Bits and Pieces

63 thoughts on Bits and Pieces

1. Worse, the man who wrote Sully can’t be over 26 years old.

2. I guess I’m not aware of all internet traditions; what does “Trigger Warning” mean?

3. God I hope those kids don’t have any arm hair yet. The only thing that could smell worse than Axe body spray is Axe mixed with burnt hair.

   Is there a place where one can get doners kebabs in New York?

4. Um, Jill, I’m not exactly sure what the situation is in the States, but here in Australia ‘special’ has some fairly specific connotations of intellectual disability if used in the way you have used it, and is kinda (read, rather [read, very]) ableist.

   1. Um, Jill, I’m not exactly sure what the situation is in the States, but here in Australia ’special’ has some fairly specific connotations of intellectual disability if used in the way you have used it, and is kinda (read, rather [read, very]) ableist.

      OH. Interesting. Yeah, I obviously did not mean it that way — I meant it sarcastically, sort of, the same way I would have used “this article is…. interesting” or “this article is… precious” or some such thing. As in, it technically is interesting and kind of precious, but not in a good way. But now that you point it out, I can see how it would read poorly! Apologies, and I will change that.

5. “Do you like cat videos? Would you not like to have them ruined forever for you? Then do not read this.”

   SHE IS TELLING THE TRUTH.

6. Li, “special” is occasionally used in ableist discussion, but is still used in a dictionary-definition way I would say 90% of the time. My reading is that Jill meant dictionary-definition, but note that I’m speaking as someone with privilege in that arena.

   As for the game – super glad that rape is now a game. Humanity FAIL.

7. I’ve read the cat link – can I ask about the description though? It makes me feel a little uneasy. I feel like it’s our responsibility to learn about animal cruelty the way it’s our responsibility to seek out information about our comparative life privileges. If we don’t find out the truth about things like the cat video and speak out about it, we’re implicitly contributing to the ignorance that makes it okay (and entertaining) for animals to suffer.

   I don’t know. Maybe it’s easier for me to say (or I simply have a different perspective) because I’ve never gotten on board with the lolcatz thing so I don’t have the same attachment others do.

   1. PrettyAmiable, re: the cat video — agreed that we should learn about animal cruelty, but the site I linked to involves pure speculation about cat videos on the internet. It doesn’t address any actual, proven animal cruelty, it’s basically just a guy being like, “Maybe this is horribly wrong with the animal! No wait, maybe THIS is horribly wrong!” It doesn’t ruin animal videos forever in the sense that it actually shows that they’re cruel, it just gives you a million ideas as to what maybe possibly could be happening. I dunno, it doesn’t seem very responsible to pass that off as The Truth about anything.

8. Child “free” and proud? I’ve learned a lot on this blog but I can’t stand that kind of attitude. I get that people who don’t have kids are in the minority depending on where they live, and have their choices questioned, but the whole “childfree” movement can be vicious towards mothers and their choices. Maybe you don’t know that and I should give you the benefit of the doubt, but I’ll probably just unsubscribe from this otherwise informative blog. I can’t deal with people needing to band together against a personal choice I made.

   1. Child “free” and proud? I’ve learned a lot on this blog but I can’t stand that kind of attitude.

      …why? I mean, I also can’t stand smug child-free people (or smug parents) who insist that their choice is The Best And Only Choice. But why assume that all child-free people feel that way? The woman in the article linked doesn’t seem to think that parents are horrible, and she doesn’t say anything vicious about mothers and their choices.

9. OH. Interesting. Yeah, I obviously did not mean it that way — I meant it sarcastically, sort of, the same way I would have used “this article is…. interesting” or “this article is… precious” or some such thing. As in, it technically is interesting and kind of precious, but not in a good way. But now that you point it out, I can see how it would read poorly! Apologies, and I will change that.

   Its your blog and all, and I hate to call you out, Jill, but if you tease out your own explanation of how you were using “special” I think you’re invoking the same ablist discourse Li mentioned. I’ve heard the word used in the same way here in the States quite a lot. We have other derivations with the same meaning, I know I’ve heard plenty of people talk about “short bus special” and “special, in the olympic sense.”

   I know you said you meant it sarcastically in the same sense as if you’d said “precious,” but what is that implying? Its diminutive, its mocking, its an implication that what is “special” or “precious” is a euphemism for whatever negative connotation you’re loading in. To use special, a word that is directly and explicitly tied to disability in our culture, as a stand-in for foolish/crazy/stupid/enraging you’re referencing the discourse about disability. If you’d used precious you’d be referencing the way in which we disregard the experience of children (and sometimes women, given the word) because it is less than. Its an “oh, how cute, they’re trying even though they’re so clearly less than us” kind of sarcasm. In itself theres not much wrong with that, but when you use the language of disability, thats ablism.

10. @ B405: A trigger warning is a warning that something in a post might potentially upset/traumatize someone. For example, if you were writing an article that included graphic descriptions of rape, you would want to make sure you had a trigger warning for survivors of rape/abuse and others who would be upset or traumatized by reading the article or viewing a video. Make sense?

11. Heh. I note that on the imdb page for the movie that Ebert is reviewing, “The Last Song” starring Miley Cyrus, the movie is being released in the Philippines under the title “Not Without My Daughter 2.” I expect Filipinos will be disappointed by the tonal shift in this “sequel.”

12. WOW. That Pussification of the American Male post is very weird and scary. What an asshole! for starters, but also: Hate women much? It is AMAZING to me how POWERFUL we are, that we can turn those manly men who hate our guts into pussies like ourselves, apparently, without even trying….

13. “I know you said you meant it sarcastically in the same sense as if you’d said “precious,” but what is that implying? Its diminutive, its mocking, its an implication that what is “special” or “precious” is a euphemism for whatever negative connotation you’re loading in. ”

    Part of the problem is that almost all the common euphemisms that we use are either 1) ablist 2) racist 3) misogynist 4) classist 5) sex phobic 6) just about every other “ist” there is. While I’m all for -not- using hurtful euphemisms, when you eradicate all the hurtful ones that are commonly used, you have almost nothing left. I would love to see some folks get their thinking caps on and come up with some -new- euphemisms that we can use that will not be offensive or problematic to anyone. If someone knows of a list of non-offensive, creative phrases we can use to denote something that is not cool, I’d love to see it.

14. Understood and agreed.

15. Point of contention: Rapelay wasn’t “banned” – it just wasn’t being sold by retailers in the US.

    The use of the word “banned” implies that the government stepped in and stopped the sale, and it encourages people to get up in arms about government censorship. That isn’t what happened here – Amazon pulled the game and other retailers refused to carry it because of the content. It was never “banned” and there is no “censorship” going on.

16. Jeff Fecke wrote a great feminist rebuttal to Andrew Sullivan’s whiny emailer: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2010/03/30/youll-get-no-argument-from-me/

    I really liked the “childfree” piece. I’m sick of people assuming I can’t wait to have children and lecturing me about my selfishness or telling me “just wait till you meet the right guy” when I neutrally state my choice not to have kids, not to mention stuff marketed to my age group as “moms” as a default and being expected to be ok with working lots of extra hours because it’s assumed no kids = no responsibilities/outside obligations.

17. Thank you AtheistChick. That makes perfect sense.

18. But why assume that all child-free people feel that way?

    While it is wrong to assume that all of *any* group think a certain way, most of the most vocal “childfree” groups on the internet are *viciously* bigoted against children and parents. So I can see why someone would assume that a childfree person would be a bigot, the same way I could see that someone would assume a self-proclaimed Christian would be a misogynist homophobe — obviously not all Christians are, perhaps not even most Christians are, but most of the people who are loudest about their Christian identity are.

    Because I have friends who are childfree, I have always had ample personal evidence that it’s quite possible to be childfree and *not* be hateful and vicious toward children and parents. The childfree people I know coo over their friends’ babies and one even knitted me a baby sweater for my newborn; she very much appreciates babies as long as they belong to other people. 🙂 Even those of my friends who don’t like children personally aren’t bigoted against them. (Of course, I also wouldn’t hang out with a person who’s bigoted against children, so there’s selection bias there.) But a person whose only exposure to the childfree movement was the internet might very well draw the conclusion that the childfree are all nasty bigots, and certainly, because I hang out on feminist blogs, I see far more rhetoric about how having children is a terrible thing to do, a selfish political choice that people should be pilloried for, a way of destroying the planet, and a means of getting out of having to do work or a means of getting undeserved tax breaks, than I see of the rhetoric that the childfree complain of (ie, the “you’ll want kids when you’re older”, “if you don’t have kids you’re selfish”, “only parents really understand how to run things,” etc.). I take people’s word for it that it’s out there, but because my favored internet locations skew highly progressive and feminist, and my family doesn’t spout such toxic crap, and I don’t apparently inspire total strangers to rant about life choices at me the way they like to rant at most people, I’ve rarely actually *heard* it. (Because said social pressures against the childfree are apparently so ubiquitous, and so many feminists have suffered from this, there seems to me to be a *lot* less moderation of anti-mother, anti-child rhetoric on feminist blogs than there is of, say, homophobic language. It doesn’t seem to occur to many otherwise progressive childfree people that in fact, for all the language conservatives use about children being precious, children are an oppressed class who deserve as much protection as any other oppressed class, or that setting mothers against childfree women is a divide and conquer tactic used by the patriarchy to splinter feminism.)

    Leanne’s reaction is unfortunately quite understandable to me, but I do hope she’s still reading this thread and that she reconsiders, because this is not a blog where I encounter toxic anti-child or anti-mother attitudes as a general rule, and I appreciate that. And I know enough childfree people to say that the ones who make the most noise on the Internet aren’t representative, any more than the most virulently bigoted and homophobic fundamentalists are representative of Christians as a whole. Unfortunately, with any movement it’s the fanatics who are the loudest.

19. I completely support the child free life, but the Green angle is specious. Also, any deontological based ethics (whether for environmental reasons or otherwise) minimizes reproductive choice. I could just as easily argue that people should have more children to avert the social security crisis because we need an ever growing pool of workers to make the program viable.

    Anyway, as to the green angle, I thought Malthus died in 1834. Limits to growth theory should have died then as well. Although, as an econ-geek with a strong interest in the development of economic theory, I do recommend reading the correspondence between David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. It is pretty interesting.

20. Agreed about the menus! Except I have to defend another long-menu’d (menued? menud?) restaurant: The Pickle Barrel in Toronto. They have pages upon pages of every fucking thing you could imagine, and it is all delicious, from the international cuisine to the hearty pastas to the all-day breakfast.

    But yeah, for the most part, I like a shorter menu, as long as it has interesting vegetarian options.

21. Re: child-free

    What about adoption and foster care? These options don’t add to the population and they allow people to fulfill their dream of parenthood AND a child whose biological parents may not be able to care for them will receive love and security. I know there are many issues surrounding adoption but it is an option if you don’t want to contribute to the growing population or bring a child into a world where the future is so uncertain.

22. The Sullivan respondent makes the same mistake all young sexists do – blaming feminism for the sins of patriarchy (“Men are expected to work 80 hour weeks to provide for their much younger wives! Damn you, feminism!”)

    He’s also a privileged jerk who’s just found out not everyone thinks he’s God’s gift, and is taking it badly.

23. “I know there are many issues surrounding adoption but it is an option if you don’t want to contribute to the growing population or bring a child into a world where the future is so uncertain.”

    You might as well do it! Somebody else will contribute to the growing population anyway,in spades. Not to mention, intelligent people need to be reproducing.

24. That “pussification” article made me literally feel sick to my stomach. This man hates women, gay men, nonwhite men, Muslims…am I missing anything? It’s obviously totally ridiculous, and it isn’t productive for me to take these things to heart. I realize that. But I just found the Cheerios thing scary…like..he hates this random woman who had like one line in a commercial because he personally is immature and has an overblown ego. And then he says that he gets all these emails from men who totally agree with him! I really hope he exaggerated the number.

    Also – I don’t doubt that there are obnoxious child-free people out there, but saying that all people who choose not to have children are that way seems to me like saying that you hate all vegetarians/vegans because PETA exists. I don’t think anyone is under the impression that no one should have children ever, for obvious reasons. When you decide not to have children though, people often seem to act as if you’re a murderous sociopath, because obviously anyone with a heart would want kids. And they tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about and will eventually change your mind. So it helps to be confident.

25. Ex Republican,

    Growth cannot go on forever, though almost all economists think it can. The economy of every country runs on natural resources: coal, oil, natural gas, etc. These are finite resources. Without oil modern farming (which allows us to feed so many people) cannot function. So far we have nothing to replace petroleum. The more people we add to the planet, the faster we burn through non-renewable resources. We also risk taxing an already greatly overburdened ecosystem. Most economists forget , or they never knew, that we are part of a greater ecological web. Right now we are endanger of destroying that web and hence, ourselves.

    Have you ever heard of the term ‘carrying capacity?’ Here’s a quick definition: “The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment.” It has been estimated that if every country had a standard of living similar to the United States–and they are all trying to get there–it would take an additional four planets worth of resources to make it happen. Right now we are just worried if there will be enough potable water for everyone.

26. I have nothing to say here, except this: As a child-free woman who likes OTHER people’s children, I really hope this doesn’t devolve into a festival of stupid WRT child-free people versus parents–there’s so much self-righteous stupid on both sides in these threads that I want to hand everyone a ball gag and advise them to use them.

    Also: Kim du Toit. The most unintentionally funny douchenozzle evar!!1! Thanks for the nostalgia–I remember when that first hit the intertubes, way back in ’03. Back then, we sometimes had to wait 10 SECONDS for things to load and there was NO YOUTUBE.

27. Faith,

    “Part of the problem is that almost all the common euphemisms that we use are either 1) ablist 2) racist 3) misogynist 4) classist 5) sex phobic 6) just about every other “ist” there is. While I’m all for -not- using hurtful euphemisms, when you eradicate all the hurtful ones that are commonly used, you have almost nothing left. I would love to see some folks get their thinking caps on and come up with some -new- euphemisms that we can use that will not be offensive or problematic to anyone. If someone knows of a list of non-offensive, creative phrases we can use to denote something that is not cool, I’d love to see it.”

    I see multiple excuses, but no reasonings. Instead of suggesting others come up with euphemisms that you could use that would make our lives easier, how ’bout you open a dictionary? A lot of people could stand to flip their calenders wide and schedule a few pressing engagements with a thesaurus as well. Euphemisms are often -ist. Instead of going “But but but, what else – is – there, find something for me!” try looking for alternatives yourself? I know I’ve found quite a few when I go hunting.

    Here’s a few more – incompetant, a no-account fustilarian, blandly mediocre, you make beige resemble neon, Penultimate (because there’s always someone worse, is what I’ve found), scoundrel parading as moral being, a putrid, fawning parasistic being of the very lowest order, et cetera and so forth. No shortage of descriptives in language, certainly, and very far from leaving anyone with nothing to choose from. If you want something much more recent, failtastic works as well. It also happens to describe your comment accurately, imo, and at the same time I’ve given you a shiny new word to replace drivel with. Hell, you can use drivel as a grand description, too!

28. intelligent people need to be reproducing

    er, no. For one, intelligent parents don’t necessarily have intellingent children (likewise for non intelligent parents). More importantly, everyone’s reproductive autonomy should be respected, whether that entails haveing children or not. No one needs to be reproducing. Or not reproducing (aside from serious health concerns).

29. But that being said, I agree with Sheelzebub and have my ball gag at the ready 😉

30. You are quite correct. Technically, no has to reproduce. However, if you enjoy the idea of a welfare state and social safety nets, then yes, people have to reproduce.

    “For one, intelligent parents don’t necessarily have intellingent children”

    Intelligent and well adjusted people will not necessarily have more intelligent children; yet, a home where learning/reading is encouraged, and where a love of knowledge is imparted to children, is far more likely to reproduce intelligent and capable citizens.

31. “Euphemisms are often -ist. Instead of going “But but but, what else – is – there, find something for me!” try looking for alternatives yourself? I know I’ve found quite a few when I go hunting.”

    A.W.,

    I really don’t feel that response was necessary. I have non-offensive slang that I use. I wasn’t making any excuses or demanding anyone do anything. I was simply pointing out the fact that most euphemisms that are commonly used are offensive and that maybe it would be helpful for folks who aren’t particularly creative to hear alternatives. If you aren’t interested in seeing other people’s alternatives or you have plenty of your own already, fine. Glorious. Wonderful. I’m thrilled for you. I have several I’m fond of using myself. There are a lot of people, however, who simply aren’t particularly creative and who do need to see other’s ideas before they can come up with any of their own.

32. “your a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride” -queen

33. I don’t doubt that there are obnoxious child-free people out there, but saying that all people who choose not to have children are that way seems to me like saying that you hate all vegetarians/vegans because PETA exists.

    I used to describe myself as child-free. Then when disengaging from Livejournal during Six Apart/LJ Abuse’s anti-breastfeeding banwar, I discovered that pretty much every person online who defined themselves as childfree was misogynist, anti-mother, and anti-children, and monotonously tuptotrephobic (phobic about breastfeeding).

    I just got too embarrassed to describe myself as “child free” any more.

34. However, if you enjoy the idea of a welfare state and social safety nets, then yes, people have to reproduce.

    acutally, immigration/naturalization is another solution. since it is rather unlikely that the whole of humankind will stop having children, open borders would work for for social security systems of many countries (and, of course, that is just a very minor aspect of ending discriminating and racist immigration policies all over the “western” world). this would certainly be the case for the welfare states in europe (where i’m at 🙂 – so please excuse the euro-centrism).

    and also: what grogette said :). and it might be true that children from households committed to literature, culture, science, what have you, have a higher chance of developing skills accordingly, however, the main responsibility for raising “smart” kids lies, in my view, in an equal educational system for everyone, from whatever background they’re from.

35. acutally, immigration/naturalization is another solution. since it is rather unlikely that the whole of humankind will stop having children, open borders would work for for social security systems of many countries

    For that to work the immigrants coming in have to be highly skilled. For unskilled immigrants are unlikely to generate the kind of tax revenue necessary to support a welfare state.

36. Leanne, the term “child-free” came into use because people who had no desire to have children got tired of the term “childless“—they didn’t feel they were missing anything, so why the “less” ending? At the same time, it’s an unfortunate feature of the English language that most common uses of “-free” connote that the item missing is somewhat bad (think: fat-free, cholesterol-free, disease-free). This isn’t a blog where you’ll find much of that attitude you’re describing—unless some trolls show up. Folks here mean it in the purely neutral sense.

    Anyway….what a whining bastard Sullivan quoted. That’s the biggest problem why he can’t get a date….he’s a whining, snivelling snot who hates his life and (apparently) would prefer to moan and groan about it instead of change it. Reminds me of a guy one of my aunts went on (one! count it, one!) date with. Now, this particular aunt is drop-dead gorgeous. Looks like Penelope Cruz, but prettier. At the behest of some friends, she ended up on a blind date with a short, bald-headed attorney who spent the whole evening loudly griping to the entire table about how women won’t go out with short, bald, successful men because they’re all chasing tall, hairy losers (and uhh…pointing to examples). Yep. He was on a date with a beautiful woman (who prefers short men, and could care less whether or not they had hair on their head), and spent the night complaining about not being able to get a date. Hope he didn’t waste his time wondering why he didn’t get a second date!

    This twerp Sullivan quotes is doing the same damn thing. The power to change his situation is entirely in his hands, yet….he doesn’t want to change. Ten years from now, Sullivan will be making another post regarding this twerp….only the future post will be a lengthy rant about his gold-digging ex-wife who spent the marriage complaining about his long working hours and lack of any semblance of a family life.

    Dude, you aren’t grown enough to worry about having a relationship.

37. There was a decent article by Sinead O’Connor on the subject of the Pope in the WaPo. Of course, I think Hitchens is a hack who’s poor with facts but learned to be good at polemics to avoid starvation- or worse, sobriety. But then, few people really know the extent to which he regularly makes an ass of himself when discussing or visiting the Middle East.

    Roger Ebert on the hand, pretty much the anti-Hitchens in my view. Everyone should be reading his blog and following him on twitter (@ebertchicago). The recent Esquire piece on him ain’t half-bad either. I’ve been a fan of his reviews for the longest time, and I was excited to find out there was a wealth of his writing out there that wasn’t about movies.

    I don’t read Andrew Sullivan, I question his judgment too much to tolerate his writing. So I don’t know what he was thinking when he put that letter up. I’d be sympathetic, not to his pay argument, which is stupid to say the least, but to his plight- if he wasn’t such a fucking whiner about it. The ball’s in your court, go meet someone who’s ambitious as you are, just don’t let them know that you are contemptuous of their success because they apparently want exactly what you want but don’t happen to be men. It’s typical Nice Guy with a twist, “The women I’m attracted to all think I’m contemptible slime for thinking that they should get paid less for refusing the honor of dating me!” Yeesh.

    “Banning” games is problematic, whatever the content. Rapelay wasn’t banned, it’s simply not carried by most US retailers. Bringing the whole notion that we should discuss banning certain forms of speech into the feminist discussion creates pragmatic and philosophical conflicts.

38. There are a lot of people, however, who simply aren’t particularly creative and who do need to see other’s ideas before they can come up with any of their own.

    That sounds suspiciously like a call for oppressed groups and their allies to educate oppressors because the poor, ignorant, embattled schmucks just don’t know any better. Fuck that. If someone can’t work out a euphemism for themselves then they ought to say what they mean rather than attempting to be clever. A limited vocabulary is not an excuse to be an asshole.

39. Admittedly OT, I’m curious to know what words trip the filter to get modded. One day I can make fifty comments on Feministe and all of them show instantly, and the next I make two and one gets modded.

    (Not complaining, but if I can avoid getting modded, I’d like to try.)

40. “That sounds suspiciously like a call for oppressed groups and their allies to educate oppressors because the poor, ignorant, embattled schmucks just don’t know any better. Fuck that. ”

    Oh, good grief. This is getting just a bit ridiculous. I think it would be nice to see some of the brilliant minds who frequent this site and other feminist sites come up with some euphemisms that are “safe” to use. I think it would be a cool, fun activity to engage in. I’m not fucking demanding that anyone educate their oppressors. For the love of all that is holy, I am not saying what you think I am saying.

    Jesus fucking christ.

41. Faith,

    I gave you a list to use. I also gave suggestions on where to look for words (Dictionary, thesaurus). Either do it or not, but no one is obligated to find ‘safe’ words for you to use. (love the scare quotes, and consider that sarcasm). It would take all of, what, a minute tops to look up any particular word and various synonyms?

42. “If someone can’t work out a euphemism for themselves then they ought to say what they mean rather than attempting to be clever. A limited vocabulary is not an excuse to be an asshole.”

    Yes, William, my agreement for those last statements.

43. Oh, good grief. This is getting just a bit ridiculous.

    So you think that my response is worthy of ridicule? Or are you just being imprecise with language?

    Also, what a charming attempt to marshal social power in an attempt to silence a critic.

    I think it would be nice to see some of the brilliant minds who frequent this site and other feminist sites come up with some euphemisms that are “safe” to use.

    I agree. My problem isn’t with people helping, it is with the expectation that oppressed people ought to be expected to help if they are to have standing to be offended. Your posts have seemed to have a theme of an expectation that people who are offended but don’t offer some alternative term are somehow not contributing in a way they ought to. You also seem to have intimated that, because some people aren’t creative, the level of outrage one can experience when encountering a *ist comment is reduced because so much of our common idiom is *ist and people can’t be expected to do better. I think thats pretty fucked up, if you think thats worthy of ridicule I really can’t be bother to value your opinion.

    I’m not fucking demanding that anyone educate their oppressors.

    No, but you are suggesting that people who are offended are overreacting in the context of the argument that people should offer alternatives to offensive slang. That proximity strikes me as problematic.

    For the love of all that is holy, I am not saying what you think I am saying.

    Jesus fucking christ.

    I’m suggesting that perhaps you might not be aware of all the aspects of what you’re saying. You clearly aren’t aware of how you statement was experienced by at least two of the people who have heard it. You’re also getting aggressive and defensive in response to criticism. I certainly am not trying to imply that you’re a bad person, but I have had a strong reaction to some of what you’ve said. If you don’t want to engage with that, fine, but I’m not going to be dismissed.

44. I’m pretty sure no where did Faith demand a list of a-okay words and phrases. He or she (sorry Faith, I don’t know) doesn’t seem to insinuate that anyone is obligated to do his or her dirty work.

    Faith, I have found websites where they compile lists of offensive words and phrases – it might be easier to google that and work backwards. If you want to have an exercise in coming up with creative ways to call people assholes, I’m definitely down.

45. Here are some suggestions for less-problematic but still stunningly crude and insulting phrases/names (because honestly, a thesaurus for words like ‘lame’ will likely NOT yield anything useful or creative):

    dumpster cheese
    sewer jam
    dog’s hemorrhoid
    wanker
    fuck maggot
    roach dung
    leech slime
    shitstain
    fart-brain
    whinging toad
    yakking hyena
    sniveling whelp
    bleating bunghole
    deliberately obtuse
    pathetic
    metric fuckton of fail
    puffed up princess/prince
    Prince/Princess Righteous Fury Fucktoad
    trolling dogfart
    Sir/Lady Trolle du Pigphart
    jackal
    bottom feeding asswipe
    whiny ass garbage sucker
    couch-humping whiner
    . . .

    Eh, it’s late and I’m off my game (and really? REALLY? YOU WOULD ENCOURAGE MY BAD HABITS??? LOL). But you get the gist. . .

46. blockquote>A limited vocabulary is not an excuse to be an asshole.”

    But it can be a symptom of oppression, because it is an example of inadequate education that doesn’t meet modern standards. No one deliberately chooses inadequate education, and I think that just about everyone here can agree that a denial of quality education is a form of oppression.

47. Sorry for the HTML fail.

48. open borders would work for for social security systems of many countries

    Not only will I second what Holly said about high skilled vs low skilled labor, I also want to point out that your suggestion of open borders has an impact on U.S wage rates.

    Also, I sometimes did get the impression that people who used the phrase child free (not on this site) were anti motherhood…because that’s how they come off on other sites. It was like the new version of the mommy wars.
    And childfree does have certain connotations like someone pointed out because we often use the word free to imply absence of something negative (cancer free. etc) I never hear people say things like “I’m graduate degree free” or “I’m puppy free.”
    So I can see why someone would see that word and be skeptical.

    Just my two cents

49. I’m puppy-free!

    (I have two cats.)

50. WTF at this whole thread. That is all.

51. What amadaw said.

    Especially this:

    Intelligent and well adjusted people will not necessarily have more intelligent children; yet, a home where learning/reading is encouraged, and where a love of knowledge is imparted to children, is far more likely to reproduce intelligent and capable citizens.

    WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKETY FUCK?????????
    What is it with the rampant disablism on this blog?

    -A disabled (i.e. not so capable) citizen.

52. To address one of the least important things in this post, my friends and I totally use to hang out on the baseball field after school in middle school and light things/ourselves on fire with Axe. That is all.

53. Sheezlebub,

    “Here are some suggestions for less-problematic but still stunningly crude and insulting phrases/names (because honestly, a thesaurus for words like ‘lame’ will likely NOT yield anything useful or creative):”

    Well, yes and no. Thesaurus dot com has some decent descriptors in their adjectives section for ‘lame’. I like thesaurus’ because you can jump words – none of them mean exactly the same as the word you looked up, and if you jump a few you can sometimes get to the really creative.

    “faltering, faulty, flabby, flimsy, inadequate, ineffective, inefficient, insufficient, poor, thin, unconvincing, unpersuasive, unpleasing, unsatisfactory, unsuitable”

    That’s what was listed under the adjectives listed for ‘lame’. Mind, I wouldn’t touch the alternate nouns at all, but that was a given. Only not so decent one there is flabby – and, perhaps, poor, but still debating that one in context, because when I describe something as poor in quality the opposite is not ‘rich’ (it’s either adequate, excellent or – “They added to much shit, looks like an inept Swiss army knife with illusions of competence”.)

    Sorry, I’m big on words.

54. But it can be a symptom of oppression, because it is an example of inadequate education that doesn’t meet modern standards.

    Absolutely. I’m not quite so sure thats whats happening here, though. If someone is here they have enough privilege to have access to a computer and the internet which means that they have enough privilege to educate themselves. Also, this isn’t really about educational standards but about empathy. I’ve known people who would meet just about any standard of education one would want to apply and are still mean, thoughtless, and casually cruel. I’ve also known people who have been virtually uneducated (in the sense we’re talking about, which is a system of power all it’s own) but who cared about others and paid enough attention to their reactions to know when they’ve done something that hurt someone.

    No one deliberately chooses inadequate education,

    Watched Fox News, lately?

55. Damn, that was supposed to be adjective synonyms, you never want to go for the definition themselves* (and you often need to skip the first set or three on the adjectives – be picky!). Dead-tree format often gives much more interesting words, though. The Thesaurus has some nice ones for ‘blind’ (which I loath people using, and they seem to do it for everything, ‘blind’ to this, ‘blind’ to that, if they mean a willfully ignorant, consistently unchecked individual who’s insistent on grinding others beneath their (metaphorical or no) heels, they should bloody well say so). I’ve visual impairments and they don’t include being malicious or willfully misinformed.

56. “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKETY FUCK?????????
    What is it with the rampant disablism on this blog?

    -A disabled (i.e. not so capable) citizen.”

    I’m not sure what your disability is, but I was strictly referring to intellectual capability.

57. The kids don’t get the choice, the parents choose for them, most of the time. That said, I’ve seen a few kids, with all the advantages, completely blow of any chance of learning- and in one case disrupt an entire class.
    The to and froing about the insults reminds me that on the last computer but one, there was a Shakespearian insult generator. Hours of fun.
    Finally, Ebert on Nicholas Sparks: Ugh. Romance novels are not literature. The way Sparks does it makes me think he’s using Mad Libs as a template. Actually, most romance novels are pretty much the same no matter who writes it. Let’s face it, it’s a cookie-cutter genre.

58. http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html
    Found one!

59. I’m not sure what your disability is, but I was strictly referring to intellectual capability.

    -___-
    Really? Fail, totally failtasticly leaving-me-without-words fail.

60. WOW.

    Yeah, this thread is now closed.

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