamentalist strongholds, the prevailing belief is that if institutions are not working, they should simply be fixed. This reflects the modern view that humans control their own destiny and that they fashion institutions for the betterment of their condition. If the institutions do not make things better, then it is up to the people to create new ones that will. Yet a system predicated on the notion that it is foolish “to expect something that our Founding Fathers never intended� is the very opposite, one in which institutions rule and the people obey.
The three branches of government have succumbed to this post-Watergate enfeeblement in various ways, although ultimately the outcome has been the same. Each has gotten sillier with every passing year, more intellectually limited, more ineffectual and broken down. The consequences have been disastrous for those who believe that government is necessary to improve society and a godsend for those latter-day Jeffersonians who argue that government is at most a necessary evil that in many cases fouls things up and makes them worse.
“Paradoxically,� observed journalist Hedrick Smith, “reform opened up a razzle-dazzle political circus.� The more “open� Congress became after Watergate, the more fragmented and irresponsible it grew.
…by 1987 the number of registered lobbyists in Washington had reached an astounding twenty-three thousand, a sixtyfold increase over the level of 1961.
“The new power game has not only multiplied the centers and circles of power,� Smith noted, “but it has led to a more piecemeal, jumbled, adversarial brand of politics.� Power on Capitol Hill could be used to obstruct, delay, divide, or advance one’s own career—everything and anything, that is, but run government in a systematic, logical fashion.
(end quote)
Consider how many more policy options are floated than actually make it into law. That doesn’t happen in Europe – not even in Britain. The governing coalitions draw up policy, the oppositions offer counter proposals from shadow-government platforms, and then the policies are enacted by parliaments that reflect the will of the people. No presidential vetoes of the people’s will. Executive and parliament are one in the same. Unpopular polices lead to new elections, and if the people say so, then the ‘shadow governments’ of the opposition parties get their popularly mandated turn to govern.
Consider moreover that lobbyist numbers have exploded yet again since Lazare wrote The Frozen Republic in 1996, and that lobbyists are becoming to Congress what the Shogun became to the Japanese Emperor – a self-selected government that in this case writes laws in privacy and adds peices to bills the middle of the night (earmarks), before the floor votes in the two houses of the Capitol sanction the legislation. The Emperor’s imprimatur authenticated the Shogun’s will, just as Congress does for the lobbyists’.
Who the hell elected the lobbyists?
Why doesn’t Congress, with its vast network of tax-funded staffers, do any real work besides run for reelection to mostly invulnerable seats?
Ask yourself: Do “humans control their own destiny and…fashion institutions for the betterment of their condition�?
Or have those long deceased founders from the 1700’s dictated our destiny in perpetuity?
Remember: Madison himself called his constitutional product ‘an experiment.’
Reply to “ask yourself”: Do humans control their own destiny? Yes, with limits imposed by the dominant culture you live in.
Do humans fashion institutions for the betterment of their condition? No, all institutions quickly turn into corrupt, self-serving entities not because the humans in them are BAD…they are just doing what all humans do when they function in groups. In fact, all primates do the same.
Thanks paleoman (I like the moniker, btw), but I guess I’m just a sort of hopeful lout who thinks that a strong and well-informed citizenry can work wonders. you’re right that every institution ages, but not all of them into corruption, I don’t think.
And if the next government does, well, Jefferson himself said: “A little rebellion every now and again is a good thing, and as necesary to the political world as storms are to the natural.”
We’re overdue for a good storm. Our country’s trunk has clinging to it a few rotten tree limbs in need of a gale force wind-throw.
Or overthrow.
What’s this thread for?
When I read Brendan’s intro to this thread, he is stating that he has created a place for the personal exchanges and the broader site-wide issues. I interpreted “site-wide” issues to be issues about the functioning of the site, moderation of the site, structure of the site, etc. And the personal exchanges to be about just that – comments directed at particular posters that are not related to a topic on the show threads or feature threads.
While I think the Constitution topic is certainly one to explore – and I’d love a whole poli-sci education to go with it, which I might glean from the readings suggested. I’m finding as I read through this thread that there is a desire to use this as a place to force a topic dialogue when the ROS staff hasn’t responded to topic suggestions and created a thread. Brendan, is this what you were offering here?
About Function
The clearly strong desire of the ROS bloggers to be able to trigger their own topics, leads me to again suggest that there may be a place for an associated Forum. There could be links to the forum on the blog, but it would be a place where we could start threads. You could requre that someone who starts a thread must moderate according to some guidelines that the ROS staff establishes based on the community input for guidelines. A moderator could then split a topic if it branched off in significant directions.
On Bad Behavior Recover
I host an IRL community and I am always exploring my own behaviors. I’m human and not always perfect. You can read last week’s entry Not Your Hostess Cupcake. If you do, check out the second comment from one of the community members.
My point is that, we are not always going to be perfect. It is good to have the opportunity to make the mistakes and be called on them and apologize and learn how to tread through mirky waters a little more cleanly each time. I don’t believe its incumbent on us all to be perfect. It is important that we strive. It is important that our witnesses help us strive by reporting our errors and supporting our improvement.
So, on the thread that was shut down. I did read through it and things were getting heated up. What I feel was missed was a gentle, but firm moderating voice guiding people to a more constructive approach to the dialogue. They weren’t given the change to self-correct, much less accept third-party intervention to correct. Opportunity lost. What if they were able to continue the dialogue while dialing it back a bit? Going from no moderation to shutting off the thread seems driven by fear. Not what I expect from anything having to do with Christopher Lydon. I would request that in the future there are steps and that a thread is only closed if the participants are not responding to moderation. JMHO.
Hi Allison. Thanks for your 8:20 PM.
I agree with most of it but would beg to differ with the word ‘force’ in this sentence: I’m finding as I read through this thread that there is a desire to use this as a place to force a topic dialogue when the ROS staff hasn’t responded to topic suggestions and created a thread.
I’m hoping instead to generate a ‘critical mass’ of interest – and then use this thread to place small posts like:
‘A new Constitution post is available in the Frank Rich thread here: http://www.radioopensource.org/frank-rich-our-politics-our-theater/#comment-5046 ’
Gaining a sense of ROS-blogger interest goes hand in hand with my queasiness over using this thread for long, topical posts. I don’t want to dominate, but to intrigue. I want to make a case for a citizen’s duty to break taboo and to discuss this sacred-cow issue, and then try to make some meaningful headway, but not by intruding on the ‘ROS Commons’ – if that’s what this thread is in addition to being a kind of Free-For-All Alley.
The problem with the Frank Rich thread is that it’s not on the ‘Recently Aired’ column anymore – but that’s a boon too, since it amounts to a de facto ‘nesting thread.’ So, I’m tight-roping the fine line between ‘too much presence’ and ‘not enough interest’.
Your 8:20 PM helps my evaluation.
As it stands now, between the delicately expressed sentiments of Potter and Allison, I’m leaning toward the Frank Rich thread.
I would dearly love to hear the opinions of others, too. Especially from Brendan.
Ok, ‘force’ may have been strong word. I was mainly asking for clarification on what the intention of this thread is from Brendan’s point of view. I’m not sure I care what the thread is used for.
Right. Why the hell not? The experiment is on: a new (recycled, actually) Constitution post @ http://www.radioopensource.org/frank-rich-our-politics-our-theater/#comment-9140
This will test the de facto ‘nesting thread’ idea for a topic that hasn’t generated much ‘critical mass’ interest yet – and doesn’t bring a big load of emotional interest like the Israel / Palestine issue.
If you read it and comment, drop a one liner here informing us of your comment in Frank Rich thread.
And thanks to h wally and Potter for instigating the idea, and to Allison too!
Correction: “If you read it and comment, drop a one liner here informing us of your comment’s new presence in the Frank Rich thread.”
PS to Potter: it appears that we’re destined soon for post number 10,000.
Keep a sharp eye out to snag it!
Potter gets dibs on 10,000!
How do you know how many posts there are?
Allison: click the date of any post and you get its ‘http’ — http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-9144
that final set of digits is the post’s number–oh, wait, that might only be for April!
(How the hell do I know???)
I think it’s for longer though.
Click this — http://www.radioopensource.org/show-suggestion-statistics/#comment-8
– and you’ll go back to a Lisa Williams post from April ’05!
Right. I’ve had just enough of the toxin called vodka tonight to actually create a personal profile. It should explain a lot (of my annoying personality). The photo’s background is the dinky little port of the Greek island my father parent’s immigrated from.
allison Says:
April 9th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
“What’s this thread for?”
It’s a thread for people with a lot of time on their hands.
Yup! Give us a profile, fiddlesticks!
I did mean “father’s parents”, btw.
And I’m dyin’ to see fiddlesticks’s profile.
Nikos that photo of you! But I would not say you are a “schmendrek”.
Fiddlesticks have you been here before under a different name? Your ‘style” is familiar.
How am I going to know where and when the 10,000 post is???? I need a warning system.
Allison, you echo what I said about that thread that was closed down. Absolutely in agreement with your post.
Nikos– I think using the Frank Rich thread or any other thread for purposes other than was intended pollutes it. That is not to say that the topic is not worhty. Say they want to do another show with Frank Rich or re-rerun that one?
I think we are running into the same problem on the God in Our Genes/Dennett thread. Jazzman and I (& Peggysue ) have gotten off into this discussion about art that I would like to continue but I am feeling guilty about hijacking the space. It’s not exactly hijacking- it’s a branch. To hide this elsewhere does not invite others into the discussion either.
So we need to be able to create threads from perhaps a critical mass- but not frivolously ( like ” Foreign or Obscure Words that Work When the Common English is Forbidden”) or propose topics to see if there is interest. Perhaps those could start here and then be transferred to a clean thread.
I read the spirit and intention of ROS for this to be a shared effort. Anyone care to comment on that idea?
My perspective of the Guttersnipe thread is that it’s a communal place where we can interact and perhaps even organize our collective thoughts without “cluttering” up some of the more topic oriented threads. I see much brilliance and diversity here. Perhaps we could organize some of our varied opinions enough to be the subject of one of Chris’s shows. We’re as expert as many of the experts I’ve heard. One reason I live in a small village in Mexico is my desire to be part of a functioning community. I’m in one and I think ROS is, at least partially, serving that function for many of those who contribute here. When I leave here and go up there I’m overwelmed by the sense of isolation I feel. When I have visitors it takes a bulldozer to get to leave when their “vacation” is up. I see that same reluctance when a show goes off the air. Be glad there is a place like this and contribute your unique point of view. The Guttersnipe thread is forming, give it time. We have many fine minds here we can work it out. It’s not necessary that we all agree. Out of some of our most heated debates have come some great things. Our buddy Fiddlesticks gave a name to rally around. We always have the godlike presence of Brendan to call down from the heavens if we go to far astray.
Any crossword puzzlers out there? The “Boston Globe Magazine” for 4/9/06 Crossword Puzzle clue for 15 Down is an interesting “convergence.”
h wally……amen to the small town in Mexico. I find the same peace and neighbor to neighbor relationships in the small towns on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Something is very wrong with our mainstream culture. When my wife and I travel to a city we both get a hollow, lost feeling. The people are caught up in a frenzy of work, buying and a frantic pace of life. Their eyes are cold and guarded. Thank the galaxic guardians that small places of quiet, friendly people still exist.
Aloha
Good Mornin’ ROS Nation.
Potter, the reason I selected the Frank Rich thread is because its topic had led to a conversation between David Weinstein and me on the Constitution. (Well, that’s an awfully easy tangent for me to start — but still, if you recall that Rich spoke about Bush, and that’s a ‘government’ topic — especially in light of this new ‘Unitary Executive’ junk.)
So, trying to have a Constitution conversation there (if anyone is really interested) seems to me a logical use of an otherwise no longer relevant thread. The Immigration Stories thread, by contrast, might attract a few more posts germane to its original purpose.
What’s a “schmendrek”?
Oh, and when you click the ‘date and time’ box-link of any post (below the blogger’s byline), you get an ‘http’ that ends with the post’s chronological sequence number. Try it and you’ll know what I’m trying to say. (Hopefully!)
Besides, you taught me (through example) to do this trick.
Otsukaresama, everyone.
The post just above this one is #9199. This one will be either 9200 or 9201 (depending on whether someone posts while I’m typing this!)
KenLac Said:
You left out “Butinskis� �
fiddlesticks Said:
Did I leave you out? Poor baby!
KenLac now says:
Touché!
A schmendrek, or schmendrick , shmendrick – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmendrick
A jerk or a fool. It comes from the Yiddish theater ( vaudeville) a character. Moishe Pipik ( Moses Bellybutton) is another. These names are used to make fun. My grandparents who were real yentas used to use these words to describe various people- even relatives. It all came back to me when Fiddlesticks posted above.
Prestige Nut,
Funny, Sunday’s crossword also had a clue “guttersnipe”.
Right! I’m a schmendrek!
Oy gevalt!
Hello Paleoman1, I know the feeling. I live almost straight west of you maybe there’s more oxygen in the air down here. Folks around here call my wife and I “The Hermits,” because we live up in the jungle by ourselves. I love my village and have lots of friends there but it just feels good to be up here surrounded by the lush green folliage. I fall asleep, every night , to the sound of the wind rustling the bamboo leaves. Ahhh
Hi all,
I’m a newbie to the website, though I’ve listened to Chris for years. So how the hell can I hear tonight’s show about Iran? Do I have to wait a week for it to get archived and available? I mean, it’s the web, right? Instant, huh? WTF!?
queequeg1: link to here — http://www.kuow.org/kuow2/default.asp — then just before 7:00PM EDT / 4:00PM PDT, click the “Connect > KUOW2 Real Media Stream”. That’ll hook you right into the show.
Someone else will have to explain the podcast thing — which I can’t figure out.
Anyone wanna teach us?
allison – yes Sunday 4/9/06 – 15 Down – guttersnipe – this is no coincidence – nefarious powers are at work here.
Hi Nikos,
What am I not getting? You mean I have to click that link before 7pm, my time (I’m in Massachusetts)? More WTF. Why do I have to go to some radio station in Seattle or wherever to hear the freakin’ show!? Lydon, post the stinkin’ show already!!
come on Nikos….help her out. Cat got your tongue?? You usually are very helpful. Like WTF…Nikos….ha
Aloha you Greek God you
Jesus Nikos….lighten up…really I am kidding…southern Greece just had a 5.6 earthquake. Is that your doing ?
paleoman1, you’re cracking me up. (Did Greece really get an earhtquake? I’d better check. They had a quake in the 1950′s that made all the streams on my grandparents’ home island go from above ground to underground. The rocky riverbeds are still there, but you can only hear the water deep under the earth. Weird, huh?)
Anyway…
queequeg1, I dunno. I dunno lots of things.
Here’s what I do know:
1. I live on the Olympic Peninsula, where we get an on-air Radio Open Source at 9:00 PM Pacific (midnight your time).
So, to hear the thing ‘live’ instead of tape-delayed, I gotta link to the Seattle station’s internet stream that I sent you to.
2. Now, whereas the live stream works fine (but sounds awful), ‘Podcast’ doesn’t work for me because my cheap rural phone line is only a 28k connection, which is HALF the speed of most regular dial-up lines (for years they made 56k modems for this reason). The thing plays when I click it, but I get only five seconds of speech before the damn fool thing has to rebuffer. That takes about ten seconds. This makes my attempts to listen to the ‘podcast’ worse than useless.
However…
If someone can explain to me how I can download the podcast without it playing UNTIL IT’S ALL IN MY HARD DRIVE, I expect to be able to download and listen with no interruption problems.
Can anyone help me?
Pleeze???
I use iTunes to subscribe to the podcast. Then it loads and is saved on my computer. I can listen whenever I like. I don’t know what the PC equivalent is. iTunes comes standard on a Mac.
Allison: I can’t afford an IPod. I checked the prices a month ago: $400!
Nikos and peggysue: I mailed a pretty map of our May 7th Meetup on the Olympic peninsula (WA) to the ROS office last weekend.
Nikos:
If someone can explain to me how I can download the podcast without it playing UNTIL IT’S ALL IN MY HARD DRIVE, I expect to be able to download and listen with no interruption problems.”
With a native dial-up that slow your best bet might be to turn your volume down or off while you’re downloading and then play the whole thing slightly later.
Nikos: when I download onto my desktop I put the cursor on the link to the MP3 and click it AT THE SAME TIME press your control key ( you need two hands for this) A box pops down from the link and you can scroll down to “download linked file” and click that to download.
Let me know if that works. That should leave you with an icon on your desktop of the show.
PS: Nikos: If you have a dial-up connection it must be frustrating. We struggled with dial-up and then went to cable. The phone companies have been trying to get us back with offerings of faster connections. We keep getting offered faster ones via cable.
You can get an ipod for $300. Still not cheap. And there are the accessories, some of which you need.
It locks out for those who live frugally or can’t afford, or don’t want to spend that kind of money for that. The price will probably not come down so quickly either. I notice that there is a market for used and refurbished ones http://www.macreviewzone.com/html/reviews/guides/hardware/ipods.shtml or at Amazon. Still it’s a lot of money.
I used to audio tape the shows ( esp the old Connection) and listen to them on my Walkman. You can still do that. Get a 120 minute tape ( two sides of an hour) or even a 110 minute tape and tape off the radio. Or tape off of your computer. Can you do that? It’s old fashioned but it works and it’s cheap.
( I have 2 drawers ull of old Lydon tapes)
babu & Potter: Thanks, but I think it might be hopeless. I’m up before dawn (I have no idea why), and am trying to download the old ROS hour ‘An Obessesion With Secrecy’. It ain’t workin’. I’ve subscribed to Odeo. I’ve right-clicked holding the control tab. I’ve left-clicked holding the control tab. But the same thing happens every time: the AOL Real Player window opens and the show begins to play, not download. And, of course, the playback begins to spaz out about 23 seconds into the play, beginning the endless sequence of rebufferings.
Beats me.
Thanks Potter (7:21). But unless someone can give me instructions germane to archaic 28k phone lines, I’m stuck. I can’t afford a $300 Ipod. Not even close. And my old radio-to-cassette linkage is sabotaged by a dead reciever. I’ve got nuthin’ but ancient equipment and no dough to update it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the universe is doing high-speed!
Thanks anyway.
Nikos- I think a new boombox with a tape deck and record function is about $70. ( Panasonic?)
Nikos: Click once, not twice to get the dropdown box. The technique that I use is this:
I place my cursor on the link
I put my right thumb( soon to be operated on) on the clicker (but do not click yet)
With a finger of my left hand positioned on the control button ( I think it also works with the option button on my computer)
Then I SIMULTANEOUSLY press both the clicker( only once and hold it) and the option button to get the drop down box with choices. Choose “download as linked file” and then release your fingers from all.
If you have a dial-up connection, from what I remember, whenever it gets interrupted it will stop at that point in the download and then just pick up again. So go away and let it do it’s thing.
I hope this helps. I think what is happening is that you are not getting the knack of this maneuver. This of course is much cheaper than any of the above options that have you going out to buy equipment.
Nikos, I don’t use an iPod. It plays on my computer.
Question for Brendan: is it possible to make this new ‘In House’ catagory into a ‘Series’ on the left of the page, and then add the month-old ‘On Forums’ thread to it? Thank you, either way.
Potter, I’ll try you adivce later (haven’t been awake yet long enough after my pre-dawn insomnia).
Allsion: thanks — does this mean I should try subscribing to I-Tunes instead of Odeo (& does it cost $)?
Babu, I saw your question on Frank Rich — http://www.radioopensource.org/frank-rich-our-politics-our-theater/#comments — and will crank our an answer as soon as my feeble mind is up to the task. I have an answer, but it will take time to articulate it so that other humans might have a chance to understand whatever the hell I’ll be trying to say!
Allison, you missed out on an incredible day in the Common. You could have brought the little one, there were many kids marching and cheering; such a good vibe. I spoke with a guy on the subway after and we both compared the energy to the pre-war march around the Common (with less anger) – you said you were there.
I wrote my thoughts about it on the immigration thread, check it out if you get a chance.
CCM: what are those adorable lil’ critters gracing your Profile page?
http://www.radioopensource.org/user/cheesechowmain/
Yo Nikos and all,
Thanks for trying to straighten me out about downloading the Iran show (still can’t do it but someday I’ll figure it out). Why did Paleoman think I was a wo-man? (“Not that there’s anything wrong with it”). A 56k modem? WTF!
watz ‘wft’?
Ummm… It’s “What the f**k”. Brendan, don’t delete me. Nikos ASKED! You can find lots of this at:
http://silmaril.ie/cgi-bin/uncgi/acronyms
Oooh. Now I get it. The Iran show is up and available with a click. I SAID I was a newbie here. Thanks Chris and whoever. Very cool.
Nikos, hint: re: the lil critters. Ask any child who has seen The Lion King.
Am I correct, CCM?
Oh, nother, I just didn’t hear about it time. Would have loved to be there. I’m shocked about the response by some in the US. Rhianna marched with me last time, so she would have been old hat. But the best would have been if I could have met you. I know you’re shying away from that. But someday…..it might happen. And, lo, I might just even respect you. Nay, like you.
Oh no, that couldn’t happen…..
Nikos, Nikos, Nikos…
1) iPod Nano, $149. I’m not going to automatically assume that’s affordable for anyone, but you can get one for under $300.
2) Ebay, baby. My best friend got a sealed package for a good price.
3) There are other forms of MP3 players out there, some dirt cheap. They don’t hold much, but if all you’re looking to do is carry a few editions of Open Source around at any given moment, they’re more than adequate.
4) I’m pleasantly drunk, so forgive me if I’m missing something here.
5) iPod Shuffle: $69. The hitch is you don’t get a way to control which thing you’re listening to at the moment (that’s the “shuffle” part). But if you only loaded one show at a time, then no problem.
Okay, I’ve read back through the thread too late: yeah, dial-up is a drag. And there really isn’t a way for the OpenSorce team to make smaller MP3 files without unacceptable degradation of quality. So I see your dilema.
But if you have a way to use CD-Rs on your computer, I’d be happy to download and snail-mail you any and all of the Open Source shows of your choice and snail-mail them to you. That is, if we can figure out a way to get each other’s e-mail addresses without giving them away to every spammer on the block.
KenLac says: That is, if we can figure out a way to get each other’s e-mail addresses without giving them away to every spammer on the block.
Ah, now here is where a forum comes in handy. On my forum – http://www.circles-salon.com/forum – users can sign in and hide their email addresses from one another. But they still send personal messages, because there is a function in the forum for that.
I’m gonna drive this point well into the ground……..
Allison, you have a fantastic setup happening over there in JP. I can only imagine the hard work that has gone into making a beautiful idea into that tangible reality. I look forward to checking your site out some more.
In response to what you and Kenlac were discussing about emails, I’m all for privacy, but is putting our emails on an ROS thread really a big deal? It’s not like an actual address or phone number, and it’s not like there are spam predators scouring through these ROS threads. Don’t get mad at me; I really want to know.
I also think your favorite Romi poem that I found on your website should be the official ROS community poem:
Come, come whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times
Come, come again.
Oh ya, I would have been proud to march next to you.
Your meerkats rock, CCM.
http://www.radioopensource.org/user/cheesechowmain/
Mac or Window’s users can download a copy of the itunes software (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/) and then subscribe to ROS and listen on your computer or ipod at your leisure. Sometimes, though, the most recent show is available on the website as an mp3 link sooner than you can download it through the subscription route via itunes.
Brendan, why is this???
Yes indeed Nikos. Meerkats and prairie dogs are very rockin’. Sorry about posting my reply on the other thread. It was late and I was half asleep before I realized I was posting my reply on the wrong thread.
BTW, I heard Sy Hersch yesterday on Diane Rehm:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/04/11.php#10231
Also, an interesting discussion about Italian elections.
Nikos: Regarding my previous instructions apparently on a Windows machine the right-click is equivalent to the Mac control-click. ( I have a Mac).
For cheap portability- Ken’s suggestion of an MP3 player – way to go.
This just in from my guru regarding Windows: Right-click the link and from the drop-down menu choose “Save target file as” and then it should start to download. Then go away for however long it takes to download.
Humor me and try this?
Allison, Peggysue, Potter, Lisa Williams, I hope you will respond to Icantgoon’s recent post in the “Suggest a show” thread. Mary responded, but I would love to hear your opinions.
Potter: thank you. I took sidewalker and Allison’s twinned advice and downloaded ‘iTunes’ yesterday, and will ‘subscribe’ to ROS via iTunes later today. Then, metaphorically holding my breath, I’ll try to download a ROS show.
(Wish me luck, everyone!)
I wish you luck ( and a Happy Greek Easter… are you saying “bah!”) Let us know how it works out with itunes. This is probably the wise choice.
If you want to be mobile/cheap – the MP3/walkman is probably the way to go. I do not know if you can xfer from itunes to an mp3??? But you did not say you wanted to be mobile.
Peggy Sue and babu: we probably ought to take Allison’s offer for exchanging email addresses: http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-9448 (10 posts back from this one).
Potter, otsukaresama — but I don’t even know when Greek Easter is!
On the other hand, who cares? — my new iTunes captured its first ROS show just now — and it only took 2 hours to download! Two hours.
Guess after this I’ll do it overnight.
AND IT SOUNDS GREAT!
Thanks sidewalker and Allison!
ROS PUGET SOUND CONVERGENCES MEET UP
SUNDAY, MAY 7TH
ANACORTES, WA
2:00 PM
Where is Anacortes you ask?
details here
http://circles-salon.com/forum/index.php?topic=132.0
Surprise us and show up
Map of the May 7th Meet Up:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&searchtype=address&addtohistory=&country=US&location=0VBFGjJmfuy%2fU71BUs%2f%2fq9tPHX5AIMcBziLzUiZKuNG%2fxN%2b0hR3k4%2bAHERKj28RUCXAsH5%2fnfVvC%2fuO%2fL1%2bBUm25xT9XFP8BvGosGHM61OzVGOsUqa1RJZ%2fa7pD9fJGa
zoom out or zoom in.
Amatsu
http://www.amatsu-ireland.com/home.htm
http://www.amatsu.co.uk/
http://www.amatsu-therapy.net/amatsu.htm
In Japan, Seitai – Japanese Physiotherapy is probably the most practiced of the various Amatsu areas.
“Setai literally means to correct the body and was very popular in Japan until the Meiji period. During the 1950′s Setai re-emerged as a natural therapy through the influences of American Chiropractic/Osteopathy and many Setai colleges in Japan are now known as Setai Chiropractic College.
Setai utilises many different methods for body correction including the following(1)
-Positional re-alignment through postural patterning
-Reciprocal reflex patterning
-Soft tissue manipulation
-Ligament and muscle balancing
-Emotional clearing with body-mind integration.
Setai focuses on the Head (on neck), Hara (spine/pelvis) and the feet to bring about symmetry and paralateral movement(2). Therefore all treatments re-align and re-balance the person from head to toe whilst balancing the meridian circuits of the body and the intrinsic cranial sacral system. This results in a restoration of symmetry and a boost to homeostasis (immune system enhancement) with a reduction of stress and body strains.”
I often go to a Seitai instructor and we do some of the above. What is great is that like Yoga, it is holistic and teaches you to help heal yourself.
“The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation’s history,” the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters on Thursday.
“very” “fine” Is that possible, to do something fine, and then do it VERY fine?
Nother, I heard that yesterday on NPR and had to laugh. Our nation is led (held hostage) by clueless ideo-savants. Sheesh.
Karen Armstrong
Those of you (like CCM and Potter) looking for a (non-ROS) Karen Armstrong ‘Warm Up’ can click here: http://www.kuow.org/weekday.asp
After today it will be in the Recent Shows archives drop-down box (found in the lower right of the web page); it was Friday, April 14th.
It also streams over the net tonight at 10:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM Pacific @ http://www.kuow.org/kuow2/default.asp
(She even touched briefly on the current Iran-USA stand off.)
Another book of interest is Jonathan Kirsch’s God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670032867/002-5071434-3142460?v=glance&n=283155
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0142196339-3
I plan to read it this weekend. Here’s a brief review from http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/GodAgainstGods_2.htm
“It seems that the course of historical events was largely due to the fact that Constantine the Great needed the cohesive force of Christianity and lived long enough to ensure that Christianity was able to get a firm hold on power and influence. Julian “the Apostate,” however, failed to accomplish the same for paganism because he simply didn’t live long enough, reigned a mere two years, and died at the age of 32.
“As energetic and personable as Constantine, he might have turned the whole thing around and forced Christianity into minority status — the fate of the West was determined by a single spear thrust in Persia, or perhaps by the fact that Julian neglected to buckle his breastplate securely before the battle. The actions of these two individuals literally changed the world in ways that continue to affect us today, and it’s interesting to ponder what might have happened differently with just some small changes to their lives.
“Religiously speaking, pagan polytheism is far more tolerant than monotheism. Polytheists don’t really care if you worship a different god and can even be quite happy to incorporate your god into their own pantheon. This doesn’t make polytheists inherently virtuous — when it came to political matters, their ability to deal out death and suffering was quite good.
“The question is, though, whether the West might have been spared all of the religious wars had Christianity simply remained “one among many” religions rather than acquiring the power to drive out all other beliefs and enforce a rigid orthodoxy. Maybe, maybe not — it’s not as though human beings are lacking any reason to go to war once religion is removed form the list of disagreements. Yet perhaps the absence of divine sanction for wars would have lessened their ferocity and impact.
“Kirsch has a real flair for making these ancient figures come alive and his writing style makes this book an engaging and enjoyable read. This examination of the early relationship between Roman polytheism and Christian monotheism should give people good reasons to think a bit more carefully about the rise of Christianity and to what degree that was really a good (or inevitable) development.�
Happy Spring Festival of Your Preference.
Brendan, David: is the spam-filter link-limit per post five, or more than five?
Nikos & Babu: I just registered on Allison’s forum. I noticed Babu got there before me. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
Sidewalker: I was not familiar with Seitai. I took a quick look and will check it out in more detail. I think I could use a treatment right now!
Two new(ish) Constitution / American Politics posts are in the Frank Rich thread (one is my reply to babu).
http://www.radioopensource.org/frank-rich-our-politics-our-theater/#comment-9661
http://www.radioopensource.org/frank-rich-our-politics-our-theater/#comment-9662
Peggy Sue & babu: I expect that if you email Allison — who gives her address in her site — she’ll email your addresses to me, and mine to you. She has mine already.
Allison: Thank You in advance.
nother, I am in agreement with icantgoon and just posted on ‘suggest a show’. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the male guests but I think including more women would add to the depth and quality of the show.
I was in my mid 40s when I went back to school and took computer graphics classes through the WSU art department. That was in the mid-90s. Most of these classes included 3 or 4 young women, about 20 guys and me. I was kind of surprised by how much fun I had working on projects with frat boys but it did seem to me that it took a brave young female to hold her own in that environment. One of the hot topics then was: is the Internet a hostile place for women? This had a lot to do with the porn aspect of cyberspace. Things have changed a great deal in 10 years and use of the Internet has become much more mainstream. I remember at that time though, there were some great websites made by young women who were challenging the male dominance of the Internet. I think this is something to remain mindful of.
Nikos Lest you think you work for naught…. thank you so much for those excepts to A.N. Wilson’s book on Paul. I heard him on the radio ( The Connection?) way back when the book came out. It’s fascinating.
Peggysue, thanks for that. I’ve posted on one of the race threads that sometimes when I’m in a group of white people, I try to envision them all as black, with me the lone white person. This is how black people sometimes go through their day, as the lone black person, and it’s hard to imagine living constantly with those dynamics. In that same vain, you as a women have experienced this in your computer classes. The effects of this dynamic are powerful and I don’t know if we can even grasp how powerful.
I also want to say that we should be VERY careful with our criticism of gender bias at ROS, even if you think it is unconscious.
I’m sure you would think long and hard before you told one of your good friends in Seattle that they treated men in a more preferential way than women. Your friend world be taken aback and would demand specifics. Don’t make general sweeping comments they might say, you’re talking about my integrity here – tell me exactly when I was biased.
Personally, I look back over the recent history of ROS and I fondly remember many women guests! The woman on the show about robots, stole the show. The female blogger from Israel made me want to experience that place at three in the morning. I so wanted to hit that greasy diner with that female chowhound. Camille Paglia, forget about it. How about that woman on one of the “race and class” shows that stood on street corners asking for reparations for slavery.
I’m certainly not saying don’t agitate, I love agitation – it keeps me awake. I’m just saying that some of us, the ones who blog here a lot – like you and I, should critique Mary, Chris, and the rest, like we might critique one of our good friends; respectfully, specifically, and NOT matter of factly – because it is always possible, that we might be wrong.
I’m glad we are having the conversation.
nother, Thank you, as usual you offer some valuable insight. I do indeed appreciate both the men and the women guests on ROS – gender balance is something I think we just have to keep hacking away at if we ever want to acheive true equality. So I’m just doing my duty on behalf of my gender. I hope I don’t seem overly strident. Then again, sometimes all a woman has to do is ask for equality to seem like an absolute raving maniac. I’m not questioning the integrity of ROS. I adore them! So much regarding gender issues is so deeply ingrained I think it often is not even noticed. I’ll try to point things out with more grace in the future.
Peggysue, please know that I wasn’t questioning your questioning. You have a thousand times more insight on this subject than I, and I look forward to hearing your views so I can learn more and rattle my ignorance. My only caution (which I probably stressed too much) was with regard to the language we use. Of course I know you don’t question the integrity of ROS, I was just trying to point out how the wrong language i.e. generalizing, could potentially make people defensive. I worry about the wrong language creating a disconnect between the producers and the bloggers. We communicate in a new way, but I consider us all friends.
oh nother, your point was well taken. this electronic communication, marvel that it is, can sometimes get us in trouble. if you email much with friends you may have experienced email miscommunications that are easily cleared up face to face. I do have a tendency jump up on my soapbox and rail but I do hope to share discourse in the spirit of friendship and I’d hate to inadvertently insult our brilliant hosts.
I hope you know I’m not questioning your questiong my questioning (I’m just being goofy now)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eostre
You rock. Peggysue.
peggysue
I started a puget sound meet up forum at allison’s for us temporarily. If you go to
http://circles-salon.com/forum/index.php?topic=132.0
we should be able to leave messages there and use the direct email. Since you signed up I’ll try forwarding you something there neat I got from Brendan.
Hmm.
I was wondering why all the *live* online streams for the show are proprietary media (ie., *.asx or *.r[a]m). Just now, trying to find stream to which I can listen via Linux, it could not be done. (Note: My Linux system is ALSA only, thus no RP option – and at this moment I have not rebuilt MPlayer, though I am not sure even that would work.) Normally, I listen via [non-internet] radio, so it has not become an issue for me until tonight.
When will you have Richard Stallman in for a discussion?
(A good idea, considering recent DRM issues and, perhaps, “‘Net neutrality” needs.
.
Well, since I logged in: I was wondering if there is yet an IRC for the shows?
CCM: I forgot to mention earlier this: http://www.kuow.org/weekday.asp
Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott once wrote “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Lamott became known as a liberal Christian after her book Traveling Mercies was released five years ago. She takes on faith issues again with her new book Plan B; Further thoughts on Faith. How does a feminist, single mother, born-again Christian, liberal, writer see the world? She joins us, so we can find out.
It was Weekday’s 9 AM hour on Tuesday, April 18th (for archive-searching purposes). And it was worth a listen even for me, your resident unbeliever.
It streams as a reply on KUOW2 @ 7:00 PM Pacific (04/18/06).
Nikos: I caught the end of Anne Lamott earlier today. I plan on listening this evening. Thanks again for the heads up mi amigo. I really enjoy Ms. Lamott and she is a great speaker. I heard her several years ago at a college in California. Great. Absolutely great. I read “Crooked Little Heart” years ago. It really struck a chord. Great quote btw. I totally understand and appreciate the sentiments. Thanks again Nikos.
Nikos & CheeseCM: I posted the same Anne Lamott blurb yesterday on the tail of the Jesus thread. I had to leave the house mid-way through to get to work and could hardly stand it but listened to it when I got home. I had just been listening to Plan B on audio from my local library. I love her humor and as an aspiering writer have always appreciated her book Bird by Bird.
Re: Anne Lamott. I finally heard the whole show. Great conversationalist. I now know something about the “Church of 80 Percent Sincerity” which I could be a member if they set the bar a little lower to say sixty percent. I could do sixty percent sincerity. In the mean time, I’ll keep pulling the wool over my eyes with Bob and The Church of the Subgenius. They’re probably like twenty five percent sincere… maybe even lower. http://www.subgenius.com/
Thanks again Nikos and Peggysue.
CCM: you’re welcome. Now, quit being so unnecessarily self-conscious and please join me and babu on the May 7th trip to Anacortes!
You do want to meet babu and Peggy Sue, don’t you???
(You’re a fool if you don’t! And you, pal, are no fool.)
At the very least, please use Allison’s blog to exchange email addresses with us.
See ya!
Nikos, Babu, Peggy Sue, I’ll meet you in Anacortes. I’ll be the 300 pound 4 foot tall naked white woman shivering out side the deli. Please accept me. I ‘m different but nice once you get to know me. I couldn’t bear another rejection.
Nikos, I know you love me, don’t get me wrong. My beauty is intimidating to most women. I’m sure Babu and Peggy Sue will be jealous of the mega kilowatt energy grids that flow between you and I. Who Loves ya baby.
Peggy Sue and Babu, lets just accept our differences and get along. I’m used to being rejected because of my intense sexual energy. Just turn a blind eye to Nikos and I as we exchange our energy fields. I hope to have his baby. Won’t it be cute. You two can be aunties. Who needs muscrat love we’ve got guttersnipe love. Impregnate me yor greek maniac.
Damn KSandra, what’s up with all the initias. I was locked up in a mental institution wit a lot of people who made more sense than you do. Try speaking slowly and in the idiom of the day. Take a few deep breaths and relax, ytou’re among friends.
I can’t stay long. I just want to apologize for what was posted here last night. I just found out that a very evil man who sometmes shares my computer got on and posted many terrible posts in my name. I didn’t sign out so he was able to sign in as me. I’m closing out my account so this won’t happen again. I enjoyed myself while I was here. Good bye
Potter: we’re around the 50-to-go mark for post #10,000.
Are you ready?
Yup if you will let me.
I missed it! That was hard to get! I can’t find the 10,000th though. My post is here:
http://www.radioopensource.org/the-holy-grail-of-physics/#comment-10002
( I did get the 10,001st (see the Rumsfeld thread).
So who got it? Let’s put a Lei on him/her and throw a big slushy virtual kiss.
Why am I not surprised.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/14381368.htm
H wally stole it on the Global Warming thread. Look at how he did it:
http://www.radioopensource.org/global-warming/
Well I guess he needed it. No kiss though. Not that it was mine, but he could have been up front about it.
Potter: Somehow h_wally series @ 10k is sort of quasi-Beckett. Great poems you posted. Sorry you missed 10k (I was bumming all day), but hey, there’s always 20k, 30k, …, 100k, …
Thanks CCM:
Since Nikos mentioned the number was coming and would I do it, I was actually thinking about posting the Galway Kinnell poem “Telephoning in the Mexican Sun” one of my favorites. The poem seemed to suit what I was reading in H Wally’s posts and I wanted to send him a “gift”.
It WAS quasi Beckett– I thought of that too last night. Also ironic and revealing.. HWally must have sent this as a message to me, impish as it was, I thought. Maybe he will weigh in with a “Ha Ha Ha- Don’t count on anything”
http://www.radioopensource.org/global-warming/#comment-10018
It takes prep to do my thing- HWally can have 20K, 30K
Hello, my name is Claire. My husband is hwally. He asked me to write you all and thank you for all that you’ve been to him. He hasn’t been in the best of health lately and you were the bright spot in his day. Yesterday he left to go to the hospital for a series of tests. He wanted 10,000 as a sort of good luck charm. Don’t be too harsh on him. He does love you all. Best regards, Claire
Our best to h_wally Claire.
Nikos, this one is for you amigo:
http://www.radioopensource.org/scott-mcclellans-one-right-thing/#comment-10056
A dream… a pure dream…
The cheester will be hitting the road for a while. Long story. It’s highly probably I’ll be MIA on the web, but I’ll be listening. Y’all play nice and be good to yourselves! When I return, I’m contemplating a name change. I’m considering “OliverCranglesParrot.” For fans of the original ‘Twilight Zone’, this might make some sense. Best…
Nut… squawk… Nut… squawk
Just wanted to test out the new nom de plume… Nut… squawk… Nut
– Pete Crangle (The King of the World at 16:01 pm gmt)
CCM: “…It’s highly probable I’ll be MIA on the web…”
Let me be the first to say it:
BUMMER!!!
Hurry back, dude.
We count on you (whatever your nom be plume).
CCM/OCP: Bon Voyage! You will be missed.
Nikos: You are a sweetie pie! Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
Claire: Thanks for your note, I hope #10000 brings HWally luck.
Nikos: “Hurry back, dude.” It shouldn’t be more than two to three weeks. If all goes well, 1.5 weeks.
Hey Cheese: yeah, we’ll miss you.
Oliver/Pete/Parrot: I looked at your profile and the photo spoke to me. It said:
“Keeng ofthe whirled! Keeng ofthe whirled!”
Which of course made me think of peas. Which made me think of…
Peace, pal.
See ya!
Bring us back some juicy stories Cheese/Oliver.
Claire, keep us updated on h wally, and tell him his voice is already missed. That was so cool – how he snagged the big 10.
Nother- I did not think it was “cool”. I fussed over what to put that would be worthy. It took 30 posts for him to do it and he did it in a sneaky way where you could not see the numbers racking up. He even said ” catch me if you can”. I was the stooge, waiting at the ready at Nikos beckoning. If one needs a lucky charm- then one should ask for it up frontand no question it would have been given easily by all of us- stepping away. Hey- I have an operation coming- what about my “lucky charm”? Sorry Nother- I was trying to be nice about it but you tipped me over.
I wish H Wally well. I truly was touched by him- but he knew he was doing it to me.
( not that I need or want a lucky charm- that’s not the point)
Potter: a few posts back you called me a ‘sweetie (pie)’. I didn’t deserve it, yet ‘sweetie’ is one of my most favorite of epithets, and I want to earn it. So:
On New Year’s Eve, do we weep for the year passing, or celebrate the New?
Post 10,000 was the last of the Old ROS era.
Post 10,001 is the first of the New.
I’d rather you got 10,001. Your 10,001 sanctified our next 10,000 posts — another year!
Thank you, you sweetie!
PS: if I can ever finish my reply to jazzman in the Dennett thread, maybe we will get it up and running again. And then you can have our first ever #400!
(I’ll try to finish it today, in fact.)
I’ve just posted a long-delayed reply to Jazzman in the Dennett thread:
http://www.radioopensource.org/is-god-in-our-genes/#comment-10097
I would appreciate the feedback and thoughts of others as well as jazzman’s.
he’s back. It’s me again. The evil man who took a ride on my girl Serious’s computer. I enjoyed myself so much I decided to come on board as myself. I’m an old sarge from way back. I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me. Potter, what’s up with you and all this whining about a number. Snap out of it my boy. I’m assuming you’re a boy. Hwally beat you to it. You lost fair and square. What made you think this number was yours. Your assignment for today is to come up with a list of people who agreed this was yours. If a sick Vet needed it give it to him and hope his wife doesn’t come back on and see you making a real stooge out of yourself. Enough said, you apologise for being such a baby and we’ll let is slide otherwise I’m gonna have to hunt you down and redo my favorite scene out of the movie “Patton”. I’m sure you know which one that is.
Winston, I salute you. You’re a man with a good head on his shoulders.
Anne Lamott’s Revolution can be read here.
It is also on Salon.com but you can read it at this link without signing up.
http://bannedfromreality.tribe.net/thread/60eedf22-df61-45d0-a0ae-29c3262220c8
Nikos: you were a “sweetie pie” before that post to me above. Still no more excusing myself from dinner to catch anything.
No more “take it Potter” please. I excused myself from dinner to catch that one. Let he/she who want’s it take it…. even with a quaquaqua
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaqua with white beard quaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown.
http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=462&m=403090&c=0&s=3&t=98444
But you, Nikos, have a place to stay should you come East.
( messed that up as usual … that should read)
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaqua with white beard quaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown.
Potter, thank you for the offer to put me up. I’m too poor to ever imagine I’ll make the trip east, but who knows? Maybe someday I’ll earn a living from my writing. Regardless, we might like to exchange our email addresses as per Allison’s offer above: http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-9448 just for fun and socializing. (She’s got mine already — and is free to give it to you, should you want it.)
Good idea. Nikos. Will do.
I was thinking that you would be coming east to sign your book deal. (They should give you a big advance by the way.)
I went to Allison’s web site and I can’t figure out how this email swap function works ( duh).
Anybody, anybody?
Potter: send Allison an email — she gives her email address in her website — tell who you are and that I’m expecting an email from you. She’ll send you my address (bless her heart!) and you can email me — which will of course automatically give me yours.
Thanks, to you and Allison especially!
One time I took a Greyhound bus overnight from Missoula to Seattle on New Year’s Eve. I thought the bus would be empty. I was so very wrong. It was packed. There was one guy on the bus who had obviously been drinking and was being very rude and obnoxious. People tried to be polite to him but he was loud and insulting and swearing a lot. We put up with this for many miles. He also kept lighting up cigarettes, which was against the rules. The bus driver, who was very polite and professional, informed him twice that there was no smoking on the bus. After the second time the driver warned him that he would be put off the bus if he did it again. When the obnoxious guy lit up for the third time (as we were all hoping he would) the bus driver pulled over at a little convenience store on the snowy side of the highway in nowhere Idaho in the middle of the night and made the guy get off the bus. Everyone on that bus burst into rousing cheers and applause.
I thought about that, as I was blogging on the global hip-hop thread recently. Does the bus driver have to catch them smoking three times or is rude mean spirited insulting behavior that adds nothing of worthy content to the conversation possibly enough to get them put off the bus? Mind you, I’m not talking about normal obnoxiousness that any of us, and I certainly include myself, resort to from time to time in the heat of discussion. I’m talking about people who have nothing to say but just seem to think it’s really fun to be insulting.
peggysue,
I was wondering the same thing recently about a poster on one of the other threads.
allison,
Thanks, I’m glad I’m not alone. The thing that got to me on the global hip-hop thread is that there are a few non-regular posters like a hip hop artist from South Africa posting that I am very interested in reading. I don’t want someone like that, who has something of value to give to the conversation to be so put off by the mean & stupid stuff that they don’t come back. (Nor do I want to be so put off by it that I don’t come back).
Uh-huh, let’s go for a little censorship. Not much just the people we don’t like. Oh yeah Peggy Sue, I know you. Rap music is continually under attack from people just like you. It’s filthy and foul. It incites our poor black people to violence. Oh yes, Peggy Sue. You look out for us. Protect us fom the unpleasant and the ugly side of life. You just see the surface of people you don’t take the time to look any further. You wished that man ill and were happy when he was put out in the cold. Let me tell you something baby. I’ve been that man. I’m a 33 year old black man and sometimes I hate my life so much I have to kill my mind with something powerful and when I do I feel good for a while. I’m likely to let anyone around me know how I feel and like a lot of those bad people who rap, I use bad language. I”m not asking for any pity. I’m just saying to you take you own advice baby and ignore it. For me I’ll take the guy on the bus over you and your kind any day. I know where I stand with people like that. People like you are much better at hiding their true motives. I read your post at the hip-hop thread and left you one.
jeez…and I was beginning to feel guilty for making all those posts on the Birthday thread…(even though I gave each of ‘em a lot of thought…)
Well, I guess this Alley is the venue for personal animosity, whether it be from Seargeant Lee Birds or eternally dead birds…
Liar
Lie lie lie lie liar you lie lie lie lie
Tell me why tell me why
Why d’you have to lie
Should’ve realised that
Should’ve told the truth
Should’ve realised
You know what I’ll do
You’re in suspension
You’re a liar
Now I wanna know know know know
I wanna know why you never
Look me in the face
Broke a confidence just to please
Your ego should’ve realised
You know what I know
You’re in suspension
You’re a liar
I know where you go everybody you know
I know everything that do or say
So when you tell lies
I’ll always be in your way
I’m nobody’s fool and I know all
‘Cos I know what I know
You’re in suspension you’re a liar
You’re a liar you’re a liar
Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie
Lie lie lie lie liar you lie lie lie lie
I think you’re funny you’re funny ha ha
I don’t need it don’t need your blah blah
Should’ve realised I know what you are
You’re in suspension you’re in suspension
You’re in suspension you’re a liar
You’re a liar you’re a liar
Lie lie
– Sex Pistols
Allison, I sent you an email but have not gotten a reply. I wonder if I sent it to the right place. I wanted Nikos email address to exchange. ( I need to send him some good poetry).
In the Hip Hop thread “Serious Lee” has logged in under another name and the hatred continues.
It’s not hard to figure out. “Deadforever” logs in for the FIRST time ever with a scathing response to PeggySue – essentially defending “Serious Lee.”
“Deadforever’s” SECOND post ever is in “Guttersnipe Ally.”(before Niko’s direction) Wow, this person’s only posted once and they already know about the ally. That’s convenient.
What do we do if this continues?
Hey Nikos, I just read your post above and the lyrics – spot on!
POtter,
I’ll check my email now. I get deluged sometimes and I miss things. Sorry about that.
geeze louise I guess I really stuck myself out there as a lightning rod for the wrath or preverse fun of Serious Lee Dead Again Sarge Little Yellow Bird. If this is all the same person they have been on my case from the beginning. So are there any rules of engagment here? I know nikos can post only so many links in one post right? and I’m assuming I can’t say fuck.
OOOUUUUUUU I can say fuck! I was just testing the system. Is this because Brendan is on vacation?
Your intelligence is shining through Peggy Sue. You must squirm with delight at such badness. What are we going to do about such foul language. To you nother. Your detective work is lacking in depth and inteligence. Stick to what you know.
Don’t believe, him, nother. A writer’s style is a signature.
Paranoia strike deep. Into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. Just stopped by to see how the snipers of the gutter are doing. Thank you Queen Peggy for taking the gutter dwellers to new lows. Love William Bacon
Peggysue- I think Little Yellow Bird is no longer posting. I see no resemblance.
You may be right potter. I only saw the resemblece when it came to personal insults of myself. Not that I mind a bit being called” June Cleever”. I remember June Cleever as always being gracious and perfectly dressed something I can only aspire to be.
Hey Nikos: When I saw all your posts on the birthday thread I couldn’t help but wonder… So, Howz that novel coming along? You don’t sometimes blog to avoid working on it do you? I only ask because I know I do. I’m not anywhere near having a complete first draft mind you. I’m just slowly slogging along with all my characters trying to fill in the skeleton of a sloppy first draft, stopping along the way for research… (mine’s historical). Now seems like a good time for me to take a break from the blog and pay attention to my charaters. They are frontier people who can get mighty kantankerous.
Peggysue, work on the novel – but don’t stop blogging. We need your down to earth intensely compassionate perspective.
I can’t see how blogging could hurt your writing – I could see how it might enrich it. When you are blogging, you are writing! So keep writing on all fronts!
I have to believe that you are too tuned in to let some jerk scare you off. I have to believe that you are too strong willed to let some insecure person who found that they could only attract attention to their blogs by spewing hatred – that you are too strong willed to let this sad person win. If you succumb, others will follow.
With that said, maybe you just need some more time to focus on the novel. If that’s the case, good luck! I look forward to reading that novel – just as I look forward to reading your blogs.
Potter, the point is not that Little Yellow Bird is not so and so; the point is that Peggysue (or anyone else) should not have to deal with hatred from anyone on this blog. It simply should not be tolerated – period.
What you fail to understand “deadforeverSeriouslee” is that no matter what identity you try to cloak yourself under, we will know. We will know because you have encountered a community of positivity, making your propensity for negativity, stick out like a sore thumb. Call yourself what you will – call yourself “sunshine” if you want, it won’t help – We will spot the sadness a mile away.
If you have even an inkling of respect for this community Serious Lee, you will leave us alone. You don’t have to respect us, just please leave us alone.
There are lots of evil people out there on the web. I know you are not evil from you past posts. Think about all those evil people you could direct you anger at.
bye.
I have to agree with Potter, LYB had a very different style. This mosquito reminds me of DC.
Btw Peggysue, I thought you point about the lack of female voices in the Suggest a Show thread was very fair and I don’t see any reason why you need to defend yourself. Keep pushing the point. I know that ROS does not choose male guests deliberately, but it could be that the all-too-many geo-politics shows favour that gender flavour.
I was surprised when I did a search of past shows and found that there has not been one show primarily on education, children or the family. Are these topics seen as too motherly by the news media? Or have they been co-opted by the religious right?
Since I am in Japan and luckily do not have to watch the network news shows over there, it is hard for me to gauge the public’s sentiment.
I suggested a show on the Wired generation and learning/teaching methods. I hope someone at ROS has a interest.
Nikos, thanks for the answer to the role of language question. It helped clarify how you are thinking about consciousness.
Did you hear Dennett’s interview with Moira Gunn on the Tech Nation podcast? A lot of what he said struck a further cord with me. It is great that he is not afraid to ask the unsavoury questions.
Sorry, I forgot to provide the link.
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail990.html
All good things must come to an end. I, along with the other members of the axis of evil, have been assigned to a small, third world country that needs adjustment. Nikos you almost busted me but you missed. Her’s a few clues, as a gift, in parting. Take a good look at all the familiar faces that have signed off in the past week or so. There are more than me. I got a good laugh when HWally outed one of us. I doubt he actually knew what he’d done but someone disappeared right after that and you ended up with an all new reality. Have some fun with this. We’re a bunch of fun loving guys and gals sitting around waiting to be reassigned. I don’t expect any thanks but I know for sure you all enjoyed the diversion. With out us you’d be trading recipes and planning outings to Starbucks.
P.S. is one of us.
Lee Bird: yeah, right.
Nother- anent our 4/28 @1:16 My point was A Little Yellow Bird should not be blamed for causing the annoyance. I think there is agreement on that.
That should read: Nother anent your 4/28 @1:16
To the herd animals who fight the axis of evil: I find it distressing that you, and many others, still think that if you just stay here long enough, you will squelch the insurrection. What’s wrong wit you people? Your intelligence is shining through. You don’t love freedom of expression at all. I swear to God if they had a thread about dog crap you idiots would respond. You must squirm with delight at such a bad waste of quality time. Your detective work is lacking in depth and intelligence. I can’t believe there are actually people out there who are so intensely concerned about frigging bloggers. You fools are out of your league. I wish I had your level of faith, because if James Bovard’s new book, “Attention Deficit Democracy�, is anything to judge by, we’re doomed. Come on, honeys–you’re spending too much time blogging…shouldn’t you be giving more quality time to the marriages or other relationships you wanted so much? I mean, until your men started “not getting it?�
Hmmm…
Anyone know who wrote the post above this one?
ROS has clearly become a very central part of the lives of a great many people posting to this site. A glance at the “Listen” bar, however, illuminates how so very many cities and regions across the country still do not have ready access to this program on their local radios. Who better than the Guttersnipes to take a shot at trying to help ROS attain wider station carriage throughout the country (or beyond)? Just a thought.
Where are the callers? We get encapsulated updates from the blog commentary during the show, which is nice, and arguably an improvement, but where are the callers? Don’t we deserve a chance to mix it up with the literati too however briefly and perhaps incoherently? Would actual callers box the show into a competition with “On Point” or “Talk of the Nation”?
Perhaps a second tier verbal conversation where actual callers can ask their own questions perhaps to producers initially with the best being aired during the show would solve the time constraint problem that may be at issue here. And another segment off the air but still verbal after the show would be nice as well.
Plaintext- Good points. That should go in the suggestion box.
Greets, all. Got room for one more in the pool?
Yes welcome and pull up a chair Daylite. Wanna beer?
ER.. Daylate. (sorry!)
Hey Potter, whatever happend to the famous Amber from the Connection? Is she here?
Nother, I remember Amber. Perhaps she has moved on. Chris was in touch with her. Perhaps he could say.
DayLate ( there I got it straight…. a day late.)
Re: Where are the callers?
Chris wrote me back and nicely mentioned that the shows haven’t featured live callers for several months (and I’m just noticing? – duh.)
Anyway, the producers monitor the blogs (as even I have noticed) in search of conversational riches to feature in the show and regularly do just that – all to the good.
If you just gotta hear the sound of “his master’s voice” on the show or you feel a verbal battle is the only way to settle the thing once and for all, send an email to your favorite blogger-in-chief, and the ROS People will contact you to see what sparkles of insight you have to offer.
Fellow ROSers, mea cupla, I guess just didn’t get it.
Ok, I have to say that I now find it tedious to read the threads here. The personal barbs are not witty or interesting and severely detract from any kind of real topical exploration. You know, you don’t have to be the fish that responds to the troller.
I rarely get to listen live because of my schedule and I had been enjoying the blog as a way to stay connected here, but I can’t spend my time avoiding hooks.
I did listen live last week and it brought two questions to mind:
1) Did the show stop taking callers?
2) Did the show decide not to integrate the blog posts into the program any longer?
At this point, I would love to hear from the ROS staff about what they see as the mission of this blog and whether we’re fulfilling that mission.
I know there has been talk about changing the format, and that may take time, but I would like to know if it is really on the agenda. And if resources are a problem, what can we do to help?
I did note on the Nir Rosen thread that Robin was trying to push against the personal exchanges, but is there a stated guideline anywhere on what ROS would like to see as a standard to aspire to?
I would love it if people would stick to addressing theoretical points and data interpretation without character assassinations and generalizations. I don’t see the value of referring to “the right” or “the left”, for instance. They are just more “isms”.
Thanks for indulging my crankiness…
Allison, I’m sorry for my part in those exchanges. I’ve been down on myself for getting involved and I will surely avoid them in the future. I promise I’m here to add logs to this warm fire not to extinguish it. My problem is I can’t stand bullies; I can’t stand them in my personal life, I can’t stand them in politics, and I can’t stand them on this blog. I made a point of ignoring the bullying at first but when I see important voices like Peggysue get affected by them, I get riled up. We’ve lost Peggysue for the time being because of one of these bullies. The weakness in my decorum pushes me back from this whole idea of community here. The more I think of myself as part of a community, the more defensive I become of that community. It’s a weakness I have to deal with and I will.
As far as the callers during the show goes, I don’t miss them. Those people can just as easily post on the site. In fact, they now will have more incentive to post. I, like a lot of people am too shy to call up, and now all of our questions and ideas will be looked at on an equal level. I’ll always remember listening to the “Connectionâ€? and thinking, “I wish I had the nerve to ask a question.â€? Now I have that opportunity.
I’ve listened to almost every show as a podscast and I can tell you that Chris doesn’t always name the blogger or reference a specific blog. Many times he seems to express a sentiment that he has gleaned from the blog. If they are not referencing our blog, they are referencing another blog or they are interviewing a blogger. It’s all good.
I do wish two things; that the staff would blog more, and that they would “nest� our blogs after a certain word limit. If people are interested in what we are writing after 500 hundred words or something they need only click once to read the rest (this long blog included). I’m just worried that potential bloggers are being scared off by the enormity of some of these posts.
Lastly, you wrote that you are finding “it tedious to read the blogs here.â€? Please see that as a challenge and not as a deflator. I’ve said before that your comments are one of the reasons I come here and I wouldn’t want you to stop. As bloggers at ROS we need to take some responsibility for these threads. To me that means challenging ourselves, it means finding new definitions of blogging. “Bloggingâ€? is a new concept, it is still being defined, and we are part of that Allison. You and I and the rest are presently defining this idea, and we are far from done. I’m challenging myself to write some of my comments in different ways, in creative ways, in literary ways. I’ve taken advantage of the anonymity and gotten personal about my experiences. I’ve also realized the limitations of my experiences and I decided to interview a co-worker. I’m thinking about interviewing a co-worker and friend this week about the remittances program. As bloggers when we see a program that a friend or a friend of a friend might have insight on, we should contact them, give them the web address and ask them to post – or interview them and post the comments ourselves. We are Producers here! As bloggers we should challenge ourselves to comment on the threads we are less familiar with. Yes it means exposing our ignorance, it means being a little vulnerable, but it also means the possibility of enlightenment, it means delving into uncharted territories of the self. My point is as bloggers at ROS we need to seize the day.
I am dismayed by many blogs in how limited they are, not in intelligence but in imagination. Many are formal letters to the editor style. Many are regurgitations of what they heard on NPR yesterday. Many are clever cut and pastes from other sites. It’s like being at a dinner party and a person relays to you with passion something they heard on talk radio that day. They may say it with fire and brimstone, but where is the original thought? Where is the risk? Where is the curiosity?
The blogs I seek out are more about questions and less about pontification.
Sorry again about my part in the triteness.
Nother: great post. But for more reasons than you might think.
I used to live in an average American city in an average American state. I had a 56k phone line servicing my 56k modem. Now, out here in the Olympic Peninsula hinterlands (60 or more miles from Seattle, and on the ‘wrong’ side of Puget Sound), my 56k modem is serviced by a 20k rural phone line.
“So what?�—you might ask, and:
“What’s the big deal?�
Well, actually, it is a big deal.
Your idea about nesting threads is unfortunately similar to Jon Garfunkel’s several ideas and pleas.
Instead of stating the heart of my objection, let me give it in an example:
The tens of thousands of words on the Morality thread lately takes well over two minutes for my computer to load.
Jon G can’t know it (heretofore, anyway) but I hardly ever link to his embedded pages – not out of callus disinterest, but because my computer and phone-line link to ROS, I deem, is goddamned time-consuming enough already.
So, I don’t want to have even more time eating stuff like nesting links if I can possibly avoid it.
I’d much rather read you guys than sit around waiting for the page to load up.
Here’s another way to think of it: not everyone who cares about ROS and volunteers their time to blog here are blessed with equivalent technology.
Some of us are stuck with internet speeds that not even the Microsoft wizards of a decade ago cared to contemplate.
This limits us. Thus I (and folks like my neighbor Peggy Sue) would prefer not to be marginalized any further, if at all feasible or practical for ROS purposes.
Thank you, one and all, for your time!
ps nother: you weren’t ‘trite’. (Post more, dammit.)
Nikos, point well taken, I have taken this highspeed thing for granted. I’m not married to that nesting idea, it was just a thought.
Whats really important to me is that our conception of what “blogging” means, evolve. I want us to imagine new ways to take advantage of this medium. A poor mans “Crossfire” is not what I’m looking for here.
BTW, did you guys go on that day trip? How did it go?
Also, thank you for all of your blogs Nikos, you are a glue here.
‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world’
Ghandi
I bin t’inkin’. (An’ dat’s as bad as it is unuzual.)
I know that my pal sidewalker keeps up with pretty much all the new posts on most every thread. Which means that he (or she, although Brendan has ‘officially’ gendered him) doubtlessly read this in the Colbert thread: http://www.radioopensource.org/stephen-colbert-court-jester/#comment-10557 which read:
“More moonbat ideological masterbation – I love just watching it. Maybe that makes me a voyeur?â€?
Now it’s true that it didn’t target anyone in particular – but it damn sure smeared any and all who dared dissent from the Dubya administration ‘party-line’, and their flacks at FOX, and all that background noise called rightwing talk radio, that (avoidance of generalizations be damned) are unambiguously all of a piece. And that piece sez: “Anybody who doesn’t agree with us is mentally and/or emotionally impaired.â€? (Don’t forget that one of ‘em wrote a piece called: “Is Contemporary Liberalism a Type of Mental Illness?”)
Now, with that as background, does this comeback really seem so ‘gratuitous’?
“And our local Rushball, Winston Dodson, keeps assuring us that the troops are happy to reenlist and just love the experience of spreading goodwill and democracy…�???
http://www.radioopensource.org/nir-rosen-on-iraq/#comment-10724
It’s not like we self-described ‘progressives’ hadn’t just endured an attack essentially devoid of appreciable content, yet laden with insult.
Now, to be fair, Winston has already apologized (not specifically, but in general), which makes my question this:
Why pillory sidewalker for an amusing, single-word wisecrack like ‘Rushball’?
After all, it’s no more offensive than ‘moonbat’.
Finally, as a postscript to Allison: if we can’t say ‘right’ or ‘left’, ought we avoid ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ too?
(I’m in all honesty a poor typist: it’s easier for me to hunt-an’-peck four- and five-letter words than those of twelve letters!
)
My hunch is that ROS is okay with the level of discussion here. I think they should be pleased. We start off with a thread and no show and so comments get made that do or do not stimulate a discussion in a certain vein, that may or may not branch off. Folks chime in with questions for that anticipated show and in between a “discussion� is taking place.
On the Nir Rosen thread I participated (this war is an emotional topic for me) and partly also because ( from my first post on that thread) I have tremendous respect and admiration for Mr. Rosen (gosh he’s only in his twenties!!) I jumped in also because I felt WD was trashing ROS, Chris and the as yet unaired show. Sidewalker referred to WD as our local “Rushball� ) as Nikos points out this business was from beyond that thread and WD referred to Sidewalker as “sidetalker�. This was no big deal as far as I was concerned. Yes there is animus going on but so what? It was not at any level that required all the reference and categorization of it as �personal attacks� that ensued. It was in control in my opinion. What I was reading from everyone and what you could read in mine was/is passion for the subject at hand and a POV argued.
What is interesting to me is Babu’s ( in the “Forum thread� if you go back and read through- use your “find� function) notion that this forum should have a lot more expert opinion and a lot less of us “gabbers� ( Chris called this blog “gabby� in an affectionate way- it seemed to me- the other day). I guess we each have a different idea about what this should be.
No you are not going to get a written version of the show if you cannot listen. You may not get much prep either… or post-op. What you do get is a para-conversation often very interesting in and of itself. You can jump in and guide the conversation or you can complain about it.
I found that both Babu’s post and Jon Garfunkel’s in the Nir Rosen thread were out of bounds though their criticisms were welcome here for instance. Perhaps next time butt with a link to this alley. I disagree with aspects of both. But both comments in their own way also added animus to the thread (“ dissing� it probably without reading it) when they could have made a point about or near the topic of the show. This type discussion is better right here.
Perhaps some of you are getting tired of what Potter or Nikos or Sidewalker or Winston has to say at every turn. Okay- fair enough. Then contribute.
Regarding callers, I have two drawers of old Lydon/Connection tapes, some of which I have been listening to lately. Chris took many callers in those days. He handled them beautifully, each like a treasure. He had a large staff then and 20 shows per week. The secret of the sauce back then in part I am sure was the excellent screening as well. But Chris has an obvious love for humanity, the whole of it, which is why I ever got stuck on him. I miss the callers and I do not know why we don’t have them now but I may have given you the reasons. I am okay with simply having a show…. only 4 a week at that and grateful for it. Also I feel the way Nother does regarding calling vs putting an idea on this blog. It easier to get through on the blog and often one can be more articulate and I don’t want to call in. I find that if you want to get an idea through to the show you have to keep it short and to the point. Imagine Chris talking and reading. Another point is that those of us who listen in real time have an advantage in following the discussion. Questions come out of that. So if it’s a topic you care about you should listen in real time, on the radio or streaming.
Nikos- I have to admire your persistence given the connection you have. But then the trade off of living far from the madding crowd must be worth it in spades.
I also echo Nother about feeling two ways about the length of posts. Sometimes it’s very worth the read. Sometimes you can get and should have gotten to the point with one sentence ( much harder). I found value in so much that I have taken the trouble and time to read here. Paying attention to each other is partly what this is about too.
Nikos thanks for: http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10903
Nother thanks for http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10892
It’s great, btw that we have more and more people entering the conversation.
Talk about adding salt on an open source wound. Oh how I wish I had Ghandi’s wisdom and dedication, Babu. But alas, I am just Derth Sidewalker, who resorts to “personal attacks,” “character assassinations” and pointless sarcasm against poor, defenceless “victims.” My, how the words of war slip like Saudi oil off of some people’s tongues. Oops, more sarcasm.
You are one sharp Feta, my nakama (=pal) Nikos. How did you know that comment and a few others were still bouncing around my anterior cingulate cortex, or was that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex or the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex…nevermind. I guess I should have just given it a “Shikataganai” (Que Sera Sera) as Allison would have, but I couldn’t. The barbs tossed at me and me old china plates over the past couple of months vexed like summer mosquitoes and I guess I finally took up my Samurai sushi and went on the offensive. Next time, I will just have to find some wasabi and soy sauce and swallow those raw comments.
Sidewalker otsukaresama-
You were not offensive to this old soldier. After Robin’s comment that should have been the end of it.
You made me hungry. I’m coming over for some sushi and a few Kurosawa samurai movies.
“Moonbat”, “Rushball”, these almost seem like terms of endearment among the likes of us and yet I was happy to see Robin take a stand for civility simply because I was very tired of content free sarcasm (especially when aimed at me). Sidewalker, as always I value you input. Winston, your righteous opinions may seem like bait to some of us sometimes, I know I’ve taken them that way before. I do respect your opinions (or at least your right to hold those opinions however farfetched they appear to me). Allison, when it comes to left & right I always have been a little dyslexic which can make square dancing a challenge but the terms can sometimes be useful when giving directions. And nother, I thank you for your approach to the blog. I thought your interview on the prison thread showed us the possibilities of what this blog can be at its best. Potter, I want some sushi now too.
Nikos? Babu? Are we keeping our Rockfish Grill conspiracy a secret or are we just each waiting for one of the other of us to go first?
Sarcasm has been an effective tool in the hands of Rush and his dominions. I use it too and usually regret it later. I hate getting sucked into a narrow tunnel of insults and blind exchanges. I wish to be the wise man. I have an imaginary Buddha sitting beside me. I like to look over at him every once in a while to see his reaction when I get carried away. He never says anything he just smiles. I strive for that peace and asuredness. It really does us good to hear from Winston and others, each exchange tells us something about ourselves and also lets us test our own beliefs. Sometime the people who seem to be the most convinced of their “rightness” are the most insecure in their “rightness”. A little information, of an opposing point of view, won’t destroy us. I think that an occasional “moonbat” or “rushball will slip out, now and then. If we limit ourselves to one, or less, per show things will level out. It seems tiring when there is a stream of post answering each insult with another. I’m applying these words to myself also.
More relative than this: the blog’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
Maybe I didn’t make it as clear as Chris’ email did to me. I’m sure my pons-wired ironic mode coupled with guilt complex didn’t help.
The guests featured on the show do this stuff for a living or are at the very least serious part-timers. Having called in to “The Connection” a few times, and having reviewed the show later, the words stilted and prickly come vividly to mind. It could be that my blog posts are just as pathetic, but at least I know I damn well put a lot more work into what I write here than I ever did calling into the show. Needless to say, I’ve given over to the blog as the ideal, not the show.
For what self-serving reason would anyone here in Blogger Nation encourage others to state their point of view. The less said, the more likely a single point of view will emerge as the dominant one. Editors know this very well and are scrupulous about preserving that power. If you doubt this, go sit at a lunch counter or town/city meeting sometime and you’ll experience the same thing – dominant voices stifling both new, exciting ideology on one end of the spectrum and crackpotism on the other but ultimately settling on the viewpoint of either the most persistent or loudest vocalist.
When so many voices are heard, it becomes either difficult to resolve into a consensus or altogether too easy. Blogs, newsgroups, on-line chats are notorious for this. We should neither wish for nor expect this aspect of the medium to change. In the blogosphere everyone has a slice of thoughtspace for better or worse – the best having much of both. On the show, you run headlong against editorial imperatives such as: time constraint, repetition, aesthetic, and yes, personal bias.
Now some blogs have a more consistent voice than others. If you read the blog entries on say, Huffington Post, you have a reasonably clear idea of what you are going to read before you even venture a glance. Beyond paradox, not only does this give these media a shallow perspective, but obliviates any desire to seek beyond the veneer. And here I must confess that I find myself without a conservative blog to offer as counterpoint (nor the willingness to seek one out) – so much for impartiality.
In the final analysis, you are given the opportunity so, go To ‘t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Welcome back, Peggy Sue!
And uh, as for Rockfish, I’m uh, under cover. Or trying to be under cover…? In fact, I’m actually the kooky little hummingbird that zipped and zapt around your ears at Washington park, who masquerades here as a human blogger…
Scratch that. I’m babbling utterly senselessly.
My real problem is that I’m just waking up.
Waking up with nothing coherent (or sane) to say. (Luckily, this isn’t a ‘topic’ thread…)
Well, welcome back anyway!
Conspiratorily yours…
okay, I’ll offer this much: babu and Peggy Sue are both super cool, and that goes for babu’s chrome-trimmed gold-hued Vespa, too.
In fact, while she was getting into her gear (gloves, helmet, etc.) for the ride back to the Seattle ferry, two young women, completely independent of each other and five minutes apart, came up and oozed both envy and admiration for the ultra-cool Vespa. I realize that this is a ‘you had to be there’ kind of thing, but still, it’s worth at least trying to describe here (even though I’m not up to the writerly challenge).
Vespas rule!
Hey Nikos, I’ve got a birthday for your list. Yesterday was Albert Hoffman’s 100th birthday. He’s still alive and doing well. It made me really happy to hear he’s still with us. His work had a major influence on my youth and the rest of my life.
I just had to change my user name to peggysueatwork in order to log on while at work but this is just me again, peggy sue. I missed the Vespa because Nikos had already picked up Babu before they came to meet my ferry. I was impressed none the less with babu’s leather and Nikos pickup truck. I recognized them right away even though we’d never met. The Deli was closed so we wandered down the street to the Rockfish Grill and were talking so much we could hardly order lunch. Babu & I shared our connections with Nikos. Babu knows some of my best friends and it turns out I participated in making tiles for her peace park project in the USSR many years ago. After lunch we went to a waterfront park where the wind and conversation were brisk. Then my ferry came around the bend and it was time to go. It was fun. It was fast. Did we solve the problems of the world? Not yet but we’re working on it.
I think you all missed my point. And its clear that the core group of people that do the predominant amount of posting here like the format, think its a great thing, etc. But that is exactly my point. While there is talk of welcoming multiple viewpoints, it is really a small group of people whose voices are dominating the blog. I like the voices. Nother – I find you personal stories, your willingness to tell the stories of those that might not otherwise be heard both heartwarming and compelling. I have such admiration that I would like to meet you and have a whole person to connect to these fabulous words. Nikos – you’ve clearly had a lot going on in your heart and mind and are willing to give us your time and effort to share your inner explorations. Sidewalker, your expatriot perspective brings a fresh twist to things often and I appreciate that. I could go on down the list – but I’d probably do myself a disservice by missing someone and hurting feelings – and express my appreciation for every one of you.
That said – there are times that the dialogue devolves. I wasn’t referring to a particular person above or a particular instance. And while you talk about wanting more voices involved, the devolution is an obstacle to that expansion. Its hard enough to join a conversation when you walk into a room of people that clearly know one another as they refer to old conversations and share warm smiles and reach out and touch each other on the shoulders. You want to join in because you want to feel that connected. You have to have enough sense of self to join in and just hope that your voice is acknowledged, you are welcomed and you build that connection. But if people are sniping at one another, its not inviting.
I’m not suggesting that we remove passion. I am asking that we strive to remove vitriol. I am suggesting that humor doesn’t work in this format 99% of the time. I am also suggesting that the troller who can’t bait the fish moves to other waters. (I am aware that I’m mixing metaphors…) There will always be trolls. This internet society is teeming with them. So, some person with nothing better to do insults ROS or calls names. Sticks and stones… At most, I would point out to that person that we don’t accept that behavior, just once. Then I’d have a collective agreement to ignore all posts. You let the troll change the current when you try to “stand up to it”.
As for someone’s questions about labels. I try not to use any at all. I’m not sure what they serve, except to categorize people as “us” or “them” which is an oppositional model that is at the psychological roots of why humans continue to make war. People are too complex to categorize. I wouldn’t know if I’m a progressive or not. One can state her opinion, ideas, feelings without having to be grouped with others. One can also refer to specific references from individuals or already name d organizations without lumping an unknown number of anonymous people into a category. Again, I don’t see how it serves.
I understand pretty well that I am in the minority here as I ask for us all to consider a different approach to dialogue. Given the strong responses to my experience and opinions, I don’t expect anything to change. I felt frustrated enough at my experience of trying to read through some of the threads that I thought I give it a wild try. Oh well….
I would also like to point out that it is a gross misrepresentation of my perspective if you think that I consider WD a victim and sidewalker a perpetrator. I only responded to sidewalkers comments on the Nir Rosen thread because he was defending the use of slinging mud and baiting. I was engaging it at an idealogical level. Not a specific one. It was not meant to be a criticism of sidewalker’s behaviors. It was an engaging of a topic sidewalker addressed.
And sidewalker, you might note that I engage you because I respect you. I don’t bother otherwise.
Hello.
Hello, malcolm z.
Nikos, a response to your comment of 2am: we all have bandwidth limitations. Yours are limited by the speed of your Internet access; those of Allison and myself are limited by time. That’s what she was expressing above, and that’s what I was getting at when I had interjected in the Nir Rosen thread to try and back up Babu’s statement.
Note that this page is now something like 330KB to download. That hits both your bandwidth limit and others’. So the reason I use links– and clearly I’m not the only one– is that I’m trying to write less in the page so that there’s less to download and less to have to skip.
We’ll get there.
Jon Garfunkel, Allison,
Allison your post of 4:49 is not or hardly only about time limitations. My understanding of that post Allison is that you feel crowded out particularly by the “devolution” of the conversation, explained as sniping at one another. I feel that this element of it is being overblown as I have said. I have not been on all threads to read but I refer to the Nir Rosen where you both expressed your dismay.
There is also this element of a few people having a discussion which apparently intimidates others, or they just plain feel left out. Allison you would have been welcome. Not only would you be welcomed ( as always on these threads), but you could be a moderating voice by example instead of being a scold or ( as I felt) demeaning a conversation that had much merit otherwise (at least to the participants in the case of the Nir Rosen show).
WD is not a troll. He has a pov that he often expresses himself in an accusatory manner ( that needs to be tamed). I usually do not take part in WD discussions. But WD represents a side that we do not hear much from in these parts. Out of his passion and with the points he makes comes the namecalling that must be dealt with one way or another. So there was some vitriol that seeped in about that. The namecalling does poison. It’s not so easy to say (internally) “sticks and stones” when you are arguing about something you care about and get called a name. It’s more like a belly punch. I have had that happen to me. But it can be handled.
This would be a very dull passionless site with some of the restrictions suggested. On the other hand we must keep trying to keep it civil and respectful.
hWally’s has wisdom from his Buddha, maybe we all should have a little bronze near out keyboards : http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10916
Allison- I apologise. Forgive me, it was Babu that entered the Nir Rosen thread as scold. Not you. Still your voice would have been welcome.
Allison, thanks for the clarification and sorry if you thought you were put in a spot. I think we all gather here in part because we feel it is a unique place/space that Chris and the ROS community have made and we want to keep this as things grow and evolve. I found out again through all this how passionate and thoughtful the members are and it reconfirmed why I come here and why I should check for a smiling Buddha before I post.
Potter, just let me know when you’re coming so I can go catch some fish. Btw, do you ever visit the Hamas thread.
http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/#comment-10442
Allison- you can keep my apology ( for later) but I notice you WERE on the Rosen thread scolding us. So we had 3 scolds.
Sidetalker er… walker, don’t dare me. I am thinking about what to pack. I will have an entourage of one. You think about a few good restaurants. Will check Hamas thread first thanks.
Sidewalker: I posted two on Hamas thread. Thanks for your post.
http://www.radioopensource.org/israel-face-to-face-with-hamas/#comment-10954
Potter – again, I feel misunderstood. My post on the Nir Rosen thread was in response to Sidewalker’s comments. Sidewalker was defending the use of “Mud slinging” and “baiting”. Not my words. I was addressing the theory that these were okay because the end results were something appreciated. Had sidewalker not directly created that line of discussion, I would not have posted at all.
I came here to express my feelings/experience more directly. I could have just chosen to walk away and not participate any longer. Sometimes, it isn’t enough to simply model good behavior. I decided to be direct.
And, yes, a big part of my concern is time. When I start reading a thread and I see the sniping going on, I don’t have the time to wade through that to find the civil dialogue that I want to engage in. So I navigate away. Crowded out? I suppose. But its a time issue to be sure. I also think new people will not find it inviting.
WD may have a important POV, but the manner in which it is presented is very troll like. It is not just passion. I am a Platinum Card Carrying member of the Passion Club. By name calling, the emotional response is to the attack, not the subject matter at hand. That’s not passion. Its rage. It’s purposefully inflammatory. That’s trolling. It also suggests that the POV isn’t strong enough to stand on its own. The personal attacks are some kind of fortress protecting the vulnerable POV.
I desire a passionate and civil dialogue. Sniping doesn’t support dialogue. It supports fencing. I have no interest in fencing. I get the message that many of you are okay with it. Fine.
Halliburton solves global warming! (be sure to check out the photos)
http://www.halliburtoncontracts.com/EPDU/
Hello again, Let me add my voice. Please listen to Allison she has a good point. Take responsibility for your own actions don’t blame someone else for your response to them. Response brings response. You don’t have to ignore everything they say just ignore the sniping. Winston has some interesting points they can’t harm you. You can learn from people who don’t agree with you, insults put a stop to the exchange of ideas. Ignoring someone won’t make them go away it will only inflame them to more destructive vocalization. I’m sensative to people justifying their wording, don’t accept it on any level. I smile to think of what my mother would have told me if I used the argument “Well they did it first.” to justify my misconduct. Please, be inclusive, welcome diversity. Change things by example. Excuse the preaching. Glad to be back.
peggysue – priceless
Did you see the other article on the site?
Maybe that should be “bath oil.”
Raymond: by saying “deepest feelings” twice I did not mean to excude thinking. You say this (Rosen thread) does not exhibit clear thinking. This thread has a lot of thinking in it. As for clarity- we each have to be the judge of the various attempts at communication. I know I try. I think others do as well. If the thread is disappointing you because it is not intellectually engaging enough you have a choice to help make it so or move elsewhere where you like it bette, as you say.
Perhaps you are not interested in what we are discussing. You say you are interested the race/class thread. You and Jon Garfunkel have a common interest. Great. That is not the Rosen thread on Iraq.
I do not post on threads that I am not interested in. I don’t go there and say I don’t like the thinking or the feelings expressed by others.
Some of this criticism about sniping, strikes me as sniping itself, the way it’s delivered. (Not yours Raymond.) People uninvolved in the discussion drop in and complain about it.
The rule as I understand it is to keep it civil and constructive. I wish I could get something constructive out of this criticism.
If we should be talking about this subject, it should not hijack the Rosen thread as it is threatening to do.
Allison thank you. You can apply my previous apology onto adding to your feeling of being misunderstood. I am trying to bridge this.
To keep beating a perhaps dead horse, Sidewalker said: “The bait and mud use were of the most edible type of material.”
http://www.radioopensource.org/nir-rosen-on-iraq/#comment-10893
That did not mean ( as I interpret it) that he approved of baiting and mudslinging. Not your words but your interpretation of them. Sidewalker can speak for himself.
I think there is misunderstanding all around. This is a tough medium in which to make friends and to make friends with.
I can understand the not having the time or patience or inclination to read through a thread.
I don’t think it is necessary to read a whole thread in order to make a comment on a subject. If you are interested you should say your piece and relate it to the introduction at the top of the thread or what was on the show or to one post- as many posters have and do. Ignore the back and forth between the others. They/we do not own the thread.
You do not have to engage WD if he offends you. There are others who can do that better. I gave it a try and was unsuccessful, but I felt it was worthwhile anyway. Nikos is moderating him ( I think). The bit of “sniping� subsided and then the animus behind it did as well and the discussion went on.
Some will skirt the boundaries from time to time on certain topics out of passion and wanting to get a point across. How can they avoid offending some sensitivities or notions about how this blog should be and in the process disappointing?
So thanks Allison, for being direct, which I appreciate, and tolerating my directness as well.
Well, Potter, probably enough said. We agree that each of us assess the quality of conversation and contributes or not. It is simply our opinion and our choice.
I jumped in on the Nir Rosen thread in order to respond to a sentiment expressed by Jon Garfunkel on several occasions. I had no intention of interrupting the conversation. But I would not normally post here. This thread seems to be for the inner circle of ROS. A place to have an informal, more personal conversation among friends; a conversation I do not want to interrupt.
But since invited, I should point out that Jon Garfunkel has expressly stated his lack of interest in the race and class threads, though we do seem to share an interest in this medium and its possibilities. And it is along these lines that the criticism is constructive by raising interesting questions:
How will this relatively new medium shape the conversation? How should we shape this medium in order to accomplish our objectives for its use? Does this medium amplify the desirable in human interaction? The undesirable? Or is this medium simply overpowered by the human interaction itself, for better or worse?
Frankly, I think that these questions have yet to be answered.
Did you happen to see “Good night, And Good Luck?” It struck me as incredibly quaint to see Edward R. Murrow portrayed as advocating a high educational and cultural role for television.
And something very much the same has been advocated for by Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media Lab in announcing the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) association which is dedicated to research to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children.
The point is that I keep thinking that Negroponte’s idea is going to go much the same way as Murrow’s. And so will, probably, ROS’s. That is, unless we can answer those questions in time.
Hell yes potter you tell em. Guys like you and me say what’s on our minds and we ain’t worrin’ about all those sensative types out there. Glad to have you on board, I knew you’d come around I could see the devil lurkin’ in those thoughts of yours. Nikos, nother and sidewalker are soon to join us. The axis of evil rules.
Raymond wrote:
“I should point out that Jon Garfunkel has expressly stated his lack of interest in the race and class threads”
I have? When? I don’t remember, but I might have said once that I didn’t feel up to commenting on them. I did leave this commentafter the April 3rd show: “To Chris and the gang and the esteemed guests– This was truly your finest hour.”
There is an insinuation here that I “hijacked” the Rosen thread. Did I? Let me review what was going through my mind then, and then figure out how I should handle it differently in the future.
Babu posted at 2:52pm EDT; Potter asked him for an elaboration at 5:13pm EDT.
I logged on shortly after to see what was being discussed. There was already (by my count now 36 screenfuls of posts), the one before Babu’s stating, “My appologies in advance if it was above and I was not able to parse it.” And as I scrolled up, I saw some of the usual names posting, and the usual futile arguments about the war. I scrolled to the very top to find out whether there had been some early posts specifically on Rosen, and indeed there were, but it seemed by the 3rd post we got to the war on the war.
Seeing that Babu hadn’t answered Potter’s question, I stepped up. If I made a mistake, it was in singling out the third post, and forcing sidewalker to be on the defensive (similarly, the same thing happens to me above when people mention me and I have to scramble to respond).
And then there three posts during the broadcast hour, and afterwards Nikos and Raymond returned to discuss my point, and naturally sidewalker had to respond.
I don’t mean to put people on the defensive; I’d rather not. But I don’t feel that I “hijacked” that thread. Anybody on the thread could have summarized the discussion up until then by the time of the broadcast hour. Maybe had I got off my high horse, I could have simply asked for jus that, by saying, “Sorry gang, there’s much to catch up on above– can anyone sum it up?” That would have worked. So I’ll plead guilty to not saying the right thing at the right time– and also to putting individuals on the defensive unnecessarily.
Technically, multi-threading is what solves many of these problems– either multiple threads within a forum, or forums users can create. In theory, if someone goes “off-topic”, they should be able to “take it outside”– down another thread or another forum. And this “Guttersnipe Alley” thread is reaching its limits.
As to what shape these discussions should take, maybe I’m just assuming too much. I’ll wait to hear from the ROS community leaders.
Now it’s the hour of the corn– finally!
Potter – Wow. I’m done.
Jon Garfunkel said: “I saw some of the usual name posting, and the usual futile argument about the war…. I don’t mean to put people on the defensive; I’d rather not.
You start calling other’s discussions “futile arguments” and then complain about the tone of the conversation on other threads. All I can say is I’m glad you did this in the Alley.
As far as your main concern, I don’t think you “hijacked” the thread, any more than anyone else. The discussion, futile or not, on that thread continues (perhaps with cooler heads) and your concerns have migrated to this space. To me it is an open discussion. You have the same chance to jump in and anyone can respond or ignore, as others have pointed out. This said, I agree that some topics and tones can limit participation. While the “medium is the massage” we are also “all too human.” This won’t change, no matter what kind of technology (cloning aside). But that also means we can learn from each other and can wake up the next morning with a ray of hope even in these cloudy times.
Allison ( http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10930 ): no one is lauding the regrettable outbreaks of contentious, or even ‘snippy’ exchanges, and, please see below…
Jon Garfunkel ( http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10945 & http://www.radioopensource.org/nir-rosen-on-iraq/#comment-10862 : perhaps you are an educator. If so, offering criticism is likely second nature to you.
However, the recipients of an educator’s critique expect it. It’s part of their implicit contract.
Now, you are free to offer critique here—and those who you critique as just as free to ignore or critique you in return.
If you wanna dish it out, be ready to accept it back.
And those not bound by a student’s contractual expectation of critique have every right to dub it complaint.
Is reading a ROS thread time consuming?
Yes, if the thread hosts a lively conversation, whose voices are engaged and impassioned.
Do you wish for fewer posts so that yours doesn’t get ‘swallowed up’?
Isn’t this territoriality?
No one is preventing you from posting.
Post as much as you like. (I, for one, enjoy reading you – although I don’t like waiting for linked pages to load up—especially when their content/subject is cryptically buried in your prose—and I much prefer to read your input on topics instead of complaints about the forum.)
Not enough time to post as much as the regulars among us?
That’s nobody’s problem but yours.
If you’re asking us to post less to allow you more of the effectively infinite ROS floor, you’re attempting to impose your time constraints on others.
Why should we allow this?
Why should we even bother to listen to your laments?
The solution to your complaint is simple: Post more.
If I’m misinterpreting you, please feel free to explain.
Allison (again), your ( http://www.radioopensource.org/guttersnipe-alley-april-2006/#comment-10930 ) has much to offer, but requires time to do it justice, and haven’t had the time since you posted it. However, my comment above that ‘unexpected critique = unwelcome complaint’ is germane.
Moreover, if you don’t like ‘wading through the mud’, then don’t. But you needn’t flee the conversation just because some of the discourse is unappealing. Ignore the stuff you don’t like, and share what you have to offer. Adding your byline to a page marred by contentiousness can help to rectify the discourse – not by scolding but by example.
And the ‘space’ on these pages is, for all intents and purposes, infinite.
There’s plenty of room for you, no matter how many posts from that idiot ‘Nikos’ are on the page.
If you don’t like ‘Nikos’, skip him.
It won’t hurt my feelings…
I won’t even know!
PS: Potter does this consistently: “Adding your byline to a page marred by contentiousness can help to rectify the discourse – not by scolding but by example” — and we all benefit from it.
Nikos:The solution to your complaint is simple: Post more.
The verbose crowd out the concise at everyone’s expense, Nikos. It is a conversation. That is, two-way communication. One talks while the other listens. Your suggestion is, essentially, to abdicate your resposibility to listen.