The New And Improved Fashion Board

[Replaced_Texan]

I spent a good part of my holiday flipping through Craft: magazine, from the same publishers that bring Make:, a DIY technology rag.

There are quite a few projects that I want to try. I especially am intrigued with the LED tank top and the knitted boots.

I'm not sure that I have time to figure out how to do all of this stuff before Christmas, though. But I'm spending a lot of time going through Etsy, which is sort of an e-bay for handmade stuff. A lot of it is crap, but some of it is pretty damned cool.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

TM

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bold_n_brazen
I am currently attending on-line traffic school. Y'all are not doing your part to make it more enjoyable.

Did you check out Britney's beaver?

I could have Thanksgiving dinner once every two weeks.

[patentparanyc]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Did you check out Britney's beaver?

I could have Thanksgiving dinner once every two weeks.

Did you get any leftovers? we have enough leftovers for weeks.

Originally posted by Anne Elk
Gorgeous goal. My favorite was the Peter Martin sound clip. I'm surprised he still has a voice.

His all time classic freakout is from the call of the game when Henrik Larsson scored against Boavista to put Celtic into the UEFA cup final in 2003. It's at 4:40 on the clip here:

http://www.clyde2.com/goout.asp?u=ht...7-4c85c4311ef9

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by ironweed
Thanks to everyone who talked up the current season of The Wire on here. I spent a good part of the weekend getting caught up.

I spent a good part of the weekend watching Season 1. Fucking great. Better than the current season. Shoot me an email and I'll lend it to you.

TM

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I spent a good part of the weekend watching Season 1. Fucking great. Better than the current season. Shoot me an email and I'll lend it to you.

TM

I think that's actually the only full season I saw - set in and around the port, right? I made a point of watching it back then and thought it was excellent. The following seasons sort of passed me by.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I spent a good part of the weekend watching Season 1. Fucking great. Better than the current season. Shoot me an email and I'll lend it to you.

TM

Just invite him over to watch it with you on your princess bed. He can tell everyone he's going to visit his black friend Thurgreed.

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Just invite him over to watch it with you on your princess bed. He can tell everyone he's going to visit his black friend Thurgreed.

If he were a "handsome black man" I would consider it. As things stand I think a meeting in GCT to hand over the DVDs is sufficient.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by ironweed
I think that's actually the only full season I saw - set in and around the port, right? I made a point of watching it back then and thought it was excellent. The following seasons sort of passed me by.

Nope. The port season was season 2. Season 1 centered on the take down of Avon Barksdale and took place in the low rises.

TM

[Replaced_Texan]

Er, sorry about that. Dunno what happened.

[patentparanyc]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Er, sorry about that. Dunno what happened.

Wow, I *actually* thought I was banned for good. ha.

[nononono]

Originally posted by LessinSF
Yes, plus Punta Tombo in Argentinian Patagonia. Any tips?

Eat a lot of beef!

How are you getting to the island? It will probably be cold. I went in November of last year - flew to Ushuaia (southernmost city in the hemisphere), got on a boat for 3-4 days (which had Zodiacs for getting to shore, including to the penguin place and up to glaciers - it was icing/snowing and very windy on the penguin island) and went around (and on) Cape Horn, landed in Punta Arenas in Chile, flew up to some other Chilean town further north in Patagonia, did a 12-hour boat-bus thing across the Andes/lakes to Bariloche (hiking, spa-ing) for a few days, then Buenos Aires for a few days. BA is awesome, and there are new hotels and clubs and restaurants opening there all the time.

That's not much in the way of tips, but if you have any specifics, feel free to pm me. It was a fantastic trip.

[SlaveNoMore]

ThurgreedMarshall
Hell, even my white friends say things like, "He's a handsome black man."* It makes no sense to me that they feel the need to add the word, "black," but it's reflexive.

Bravo.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I don't think this is true. I never think, "That white guy just cut me off" when I'm driving or when some jackass does something stupid on the subway or in an elevator (as we discussed last week). I don't doubt that in places that are very segregated, those thoughts occur on both sides more.

Detroit is one of the most segregated metro areas in the Country, but the school where my kids go isn't. My son's friends are about 50% black kids, and I know lots of my white neighbors see "black kids" at my house. And I know those kids see those people as white. I think you recognize this later in your post. (you're coming from a unique place on this question maybe?)

to me it is a level of racism to make that initial categorization of race primary. like shouldn't my neighbors first think "there's hank's kid with his basketball friends?" The white hockey player down the street who has only white friends- they think of his friends as his hockey friends. Note, a few weeks ago my neighborhood probably voted 70% to turn down a ban on affirmative action (my blue state passed it), so those neighbors would be surprised that someone thinks they're racist.

Anyway, if one recognizes that feature, and the word is in your brain, it seems to me it's boils down to how effective is your filter. to me it is racist to make that initial categorization- it is racist if the word pops in your head and you keep it quiet- it is if you say it alone in your car- and it is if you say it to a heckler at a comedy club. Those acts are separated by the racist having a better filter- of course the final act of hurling it at a black man is an action that carries harm, as you note, so it is worse in that regard. *

In general, black people are defined by their color. It's the first thing you see and there is a stigma attached to it that we cannot control. Therefore, when you see us, that's what you see (Invisible Man Syndrome) first and foremost. Hell, even my white friends say things like, "He's a handsome black man."* It makes no sense to me that they feel the need to add the word, "black," but it's reflexive.

that was my point.

The real question is, when you get upset at something that has nothing to do with race, is your first thought a racial one? I don't walk around thinking, "that white bitch," or "that honky" or whatever when someone pisses me off by being stupid.

Again, you may be different here.

If a young black man wearing a do-rag cuts a white guy off, are they thinking about the offensive action or some stereotype or slur? And what does that say?

I'm thinking that black guy did an offensive action, not any stereotype. I guess I question what all is in anyone's head, since the question "what word popped into your head, was it that one?" brings it in.

How can it be that all of us can control ourselves at work when some jackass partner does something incalculably stupid or inconsiderate and we are able to control ourselves from calling him/her a fucking dumbass cock-sucking motherfucker, but somehow when it comes to racial slurs slipping out, it's a different story? Taking that extra step toward a slur, knowing what's behind it, is significant in my mind.

most people do control it. I really can't remember the last time I heard the word used by a white guy, and I bet it been a while for most black people.

I disagree. Although I'm not going to argue about which version in your hypothetical is worse, the word "nigger" is shorthand for all of the things Richards said in your version 1. It is specifically meant to recall all of those nasty things and to make the other person feel subhuman. That's what makes it such an offensive word.

You might want to read the transcript again. He said some awful shit. But obviously, you can look at the question differently. the number of times he said it was a guy saying "fuck it- I'm going to go off," and it seemed like he was blowing off frustration for all the times he didn't say it.

It's a weird word for white people- you remember all the posts about what rap has done to the word. When I first started listening to rap I posted here for etiquette of whether an old white guy can have his car window down with rap on. We don't know all the rules- other than don't say it.

I guess my feeling is a person saying "I'm going to hold you by your feet and push a stick up your ass" and "tomorrow you'll still be a n-----," are more directly hate against his race than a word.

I know I'm not making any neat reasoned argument, I'm not even sure I'm making an argument.

A lot of black people have this kind of experience when they go to Africa. They are amazed that they are just people and not black people there. It's a completely different and foreign (in the other sense of the word) experience. Imagine, that's how white people must feel here all the time. Must be nice.

Yeah, but my point was this was in France, which means it is possible in a white country to have that mindset. Although the French apparently have the problem with other types of people.

Yeah. Black people sure do act poorly at the movies.

I was relating a story from the show. I added it for the same reason the show probably did, it added a light moment to an otherwise uncomfortable topic to talk about.