Making a buck cleaning Lester's spittle trays on Sequels' 22-year old supermodel abs

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Mother Theresa's hospices in the US are basically about the same as her hospices in India. They flagrantly violate just about every health code known to civilized men. And, her order hires no actual medical staff (even though here they actually profess to offer medical care) - all patient care is given by nuns of the order, who (i) have generally no medical training at all, (ii) are woefully under educated otherwise and (iii) sometimes refuse to give personal care to men, because that would be indecent. Now, in the US, her hospices are almost all AIDS hospices. Huge majority of the patients are men, so (iii) really presents some problems, or should. I believe P&T did mention that no outside visitors are permitted and all inmates are proselytized relentlessly.

What they didn't mention is that this is happening not just in buttfuck India but in the US, and the civil authorities not only permit it but cover it up. They didn't need footage from third-world India, they could have filmed it at any number of facilities right here at home. Generally, western cities where she founded her little citadels of pain and suffering were so scared shitless of the Church and her obvious impending beatification that they gave the abominable practices a pass, or only required cosmetic fixes.

And, because (for various reasons which would be even more outable that this story is anyway) they thought she was responsible for gay men with AIDS not swarming to the Sisters of Mercy's US torture chambers in droves, the bitch's order formally accused my mother of being in league with Satan, and professed that they had actually seen her in the company of pipe-smoking demons. Really, I shit you not. (Fortunately, due to my mother's already being a damn heathen Protestant and therefore out of their jurisdiction, the local archdiocese insisted there was nothing they could really do about it.) Dumbshit, backwards, priest-ridden illiterate, superstitious, pig-mean fucktards. Not that I take it personally or anything.

(By the by, I think we can all agree that I am mostly correct when I say that this makes my mother unassailably cool.)
I categorically reject the notion that lolling about with naked people relegates one to a lower plane of spiritual enlightenment.

Dude, could your mom hook me up with some of those pipe smoking demons? That would totally rock. We could hang, and loll with naked people, and stuff.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Not Bob
jeeze, look at the rack on that court reporter!

I think I've said this exact sentence.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Is this confirmation that if mmmm spends more time in the Deep South he'll be as big a twat as you?



eta: no insult intended to mmmmm. His last post on the subject was thoughtful and considered, unlike the general bitch-fest that seems to have been unleashed on him by those who seem to think they know everything about his life, including where he has lived, from seeing him on a chatboard.

There are still plenty of nasty, vicious, racist and homophobic comments made, and that's true in the Deep South and in San Francisco and in every place that is geographically or culturally in between. (Yes, in San Francisco. Homophobes tend to get nastier when thay are closer to gay people.) But to suggest that it is exactly at the same level as it used to be is, in my view, unrealistic.

Stop it. You choose to frame the argument in the way he wants it framed. It's easy to sound righteous that way.

I forget what he was talking about now, but he said something like, "things aren't that racist." His point was, overall, racism isn't as bad as it used to be? No one is arguing that. I think ncs said that in a few places in the country that she is familiar with, it is just as prevalent as it was in his 80s example.

The point is, everything is relative. When mmmmmmmm2353209845 says "things aren't that racist," we're not thinking, "Well, historically speaking, he's absolutely right. Racism was far more prevalent just 20 years ago." That's a given and frankly, he's wasting his breath talking about how things have changed. It really just seems to be a vehicle for him to show everyone how enlightened he is. Whatever.

What a normal person would take from "things aren't that racist" is, "according to one's everyday experiences, there really isn't much racism." I think people may disagree with that based on their own experiences. nCs or fringe saying that they do in fact still experience racism or homophobia or whatever, based on where they live (which isn't where he lives) is no big deal.

TM

[mmm3587]

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Originally posted by mmm3587
I disagree strongly with your ill-informed feelings about social attitudes in the South; let's leave it at that.

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Ill-informed? I just lived through 7 years in Texas.

I'm not sure if I'm more amused that you think that Texas is "the South" or that you think that living in Texas from 1998-2005 (in Dallas, right?) makes you an expert on social attitudes there.

My point, poorly-made, I am happy to concede, is that the glidepath of social acceptability of gay/racial/gender jokes is on a more rapid descent than the glidepath of social acceptability of disability jokes. I can't believe that you would disagree with this or that, from living in a big city in Texas for the last seven years or so, you have a greater ability to judge this than I do. But I don't want to fight about it anymore. It's almost Friday, and I've just closed a big thing and want to talk about drinking and fucking, not argue about who's got more southern cred.

[dtb]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Ill-informed? I just lived through 7 years in Texas. Those were some informative years. Sort of like crossing that line you crossed, only in reverse. I'm sure it was worse in the past, but when repeatedly in social settings I was subjected to gay jokes, or even worse non-jokes, just stereotypical hateful comments, I don't think that the problem is as rectified as you seem to think it is. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what "polite society's" views on homosexuality are down there. And the Baptist church certainly is not progressing them. I did my best to steer clear of polite society.

As I was reading this, I was reminded of an episode in my childhood. I grew up in the midwest and our next-door neighbors were from Texas and Arkansas (dad from AK, mom from TX -- they had relocated to midwest nirvana -- next door to us). Anyway, when we were kids, we would play this game called "Smear the Queer" (we were really PC back in those days), which involved a bunch of us running around trying to tackle the kid with the ball (the one with the ball was "the queer"). The person with the ball would run around trying to escape everyone, and could toss the ball to someone else whenever if he didn't want to be "smeared". (At least, I think those were the rules -- it's a bit hazy.)

Of course, none of us knew what "queer" even meant, other than it was in the name of this really high-tech game we played.

Well one day, one of the kids from the TX/AR family told us that his dad suggested, nay, insisted! we call the game something else, because it really wasn't very nice to call the game "Smear the Queer". I think that may have been my first introduction to what "queer" meant.

I think their relative enlightenment must have been because they were Methodists, not Baptists.

[LessinSF]

[Discussion of homophobic insults and jokes]

What about "cocksucker?" I say it all the time as an epithet, and my gay friends disagree on whether it is inappropriate or not.

Actually, I don't really care since I am fairly incapable of not uttering it. What bothers me more is that it should be a complimentary term of endearment, and yet I don't use it that way.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Head. Sand. Welcome to the US of fucking A.

Thanks, but it sure is dark.

TM

[robustpuppy]

mmm
I can't believe that you [think] you have a greater ability to judge this than I do. But I don't want to fight about it anymore. It's almost Friday, and I've just closed a big thing and want to talk about drinking and fucking, not argue about who's got more southern cred.

Then you shouldn't have started the argument, and continued it, and tried to close it in this manner, which is the lamest bullshit attempt at a last word ever invented.

I would call you a pussy, and I wouldn't mean man-octopussy, but as Less's cocksucker post suggests, why should this be an insult?

(Ok, Sidd, go ahead and call me hormonal.)

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Sounds like: Same shit, different location to me. I don't fault P&T for not calling attention to every location.

Fair 'nough, but they didn't pick the location that would have created the greatest shock for their audience. Everyone basically expects the urban poor to suffer outrageously in India.

Maybe. But we weren't talking about you.

Sorry, without Our Lady of the Variety Pack around to remind me, I thought it was all about me.

The people who grant holier-than-thou status to the icons P&T were using in this episode are the ones the argument was aimed at. And using someone's own standards against them (or pointing out how they pick and choose which standards to apply to suit their needs) was very effective.

Well, (i) I though it was effective, but I wouldn't rate it as "very," (ii) given that their audience is more you and me than people fond of admiring the holier-than-thous of the world, I think the segment could have been better aimed for their actual audience, and (iii) I thought including Ghandi (horndog with a school girl/enema fetish) and the Dalai Lama (basically a later-day deposed Shah in an orange sheet) underplayed by association the extent to which Mother Theresa was, not just not-holier-than-thou, but a real monster who not only caused but openly rejoyced in the suffering and death of multitudes.

I love the show, mind you, I just thought that one was weaker than most of the others. The circumcision season opener, for example, totally kicked ass. The old dude hanging dumbells from his dork was a complete riot.

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I forget what he was talking about now, but he said something like, "things aren't that racist." His point was, overall, racism isn't as bad as it used to be? No one is arguing that. I think ncs said that in a few places in the country that she is familiar with, it is just as prevalent as it was in his 80s example.

I said something like "there aren't that many racist/sexist/orientation jokes anymore," trying to make the point that disability-deriding humor is still considered ok, even though other similar kinds of humor have decreased somewhat. In my mind, it read as "compared to how it used to be, there aren't _that_ many racist/sexist/orientation jokes anymore."

And I stand by that. Do they stick out more today? Sure. Is the objective number of them anywhere close? I don't think so. Does it mean that we should stop trying to get rid of that kind of inventive? No, we should keep trying. But my original point was that making fun of disabilities is still generally considered to be an ok thing to do, which, in my opinion, is not true of the other kind of humor.

[ABBAKiss]

Originally posted by dtb
Of course, none of us knew what "queer" even meant....

I am continually amazed by the people here in the Midwest who don't realize that phrases like "jewing down the price" or "we got gypped" are ethnic slurs.

In 1994, when I lived in Spain, I was explaining to a friend about how I had to carry laundry for a considerable distance and that is why my shoulder ached and he said, "Debes comprar un negro." I was utterly floored.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by mmm3587
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Originally posted by mmm3587
I disagree strongly with your ill-informed feelings about social attitudes in the South; let's leave it at that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ill-informed? I just lived through 7 years in Texas.

I'm not sure if I'm more amused that you think that Texas is "the South" or that you think that living in Texas from 1998-2005 (in Dallas, right?) makes you an expert on social attitudes there.

My point, poorly-made, I am happy to concede, is that the glidepath of social acceptability of gay/racial/gender jokes is on a more rapid descent than the glidepath of social acceptability of disability jokes. I can't believe that you would disagree with this or that, from living in a big city in Texas for the last seven years or so, you have a greater ability to judge this than I do. But I don't want to fight about it anymore. It's almost Friday, and I've just closed a big thing and want to talk about drinking and fucking, not argue about who's got more southern cred.

Hmm. I thought in my initial post when I said "try spending some time in Texas or the Deep South" (emphasis added) that it was pretty clear that Texas was included in the area I was discussing. Whatever. Texas and the Deep South are now bastions of enlightenment. Hurray!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by mmm3587
Sounds like your kid's hanging around with Pynchon or something.

No. but he might meet Tyrone Slothrop later this month.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Do you think that you could have steered clear of people who made gay jokes and hateful comments about gay people in Texas in 1985? I doubt it -- you couldn't even do that in New England in 1985.

I'm asking this as a serious question and not trying to engage in battle with you. It sounds as if you believe nothing has changed -- not just that the Baptists haven't progressed, but that the openly expressed hatred is just as prevalent now as it was 20 years ago.

Depends, I guess, on what you do and where you do it. A colleague recently remarked how she hates going over to the AIDS hospital, and she doesn't understand why gay health care practitioners don't "change their behavior" if they see HIV infection all day long. Struck me more as ignorant than hateful, but it makes me wicked uncomfortable to talk about my brother around her.

That said, I don't think my brother or any of my gay friends have too hard of a time of it here in Houston. People are always shocked about that, and I don't think that 20, 30 years ago that would have been the case outside of Montrose.

[Flinty_McFlint]

I just hate everybody. It's much easier that way. I'm pretty much the only enlightened monkey on the planet. You humans and your petty distinctions.