boy: “You know, I really do apologize to you, little guy.”
dog: …
boy: “I certainly never meant to offend you. I hope you know that.”
dog: …
boy: “I mean, heck — who knew that my being white and using the word ‘boy’ would create a contextual dynamic wherein the entire history of past abuses of that signifier by others who happened to share my skin color would mean I was somehow now complicit in those injustices?”
dog: …
boy: “Anyhow, can I just call you ‘dog’? Because, like, you’re a dog and stuff…?”
dog: …
boy: “A boy dog, as it happens.”
dog: …
boy: … “…and so, y’know — a boy…”
dog: …
boy: …
dog: …
boy: “You know what? Give me back that fucking bone. And then go fetch me my slippers. Unless you want to lose your big house privileges.”
dog: “Yes, boss. Slippers comin’ right up now, boss.”
I’ll just say it before anyone else. RACIST!!
cranky-d – Any suggestions on a good place to grab a bite to eat?
At least he’s not a beagle named Toby.
Aw, boss, now look at what you’ve gone and done.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1656
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Blinks, looking on.} [Doesn’t have the hang of English yet, having just arrived the day before]
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1797
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: Good looking dog you’ve got there, quite obedient.
JD, I don’t know the area you are in very well. I am in Minneapolis proper, and tend to eat at places where the food is cheap and there is beer. So, probably not much help.
“And about your mother, Petey…”
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1851
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Mumbles to self.} Man, I’m shore glad he didn’t want nothing from me. I’m busy enough as it is.
I am down in Bloomington, cranky. Want to meet for a bite or a drink later?
Cheap food and a good atmosphere is always a good thing, and I will be happy to buy the beer.
I’ve given up drinking and driving and take bus and train everywhere when I do go out, but I can probably manage to have a couple without difficulty outside my zone. I don’t know any places in Bloomington though. I’ve only been there a few times, and that was to go indoor karting.
I didn’t get in trouble, I simply stopped before I did, btw.
I can come meet you downtown, if you would like. Email me at johndallen at sbcglobal dot net.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1888
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Flinches visibly. Mumbles to self.} Oooh fuck, here we go. I can see it coming now……..nasty little cracker.
If the boy yelled “Stop! Thief!” would the AIG execs cringe?
I think it’s time we cleared up this whole dog calling kerfuffle.
Now my memory tells me that there was some famous English dude, maybe Sir Winston himself, who had a black lab that he called N-asterisk-gger, (or it may have been n-star-gger, whatever).
Now if it was Churchill, he was a well travelled dude, having served in Southern Africa, Northern Africa and the Indian sub-continent as well as travelling extensively in Europe and the USA.
So if we all get together and dig out the ouija board, maybe we can ask him how he called his dog when surrounded by hostile locals.
How is it possible to troll one’s own blog, Buck?
Lordy, now Big Boss Man, Patterico, seems to think there is actually a thing called “society” which forms his [mythical] Jury, thus our [PC] conscience, and quite possiby our executioner should we say the “wrong” thing. I’d rather leave it at the “Church Lady” level, thank you. That’s progressive enough.
No, Buck. I was just having some fun with Petey and the boy. Hit me in the car on the way to pick up my son.
But if you want, you can head over to Patterico’s and listen to SEK tell me that I don’t really believe in intentionalism.
Anybody watching O? He’s doing a townhall thinger, I think mostly b/c no teleprompter that way…
How about Petey and Boy tackling the Byzantine General Problem next?
TOTUS without the teleprompter never ends well.
Jeff Goldstein, you are racist trash! It’s off to Camp Obama for you!
How DARE you let that racist little squirt determine his own meaning? What would Derrida say?
Btw, around here the Wildlife Project, by implication, wants to essentially turn the whole County back to “pre-white” conditions. No shit – Letter to the Editor.
“But if you want, you can head over to Patterico’s and listen to SEK tell me that I don’t really believe in intentionalism.”
Naaaahh. I’ll just wait here til 3 AM or so when Pat usually shows up.
“A boy loves his dog …”
Harlan Ellison, author
Something he wouldn’t do here?
Wait a minute . . . . so Petey’s a Supreme Court Justice?
I don’t care. Not in the mood to talk about it anyway.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1925
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: (whisper under his breath) One of these days I’m gonna smack that kid upside his greasy head.
With Jeff’s permission, I will point everyone to the non-racist tale of a boy and his dog…
http://www.amazon.com/Spotted-France-Gregory-Edmont/dp/1592287360/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237422043&sr=8-1
I think it germane to the thread because, um, um, er, ah! because several communications issues are dealt with in the book such as foreign languages, lying to authorities by not really lying, communication with the insane, communication with the eccentric, and of course, communication with one’s smarter than you dog.
Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in the book, do not know the author, and have not eaten at any of the restaurants mentioned; and, the only things I know about France come from reading ‘A Horse Without a Head’ as a child (in English), Bonjour Tristesse (in English, in college), and this book.
OK, and maybe watching Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail…
This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals. Was it your intent to suggest a connection?
You’re correct, Pat. Nothing to do w/your hypotheticals
So who is responsible for this?
http://www.subjectives.co.uk/img/lassie.jpg
hat tip:The Corner
“4) Do you think political correctness and good manners are the same or different?”
so if i say to the musilm dog chasing the jew behind the tree that ‘islam is a political-religious delusion propagated by a pedophile arab madman in the 7 century for world wide domination and whose present day adherents are cool with that that they should go fuck themselves: is that pc or good manners?’
The link in #38 made me laugh out loud.
“You’re correct, Pat. Nothing to do w/your hypotheticals”
It certainly seems to imply a connection.
Patt: This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals. Was it your intent to suggest a connection?
You should know by know that if the main post contains dialog, and at least one of the speakers says nothing when it’s his turn, that Jeff is being somewhat less than serious.
OK, nowhere near serious. At least not on a first reading.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1954
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: Hey! You talking to me kid?
What if the black dog were a female.
“Here bitch.”
See what I did there?
You should know by know that if the main post contains dialog, and at least one of the speakers says nothing when it’s his turn, that Jeff is being somewhat less than serious.
OK, nowhere near serious. At least not on a first reading.
Oh, I see it’s not serious. Where did you see me making the claim that it’s serious?
It’s either a) mocking my position or b) using humor to make a point that has nothing whatsoever to do with my hypotheticals. Aaaaaand yet uses a boy and a dog.
i went over to pat’s and tried to read that thread. got about half way. i’d read more, but my hubby’s out of town. and i’d rather be watching my dvds of hot jpop stars in tight leather pants. alone, while i can.
NEways, on this question of ‘respecting the audience’ it seems to me that most people on the rightward (liberpublican) side, my side, don’t really understand who their audience is or what works with them. cuz what they’re doing now ain’t working.
my 2 trillion cents (adjusted for bailouts)
Now is the time on sprockets when we dance!!
oh fuck we are dealing with a cat person
I hate cats.
You could ask me what I mean, but I might could lie to you. So why bother. Let’s take a poll!
“It’s either a) mocking my position or b) using humor to make a point that has nothing whatsoever to do with my hypotheticals. Aaaaaand yet uses a boy and a dog.”
You take yourself too seriously. This post is what is known as humor. Look it up. Have a drink, Pat. In fact you should have several drinks.
“I don’t care. Not in the mood to talk about it anyway.”
You’re hungover! Me too. I did, however, get out to the golf course today. Overheard more than once,”Let’s see fuckin Tiger Woods do that after twelve beers.”
Whenever I see one of those, “Where did you see me doing X,” questions, I cringe. Reminds me of the police trying to jerk you around.
“You could ask me what I mean, but I might could lie to you. So why bother. Let’s take a poll!”
I thought I did.
“This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals. Was it your intent to suggest a connection?”
Hey, lookee there! First thing I said to you!
I like this louchette person. Mendoucheous twatwaffles, not so much.
Tzu-lu said, “If the Lord of Wei left the administration of his state to you, what would you put first?” The Master said, “If something has to be put first, it is, perhaps, the rectification of names.… When names are not correct, what is said will not sound reasonable; when what is said does not sound reasonable, affairs will not culminate in success; when affairs do not culminate in success, rites and music will not flourish; when rites and music do not flourish, punishments will not fit the crimes; when punishments do not fit the crimes, the common people will not know where to put hand and foot.”
— Confucius, Analects 13:3
That Confucius dude was one smart motherfucker.
— me, 2009
sorry pat–you’re becoming more and more of a David Frum
Butt boy anyone?
enjoy your sticking it to the LAT sleeze, but quite honestly,
LA sociopoliticaldemographicolibertarianism can go suck eggs. . . rotten ones, that is.
“Some of my best friends”continues to equate with racism
what a sorry sack of philosophical BS that continues to be. . . .
Really, I think we’re faced with the fundamental disconnect between the western adversarial notion of justice (where the officers of the court have the duty to win) and the Confucian notion of justice (where the officers of the court have the duty to find the truth).
Patterico:
Really. Let it go. Jeff’s right, you don’t understand his argument. Period.
No shame. Until the Rush example came about, I didn’t completely understand either. Take the high road, and just say, “You know, I think I’m out of my league here. JG’s take on intentionalism/meaning is more sophisticated than I can perceive.”
Stop.
pat and allah clueless:
Umm….Glen Beck already played this on his radio program this morning. The Ugly American on March 18, 2009 at 8:44 PM I hope you’re joking. Allahpundit on March 18, 2009 at 8:45 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf4nn3bp50U
Glenn Beck had it on his radio show today.
Mark1971 on March 18, 2009 at 8:46 PM
Cowboy,
Please point to specific things I have said that lead you to that conclusion. Same to commenters at 54 and 55.
With your devotion to intentionalism, you are all intent on learning my intent. The first step is reading my words and trying to understand them in full context.
With these sweeping statements, it should be child’s play to point to specific things I’ve said that back up what you say.
Now please. Hurry up and demonstrate your devotion to intentionalism by thinking of a clever comment to cover up your refusal to do this.
Has ANYONE here notice that Jeff and I actually agree on most of the fundamental principles?
1) Interpreters should try to divine the author’s true intent.
2) That intent is whatever the author meant.
3) The author is not necessarily the most reliable interpreter of his own words.
4) It is perfectly justifiable to tailor one’s presentation to suit the audience.
5) If you fail to communicate your position to the audience because you failed to signal your intent properly, you should clarify.
6) Speakers have no responsibility to self-censor to prevent unreasonable and bad faith misinterpretations of their words.
I believe he and I agree on all of this. Much of it is 1) a matter of degree in situations where there are no absolutes, and 2) differing interpretations of specific fact patterns.
Hardly earth-shattering stuff. Yet Jeff seems to portray the differences as vast, and you folks seem to lap up that view. I ask again, intentionalists: what is it that I’ve said that leads you to believe this? And what about what I’m telling you now?
So the “Snow Crash” reference a couple days ago and now “The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” and Judge Fang. You must like Stephenson as much as do I.
“You’re correct, Pat. Nothing to do w/your hypotheticalsâ€
It certainly seems to imply a connection.
Not it. You. You are creating an implied connection because it suits your purposes.
Sleep on that and get back to us if it starts to sink in.
Play with that fire! LOL
try answering @37 then we can discuss whatever
“Not it. You. You are creating an implied connection because it suits your purposes.”
I’ve asked Jeff what he means. The implied connection, B Moe, is referencing a boy and a dog, talking about racism (specifically use of the word “boy”), when I just wrote a set of hypotheticals involving a boy and a dog and discussions of racism (specifically the use of the word “boy”).
Yeah, you’re right. No apparent connection there. I bow to your superior interpretative skills.
“so if i say to the musilm dog chasing the jew behind the tree that ‘islam is a political-religious delusion propagated by a pedophile arab madman in the 7 century for world wide domination and whose present day adherents are cool with that that they should go fuck themselves: is that pc or good manners?’”
Neither.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1973
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Dashes to boy, fwaps him right in the noggin} Watch your mouth you little punk!
does the truth matter or is that whatever the sign guy says is the truth?
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 1998
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Muses to self} Huh. That word used to be used to denigrate people like me, or so Daddy said. I wonder what that must have been like? Pretty shitty I’ll bet.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, Black man, Dog
Time: 2009
Boy (to dog): “Here boy”
Dog [runs] to boy.
Black man: {Blinks. Looking on} [Doesn’t have the hang of English yet, having just arrived the day before]
“does the truth matter or is that whatever the sign guy says is the truth?”
“Sign guy”?
Exactly f*%^$ng right, Jeff! I like Patterico, a lot, but he just doesn’t get it. He keeps thinking that being polite and moderating what he’s saying is going to placate the haters. Wrong.
THERE ISN’T ONE THING YOU CAN SAY TO MOST DEMOCRATS, EXCEPT, “YES, MASSA” THAT COULD POSSIBLY PREVENT THEM FROM CALLING YOU A RACIST IF YOU DARE DISAGREE WITH THEM.
The thing is, we’re not trying to convince the haters. We’re trying to convince the same people the haters are trying to intimidate. If the haters are going to call me a racist no matter what I say, I’m damn well going to say what I mean and let the undiluted truth of my argument have a chance to reach my audience. What the non-haters see when we accommodate the haters is that we somehow think the haters have a point. That’s a bad message to be sending.
Could be the hypothetical is sufficiently removed in time and context that this post, in this instance, falls more into the joke category than a response.
or not. Its the 2nd of a series, riffing on past postings, cf. oatmeal
‘He keeps thinking that being polite and moderating what he’s saying is going to placate the haters.”
Show me anything I’ve written that suggests I think that, Mr. Intentionalist.
‘Now please. Hurry up and demonstrate your devotion to intentionalism by thinking of a clever comment to cover up your refusal to do this.’
“You can ask. But it’s like asking what’s North of the North Pole.”
Well done! Who’s next with the clever evasion?
“Are you a ‘boy’?”
“I’m a man!”
“You are neither. You’re and errand…person sent by grocery-clerks to collect a bill…”
“Teh horror“
@70
i hope you fail sign guy!
Serious question: do the people who claim to be intentionalists here, and who claim to pontificate on what I mean, actually care what I mean?
No, this needs understanding. Patterico is not a fool, and he’s not a douchebag, he’s just not interested in coming up short in this debate.
Patterico,
Yes. Which is why it’s frustrating that there’s some sort of block here. Personaly, I think it’s a professional thing.
I’m interested in your questions, but I’d like to know what you mean when you say “society” and “disapprove”. Are we talking about what the general public should think, such that this is a question of what everyone’s opinion should be? Or is this a matter of what society should do, which infers some sort of institutional intervention?
What does it look like when “society disapproves”? What does that mean? Is it like Octomom, or Bernie Madoff? What?
Dog: [starts licking his own balls]
Why?
Because he can!
“Yes. Which is why it’s frustrating that there’s some sort of block here. Personaly, I think it’s a professional thing.”
How is there a block? I just laid out several areas of agreement. Did I appear capable of recognizing them and articulating them? Where’s the block?
The block, Pablo, is that many of the “intentionalists” commenting here seem not to care what I really mean.
“Comment by Patterico on 3/18 @ 7:58 pm #
“does the truth matter or is that whatever the sign guy says is the truth?—
Signman in the Spectrum had a great sign:
“Only The Lord Saves More Than Bernie Parent”
“Patterico is not a fool, and he’s not a douchebag, he’s just not interested in coming up short in this debate.”
That’s not even it any more. I’m past Rush Limbaugh. I’m trying to see what people’s positions truly are and look past some of the rhetoric to see where the differences truly lie.
Well yeah. Won’t grovel and lick your boots. Don’t think you’re master of the universe. Why are we not surprised?
“No shame. Until the Rush example came about, I didn’t completely understand either. Take the high road, and just say, “You know, I think I’m out of my league here. JG’s take on intentionalism/meaning is more sophisticated than I can perceive.—
Let’s see if I have it:
An author means what he means.
Did I manage to capture the sophistication? Oh, I’m afraid it’s just too much for me.
It’s come to that in a number of cases. But that’s not the block I’m talking about. Can we go with my questions for a few minutes here?
Yeah, I know. I’d expect that.
No, this needs understanding. Patterico is not a fool, and he’s not a douchebag.
Amen.
I think that some have been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard on Patterico.
Some are interested in you, Pat, and some aren’t. Thems the breaks. The ones that aren’t are, by and large, joking amongst themselves.
I’ve asked Jeff what he means. The implied connection, B Moe, is referencing a boy and a dog, talking about racism (specifically use of the word “boyâ€), when I just wrote a set of hypotheticals involving a boy and a dog and discussions of racism (specifically the use of the word “boyâ€).
Therefore anything said regarding a boy and a dog must have something to do with you.
Yeah, you’re right. No apparent connection there. I bow to your superior interpretative skills.
This was your first post on this thread:
Comment by Patterico on 3/18 @ 6:37 pm #
This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals. Was it your intent to suggest a connection?
Make up your fucking mind dude. And don’t by God question my interpretive skills until you do.
Yes. But your questions all go to interpretation and reaction.
And this wouldn’t be pw if they weren’t.
True story:
I once had a black lab. I named him Buddha. I thought he was Indian. WTF? I was young.
Are any of the “intentionalists” here who have made sweeping and incorrect claims about my views in the least bit embarrassed that they can’t justify them, and don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about my intent?
Many of you are doing EXACTLY what you claim to hate when the leftists do it. You just think it’s OK to do it to anyone whom you perceive as being in opposition to Jeff.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everyone’s out digging up quotes to show that I’m lying here. I think that’s what people who care about my intent do. That, and apply the principle of charity.
Patterico – It’s not that you and Jeff agree or disagree on certain broad principles. You disagree on the size of the gray area that constitutes “unreasonable bad faith misinterpretation.” According to me (and, I dare say Jeff) the gray area is damn small. Miniscule. Nearly non-existent. Take the whole “Bush Lied” drama. As a lawyer (I’m one myself), you know that being wrong about something (WMD) is VASTLY different than lying about it. And yet, what we do when we make concessions to the haters is give them the upper hand in every political discussion.
It’s like we’re the damn L.A. DA trying to prosecute OJ, and rather than insisting on doing the trial the right way (jury from the westside, the best prosecutors (regardless of race/gender), etc…) we keep agreeing to move the goalposts and change the fundamental premise of the argument to placate the other side. The minute Cochran and Uelman made the trial about whether the LAPD and the D.A’s office was racist, it was over.
If we’re arguing ANYTHING, and we keep allowing the haters to make the argument about whether we’re a bunch of hate-mongering racists, then we’ve lost the argument before we even get to talk. The second we engage the debate about our motives, we’re done. The proper response to someone trying to put us on the defensive by making and unreasonable bad faith misinterpretation is to tell the hater you’re addressing to grow up and learn how to listen. “Stop hiding the weakness in your position by making the argument about my motives and respond to my logic with a rational argument. Or go back to school to learn what a rational argument is.” PERIOD.
On your first question to the thread Pat, do you remember this comment on the What Words Mean thread?
I believe you thought it irrelevant to the question you were asking at the time I made it (and I can readily concede that it may have been) or if not, I misremember about that. But this could be one of those occasions, though I wouldn’t say I’m entirely certain of it.
That is very likely true. It’s quite possible they have lost interest. Does it matter? If so, why?
BTW, I speak for myself in this, and no one else, and if I get anything wrong when pointing out what I think other’s positions are, please take no offense as no judgement is intended.
I kind of lost interest when you starting referring to intentionalism as a theory. That is a clue to me that you don’t understand it. To me, intentionalism is a tool, like a hammer. It just is, no theory needed. You do your best to divine the intent of the originator of the text or utterance. You can use previous texts and utterances from the author to make your decision. What you cannot do is impose your own prejudices upon the text of another, as then you are just rewriting that text.
Intentionalism does not give you the final answer that you seem to be seeking (this is gleaned from what you have written here, I have not read your site on this topic, though I have read you in the past on other topics). All it can do is point the way to arriving at the best interpretation you can get. It does not decide among those interpretations which is the best one.
I think, more important though, is that it leads you AWAY from the notion of applying your own biases to a text or utterance when you are interpreting it. That is, I believe, the gist of Jeff’s “mission” if I can call it that. You cannot allow others to apply their own incorrect interpretations to your text because it is a tool to suppress speech, and when speech is suppressed, ideas are as well.
So, in conclusion, I think you do, in fact, agree with Jeff on many points. But your ultimate mission differs from his, and I believe that you are trying to make intentionalism do more than it is supposed to do.
I could of course be wrong, and if so, I expect to be corrected.
“Yes. But your questions all go to interpretation and reaction.”
Yes. Because the idea that an author means what he means — while important as a starting principle — isn’t (to me) where the interesting arguments are. Those are all about HOW to interpret the author’s intent.
No, as a matter of fact I don’t care what’s going though your pea brain at any given moment. It’s enough to know that you’re a mendoucheous tool of the state. Does that revelation bother you?
Those are all about HOW to interpret the author’s intent.
Subjectively? Or objectively?
Does that help?
If I might shed some light on the matter, sometimes it’s fun to joke around about even the simplest things once an argument has already gone around the block a few dozen times.*
*This comment is not intended to intend.
Intentionalism! It’s what’s for breakfast!
Thanks for that, lcp. You’re exactly right. This really comes down, for practical purposes, to whether you should allow your meaning to be perverted by potential listeners or if you should speak so carefully that it’s as difficult as it can possibly be to misunderstand you thereby preventing some portion of the misunderstanding.
And the answer is neither.
“No, as a matter of fact I don’t care what’s going though your pea brain at any given moment. It’s enough to know that you’re a mendoucheous tool of the state. Does that revelation bother you?”
Not any more than your regular goat-buggering bothers me.
does “fuck you” work?
Patt: Serious question: do the people who claim to be intentionalists here, and who claim to pontificate on what I mean, actually care what I mean?
Are you sure that those aren’t two separate groups? Someone who comments on this blog and says “Right on, Jeff!” isn’t necessarily an intentionalist.
And if they’re mischaracterizing your arguments–having not gone over to your site to read the hypos–you can either set them straight here or ignore them.
There also might be a bit of debate fatigue going on, though that won’t stop people from going on and on and on.
And on.
Right. So let’s go there. In terms of your questions, I’m wondering:
Work with me here.
“If I might shed some light on the matter, sometimes it’s fun to joke around about even the simplest things once an argument has already gone around the block a few dozen times.”
Well, except that Jeff never answered my hypos; he only mocked them, so that particular argument hasn’t really been around the block.
And comments 54-56 are representative examples of non-humorous and clueless attacks on me. By alleged “intentionalists” who don’t give the slightest shit what you mean if they think you’re in opposition to Jeff. You have to be In The Club to merit having someone actually try to discover your intent.
Welcome to why the leftists do it, guys. They don’t like you any more than some of you appear to like me.
“The minute Cochran and Uelman made the trial about whether the LAPD and the D.A’s office was racist, it was over.”
And guess what? Fuhrman enabled that. The judge ruled it relevant. That’s another discussion, but really, it goes deeper than that and goes purely to the composition of the jury. I said somewhere: you can’t convince someone who refuses to be convinced. Exhibit A: The OJ jury.
99 Pat. Focus. Some of us are still trying to have a discussion.
Perhaps some of the problem arises in the need or urge to classify commenters here as “intentionalists” when only a few may so self-identify while many others would not, yet still enjoy Jeff’s writing or agree with him on a number of political views, not to mention the ordinary back and forth that will obtain over time? We haven’t here taken on the status of an “Austrian school” or a “Bauhaus”, have we?
“I said somewhere: you can’t convince someone who refuses to be convinced.”
Go with that.
You got it, Bucky. Rational communication is a passing fad.
To those who claim debate fatigue or that people have lost interest: are you listening to what I’m saying? I’m not railing that there are people not listening to me. I’m responding to specific people who are apparently interested and non-fatigued enough to leave comments characterizing my position in transparently false ways.
Of course, to the extent that the post suggests that I support things that I don’t — with a *link to one of my posts and unmistakable references to my hypos, all mushed together with a humorous monologue/dialogue seemingly designed to show how my PC attitude allows the listener to use his grievances to elevate his status — these commenters are simply interpreting me according to what they believe Jeff is saying I mean. Which is more important than what I mean, because I am The Other.
It’s why leftists misinterpret you. Meet the new victim, same as the old victim.
We’re all in lockstep, Sdferr. Didn’t you get the memo?
* This is what’s called joking around. *
“Well, except that Jeff never answered my hypos; he only mocked them, so that particular argument hasn’t really been around the block.”
I don’t think that’s accurate. He’s answered many of your questions. I’m not entirely sure what would constitute answering enough of them. In fact, Jeff’s been writing about intentionalism for years, using current news events as “teachable moments” from a huge number of angles. It seems to me he’s done a great deal of work in explaining himself on the topic of intentionalism, roughly 1000x more than any other blogger. Also, he’s recently recommended some great books on the topic.
Hey, maybe it’s also a cultural thing. I’m really not kidding when I ask for declarative theories. It’s a wonderful time saver.
ask acorn pal
I’ve got a season finale of Dexter queued up, and I’m fixing to hit “play” if nothing’s going on here.
Whatevs. I tried.
And, in good faith, I’d like to understand you. That’s why I feel extremely comfortable saying, “Please state your theory.”
Sheep. Please, I’m from Wyoming. Let’s keep our insults straight.
“Pat. Focus. Some of us are still trying to have a discussion.”
B Moe, I stopped paying attention to you when you said i 89:
“Therefore anything said regarding a boy and a dog must have something to do with you.”
Since that blatantly ignored the other similarities I had pointed out, I concluded you aren’t interested in arguing in good faith today, for whatever reason.
If you claim you are, then what the fuck did you mean by that? A boy and a dog AND a discussion about racial offense connected to the boy’s use of the racially changed word “boy.” And you’re saying that’s a coincidence that it’s the same topic discussed in my hypo.
You’re acting like a leftist who is arguing in bad faith, by ignoring the most telling points.
Of course, to the extent that the post suggests that I support things that I don’t — with a *link to one of my posts and unmistakable references to my hypos…
Wow, from “This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals.” to unmistakable refernces in less than a hundred comments. You better shut this one down JG, you are gonna be outright plagiarizing him before you know it.
“I don’t think that’s accurate. He’s answered many of your questions. I’m not entirely sure what would constitute answering enough of them.”
I had a set of six hypos about a boy and his dog. He has: asked me to explain the point, ignored me when I did, written two posts mocking the hypos . . . everything but answer them. Fine. He doesn’t have to. But don’t tell me I’m being inaccurate when I say he didn’t.
Personally I don’t want to be lumped in with folks who are too readily willing to lash out in name calling. I’ll name call Pres. Obama at times, but then he isn’t reading here and if he were, I wouldn’t. But flailing at Pat like that seems silly to me, he just doesn’t deserve it I don’t think.
Patterico
I’m trying to see what people’s positions truly are
For me, you might have tried where I went and answered each of your questions on your blog and am dealing with SEK being silly that context is independent of human beings.
I swear that advanced degrees burns out the common sense in some of y’alls brains!
B Moe, I stopped paying attention to you when you said i 89:
“Therefore anything said regarding a boy and a dog must have something to do with you.â€
That is your problem, not mine.
Since that blatantly ignored the other similarities I had pointed out, I concluded you aren’t interested in arguing in good faith today, for whatever reason.
If you claim you are, then what the fuck did you mean by that? A boy and a dog AND a discussion about racial offense connected to the boy’s use of the racially changed word “boy.†And you’re saying that’s a coincidence that it’s the same topic discussed in my hypo.
It isn’t a coincidence at all. It also isn’t a coincidence that it has absolutely nothing to do with your hypotheticals.
You really need to study up on some Zen, Pat. And think about about the differences between subjective and objective, I think that is where you will find what we are talking about.
Pat, if someone goes through a great deal of meta-analysis over your hypos, I count that as answering them. Your mileage may vary.
I mean, if you know how Jeff would answer the questions (and I tend to think you do), that knowledge didn’t just arrive in your head miraculously, did it?
It’s why leftists misinterpret you
They don’t misinterpret, they lie.
Patterico – You quote me: “He keeps thinking that being polite and moderating what he’s saying is going to placate the haters,” and then ask: “Show me anything I’ve written that suggests I think that, Mr. Intentionalist.”
The reason that is so hard is because I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written, when I take your words and meanings exactly as you mean them and write them. This entire debate hinges on your use (and Jeff’s use) of “reasonable” and what that word means in the context of your respective arguments.
I sincerely hope that this post and my post at 8:23 clarifies what I’m saying. You argue that tailoring the style of what you’re saying (but not the essence) is proper when faced with varied audiences whom a speaker determines could “reasonably” misunderstand the speakers words. I don’t disagree with that. I explain legal concepts differently to my Mom than I do to my Dad. We all do similar. My parents are reasonable and gracious, and I can afford to do that without recrimination. I hope you see that I’m doing the same here, with your arguments.
That’s not what this discussion is about, however. Because the people we’re dealing with are not reasonable (nor are they trying to be) in their “misinterpretation” of what conservatives say. I realize this line of argument isn’t really about Limbaugh any longer, but it’s a useful reference. I know exactly what he meant when he made the “failure” comment. In fact, I argue that no one in Limbaugh’s audience misunderstood what he intended or what he said. Further, I’d argue that no one who heard or read what he said in context could reasonably misinterpret his words. Someone might not like what he said, but there’s no way to misinterpret what he said, without malicious intent.
The gravamen of this whole discussion is whether it’s advisable for a Limbaugh, or any other conservative, to change the essence or the style of what they say in an attempt to prevent the media and the rest of the leftist haters from their malicious, unreasonable and outrageous misinterpretations. The answer is NO.
I don’t disagree with tailoring arguments to suit “reasonable” people. I disagree with who we should assume is reasonable.
My God, the irony.
You can fill in the blank.
As a matter of fact, no. As blowhard points out (3/18 @ 8:46 pm) Jeff has been writing about intentionalism for years. Have you bothered to try to understand what he’s saying? Obviously not or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Wouldn’t it be swell if we had at hand an actual case of open public speech landing a guy in the dock on trial for his life say, charged with intending to corrupt the youth of the state, teaching them that the gods are false and introducing new gods from elsewhere? And all turning on a question or two of meaning and intent perverted by a hostile media and a droning propaganda machine, some of whom were motivated by nothing more than being shown to be gaseous blowhards in public where the aforementioned youth could laugh at and mock them?
“This post has nothing to do with my hypotheticals.†to unmistakable refernces in less than a hundred comments.
It makes unmistakable references . . . but the argument has nothing to do with my argument. I wasn’t clear. My fault. See?
I almost tried again, and thought better of it. The VCR just stopped, so there are some shows to watch. Have fun, kids, and don’t stay up too late eating ice cream.
Two things. First, I can’t believe Pat’s still claiming that I haven’t dealt with his hypotheticals. I answered (TWICE!) the one he posted last night. He went right on saying I ignored them, and that hasn’t stopped. Now, given that I was under no obligation to address such a hypothetical but did anyway, I would rather he stopped making that claim. He isn’t entitled to my time, but I gave it. The least he could do is be honest.
That was by way of a preamble.
Now:
Leaving aside why Pat thinks it necessary that I find interesting what he finds interesting, intent, he’s conceded, is a given in interpretation.
Which means he can be rephrased thus: “Yes. Because the idea that an author means what he means — while important as a starting principle — isn’t (to me) where the interesting arguments are. Those are all about HOW to interpret
the author’s intent.As I keep explaining to him, once intent becomes the acknowledged lynchpin, the rest becomes about proof (if a text is testable) or marshaling evidence to make your best case about what the author likely meant. To do so one uses all the tools available to an interpreter: context, convention, biography, structural clues, intertextuality, intratextual cues, ironic or parodic markers, historical situatedness, presumed audience, and on and on and on.
But for me, delineating between what is and what isn’t interpretation — and making clear how what it is we think we’re doing when we interpret matters quite a bit in the real world — is where the beef is.
Given the taunts, the badgering, and all that Pat continues to bring, night after night — why should anybody here, “intentionalists” or not (look, I scare quoted it! DOUBLE OUTLAW!!1!), care to deal with him anymore on this topic?
That was rhetorical. On my end. YMMV.
Not likely, Bucky, I am too busy making giant puppet heads of Obama and Ayers.
Patterico
Not everyone here is an intentionalist. I’m an engineer. What has been clear over the past 8 years is the empirical evidence that the left/ il-liberals is 100% mendacious in their use of language and care none about truth or facts.
I was just revisiting “The Politics of Bad Faith” by repentant/reformed leftist David Horowitz. Give it a read so you’ll better understand the context of the ongoing war…
Love your work… Don’t get your head too wrapped around the axle here.
“As a matter of fact, no. As blowhard points out (3/18 @ 8:46 pm) Jeff has been writing about intentionalism for years. Have you bothered to try to understand what he’s saying? Obviously not or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you were buggering goats as you are most weeknights.
“And guess what? Fuhrman enabled that. The judge ruled it relevant. That’s another discussion, but really, it goes deeper than that and goes purely to the composition of the jury. I said somewhere: you can’t convince someone who refuses to be convinced. Exhibit A: The OJ jury.”
Patterico – You’re exactly right!!!! The media and most Democrats are ALL one big OJ jury. They can’t be convinced. You can’t reason with them. You can’t convince them. The answer is to do the principled thing from the get-go. They’re not reasonable.
You must like Stephenson as much as do I.
Stephenson kicks ass.
I actually bought a copy of the Analects after reading that. I need to reread it again — I’m woefully ignorant of Chinese culture and history.
Patterico, it would help if you manned up, ignored the insults, and focused on the people still trying to engage you. It would certainly make you seem more serious about the subject.
Hehe. Truer words were never spoken. Of course, “common sense” is a fairly uncommon commodity at any time.
Patterico — what lcp says
I argue that no one in Limbaugh’s audience misunderstood what he intended or what he said. Further, I’d argue that no one who heard or read what he said in context could reasonably misinterpret his words. Someone might not like what he said, but there’s no way to misinterpret what he said, without malicious intent.
You never answered my real world example I gave of the black woman overhearing her Hispanic co-worker on a PRIVATE phone call talking to her niece in Spanish. Black woman hears the word “negro”, takes offense and lodges a complaint against the Hispanic woman for “creating a Hostile Workplace(tm)”.
How is that any different than what Sharpton did to Limbaugh? Or bad faith leftists did to Bill Bennett or Tony Snow?
Well, I was sort of close to the right idea earlier. Maybe I’ll stick to cutting code.
yo patco: how’s that “teleprompter jesus” thing working dude?
Wouldn’t it be swell if we had at hand an actual case of open public speech landing a guy in the dock on trial for his life say, charged with intending to corrupt the youth of the state
Yeah, good thing that never happened, huh?
Yeah, Spies, think what would happen if the guy were convicted and in the sentencing phase of the trial actually went out of his way to mock the stupidity of his jurors, telling them that far from killing him, they should set him up in the equivalent of the White House and pay his room and board for the rest of his life? Talk about room for a discussion of knowing one’s audience and using proper manners and adjusting one’s speech when addressing them, huh? That ought to be fodder for tons of fun!
Just look north to Canada… Ezra Levant. Offending the perpetually offended. Interpretation gone amok
And, again, free geometry lessons. It’s a proven winner. It’s that little bit of sugar that helps the dialectic go down.
Thanks Darleen.
blowhard, I’m not sure but that a serious look at Meno wouldn’t hit a little too close to home. Could get a bit sticky I think. But maybe I’m overanalyzing it.
Just for my clarity (and not to return to the original subject) — what was done to Limbaugh was not interpretation, but rather what you’ve riffed as “creative writing”. Same as what was done with Bennet, and has been done with, at one time or another, every one of us — our words are given a meaning we’ve never intended or considered, in order to put us on the defensive or to just plain shut us up.
How we determine the author’s intent — context, history, etc — is not particularly important. That we are trying to determine the intent distinguishes it from the (totalitarian) political maneuver of assigning intent in order to use the statement as a weapon.
The bone of contention, I think, is that you — and I — don’t think it’s reasonable to ever accept the mis-assignment of our intent, and that it’s critical to the maintenance of a free society to blunt that particular weapon. I have no idea what Patterico’s position on this is, since it appears to have shifted over the weeks. I suspect it’s the “pragmatic” one of trying to remove the weapon by avoiding statements open to mis-assignment, since that’s where he started the argument, but it appears he’s backed off from that.
Sheep. Please, don’t force me to question your reading comprehension.
Oh wait.. I’ve already questioned your comprehension of what Jeff’s written, haven’t I? I guess you’re not the sharpest tool in the state’s box, eh?
Oh, but, Darleen, that’s a much less interesting issue than a hypothetical about a dog…
(Does it strike anyone else as odd that in the multi-cultural world, the very words for a color in other languages are off-limits? Yiddish and Spanish so far — what’s next?)
Good point. It’s just too, too easy to tweek the tool. And obviously, he knows less about cowboys and sheep than he knows about.. Well, whatever it was he was on about.
RACIST!
Patterico’s take on all of this runs into problems when the un-reasonable, and the aggressively dishonest enter into the discussion.
Ah, but Thales offered some sound advice on cornering the olive oil market. What did Socky ever do to match that, huh?
It’s funny that the word actually does translate both ways, either as boy or as slave. But race, fortunately, had nothing to do with it.
Ahh, Meno, the Dialogue closest to every high school math teacher’s heart, sdferr.
“It’s not my fault, I can’t teach these kids. I can’t teach them anything. They simply won’t remember what they already know. Entirely their fault.”
Carved a bit of the frieze on the Parthenon?
It would appear that when Patt says that Jeff has not answered his hypos, he’s saying that Jeff has not gone through them one by one and given an answer and rationale to each.
And it would also appear that when Jeff says that he HAS answered Patt, he means that he addressed the hypos categorically.
Just not point by point.
I’ve always been partial to the pronunciation of a Brit guy I heard, So-crates, two syllables.
“Patterico’s take on all of this runs into problems when the un-reasonable, and the aggressively dishonest enter into the discussion.”
That is precisely the point. Good on ya, JD.
Pat, never have I seen someone go to such lengths to miss the point.
Patt, are you trying to argue, as Ace did, that
Rush, knowing that the tenor of his words was highly negative, should have chosen his words more carefully?Would you argue that when you’re speaking Spanish where you can be overheard by those of African decent, that you should not say “negro”?
I mean, *I* speak Spanish, but it would never occur to me to suppress that word and use “oscuro” instead, just because there’s someone around who might have the nerve to aggressively “misconstrue” what I said. Or even if someone might innocently misunderstand.
How can I know where the land mines are? That dewd with Breitbart on Maher’s program kept insisting that conservatives use “code language” that reveals their racism and that Sowell and Thomas are parroting “whitey” instead of thinking for themselves.
Am I just supposed to resign myself to the fact that certain members of society have laid out a mine field that they are determined not to let me exit alive?
The hypos you ask are much, much tamer than these real-life situations, which is why it’s hard for me to get really enthused about them. With your hypos, all you need to do is remember your manners. With the aggressive misinterpreters, you need full body armor.
Actually, the one he gave last night I addressed point by point.
Evidently, that one doesn’t count, because I answered it. Instead, the ones about the dog have to be answered. But if you check last night’s thread you’ll see that Fred Dobbs answered them rather quickly and efficiently, I thought.
I had no use for them.
I am not sure what to think of this Blucky person.
And furthermore, your hypos sound very much like what they’d grill students with during Freshmen
IndoctrinationOrientation.Yes, they do split the hairs that fine, only they make sure you know that if you cross the line you’ll be drawn and quartered with extreme prejudice.
As it were.
Yes, apparently “fuck off you mincing twatwaffle” isn’t sufficient. Instead one must enumerate the reasons why the mincing twatwaffle should perform unnatural acts upon himself. As if he needed a reason..
Eventually, when discussing Truth or Beauty, one must take one’s eyes off the pointing finger and actually look toward what the finger is pointing at…
If the finger is pointing toward a picture of Elvis painted on black velvet, you’re on your own…
C’mon Jeff, take a jump through. Don’t make Socrates cry.
Bucky has been here under other names and has had unkind things to say about yours truly.
But he seems to like Dr Strangelove, so he can’t be all bad.
Uh, seems to me like it was Meno pressing the insistent question there hoops. So, um, well, nevermind.
“First, I can’t believe Pat’s still claiming that I haven’t dealt with his hypotheticals. I answered (TWICE!) the one he posted last night. He went right on saying I ignored them, and that hasn’t stopped. Now, given that I was under no obligation to address such a hypothetical but did anyway, I would rather he stopped making that claim. He isn’t entitled to my time, but I gave it. The least he could do is be honest.”
If you answered the post I had with six questions about a boy and his dog, as written, I don’t know where that is. Link?
I have never said you had to. But with all the time you spend mocking the hypos, you could answer them. I have said many times: you don’t have to, but I think it would help crystallize the positions.
“intent, he’s conceded, is given in interpretation.”
As I say every time you falsely imply that I denied this previously, I haven’t. But I may have been unclear in my expression.
“Given the taunts, the badgering, and all that Pat continues to bring, night after night — why should anybody here, “intentionalists†or not (look, I scare quoted it! DOUBLE OUTLAW!!1!), care to deal with him anymore on this topic?”
I have spent several nights mostly avoiding that. On St. Patty’s Day I indulged in the guilty pleasure of returning some of your taunts, but for the most part in recent nights I have come in here and argued substance.
Anyway, now that you’ve suggested people here shouldn’t debate me, I’ll leave.
I wouldn’t try as hard if I didn’t think you had something interesting to say.
Fine, I’ll take a shot at ’em.
1. What is this boy doing outside without a parent when black men are roaming around. Black men are filled with the hatred of years of oppression. Personally, I’d move to Connecticut.
2. Welcome to Darien! Here boy!
Oh, so that was what Dyson was up to was it, holding an election?
1. The Master said, “If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame.
2. “If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good.”
What does baffle me is the resistance to make declarative statements on the matter.
I might be wrong, but I think Pat wants to say in a weak form at least, “intent can be ascertained from a speaker’s conception of the listener’s interpretation. So, in an area of ambiguity, a way to determine intent is a listener’s likely perception.” Isn’t that the knob he’s fiddling from low to high on his hypos?
I might be entirely wrong. A simple declarative statement of his views could fix that though.
Wait a second, we’re referring to intentionalism and the Oj Jury, the
only intention was a group of mendacious attorneys using words from a screenplay that the investigative officer had offered someone else; cutrate Ellroy, to suggest he was a Nazi and hence a guilty man should go free.
You know what this reminds me of, oh yes, the cavalcade of lies directed at Sarah Palin, that were promptlydebunked after being disseminated by the likes of the L.A. Times, yet continued tobe circulated in low and sundry places. One could argue that the ‘intent’ there was not only to defeat her ideas, but to undermine her identity as a wife and mother, and conscientious public servant. See when the intent is to flat out lie, there’s nothing that truth can do to stop it.
I had the feeling that the knobs he’s fiddling on the hypotheticals were his interlocutors. Not being of a mind to become a knob, I demurred.
See, Patt. The problem with those hypos is that Jeff is an inveterate RACIST!!!1!!11 and cannot analyze them without these outbursts. Like in Dr Strangelove.
Red Will Danaher: And, oh, another thing. You keep away from my sister Mary Kate. She´s not for the likes of you.
Sean Thornton: Where I come from, we don´t talk about our womenfolk in saloons. You sort of make a habit of it. This morning it was widow Tillane.
Danaher: Hey, look, I´m not accusing Mary Kate. It´s him. Why, this very moment, let him deny it if he can. At the back of the chapel, he took liberties that he shouldn´t have.
Thornton: I said ´´good morning´´ to her.
Danaher: Good morning? It was ´´good night´´ you had on your mind.
Thornton: That´s a lie.
Deja vu
Did the other hypothetical you put up and claimed you wanted to talk about — the one I answered, twice, not count? Why? If I answered it standing next to black man would it have counted then? Why or why not?
That’s what you said about the one I responded to, as well. Why are you trying to forget that one?
There was nothing that sentence that dealt with what you believed previously. This is a distraction from the follow-up, which you didn’t quote and didn’t respond to.
People can do what they want. I’m not interested in debating you because you won’t even acknowledge that I answered the hypothetical you posed here and at Ace’s. Presumably you were after the same kinds of answers, so why bother repeating myself by answering two versions of the same general query?
You keep saying you want to debate, but what have you even asked here tonight? Anything? Or have you just constantly insisted we deal with your dog hypotheticals as if a failure to do so meant a failure to care for TRUTH.
You’ve been answered. I don’t know what more you want me — or others — to say.
Yep. You nailed it. Got us all dead to rights.
And I’m being charitible.
(or just laughing@u.com)
oops.
Boy, is my face red.
“Anyway, now that you’ve suggested people here shouldn’t debate me, I’ll leave.”
The bitch’s back.
As I typed it, sdferr, I thought there was at least an outside chance that someone would take the “fiddling knobs” phrasing as a high hanging curveball.
Huzzah!
From what, Pablo? What else can I do? “You didn’t answer stuff I’m interested in!” Actually, I did.
“Well, you didn’t answer other stuff I’m interested in!” Uh, sorry?
Then I answer him here, and he skips over the only important part and uses OUTRAGE to storm off.
Night after night and I still can’t figure out what he wants to know. If it’s (as I noted above) HOW do we interpret? — well, that’s a bigger syllabus. And I’ve got weights to lift.
And I thank you for’t, I can’t handle to high inside heat.
There’s a reason I moved to Connecticut and not Massachusetts, Bucky.
Patterico
Do you ever leave work, you know, at WORK and turn off the dda approach to things? You seem obsessed on making people answer to your questions, each and every one, in order, point by point and in the way you want the answers presented. Yet you haven’t addressed ONCE the real life stuff I’ve posted here and on your blog.
This isn’t a deposition nor a court room. Turn OFF the dda and start engaging in mutual dialogue.
Updike?
Would now be a good time to start with lawyer jokes? Here, I’ll start:
Q: What do you call 10 lawyers buried up to their necks in cement?
A: Not enough cement.
but if you don’t, I’ll keep brining it up, over and over again UNTIL YOU DO!
FTFY
Socrates: So I ask you, Roover, which is more important, Truth or Beauty?
Dog: [tilts head slightly]
Socrates: Do you not care for the Truth?
Dog: [tilts head more]
Socrates: Speak! Has unwatered wine dumbed your tongue? Speak!
Dog: [runs off after squirrel]
Boy: I never should have named that dog Pyrrho.
Comment by Patterico on 3/18 @ 9:04 pm #
Obama still a good man, Pat? Just curious. Is Rush still wrong for how he said things? Inquiring minds, you know.
Stuff you’ve written in the past is relevant because it clues us to how you think. And your writings speak volumes.
The whole hypotheticals thing puts me in mind of a certain fictional character’s strawberries.
I was home painting the living room and refinishing the hardwood floors while the OJ trial was on TV, so I saw pretty much the whole sordid thing. I saw the bit about the amazing ‘appearing sock’ a key piece of evidence that wasn’t there in the original video walk-through of OJ’s house and then mysteriously appeared, complete with damning blood stains, later in the investigation. I saw the testimony about the original examination of the infamous white Bronco that revealed nothing of interest, the break-in of the police impound lot, and the follow-up examination of the Bronco that showed gouts of blood all over everything.
From what I saw, I figured OJ was probably guilty, but the cops had so tainted the investigation in their efforts to sweeten the evidence that I wouldn’t have voted him guilty either.
Watching the whole debacle also drove home the feeling that ‘god help you if the system decides you’re guilty and you don’t have OJ’s money to fight the DA’.
Yeah, he was probably guilty. But if you want to blame someone for his getting off, blame the dishonest cops and the incompetent DA who knowingly brought tainted evidence to court thinking it was just another routine case and a little railroading wouldn’t hurt.
Yeah, I said “incompetent DA”. I could have used harsher words..
Swen
I don’t want to go through the whole OJ thing either, but if you think there was some sort of conspiracy to “get OJ” and that there was manufacturer evidence, then
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dana-carvey-framin-oj/2338368761
Why not just admit that gratuitously insulting people based on the color of their skin is wrong?
Why not just admit that we should make an effort to be informed as to what black people find insulting, and then try to avoid saying those things?
It’s not like black people are trying to cut concepts out of our language in some 1984-esque conspiracy to deprive us of independent, conservative, OUTLAW thinking. They just don’t like certain words (for which plenty of synonyms are available) or particular uses of certain words.
Oh noes. We can’t say “niggardly” any more. That’s just soooo terrible. How are we supposed to get by in a world without “niggardly”? Only INTENTIONALISM can save us! (this paragraph was intended to be sarcastic)
Is there a particular edition you recommend?
A boy and his dog.
That was a cool movie. It’s too bad Fallout 3 did not include an homage to that movie.
“Oh noes. We can’t say “niggardly†any more. That’s just soooo terrible. How are we supposed to get by in a world without “niggardlyâ€? Only INTENTIONALISM can save us! (this paragraph was intended to be sarcastic)”
Yeah, that’s hilarious, Daryl. Set aside the fact that a woman was demonized for using an alternate word for miserly. I’m sure she would join you in your laugh. Yes, that last sentence was sarcastic. Which brother are you, Daryl.
Another person who doesn’t get. They are legion.
OUTLAW!!
Gratuitously insulting people based on the color of their skin is wrong.
We should make an effort to be informed as to what black people find insulting and — wait, why just black people? How about Asians? Eskimos? Maoris? Belarusians? Homosexuals. Christian Conservatives? Jews? Buddhists? Muslims? Vegans? Transsexuals? Native Americans? Mexicans? Colombians? Spaniards? The French? Little People? The differently abled? The deaf? The blind? The mute? Catholics? The Irish? The fat? The drug addicted?
Shit, somebody put out a fucking book. We can each memorize all the potential slights, and then avoid them when we get down to identifying people by their group affiliation. There can be tests. The government can even step in and help out — like in England, where Ms and Mrs are out of bounds.
I’ve got news for you, Daryl. Prof Dyson thinks you’re a racist. Andrew Sullivan thinks you’re a homophobe. Amanda Marcotte thinks you’re a patriarchal oppressor. James Wolcott thinks you’re a boorish rube. Deal with it.
Here is what you are referencing. Hilarious, Daryl.
“However, teacher Stephanie Bell’s son, Tar Bell, 17, who is not restricted from discussing the incident, according to the Wilmington Star “… said a letter from Principal Susan Hahn stated that his mother used poor judgment. The letter, he said, also instructed his mother to send an apology to her students’ parents, a step she took last week. The letter, which Mr. Bell said he has read, also admonished Ms. Bell, who is white, for lacking sensitivity to the school’s diverse population of students and not being aware of cultural differences, he said.”
http://www.adversity.net/special/niggardly_again.htm
And yeah, Don Johnson was good in that flick. I was gonna watch Philadelphia Story tonight, but maybe I’ll watch that one instead.
don’t forget the goofus in Dallas that got all offended at “Black Hole”.
Good one, Darleen. Yes, there was a mountain of evidence against OJ. He was probably guilty. But the defense did show that a couple pieces of that evidence were queer — particularly the amazing appearing sock.
It wasn’t there during the initial video walk-through of OJ’s house. But the photos entering it into evidence showed it lying in the middle of the white carpet at the foot of OJ’s bed. Perhaps it was under the bed and the police only teased it out onto the rug for the photos — who knows? — but it wasn’t there and then it was. I suspect it was just sloppy handling of the evidence, but it certainly created a reasonable doubt and that’s all the defense has to do.
Were the police trying to frame OJ? I seriously doubt it. Were they trying to sweeten the evidence just a bit here and there? Yes, I think so. And they were sloppy enough about it that they got caught by OJ’s high dollar defense. I suspect that the police were used to dealing with the public defender’s office where that sort of thing wouldn’t have been noticed, and that’s what bothers me.
I love that, Big D. It “sounds” like a slur. We have to remove words from our vocabulary that sound like slurs.
I’m offended by people who fly kites, incidentally — and my wife, who is half Japanese, won’t let me near her nips. I shall begin expressing my OUTRAGE shortly!
horticulture!
Military is full of that kind of thing too. Sailors don’t like to be called squids. Airmen don’t like to be called bus drivers. Some First Seargents don’t like to be called Top. Most NCOs don’t like to be called Sarge. Knew an officer that really got bent out of shape over referring to 2nd Lieutenants as Butterbars.
don’t forget the goofus in Dallas that got all offended at “Black Holeâ€.
Yeah, John Wiley Price is always good for a laugh.
I recently found out that as a Jew, I’m offensive to some Muslims. So I shall learn to make myself scarce during Ramadan.
You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.
I think it might be a good idea to dig up the corpse of Charles Schultz and beat it for daring to using the same racially insensitive phrase in Peanuts over and over again
“It was a dark and stormy night”
Especially written by a white dog.
“I recently found out that as a Jew, I’m offensive to some Muslims. So I shall learn to make myself scarce during Ramadan.”
As a middle aged white man, apparently I’m offensive to just about everyone. I’ll just make myself scarce always, or, OUTLAW!
#156
Delightful, simple, allegorical.
I henceforth promise to refrain from using the word “flag,” which sounds suspiciously close to that intolerable epithet “fag.” Someone might misunderstand my delicate meaning.
Especially the niggardly fags.
“Especially the niggardly fags.”
You have a good stoning coming your way.
Here you go Orwell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNeq2Utm0nU
hey Darryl
Read #140 and then tell people who speak Spanish that certain words in their language cannot be said around African-Americans anymore.
And don’t ever, Ever, EVER call a Norwegian a “Swede”. We HATE Swedes. They sold us out to the Nazis, the fuckers.
There’s just no end to it, is there? You can get all insulted or you can go [sigh] ‘No, I’m Norwegian’ and let it go. But then I’m not among the ranks of the professionally outraged, so perhaps I just don’t understand.
You have a good stoning coming your way.
Dude! I love huffing the herb!
Big D, you’re killin’ me out here! Life of Brian indeed. Just don’t eat any salmon mousse.
“Just don’t eat any salmon mousse.”
Never touch the stuff. I can, however, tell you the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
heh. this whole thread makes me wiggle deep down in my generous loins. true story
I’m sorry. Have you tried humming? My wife is particularly fond of The Star Spangled Banner, but No Teeth!
Hi Swen, as a fellow Wyoming person (now suffering in
purgatoryCalifornia) who is confused why anyone would fuck a goat when sheep are plentiful, here’s one you might appreciate.98% of drivers who slide from a slippery road into the ditch scream.
The other 2% are from Wyoming, and they say “hold my beer and watch this”
Hey, sometimes a slope just makes my nips hard, it’s a chink in my armor, I’ll admit.
this morning on the radio, they were talking about letting your kids go places by themselves on Spring Break. Finally, one of them said something like, the best thing you can teach your kids is to never start a sentence with the words, “Hey! Watch this!”
“We HATE Swedes.”
Yeah, well fuck you! I am a very distant relation to King Gustav. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
For those of you keeping score at home, I have now had one Newhart reference, two Pythons, a Ron White, and a Caddyshack. Not bad for one thread.
Oh, man, I second that! We were just in the gourmet food store and bought some of that stuff. I swear it’s just cat food with a different label.
… and my wife, who is half Japanese, won’t let me near her nips.
Dude.
They’re what? $19 for 12 boxes at the on-line candy store. Shell out, niggardly candy budgeteer.
I’m partial to Butter Rum, myself.
“The other 2% are from Wyoming, and they say “hold my beer and watch thisâ€
In Texas we say, ” Put your seat belt on, I want to try something. Saw it in a cartoon once, but I’m pretty sure I can do it.”
Salmon mousse gives me the hebey-jeebys.
Yeah, ain’t it great? Once I realized I was going to offend people no matter what I did, I found it very liberating.
…
Heheh. Yeah, the redneck’s famous last words: “Hey everybody, watch this!” Been there, done that, got the scars..
Bent nose?
In Texas we say, “Put your seat belt on, I want to try something.”
Saw that in a Steven Wright set. He said it’s how he likes to mess with hitchhikers.
Stopping future offensive speech is a useless half measure unless we also do something about all the old offensive speech laying around in our libraries.
Something to think about.
as a fellow Wyoming person (now suffering in
purgatoryCalifornia)I’m a native Clownifornian, and I think it’s a bit worse than purgatory. More like the fourth circle of Dante’s Inferno, devoted to the avaricious. I’ve taken to daydreaming of eastern Washington, around Spokane. Got a friend who moved up there. It’s a far cry from LA. I spent summers outside of Spokane on my grandparents’ farm decades ago. Lovely place, especially if you don’t rely on a culture of solipsism and glitz.
Well, some English depts are helping by doing away with that awful Faulkner.
Funny, I remember when “fuck” got Catcher in the Rye in trouble. Today Holden would only get in trouble if he called his dog at a culturally insensitive time.
Philadelphia Story is one of my favorite movies. Hepburn is my favorite actress of all time. Just thought I’d share.
Broken three times. About half way down it takes a sharp turn to the left. One of these days I really must learn not to lead with my face.
“Saw that in a Steven Wright set.”
Yes! I have made some obscure references tonight. You win the prize! Not the caddie, but the set of steak knives. Anyone?
I admit it. I can’t do fucking pull-ups. I have no idea why, but I can’t.
There. My secret is out.
‘Course that’s one advantage of being Norwegian. People have worn themselves out beating on my head, not realizing there’s nothing in there they can hurt..
That unladen swallow – European or African?
oh hey, me neither. but then, I’m wussy. been whining about the tongue laceration I gave myself Sunday night for like, what? three days now. at least I can swallow without pain now.
GodGaia knows, you can’t teach Mark Twain any longer, not with that n-word stuff in Finn and Sawyer. And don’t even get me started about Edgar Allen Poe and “The Gold-Bug.”Actually this reeking quasi-Puritanical PC offal and preening multiculti moralism really pisses me off. Edgar Allen Poe opened up more of my vocabulary and English than anything else when I was a kid. Where else in a single place could a ten-year old learn words like “vellum,” “scarabaeus,” and “coadjutors?” And about simple ciphers? And hints of geography, botany, seaboard history? All wrapped up in a taut short story? And, must I point out, that the former slave in the story is ultimately treated as one of the heroes, one of the beneficiaries in the shared treasure hunt? But nowadays, a child likely would be forbidden to read “The Gold-Bug.” People, this is the intellectual advent of fascism, nothing less.
Is that in the Kama Sutra?
Cranky-d, what do you make of “The Philadelphia Story”? I find it oddly fascinating, but I can’t decide what it’s trying to say. It seems at times to defend the upper class (the fiancé George gets dumped and Dexter wins again) yet also makes a mockery of the upper class life (practically the whole movie, except for the last major plot point I mentioned!) I have a hard time deciding whom I like and whom I don’t.
Hey Jeff, it’s been a while since one of your posts made me spew Merlot de la Boite through my nose all over my wife’s laptop. But there it is.
Patterico: goat buggery? OUTLAW! Maybe you’re overestimating a speaker or writer’s ability to control his or her meaning with his or her speech/writing itself.
In an earlier incarnation — uniforms were involved — I could only do one pull-up. So every time I passed through a door they made me do one pull-up on the door frame. In three weeks I could do 20 pull-ups. The guy with the Smokey-the-bear hat chewing on my butt had nothing to do with it.
Now I’m more philosophical. I could do pull-ups, but why would I want to?
looking at some of your previous comments… it might come in handy some day. ;D
Merlot de la Boite
Ah, yes. I know it well, it is the second wine from the storied Château du Coffret.
The part of Dog will be played by Duane Chapman.
boy: “You know, I really do apologize to you, little guy.â€
dog: Shut up, pussy
boy: “I certainly never meant to offend you. I hope you know that.â€
dog: Shut the fukc up and spread your legs.
boy: “I mean, heck — who knew that my being white and using the word ‘boy’ would create a contextual dynamic wherein the entire history of past abuses of that signifier by others who happened to share my skin color would mean I was somehow now complicit in those injustices?â€
dog: You want abuse? Take my wife. Then sleep with her.
boy: “Anyhow, can I just call you ‘dog’? Because, like, you’re a dog and stuff…?â€
dog: Call me ‘cracker’ and make me cry, dipshit.
boy: “A boy dog, as it happens.â€
dog: My mullet takes 3 hours to blow dry.
boy: … “…and so, y’know — a boy…â€
dog (yells): Hey babe! Bring me a beer while this clown whimpers.
boy: …
dog: …
boy: “You know what? Give me back that fucking bone. And then go fetch me my slippers. Unless you want to lose your big house privileges.â€
dog: The big house, shit. I don’t use that N word no more, fukcer… that fukcin shit was sold to the enquirer, you want punishment a-hole? Try kissing Larry King’s ass after your bullshit tapes go on national television. Motherfukcer.
Okay, all I needed was a reason. I’ll get right back on those pull-ups.
But I’ll try not to lacerate my tongue. And I’ll try not to even imagine how that might occur..
Well, okay, I’ll probably spend some time imagining. My imagination is a twisted little fuck.
Here are some more hypos:
You practice law in England. Basing your reasoning on English common law rather than Sharia has caused offense to a great number of people. Do you continue to act in way that you know they find offensive?
You practice law in the US. Basing your reasoning on rationality and using standards like a “reasonable man” has offended those who consider Western logic to be an arbitrary construct based on the white male viewpoint. Do you continue to act in a way that you know they find offensive?
A vicious rumor has been started about a friend of yours. It is widely believed that they are a racist. You know with certainty that this isn’t true. Do you continue the friendship even though you are offending those around you?
Follow up. Did your earlier position on the great “boy calling his dog” hypos of ’09 make these decisions harder or easier? If it has made these decisions harder, justify yourself morally.
yeah, I’m talented. okay, more proper term is probably “special”.
Yes Maggie, you are special, but probably not in the way you intended..
Oh shit, I’ve wandered back on-topic.
#264
Heh heh. Well played.
ha HA!
TMBG, You and your racist friend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGCmlpF8gQ
Warning. Live version. Not the greatest sound quality.
Well, I waited up ’cause this is usually the time Patterico show up. Not tonight, I suppose. The answer to all your hypos, Pat, is that the boy was calling his dog. Nothing more. Intent and meaning lies with the speaker. Period, end of story. Misinterpretation is the problem of the listener, not the speaker. Stop being obtuse.
Wisdom from the elder D, Pat: Never use a twenty dollar word when a nickel phrase will suffice.
Funny how the older I get, the smarter my father gets.
Good night all. I have to drive from Corpus Christi to Plano tomorrow. Thank God for XM.
#224
If you go a whole day without annoying someone, you’re doing something wrong.
Writing #86, mostly.
First they came for “niggardly”
And I did nothing
because I didn’t say niggardly much.
Then they came for “boy”
and I was all like
Are you fucking kidding me?
Bitch.
Didn’t Arnold play Mr. Frieze?
Is there a particular edition you recommend?
Jeez, I’m no expert. You can find several versions online.
The Master said, ‘Hui is no help to me at all. He is pleased with everything I say.
So every time I passed through a door they made me do one pull-up on the door frame. In three weeks I could do 20 pull-ups. The guy with the Smokey-the-bear hat chewing on my butt had nothing to do with it.
There is widsom in this. I can’t do a pull-up either, but I keep trying to work on it. I think I need to take this approach. Whatever I’m doing now isn’t working.
I couldn’t do many push-ups a year ago – had to stick with the wimpy version on my knees. It was embarrassing. Now I can whip out 20, then do four more sets of 10 with short rests in between.
Why not just admit that gratuitously insulting people based on the color of their skin is wrong?
I’m offended by “color” and “skin”. Please don’t use them any more. Thanks.
Welcome to Darien! Here boy!
The part of Dog will be played by Duane Chapman.
On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Cortez was a fucking racist. Also Homer.
You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
I don’t see how this thread got all the way to 278 comments, what with Daryl Herbert giving us the solution and all.
>>wait, why just black people? How about Asians? Eskimos? Maoris? Belarusians? Homosexuals. Christian Conservatives? Jews? Buddhists? Muslims? Vegans? Transsexuals? Native Americans? Mexicans? Colombians? Spaniards? The French? Little People? The differently abled? The deaf? The blind? The mute? Catholics? The Irish? The fat? The drug addicted?
You left out Three-one-fivers.
Jerk.
Speaking for the AI community, I’m offended by the name Daryl.
It reminds me of this shitty anti-AIist movie, in which the AI protagonist is merely a modern-day Step’n’Fetchit — a “Magical Cyborg”, if you will. Using the name Daryl in this modern age is as bad as calling yourself “Bojangles” or “Sambo”.
Daryl needs to change his name now, and make a reparatory donation to the National Association for the Advancement of the Artificially Intelligent.
Speaking of which, “Artificial” seems potentially racist. We need to come up with a more inclusive and less offensive term.
Given the taunts, the badgering, and all that Pat continues to bring, night after night — why should anybody here, “intentionalists†or not (look, I scare quoted it! DOUBLE OUTLAW!!1!), care to deal with him anymore on this topic?
Aye. And so shall I not.
This really comes down, for practical purposes, to whether you should allow your meaning to be perverted by potential listeners or if you should speak so carefully that it’s as difficult as it can possibly be to misunderstand you thereby preventing some portion of the misunderstanding.
And the answer is neither.
I ♥ Pablo.
Spies, my cousin was a stunt double for Daryl. He was just a kid, but a gymnast, and apparently they needed someone more nimble than the actor.
True story.
Carin, I hope he’s devoted the rest of his life to raising awareness of the bigotry that Designed Intelligences still face in our racist society.
Is the dog a pit bull?
D’oh!
I denounce myself again as racist.
Author’s meaning, author’s intent.
The holy grail which we should seek.
The journey not the ending is the point.
But what of the audience, of their intent.
A Rorschach test is needed.
A frame into which they can paint themselves.
Oh wait, ok, good.
No offense intended. When I looked at Amazon there were so many it was like the cereal aisle.
You cannot trust dogs, they steal!
You mistook my meaning, geoff. I didn’t take offense — I was just slightly embarrassed to be asked for advice on a subject of which I’m keenly aware of my own ignorance.
We don’t study Chinese history and culture nearly enough, in general. But of course we don’t really study Western history and culture any more, either, do we?
[…] ~**~ Posted by Serr8d @ 1:55 pm | Trackback Share This […]
Looks like a hell of a party!
One of my very favorite parts in that book read something like this:
“The suspect bled off excess velocity using an ablative technique.”
…
“She say he have road rash”
As is discussed herein, if unsure of meaning, ask the author first.
I was just overwhelmed by the selection. So I picked one and added a book by Eco to bring it over $25 for the free shipping. My summer reading will tend away from lightness this year. Must be something in the water or Washington.
David Frum dismisses your intentionalism as counter productive to his bigger long term goals.
[…] ~**~ […]
Joe, from your party linky, someone owes Iowahawk big time.. )
Now, now, Maggie. If you can’t call a black dog “boy” then I’m pretty sure that linking to pictures of black cats who speak in what could be construed as ebonics is right out. Someone could take offense!
Because everyone knows cats have finely sculpted biceps. Comes from doing pull-ups on my leg..
Awesome, Carin. I used to be able to crank out a dozen or more one-handers, but that was about 30 years ago. I’ve just now gotten to the point where I can do 7 sets of 30 or so; going to 35 reps per set soon. My near-term goal is to get myself to half-dozen sets of 50 per day. I’m not anywhere close to that yet, but I can’t improve by wishing.
There are lots of body-weight exercises that are good for improving strength and endurance. I really like the plank, held for a minute or more, and the crossover lunge. I also like the variant on the jackknife that you do with legs bent; it requires that you keep your body balanced as the jackknife does, but you get a more symmetric motion between upper and lower body.
I’ve been wanting a chinup/pullup bar, though.
[Making mysterious hand gesture] These are not the white Christian conservatives you’re looking for..
God, how racist Slart!
…..oh I thought that said “chimp pullup bar”. Never mind.
Well, I attempt the one-handed, but I can’t really go all the way down. P-90 has you do a variety – and the only way I could originally make it through was to do ’em on my knees. Then, I discovered it was just too easy. I couldn’t just switch, so I basically just (for about two months) did as many sets of man-style push ups I could muster. Now I can do, mostly, all the varieties.
I should be clear that I’m doing sets of 30 two-arm pushups, not the one-arm kind.
I only wish.
Okay, off for an exciting day in the Great Ironwood Forest. While I’m gone repeat this mantra:
With enough repetition you may even convince yourself that you believe it..
Nam doog a si amabo
Note to self: Do not piss of Carin.
Slart, before your correction I was thinking you were “the man.”
Cranky- I still can’t do pull-ups. Once I can do those …
I got up to 14 plyo pushups (the Tony kind) when doing p90x. The Jack Palance stuff I did maybe 11 or 12. After my shoulder started to go, I replaced all the pushups with bench pressing.
I do my pull-ups with bands or chair assist, though. For whatever reason, I can’t “lighten” my lower body, so every pull-up is like literally pulling up dead weight.
It’s just a block I can get past. This from a guy who straps on 50 lbs to his back and does 2 mile hikes or 30 minutes of kick boxing on his non lifting days. It ain’t like my back and shoulders aren’t strong.
Strange, this problem with pull ups. And it aggravates me to no end.
I found that putting your feet behind you and getting a spotter to assist produced much better than using a chair as an assist during pullups.
PS I am almost thru the P90X workouts now I got like 20 days left. Seems to work for getting toned and increasing endurance more than bulking up.
My pull ups shot up alot though during P90. I started out at 10 with the sets going down significantly after that. Now I am up to 18-20 and can keep it up above 10 reps most of the workout.
I do “pull-ups” with my bowflex. But, when I try it at the gym, I nearly DIE. So, I’m thinking whatever I’m doing isn’t increasing my strength.
I was claiming my XX chromosomes, but a guy a know dates a woman who can do 9 pull-ups. If I weighed 105, though, I think I could do it as well.
If you want to bulk up, increase your weight. First time through it for me, I toned. Second time I bulked up. I now use about 4 of the routines, mixing them in with my own routines.
One of the things I work on a lot is hand, grip, wrist, and forearm strength. Also ab/core strength. For the latter, I mostly just do Ab ripper x followed by kettlebell exercises for abs and core.
Seems to work for getting toned and increasing endurance more than bulking up.
I would say it’s endurance and strength, versus bulking up.
I am definately taking a break from the P90 for a while when I get done. Hearing “Their working hard I know you are!” in a whiney voice 3 times a week is getting to me.
Also I really hate Pam the blam for some reason.
I’m not much into body building. I train for functional strength. Two of the guys I shot the video series with hold powerlifting records. Not sure how good they are at pull-ups, though.
Sorry to disappoint, Carin. A year ago, I had trouble cranking out more than 15 pushups. Times two would have been nearly impossible. So: not improving as fast as P90X, but I’m not doing P90X. I’m doing TKD, with some self-directed exercise/stretching at home. Sparring is harder than any of the strength exercises I do at home, honestly.
I used to do pushups in sets of 100-125. I’d do over a thousand a day. Same with crunches. This was about 12 years ago now I guess, when I lived in Italy. Body weight exercises were all I had.
My (now) wife used to think I was nuts, but I didn’t speak much Italian, so all I did for a year was read and do pushups and crunches. And cook.
Blarg. I am off the spring training wagon and getting out the fatter pants. This talk of pullups is making me anxious.
Huh. Inspired by the last bit of the thread, I decided to see how many pushups I could do.
Three. But I’ve been sick…
Jeff, if you’re having trouble with pullups, two things to try: first, reverse your hands. The usual thing is to have thumbs out/palms toward you gripping the bar; reverse that. It changes the way the muscles work in your arms.
The second thing is leg lifts — allow yourself to swing; the object is to touch the bar with your ankles or toes, depending on your waist/height ratio. Deadweight leg lifts are very hard, about half of the ring exercise, but swinging leg lifts can be fun and easy once you get the rhythm.
As recently as a year ago I could still do a swinging leg lift, then raise myself enough to go over the bar and down. Wouldn’t try it now, though. My normal weight is 135-140; this morning I was 119 — and that’s a gain of three pounds since the last hospital visit.
Regards,
Ric
As soon as my cold/uveitis is over I will reform.
That’s a lot, Jeff.
Up until recently, I never even wanted to do a lot of pushups. But then I thought: what else am I going to do with my life? Why the hell shouldn’t I be able to crank out more than 50 pushups at a stretch?
Not sure I’m going to ever get over a few hundred pushups a day, but if I only get that far it’s a few hundred more a day than I’d otherwise be doing.
Pam the Blam? They don’t have names like that at bollywood dance class.
Jeff.. take up rock climbing. You’ll fix your pull-up issues in no time. I was average at pull-ups (at best) which, much like yourself, was aggravating considering my overall strength doing everything else. After taking up rock climbing, my pull-ups shot through the roof (not to mention my all around strength).
AgentW…real rocks? Or is wall climbing good enough?
Either or, really. I’d suggest starting out at an indoor gym, though. Novices often have a difficult time visualizing the route up the rock. Indoors, all the problems/routes are taped off for you, and you know which hand/foot holds you’re allowed to use and which one’s your not.
I’ll also say that for endurance purposes, stick to top roping/lead climbing. For overall strength, go with bouldering.
I’d strongly recommend not doing the lead-climb thing until you’ve had a lot of bouldering and top-rope experience.
For one thing, it takes a while to develop safety habits. I’d never climb with someone I didn’t know, because you don’t want some daft fucker asleep on belay, and wind up splattered all over the sharp rocks.
Oh yeah, absolutely. You shouldn’t start lead climbing until you can climb 5.9 to 5.10 with relative ease. Unless you’re lead climbing 5.5’s, which are extremely difficult to find (at least where I live).
A combination of bouldering and top roping is the best to begin. Once you get good, take a class on lead climbing (and lead belaying, as there’s a world of difference between belaying someone on top rope and belaying someone on lead).
The funny thing is, I work my fingers, hand, and arms like mad. I have an abnormal waist to height ratio, I think, and yeah, if I swing, I may be able do pull ups much easier.
Of course, I’m about 190-195lbs now, so doing deadweight pullups is very taxing. One of the arm exercise I do is thread a length of thick nylon rope through a 44 lb kettlebell handle (I cut a tow rope, so that I can secure the rope with a hook), then I fold the top end of the rope in half, grip up hard, and do hammercurls. This really strengthens your hands and forearms, and it’s the kind of thing that allows me to do the 5-8 deadweight pull-up I do. I also do deadlifts with a pair of pliers gripping a strip of muslin that I have tied to a 55lb kettlebell. That’s toughen your hands in a hurry.
But I think I’m going to try Ric’s method for the pull-ups. Because I’m pissed watching some of those p90x folks whipping out 15-20. I use the bands now, just because I didn’t want to get myself all agitated.
And here I was, pondering another helping of refried beans. damn.
Go for the non-fat kind.
the bigotry that Designed Intelligences still face in our racist society
So true. Who isn’t worried about the bias ahead for that new computerized geisha. Meeko, or whoever.
Okay. Someone has to say it, so it might as well be me.
I think it is safe to assume – based upon the dialogue – that the dog’s name is Rochester, and the boy’s name is Jack.
I just wanted everyone to be able to put this into context.
I destroyed one of my wrists playing guitar, dribbling and shot-drilling, typing, and jackin’ it (I assume), then the shoulder on the same side (mysteriously, so…jackin’ it), and I haven’t been able to do two-handed push-ups, legit pull-ups, bench enough to matter, or move the right ways to make good with free weights for about a decade. I can have one solid pec, max.
So I don’t. I’ve gone from Jeff Goldblum in The Fly (the first half of it (except for a period in the late ’90s when I was gettin’ kinda Act Three)) to looking like a damn cyclist.
So this thread is offensive to me.
Why not make an effort to be informed as to what I find insulting, and then try to avoid saying those things?
I can’t begin to imagine how hurt a reasonable black Japanese robot David Frum from Connecticut would be by all these ill-considered outbursts.
And here I was, pondering another helping of refried beans. damn
Don’t re-fry them. All the extra fat comes from the second frying. :-P
non-fat kind.
Heh.
Heh-heh,…….hahahaha.
Bwhahahaahahaahahahahahhahahahaha.
You penguin types offend me.
Go with Rosarita No Fat refried beans, if you can get them.
i used to live in san diego
i was cooking a meal in my friends cabin in new hampshire
i brought refried beans as a side
he had never seen them…
as i opened the can he kept saying
“wtf is that-dog food?”
i ate them cold in front of his face
yum yum/ just to bum him out…
then we went and shot something that had 4 legs…
then we hi-fived….
but all i could think of was…
whose gonna clean that pan i cooked the refried beans in?
I haven’t eaten canned refrys in 20 yrs, save maybe for the occasional serving in a restaurant. Just loves the beans, I guess. Besides, they stand as yet another excuse to render bacon.
Lardons!
“Yes. Because the idea that an author means what he means — while important as a starting principle — isn’t (to me) where the interesting arguments are. Those are all about HOW to interpret the author’s intent.â€
Patterico
That statement is the difference between Jeff’s position and yours. If you’re hung up on trying to figure out what the author meant using pre-designated definitions of words, rather than the actual meaning of the words, assigned by others that you can miss what the author actually said.
The Left does the same thing for dishonest reasons and you fall into that trap, as Jeff artfully stated, by suggesting that we on the Right follow your lead in “HOW to interpret the author’s intent†using pre-designated definitions of words created by the Left to check our speech so that we can not possibly offend anyone or have our words misinterpreted or misused.
Jeff’s main point was not to let the Left get away with the dishonest use of our words and not to fall into the trap of playing by the Lefts rules.
The horse is dead… you can stop beating it now.
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