Fashionistas you have arrived 3-25-03 - 10-3-03

[Fugee]

Originally posted by ABBAKiss
I am nearly positive my input was not requested, but I question why you feel the need to convey this message since you rarely interact with any of the parties.

I was more curious about how one went about giving someone the cut or pleasantly rubbing their noses in their past than in actually doing anything. DS always has such interesting ways to respond to rude people that I thought she might have interesting suggestions for this and, as expected, she did.

I doubt I will see either of the cheaters in the near future so it was mostly an academic question. But there are some people who have harmed me in the past and WRT whom I am still working on the forgive part, much less the forgetting (being a wingnut doesn't make one a saint). I know now what my options are in case I run into any of them.

Speaking of etiquette, I am so grateful for DS's recent contributions regarding condolence letters. My mom told me the father of one of my close high school friends died and I don't have to struggle with what to say in my note to her. In the past I've been so frozen over what to say that I haven't even sent a card.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch


Come to think of it, I think he bears a resemblance to penises in the generic sense, but I'll defer to those with larger sample sizes.

You were right - your brother's penis DOES look a lot like Gordon. It's eerie.

[AngryMulletMan]

Originally posted by idle acts
And while I am ranting, what is the deal with the current law firm vogue for attorney photos on the firm's web site? Do the marketing people really think that clients are choosing a firm based upon the relative attractiveness of its lawyers?

My firm decided to hire marketing consultants to do an ad campaign and to re-design the website and send out firm propaganda. They had a bunch of photogs come in to the office, dictate what we should wear and take FULL FUCKING BODY SHOTS which they will soon post on the website and use in print materials and ads. And they chose the photos without even asking our preferences.

I fucking hate this. Whenever people call me, it's obvious which ones have already seen my current website photo and it's only going to get worse.

I miss the old days when people just heard my voice and assumed I was a warthog.

(edited because I can't spell when I'm pissed)

[Don Van Vliet]

Gattigap
For example, up until I met him IRL, I expected Penske to be a dead ringer for Etta James.

Is Etta James a swarthy hand puppet?

the Captain

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/nyregion/01DEAT.html

[spree: sad story about dad killing 8 year old son]


The main reason I posted this here is that several of the reported angles troubled me.

Why is the Times putting in references by some unidentified parent that maybe this 8 year old kid who was just murdered might have been kind of bossy at school? Relevance?

Why report that the house appeared empty the next day and then discuss what photos the reporter could see through the living room window? Creepy. Invasive. Potentially helpful to would-be burglers. Noteworthy?

Why try to boil debt securitization down to "basically selling i.o.u.'s" as though he was doing something shady or something?


So has the Times just lost it or what?

Yeah, I'm voting for "lost it."
What the hell? Why bring up the fact that the kid was "unusually comfortable talking to adults" or that he was "given to using harsh language around other children." What does that mean? That he killed himself? That the other kids did it?

Could you tell me again how dad hadn't had a job since 2000?
And nice statistics about the death count on that train. MOST of them suicides.

[NotFromHere]

“I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go,” Limbaugh said. “I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”
An ESPN spokesman said Tuesday that Limbaugh doesn’t do interviews and added that he didn’t think the comments were racially biased.

What?

“He was comparing McNabb’s performance on the field to his reputation in the media,” spokesman Dave Nagle said.

So?

Nagle said that with Limbaugh on the show this season, ratings for “Sunday NFL Countdown” are up 10 percent overall, and 26 percent among the 18-to-34 male demographic. Sunday’s show drew its biggest audience in the regular season since November 1996.

Incredible.

[purse junkie]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
Yeah, I'm voting for "lost it."
What the hell? Why bring up the fact that the kid was "unusually comfortable talking to adults" or that he was "given to using harsh language around other children." What does that mean? That he killed himself? That the other kids did it?

Could you tell me again how dad hadn't had a job since 2000?
And nice statistics about the death count on that train. MOST of them suicides.

The dad's joblessness is at least relevant because it may go to motive for the suicide and homicide (if he committed one). But I don't care if the kid was the most vicious little bullying bastard on earth, he's still a dead child, and the asshole parents should've let it rest and the paper had no need to print it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by purse junkie
The dad's joblessness is at least relevant because it may go to motive for the suicide and homicide (if he committed one). But I don't care if the kid was the most vicious little bullying bastard on earth, he's still a dead child, and the asshole parents should've let it rest and the paper had no need to print it.

I think the attempt was to show that the family life was troubled, as in "the kid was acting out at school because of turmoil at home". They have no quotes, no info even as to cause of death, but they're constructing an "unemployed dad kills after falling to pieces over two years" story anyway. The kid's emotional failings become symptoms of dad's descent into madness.

[AngryMulletMan]

This from the Des Moines Register, one of my favorite newspapers:

Student bondage club makes comeback at ISU
By STACI HUPP
Register Staff Writer
10/01/2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ames, Ia. - Jayme Howard spends his days at computer science class. At night, the Iowa State University freshman learns how to tie up and spank partners.

He gets his nighttime lessons from Cuffs, a campus club that teaches students about bondage and other sexual fetishes.

The club, after dissolving last year, is trying to make a comeback at ISU. Today, Cuffs leaders plan to ask the ISU student senate for $100 from the student fee fund, mostly to pay for promotion.

"It's always been interesting to me," said Howard, 18, who got involved in Cuffs after he met the club's president. "I'm learning more."

A Christian family advocate said Tuesday that the group shows a need for lessons in morality among ISU students.

"This is an alarm bell," said Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center in Pleasant Hill. Hurley says rape is vastly underreported on college campuses.

"I think for the university to condone this act in the light of the rape problem is like throwing gasoline on a destructive fire. It's just going to make it worse," he said.

The highlight of a Cuffs meeting this week was the film "Secretary," about an attorney and his assistant who find a common bond in masochism, or inflicting physical pain for pleasure.

Howard and a dozen other students watched it in a small room at the ISU Memorial Union. Instead of popcorn, they snacked on "S&M's": a mix of Skittles and M&M's candies.

Leaders hope membership will more than double for the next meeting, a how-to session that could involve paddles, leather, ropes and a fur-covered "flogger."

Clothes stay on at meetings, said Duane Long Jr., an ISU senior who is Cuffs' president and primary instructor.

"It's almost clinical," said Long, who also talks to ISU human sexuality classes. "You can show people without it being sexual."

ISU's 27,000 students will pay about $8.6 million in mandatory fees this year. About $1.5 million will go to campus clubs.

University officials and the Iowa Board of Regents don't monitor spending on student clubs.

"I have a high level of confidence in the ability of students to deal with these types of matters," said Regent Bob Downer of Iowa City. "It does strike me that this is a matter that is of a sufficiently unusual nature. It should be ascertained that there is no unlawful activity."

If Cuffs receives student money, it wouldn't be the first time. An ISU senior organized Cuffs in 2000. Long then was the group's treasurer.

Student senators initially denied the group money because they said some club meetings were closed to sexually inexperienced student members. The club opened meetings to all students and won $33 for the following year.

Student senators were divided over the club's worth to a college campus, said David Boike, who oversees the senate's books.

"Some people thought they actually provided a legitimate service and served the university community well and deserved money for it," said Boike, a senior from Dike.

Cuffs was the target of jokes, ridicule and letters to the student newspaper in its first year.

The fanfare on campus has died since, aside from the Cuffs posters that disappear within a day of their distribution across campus.

"To me, that's kind of what college is about, to be liberal and to do what they want to do," said Adam Bosman, an ISU sophomore from Madrid. "I think any club has the right to be here. It's not any different from the Hackey Sack Club and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance."

Cuffs dissolved last year when Long became too busy to organize meetings.

Cuffs already had qualified for more than $1,500 of student money, most of which would have been used to pay the members' admission costs to a leadership conference.

Long gave it all back, and the group lost its free office space in the Memorial Union.

The club also gets some money from dues, which pay for guest lecturers and field trips to home-improvement stores, where members have looked at rope, clamps and wooden dowels.

The club isn't all about sex talk, Long said. At least twice a year, guest lecturers have talked about preventing sexual assault and sexually transmitted diseases, he said.

Student senators, who decide who gets the club money and how much, are expected to give Cuffs an answer within a month.

Hurley urged student leaders to deny club financing.

"While the argument is made that this is consensual . . . sadism is disrespectful and masochism is self-disrespectful," Hurley said. "To fund something that is degrading or sexually violent can only lead to heartache."

[NotFromHere]

BOSTON, Oct. 1 — A Boston Herald sports writer came out as gay in a column Tuesday, saying he could no longer tolerate the “unabashed homophobia” in professional sports.
“I JUST GOT to the point where I didn’t want to be silent anymore,” Ed Gray, a 55-year-old reporter who has worked at the Herald for about two decades, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. “In the sports world, homophobia is tolerated.”
He added: “It’s the one minority that seems to be fair game.”
In his column, Gray cited recent comments by New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey, who was quoted calling Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells a “homo,” and San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst, who said, “I don’t want any faggots on my team.” Neither was punished by the NFL. Shockey said he was misquoted and Hearst apologized.
“I’m out because I can no longer, in good conscience, choose to ignore the unabashed homophobia that is so cavalierly tolerated within the world of sports,” he said in the column. “I’m out because the silence of a closeted gay man only serves to give his implicit approval to bigotry.”
Gray said his hope is that “major league sports address the issue of homophobia and people who make overt homophobic remarks or actions be held accountable.”
Few sports writers are openly gay, and L.Z. Granderson, a gay sports columnist for Access Atlanta, the entertainment tabloid of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, said the machismo that is part of pro sports extends to journalists.
Granderson said there has been no negative reaction from athletes to his homosexuality. He revealed his own sexual orientation writing about competing in basketball in the Gay Games, and also in response to a group of Atlanta Thrashers hockey players he was with at a bar who asked why he was showing little interest in the women there.

My only comment is this...why did this take so long? The man is 55. Could he really have kept his secret for this long?
Knowing that athletes are generally homophobic, and I know that it took years to let women into the locker rooms, but would there really have been an issue?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by Anne Elk
Well, I don't know what else to call them. African-American doesn't seem quite right because most are not African or American. Some are African, others are various islanders (Haiti, T&T, Aruba) with green cards. Privately the SO and I use tan, since he is tanner than I am, but I don't want to offend anyone in FB land.

So what is the PC phrase du jour?

Du jour? Why don't you just use "black," which I believe has been acceptable during your entire lifetime. And you shouldn't want to do it to just avoid offending someone. You should do it as a form of respect for your fellow human being.

On second thought, scratch that. Continue using "colored." Let us know how it works out.

TM

[ABBAKiss]

Originally posted by AngryMulletMan
FULL FUCKING BODY SHOTS

Just be glad they weren't money shots.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
...Watch this board - what often passes for witty comeback is someone mimicing sitcom snipes in both delivery and subject matter...

...Its all good...

...Everyone needs to go there...

We bow to your "creativity."

TM

[Anne Elk]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
Yeah, I'm voting for "lost it."
What the hell? Why bring up the fact that the kid was "unusually comfortable talking to adults" or that he was "given to using harsh language around other children." What does that mean? That he killed himself? That the other kids did it?

Could you tell me again how dad hadn't had a job since 2000?
And nice statistics about the death count on that train. MOST of them suicides.

Add another tick to the Lost It column. The article in yesterdays Star Ledger was better. Since when has the Times switched to a tabloid format?

This is a tragic story. Whatever personality flaws the kid had are nullified by the horrific circumstances of his death. Clearly the family and it's dynamics will be under the microscope as everyone probes for the answer to the ultimate question, "Why?". But is there a need to report every observation from unknown neighbors? Who are these neighbors, maybe they are so awful that the kid was justified in using the bad language.

Anne
The reference to the photo in the hall is just creepy. Peering through windows of the house? Jerks!

[evenodds]

Please do not paste an entire article without a link to its source.

Edied to add: That's a minimum. I'd prefer you not paste an entire article. Instead, cut and paste.